Studio360 Science
Symmetry & Sex Appeal
Are supermodels more symmetrical? Beauty expert Kelley Quan joins Kurt and Mario Livio to talk about how symmetry affects human attraction. Quan is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the online fashion magazine ZooZOOM.com, and she explains how symmetry — or the lack of it — can make people more attractive.
Skyspace
Dr. Dennis Pelli researches how we read, identify shapes, even why we find art compelling. Once a semester he takes a group of students to see a piece of installation art that he believes will teach them how to be better scientific observers. Laura Starecheski tagged along for the class trip.
Helms and Stein
Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit that asked, “What if Eleanor Roosevelt Could Fly?” Sound artist Jane Philbrick asked a question just as unlikely: “What if retired Senator Jesse Helms could recite a lesbian love poem by Gertrude Stein?” Andrew Adam Newman found out how Philbrick’s quixotic project took her to the cutting edge […]
Bionic Hearing
Michael Chorost was born with a severe hearing impairment, the result of a rubella epidemic in the 1960s. He used hearing aids, learned to speak, went to regular schools and got his Ph.D. in English. Then, a few years ago, Michael’s residual hearing abruptly gave out. His world went silent. Jocelyn Gonzales has the story […]
Get Well Soon
Hospital architecture usually stirs up feelings of anxiety and dread—which may not encourage patients to recover quickly, according to several new studies. Jocelyn Gonzales reports on the architects and medical professionals who are designing a new wave of feel-good hospitals, as part of our on-going series on science and creativity.