Published: 15 June 2013
One of the most enjoyable parts of watching the recording of an episode of Cosmic Queries on StarTalk Radio is watching astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson answer questions on the fly. He really hasn’t ever seen the question before the comic co-host asks it. The comic co-host is scanning through page after page of questions that [...]
Published: 12 June 2013
Got ya, didn’t I? You thought, with Man of Steel opening this Friday, that I was going to write about the latest spectacular object to streak across our sky. Well, I am, sort of, but only if I continue to torture this dying horse. (After all, the Moon hardly “streaks.”) But if you look up [...]
Published: 8 June 2013
What can we actually learn from thinking about a Zombie Apocalypse? It turns out, more than you might think. Because at first glimpse, it seems ludicrous that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would create the posters shown above. And it seems even more ridiculous that the US Naval War College would invite Max [...]
Published: 5 June 2013
Want a laugh? Good, because it’s time for some new Cosmic Quips and Clips from our comedy contributor, @DanJPerlman. For those of you who don’t know, the videos in our Cosmic Quips and Clips playlist are our favorite videos we’ve discovered on YouTube where comedy collides with science and pop culture. We’ll start with a [...]
Published: 1 June 2013
Times have changed in the zombieverse, especially when it comes to pondering the causes of a zombie apocalypse. These days, nobody buys the George Romero, radiation-from-a-satellite-causes-the-dead-to-rise type of zombie apocalypse. And zombies created as a result of a voodoo curse seem so old-fashioned, even quaint. But a 28-Days-Later-Walking-Dead-zombie-virus/pathogen type of apocalypse? Somehow, that seems a [...]
Published: 29 May 2013
As some of you may have noticed, we’re in the early stages of building the StarTalk Radio Cosmic Community of academic and scientific organizations, programming groups, schools and astronomy clubs that will promote excitement and interest in STEM education. One way we’ll be helping our community members is spreading the word about the exciting events [...]
Published: 25 May 2013
It’s shaping up to be an awesome summer for superhero fans. The season kicked off with a blockbuster Iron Man 3… much better than the average third installment of most super hero sagas. And we’ve still got the Superman reboot, Man of Steel, which looks incredible, the next movie in the X-Men franchise, The Wolverine, [...]
Published: 22 May 2013
The tightest alignment of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter that we can see with our own eyes until 2026! The return of Manhattanhenge! This weekend and next week could be an excellent time for looking up… if the weather cooperates. Mercury, Venus and Jupiter When it comes to the planetary alignment, Sky & Telescope magazine has [...]
Published: 18 May 2013
One of my earliest memories is sitting on my mother’s lap and watching the launch of the last Mercury flight, Gordon Cooper in Faith 7. I was so young that it’s just a sliver of a memory, but I think it was at that moment that I, like most boys of my generation, decided to [...]
Published: 15 May 2013
How do you celebrate the end of an era? With a song, of course. In this case, the era ending was Commander Chris Hadfield’s two expeditions on the International Space Station, first as a crew member of Expedition 34, and then as Commander of the ISS for Expedition 35. The song, of course, was Hadfield’s [...]
Published: 11 May 2013
By the time NASA cancelled the Apollo program, most of America had stopped caring anyway. So it’s easy to assume that the reason they stopped was public indifference and a lack of support for funding. But what if that wasn’t the reason? When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit, ushering in the “Space Race,” [...]
Published: 7 May 2013
As many of you know, our Social Media Coordinator, Stacey David Severn, is an amateur astronomer. She’s also spearheading our StarTalk Radio Cosmic Community outreach to academic and scientific organizations, programming groups, schools and astronomy clubs that will help promote excitement and interest in STEM education. Here’s her guest blog post about local astronomy clubs [...]
Published: 4 May 2013
Back on February 15th, we put up a blog post called “Asteroids, Meteors, Meteorites…What’s the Difference?” in response to the sometimes confusing media coverage a few days earlier of the twin events of a meteor exploding over Russia on the same day that asteroid 2012 DA14 flew past Earth. A few of you read that [...]
Published: 30 April 2013
Did you get a haircut? Grow a beard? I know what it is: you got new glasses. No, that’s not it. There’s something different about you, though. I know there is. The fact is, our audience has grown so much in the last few months, we don’t know who most of you are. Some of [...]
