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On the Season 2 debut of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies , we travel to Bermuda, an Atlantic island whose history spans centuries and continents. Once uninhabited, Bermuda became a vital stop in transatlantic trade, a maritime stronghold, and a cultural crossroads shaped by African, European, Caribbean, and Native American influences. Guests Dr. Kristy Warren and Dr. Edward Harris trace its transformation from an uninhabited island to a strategic outpost shaped by shipwrecks, colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the rise and fall of empires. Plus, former Director of Tourism Gary Phillips shares the story of the Gombey tradition, a vibrant performance art rooted in resistance, migration, and cultural fusion. Together, they reveal how Bermuda’s layered past continues to shape its people, culture, and identity today. You can also find us online at travelandleisure.com/lostcultures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…
Content provided by info@omegataupodcast.net. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by info@omegataupodcast.net or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
science and engineering in your headphones - the first 250 Episodes
Content provided by info@omegataupodcast.net. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by info@omegataupodcast.net or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
science and engineering in your headphones - the first 250 Episodes
In this episode we take a look at newer generations of fission reactors, those that are currently being developed or researched. Our guest is Jacopo Buongiorno of MIT . We discuss some of the high-level goals of these new reactors, such as increased safety and efficiency, and then look at a few of the interesting new designs and how they realize these goals. We also briefly cover some of the policy arguments around keeping fission in the mix for combatting climate change.…
In this episode we look at how supercomputers are used to help with managing the pandemic. It's a double-header with two guests. We start with Cineca 's Andrew Emerson . As part of the EXSCALATE 4 COV EU-funded research project, he works of virtual screening of existing drugs regarding their potential efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. In part two we talk with Dan Jacobson of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory . He and his team used a big data analysis to understand how the virus "works", and they figured out very interesting mechanisms and pathways.…
Humanity has always been exposed to potentially catastrophic risks that might endanger the continued existence of humanity. Asteroid impacts or supervolcano eruptions come to mind. But since about the invention of the atomic bomb, humanity has been able to wipe itself out, adding self-made existential risks to the natural ones. Oxford philosopher Toby Ord argues in his book The Precipice that those risks are much more likely than the natural ones. In this episode we explore this idea with him, and also discuss what we should do about this realization.…
To conclude our detailed look at the ATLAS experiment, this episode looks at the computing infrastructure. We start out with the trigger systems that decide, very quickly, whether the data from a particular collision is worth keeping. We then discuss the reconstruction of the event, the simulation needed to understand the background as well as the LHC Grid used distribute data and computation over the whole planet. Our guest is CERN'n Frank Berghaus .…
After understanding the history and development of ATLAS (and covering the LHC and particle physics in general) in previous episodes, we are now at the point where we can try to understand how a scientist uses the data produced by one of these large detectors and make sense of it. This is what we'll do in this episode with physicist (and listener) Philipp Windischhofer. If you want to learn even more, you can check out these links provided by Philipp or read the last chapter of the book :-)…
ATLAS is one of the two general-purpose experiments at the LHC. It has been conceived, designed, and built over decades by hundreds of scientists and engineers from dozens of countries and hundreds of organizations. My guest, Peter Jenni, has been the head of the ATLAS collaboration for most of this time. In this episode we talk about science and engineering, but mostly about organizational aspects and the "community management" necessary to get such a magnificent machine off the ground.…
The Lockheed F-35 Lightning II is going to be more or less what the F-16 and F-18 are today: the backbone of the US and NATO land and sea-based air forces. It is a multi-role fighter, and one of its versions has the capability to take off with a very short roll and land vertically. Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton is a test pilot who has flown all three versions of the jet. In this episode we talk about flying this fifth-gen fighter and about some aspects of the testing program.…
In light of the current situation, we have decided to record a couple of episodes that cover some of the relevant background in terms of biology, medicine and healthcare. In this first episode we discuss emergency care and intensive care with a special focus on ventilation. We discuss these topics in general, and also specifically to COVID-19. Our guest, Kimon and Junad, are both practicing doctors and have practical experience with these topics.…
