Does Eating Turkey Make You Sleepy? (Answer: No, but tryptophan can teach us about nanotoxicology!)

by Stephanie Mitchell edited by Mimi Hang and Ariane Vartanian Every Thanksgiving we gorge ourselves on delicious food and become very sleepy. Inevitably at that point, someone volunteers that it’s the turkey that’s made you …

Ep 9. Seven Stages of Technological Adaptation

This episode of the podcast features an interview with University of Minnesota graduate student Peter Clement, discussing the book The War on Science by Shawn Otto. We focus on Otto’s explanation of the Seven Stages of Technological Adaptation — an observation that how our society adapts new technology has generally repeated the same sequence of steps over and over, from discovery through crisis and adaptation, especially since the mid-20th Century.

Ep 8. How Nanomaterials Can Build Better Bikes

On this episode of the Sustainable Nano podcast, we talk about one example of how nanotechnology is changing something many people use every day: bikes! Margy Robinson, a graduate student in the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology and a competitive cyclist, explains how carbon nanotubes and graphene are currently being incorporated into some high-end bicycles.