Published: 27 April 2013
I never got to listen to Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller describing their visions for the future of America. They were way before my time. But it’s hard not to get excited listening to Peter Diamandis explain exactly how Planetary Resources is going to find and mine near-earth approaching asteroids. His vision for a [...]
Published: 23 April 2013
This weekend I was at the Northeast Astronomy Forum, along with our Social Media Coordinator Stacey Severn and another StarTalk Volunteer, Susan Ranis. This was my first NEAF, so I didn’t know what to expect. But many of the attendees who’d been there before, some of them year after year for many years, remarked that [...]
Published: 20 April 2013
This Sunday, we’re revisiting a classic episode of StarTalk Radio, Revolving Around the Sun. And if you’ve never heard it before, you’re in for an illuminating episode about our favorite ball of plasma, Sol. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice are joined in their solar sojourn by Steve Keil, director of the [...]
Published: 16 April 2013
The following blog post is written by StarTalk Radio’s Social Media Coordinator, Stacey David Severn. I was recently lucky enough to attend The Explorers Club Annual Dinner weekend in New York City, which proved to be one surprise after another. Through the club’s “Exploring Legends” interview series, we were treated to an intimate first-hand [...]
Published: 13 April 2013
We all eat. Some of us even cook. And some of us think we know more about cooking than we really do because we watch way too much Food Channel. But listening to Anthony Bourdain talk to Neil about food, I got the same sense I get when listening to Neil talk to anyone about [...]
Published: 9 April 2013
Great news! Season 1 of StarTalk Radio hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is now available for digital downloading. We’ve taken it out of the vault, and, even better, it’s advertiser free. No more ads interrupting your science, comedy and popular culture. To help keep new StarTalk episodes coming, we’re adopting the same model as many [...]
Published: 6 April 2013
How long could you live on just Diet Coke? Why do vegans do better in non-industrial cultures than in industrial ones? Could we really fund a mission to Mars on the money that obesity costs the US each year? No, it’s not an episode of Cosmic Queries. It’s A Seat at the Table with Anthony [...]
Published: 3 April 2013
Are you going to the Northeast Astronomy Forum & Telescope Show April 20-21, 2013? We are! Well, the show is, anyway. Not Neil. But he’ll be there in spirit… or at least, in the form of a digitally autographed picture we’ll be handing out at our booth. We’ll also be raffling off an autographed StarTalk [...]
Published: 30 March 2013
Little green men. Greys. My Favorite Martian. Venusians with a third eye in the center of their head. There was a time when the easiest way to get labeled a crackpot was to say you believed in aliens. How times have changed. In his book Death By Black Hole, Neil deGrasse Tyson writes that “most [...]
Published: 27 March 2013
The following blog post is written by StarTalk Radio’s Social Media Coordinator, Stacey David Severn. Something I’ve noticed about meeting people who have accomplished great things is that they are very accessible. Having “done it all,” they have nothing to prove, and they’re not out to impress. This past weekend, I was privileged to [...]
Published: 23 March 2013
One of the themes that emerged from this Sunday’s podcast, A Conversation with Alan Rickman (Part 2), is Alan’s deep-seated respect for his audience. Neil asks Alan if there is any science fiction character he’d like to play, and in his answer, Alan says that one of his criteria for choosing a role is that [...]
Published: 20 March 2013
After attending our last StarTalk Live, the one at Town Hall in New York City with guests Buzz Aldrin, John Oliver and Andrew Chaikin, I decided to go back and listen to the very first StarTalk Live, recorded September 15, 2011 at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY. Actually, it wasn’t all that long ago, [...]
Published: 16 March 2013
Did you see astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s guest appearance on The Daily Show last week? If you did, I have just 5 words for you: “All you had to do was reverse the video.” And if you didn’t catch the show, I’ll hold off on saying anything more, since a couple of you already rightfully [...]
Published: 12 March 2013
Tonight was yet another night that weather prevented us from seeing PANSTARRS. We’re running out of opportunities. I don’t know about you, but I could use a good laugh or two. So how about a few more Cosmic Quips and Clips from our Comedy Contributor, Dan. First up, Science comedian Brian Malow tells us how [...]