A major component of particle accelerators like the LHC are the actual accelerators; the current approach relies on radio frequency cavities. However, their acceleration gradient, measured in Volts per meter, is limited. This means that future accelerators, especially linear ones, will become longer and longer to reach the desired energies. A new approach to particle acceleration relies on plasma wakefields , this technology can deliver orders of magnitude more acceleration per distance. AWAKE is a proof of concept experiment at CERN that uses proton beams to produce the wake field. In this episode we chat with Edda Gschwendtner , the leader of this project.…
Over the last two years, Markus wrote a book about some of the repeated topic covered on omega tau: SOFIA, Enterprise, Aerospace, Gravitational Waves, Telescopes, Models and Particle Physics. The book, called Once You Start Asking is now available as an ebook, with the softcover edition forthcoming. In this episode, Nora and Markus discuss the book and its history.…
Six years ago, in episode 150 , Jochen Liske of ESO told us about the Extremely Large Telescope that is currently being built in Chile. This episode is a continuation (which is why this is a kind of bonus episode labelled as 150.5) in which Thomas Pfrommer tells us about how to control the optical path of this monster telescope: the 39 meter, 798-segment main mirror, plus the four additional mirrors involved in bringing the light to a stable and sharp focus. I recorded this episode mainly to fill in some "gaps" I needed for the book chapter on telescopes.…
The F-14 Tomcat is one of the most iconic fighters, certainly among its generation. In this episode we talk with Nick Pirnia about the aircraft's development and history as well as about flying it with former pilot Okie Nance. The aircraft is also available in the DCS flight simulator and the third part of this episode is a conversation with the development team from Heatblur about how to implement the F-14 in DCS; if you haven't yet, check out some of their videos , this thing looks unbelievably realistic!…
An important consequence of the warming of the planet due to climate change is that the frequency and/or severity of extreme weather events will increase. But how can we tell whether a particular event can be attributed to the changing climate? Would it have happened in "normal" climate as well, and if so, how would the event have been different? This aspect of climate science is called attribution science, and the guest of this episode, Friederike Otto is a pioneer in the field.…
When I was in Bordeaux with the DLR to report about their science campaign in September, I also talked to the team from AirZeroG/Novespace about the technical and aviation aspects of parabolic flights. These interviews are in this episode. I chat with Jean-François Clervoy about the history of the company, with Eric Delesalle about piloting the parabolas, with Hervé Normand about the reasons for the potential sickness, and with Nicolas Barbotin about cabin safety. At the end of the episode I also provide some details about the technical problem that prevented parabolas during my own flight with the A-310 ZeroG.…
Marija Jovanovich is a pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force where she has been flying the P-3 Orion . We discuss the aircraft, the missions, and some anecdotes. Marija then also attended the USAF Experimental Test Pilot School , and we talk a bit about the experience of flying a wide range of different aircraft.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Earlier this year I visited the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts , a European organization that produces global weather forecasts and performs research on how to improve those. The episode has three parts. First, Hilda Carr gives us an overview of the organization, its purpose and its history. Then I talk with Peter Bauer about weather and climate modeling and about encoding these models efficiently in software programs that run on supercomputers. Part three is a conversation with Tony McNally about where the ECMWF gets its data and how it is continuously fed into the "running" model.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In July I visited the NATS tower at Heathrow Airport to interview my guest Adam Spink . We chatted about some of the mechanics of air traffic control at Heathrow and the unique ways of optimizing throughput. A few days later we met again on the tower of Fairford during RIAT 2019 and chatted about the specifics of ATC'ing during an airshow.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
I am interested in societal change: how can a complex society with lots of emergent (perhaps unintended) behaviors make a conscious change, such as transitioning to a more sustainable economy? We discussed this from an engineering perspective in the episode on Modeling Socio-Technical Systems , and we've looked at it historically in the episode on Societal Complexity and Collapse . In this episode we look at the topic more from the perspective of civil society and politics. Our guest ist Maja Göpel ; she heads the German government's Advisory Council on Global Change and has also written a book called The Great Mindshift on the topic.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
