The Wow! Signal Podcast

Interview recorded: 11 July 2021 Released: 16 July 2021 Duration: 21 minutes, 33 seconds Beatriz Villarroel discusses her latest VASCO paper in Nature Scientific Reports, "Exploring nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950." Links: Villarroel+ , Exploring Nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950. Burst 19: Our Sky Now and Then (August 2016) Episode 41: The Vanishing Sources with Beatriz Villarroel (November 2019) The Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations project: I. USNO objects missing in modern sky surveys and follow-up observations of a "missing star The Palomar Digital Sky Survey Gran Telescopio Canarias The United States Nuclear Testing Program Credits Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Ahleuchatistas and Erika Lloyd    

Released: 4 February 2021 Duration: 58 minutes 44 seconds Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis are joined by author Thomas Moynihan. The subject is the idea of human extinction and how it evolved into our present day understand of Existential Risk. Guest Bio: I am a writer and researcher from the UK. In 2019, I completed a PhD at Oriel College on the history of human extinction. Currently, I am a visiting Research Associate in History at St Benet's College, Oxford University, and I am working for Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute with a grant from the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative.    I am interested in the history of existential risk and of existential hope: that is, how people first came to understand the perils and promises that face us as a species. I see this as the central philosophical drama of the modern world: how we came to appreciate our position—and precarity—as intelligent beings within an otherwise seemingly silent and sterile universe.    My goal is to reveal how contemporary research into global risks can be seen as part of the wider story of our ‘coming of age’ as a civilisation and a species. Links: Thomas Moynihan - https://thomasmoynihan.xyz X-Risk at MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/x-risk Mary Shelley - The Last Man Churchill - Shall We All Commit Suicide? The Order of the Dolphin Frank Drakę: A Speculation on the Influence of Biological Immortality on SETI Natural Selection of Stellar Civilizations by the Limits of Growth The Jaws of Darkness The Ethics of METI Credits: Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis Producer: Paul Carr Music: Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Solar Arkestra, DJ Spooky

Released: 28 November 2020 Duration: 70 minutes, 39 seconds Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis engage philosopher Chelsea Haramia on the ethics of sending signals into space that might be received by intelligent beings in the cosmos. For more information about this episode, include a rich set of links, please see the blog entry for Episode 48 at: https://wowsignalpodcast.com Guest Bio Chelsea Haramia received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she specialized in ethics. She is now an assistant professor in the philosophy department at Spring Hill College. She is also co-editor of the online journal 1000-Word Philosophy, which houses a growing set of original 1000-word essays on philosophical questions, figures, and arguments aimed at an audience of philosophers and non-philosophers alike. She has published in the areas of normative ethics, bioethics, animal ethics, aesthetics, feminist philosophy, and astrobiology ethics. Her current work involves ethical and metaethical analyses of space exploration and of the search for intelligent life in particular.   Credits: Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniel De Paulis Producer: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky, Nest, Erika Lloyd.   The Wow! Signal is published under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Released: 7 November 2020 Duration: 57 minutes, 36 seconds   Co hosts Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis welcome space historian David Skogerboe to talk about the pro-space activism of Arthur C. Clarke. Guest Bio: David Skogerboe is a space historian and science communicator. He recently earned his MSc in the History and Philosophy of Science from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he focused his research on the intersection of space science, science fiction, and science communication. During his masters, he interned at the NASA History Division in Washington DC, where he spent countless hours perusing the most interesting historical reference collections on the planet. He is presently a freelance writer and editor while he awaits the emergence of his first child, and he hopes to soon begin a PhD and a fruitful career as a professional nerd. Links: The Godfather of Satellites: Arthur C. Clarke and the Battle for Narrative Space in the Popular Culture of Spaceflight, 1945-1995, David Skogerboe, full master's thesis Apollo 12: Why Don't You Know Me? You Should., David Skogerboe, NASA News & Notes Wireless World Feb. & Oct. 1945, Scans of Clarke's articles proposing the geostationary satellite How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Arthur C. Clarke (1992), Clarke's overview of the impact of communication technology on society The Making of a Moon: The Story of the Earth Satellite Program, Arthur C. Clarke (1957), Clarke's pre-history of satellite technology, first published before Sputnik The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke (1979), Clarke's sci-fi that features the space elevator and "project clean-up" Arthur C. Clarke's official website An expansive bibliography of Clarke's work. An impressive reminder of just how hard he pushed to propel humans into space, and keep them there. Credits: Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis Music: DJ Spooky and Lloyd Rogers  

