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Posts published in “podcast”

LSS 96: Juno Reveals Lightning Flashes in Jupiter’s Atmosphere; Third Grade Students Build Engineering Projects

September 29, 2020

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Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt.jpg

In today’s episode, we feature an interview about research on Jupiter’s atmosphere. 

Candice Limper speaks with Yury Aglyamov, a graduate student in the Cornell Department of Astronomy. He discusses his analysis of data from the NASA Juno spacecraft that reveal lightning flashes in the atmosphere of the planet Jupiter. Aglyamov is an author on a paper recently published in Nature, “Small Lightning Flashes From Shallow Electrical Storms on Jupiter”. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2532-1

Depiction of a simple bridge design and build engineering project (photo courtesy of “DSC06025” by Barrett.Discovery is licensed with Creative Commons BY 2.0)
Spencer Hill, 3rd Grade Teacher at Cayuga Heights Elementary School in Ithaca, NY (photo courtesy of S. Hill)

Later in the show, Esther Racoosin speaks with Spencer Hill. He is a 3rd grade teacher at Cayuga Heights Elementary in the Ithaca City School District.

After schools closed in mid-March of this year due to COVID-19, Hill and his colleagues, Kim Snow and Emily Graber, decided to continue to instruct their students to practice simple design and build projects.

Hill applied for a Red and Gold grant from the Ithaca Public Education Initiative to provide funding for the supplies for the projects. In this episode, he speaks about what it was like to instruct the kids to do these projects at home with their families instead of with their peers at school. To learn more about the Ithaca Public Education Initiatives, and their teacher grants, go to https://www.ipei.org/

Producer: Esther Racoosin

Interview of Yuri Aglyamov: Candice Limper

Music: Joe Lewis; Blue Dot Sessions

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LSS 95: Exploring Asteroid Bennu and “Shelter In Space” at Home

September 15, 2020

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“NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Arrives at Asteroid Bennu” by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

In this episode, you’ll hear an interview of three Ithaca College students, Antara Sen, Robert Melikyan and Salvatore Ferrone, who are studying the asteroid 101955 Bennu. Their advisor, Professor Beth Ellen Clark Joseph, is a scientist working on NASA mission OSIRIS-REx that will be touching down on the asteroid on October 20, in order to collect samples from the 500 meter diameter object.

To learn more about the mission, visit: https://www.asteroidmission.org/objectives/

Zoe Learner Ponterio (photo courtesy of Esther Racoosin)

Later in the show, you’ll hear Liz Mahood’s interview of Zoe Learner Ponterio, manager of the Spacecraft Planetary Imaging Facility at Cornell, also known as SPIF. The facility is closed to the public right now, due to COVID-19. But SPIF is offering an exciting remote learning program called “Shelter in Space” that students can explore at home. Visit https://cornellspif.com/ to learn more.

“Bird Migration – Cape May, NJ” by Bob Jagendorf is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Today’s show starts off with an update about “2020 Migration Celebration”. The program usually is held on one day in September at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but this year you can learn about bird migration during a two-week series of virtual presentations. To learn more, go to: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/visit/migration-celebration-2020/

Producer: Esther Racoosin

Interview of Ithaca College Students: Esther Racoosin

Interview of Zoe Learner Ponterio: Liz Mahood

Overview of Cornell Lab of O Migration Celebration: Candice Limper

Music: Joe Lewis; Blue Dot Sessions

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LSS 94: Research Inspired by the COVID-19 Pandemic

September 1, 2020

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In today’s episode, we interview scientists about new areas of research and exploration that were initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Jennifer Surtees (photo courtesy of Dr. Surtees)

First off, Janani Hariharan interviews Dr. Jennifer Surtees, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the University at Buffalo, and Co-Director of UB’s Genome, Environment and Microbiome Community of Excellence. Dr. Surtees recently sequenced dozens of SARS-CoV-2 isolates, obtained from the Erie County Department of Public Health.

During the interview, Surtees discusses how the SARS-CoV-2 RNA sequences reveal the geographical origins of the different viral isolates. You can hear about what SARS-CoV-2 genomes look like, how genomics can inform public health guidelines, and how to access a public database that contains information on SARS-CoV-2 strains from around the world.

To learn more about Dr. Surtees’ research, go to http://medicine.buffalo.edu/faculty/profile.html?ubit=jsurtees

Dr. Jason Guss (photo courtesy of Dr. Guss)

Later in the show, Esther Racoosin speaks with Dr. Jason Guss, a former graduate student of the Cornell Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering. Guss, together with fellow Cornell alum Dr. Apoorva Kiran, established Iterate Labs.

Iterate Labs initially developed wearable devices that could improve workplace ergonomic safety.  Now the devices are being modified to provide location awareness to prevent spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus in manufacturing workplaces. They also facilitate contact tracing when and if a worker contracts the virus. To learn more, visit https://iteratelabs.co/.

Today’s show concludes with an overview of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability new rapid-response grants that are funding a variety of COVID-19-related Cornell research projects. To learn more, visit https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/08/cornell-atkinson-awards-250k-covid-research-grants.

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Producer: Liz Mahood

Co-Producer: Esther Racoosin

Interview of Dr. Jennifer Surtees: Janani Harihanan

Interview of Dr. Jason Guss: Esther Racoosin

Overview of Cornell Atkinson Center COVID-19 grants: Candice Limper

Music: Joe Lewis; Blue Dot Sessions

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LSS 93: Research Amid COVID-19

August 18, 2020

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Dr. Kaylin Ratner (photo courtesy of Dr. Ratner)

In today’s show, we speak with a scientist whose research was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. We also talk with a researcher who is using social media as outreach for scientists and the public who would like to learn more about microbial biology.

First, Jeff Pea interviews Dr. Kaylin Ratner, a recent PhD graduate in the Cornell College of Human Ecology. They discuss her study following a cohort of Cornell undergraduates that began their studies in 2016. She planned to survey the cohort at the end of their senior year, but these plans were altered after Cornell closed its campus due to the COVID-19 shutdown. One of her published studies can be found here https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702619829748.

Dr. Ana Maria Porras (photo courtesy of Dr. Porras)

Later in the show, you’ll hear Smaranda Sandu’s interview of Dr. Ana Maria Porras. Dr. Porras is a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, and a researcher in Dr. Ilana Brito’s laboratory in the Cornell Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering.

In the interview, Dr. Ana Maria Porras discusses her research on the gut microbiome. She also speaks about her use of social media as a way to promote science. Porras serves as a AAAS If/Then ambassador, which is a program that encourages young women to enter STEM fields (https://ifthen.aaas.org/).

This interview initially aired on Sandu’s podcast, “Tidbits of Research” (https://tidbitsofresearch.podbean.com/).

Producer: Liz Mahood

Interview of Dr. Kaylin Ratner: Jeff Pea

Interview of Dr. Ana Maria Porras: Smaranda Sandu

Music: Joe Lewis, Blue Dot Sessions

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