A few months ago, a collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope presented the first direct image of a black hole; or more specifically, of the radiation created by accelerated particles at its event horizon. The EHT is a Very Large Baseline Interferometer , in which radio telescopes all over the world are computationally connected to obtain resolutions that are not possible with one telescope. In the episode I chat with Heino Falcke , the chair of the EHT science committee, about the science, the telescope, what it took to get it going, and image reconstruction.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In June 2019 I had the pleasure and honor to fly in an F-16D with the USAF Thunderbirds. The episode covers the medical briefing about how to prevent motion sickness and how to deal with Gs, suiting up with flight suit, g-suit, harness, helmet and mask, the briefing with my pilot Maj. Jason Markzon, the flight itself with commentary, an interview about the Thunderbirds with Jason, as well as a reflection on what the flight meant to me, recorded together with Nora.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In May I visited ALICE , one of the four large experiments at the LHC and talked with Despina Hatzifotiadou . We briefly discussed the science that ALICE is interested in, and then spent the majority of the time dissecting the detector to understand its components and how they detect the various products of particle collisions.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Socio-technical systems are systems where (groups of) humans interact with (non-trivial) technical systems; an example is the power grid. The people, the technical system and the combination might easily lead to complex behavior that is hard to predict and control over the long term. However, as illustrated by, for example, the need to transition our energy infrastructure to a more sustainable structure, it is necessary for society to "control" such systems. Igor Nikolic is a professor at the TU Delft where he uses agent-based modeling approach to try to understand, and thus help control and evolve such systems. We discuss the systems, the challenges as well as the modeling approaches.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Earlier this year I visited the London Air Ambulance , a charity organization that flies two MD-902 helicopters over the UK's capital. I chatted with their chief pilot Neil Jeffers about the flying and some of the medical aspects. My recorder then joined Neil on a short flight to their hangar at RAF Northolt. There, we met Adam Spink, a NATS air traffic controller at Heathrow, and the three of us chatted about the ATC perspective of flying helicopters (sometimes) in Heathrows's approach.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In our never-ending quest to understand fusion and its potential use in energy production, I visited the Wendelstein 7-X fusion experiment in Greifswald run by the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik . We started out with a visit to the experiment hall, while experimentalist Matthias Hirsch gave us an overview over the machine. Next we discussed theory and modeling with Ralf Kleiber. Finally, I returned to Matthias Hirsch, and we chatted about more experimental aspects of Wendelstein. It is probably best to listen to our previous fusion episodes ( 22 , 157 and 304 ) before listening to this one.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In this episode I chat with Sean Brady about structural failures in civil engineering. We first discuss the technical and organzational causes for such failures. We then look at Sean's specialty, forensic engineering, which is about analyzing failures to determine the root cause. Sean also has his own podcast in which he delves into much more detail about engineering failures, not just in construction.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Throughout the cold war, and til today, the Cobra-codenamed ground, sea and air assets have been used by the US to monitor Soviet/Russian ICBM missile launches and warhead reentries. The air component consists of the RC-135 Cobra Ball/Eye aircraft. Flying from Shemya in the Aleutians they used cameras and other sensors. Our guest, Robert Hopkins has been flying the aircraft in the late 1980s. In this episode he tells us about the mission and the flying -- Shemya could be quite challenging.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Justin and Jason wrote a nice book on fusion called The Future of Fusion Energy , and this episode is based on this book. We start out by revisiting the breakthroughs that drove progress in fusion over the decades, including understanding stars, the tokamak, superconducting magnets, supercomputers and a number of specific aspects of plasma physics. We then look at the current state of fusion research as well as where it might go.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
Have you ever wondered how the processor in your phone or computer got so much more faster than what the increase in megahertz suggests? In this episode we talk with Lex Augusteijn about superscalar processors, pipelining, speculative execution, register renaming and the like. We also discuss concerns other than speed, in particular, energy efficiency.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
With power generation in the grid becoming more diverse and decentralized, energy storage is becoming more and more important. Eduard Heindl 's gravity storage is an approach to storing electrical energy as potential energy by lifting huge masses cut out of the ground. While this sounds crazy, there are lots of reasons why this makes sense. In the episode we discuss then need, the general approach, the construction process and some of the engineering challenges. We also look at the innovation process, the path from the idea to something that is ready to be built.…
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podcast (en) Archive 250 EN – omega tau science & engineering podcast
In mid-September I drove to Illesheim Army Airfield to meet with Caleb Marheine who flies the AH-64 Apache helicopter there. We talked about the helicopter's systems, the cockpit, aspects of flying it as well as some of the missions.
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