Libraries are the topic of a two-hour discussion by Stephen Abram from Gale Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses, discusses general library technology, research databases, crowd sourcing, ebooks, library innovation, and library website development for over two hours at Bibliotech (http://bit.ly/yvwe9F). His company creates and maintains more than 600 databases that are published online, in print, as eBooks and in microform.

MindFlex is a game that uses brain waves to control a small ball suspended on a column of air. Fifteen minutes into a 50 minute broadcast, “Wired for Thought”, from seti.org a detailed ten-minute discussion about the game and its implications is presented.  The game sells for as little as $50 online at places like this one. Following MindFlex is another talk about the Human Connectome Project that’s investigating how the brain is wired. The site has still shots and videos representing various ways of examining the brain. If that interests you, another podcast running about 51 minutes, done in 2009, about the Allen Institute for Brain Research in Seattle is at BSP 61. In 2009 the institute was creating a map of the human brain to show what genes are active at any given location. The implications for neuroscience research, and the unique career challenges of working in the non-profit biotech industry are discussed.

Pinchas Zukerman, one of the world’s greatest violinists, is conductor of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He regularly conducts master classes over the internet from a broom closet. How and why he can even teach in countries that block personal visits are explained in this 54 minute episode at Master Class.

Beyond the Book is a site that to date has produced about 273 podcasts, starting in 2006, and producing about twenty-five annually. I looked at summaries starting in 2011 until now and selected nineteen to hear. Of those six are worth recommending, as follows: the first, “Twitter by the Numbers” is on page four, lasts eighteen minutes and talks about how it is used, value to authors and publishers, how to access, and how to apply and manage time on it efficiently using such apps as Hoot Suite a social media dashboard, or TweetDeck.

“E-magination 2011,” the second selection, is 42 minutes long under Best of BTB at 42 min, evolution of e-books, e-readers, use of twitter, varied e-reader formats, iPad vs Kindle, US vs India, publication of an e-book on Twitter and ElectricLiterature.com Reference is also made to overdrive.com where over 150 devices are listed with the types of files they can read (PDF, Kindle, OEPub, MP3, OPDF, WMA, WMV ) so you can see what files will work on the Kindle or iPad or iPhone, etc.

Number three is “Self-publishing” where over eighteen minutes you’ll learn that Kindle is used most often for books and fiction prevails while non-fiction users who often apply the information on the job prefer hard copy. Self publishing boot camps exist! You also need an editor and cover designer so you don’t make such mistakes as having odd numbers on the left pages instead of the right, omitting a copyright notice and using unathorized images.

Writing and publishing scientific papers is number four, called “The Doctors Book Is In” and lasts 21 minutes by the author of a book on the subject. When it first appeared in 1979, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper outlined the basic structure of scientific articles, and detailed the basics of good scientific writing style. A generation later, the basics remain, but the writing and publishing process has evolved from the days of typewriters and printed galley.

Number five, “Copyright and Commerce” is 76 minutes with a three person panel that discusses SOPA, orphan works, non-profit vs commercial use, fair use of photos, and small claims alternative to litgation by owners. One panelist points out that about 80% of images appearing on the internet are unauthorized.

European versus US mindsets is the theme of episode six, here, for fifteen minutes. Once upon a time, there were only two kinds of books — good books, and all the others. In recent years, though, books have rapidly changed and soon the distinction will be difficult. While printed books endure, many wonder how long. Hard copy now is often combined with an online supplement. The curation concept is discussed, and the 200 year history of dueling. You will also learn how “ginger nuts,” the sausage of cookies, were made.

Dr Den Goldacre at a TED (Technology Education and Design)Talk discusses bad science with examples of each type in a fourteen minute video that cannot be downloaded, but can be played in the background with an audio recorder running to save the result for later listening. Ben Goldacre has degrees in clinical medicine and philosophy. He currently works as an academic in epidemiology and writes a weekly column, Bad Science, for The Guardian. You’ll see the download site is run by the Royal Institute of Britain where other videos are available, but Dr Goldacre’s talk was the most interesting item in the batch.

Dr Goldacre is a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 Science Unit. Other podcasts from there include two 30-minute sessions devoted to placebos. Studies suggest the placebo effect can have a significant impact on the course of a wide range of illnesses, including depression, irritable bowel syndrome and angina. Dr Goldacre looks at the growing body of research into the placebo effect, and explores the factors influencing the strength of the placebo response. You can listen and record Part 1 and Part 2 but I couldn’t find a place where the files can be downloaded. Here’s the BBC location, if you wish to try.

