Can we capture what makes us curious? Where does our curiosity cross into confusion, or frustration? Can we place it? Might we experience it in one domain, but not another?

These are the kinds of questions that animate the work of Emily Grossnickle Peterson, Ph.D., director of the Educational Neuroscience Lab at American University.

Years after first meeting, we finally sat down to talk…

Check out Dr. Emily Peterson’s Educational Neuroscience Lab:https://edspace.american.edu/edneurolab/

Theme music by Sean Balick; “A Burst of Light” by Delray, via Blue Dot Sessions.

CHOOSE TO BE CURIOUS

Ep. #236: Images of Curiosity: Visual & Domain-Specific, with Emily Peterson

My representative sample is taken from an overnight to morning recording made in Ngarkat Conservation Park. One of the earliest bird calls of the first light dawn chorus was that of a female Malleefowl. Her first call was uttered even as a Boeing 737 approached, travelling from Adelaide to Sydney, but this first jet was soon overlapped by a second jet, which may have been travelling either from Sydney to Adelaide or, perhaps more likely, from Sydney to Perth, given its acoustic path in the stereo field. 

The Malleebird's first set of calls begins at 00:00:30.155. A second set of calls is attempted between 00:01:05.280 and 00:01:19.903. However, the lower frequencies are obliterated by the jet noise; only the higher harmonics are barely audible. The Malleefowl then seems to sit out the passage of the jets, and does not attempt another call until 00:05:54.385.

The time elapsed between the end of the first audible call and start of the second audible call is 5 minutes and 11 seconds. This is a significant interval of obstructed communication, when one considers the frequency of overpassing jets at this time of the day.

I would like to offer the following analogy for your consideration: Suppose that you are especially eager or anxious to communicate with your relatives at a particularly important period of time via the internet, but there are ongoing recurrent interruptions/dropouts of at least 5 minutes to your internet service occurring every 10 to 20 minutes. You are forced to try to communicate with your relatives in the intervals between these continued interruptions/dropouts.

More importantly, since this interruption goes on day after day, month after month, year after year - relentlessly, and, indeed, increasingly - you are forced to adapt your communication to these interruptions, which reduces your previously-evolved 100% communication at this crucial time (pre-industrial revolution and pre-colonisation) to approximately 40-50% communication during this crucial time (if you're lucky).

How might this drastic interruption and reduction of species communication due to flagrant anthropogenic noise within the all-species-shared phonosphere affect the well-being and survival of other non-human species, which have no say, and certainly no veto, with regard to that impact? I suggest that the impact would not be particularly beneficial, to say the very least.

2024.06.02 Endangered Malleefowl versus Two Boeing 737s

Meet the amazing astronomer Dr Tessa Vernstrom!
Tessa is the Project Scientist for the Evolutionary Map of the Universe aka EMU survey using the ASKAP telescope.

Astrophiz

Astronomy Astrophiz198: Dr Tessa Vernstrom - The Evolutionary Map of the Universe

This week, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of December. We’ll be back with new episodes in the new year; in the meantime, enjoy this throwback and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in.

In this week’s episode rerun, host Kristin Hayes talks with Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) who coauthored a journal article with RFF scholars Alexandra Thompson and Tyler Treakle about the role of the public in detecting invasive species. Pointing to a recent incident in which a member of the public spotted an Asian giant hornet in Washington State, Epanchin-Niell describes how more than a quarter of detections of invasive species—and possibly more—stem from these citizen scientists. Recognizing the essential role of the public, policymakers can make it easier to alert authorities about the presence of unusual species.

References and recommendations:

“Public contributions to early detection of new invasive pests” by Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, Alexandra L. Thompson, and Tyler Treakle; https://www.rff.org/publications/journal-articles/public-contributions-to-early-detection-of-new-invasive-pests/

“Hidden Brain” podcast; https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain

“The Endangereds” by Philippe Cousteau and Austin Aslan; https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/childrens-the-endangereds

Public Engagement in Invasive Species Detection, with Rebecca Epanchin-Niell (Rebroadcast)

This is a research rap produced by a young care-experienced citizen scientists in Tower Hamlets, London. This rap was created as part of a citizen social science project led by the UCL Citizen Science Academy, based at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. It was funded by, and part of, Act Early, an ambitious five-year collaboration between researchers in London and Bradford, statutory, voluntary, cultural and commercial sectors and local communities. Act Early seeks to promote a healthier, fairer future for children living in deprived areas through a focus on improving environments that influence health and life chances.

