October 6, 2006: Hour One: 2006 Nobel Prizes
This week, the winners of the 2006 Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine were announced. Physicists George Smoot (homepage) and John Mather (homepage) won the prize in physics for their work in analyzing the cosmic microwave background radiation, work that helped to support theories about the Big Bang. Andrew Fire (homepage) and Craig Mello (homepage) won the prize in Medicine or Physiology for for their discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA. And Roger Kornberg (homepage) won the prize in Chemistry for his work in DNA transcription, the process by which information stored in the genes is copied, and then transferred to the parts of cells that produce proteins. (more info)
October 6, 2006: Hour Two: Richard Dawkins / Salmon Farming
In his new book "The God Delusion" (Amazon UK | US) evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says fundamentalist religion "subverts science and saps the intellect." Join guest host Joe Palca in this hour of Science Friday for a chat with Dawkins on religion, the teaching of evolution and creationism in science class, and his call for atheists to "out" themselves.
Plus, does fish farming harm wild salmon populations? A new study suggests it might, tying parasitic sea lice infestations from farmed salmon to declines of wild salmon populations in Europe and Canada."We counted sea lice on more than 14 thousand juvenile salmon migrating past fish farms, and conducted mortality experiments with more than 3 thousand fish," explained Martin Krkosek, one of the authors of the report, describing how the study was performed. (more info)
[Podcast, Evolution, Prize, Intelligent Design, ID]