Raj Patel argues for 54 minutes that the only way to feed everyone is to completely rethink agriculture at Feeding Ten Billion from his book The Value of Nothing.

Economic sanctions work, sometimes, but most likely on small rather than large countries as discussed for 23 minutes on Planet Money here. That they were used against Haiti with undesired effects is noted towards the end of the session.

Charles Lindbergh is mostly known for being a famous aviator, but he also worked with a Dr Alexis Carrel before WWII on a pump to keep organs fresh for transplantation. Dr Carrel is described in an episode of Engines of Our Ingenuity at http://bit.ly/wRWd6I, but what isn’t mentioned is how friendly he and Lindbergh were with the Germans before the start of the war.

Lab Out Loud, an educational netcast supported by The National Science Teachers Association interviews David Shapiro, author of a graphic novel, Terra Tempo: Ice Age Cataclysm, who describes how the book was created and the use of fiction in educating readers about geology. Shapiro’s young characters travel back in time to Glacial Lake Missoula and witness the resulting floods when the ice dam breaks: http://bit.ly/A4r48m. Mention of the Active Reader app is made, so for Apple device users here is a link to the app developer, Tallchair,  that best displays what the app can do in creating graphic material: http://bit.ly/wGAU2h .

In another hour-long episode of Lab Out Loud, http://bit.ly/xxTtWx, science writer Marcus Wohlsen presents information about his recent book, Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life. Wohlsen talks about “biopunks,” the International Genetically Engineered Machine or iGEM at http://bit.ly/wk071W, and points out that apple tree grafting is an early example of Do-It-Yourself biology. The LOL episodes are available in video and audio formats.

The first topic in a  thirty minute Material World podcast from the BBC, at http://bbc.in/xZubAB describes a  University of Cambridge project  to teach pre-teen kids how to program computers by giving them a $25 computer called Raspberry Pi. Ten tutorials on use of the Pi are on YouTube at http://bit.ly/AzaBKY. This in turn is part of the British computing-at-school initiative at http://bit.ly/xzGMb4 where a “Switched On” newsletter can be downloaded and a web supplement accessed (http://bit.ly/yccTbo) with links to kits and other information. The British want a one-stop shop for computer science and a goal of teaching children how to create uses for computers, not just learn secretarial skills. Impressive effort!

Lard and Crisco are not the same thing. This may be part of our obesity problem as discussed in 2011 in an hour-long  EconTalk episode under the title, “Taubes on Fat, Sugar and Scientific Discovery” at http://bit.ly/xj6p2d.  But Crisco is another issue in “Lard, Who Killed It,” a Planet Money episode (#335) at  http://n.pr/wZLlJT. Mouthwatering!

Wireless routers that use an eight digit PIN or front button to set them up have been found vulnerable to a nearby attack as discussed fifteen minutes into episode 839 of Leo Laporte’s “The Tech Guy” at http://bit.ly/ywmaJ0 and at the 1:32 mark of episode 840 at http://bit.ly/xMhU6w. That explanation lasts about five minutes. More than an hour is devoted to the topic, if you want all the details, in “Security Now”  Episode 335 at http://bit.ly/A4L8Rd. Basically it concerns the router part devoted to WPS or Wi Fi Protection Security which can be adjusted by changing the router settings for those of us competent in such things, except this will not work for Linksys routers. For them you need a firmware update from Linksys and you can start working on that here: http://bit.ly/yhaFfI. The danger is small and the fixes are yet to come, so it’s a problem that requires several inquiries over several months.

Modern capitalism in China started in1978 by some very brave farmers. It’s described in PlanetMoney episode 337, entitled “The Secret Document That Transformed China” at http://n.pr/wfd99N.

Malaria kills 800,000 people each year and can be wiped out for about three to four billion dollars a year. Details, technical and mundane, about steady progress and problems in this struggle are presented in an hour plus of discussion with a key figure in the fight, Dr David Fidock, at http://bit.ly/AgGhln.

I use a MP3 player powered by a rechargeable AAA battery and equipped with a paper clip bent so it can hook onto a cap, shirt or button hole. It’s connected to cheap retractable earbuds with adjustable plugs and a cable that appeared at first to be too short but when used with the paper clip is quite satisfactory. Earbuds like this are common on eBay and Amazon for just a few dollars, but not found in local stores. Many readers use smart phones for podcasts but my player often sells for $20 and can be loaded with 200 podcasts for use as a gift. These podcasts are sped up 50%, so occupy one-fourth the space of their beginning size. 

