Talk of the Nation on WKNO HD-2

In his book, Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Physicist Michael Nielsen discusses why scientists jealously guard their data and are slow to adopt online tools for collaboration. Nielsen talks about why attempts to create science wikipedias have failed.

A 33,000-year-old skull of a "wolf on the way to becoming a dog" was found in a Siberian cave. Evolutionary Biologist Susan Crockford, co-author of a study about the skull in PLoS ONE, discusses why the discovery challenges common beliefs about dog domestication.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, BP poured nearly two million gallons of dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico. The goal, of course, is breaking up oil slicks, making them dissolve into ocean waters, sort of like how you squirt dish soap on a greasy frying pan to get the oil to wash away with the water.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Time now for our Video Pick of the Week. Flora Lichtman, our multimedia editor is here. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: Good video as always.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

LICHTMAN: Yeah. This one is about something that I encounter every day, and I think of it as little more than a beverage cooler or maybe a nuisance on my commute to work. I'm talking about ice. But it turns out that ice was way more interesting than I knew before (unintelligible)...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Stem cell therapy, it seems, is always promising, promising to cure diseases or illnesses. And this week, a study using embryonic stem cells has increased the hope of fulfilling some of those promises.