Image by: Seth Shostak

Early Adapters

From: Big Picture Science
Series: Big Picture Science
Length: 54:02

How Homo sapiens can wield technology to adapt to the onslaught of climate change, a growing population, and the blitz of hi-tech. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Podcast Version

Promos

Playing: Early Adapters
From: Big Picture Science

Earlyadaptersmed_small

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.

So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.

Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.

Guests:

Dickson Despommier – Emeritus professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
William Gibson – Author, most recently, of Zero History
Joel Cohen – Mathematician and biologist at Rockefeller University
David DeGusta – Paleoanthropologist at the Paleoanthropology Institute in California

Playing: Early Adapters
From: Big Picture Science

Earlyadaptersmed_small

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.

So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.

Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.

Guests:

Dickson Despommier – Emeritus professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
William Gibson – Author, most recently, of Zero History
Joel Cohen – Mathematician and biologist at Rockefeller University
David DeGusta – Paleoanthropologist at the Paleoanthropology Institute in California

Playing: Early Adapters
From: Big Picture Science

Earlyadaptersmed_small

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.

So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.

Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.

Guests:

Dickson Despommier – Emeritus professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
William Gibson – Author, most recently, of Zero History
Joel Cohen – Mathematician and biologist at Rockefeller University
David DeGusta – Paleoanthropologist at the Paleoanthropology Institute in California

Also in the Big Picture Science series

Caption: Skeptic Check: Hostile Climate, Credit: Seth Shostak

Skeptic Check: Hostile Climate (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

It’s a record we didn’t want to break. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is at an all-time high. Meanwhile an op-ed in a leading newspaper says not to worry, ...

Caption: Going Viral, Credit: Seth Shostak

Going Viral (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Discover how viruses go from birds to pigs to you, how fossil viruses got into your genome, whether E.T. might be a virus, and what it takes for ideas to “go viral.”

Caption: Stomach This, Credit: Seth Shostak

Stomach This (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Not all conversation is appropriate for the dinner table – and that includes, strangely enough, the subject of eating. Yet, what happens during the time that food enters our ...

Caption: De-Extinction Show, Credit: Seth Shostak

De-Extinction Show (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Maybe goodbye isn’t forever. Get ready to mingle with mammoths and gaze upon a ground sloth. Scientists want to give some animals a round-trip ticket back from extinction. ...

Caption: Deep Time, Credit: Seth Shostak

Deep Time (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Think back, way back. Beyond last week to what was happening on Earth 100 million years ago or earlier. It’s hard to fathom such enormous stretches of time, yet to ...

Caption: Skeptic Check: Forget with the Program, Credit: Seth Shostak

Skeptic Check: Forget with the Program (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Just remember this: Even our memories of dramatic events that seem to burn themselves directly into our brain are riddled with errors.

Caption: Seth's Wine Cellar, Credit: Seth Shostak

Seth's Wine Cellar (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

In this potpourri show: from atomic clocks … to solar storms … to gold particles that might make gasoline obsolete … there are lots of science surprises in Seth’s Wine Cellar. ...

Caption: Anthropocene and Heard, Credit: Seth Shostak

Anthropocene and Heard (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

Why climate change and loss of biodiversity may mean goodbye to the "Holocene," and hello to a new geologic epoch, the "Age of Man."

Caption: Skeptic Check: Friends Like These, Credit: Seth Shostak

Skeptic Check: Friends Like These (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

We love our family and friends, but sometimes their ideas about how the world works can seem a little wacky. We look at the examples that BiPiSci listeners shared with us of ...

Caption: Time for a Map, Credit: Seth Shostak

Time for a Map (54:00)
From: Big Picture Science

It’s hard to get lost these days. GPS pinpoints your location to within a few feet. Discover how our need to get from A to B holds clues about what makes us human, and what ...

Piece Description

The times are a’changing – rising temperatures, growing population, and new technology coming at us faster than a greased cheetah.

So how will humans respond? Find out about future farming in the city – your vegetables might be grown in downtown, hi-rise greenhouses. Also, a population expert tells us how our planet can cope with billions more people, and the man who invented the term ‘cyberspace’ describes what the future might hold for the techno-savvy.

Darwinian evolution takes a long time to accommodate to new environments. But Homo sapiens can beat that rap by wielding the right technology – and becoming early adapters.

Guests:

Dickson Despommier – Emeritus professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia University, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century
William Gibson – Author, most recently, of Zero History
Joel Cohen – Mathematician and biologist at Rockefeller University
David DeGusta – Paleoanthropologist at the Paleoanthropology Institute in California

Broadcast History

first released December 6, 2010

Additional Files

Listing - Early Adapters (Early_Adapters.doc)

Additional Credits

Seth Shostak - Host and Producer
Molly Bentley – Co-Host and Executive Producer
Gary Niederhoff – Producer
Barbara Vance – Production Assistant
Jay Weiler - Volunteer