Debate persists over publishing bird flu research in a “Science Friday” episode, a  thirty minute segment that can be downloaded, or heard on-line at http://bit.ly/birdFLU. Microbiologist Vincent Racaniello discusses why the move sets a bad precedent while bio security expert D.A. Henderson talks about the risks of publishing the research.  Printed discussion continues with other experts at http://www.virology.ws/ which includes reference to a “NY Times” editorial from 8 January entitled ‘An Engineered Doomsday’.  The debate concerns recent avian influenza H5N1 research in which scientists in the Netherlands and at the University of Wisconsin
found that by infecting a serious of ferrets the virus can acquire aerosol transmissibility: http://nyti.ms/yldL5D.

NGO work in Haiti is not coordinated leading to complaints that this makes them inefficient.  “The Truth about NGOs-Haiti” is a twenty-minute report on the problem, at http://bbc.in/ywawkr to listen, or download from http://bbc.in/yfyE9b. Three other podcasts, all regular NPR PlanetMoney sessions and set in Haiti, help describe why dealing with poverty is difficult.  The first concerns the need to build a school: http://n.pr/zQbRs9.  The second deals with problems presented in the first: http://n.pr/xuvCny.  The third focuses on a book with a new approach to combating poverty, called “Poor Economics”, but has just a short comment about Haiti at the end: http://n.pr/zuQXsS.

The status and role of Egyptian women typifies the difficulties of women in this part of the world, a twenty-four minute segment called “The Women of Tahrir Square” at http://bbc.in/yfyE9b.

Community produced power is a national effort by citizens to help address the need to reduce carbon production.  One of the examples, the University Park Solar Project in Columbia, Maryland (http://bit.ly/w8zBA5), is discussed in the last five minutes of the Jan 6, 2012  Marketplace Money episode: http://bit.ly/wSZ5n2. Makes you wonder how much power could be produced if the roof of every church in the United States was covered with solar cells while bumping up the church treasuries and returning a percentage of investment to parishioners who fund the ventures.

The Bookshare.org provides materials for people with learning disabilities.  Founder, Jim Fruchterman, in–I’m sorry to say–a rather slow speech at http://bit.ly/xAYxBW, towards the end describes a useful iPad app called Read2Go (http://read2go.org/).  I’m uncertain about the usefulness of the www.bookshare.org.  It looks like more chaff than wheat and I prefer lots of wheat. You judge.

Podnutz  is a series of podcasts run by a computer repair specialist with other specialists as guests. Episode 335 at http://bit.ly/zvAKhi , a one-hour program,  is a good introduction to what’s available on the site. It’s educational and entertaining for the computer user, geek or entrepreneur. Podnutz was also noted in Podcast Gems #5 for several episodes that deal with Call That Girl.

A six-year-old podcast got through my download manager’s filter and I missed the older date, so thought the comment about a mouse that regenerates organs and can give other mice the ability for a six month period, was a recent discovery. The file with a mix of topics is from an Australian radio show called “Discovery,” available at http://bit.ly/z3KDWU. The original source may not even be available. The miracle mouse starts at the 4:38 mark and runs about two minutes, but is not mentioned in the archive notes. What’s interesting is this discovery may date back to 1999 and was first detected in test mice who had identification holes punched into their ears that healed without leaving scars. They are called a Murphy Roths Large or MRL with details found here: http://bit.ly/z2McV2.

Regeneration science and tissue engineering  are rapidly growing fields, but the MRL mouse seems to have vanished. Current research focuses on stem cells and extracellular matrix, while the mouse had genes controlling the regeneration that also exist in humans and, if activated, might cause human regeneration. If you want to look into these concepts, start with the National Defense Education Program at http://www.ndep.us.  The NDEP produces Lab TV with a webisode entitled  “Building Body Parts” in the listing for Season One. You’ll also run across the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine that co-lead a consortium of researchers that are part of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM). The Department of Defense established the AFIRM in 2008 to develop new products and therapies to treat severely injured U.S. service members: http://bit.ly/xcPR3w and  http://www.afirm.mil/. However, while much progress has been made since the miracle mouse was reported twelve years ago, I’m still waiting to see what has been done with the gene therapy approach.