To read the research zine that accompanies this rap, please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/igp/publications/zines

Research Rap - Act Early Tower Hamlets

This audio piece was created by Mohammed Rahman, a citizen scientist working with the UCL Citizen Science Academy, researching health and wellbeing for care-leavers in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created with the support of our artist-in-residence Naresh Kaushal, whose other work you can see at https://www.camerawala.org/

This audio was created as part of a citizen social science project led by the UCL Citizen Science Academy, based at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. It was funded by, and part of, Act Early, an ambitious five-year collaboration between researchers in London and Bradford, statutory, voluntary, cultural and commercial sectors and local communities. Act Early seeks to promote a healthier, fairer future for children living in deprived areas through a focus on improving environments that influence health and life chances.

To read the research zine that accompanies this rap, please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/igp/publications/zines

Why I Chose To Do This Citizen Science Project

Act Early - The Social Workers Perspective

This week on Green Street, Patti and Doug talk about a proposed new law in Louisiana prohibiting people living in Cancer Alley from participating in “citizen science" by collecting their own air samples using inexpensive air monitors, and the publication of a new international study confirming the carcinogenicity of the popular pesticide glyphosate (“Round-Up”). Then author, climate scientist, biologist, and biosphere expert Dr. Tyler Volk talks about the tiny molecules that are actually causing all of our climate trouble. 

The Tiny Blocks of Climate Change with Dr. Tyler Volk

State legislatures are seeing a wave of industry-backed bills that would ban or restrict the public’s ability to test for air pollution in local communities. Last year, the Louisiana legislature effectively banned community groups from using their own air monitoring to warn residents about pollution or publicly advocate for cleanups. Violators can face penalties of up to $32,500 per day, plus $1 million for intentional violations. Earlier this year, Kentucky passed legislation that attempts to restrict what evidence state and local environmental regulators can use when enforcing pollution regulations. Morgan King, climate and energy program manager with the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, joins us to discuss her work building up an air monitoring network around West Virginia, where industry-backed legislation to restrict monitoring has failed twice over the last two years.

The Attack on Community Air Monitoring in State Legislatures



Use promo code 09POD to save 30% on Near the Forest, By the Lake:
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501780370/near-the-forest-by-the-lake/#bookTabs=0

Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/skD79-efbDBWQr9JlorIR0T1RN8?utm_source=copy_url

Angela E. Douglas is Emerita Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor of Insect Physiology and Toxicology at Cornell University. She is the author of several books, including Nature on the Doorstep, Fundamentals of Microbiome Science, and Insects and Their Beneficial Microbes.

We spoke to Angela about the difference between natural history and science, why it is important for us to understand that nature is not some distant place far apart from humans, and she reads sections of her book showing why the natural world is the most interesting and fun place to be.


1869, Ep. 171 with Angela Douglas, author of Near the Forest, By the Lake

Astrophiz "Exceptional Interviews with exceptional scientists."
Brendan sometimes even gets how and why science works, and each month he conducts in-depth interviews with leading astro and space researchers. In each episode we feature Astrophysicists, Space Scientists, Particle Physicists, Data scientists, Antenna engineers, Instrument scientists, optical & radio astronomers, Satcomm engineers, project leaders and aurora hunters. For Astrophotographers, also each month we also hear from Dr Ian ‘Astroblog’ Musgrave who tells us when, where and what to look for in the sky over the coming weeks and explains astronomical phenomena in ‘Ian’s Tangent’.
This ongoing series has taken us through the history, theory and practice of radio astronomy from Faraday to Gravitational waves. Each episode includes the latest news roundup in this golden age of astrophysics. Enjoy! (& donate if you wish to help keep this podcast ad-free)

https://www.prosperity-global.org/citizen-science-academy

Choose to be Curious is a show all about curiosity. We talk about research and theory, but mostly it's conversations about how curiosity shows up in work and life.  

Now syndicated and available via Pacifica RadioNetwork.

Podcast series from Cornell University Press. Changing the world one book at a time.

We discuss important environmental issues in the news and investigative reports by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project.

Resources Radio is a weekly podcast by Resources for the Future. Each week we talk to leading experts about climate change, electricity, ecosystems, and more, making the latest research accessible to everyone.

𝔈𝔵𝔭𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔯, 𝔞𝔰 𝔞𝔫 𝔈𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔱, 𝔞 𝔐𝔬𝔡𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞 𝔇𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔅𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤.

Green Street is a science-based environmental health program hosted by Patti and Doug Wood. Each week, we bring you news and information you need to know and practical solutions for navigating an unhealthy world.

New tracks tagged #citizen science