Released: 6 April 2020 Duration: 53 minutes, 55 seconds   Author and podcaster Wade Roush talks about his forthcoming book from MIT Press, Extraterrestrials. The book covers astrobiology, SETI, the Fermi paradox and more for a literate but non-specialist audience. WADE ROUSH, a Boston-based science and technology journalist, is a columnist at Scientific American and the producer and host of Soonish, an independent podcast about the future. He has served as Boston bureau reporter for Science, senior editor and San Francisco bureau chief at MIT Technology Review, chief correspondent and San Francisco editor for Xconomy, and acting director of MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program. He holds a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. For more information, please visit us at https://wowsignalpodcast.com Links: The Extraterrestrial page at MIT Press Six Strange Facts about Oumuamua Sofia Sheikh and the Nine Axes The Vanishing Sources Where is Everybody? Stephen Webb's Book on the Fermi Paradox Natalie Cabrol Seth Shostak on the Zoo Hypothesis   The MIT Technology Review The Hub and Spoke Podcast Network The Soonish podcast   The podcast contact page Wow! Signal Live   Credits Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Lloyd Rogers and Jason Robinson   The Wow! Signal is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Released: 31 March 2020 Duration: 54 minutes, 8 seconds   Co-hosts Paul Carr and Daniela DePaulis welcome Dr. Paola Castaño to talk about her research among the science teams working on the International Space Station. For more information, please visit our blog at https://wowsignalpodcast.com Guest Bio Paola Castaño is a sociologist of science. She recently completed a Newton International Fellow funded by The British Academy at Cardiff University and is working on a book about the meanings and valuations of scientific research on the International Space Station. On the basis of ethnographic work following the life course of experiments sent to the station, the book examines the fields of particle physics, plant biology and biomedical research. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago, and has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the Free University of Berlin, and Waseda University in Tokyo. Links: The International Space Station goes under the microscope Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshop 2020: Day 1 Cosmic-ray positron fraction measurement from 1 to 30 GeV with AMS-01 Scott Kelly’s genes and NASA’s twin study on him, explained Keyworkers   Daniela De Paulis on the Unseen Podcast Daniela De Paulis discusses Cogito in Episode 35. Cogito in Space Castaño's article on Cogito   The Wow! Signal podcast on Reddit Our YouTube Channel Credits: Co-hosts: Paul Carr and Daniela De Paulis Producer: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky, Blue Dot Sessions, Lee Maddeford, and Lloyd Rogers

Released: 20 March 2020 Duration: 31 minutes, 42 seconds   Astronomer David Blank responded to our invitation to comment on the Villarroel+ paper we covered in Episode 41, which he describes as "very fascinating."   Links The VASCO project: I. USNO objects missing in modern sky surveys and follow-up observations of a "missing star" Dorrit Hoffleit  and her autobiography: Misfortunes as Blessings in Disguise Bradley Schaefer and the Harvard Plates Josh Grindlay, PI of DASCH The Very Large Array Sky Survey The VASCO Citizen Science Project   Credits: Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Lloyd Rogers      

Released: 22 January 2020 Live recording: 20 January 2020 Duration:  66 minutes 45 seconds Thread: Astronomy and Astrophysics   Host Paul Carr along with Daniela De Paulis and Ciro Villa welcome astronomer Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). We talk about the recent and possibly unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse, among many other astronomy topics.  For complete show notes, please visit https://wowsignalpodcast.com   Credits: Host and Producer: Paul Carr Panelists: Daniela De Paulis, Ciro Villa Music: Claudio Nuñes, Felipe Sarro (playing Ravel) Software: Zoom, OBS, Auphonic, Reaper, OS X Mojave Hardware: Apple, Shure, Focusrite, Cloud, Elgato, Logitech  

