"Dark matter" is what physics calls the invisible, theoretical stuff that makes up the majority of the universe. In a way, says biologist Jonathan Eisen, biology also has its own "Dark Matter" -- the tiny yet vast world of microbes.

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Added: Tue Jan 10 21:41:14 UTC 2012
Air date: Tue Jan 10 00:00:00 UTC 2012
Duration: 24:06
Rating: 4.1 / 5.0

Neuroscience has given us fleeting insights into our own intuition, habits and seemingly unexplainable preferences, often with profound implications. Will we ever solve the mysteries of the brain? Two leading neuroscientists examine the issue.

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Added: Thu Jan 05 23:30:15 UTC 2012
Air date: Thu Jan 05 00:00:00 UTC 2012
Duration: 1:22:22
Rating: 4.9 / 5.0

Space is often thought of as a frontier for exploration and colonization, but it also holds enormous potential for economic investment. In this program, a panel of aerospace experts join NPR's Ira Flatow to discuss the business of space.

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Added: Sat Dec 31 00:18:06 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Dec 30 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 26:03
Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

Donald Johanson changed our understanding of the past with his 1974 discovery of a 3.2 million year-old skeleton now known as "Lucy." In this talk, Dr. Johnanson explains how paleoanthropology has established Africa as the crucible for human evolution.

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Added: Fri Aug 05 04:12:06 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Aug 05 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:14:01
Rating: 4.4 / 5.0

"Scientists are discovering viruses faster than they can make sense of them," says science writer Carl Zimmer of the most rapidly-evolving organism on the planet. Zimmer explores how little we really know about these mighty, miniscule lifeforms.

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Added: Fri Jun 24 17:30:06 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Jun 24 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:33:22
Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? And can learning new ways to talk change how you think? Stanford psychologist Lera Boroditsky examines these questions and more in this insightful look at the developing field of cognitive linguistics.

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Added: Fri Apr 08 03:07:10 UTC 2011
Air date: Thu Apr 07 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:37:53
Rating: 3.9 / 5.0

Just how much separates homo sapiens from our closest relatives in the animal kingdom? Not all that much, as it turns out. In this entertaining lecture, Dr. Robert Sapolosky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, explains why.

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Added: Sun Mar 13 22:07:10 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Mar 11 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:16:41
Rating: 4.4 / 5.0

In this captivating lecture, Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and England's Astronomer Royal, brings a lifetime of cosmological inquiry to a crucial question: What if human success on Earth determines life's success in the universe?

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Added: Mon Feb 14 02:59:11 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Feb 11 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:40:17
Rating: 3.6 / 5.0

While we may aspire to live a century, Rachel Sussman documents creatures who don't bat an eye at a millennium or two. In this presentation, Sussman exhibits her work photographing creatures with stories longer than all of recorded human history.

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Added: Mon Jan 17 00:26:08 UTC 2011
Air date: Fri Jan 14 00:00:00 UTC 2011
Duration: 1:08:44
Rating: 3.2 / 5.0

They may be small, but assassin spiders are among the most dangerous spiders on the planet –- if you're another spider, that is. Join arachnologist Hannah Wood as she talks about her field expeditions to Madagascar and other remote places in the world.

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Added: Sun Dec 12 23:35:08 UTC 2010
Air date: Fri Dec 10 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:00:29
Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

From pills in your medicine chest to a viper in the wilderness, join California Poison Control System MD Patil Armenian for this lecture on all the various toxic substances you can ingest, inject, drink, get stung by, or be bitten with.

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Added: Fri Oct 15 02:15:09 UTC 2010
Air date: Fri Oct 08 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 39:31
Rating: 3.9 / 5.0

What happens when you've been in space for a year? Is it possible to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? From the space shuttle training toilet to NASA's crash simulation tests, Mary Roach examines the curious science of space exploration.

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Added: Sun Sep 12 18:32:09 UTC 2010
Air date: Sat Sep 11 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:06:45
Rating: 3.7 / 5.0

How are science and skepticism related? Is skepticism a part of science, or is science a tool of skepticism? Science educator Dr. Eugenie Scott discusses these questions, and explores the importance of teaching both science and critical thinking.

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Added: Thu Sep 02 10:26:06 UTC 2010
Air date: Thu Sep 02 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 56:48
Rating: 4.1 / 5.0

On May 31, 2009, exploratory ship Ocean Watch departed from Seattle, Washington on a daring scientific expedition around the North and South American continents. Now closing in on the final leg of the trip, the team recounts their adventures so far.

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Added: Mon Jul 19 18:00:11 UTC 2010
Air date: Mon Jul 19 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:05:57
Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

For years, NASA's David Morrison has been an active critic of fears that the world will end in 2012... and of imaginative con artists who use mass media to frighten people for profit. In this entertaining lecture, he lays out the case against apocalypse.

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Added: Mon Jun 21 00:43:04 UTC 2010
Air date: Sun Jun 20 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 59:25
Rating: 3.3 / 5.0

Neurobiologist Louann Brizendine follows up her bestselling The Female Brain with a discussion on her latest book, The Male Brain: A Breakthrough Understanding of How Men and Boys Think.

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Added: Wed Jun 09 16:01:06 UTC 2010
Air date: Tue Jun 08 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 58:29
Rating: 3.0 / 5.0

Biologist Jack Dumbacher, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the California Academy of Sciences, recounts stories of his field expeditions to Papua New Guinea, including his discovery of a poison-secreting bird -- the first to be documented by science.

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Added: Mon May 10 20:09:07 UTC 2010
Air date: Thu May 06 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 59:39
Rating: 3.9 / 5.0

Are genes just "blueprints" that doom some and bless others? Integrating cutting-edge research from a wide swath of disciplines, David Shenk explains why everything you think you know about genetics, talent, and IQ is wrong.

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Added: Thu Apr 29 17:45:06 UTC 2010
Air date: Thu Apr 29 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:03:52
Rating: 3.6 / 5.0

How will global warming affect animal development? Stanford biology professor Elizabeth Hadly explains her globe-spanning work on understanding animal diversity through space and time, and how that diversity is influenced by environmental changes.

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Added: Tue Aug 24 04:39:09 UTC 2010
Air date: Mon Apr 19 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:08:38
Rating: 3.7 / 5.0

From Mendel to Darwin, DNA to bio-medicine and beyond, join professor Paul Nurse as he recounts a few of biology's greatest achievements and illuminates the pioneering minds behind them.

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Added: Fri Jul 30 21:06:16 UTC 2010
Air date: Mon Apr 12 00:00:00 UTC 2010
Duration: 1:07:55
Rating: 4.5 / 5.0