The STEMme Podcast

Theories of extreme astrophysical objects at the frontier of our knowledge of physical reality are only as good as the precision of our instruments. In this episode of the STEMme Podcast, experimental astroparticle physicist Katharina Sophie-Isleif breaks down the fundamentals of laser interferometry, detection of gravitational waves with underground laboratories, and how we are about to send a very precise instrument to space to pick up on the tune of the early universe. She also explains how dark matter could be detected in a laboratory if you shoot a laser at a wall and it manages to shine through!

In this fortnightly news update, we cover the brand-new mass measurement of W boson that shook the world of particle physics, how mushrooms may be "speaking" to one another, the IPCC environmental report on climate change, and new development in the pig heart transplant story.

Disclaimer: In addition to LIGO and Virgo, KAGRA is the third gravitational wave detector interferometer currently in operation.

From the complexity of our physiology that's a result of millions of years of evolution on the planet to the simplest building blocks of life, we find handedness everywhere. In this episode, structural and physical chemist Melanie Schnell tell us how chirality is very intricately linked to life itself. With new methods in rotational and vibrational spectroscopy, she also outlines how her team is looking for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in space. PAHs could hold a key to understand how the very first complex molecules were created in our universe and how life began on Earth. 

In this fortnightly news update, we report on the ongoing dispute over the ownership of CRISPR, recent revelations on the controversy with the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope, the future of European Mars Rover mission after the exit of Russia in the wake of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and the discovery of a new ultra-faint dwarf galaxy.

Fifty years ago, a stalwart in nuclear physics passed away. Maria Goeppert Mayer was a theoretical physicist who brought insights from quantum mechanics into nuclear physics and underlined the importance of spin-orbit coupling in accounting for the binding energy of atomic nuclei. Her contribution fit the missing piece of the puzzle, providing a complete understanding of the nuclear shell model, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. Goeppert Mayer is the second and one of the three women who have been awarded the prize to date. Starting out at a time where going to school was not commonplace for girls and navigating the world of academic science rife with sexism, a scientific career was anything but easy, but she persevered, leaving a complex legacy behind.

In this episode's fortnightly news update, we report the bombing of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology in Ukraine, success of gene therapy in curing the first woman of HIV, AI-powered largest ever genealogical map of humans spread across the globe, and the latest developments in the recently launched JWST from space.

In this episode, Cosmologist Jorinde van de Vis takes us through a journey into the Early Universe. When exactly was the Big Bang? What happens to the primeval soup of particles when the earliest nuclei form, and what imprints do we see in the present day observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation? She also talks about gravitational waves as artefacts from the history of the nascent universe and a next-generation space-based interferometer set to look for them. Jorinde received the L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Rising Talent award and recently won the VENI research grant.

In addition, we also share the fortnightly news update: impact of environmental stress on reproductive outcome, early flowering of plants and glaciers melting at the highest peaks in the world, largest leakers of greenhouse emission, and new strides made in nuclear fusion as a source of energy.

In this episode, Astroparticle Physicist Camilo Garcia-Cely speaks about one of the greatest mysteries in our understanding of the Universe. While Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, Axions, and Primordial Black Holes are among those seriously considered as possible dark matter candidates, he argues why the future of particle dark matter searches is model-agnostic. More recently, having showed how a precise dark matter detector can be turned into a device that can listen to the hum from the Early Universe, Camilo tells us that, like colours in a rainbow, gravitational waves come in different frequency ranges and what messages they may herald. After an exciting pre- and post-doctoral academic career spanning three continents, Camilo is all set to start up his own research group in Spain with the prestigious Ramón y Cajal research grant.

In the news bulletin, we share a story on earth-like exoplanet closest to us and what has been happening in the world of bionic implants lately.

Are we alone? What did the earliest galaxies look like? How do stars and planets form? With a scientific enterprise spanning three decades and multiple continents that cost 9.7 billion USD, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was recently shot into space after many dramatic turns of events to answer these questions. In this episode, we speak about the core science goals of this scientific and engineering marvel, and tell you the exciting developments that leading up to its launch on December 25, 2021 in our main segment. 

As usual, we also bring you the fortnightly science news update: pig heart transplant, impact of paternal alcohol use, and SpaceX rockets crashing into the moon.

Credits for the sound clip of the JWST launch: NASA

Correction: As you may already know, the Doppler shift causes the pitch of the sound of the ambulance to appear higher, not louder.

Is the pursuit of science based in objectivity? Where do the lines cross between ethics and scientific research? Molecular and Developmental Biologist Theresa Schredelseker talks about transcription factors, embryonic zebrafish brains, the genome-editing tool TALEN, and the philosophy of science. Recently, she swapped her lab coat for a life in science management, supporting early career researchers and building bridges between the research community and non-scientists. She sheds some light on what makes the role of a science communicator so challenging yet fulfilling.

As usual, we also bring you the fortnightly science news update: extragalactic gamma ray astronomy, latest volcanic eruptions, and lab-grown mini brains to understand neurodegenerative diseases better.

This episode was also published in the Science Chatter Hamburg blog in January 2022 https://science-chatter.blogs.uni-hamburg.de/?p=1104

How do we search for physics beyond the Standard Model? What can we learn from the muon, the heavier cousin of the well-known electron? What happens when experimentalists and theorists start to disagree? And how do you move a gigantic particle collider across the US? The STEMme podcast will take you into the world of elementary particle physics, where everything is neatly ordered but still full of questions and confusions. In this episode, we unravel the mystery of the muon magnetic moment, and discuss a groundbreaking old-but-new experiment.

Before jumping into the main story, we also bring you the fortnightly science news update: gut-brain immune system, lunar exploration, planetary flybys, and what the teeth of ancient humans tell is.

This episode was also published in the Science Chatter Hamburg blog in January 2022 https://science-chatter.blogs.uni-hamburg.de/?p=826