Released:  Duration: 55 minutes, 36 seconds   Adam Dipert is a veteran circus performer and dancer who recently received his PhD in physics from Arizona State University.  Her has brought his various interests together by researching human movement in microgravity. We are going to let him tell you all about that. Adam will be presenting about this work at the Conference for Research on Choreographic Interfaces in Providence, Rhode Island, USA at Brown University, March 5-7 2020.  Link to conference here: http://www.choreotech.com/vision Links: Flower Sticks Zero G Kitsou Dubois Orienting Beyond Gravity: Training with Kitsou Dubois Partner Stilting Acrobatics A video of Adam in Zero G Skylab Astronauts Doing Gymnastics in Zero G The Froude Number Kristina isabelle   Credits: Co-hosts: Daniela DePaulis and Paul Carr Producer Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky   This podcast is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Released: 11 December 2019 Duration: 48 minutes, 30 seconds   Co-hosts Daniela DePaulis and Paul Carr welcome Julia DeMarines (@LifeNSpace) to talk about bouncing radio signals off the moon. Julia is involved in a moon bounce research project for Berkeley SETI, and Daniela has used moonbounce in her art projects, including Cogito. We also get into a discussion of METI, and the importance of message composition to humans. For more information, please visit https://wowisgnalpodcast.com Guest bio: Julia DeMarines is an Astrobiologist and science communicator working at the UC Berkeley SETI Research Center and with Blue Marble Space. She is a 2019 National Geographic Explorer and 2018 Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, and a 2019 AGU Voices for Science advocate.  Her research involves detecting life in the Universe through biosignatures and technosignatures and the ethics of sending powerful, intentional messages into space. She is passionate about inspiring the next generation of scientists and  teaches to underserved students around the world through the Ad Astra Academy. Julia also runs her own outreach events called  “Space in Your Face!” – a space variety show involving comedy, local artists, and cover songs.  http://juliademarines.com/ Twitter: @LifeNspace Instagram: @mote_of_dust Facebook: @JuliaDeMarines   Links Sullivan (1979), Radio leakage and eavesdropping Sullivan and Knowles(1985), Lunar Reflections of Terrestrial Radio Leakage. DeMarines+ (2019), Observing the Earth as a Communicating Exoplanet The One Earth Message The LUVOIR telescope The HabEx Observatory HawkEye 360 David Grinspoon's appearances on this podcast: first, second, third. Andrew Siemion's appearances: first, second.   Follow Us on Twitter. Our Discord Server Dream of the Open Channel Credits: Co-hosts: Daniela DePaulis and Paul Carr Producer: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, George Hrab Software: Zoom,  Loopback, Reaper, Focusrite, Auphonic, OS X Mojave Hardware: Shure, Cloud,Focusrite, Apple.   This podcast is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.

Released: 15 November 2019 Duration: 42 minutes, 24 seconds Our guest on Burst 19 in 2016, Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, returns to give us an update on the vanishing star, following the release of a new paper detailing a much more ambitious project along the same lines that finds a number of new candidate objects. For more information, please visit https://wowsignalpodcast.com Links: Burst 19: Our Sky Now and Then Villarroel+: The Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations project: I. USNO objects missing in modern sky surveys and follow-up observations of a "missing star" The POSS-I Survey Pan-STARRS Chasing Disclosure (work of fiction that mentions the earlier research) Credits: Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky and Jason Robinson Announcer: Erin Carr This podcast is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license.

Released: 16 October 2019 Duration: 54 minutes, 51 seconds   Interstellar Languages is a forthcoming book about the human quest to craft messages that can be understood across interstellar distances. We may want to tell ET about  ourselves, or it may be help ET send message to us that we will know how to interpret. Daniel Oberhaus is a staff writer at Wired Magazine, where he covers space and energy. His first book, Extraterrestrial Languages, will be released by MIT Press on October 22, 2019.  For more information, please visit wowsignalpodcast.com Support the podcast at Patreon.com. Links MIT Press Page for Interstellar Languages Daniela DePaulis The 2017 Sonar message  There is Here The Risks of METI and Religious Aliens The Question: the ontological status of mathematics Credits Host and Producer: Paul Carr Co-Host: Daniela DiPaulis Music: DJ Spooky, Jason Robinson, George Hrab Announcer: Erin Carr   The Wow! Signal is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license

Released: 29 September 2019 Duration: 49 minutes, 52 seconds Download Sofia's paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.02683 A conversation with SETI researcher Sofia Sheikh about how we should evaluate technosignature search strategies. We cover three examples of technosignature searches and their relative advantages. Sofia Sheikh is a third-year graduate student at the Pennsylvania State University working with Dr. Jason Wright. She did her undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became involved with the Breakthrough Listen Initiative. Her work incorporates both theoretical approaches to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and observational radio searches for technosignatures. She intends to be the first woman to complete a SETI PhD thesis. Links The Nine Axes of Merit Andrew Siemion on SETI at the SKA  Breakthrough Listen The Truth about Alien Megastructures Sonar Calling GJ273B Credits Host and Producer: Paul Carr Announcer: Erin Carr Music: DJ Spooky, Erika Lloyd, Jason Robinson Hardware: Shure, Audio Technica, Pro Art, Behringer, Focusrite, Apple. Software: Skype, Loopback, Reaper, Auphonic Desktop Hosting: Libsyn  

Released: 18 February 2019 Duration: 6 minutes, 48 seconds   Paul Carr summarizes why we want to know more about this star, and how you can get involved. Links: Please see wowsignalpodcast.com for the most detailed information. The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe (Tabby's TED Talk) Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, Part 1 The Slow and Fast Dimming of Tabby's Star (Brad Schaefer) Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder   The KIC8462852_Analysis subreddit   Credits: Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky

