Art of the Question

Conversations about science, technology, philosophy, psychology, self-improvement, media, and culture.

Art of the Question is a science podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 55 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Art of the Question, a science show with 55 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #60

  How Did Flydubai Flight 1073 Survive Its Nosedive? - Prof. Shawn Pruchnicki - #60

  Oct 3, 20261h 20m

  Shawn Pruchnicki is an associate professor in the Department of Aviation and Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, who testified before the US Senate on Boeing's safety culture in 2024. His specialty is cognitive engineering, automation design and advanced flight deck design, and he also researches disasters outside aviation. Before academia he flew as an airline pilot, and he still works as an accident investigator through his consulting company. In this emergency episode, recorded days after Flydubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv went into a violent nosedive following an attack in the cockpit, he walks through the public flight data, the cabin footage and the claims circulating online. Together they look at how the Boeing 737 MAX 8 held together and landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and what can and cannot be known until the investigation reports. Expect to learn how a passenger's pull on the yoke could have broken the plane apart, why off-duty pilots were on board, how accurate public flight tracking data is during extreme moments, whether airplanes disintegrate in a nosedive, why the rudder tore off and why jets can land without one, what G-forces the passengers likely felt, why the oxygen masks did not drop, why a dive does not wreck a cabin the way severe turbulence does, what the black entertainment screens do and do not mean, how crews choose an emergency airport, who gets to investigate the incident and whether the flight data will ever be made public. Shawn Pruchnicki online: Website: hfie.org (Human Factors Investigation and Education) Senate testimony: Examining Boeing's Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts, April 17, 2024 0:00 Introduction 1:59 First reaction to the news 4:07 Why this case is so rare 7:08 How the cockpit door opens 11:02 The plumber who leveled the plane 13:22 Why off-duty pilots were aboard 15:56 Could anyone land a plane 19:53 The Flightradar24 data 24:26 Limits of ADS-B data 29:28 A go-around at JFK 33:43 What extreme forces do to aircraft 35:15 The CNN pilot clip 38:56 Do planes disintegrate 41:08 Rudder flutter explained 44:03 G-forces on the passengers 49:40 Footage from inside the cabin 52:34 Fake videos online 53:29 Why the oxygen masks stayed up 56:07 Overhead bins versus turbulence 1:01:55 The black entertainment screens 1:05:02 Choosing an emergency airport 1:07:11 Both engines kept running 1:09:08 Will the data be public 1:13:20 Who leads the investigation 1:14:45 Open questions for investigators 1:16:33 Trauma for those on board 1:19:00 Where to find Shawn

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  Episode #59

  The Explosive Rise of Peptides - Dr. Matthew Dunn - #59

  Oct 1, 20261h 13m

  Matthew Dunn is an associate professor at Deakin University in Australia and one of the world's leading researchers on performance and image enhancing drugs. He has spent almost two decades studying why people use substances to change their bodies and performance, how illicit drug markets set price, purity and availability, and how the social determinants of health shape all of it. He came up through the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales before joining Deakin in 2011, and he now co-edits the journal Performance Enhancement and Health. In this conversation he explains how peptides went from a niche corner of bodybuilding to a mainstream phenomenon, riding the wave of Ozempic and a collapse in public trust of medical authority. He is candid about the real dangers of buying unregulated vials online, where you may have no idea whether you are injecting the drug, nothing at all, or lead. Expect to learn what peptides actually are and why the word now covers everything from anti-aging injectables to Ozempic, how these drugs rose to fame so quickly, why the stigma around weight-loss drugs vanished while the taboo on steroids remained, what food noise is and why switching it off changes people's lives, why insulin is the one substance even hardcore bodybuilders refuse to touch, why trust in medical authority collapsed and what psychedelics and steroids have to do with it, why people are no longer willing to wait a decade for a clinical trial, what is really inside a vial bought off Instagram or from someone at a gym, how the flow of peptides from China shapes the market, whether doctors should be less of a gatekeeper, and where this whole boom is heading next. Matthew Dunn online: Deakin University profile: https://experts.deakin.edu.au/2166-Matthew-Dunn LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/matthew-dunn-0aa41650 Journal: co-Editor in Chief of Performance Enhancement and Health Timestamps 0:00 Intro 3:52 What peptides actually are 10:08 Where peptides came from 11:38 How they went mainstream 17:55 Ozempic and losing the stigma 24:22 Who is using them now 30:31 Why trust in medicine collapsed 38:04 The dangers of unregulated use 48:59 Real-world evidence versus trials 53:52 What is actually in the vial 57:00 Chinese peptides and supply 1:03:47 Where this is all heading

