Jan
4
I reported this piece over the summer and it’s finally out in the world! It’s about an RPI engineer who studied how jazz music can help teach first responders to improvise better under pressure.
It was produced for IEEE Spectrum Radio in collaboration with the NSF, and was mixed (beautifully) by Dennis Foley. You can listen to the complete one-hour show on PRX here (we’re at minute 40) or you can listen to my standalone piece below.
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Dec
23
It’s official – reporting on alcohol has become a Distillations holiday tradition. In 2007 we covered champagne. In 2010 it was beer. And this year, the hard stuff. First, producer Catherine Girardeau visits St. George Spirits in Alameda, California, where master distillers concoct tasty artisan spirits. Catherine also visits one of my favorite Bay Area spots – the Exploratorium – for a distillation demonstration. Then, a segment about the morning after – a study of the hangover. Pickled sheep eyes in tomato juice, anyone?
Photo of Buddha’s Hand Citron Vodka by Erin Hall, courtesy of St. George Spirits.
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Dec
9
On this episode of Distillations, it’s a symphony of science. First, our assistant producer Anne Fredrickson reveals one of the secrets of Stradivari violins’ phenomenal sound. Then, a profile of sound artist Susan Alexjander, who uses vibrational frequencies from the natural world – from DNA to planetary spins – to create her music. I produced that one, my first non-narrated piece in awhile.
Image courtesy of the Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library, Othmer Library of Chemical History, Chemical Heritage Foundation.
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Nov
25
Attention all shoppers, this episode of Distillations is all about what happens to you chemically when you hit the mall. First, producer Sheri Quinn has the story of her mom, a shopoholic. She interviewed my good friend Mauricio Delgado, a neuroscientist at Rutgers, Newark, about what happens in your brain when you shop. Then, Lindsay Patterson explains the dangers hiding in… receipts?
Image courtesy of Flickr user kevinspencer.
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Nov
11
In this latest episode of Distillations, we ask the age-old question: are we alone in the universe? First, a segment about how two famous cosmologists battled it out over the Big Bang. Then, producer Andrew Stelzer visits the SETI Institute to learn about the search for extra terrestrial life, and, once we find it, how we’ll go about making conversation. If you’re a space nerd like me, you’ll love hearing the Arecibo message. It’s like an intergalactic techno song. So cool.
Image courtesy of NASA.
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Oct
28
I’ve been looking for an excuse to visit Hyde Park’s CIA since I moved to the Hudson Valley, and I finally found one. On this Halloween episode of Distillations, I learn to make candy corn with the Culinary Institute’s Peter Greweling. Plus, I find an excuse to call my friend Iris – a Dutch expat now living in Alaska – to interview her about a Dutch treat I can only describe as… inedible. But she LOVES it. We have a segment on what Drop, or salt licorice, is made of. Here’s a hint: one of the ingredients can also be found in fertilizer.
Image courtesy of flickr user Juushika Redgrave.
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Oct
14
My upstate NY garden is offering up the last of its bounty for the season – a few green beans, the final tomatoes, some late-season lettuces. And in this week’s episode of Distillations, we celebrate the end of the fall harvest. First, a segment on the Doomsday Vault, a safe-deposit box for plant seeds – buried deep in a mountain in the middle of the Arctic. Then, producer Sabiha Khan has the story of Miguel Santistevan, who uses the farming techniques of his ancestors to grow crops in the harsh high desert of Northern New Mexico.
Image courtesy of Mary Tefre/Svalbard Globale Seed Vault.
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