Published: 9 March 2013
For an episode that’s filled with insights into an actor’s craft, I thought one of the more interesting aspects of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s interview with Alan Rickman (Part 1) had nothing to do with acting. Neil often asks celebrity guests about the role science played in their lives. We’ve heard some interesting stories about being [...]
Published: 6 March 2013
Two, in fact. The comet PANSTARRS, tomorrow, and ISON, later this year. PANSTARRS came the closest it’s going to come to Earth yesterday, March 5th, but starting tomorrow, it should be visible in the Northern Hemisphere. And while predicting the quality of comets is a tricky thing (anybody remember the fizzle that was Kohoutek?), [...]
Published: 1 March 2013
Time is trippy. I’m not trying to be cute. I’m serious. Trying to wrap your brain around time – what it is, how it works and more – is enough to blow your mind. Which is exactly what happens to Chuck Nice in this episode of StarTalk Radio when Neil explains how, for photons, which [...]
Published: 26 February 2013
Tonight! StarTalk Live takes Manhattan, and I know some of you will be out there in the audience tweeting away. I know that because I watched you do it at the last StarTalk Live. I lost count trying to figure out how many people I saw tweeting, taking pictures with their phones, emailing them to [...]
Published: 22 February 2013
A couple of weeks ago some of our fans commented that our “new” podcast “StarTalk Live! Satisfying Our Curiosity about Mars(Part 1)” had most of the same content as a StarTalk Live episode on The Nerdist Channel. Of course it did. It’s taken from the same StarTalk Live performance. But the video is also only [...]
Published: 19 February 2013
Last Friday, February 15th, 2013, as much of the world prepared to breathe a sigh of relief as asteroid 2012 DA14 flew past Earth at a distance 5,000 miles closer than our orbiting communications satellites, there were many people who were afraid that somehow all our calculations were somehow wrong, and that the asteroid would [...]
Published: 14 February 2013
The presale is over, but tickets are still on sale for StarTalk Live at Town Hall in NYC 2/27/13 with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Eugene Mirman & very special guests! The show starts at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $35 and $50 plus Ticketmaster fees. Here’s the link to the StarTalk Live at Town Hall page on [...]
Published: 12 February 2013
More exciting news from StarTalk. We’re building an online “Cosmic Community” of academic and scientific organizations, programming groups, schools and astronomy clubs that will promote excitement and interest in STEM education. And we can’t do it without you! Our goal is to create a destination where anyone who loves science can come to find out [...]
Published: 8 February 2013
Do you remember Dr. David Grinspoon, our co-host from our “Real Science with Bill Maher” episodes? Well, it turns out he’s not just @DrFunkySpoon, the Curator of Astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He’s also a co-investigator on the Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, one of the experiments on the Mars Science [...]
Published: 5 February 2013
Thank you all for your response to our new Cosmic Quips and Clips feature. We’re happy to announce that one of our fans has volunteered to help us out. His name is Dan Perlman and he’s a comedian from New York City. He performs regularly at Stand Up NY in Manhattan and all over New [...]
Published: 1 February 2013
Why should you listen to this Sunday’s podcast, the StarTalk Radio Season 3 Time Capsule? We’ll let the episode speak for itself: “Are you making mini-black holes at CERN?” – Neil deGrasse Tyson “I think that anything that humankind can imagine, they can do.” – Morgan Freeman “Bosons like to party.” – Kyle Cranmer “How [...]
Published: 29 January 2013
On January 13, 2013 StarTalk Radio’s Social Media Coordinator, Stacey David Severn, was in the audience at The Explorer’s Club in NYC for the Exploring Legends Interview Series session with General Charles M. Duke Jr., one of only 12 men to ever walk on the Moon. In this guest blog post, she shares her experience [...]
Published: 24 January 2013
Rumor confirmed! Tickets for our next StarTalk Live at Bell House on February 7, 2013 go on sale tomorrow, January 25, at noon ET. We don’t know the guests yet, but we do know the stars: astrophysicist and host Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Eugene Mirman. Doors will open at 8:00pm, show will start [...]
Published: 23 January 2013
What night is “StarTalk Radio Night” for you? Are you right there at 7:00 PM ET on Sunday night, waiting for our new podcast to stream through your iTunes? Or do you wait until the kids have gone to bed on Tuesday nights, grab a glass of wine, and listen to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson [...]
