Living Lab Radio: Gravitational Waves, AI On Fishing Boats, And Fighting Bacteria With More Bacteria

Fishermen Lucas Dewildt, left, and Dillon Robbins mend groundfishing nets before dark, Friday, Nov. 15, 2013, in Portland, Maine.

Heather Goldstone is the science editor at WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR Station. She holds a Ph.D. in ocean science from M.I.T. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and spent a decade as an active researcher before leaving the lab to become a writer.

October 23, 2017

Updated July 03, 2023

The new frontier of gravitational wave research — The first detection of gravitational waves two years ago earned the project’s founders this year’s Nobel Prize. Within two weeks of that news, researchers announced another, even more groundbreaking, gravitational wave discovery — a kilonova produced by the collision of two neutron stars. A key member of the team says gravitational waves will continue to produce breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe, including how fast — and why — it’s expanding. (Guest: Marcelle Soares-Santos, Brandeis University)
Tools for fighting opioid epidemic — President Trump is widely expected to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency. What tools do we have to fight addiction, and what else do health care providers need? (Guest: Dr. Jeffrey Baxter, U Mass Medical School)
Artificial intelligence for fisheries monitoring — Right now, fewer than one in five groundfishing trips in New England is monitored by an independent observer. Fishermen say it’s too expensive, and unfair to ask them to pay the cost. The Nature Conservancy is experimenting with an alternative — video monitoring systems, and computer algorithms that could identify fish being caught and thrown overboard on every trip. That could save money, and improve both enforcement of regulations and the science that’s used to set catch limits. (Guest: Chris McGuire, The Nature Conservancy)
Natural Defense — Antibiotic infections affect some two million Americans each year, and kill at least 23,000. Researchers are struggling to keep up with evolution and find new medications to fight these infections. A new book argues that bacteria and viruses themselves may be some of our best allies and weapons against antibiotic resistance. (Guest: Emily Monosson, author of "Natural Defense: Enlisting Bugs and Germs to Protect Our Food and Health")