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  Episode #58

  Why Women Hate Sydney Sweeney (But Love Marilyn Monroe) - April Vevea - #58

  Sep 28, 20261h 9m

  April VeVea is a Hollywood historian and Marilyn Monroe scholar who has researched the star for nearly two decades. She is finishing a PhD in screen studies at Oklahoma State University and runs the Constructed Glamour Project, where she writes cultural criticism, film history, and beauty history. She is the author of Marilyn Monroe: A Day in the Life, a timeline biography built from primary sources, and Puffblicity, an appreciation of Jayne Mansfield, and she contributed a chapter to the 2026 centenary anthology Encounters with Marilyn Monroe. This conversation started with her Substack essay comparing Marilyn Monroe to Sydney Sweeney, written in response to the backlash Sweeney faced after the Novak gambling ad. It grew into a wide-ranging discussion about why one sexualized icon is celebrated as a feminist while the other is attacked, and why the same criticisms have been recycled for sixty years. Expect to learn who Marilyn Monroe really was behind the myth, why her image became far more famous after her death than during her life, how Norman Mailer and Gloria Steinem reframed a woman once seen as vulgar into a feminist icon, why we tend to praise people only once they are gone, how the criticism aimed at Sydney Sweeney mirrors the criticism Monroe faced in the 1950s, whether Sweeney profiting from a male-targeted gambling app is a feminist power move or something else, why critics calling for her to move on come across as classist, how the OnlyFans debate exposes a double standard, why The Housemaid succeeded at the box office despite the backlash, whether most women actually dislike Sweeney or just a small vocal minority, and why Sabrina Carpenter draws a very different kind of criticism. April VeVea online: Substack: https://substack.com/@constructedglamourproject Website: https://www.classicblondes.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/classichollywoodwomen Books: Marilyn Monroe: A Day in the Life and Puffblicity: An Appreciation of Jayne Mansfield, available on Amazon 0:00 Introduction 1:45 Meet April VeVea 3:11 Discovering Marilyn at sixteen 5:09 Marilyn Monroe life story 12:09 Why she got famous after dying 13:27 Mailer and Steinem reframe her 18:37 The Novak gambling ad backlash 23:08 Praised only after death 26:46 Same criticisms while alive 38:28 Is Sweeney exploiting men 41:15 The classism in the criticism 45:29 The OnlyFans double standard 50:22 The Housemaid box office 54:04 A small but loud minority 58:58 Sweeney versus Sabrina Carpenter 1:03:43 Closing thoughts 1:06:24 Where to find April

