Figuring out what to believe is harder than ever in this pandemic, as we’re told we should trust scientists who often disagree or change their minds. In this podcast I’ll be covering the science behind Covid-19 and other medical issues while examining how we can distinguish scientific ideas from chatter, speculation, sanctimony, hype and noise. I’m Faye Flam and I’m a science journalist so it’s my job to sort it out.
I’ll also be investigating how misinformation spreads through social media and why so many people believe dubious claims – from miracle cures to Q-anon conspiracy theories.
The Oldest Everything: Searching for the Oldest Thing in the Universe
What’s the world’s oldest surviving building? Language? Useful technology? The oldest living organism? The oldest species of living organism? The oldest rock on the planet and the oldest star in the cosmos? How do scientists measure the ages of ancient things?
In this podcast series, “The Oldest Everything”, I’ll go in search of the oldest things in the world, and along the way I’ll explore the physics of time’s passage, which is tied up with the concept of entropy, itself intertwined with the process of aging. I’ll explore the notion of endurance and what parts of our present world will be left standing in the far future.
In this pilot episode, I’ll be turning my attention to the universe – which is getting a lot of attention lately for amazing new discoveries, most recently that the whole cosmos is rippling with gravitational waves.
Those waves may be the weirdest thing in the universe, but what’s the very oldest thing in the universe? Is it something all around us, or something many light years away?
I’ll be hearing from four science superstars – Richard Gott, Sabine Hossenfelder, Hakeem Oluseye, and Nobel Laureate James Peebles.
Writer, Host, Producer: Faye Flam (https://fayeflamwriter.com/)
Editor: Seth Gliksman (www.lexiconicon.com)
Music:
"Through The Wormhole" by Dilating Times is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY).
"Jam No. 1" by Dilating Times is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY).
16 Apr 2022
66. Cracking the Mystery of Long Covid w/ Bruce Levy
Some scientists think long Covid is caused by lingering inflammation. Others think the virus might hide out in the body. Two years into the pandemic, scientists are scrambling to understand long Covid and find treatments.
Bruce Levy (https://physiciandirectory.brighamandwomens.org/details/1051/bruce-levy-pulmonary_and_critical_care-boston) is chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He now heads the Recovery Center, which was set up to treat and study long Covid.
We talk about risk factors for long Covid, the most common lingering symptoms, the different theories for its cause, the hunt for treatments and how the threat of long covid should shape people’s risk calculations.
“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ASnWw9kJoMw/faye-flam). Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman (https://instagram.com/ValleyOfSeth) with music by Kyle Imperatore (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-imperatore/). If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!
9 Apr 2022
Pandemic Misinformation - How Politics and Polarization Are Distorting the Science w/ Roger Seheult & Florian Krammer [Episode 11 Rebroadcast]
I think this February 2021 episode is more relevant than ever today. It explores the subjective, politicized way that some ideas get labelled as misinformation and why it’s so important for experts to explain why something is likely to be wrong rather than dismissing it out of hand - and why censorship can cause more harm than good.
Original Description:
Misinformation about the pandemic is flooding over social media and traditional news media as well. But it’s not obvious what constitutes misinformation when the we’re grappling with a new virus and the state of science changes weekly. I’ll be talking to physician and medical educator Roger Seheult (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG-iSMVtWbbwDDXgXXypARQ) about getting censored by YouTube, and about the way politics has shaped people’s perception of such seemingly neutral topics as drugs, vitamin D and vaccines.
Immunologist Florian Krammer (https://twitter.com/florian_krammer?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) will talk about how the pandemic has changed the way people consumer and create science news, so that legitimate scientific papers can be misinterpreted to create misinformation.
“Follow the Science" is produced, written, and hosted by Faye Flam (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/ASnWw9kJoMw/faye-flam). Today’s episode was edited by Seth Gliksman (https://instagram.com/ValleyOfSeth) with music by Kyle Imperatore (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-imperatore/). If you’d like to hear more "Follow the Science," please like, follow, and subscribe!
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