The end of the world - it's the last thing you'd expect.  But how might it happen?  Big Picture Science is produced at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA.

BIG PICTURE SCIENCE: Spaghettification

Is laughter as contagious in apes as it is in humans? In this excerpt from our upcoming episode <i>Know Laughing Matter</i>, Molly gets the answer from Frans de Waal at the Yerkes National Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta, GA

Frans de Waal on laughing chimpanzees

Researcher Vanessa Woods thinks that the key our species's survival lies in our closest living relative. No, not the chimpanzee... why does everyone always forget about the Bonobo?



[Image Credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81924773@N00/3654526944/">Princess Stand in the Rain</a> on flickr.]

Bonobos will save the world!

All the other moons in our solar system get cool names like Ganymede, Io, or Titan, but as sci-fi author Rob Sawyer points out, our moon is just... "The Moon." Any ideas for a better name? We were thinking "Luna", "Selene", or maybe "Bob".

[Image Credit: Gregory H. Revera on <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FullMoon2010.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>]

Unsung Satellite

New Year's parties can be pretty epic, but imagine if your calendar lasted over 5000 years! Surely there must be more significance to an event that only happens every 5 millennia. Seth asked Guy Harrison, writer and author of "50 Popular Beliefs that People Think are True".

[Image Credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90863480@N00/2176833400">Mayan Zodiac Circle</a> by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/theilr/">theilr</a> on flickr.]

Party like it's 12.19.19.17.19!

Are eyes too complex to be explained by the gradual process of evolution? After all, what good is half an eye? Plenty good, explains Ivan Schwab, Professor of ophthalmology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine.

[Image Credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eagle(owl)-eye_-_modified.JPG">Eagle(Owl)-eye</a> by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Woodwalker">Woodwalker</a>, with a retouche by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Poxnar">Poxnar</a>]

Eye-volution

Sandy beaches, beautiful women, and a bit of stargazing - well, sungazing, at least. Either way, it doesn't sound like a bad assignment. Seth talks to historian Andrea Wulf about James Cook's 1769 voyage to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus.

From the Big Picture Science episode "Mass Transit"

Fort Venus

It looks like researchers have finally closed in on the elusive Higgs Boson - but detective Sam Space was already on the case years ago, when the particle fatale walked into his office asking for help.

A clip from the Big Picture Science episode "Get your Boson".

Higgs Boson

Our shows on climate change always prompt comment from listeners.  The opinion was mixed on our latest, “Skeptic Check; Hostile Climate.”  Detractors said we were irresponsible in not presenting a skeptical view of climate change science. 

We point out the focus of this episode was how climate change denialism is expressed, not whether climate change is happening. Please visit our archives for other episodes on the basic science.  However, among the long list of questions that some wished we’d asked was about James Hansen's famous paper in the early 1980s that made early predictions about CO2 and temperature.  How accurate was he?  

Turns out, James Hansen was in town the day we received that query, so we tracked him down and asked him. 



Interview with James Hansen

Part 1 of <a href="http://radio.seti.org/episodes/This_Land_Is_Island">This Land is Island</a>, featuring Edward Chamberlin, Professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto; fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; author of Island: How Islands Transform the World. 

Edward Chamberlin - Islands

Big Picture Science is a weekly one-hour science radio magazine and podcast.

The mission of Big Picture Science – if we choose to accept it, which we do - is to connect ideas in surprising and humorous ways to illuminate the origins and evolution of life and technology on this planet... and beyond.

From free-thinking robots… to the recipe for dark matter… to the mix-and-match genes of synthetic biology. We got it all!

Hosted by Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley.

One episode a month – Skeptic Check – is devoted to critical thinking. Are you a Doubting Thomas? If so, you'll be in good company!

If the program tickles your ears, ... why not become the "u" in support: <a href="http://radio.seti.org/pages/donate/">radio.seti.org/pages/donate</a>... and/or by urging your local radio station to air the program. After all, to air is human.

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