There are two Wallace Shawns. There’s the character actor, known for playing eccentrics in The Princess Bride and The Good Wife and voicing cartoon dinosaurs. (“I don’t get cast as a lot of real people,” he notes.) Then there’s the acclaimed playwright, thinker, and ardent leftist. Shawn is out with a new collection of political musings, Night Thoughts, which address everything from inequality to the changing climate.
In the Spiel, Travis Kalanick, don’t let the cab door hit you on the way out.
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The Voice of 1960s British children?s TV series ?Trumpton?, Brian Cant, died this week. The More or Less team has visited the town of Trumpton on a number of occasions so we have brought together a handful of our favourites as a tribute.
Tom Shapiro is back to explain the thinking behind the title of his book, Toxic Inequality. What’s so toxic about it? Shapiro is a professor at Brandeis University, where he directs the Institute on Assets and Social Policy.
In the Spiel: Based on the information available, what can we conclude about the media coverage of terrorism? Mike talks to Erin Miller, who oversees the Global Terrorism Database.
Do you have concerns or unanswered questions about investing for retirement that have kept you from getting started? It's time to get more clarity so you can move your finances forward with confidence instead of staying stuck and never building wealth. Laura answer 3 questions about how to choose the best accounts, cut investment fees, and manage risk the best ways possible. Get the Money Girl book at http://MoneyGirlBook.com.
As McConnell moves toward a vote on the secret GOP health care bill, Lovett and Tommy are joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to talk about the Democratic strategy to defeat Trumpcare and what each of us can do to help. Plus, mounting tension between the US and Russia over Syria, the demise of the White House press briefing, and declining transparency across our government.
In the mid 1940s, no one would publish Kurt Vonnegut’s stories. But when he gets hired as a press writer at General Electric, the company’s fantastical science inspires some of his most iconic--and best-selling--novels.
Every snowflake is unique—except they all have six sides. In ice, water molecules arrange themselves into hexagons.
(Courtesy MiSci Museum)
Imagine the Earth has been turned into a frozen wasteland. The culprit? Ice-nine. With a crystalline structure that makes it solid at room temperature, ice-nine freezes every drop of water it comes into contact with, and (predictably) ends up destroying the world. This is the fantastical plot of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel, Cat’s Cradle. But the science that inspired the fiction came from the real-life research his older brother and team of scientists at General Electric conducted just after World War II.
General Electric might be best known for manufacturing refrigerators and light bulbs, but in the 1940s, the GE scientists joined forces with the military and set their sights on a loftier project: controlling the weather.
Controlling the weather could mean putting an end to droughts and raining out forest fires. But the GE scientists’ military collaborators have more aggressive plans in mind. Kurt, a pacifist, closely watches GE’s saga unfold, and in his stories, he demands an answer to one of science’s greatest ethical questions: are scientists responsible for the pursuit of knowledge alone, or are they also responsible for the consequences of that knowledge?
Vincent Schaefer of the General Electric Research Laboratory demonstrates his method for making snow in a laboratory freezer, circa 1947.
Vincent Schaefer, colleague of Bernie Vonnegut, makes man-made snow in a freezer at General Electric.
(Courtesy of MiSci Museum)
Vincent Schaefer gives a demonstration of the team’s cloud seeding research to Signal Corps at GE laboratories in 1947.
(Courtesy of MiSci Museum)
(Original art by Claire Merchlinsky)
GUESTS
Ginger Strand, author of The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic
Cynthia Barnett, author of Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
CREDITS
This episode of Undiscovered was reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Editing by Christopher Intagliata. Archival material was provided with help from Chris Hunter of miSci in Schenectady, as well as Scott Vonnegut and Jim Schaefer. Fact-checking help by Michelle Harris. Voice acting by Charles Bergquist, Christie Taylor, Luke Groskin, and Ira Flatow. Original music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Our theme music is by I am Robot and Proud. Art for this episode by Claire Merchlinsky. Thanks to Science Friday’s Danielle Dana, Christian Skotte, Brandon Echter, and Rachel Bouton.