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  Episode #57

  Can We Actually Survive on Mars? - Prof. Cyprien Verseux - #57

  Sep 24, 20261h 1m

  Cyprien Verseux is a French astrobiologist and professor at ZARM, the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity at the University of Bremen, where he heads the Laboratory of Applied Space Microbiology. His research asks how a crew could survive somewhere nothing grows, developing cyanobacteria that feed on Martian water, soil and atmosphere to produce oxygen, food and other resources on site rather than hauling everything from Earth. His team has already shown the concept works and is now testing it in Mars-like conditions and modeling how efficient it could be. He is also one of the rare researchers who has lived the isolation he studies: a year in the HI-SEAS habitat on a Hawaiian volcano simulating a Mars mission, and a year at the French-Italian Concordia station in Antarctica, cut off through nine months of polar night at temperatures below minus 80. He has written books about both experiences and co-edited Mars and the Earthlings, a European look at what a Mars future realistically could and should be. Expect to learn how a single green microbe could turn Martian dirt and air into oxygen, food and fuel, why keeping Mars uncontaminated matters both ethically and scientifically, what actually makes landing humans on Mars so hard, how dust storms and toxic perchlorates threaten any settlement, what a year sealed inside a Mars simulation does to the mind, why the medical doctor is often the most at-risk person on an Antarctic crew, what the selection process for these missions looks like, whether it would ever be safe to give birth or raise a child on Mars, why Verseux is far more excited about a research station than a colony, how Mars became politically loaded and associated with billionaires, and what a realistic timeline for humans on Mars might be. Cyprien Verseux online: LinkedIn: Cyprien Verseux Instagram: @cyprien.verseux Blog: Walking on Red Dust (from the HI-SEAS mission) Books: Vivre sur Mars and Un hiver antarctique (French), and co-editor of Mars and the Earthlings 0:00 Cyanobacteria that could feed Mars 2:06 Making the system efficient 3:12 Evidence of past life on Mars 4:27 Why we must not contaminate Mars 7:03 How astronauts would get oxygen 9:11 Why landing humans is so hard 10:33 Dust storms and toxic perchlorates 12:45 Micrometeorites and no atmosphere 14:12 Why Earth simulations matter 17:01 A year in the HI-SEAS habitat 19:01 Being studied around the clock 20:55 What isolation does to the mind 22:43 The most at-risk crew member 25:10 The meditative side of long travel 27:07 A year at Concordia in Antarctica 27:55 Screening and selection tests 32:49 Which mission feels more alien 33:59 What makes a good Mars astronaut 35:46 Would Verseux go himself 37:22 What still needs to be solved 38:57 The Mars sample return problem 40:33 A new space race with China 42:11 Living in one-third gravity 45:41 Could a child be born on Mars 49:34 The ethics of colonizing Mars 51:05 Putting our eggs in two baskets 53:41 The far future of Mars travel 55:33 A realistic timeline for humans 56:42 Why Mars became politically loaded 57:37 The book Mars and the Earthlings 59:51 Where to follow his work

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  Episode #56

  Why Your Goals Might Not Be Yours (And How to Tell) - Prof. Kennon Sheldon - #56

  Sep 21, 202659 min

  Kennon Sheldon is a Curators' Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri and one of the leading researchers on motivation, goals, and well-being. He earned his B.S. in psychology from Duke and his PhD at the University of California, Davis, where he worked under Robert Emmons, the pioneer of research on personal strivings. Sheldon is a central figure in self-determination theory and positive psychology, best known for the self-concordance model, which explains why goals that reflect your real interests and values make you happier while pressured or guilt-driven goals do not. Across more than 300 academic papers he has pursued one guiding question: can happiness go up, and then actually stay up? In this conversation he draws on decades of that work to explain why we chase goals that never satisfy us, how to tell whether a goal is truly your own, and where free will fits into a life of striving. His book Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live was published by Basic Books in 2022. Expect to learn what the four types of motivation are and why they decide whether a goal makes you happy, how to tell whether a goal is genuinely yours or something you were pressured into, why dissatisfaction is worth listening to rather than silencing, how to know when it is time to quit and change your life, why reaching a long-chased goal so often feels empty, what the hedonic treadmill is and the two research-backed ways to beat it, why we evolved to adapt to good fortune so quickly, how goal setting is really an expression of free will, what the upward spiral study reveals about lasting happiness, the difference between tangible and intangible goals, whether we even need goals at all, and why obsessive passion gets more done but makes you less happy than harmonious passion. Kennon Sheldon online: Faculty page: https://sheldonk.mufaculty.umsystem.edu/ Book: Freely Determined (Basic Books, 2022) 0:00 Introduction 2:46 The four types of motivation 8:37 The psychology of dissatisfaction 15:15 When to quit and change your life 19:13 Why reaching goals feels empty 24:14 The hedonic treadmill 32:32 Why we adapt to everything 36:34 Free will and goal setting 40:34 The upward spiral study 42:24 Tangible versus intangible goals 47:25 Do we even need goals 48:59 Sharing the episode 52:25 Passion versus obsession 55:37 His new book

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