Three good podcasts are Regenerative Medicine Podcast #3 from 2006 about the discovery of the extra cellular matrix,  #101 from 2011 about heart regeneration, and #102 with a history of the field, all at http://bit.ly/wzscfm. The NIH also has an excellent hour-long video about “Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering” from 2011 that can be downloaded as an audio or video file from http://bit.ly/wju3W3.

A great conference is coming  April 2012 in Breckenridge, Colorado. The talk titles outline the large scope and varied locations where work is being done: http://bit.ly/AgLDPJ.  It’s unfortunate that no audio files appear to be planned.  However, you can write and suggest the need, as I did, and perhaps enough time exists for arrangements to be made. It would be great if they are free, or no more than the $30 book of abstracts already being offered.

On to the OLPC project. Technology Podcast #351 from http://bit.ly/xghMf5 covers progress of the One Laptop Per Child program,  as does the BBC “Click” program about eight minutes into the eighteen minute program at http://bbc.in/yBxfGV. The “Click” program  contrasts it with another approach called the Digital Drum. The DD is more of a concept than a program and being applied in different ways  as illustrated at these two sites: http://bit.ly/whXv8L  and http://bit.ly/xpm88r .

Augusta Chiwi was a volunteer nurse at the siege of  Bastogne during WWII.  Her story and heroism is described at the twenty-sixth minute mark of Technology Podcast #351 from http://bit.ly/xghMf5. A nice video version is also available at that site. Veterans and “Band of Brothers” fans will like this.

The final item, China.  An internal illegal migration problem exists there similar to the US problem with illegal immigrants from outside the country as described in “Guangzhou – China’s migrant metropolis”  found at http://bbc.in/yfyE9b for December 29, 2011. The hukou system is the cause of the problem and a good document about this is at http://bit.ly/weVASV.  It helps to know that China has twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions and four municipalities under direction control of the central government, plus special autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

NPR’s “Planet Money” Episode 331 focused on how knowledge of Greece’s debt was discovered and in classic fashion how the messenger was blamed. “Andreas Georgiou is the technocrat charged with running the Greek statistics office — the same office that, in the years leading up to the financial crisis, produced wildly distorted reports of Greece’s finances. So far, though, his efforts have been met with resistance, strikes and a criminal investigation that could lead to life in prison for Georgiou.” It’s at http://n.pr/vsHmGP. So that’s a form of corruption in Greece. Older podcasts about corruption in Chicago, India, Somalia and Sweden help define the concept and are available respectively from the BBC at http://bbc.in/vxeSgO, http://bbc.in/rvtsaF, http://bbc.in/ubAKig and http://bbc.in/vsF4dd. Mike Munger’s discussion about stories that explain profits with Russ Roberts on EconTalk at http://bit.ly/tuBTGM mentions greed that also seems relevant to any discussion about corruption.

Medical professionals spend very little time explaining things to patients who oftentimes are stressed and poorly focused on what is being said. Therefore listening to discussions amongst professionals about their work can help us understand what’s going on and why. Episode 160 of “This Week in Virology” presents almost two hours of four experienced experts from several professions talking with Patrick Moore about his discovery, with Yuan Chang, of two human tumor viruses, Kaposi’s sarcoma herpesvirus and Merkel cell polyomavirus. Dr Moore’s experiences in and with the Epidemic Intelligence Service are also interesting. TWIP episodes usually run one hour, so this longer version allows thorough coverage: http://bit.ly/vrgVMK.

Copyleft is a new effort to deal with copyright by making literary efforts free. An excellent in-depth British discussion of this and other aspects of publishing is available at http://bit.ly/slUEZS. A Canadian take on the state of books is at http://bit.ly/sEty5Q and from the standpoint of the science fiction community at http://bit.ly/u0MMNH.

Farming salmon in open water causes pollution while doing it on land does not, and it’s profitable. About five minutes of discussion about this are at the forty-nine minute mark of an hour-long podcast about the ocean’s health with Dr David Guggenheim at http://bit.ly/safUnE. He also talks about new deep ocean oil drilling off Cuba, if that brings to mind memories of the Deep Water Horizon spill.

How do we get rid of a virus? A professional talking to other professionals about this for an hour is less interesting to a lay person than the previous podcast from “This Week in Virology” but you can still learn from it. It’s a service from the National Institutes of Health. You can watch and listen at http://bit.ly/udxkOK. The video or audio can also be downloaded by right clicking on the link and click on “save link as”. If you download this, the playback speed can be adjusted with the Windows Media Player.

