Strange New Worlds: A Science & Star Trek Podcast

Guest: Dr. Erin Macdonald Star Trek science advisor Dr. Erin Macdonald joins Mike to discuss the science behind Star Trek: Prodigy’s first season, from protostars to red giants, damped sine waves to scientific ethics. Mike also asks Erin about her new children’s book, Star Trek: My First Book of Space, and her cameo appearance in the Prodigy finale! Star Trek: My First Book of Space, by Dr. Erin Macdonald: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710867/star-trek-my-first-book-of-space-by-erin-macdonald-phd-illustrated-by-jason-kayser/ Dr. Erin on Star Formation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWIVImXW3yY&ab_channel=ParamountPlus Homoploid hybrid speciation in the real world and in Star Trek: Prodigy by Prof. Mohamed Noor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PJbeySsqn0&ab_channel=BioTrekkieExplains%21 Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Erin: https://twitter.com/drerinmac

Guest: Lisa Wong We embark on 2023 with a conversation between Mike and his book editor sister, Lisa Wong. Together, they pick apart Ensign Boimler's holonovel from the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "Crisis Point II: Paradoxus" (Season 3, Episode 8), using it as a case study to discuss everything from romantic subplots to writer flow states to exploring the human condition. Soulful Editing, Lisa's website: https://sites.google.com/view/bookbeta/home "We Need More Books Without Romance" by Angela Chen: https://electricliterature.com/we-need-more-books-without-romance/ Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai

Mike reflects on 2022 and the most recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in Chicago, IL. Mike's Carnegie Science Neighborhood Lecture on "The Science of Star Trek": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRUnpAtJ3A&ab_channel=CarnegieEarth%26PlanetsLaboratory Mike on Science Friday's episode "Searching For Life On The Red Planet Prompts Deeper Questions": https://www.sciencefriday.com/person/mike-l-wong/ Mike on Science Friday's "Sun Camp: Beyond the Sun": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMUEvEtZGGI&list=PLB2w1JNHV4HR0vBq5XLbsrnVCrDs-9o1h&index=5&ab_channel=SciFri Mike on the Infinite Diversity podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id-124-lower-decks-the-stars-at-night/id1522356073?i=1000584610845 Mike on NASA's "Ask An Astrobiologist!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLKGosgMTIs&ab_channel=NASAAstrobiology Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai

Guest: Daniel Nicholls From Badgey to Peanut Hamper, AGIMUS to the Aledo, artificial intelligence is rife in Star Trek: Lower Decks. Daniel Nicholls, the Information Systems Manager at Carnegie Sciences's Earth & Planets Laboratory, joins Mike to discuss how these fictional examples of AI reflect our fears and desires for AI in the real world. Follow us on Twitter: Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai

Guest: Prof. Rica French Mike speaks to Rica French, Professor of Astronomy at MiraCosta College and the Associate Director of the Center for Astronomy Education, about how she engages Trekkies at Star Trek conventions and students at MiraCosta about the wonders of the universe. Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: twitter.com/miquai Rica: https://twitter.com/ricadink

Guest: Prof. Mohamed Noor Dr. Mohamed Noor—Professor of Biology and Interim Dean of Arts & Sciences at Duke University—returns to Strange New Worlds to talk about how being a science consultant for the Star Trek universe inspired his latest paper, "Thinking outside Earth’s box—how might heredity and evolution differ on other worlds?" Mohamed's paper, "Thinking outside Earth’s box—how might heredity and evolution differ on other worlds?": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12052-022-00172-4 Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Mohamed: https://twitter.com/mafnoor

Guest: Lucas Fifer We've given Europa a lot of attention this year, but Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, is also one of the most intriguing places to seek out new life in our solar system. On this episode of Strange New Worlds, we learn all about Enceladus's subsurface ocean, as revealed by NASA's Cassini orbiter and a new computer model developed by planetary scientist and astrobiologist Lucas Fifer. Is Enceladus's ocean habitable? What's the best strategy for looking for biosignatures? And what would it mean to find life out there? Lucas's paper, "Chemical Fractionation Modeling of Plumes Indicates a Gas-rich, Moderately Alkaline Enceladus Ocean": https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ac7a9f Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/miquai Mike: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Lucas: https://twitter.com/fifebeyondearth

Guest: Dr. Jason von Stietz In Part 2 of our most recent conversation with clinical psychologist Dr. Jason von Stietz, we tackle psychological themes from Season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, from Spock unleashing his rage to Pike managing the trauma of experiencing his own, gruesome future. Jason's new podcast, Movie House Sport Psychology: https://anchor.fm/moviehousesportpsychology Follow us on Twitter! Mike: twitter.com/miquai Jason: twitter.com/CBTSportPsych Strange New Worlds: twitter.com/scienceoftrek

Guest: Dr. Jason von Stietz Clinical psychologist Dr. Jason von Stietz returns to discuss some of the psychological themes in the first two seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks, from Mariner's therapy in "Crisis Point" to Boimler's perfectionism in "I, Excretus." Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Jason: https://twitter.com/CBTSportPsych Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek

