170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black...

At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to matter -- to ourselves as well as to others? The need to matter can be motivation t ... Show More

It's become increasingly clear that the Turing Test -- determining whether human interlocutors can tell whether a conversation is being carried out by a human or a machine -- is not a good way to think about consciousness. Modern LLMs can mimic human conversation with extraordina ... Show More

Time for the holiday message! Rounding off the year with a brief and casual reflection on some issue that doesn't quite rise to the level of a full solo podcast. And hopefully something uplifting.This year, I offer a short apologia for higher education in the liberal arts and sci ... Show More

<p>Hitch a ride on the Chandra X-ray Observatory as it scours deep space for some of the most enigmatic and misunderstood objects in the universe: black holes. What are they good for? Absolutely something.</p><p>This is the second episode of a two-part journey celebrating the 25t ... Show More

Professor Andrew Fabian from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy has spent his career trying to unravel the mystery of how some of the most dramatic events in the universe can profoundly influence its evolution. For over 50 years he’s been examining our universe using X-ray satell ... Show More

<p>Kim Chakanetsa discusses the wonders of the sky with two world-renowned astronomers.</p><p>Dr Ewine van Dishoeck is a Dutch astronomer and chemist who has been involved with the development of the James Webb Telescope, the largest optical telescope in space. A professor of mol ... Show More

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and Dr. Brian Keating discuss long-held theories of cosmology, from the big bang to the expansion of the universe, and why we might be totally wrong.   Dr. Brian Keating is a cosmologist, inventor, author, academic, and podcast host. He focuses on the explo ... Show More

Get ready to explore a 10 billion year old mystery! A closely bound duo of energetic quasars, the hallmark of a pair of merging galaxies, have been discovered when the Universe was only 3 billion years old. What secrets do these quasars hold and why have they lasted so long? Join ... Show More

The way Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist, sees it, Harriet Tubman is the Great American Astronomer. Using the North Star, with no formal training, Harriet Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. Chanda is a night sky expert, too. She’s studying the int ... Show More

The way Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist, sees it, Harriet Tubman is the Great American Astronomer. Using the North Star, with no formal training, Harriet Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. Chanda is a night sky expert, too. She’s studying the int ... Show More

If we didn’t have vast civilizational challenges upon us, we might be living in a constant state of wonder at what science in this century is learning and showing us about the cosmos and about ourselves — the new questions it’s giving us to live. We are the generation of our spec ... Show More