“The Oyez Project at Chicago-Kent is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. The Project also provides authoritative information on all justices and offers a virtual reality Tour of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.” Audio files are available of lawyers arguing cases and the court’s decisions. Here’s the link to files for the 2011 cases as a starting point, http://www.oyez.org/cases/2011.

At the end of the last World Technology Podcast(http://bit.ly/vSvKWG) is a short interview cut from the BBC with Dr Peter Singer who talks about a project to develop applications and equipment for smart phones to bring inexpensive medicine to the world. It’s part of a project called the Grand Challenges Canada and can be found at this short link, http://bit.ly/rPGOjD. Grand Challenges is part of project called the 5 Grand Challenges supported by the Gates Foundation and discussed at this short link, http://bit.ly/udyt5A. You’ll note that the site, http://www.impatientoptimists.org/, is also part of the Gates Foundation.

Google has supported a project for an open web phone, called the Mozilla Seabird, and it’s described at http://mozphone.com/ but so far is still only a concept. If that work could be combined with the Grand Challenges “More and more hospitals and clinics now offer music therapy as a supplementary treatment for everything from anxiety to Alzheimer’s, but its efficacy varies for different conditions. Neurologist Oliver Sacks and several music therapists discuss the science and practice of music therapy.” http://www.musictherapy.org/ is the site to visit for contacts, but NPR’s Science Friday has an audio file available with Oliver Sacks, other practitioners and telephone callers who present a well-rounded discussion about treating stress and speech disorders with music: http://bit.ly/vearYT. Holiday singalongs probably help offset the stress of the season, a good reason to participate.

Karen Sandler has a defibrillating implant for a heart condition, but knows all software contains bugs, so she wants access to the software for such devices in order to find and fix the bugs before they cause problems. She discusses this in a presentation at http://bit.ly/tPdTg9.

Mike Munger is an economist who uses stories to make the subject easier to follow in an hour-long discussion with Russ Roberts, another economist, while explaining different types of profit, at http://bit.ly/tuBTGM. Roberts is at George Mason University while Munger is at Duke University and has his own site at http://www.duke.edu/~munger/.

New York Times Tech Talk podcasts are a collection of current news items(http://nyti.ms/uGOXBd). The last edition at the end announced the availability of a hand-cranked MP3 player for the survivalists out there, or technologically challenged, or wherever power is lacking. It sounded like a new item, but actually has been available in several forms, mostly from England, for several years as the Trevor Baylis Revolution Eco Media Player. The cost ranges from $60 to $180 and examples can be seen at http://bit.ly/vwgYIc.

Lisa Hendrickson is an IT professional who created Call That Girl (http://www.callthatgirl.biz/) for computer repair. She and her increasing number of employees often do their work remotely since most computer problems are software related. Remote repairs are much more convenient for customers and the cost is often less than for a house visit or shop call. Her contribution to a field dominated by men, and her creation of jobs within the United States make her both very innovative and a role model for younger women. She has been interviewed four times for about four hours worth of discussion covering how she evolved, at http://www.podnutz.com in episodes 274, 302, 316 and just this week in number 332.

Zionism isn’t something that started before Christ was born. How and why it came to be is discussed in two Canadian broadcasts at http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2011/10/24/zionism-from-within-part-1/ and http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2011/10/25/zionism-from-within-part-2/. Here’s the summary from the web site: “Since appearing on the international stage in the 19th century, Zionism has evoked strong emotions, both positive and negative. Nowhere have its meaning and aims been more hotly debated than amongst Zionists themselves. Frank Faulk speaks with Zionists about the movement’s troubled history and the current struggle over its meaning.”

Last year Stephen Colbert interviewed astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson for eighty-four minutes and the entertaining results about science and the universe are at http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/watch/2010/01/29/stephen-colbert-interview-montclair-kimberley-academy. The interview is fun, educational and thought-provoking by two very intelligent people about what can oftentimes be very dry subjects. A family or classroom of young or old students will enjoy this. It’s a year old and I just discovered it!

We are full of exosomes, another tiny new piece of human biology, and once discovered they appear to be useful in delivering treatment for degenerative diseases. The Science Show from Australia provided exosome details and discussion buried inside two podcasts, one on 12.03.2011 at the end, and then at the beginning of the 12.09.2011 episode. Start at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/feed/2885480/podcast.xml where all the episodes are shown and download the Dec 3 and 9 entries.

