Astronomy Videos

Episode 238 (24:29) In this episode: Parish census; Children's Homily; Halloweeen; All Saints Day; All Souls Day; Football team heroes; Heroes in heaven Links Related to this Podcast : Fr. Bill's Web Site How to contact me: Skype name: frbill66 Twitter: www.twitter.com/frbill66 Facebook: Fr. William Holtzinger

5 November: Scientists take a closer look at a star first spotted in 1680, how unrelated animals lend a helping hand, a 'Pleistocene Park' in the Netherlands, and a round-up of what's hot elsewhere in Nature.

Noel Patton (founder of T.A. Sciences) is today's featured guest. Topic: A product available today which may extend human lives well beyond traditional limits. Specifically what this product is, how it functions within living cells, and some of the scientific and medical research verifying its effectiveness. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 4, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 23 minutes] (This interview was recorded on October 4, 2009 at the Singularity Summit in New York City.) The product is called TA-65â and is an enzyme (a single molecule) that activates telomerase. Discovered in 2001 by the California bio-tech company Geron, in 2002 it was licensed by T.A. Sciences. Telemerase reverses the normal loss of telemeres which occurs each time cells divide throughout a human life and which sets a limit (called the Hayflick limit) on the number of times human body cells can divide, and consequently how long a human can live.

Observing Life, Dumpin Punkins, Smell of Doom, Driving Bad, the Teapot Effect, Ancient Blasts, Demoting Dinosaurs, Fishy Movements, The Minion Mailbag, and Much More!

The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like tail. Please vote for this podcast at PodcastAlley! Get this podcast story.

Moon Calling. In this show we have an interview with John Sarkissian about the history of the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia [12:50-45:54]. As always, Megan brings us the latest news [01:50-10:35] and Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the November night sky [43:53-57:24]. Our cover art shows Fox Mason at the control desk of the Parkes Telescope in 1970.

Hey Great Show this year from South Park by Alchemy Firworks 2009 is both the 40th anniversary of when man landed on the moon and the International Year of Astronomy and this years display, Journey Through Space, is inspired by both

Ever wondered whether it is scientifically possible to become a superhero? In a new series of podcasts, Dr Christopher Pettigrew (aka Dr Boob*) and I are going to tackle this question. Chris is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry in University College Cork, and in these podcast episodes - which we will publish more than a few times a year - we will uncover whether it is possible now to possess the powers of superheroes, and if we can't, whether in the near future we could engineer ourselves to become superheroes. The first superhero we are tackling is Mystique from X-Men. X-men get their powers from an "X gene" that normal humans do not possess, and Mystique is a shapeshifter who naturally looks blue. Actress Rebecca Romijn portrayed Mystique in the X-Men films - I know I clearly remember the blue body-paint... Mystique has a number of powers including: The ability to change skin colour; The ability to shape-shift - that is, change form; She can impersonate other voices; She can rapidly grow her hair. Within nature, chameleons are able to change their skin colour to match their environment. There are also technologies under current development, such as metamaterials, that can be used to make something look invisible. Through a combination of genetic manipulation to activate melanocytes (and possibly chromatophores), and the use of surface coatings, it is not unforeseeable that we could develop human chameleons. The difficulty here lies in whether we can make a skin colour change a conscious decision - how can you wire up the body such that skin colour responds your thoughts? The challenge of being able to impersonate another person's voice should be easy enough to conquer in the near future through a combination of electronics and simple mimicry. It is also possible to foresee rapid hair growth - this could be accomplished by rapid protein synthesis, such as in spider webs. The biggest difficulty comes with the shape-shifting - how can one change their 3D shape? Tune in to the podcast here (or press play below) to discover what scientific techniques we came up with to tackle the problem of scientifically engineering Mystique: A few extra notes to explain some of the random comments in the show: Iva Davies is the front man of Australian band Icehouse; Shane Warne, Greg Matthews and Graham Gooch are all cricketers who advertised the hair-loss company Advanced Hair; Let us know your thoughts on how we could scientifically engineer Mystique. We rated this a 7.5 out of 10 possibly for the next 200 years - if someone really wanted to, notwithstanding the ethical concerns along the way. Also let us know which superheroes you would be interested in us tackling. * From here on in, Chris will be referred to as Dr Boob - this nickname stems from the fact that Chris's PhD and some of his post-doctoral has been into the study of breast cancer - yes, someone who is actually changing the world!

NASA's next Mars rover, a super-capable robot named Curiosity, will push Mars exploration to a new level. Please vote for this podcast at PodcastAlley! Get this podcast story.

Due to its exceptionally dark skies, Cherry Springs State Park is one of the best places on the eastern seaboard for stargazing and the science of astronomy. Star Parties are a gathering of astronomers.

It s always an adventure to go digging in Seth’s storage locker – who knows what we’ll find … In this imposing pile of paraphernalia, tucked between boxes of socket wrenches and old 45s, we stumble upon the hunt for extrasolar planets, the evidence for water on moons of the solar system, theories of language, a controversial hypothesis for the peopling of the Americas, and a new dinosaur fossil. Guests: Steve Brusatte Vertebrate paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York Steven Pinker Psychologist, Harvard University Geoff Marcy Astronomer, University of California, Berkeley Adam Showman Planetary scientist at the University of Arizona Mike Collins Associate Director, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory Descripción en español

Astronomers have been searching for the mysterious Planet X for hundreds of years. It was the search for a theoretical planet beyond Uranus that turned up Neptune, and then again for Pluto. And even now there are some astronomers who think there's a more distant planet out there. Oh, and there are a bunch of pseudoscience cranks trying to freak people out about the end of the world. Don't worry, we'll make time for them too, but first let's start with some real science.

Imagine an object with the mass of the Sun, crushed down to the size of Manhattan. Now set that object spinning hundreds of times a second, blasting out powerful beams of radiation like a lighthouse. That's a pulsar, one of the most exotic objects in the Universe.

Did you know there are 88 constellations in the night sky? Let's learn about the constellations and other star formations, their history, their connection to the zodiac, and how to find some of them.

In this episode, Daddy Troy demonstrates some software that will encourage your child to learn about space. Specifically he looks at Google Earth, Google Moon, Google Mars, satellite tracking software from NASA, and some astronomy and satellite tracking iphone apps called GoSatWatch, GoSkyWatch and Star Walk. Distributed by Tubemogul.

The Kepler Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2009, may help astronomers find other earth-like planets for the first time. Podcast produced by David Levin. Interviews by Julia Cort. NOVA is produced by WGBH in Boston. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, David H. Koch, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Major funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by Pfizer, the National Science Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0229297. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. For more fun science stories, visit our Web site at pbs.org/nova/sciencenow