Published: 20 January 2013
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day tomorrow, join StarTalk Radio tonight as we celebrate the civil rights leader’s life by replaying astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s interview with Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura. In this first part of Neil’s interview with Nichelle, the pair discuss Star Trek and the impact the show [...]
Published: 15 January 2013
Here at StarTalk Radio, it’s no secret that we believe that science and comedy work quite well together. And while it’s true that adding a little humor into the mix makes it easier for some people to enjoy (and understand) the science, it is also true that adding a little science into some humor can [...]
Published: 12 January 2013
Have you ever just hung out with your friends, talking about whether warp drive was really possible and the Starship Enterprise could actually travel faster than light? Or got into a debate about would actually happen to a living thing if you tried to teleport it from one place to another using a transporter beam [...]
Published: 8 January 2013
Thank you for all of your responses to our Season 3 StarTalk Radio Fan Favorite Poll. They were quite interesting, and in a few cases, surprising. (Well, I was surprised, anyway. My favorite episode barely made the Top 20. Goes to show what I know.) We’ll be using your feedback to create our Season 3 [...]
Published: 5 January 2013
When I heard that this Sunday’s episode was going to be Neil deGrasse Tyson hanging out with Baba Booey, The Nerdist and The Bad Astronomer at San Diego Comic-Con, I expected a non-stop fan boy geek-out. After all, Chris Hardwick loves him some comics, and with Neil’s recent appearance in Superman helping the Man of [...]
Published: 28 December 2012
It’s almost the end of the year, and that means it’s time for every blogger on the planet to come up with their Top Ten lists. For me, it’s the Top 10 Most Listened To Episodes of 2012. Before we get to the list, though, I want to give you the heads up that some [...]
Published: 22 December 2012
We asked you for questions about winter and the holidays, and you came back with some great ones. Less than the over 800 questions you submitted for the Mayan apocalypse and other disasters, but really, how can a jolly fat man with a beard compete with a full-on apocalypse? Naturally, there were questions about how [...]
Published: 18 December 2012
Have you seen the episode of StarTalk on the Nerdist Channel where Neil interviews GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan? If not, you can watch it below. I was lucky enough to be at the taping of that interview, and I wanted to share something with you that may not come out in the episode. In [...]
Published: 15 December 2012
One of the best things about StarTalk Radio is that, while we’re totally willing to discuss pop culture items like ghosts and Mayan apocalypses and killer meteors and whether Santa could actually visit houses around the world in a single night, we do so from a place of scientific fact, experimentation and indisputable data. [...]
Published: 11 December 2012
If you thought the Perseids were great this year, then you’re in for a treat, because the Geminids are coming this week and there’s every reason to hope they’ll be even better. In fact, many predict that it will be the best meteor shower of the year. The Geminids peak on the night of [...]
Published: 7 December 2012
If you were disappointed that you couldn’t see StarTalk Live at the Business Insider IGNITION Conference, I have some good news for you. We recorded it. In fact, it’s going to be this Sunday’s Podcast. I just listened to it, and I think you’re going to enjoy it when you get to hear it Sunday [...]
Published: 4 December 2012
As a result of our recent survey, we discovered something that we’d like to change. It turns out that we have more men in our audience than women. Considerably more. Now, this came as a bit of a surprise to me (Jeff), at least based on my interactions with our audience on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, [...]
Published: 30 November 2012
When Curiosity landed on Mars, it took the news 14 minutes to reach us because of the speed of radio waves and the distance Mars was from Earth at that moment. Back on May 3, 2012 I asked our audience to give us their questions for Alan Rickman, who Neil deGrasse Tyson interviewed for StarTalk [...]
Published: 22 November 2012
Warning: This post is going to be an effusive outpouring of geeky goodness. That’s because I just got to listen to this Sunday’s new episode, “The Best of Both Worlds”, where Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews Star Trek: The Next Generation stars LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner from the floor of San Diego Comic-Con 2012. It doesn’t [...]
Published: 16 November 2012
I’m lousy at remembering to wish people happy birthday. Even in the days of Facebook-assisted memory, I still forget birthdays. And now it seems that I’m not just lousy at remembering friends’ birthdays… I’m lousy at remembering the birthdays of guests on our show. November 13th was Whoopi Goldberg’s birthday, and I missed it. I [...]
