Strange New Worlds: A Science & Star Trek Podcast

Guests: Dr. Erin Macdonald & Prof. Mohamed Noor The Star Trek science consultants themselves join us to discuss the science of Discovery's third season. Learn how the concept of the Burn was developed and why all sorts of other scientific plot points—from a deadly prion disease to a coronal mass ejection—were included. Erin & Mohamed's StarTrek.com article on the science of the Burn: https://www.startrek.com/news/the-science-behind-discoverys-burn Mohamed's YouTube channel "BioTrekkie Explains": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zvlD5RnkzhIegG0gnSeSw Erin's Audible Original "The Science of Sci-Fi": https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Science-of-Sci-Fi-Audiobook/B07ZP9BGVX Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Erin: https://twitter.com/drerinmac Mohamed: https://twitter.com/mafnoor

Response to DSC: "That Hope Is You, Part 2" Dr. Culber suspects that Su'Kal is a polyploid, which could help explain the Kelpien's role in causing the Burn. But what is a polyploid? And could Su'Kal's polyploidal nature be related to the radiation environment in the Verubin nebula? Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Desun Oka Response to DSC: "There Is A Tide..." On the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, Osyraa and Admiral Vance attempt to negotiate an armistice. But, in true Star Trek style, beneath this 32nd-century dialogue is a commentary on modern society. According to historian Desun Oka, in this scene, Osyraa clearly symbolizes capitalism and Vance symbolizes the critiques of capitalism in present-day political economics. Diasperse: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diasperse/id1533908402 Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Shi En Kim On the final episode of 2020, Mike is joined by freelance science writer Shi En Kim to discuss what space can teach us about aging and how advances in artificial intelligence have produced a rapping robot—and, of course, how this research brings us closer to a Star Trek future. "To study aging, scientists are looking to outer space" by Shi En Kim, published in National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/to-study-aging-scientists-are-looking-to-outer-space-iss/ "This Robot Can Rap—Really" by Shi En Kim, published in Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-robot-can-rap-really/ Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Kim: https://twitter.com/goes_by_kim

Response to DSC: "Su'Kal" Expectation vs. reality: scientific commentary on what Mike thought was going to be in the Verubin nebula and what the U.S.S. Discovery actually found. Paul Stamets' TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world?language=en Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Response to DSC: "Terra Firma, Part 2" This week on Strange New Worlds, reflections (pun fully intended) on our latest visit to the Mirror Universe. Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Rebecca Pierce Writer, filmmaker, and activist Rebecca Pierce joins Mike to discuss the intersection of racial justice, protest movements, #BlackLivesMatter, and Star Trek using the poignant Deep Space Nine episodes "Far Beyond the Stars" and "Past Tense" as launch points. Rebecca Pierce: https://www.rebeccapiercefilms.com/ Diasperse: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/diasperse/id1533908402 Infinite Diversity: A Star Trek Universe Podcast: https://www.ufp.earth/infinite-diversity/ "Is Anybody Out There?" on Flash Forward: https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2020/12/08/is-anybody-out-there/ Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Rebecca: https://twitter.com/aptly_engineerd Diasperse: https://twitter.com/Diasperse

Response to DSC: "The Sanctuary" Planet Kwejian's orbital parameters, as seen on Lt. Bryce's computer, are exactly identical to that of Venus. So why is Kwejian habitable? Mike discusses a few possibilities. Photo of Kwejian's planetary parameters: http://discovery.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/promo-photos/season3/308/308-bridge-bryce.jpg Way & Del Genio's 2020 paper on Venus's climate history: doi.org/10.1029/2019JE006276 Infinite Diversity podcast: www.ufp.earth/infinite-diversity/ Follow Mike on Twitter: twitter.com/Miquai

Response to DSC: "Unification III" Mike reflects on the T'Kal-in-ket. This ancient Vulcan tradition was billed as a search for new scientific truths via the crucible of logic and peer review, kind of like doctoral thesis defense. But in Michael Burnham's case, it quickly pivoted to a search for a different kind of truth. Link to register for Mike's "Science of Star Trek" talk at 7 pm on December 2, 2020: https://kcls.bibliocommons.com/events/5f99e67f9aadc72f00582f3a Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Response to DSC: "Scavengers" On the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, Commander Burnham explains how she plans on using the black boxes of starships destroyed during the Burn to triangulate the disaster's point of origin. Mike remarks on how this is similar to how real-life gravitational wave observatories around the world work together to locate cataclysmic astronomical events in space and time. Interactive skymap of gravitational wave detections: https://www.virgo-gw.eu/skymap.html Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Dr. Ingrid Ockert Science and Star Trek share an intimate association in popular culture. This alliance only grows stronger as Star Trek continues to inspire new generations of scientists and as real-life discoveries continue to underpin the show's stories. But was this all planned or just an accident? On this episode of Strange New Worlds, Mike is joined by Dr. Ingrid Ockert, a historian of science and media, who studied Star Trek's relationship with science in the time surrounding the show's inception. Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Ingrid: https://twitter.com/ingrid_rocket