Guest: Prof. Sheri Wells-Jensen In Part 2 of a conversation with Professor Sheri Wells-Jensen, we learn about Dr. Wells-Jensen's academic work on disability and inclusion in space exploration: why there should be blind astronauts, how disability can be a model for first contact, and portrayals of disability in Star Trek. "The Case for Disabled Astronauts" by Sheri Wells-Jensen: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-case-for-disabled-astronauts/ "Models of Disability as Models of First Contact" by Wells-Jensen & Zuber (2020): https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11120676 "An alternate vision for colonization" by Wells-Jensen et al. (2019): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.02.012 Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek

Guest: Prof. Sheri Wells-Jensen In Part 1 of a conversation with Professor Sheri Wells-Jensen, we chat about Dr. Wells-Jensen's involvement in creating Species 10-C's language for Season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery, how deciphering alien languages might work in reality, and the connections between language and thought, mind and body. Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek

Guest: Dr. Bob Pappalardo On the grand finale of our #EuropaWatch mini-series based on Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, the Project Scientist for NASA's Europa Clipper mission, Dr. Bob Pappalardo, joins us to tell us about the real-life spacecraft launching for Europa in 2024. Find out more about the Europa Clipper mission here: https://europa.nasa.gov/ Carnegie Earth & Planets Laboratory's Neighborhood Lecture on The Science of Star Trek, featuring Mike Wong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRUnpAtJ3A&ab_channel=CarnegieEarth%26PlanetsLaboratory Follow us on Twitter: Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Bob: https://twitter.com/RPappalardo Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek

On this short solo episode, Mike reflects on the 2022 Astrobiology Science Conference, his first in-person science conference in nearly 3 years. Galactic Journey: http://galacticjourney.org/ Register for Mike's virtual "Science of Star Trek" Carnegie Neighborhood Lecture (June 16): carnegiescience.edu/events/lectures…ience-star-trek Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/miquai

Guest: Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya Science fiction—like all forms of literature, art, and media—fossilizes a slice of the way that people made sense of the world at the time in which it was created. Dr. Anastasia Klimchynskaya joins Mike to explain the technoscientific paradox behind science fiction’s emergence as a brand-new genre in the 19th century and how Star Trek continues to reflect its themes to this day. Register for Mike's virtual "Science of Star Trek" Carnegie Neighborhood Lecture (June 16): https://carnegiescience.edu/events/lectures/science-star-trek Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Anastasia: https://twitter.com/anaklimchy

Guest: Adriana Gómez-Buckley On the final episode of the Europa Watch mini-series, Mike speaks to University of Washington astrobiologist Adriana Gómez-Buckley about her new scientific paper on simulating bacterial and viral ecosystems in Europa's subsurface ocean. "Modeling Virus and Bacteria Populations in Europa’s Subsurface Ocean" by Adriana Gómez-Buckley et al.: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/5/620 Follow us on Twitter! Strange New Worlds: https://twitter.com/scienceoftrek Mike: https://twitter.com/miquai Adriana: https://twitter.com/astro_agb

Guests: Dr. Erin Macdonald & Prof. Mohamed Noor The official Star Trek science consultants, Dr. Erin Macdonald and Prof. Mohamed Noor, beam aboard to discuss the science behind Star Trek: Discovery's fourth season. We cover the Dark Matter Anomaly, gravitational waves, on-screen physics equations, gas giant aliens, epigenetic clocks, communicating with hydrocarbon pheromones, and more! Erin's Spacetime Productions: https://www.spacetimeproductions.net/ Mohamed's YouTube channel "BioTrekkie Explains!": https://www.youtube.com/c/BioTrekkieExplains Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Erin: https://twitter.com/drerinmac Mohamed: https://twitter.com/mafnoor

Inspired by the events of PIC: "Two of One," Mike interviews random Trekkies at Star Trek: Mission Chicago to see if they would want to board a mission to Europa. Follow Mike on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Dr. James T. Keane On the third episode of #EuropaWatch, we talk about Io (surprise!) and life on Io (even bigger surprise!) with Io evangelist Dr. James T. Keane (best surprise!) based on the revelations from PIC: "Fly Me to the Moon." Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai James: https://twitter.com/jtuttlekeane

Mike's second spontaneous Europa-themed episode takes an in-depth look at the LA Times article in Q's hands from the Star Trek: Picard episode "Watcher." Follow Mike on Twitter: twitter.com/Miquai

Guest: Thomas Marrone Designing Star Trek ships is both a science and an art. Thomas Marrone, Star Trek Online's Associate Art Director, joins Mike to talk about the process of creating starships and how his STO designs found their way into Star Trek: Picard's second season. Thomas' ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/thomasmarrone "My Life at Warp Speed," a short documentary about Thomas' work: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11510833-star-trek-online%3A-my-life-at-warp-speed Follow us on Twitter! Mike: https://twitter.com/Miquai Thomas: https://twitter.com/thomasthecat