Published: 13 November 2012
Is anyone else having a sense of déjà vu when watching StarTalk on The Nerdist Channel? Of course, it’s not déjà vu. As I watch the episodes, I’m not getting a phantom feeling that I’ve experienced it before, because I actually did experience it before. And if you’ve heard the podcast prior to seeing the [...]
Published: 9 November 2012
“Bosons like to party!” –Kyle Cranmer “I am so old I remember when there was no such thing as coherent light.” –Bill Nye “Answer me truthfully. Are you making mini black holes at CERN?” –Neil deGrasse Tyson “Are you moving so quick now that it seems like time has stopped?” –Eugene Mirman Some of our [...]
Published: 6 November 2012
Did you catch the premier of StarTalk on the Nerdist Channel on YouTube last week? What did you think of it? (Tell us in the comments below.) In case you didn’t catch it (and if you, like me, were suffering from the impact of Superstorm Sandy, you might not have caught the show), it was [...]
Published: 26 October 2012
This week, two things finally happened that we’ve all been waiting for for a long time. First, we have an official launch date for StarTalk on The Nerdist Channel on YouTube: Nov. 1. (You can subscribe to the Nerdist Channel to get updates on when new StarTalk video episodes will be available.) And second, we’re [...]
Published: 23 October 2012
In honor of National Chemistry Week, I went back and listened to The Cosmic Chemistry of Cosmetics from last year. And while I normally trust astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to educate me while he entertains me, I did not have high hopes for a show on cosmetics. But from the first moments of the [...]
Published: 19 October 2012
As much fun as we have with the interviews of guest scientists and celebrities, one of my personal favorite segments we do are the Cosmic Queries. That’s because watching Neil deGrasse Tyson answer fan questions submitted by you, on the fly, off the cuff, is just a lot of fun. Throw in the interplay with [...]
Published: 16 October 2012
Are you a Josh Groban fan? Since Josh has sold over 24 million albums worldwide, you just might be. And if you are, we’re pretty sure you’re going to enjoy the StarTalk Radio interview that Neil deGrasse Tyson did with Josh today in his office at The Hayden Planetarium in New York City. In it, [...]
Published: 11 October 2012
Our guest blogger today is Stacey Severn, a StarTalk Radio fan. You may remember her as the author of the blog post, “From the Audience at StarTalk Live: 9-14-12.” Stacey recently had the opportunity to be one of the volunteer social media reps for NASA covering last week’s SpaceX launch. On Sunday night, October 7, [...]
Published: 9 October 2012
As you know, StarTalk Radio is partially funded by the National Science Foundation. Together, we’re surveying our fans about their experiences with StarTalk Radio: the show, the website, our social media presence. Your feedback will help us better understand our audience and the ways you’re using the various StarTalk Radio media, from our RSS feed [...]
Published: 4 October 2012
If you’re a fan of feisty, never-shy-with-his-opinions Bill Maher, you might have thought the first part of Neil’s interview with him was… a little restrained. Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about with Part 2 of Real Time with Bill Maher, which will be posted this Sunday, October 7th at 7:00 PM EST. Bill is [...]
Published: 2 October 2012
How would you like to help map the Moon or Vesta? Or maybe you’re interested in helping pick out a Kuiper Belt Object for detailed inspection by NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft? Science fiction? Wish fulfillment? Fantasy? Alternate Reality Game? No, my friends, this is real reality. In Moon Mappers, you’ll use images taken by the [...]
Published: 28 September 2012
As you may have seen or heard, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is taking StarTalk Live where it has never gone before: the Business Insider Ignition Conference in New York City on November 27th. Unlike the last StarTalk Live at The Bell House, tickets haven’t sold out yet. (That may have to do with the fact [...]
Published: 25 September 2012
Today’s guest blogger is Katya Raffensperger, who was our summer intern this past summer and is now our social media intern. Katya is a Junior at Smith College, where she is studying government. She also curates a Celtic mythology blog, which you can see here. You’ll be seeing more posts from her here on the [...]
