Passions and Interests

Guest: Vanessa Escobar, Support Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland 

Guest: Malcolm Walter, Professor of Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney  Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection says that organisms evolve in response to changes in their environment. So the flip side of Darwin’s theory is that if there’s no change in an environment, organisms won’t change either. Evidence of an organism that has remained completely unchanged for millions of years fully supports Darwin’s theory of evolution. Fossils dating from 1.8 to 2.8 billion years old remain untouched on the ocean’s floor.   “On the sea floor there’s mud, very soft mud,” says Walter, “and there’s microbes living in that mud.”  Walter says oxygen is what drives evolution. “In ancient times, the whole of the earth had very little oxygen in waters of the ocean and the atmosphere.”

Guest: Dale Rowe, Cybersecurity Expert and IT Professor at BYU 

Guest: Dr. Ray Colello, Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine  The National Football League is negotiating a settlement with 5,000 former players who accuse the NFL of hiding the dangers of concussions. Efforts to address the problem of football head injuries has fallen along two lines – educating players and coaches about the danger of concussion and redesigning helmets to better protect players. Dr. Colello believes magnets might be a better answer than adding more padding to a football helmet.  “We’re not talking about putting the magnets on the outside of the helmet, but on the inside by the polycarbonated shell,” says Colello. This reduces the linear forces and extends the time impact takes place.