SoT 300: Science and Selfies
Channel: Science on Top
Date: 21/06/2018

SoT 300: Science and Selfies
http://scienceontop.com/300

The recent discovery of dunes on Pluto surprised planetary scientists. With very little atmosphere or wind, what could cause them?
A sample from Mars, analysed by the Curiosity rover, has found organic molecules - the building blocks of life.
One of the most famous psychology experiments, the Stanford marshmallow test, looked at delayed gratification in children back in the 1960s and 1970s. It's now been reproduced, a lot more rigorously, and the results are very different.
A proof-of-concept blood test can determine how far a long a woman is in her pregnancy, and how likely she is to give birth ahead of term.
An emerging field of diagnostics, liquid biopsy, is seeing impressive results. Recent studies correctly diagnosed people with ovarian and liver cancers 80 percent of the time.
Planet Nine is an exciting hypothesis that goes part of the way towards explaining the strange orbits of many rocks in the Kuiper Belt. But another idea could answer a lot of the same questions, without the need for a giant undiscovered planet.

Dr. Helen Maynard-Casely is an instrument scientist for the WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer at the Bragg Institute. She writes “The Shores of Titan” column on The Conversation.
Dr. Mick Vagg is a rehabilitation and pain medicine specialist, and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University.

This episode contains traces of dogged CBS Philly reporter Nicole Brewer on a groundbreaking communication study.

http://scienceontop.com/300

Chapters:
00:00:26 Science on Top http://scienceontop.com/
00:03:26 Pluto's dunes snapped by NASA's New Horizons are made from frozen methane http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-01/pluto-methane-dunes-new-horizons-atmosphere-solar-system/9816778
00:11:48 Building Blocks of Life Found on Mars https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/mars-organic-compounds-methane-curiosity-space-science/
00:18:25 Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/
00:24:32 This Blood Test Could Predict When Babies Will Arrive Early https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/blood-test-pregnant-mothers-preterm-birth-science/
00:28:22 A Blood-Based Cancer Test Gets Its First Results https://www.wired.com/story/a-blood-based-cancer-test-gets-its-first-results
00:31:51 No Need for Planet Nine? Small Objects' Gravity Could Explain Weird Orbits https://www.space.com/40793-no-need-for-planet-9-outer-solar-system.html
00:42:17 Science on Top http://scienceontop.com/