podcasts

= PODCASTS =

What are the consequences when humans start playing with life? The human imagination has always dreamed up fantastic creatures, but now biotechnology is making it easier and easier for us to actually create forms of life that have never existed before. In this hour, Radio Lab looks at the uneasy marriage between biology and engineering, and asks what counts as "natural?" PART ONE: media type="file" key="RADIOLAB SO CALLED LIFE PART ONE.mp3" width="240" height="20"
 * RADIO LAB: SO-CALLED LIFE **

PART TWO: media type="file" key="RADIOLAB SO CALLED LIFE PART TWO.mp3" width="240" height="20" || What actually makes a human a human?
 * Topic 1

Topic 2

Do humans have the right to play god? Can any good come out of humans playing God? Can humans come to terms with playing God? ||

In the late 1960s, a California TV repairman named Bob Nelson joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology called cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Sam Shaw reports. (42 minutes) LINK: @http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made?act=1
 * YOU'RE AS COLD AS ICE**

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**Frankenstein's Cat**

Emily Anthes talks with Jim Fleming about her book, "Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts."

@http://www.ttbook.org/book/emily-anthes-frankensteins-cat-cuddling-biotechs-brave-new-beasts

**Dr. Cynthia Kenyon** looks at the genes of tiny worms, and discovers that aging may be a battle between good and evil. A literal struggle between two genes (who she c
 * **[[image:fountain-of-youth.jpg align="left"]] RADIO LAB: FOUNTAINS OF YOUTH **

and more than DOUBLE their lifespan. She wonders if her research may be applicable to humans. And what would a society look like if we could all live twice as long? Well, Japan may be the canary in the coal mine, because it has the fastest aging population in the whole world. **Reporter Jocelyn Ford** takes us there, on a tour through street fairs, nursing homes, and robot factories, to see how a society supports an aging population. @http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jun/14/fountains-of-youth/ media type="custom" key="12174732" ||

Richard Holmes is fascinated by what he calls "The Age of Wonder." The subtitle of his book is "how the romantic generation discovered the beauty and the terror of science," and he tells Steve Paulson about how Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" came directly out of the scientific climate of the time. PODCAST: @http://ttbook.org/book/richard-holmes-mary-shelleys-frankenstein ||
 * Richard Holmes on Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"**

**LITERARY CONNECTION-LUCY**Lucy is part human, part ape, the result of an experiment in which a British scientist named Stone managed to artificially inseminate a genetically altered female bonobo named Leda. Lucy is reared and home-schooled by Stone in the heart of the African jungle. His plan is to send her off to college in England, where she will presumably meet a mate. He envisions her as “the universal Eve” for a new and improved race of people that will preserve the best qualities of bonobo genetics.

**Click here to view activities associated with this novel.** ||

MAKING BETTER PEOPLE: == What traits could we engineer to “improve” people? Studio 360's Kurt Andersen talks with Greg Stock, a leading proponent of genetic engineering. We’ll hear from a double amputee and MIT scientist who walks using bionic legs of his own creation; and from a doctor and an artist exploring mankind’s ability to defy the limits of nature with the help of a bit of bio-enhancement.

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Until Leonard Hayflick came along, everyone thought cells were immortal. That they’d divide over and over again, forever. Hayflick torpedoes that theory and proved that there is limit. A very predictable limit: a magic number. To thank him, science textbooks everywhere now refer to that as ‘the Hayflick limit.’ [] media type="custom" key="12174842" align="left" ||
 * [[image:amoebas-20_medium_image.jpg align="left"]] RADIO LAB: LIFE'S LIMITS **

NIKOLA TESLA: STRANGE GENIUS The astounding mad scientist life of Nikola Tesla. Just who was this pioneer of radio, radar, and wireless communication? In this episode of the radio show Studio 360 Tesla's legacy is explored. Samantha Hunt’s new novel The Invention of Everything Else is a fictional portrait of Tesla. Monologist Mike Daisey tells us how Tesla X-rayed Mark Twain’s head. And across the country, garage inventors toil in obscurity at the next breakthrough that will change the world. media type="custom" key="12375996" align="left" ||
 * [[image:sumcover.jpg align="left"]]

In the afterlife you discover Mary Shelley is sitting on a throne and learn that //Frankenstein// is God's favorite book .media type="file" key="Mary from Sum by David Eagleman.mp3" width="240" height="20"
 * Excerpt: "Mary" from the book, //Sum//, written by David Eagleman **

__Robot Cannon Kills 9, Wounds 14__ ||