Published: 20 September 2012
If I told you that the always incendiary, never shy Bill Maher was going to be the guest on this Sunday’s StarTalk Radio Podcast, what kind of show would you anticipate? Well, put away your expectations and get ready for a thoughtful discussion between two of today’s leading voices for rationality and scientific literacy. (Oh, [...]
Published: 18 September 2012
Our guest blogger today is Stacey Severn, a fan who was in the audience at last Friday’s StarTalk Live at the Bell House. Stacey sent us this wonderful review of the show, along with some excellent pictures. (It must run in the family – we’ve used pictures taken by her son, Elliot, from previous StarTalk [...]
Published: 13 September 2012
Are you going to StarTalk Live at The Bell House Friday night, 9/14/12? Then we want to hear from you. Write up a short review of the show, or take some pictures, and we’ll post your work here on the blog. If you include a link (to your Flickr page, your Pinterest board, your Tumblr, [...]
Published: 10 September 2012
Last year, on the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11, StarTalk Radio produced a special episode about that fateful day. Here’s how Neil deGrasse Tyson starts the episode: “…I lived three and a half blocks from what would later be known as Ground Zero. I was home that morning, and the entire series of [...]
Published: 7 September 2012
I just finished listening to what you’ll be able to hear this Sunday night: “A Tribute to Neil Armstrong.” The episode is an interesting blend of fan questions and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s personal recollections celebrating the life of the NASA astronaut who was the first man to walk on the moon. Among other [...]
Published: 4 September 2012
StarTalk Radio is proud to be part of a community that loves science and cares about the future. We all share a mission: to popularize science, to show how important it is to our lives and that our best hope for the future lies in learning, questioning and exploring. In always looking up. We’re about [...]
Published: 24 August 2012
When I worked at Marvel Comics (yes, feel free to turn green with envy: I worked at both the Mighty House of Ideas and now, StarTalk Radio!), we did in fact spend plenty of time sitting around talking about who was stronger, The Hulk or Thor, or why Magneto, the Master of Magnetism, couldn’t just [...]
Published: 21 August 2012
The Rumors have been confirmed! Tickets just went on sale within the last hour for the next StarTalk Live. It’s the kick off event for the 5th Annual Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival at The Bell House ion 149 th Street in Brooklyn NY. In addition to Eugene Mirman and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the only [...]
Published: 17 August 2012
During the Curiosity Rover landing, some of our fans on Facebook commented about the apparent lack of people of color in the control room. One fan, Mike, brought up the fact that Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura, had been part of a NASA effort to recruit women and minorities. You can hear the story [...]
Published: 15 August 2012
We interrupt our regularly scheduled Wednesday night blog post for breaking news: We have heard unconfirmed reports that the next StarTalk Live will be at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY on Friday, September 14th. Details are sketchy at the moment, but here’s what we can tell you: it is likely that the event will [...]
Published: 13 August 2012
Last night, under clear skies in the northern New Jersey suburbs, my 7-year old-daughter, my wife and I lay on our backs looking up at the night sky, waiting for the Perseids. We’d been clouded out the night before, and my daughter spent all day hoping that Sunday night would be clear. It never got [...]
Published: 10 August 2012
The stellar hits just keep coming! The Super Moon, the transit of Venus across the Sun, and of course, the Mars Curiosity Rover landing. And this weekend is the annual August return of my favorite celestial fireworks display: the Perseid Meteor Shower. The Perseids are basically dust and debris from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. But when [...]
Published: 8 August 2012
Football season starts tomorrow night. Well, okay, preseason, if you want to split hairs. Either way, it’s finally time to turn our attention from swimming and gymnastics (if it was there at all!) to something with a little more… impact. Of course, when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson turns his attention to a topic, we all [...]
Published: 6 August 2012
In the summer of 1969 I was 7 years old. The only thing I remember doing from July 16th to July 24th was following the flight of Apollo 11 in the papers, on the radio and on the television with Walter Cronkite. Other than a few conversations with my grandparents about what I was doing [...]
Published: 3 August 2012
NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory on Nov. 26, 2011… and now, just days away, it’s about to reach its destination. These have been exciting times for anybody who has even the slightest interest in astronomy and our universe. From the new discoveries by Cassini, Keppler and Hubble to the transit of Venus across the [...]
