As always, host Bob Barrett selects an Academic Minute to air during The Best of Our Knowledge.
Each week this program examines some of the issues unique to college campuses, looks at the latest research, and invites commentary from experts and administrators from all levels of education.
For this week‘s edition (#1368), Bob has selected Shawn Bishop’s segment. A professor of experimental physics at the Technical University of Munich, Dr. Bishop’s segment discusses if supernova ashes in our oceans is a clue to an extinction event from our past.
Started out his scientific career a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Specifically, he hails from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and obtained his B.Sc. degree at McMaster University. Hearing the call of the west, he then attended the University of Victoria, British Columbia, for his M.Sc. in particle physics. Needing a change, he then went to Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, for his Ph.D. in experimental nuclear astrophysics. The west continued calling, it seems, because from Vancouver he flew westward to Japan, and did his postdoctoral work at the RIKEN (http://www.riken.jp/en/) national laboratory, continuing in experimental nuclear astrophysics. Completing the whirlwind tour of the globe, he landed in Munich, Germany in fall 2008, where he has been since, continuing in experimental nuclear astrophysics, inspiring incoming physics students, and using a laboratory just 200 m from his own office, and plumbing the depths of the Pacific Ocean to discovery the traces of supernova on our planet.
