Whimsical Wavelengths

By: Jeffrey Mark Zurek
  • Summary

  • A whimsical journey through science topics hosted by Dr Jeffrey Zurek, who is a volcanologist and geophysicist. A passion for science communication, teaching, hearing his own voice and terrible science dad jokes is what birthed Whimsical wavelengths! Covering topics across scientific disciplines, sometimes bringing in guests and sometimes spinning a meandering tale of scientific discovery. Join us while we discover and discuss science topics and a little bit of science history; including figuring out why some organic compounds have attitude problems such as A-mean-oh Acids… It’s hard being a science podcast and only being amusing periodically. New episodes every two weeks!

    Jeffrey zurek 2024
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Episodes
  • Nikola Tesla- The man, the myth, the legend Pt1 - Back story and accomplishments
    Dec 23 2024

    Nikola Tesla has been credited with large leaps forward like AC current and wireless transmission. Including things that are conspiratorial or not feasible like a death ray and limitless free power. Ya his legacy is complicated. So fire up the device and lets get going with this episode!

    Here is a demo for a Tesla Coil by me! :https://youtu.be/DQK1zZ87Gko?si=yw4C0AABspUCNTYs

    Some of the stuff I read to gather information. There was more but I forgot to write it down while doing my normal life.

    Books

    My inventions by Nikola Tesla

    Wizard, the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla is a biography of Nikola Tesla by Marc J. Seifer published in 1996.

    Websites and Newspapers

    https://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_early.html

    https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a44197280/did-the-us-government-steal-nikola-teslas-research/

    https://www.nytimes.com/1915/10/03/archives/nikola-tesla-sees-a-wireless-vision-thinks-his-world-system-will.html https://www.nytimes.com/1934/07/11/archives/tesla-at-78-bares-new-deathbeam-invention-powerful-enough-to.html

    Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

    Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

    www.facebook.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

    instagram: @whimsical.wavelengths

    Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

    Patreon: patreon.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

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    27 mins
  • Dinosaurs and the mammal longevity gap, Evolutionary Biology - Guest Associate Professor Molly Burke
    Dec 9 2024

    This time we take a deep dive into an hypothesis The longevity bottleneck hypothesis: Could dinosaurs have shaped ageing in present-day mammals?” by João Pedro de Magalhães

    https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202300098

    See our branch of the animal kingdom, mammals, first evolved around 200 million years ago. During the age of dinosaurs. To quote the paper “long evolutionary pressure on early mammals for rapid reproduction led to the loss or inactivation of genes and pathways associated with long life

    To talk about this and look at the evolution of aging, the wonderful and fantastic Dr Molly Burke agreed to talk about her research and the science of aging more generally! Her lab at the Oregon State university uses model organisms to experimentally study evolution. (https://ib.oregonstate.edu/directory/molly-k-burke).

    Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

    www.facebook.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

    instagram: @whimsical.wavelengths

    Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

    Patreon: patreon.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

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    40 mins
  • NASA's Lucky Peanuts - Interview with JPL's Dr Morgan Cable
    Nov 25 2024

    This episode cracks open the history and traditions of NASA (ie. Lucky peanuts) to get to the nutty goodness, which includes hard science and looking towards future missions! To explore this Dr. Morgan Cable joins the pod! Dr. Morgan Cable is a research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Science Lead for the Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor concept and Co-Deputy PI of the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) Instrument aboard the Mars 2020 (Perseverance) rover, also apart of the Cassini, Dragonfly and the Europa Clipper missions in various ways. Links and descriptions of things mentioned in the episode supplied by Dr Morgan Cable lightly edited:

    Cassini virtual singers: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/a-farewell-to-cassini-our-friend-at-saturn/

    Curiosity leaving ‘JPL’ in Morse code on Mars: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/rover-leaves-tracks-in-morse-code

    Perseverance parachute hidden code: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/science/nasa-mars-parachute-code.html

    Monoliths for Europa Clipper, represent the team mascot, inspired by the monolith on Jupiter’s moon Europa in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s ironic because in the novel and the film we were told to “attempt no landing” at Europa, but in our first PSG meeting the author (Arthur C. Clarke) actually dialed in and gave us permission, which is really cool! You can hear more about that in an interview with Steve Vance (a fellow JPLer and scientist on Europa Clipper) here. So we make one Monolith and bring it to each Project Science Group (PSG) meeting. Here it is in one of our team photos, and we also have a team award called the Monolith Award and here is a twitter post about a recipient.

    Links for Whimsical Wavelengths: www.facebook.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

    instagram: @whimsical.wavelengths

    Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

    Patreon: patreon.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

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    40 mins

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