Published: 1 August 2012
If you thought the transit of Venus across the Sun was a big deal, then strap yourself in because the August 5th landing of the NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, AKA the Curiosity rover, will be the main event. On Friday I’ll post a listing of the coverage of the event, from Bill Nye and the [...]
Published: 30 July 2012
Contentious debates about science funding. Ideological political posturing. Partisan bickering. It may sound like Sunday morning news shows, or any time on Fox News or MSNBC, but in fact, it’s an episode of StarTalk Radio about how science gets made in Congress. In all honesty, I didn’t know what to expect when I listened to [...]
Published: 27 July 2012
Behind every website, every company’s computer network, every server farm, in fact, behind every “cloud” on the Internet, is a system administrator. They are the unsung heroes of today’s wired world, at least, unsung every other day of the year. Today, the final Friday in July, is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Today we sing their [...]
Published: 25 July 2012
Have you ever seen the “Mac vs PC” commercials? Then you know John Hodgman, who plays PC. But he has a dirty little secret, and Neil deGrasse Tyson gets him to spill the beans in this episode, “A Conversation with John Hodgman.” You see, Neil has been a “Mac guy” since 1985, and he couldn’t [...]
Published: 23 July 2012
Did you know that the first video game was Space War, a crowd-sourced game created at MIT in 1961? Video games have come a long way since then, and this 2-part episode of StarTalk Radio takes us on a journey through the history and science of video games, from Pong to Skyrim and beyond. In [...]
Published: 20 July 2012
When I found out that StarTalk was going to be one of the shows on Chris Hardwick’s new Nerdist Channel on YouTube, I was pretty stoked. You see, I’m a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. After every episode, Chris Hardwick hosts a show called Talking Dead, where he and his celebrity guests discuss [...]
Published: 18 July 2012
I was a fan of the Robin Williams movie, “Awakenings,” so when I found out that Neil deGrasse Tyson had interviewed Oliver Sacks, the neurologist Williams played, I had to give it a listen. In typical StarTalk Radio fashion, I learned some facts I wasn’t expecting to learn from the show, in which Neil and [...]
Published: 16 July 2012
Last Wednesday, July 11th, I went to my first StarTalk Live. It was Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Particle Party at The Bell House, with guests Bill Nye the Science Guy, CERN Physicist and NYU Assistant Professor of Physics Kyle Cranmer, author Sarah Vowell, 30 Rock comedian Scott Adsit, and comic co-host Eugene Mirman. Like many of [...]
Published: 10 July 2012
Sunday night I was privileged to attend a Google+ Hangout on Air for the Virtual Star Party hosted by Fraser Cain, who started the website UniverseToday.com and hosts Astronomy Cast along with Dr. Pamela L. Gay. In spite of technical glitches, cloud cover and rainouts, I still got to see M51, the Ring Nebula, the [...]
Published: 5 July 2012
If you weren’t already planning on going to Comic-Con in San Diego, here is one more reason to go: StarTalk Radio host and director of the Hayden Planetarium astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will make his Comic-Con debut in the Indigo Ballroom on July 14th at 12:00 PM. That’s when Nerdist Chris Hardwick hosts a panel [...]
Published: 2 July 2012
One of the pleasures of working with StarTalk is catching up on all of the StarTalk Radio podcasts. With well over 50 of them, the question was, where to start? As you’ll discover in a short time, I’m a sci-fi geek. (I’m discovering that many of you are, too.) Not that we don’t all love [...]
Published: 29 June 2012
I love being part of an organization that is devoted to inspiring people to become more interested in science, especially children. After I first met Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, at the recording session where Neil interviewed Adam Savage, I was walking down the street with this big, goofy grin on my face. I was thrilled [...]
Published: 26 June 2012
During my first week on the job, I had the opportunity to visit the YouTube studios in Manhattan to meet Neil deGrasse Tyson in person. I knew he was filming a segment for an upcoming show that would run on StarTalk Radio and The Nerdist Channel on YouTube, but I had no idea who the [...]
Published: 22 June 2012
Hi there. Welcome to the StarTalk blog. My name is Jeffrey Simons, and I’m the new Social Media director for StarTalk. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about the exciting new developments happening here at StarTalk. First of all, notice that I said StarTalk, not StarTalk Radio. That’s because as you [...]