Dark Patterns in Marketing, Fake News, Northern White Rhinos, AntarcticaConstant Wonder • Season 2022, Episode 380
Mar 11, 2020 • 1h 40m
Marketing or Manipulation?
Guest: Douglas Thomas, Assistant Professor, Design, Brigham Young University
Font, layout, graphics, color schemes—they're all supposed to make our online experience easier. But "dark patterns," or deceptive design strategies, seek to manipulate us in ways that might be unfair or unethical.
Science of Shopping
Guest: Paco Underhill, environmental psychologist, author, "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," and founder, Envirosell
The design and layout of brick-and-mortar stores are part of their marketing plan. How to realize the ways sellers are trying to influence your behavior.
Fake News
Guest: Jevin West, Assistant Professor, Information School, University of Washington; Carl Bergstrom, Professor, Biology, University of Washington
How to sort through fake news and become a more critical consumer of information.
Bringing Back the Northern White Rhino
Guest: Barbara Durrant, Director, Reproductive Sciences, San Diego Zoo Global
It might sound like Jurassic Park, but scientists at the San Diego Zoo are using cells from a frozen zoo to try to bring back the functionally extinct northern white rhino.
Antarctica's Animals' Can Come Back to Life
Guest: Byron Adams, Evolutionary Ecologist, Brigham Young University
While Antarctica might seem like a barren wasteland of ice, it actually contains an incredibly resilient ecosystem of microorganisms—creatures who can essentially hibernate for decades and then come back to life when conditions are just right. Promising implications for human medicine.
Galapagos
Guest: Elizabeth Hennessy, Assistant Professor, History and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author, "On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galapagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden"
The Galapagos became famous for what they taught us about evolution. But now scientists are debating efforts to preserve species that live there, which may work against the forces of evolution.