Response to DSC: "Die Trying" This week's episode of Star Trek: Discovery featured a neurological disease caused by prions. Mike discusses prions, how they can cause diseases, and how some scientists consider them contenders for the origin of life. Prof. Mohamed Noor's YouTube channel, BioTrekkie Explains! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zvlD5RnkzhIegG0gnSeSw Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Response to DSC: "Forget Me Not" On the most recent episode of Star Trek: Discovery, "Forget Me Not," the crew travels to the Trill homeworld to retrieve the memories of the Tal symbiont, which currently resides inside of Adira. Most of us may not be Trill, but we all have endosymbionts in our bodies nonetheless. These microorganisms help us digest our food, synthesize vitamins, and even affect our central nervous system. On this episode of Strange New Worlds, Mike discusses the human gut microbiome, as well as the microbiomes of a few other remarkable animals, before drawing a parallel to the symbiosis between the Sphere Data and the U.S.S. Discovery. "I Contain Multitudes" by Ed Yong: https://edyong.me/i-contain-multitudes Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/miquai

Response to DSC: "People of Earth" On the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery, we learn that a research base on Titan has suffered a catastrophic accident. Mike hypothesizes how this might have occurred and makes an argument, based on energy availability, for why a dilithium-starved human outpost on Titan might resort to desperate measures. "Energy Options for Future Humans on Titan" by Amanda R. Hendrix & Yuk L. Yung: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.00365.pdf Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/miquai

Guest: Dr. Ingrid Ockert Dr. Ingrid Ockert, a historian of science, joins Mike to respond to DSC: "Far From Home." While the first episode of Season 3 was reminiscent of 1970s sci-fi, Ingrid explains why this week's episode was more of a 1950s mold. They also discuss the journeys of Saru and Tilly, and Mike closes with remarks on parasitic ice. Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Ingrid: https://twitter.com/ingrid_rocket

Let's try something new! This is the start of a series of short, weekly reactions to Discovery's third season—from a scientific perspective, of course! This week, DSC 301: "That Hope Is You, Part 1." Learn how your host Mike Wong looked for biosignatures in Iceland's Hverfjall crater in 2016, the same crater that served as the setting for Michael Burnham's crash landing and subsequent biosignature scan in 3188! Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai

Guest: Professor David Kipping Star Trek depicts a galaxy teeming with life, including many variations of intelligent life. Is that the nature of our universe? Or could it be that life is exceedingly rare? Or that intelligence takes an absurdly long time to evolve? Might we be the lucky, lonely ones? Although we don't yet know the answer, we can use our knowledge of the emergence and evolution of life on Earth to create betting odds for how quickly life and intelligence emerge. That's exactly what Professor David Kipping of Columbia University did in a paper published earlier this year. David's scientific paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/22/11995.short David's Cool Worlds channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHZpIpAWJQ-Jy_CeCdXhMA Follow us on Twitter! Mike: @Miquai David: @david_kipping

Guest: Prof. Darsa Donelan "They know what they're getting themselves into when they sign up for my class," says Professor Darsa Donelan, who is well known for melding her love for cosplaying with her love for physics. On this episode of Strange New Worlds, Professor Donelan shares how they cosplay to enhance the learning experience, motivate physics problems with clips from Star Trek, built a Borg costume out of recycled materials, and are working with NASA to revamp space science curricula. Resistance is futile! Follow us on Twitter! Mike: @Miquai Darsa: @DarsaDonelan Darsa's alter ego: @BanalBorg

On Episode 102, Mike introduces the concept of lyfe, which he and Dr. Stuart Bartlett coined in a paper earlier this year, through the lens of Star Trek. Lyfe is defined as any system that performs the following four pillars: dissipation, autocatalysis, homeostasis, and learning. Life is therefore a subset of lyfe—it's the specific instance of lyfe that we are aware of on Earth. The concept of lyfe allows us to understand life in the context of other phenomena in the universe, more clearly define "life as we don't know it," and frame astrobiological research questions in new ways. "Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars," Mike and Stuart's paper in the journal Life: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/4/42 "Thinking About Life (or Lyfe) Through The Prism of Star Trek," Mike's blog post for Many Worlds: https://manyworlds.space/2020/06/17/thinking-about-life-or-lyfe-through-the-prism-of-star-trek/ Lyfe as The Guardian's word of the week: https://www.theguardian.com/book

Which Star Trek character does Mike identify with most? What aspect of the Star Trek future does he wish were a part of the present? What if Star Trek had been created in another country? Mike answers these audience submitted questions and more on Episode 101 of Strange New Worlds! Virtual Trek Con: https://www.virtualtrekcon.com/ Virtual Trek Con "Star Trek Science Q&A Panel": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvEwpmXA9rU Follow Mike on Twitter: @Miquai