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NOVA scienceNOW Season 4 #404 1x53

THE SCIENCE OF PICKY EATERS
Neil deGrasse Tyson sets out to find out more about the science behind our sense of taste: and discovers that you can’t understand taste without also getting into smell. Just when he thinks he’s got it, HHMI scientist Bob Margolskee throws him a curve ball: receptors on taste cells are turning up in parts of the body no one ever imagined finding them!

CAPTURING CARBON
Can an eighth grader’s science fair project tackle rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Claire Lackner’s father Klaus, a renowned scientist at Columbia University, thought so when he saw how Claire used an aquarium pump to capture carbon dioxide in the air. A decade later, Dr. Lackner has helped form a green company that is testing a product inspired by his daughter’s vision.

SMART SEA LIONS AND TALKING WALRUSES
Sea lions and walruses are often dismissed as circus clowns, but new evidence shows that these animals are remarkably intelligent. Scientists have found sea lions to be capable of higher order reasoning that few other animals have demonstrated, and studies of walrus and sea lion vocal abilities are also shedding light on the evolutionary roots of human language.

PROFILE — SAGEETA BHATIA
Sangeeta Bhatia comes from a long line of successful females. Her aunt in India went to medical school and her mother was the first woman in India to receive an MBA. Now with her own PhD in Medical Engineering, and an MD, Bhatia is a tissue engineer at MIT with a focus on the liver and cancer treatment, and she’s started an outreach program to get young girls into labs: wearing space suits, working with lasers, and loving science.