Released: 10 February 2019 Duration: 16 Minutes, 51 Seconds   Abraham Loeb and Shmuel Bialy kicked up a kerfuffle when they wrote a paper suggesting that one possible explanation for ‘Oumuamua was that it could be an artificial object, in other words, an alien spacecraft—specifically, a lightsail. The two have been praised for their boldness and condemned for their recklessness, but little has been said concerning the possibility of detecting a lightsail as a technosignature in comparison to detecting a “conventional” technosignature such as the radio and laser beacons that SETI searches for. When we look out into the universe for signs of intelligence, if there are technosignatures to be seen, what technologies ought we to expect to be the most common?      Links Stagnant Supercivilizations and Interstellar Travel “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” Bialy and Loeb  Predictably, online media go nuts over ‘Oumuamua and Harvard scientists; “Scientists are perfectly happy to publish an outlandish idea.” by Eric Berger Breakthrough Starshot  lightsail (Wikipedia) The Interstellar Age: The Story of the NASA Men and Women Who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell NASA Voyager 2 Could Be Nearing Interstellar Space The Great Filter—Are We Almost Past It? by Robin Hanson SETI as a Process of Elimination Credits Written and Presented by: Nick Nielsen Postproduction: Paul Carr Music: DJ Spooky   This podcast episode is released under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license

A not quite so short announcement from the producer of the Unseen Podcast and the Wow! Signal. This is for those who have not seen the video.   Unseen Podcast Episode Planning Sheet

Released: 24 April 2018 Duration: 10 minutes, 1 second   Paul Carr talks about today's much more accurate distance estimate to Boyajian's Star from Gaia Data Release 2, and what, if anything, this rules out.   Links: Clemens+ (2018) - Proper Motion of the Faint Star near KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star) - Not a Binary System Boyajian+ (2015) - Where's the Flux? Interview with Brad Schaefer Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder Castelaz and Barker (2018) - KIC 8462852: Maria Mitchell Observatory Photographic Photometry 1922 to 1991 Gaia DR2   Credits: Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Jason Robinson  

Released: 23 April 2018 Duration:12 minutes, 21 seconds   Paul Carr reviews what has been happening over the Winter and early Spring with respect to Boyajian's Star. We review the Winter observations, the Castelaz and Barker paper, and the two surprise March dips, Caral-Supe and Evangeline. We also talk about the upcoming Gaia Data Release 2 and what it might mean.   Links Burst 24 and Burst 25 KIC 8462852: Maria Mitchell Observatory Photographic Photometry 1922 to 1991 Where's The Flux? Bruce Gary's Boyajian's Star Page Boyajian's R Gaia DR2   Credits Host and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Jason Robinson

Released: 6 February 2018 Duration: 24 minutes, 48 seconds   A hundred years ago cosmologists were struggling to understand the nature and structure of the universe, and at the heart of this struggle was the island universe hypothesis. Today we find ourselves confronted with a similar question posed at a far greater scale. In order to resolve our cosmic archipelago problem we will have to attempt to reconstruct a history of our universe as a part of a far larger cosmological system, and to do this we will have to extend cosmology beyond the observable universe -- but what, exactly, is the observable universe?   Links: The Cosmic Archipelago, Part I The Cosmic Archipelago, Part II Normal science The Snapshot Effect Radio Technology and Existential Risk Boyajian's Star (KIC 8462852) Supernova iPTF14hls Przybylski's Star Scientific Historiography: Past, Present, and Future The Face of the Past The Face of the Past, Part Two   Credits: Writer and Host: Nick Nielsen Producer and Announcer: Paul Carr Music: by kind permission of the artist, Jason Robinson   The Wow! Signal is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.  

Released: 25 January 2018 Duration: 21 minutes, 51 seconds   A hundred years ago cosmologists were struggling to understand the nature and structure of the universe, and at the heart of this struggle was the island universe hypothesis. Today we find ourselves confronted with a similar question posed at a far greater scale. As we confront these great questions of cosmology, whether a hundred years ago or today, we find ourselves faced with as many philosophical questions as scientific questions when we challenge the boundaries of our understanding. In Part II we focus on cosmological scales of time and what this means for human observation of a very old universe. Links: The Realm of the Nebula, Edwin Hubble   Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Immanuel Kant   The Great Debate   The Scale of the Universe, Shapley and Curtis   The 1920 Shapley-Curtis Discussion: Background,Issues, and Aftermath, V. Trimble   NGC 6822, a remote stellar system, Edwin Hubble   F. H. Bradley   deep time   Stellar Movements and the Structure of the Universe, Arthur Eddington   The Retrodiction Wall   Addendum on the Retrodiction Wall   Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life and sharpening the Fermi paradox, Stuart Armstrong and Anders Sandberg   The End of Cosmology? Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer   Credits: Writer and Host: Nick Nielsen Voiceover and Producer: Paul Carr Music: Jason Robinson