Lastly the BBC did a nice documentary piece about orphanages in Bali which are created to generate income for owners rather than kids. It’s probably a model for many charitable activities around the world. Somehow I feel that all the cute puppies and kittens in pet shops that are bought and later discarded or abused also fit this model. Very sobering account, found at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/rss.xml under the title “Exposing Bali’s Orphanages”.

The BBC at one time offered a daily fifteen-minute news summary podcast, but budget problems reduced this to once a week and finally nothing at all. That summary was the only one with routine coverage of Latin America.

A Data Furnace replaces your normal furnace with computer servers and uses their heat for your house, business, or building. The concept also decentralizes data storage and could allow server operation movement to places that need heat. This doesn’t sound practical for houses, but hospitals are an excellent choice because they often have backup power to reduce server down time. A discussion from Canada with the US researchers on the topic are at http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/11/29/f-vp-misener-server-farm-heating.html or this shorter link: http://bit.ly/sPG88n. The first part of the podcast delivers a short summary. Later there’s greater detail in an interview with the researcher. A PDF on the subject is also available from the same site, or use this link, https://db.usenix.org/events/hotcloud11/tech/final_files/LiuGoraczko.pdf

Changing subjects again; you’ve heard that you can help a heart attack victim by only using chest compression rather than combining it with the mouth-to-mouth stuff. A discussion of the study came out in 2010 but a podcast about it just came out, if you want to hear the why and how of the concept. You can find it by starting at this link, http://www.clinicalpodcast.com/index.aspx and going to the 2010 entries and looking for the title, “Compression Only CPR Value”.

A study of a large number of people about eye nutrition and supplements was presented by a doctor in 2009 at a Vision Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Exposition (VRATE) and is available at http://vrate.org/2009_audio_files/Eye_Nutrition_and_Supplements_by_Dr_Kevin_Huff.mp3. VRATE has a few other podcasts I found to be less interesting. They are also difficult to locate. If you want to check them out, this link is a good place to start: http://vrate.org/prior_VRATEs.php. Printed material about further trials, called Age-related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2) and due for completion in 2013 are available here: http://www.nei.nih.gov/areds2/.

If you’re interested in the Maker movement (makezine.com, makerfaire.com, makershed.com), then check out the British hackspace movement (http://london.hackspace.org.uk/) which is discussed in a BBC Radio 4 Click On segment for 17 November and called “The Joy of Tech” at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/clickon for the next twelve days. Twelve days? Well, the BBC needs the space, so some podcasts are only kept a month and we’re already half way through that period. So, act now… The twenty-eight minute podcast also touches on fab labs and 3D printers. If you miss the deadline, the information may be outdated anyway. Wish I could attach a copy of each podcast, but my space problems are much worse than the BBC’s.

Regenerative medicine is changing about as fast as the Maker and Hackspace movement. A podcast from 2010 I just heard explains one reason for the speed when the speaker mentions a regenerative lab employing 500 people! Publicity about bladders grown on a material called extracellular matrix always shows one or two researchers. It’s encouraging to know that production of hearts, lungs, bladders, kidneys, livers and tracheae which can be made from extracellular matrix is being done by more than a small handful of pioneers. The podcast is the Highlights of the American College of Cardiology Annual Meeting (Part one) made May 5, 2010, and located at http://www.clinicalpodcast.com/index.aspx. That link will be the first page and you have to find older podcasts from the point. A pointer to them is on the right side of the page. Good listening.

My uncle learned for fly on a Stearman biplane at the start of WWII, became a fighter pilot in Europe, then a bomber pilot who worked with remote-controlled B-17′s (early drones) before Korea,  a bomber-fighter pilot in Korea, and a transport pilot during the Vietnam conflict.  One of the podcast series from University of Houston, called the “Engines of Our Ingenuity” places the Stearman in context for the Air Force with podcast number 2752 at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2752.htm .  The intimate contact between the Stearman and the air helped my uncle grasp how all airplanes interact during acrobatics and later saved his life on several occasions.  The podcast website also presents photos, transcripts and other related information.

Another UH podcast last week revisits the impact of stirrups, and how the concept of paradigms came to be applied to scientific cultural changes, at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1835.htm.

Amongst many other choices for the week was a high-energy one from IT Conversations by Kathy Sierra, who overcame the economic downturn and explains how user reviews are a key element in developing a product or a group of followers, at http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail1655.html