Anthropologist and explorer Kenny Broad studies some of the world's most dangerous places—underwater caves called "Blue Holes."

Sam Bowring studies mass extinctions in the Earth's past. He says humans might not be around much longer... geologically speaking.

NASA psychologist Al Holland describes the mental challenges astronauts might face during a 3-year mission to Mars.

Planetary scientist Alan Stern thinks that when astronomers decide what is or isn't a planet, the criteria should be simple.

Materials scientist Stephen Steiner says that high-speed computers in the future might run on man-made diamonds instead of silicon.

Roboticist Cynthia Brazeal makes robots that interact socially with humans—taking cues from people's voices, facial expressions, and body language. She says that one day, we might interact with them the same way we do with our pets and even our friends.

Ecologist Charlie Crisafulli explains how being at Mt. St. Helens when it erupted completely changed the course of his career.

Years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the fish in the Gulf of Mexico—in fact, the whole ecosystem out there—is still feeling its effects. How? In this episode, come aboard a research vessel cruising the Gulf as reaserchers investigate exactly how the oil traveled through the deep ocean, and what it did to the environment along the way. 

In this episode, we’re taking a look at the little guys: the tiny plants and animals at the bottom of the Gulf’s food chain. Even though they’re microscopic, what happens to them after a major oil spill can have a big impact on the rest of the Gulf ecosystem—and on us.

In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon spill hit the Gulf of Mexico, dumping more than 5 million barrels of oil into the ocean. Since then, researchers have been unraveling the impact it’s had on the Gulf as a whole—How the oil moved in the water, how it degraded, and how it affected marine animals along the way.

A small team of researchers at the University of South Florida is using those findings to create a virtual version of the Gulf ecosystem inside a computer. It's a staggeringly complex goal, but if they're successful in building their model, they may be able to predict how future spills will play out before disaster strikes again.

When when an oil spill occurs, it's extremly hard to figure out which major commercial fish species are at risk. A team of scientists at the Mote Marine Laboratory hope to find out, however. At a facility 20 miles inland from the coast of Florida, they're growing adult fish—some of which are up to four feet long—in a series of huge tanks, and are slowly exposing them to oil. They're hoping their experients will show them how various species are affected by oil, both in the short term and the long term. If chemicals in oil affect their genes or their breeding, they say, the future of those species could be at risk.

Humans are pretty good at making detailed maps—so good, we’ve charted the surface of other planets. But ironically, we know more about the surface of Mars than we do the bottom of our ocean, especially when it comes to the seafloor just off the coast. Making maps of those regions is harder than you’d think, but maybe not for much longer: In this episode, scientists from the Center for Ocean Mapping and Innovative Technologies, or COMIT, explain why we've struggled to produce detailed maps of nearshore waters in the past, and how a suite of new technologies might change mapping in the future.