Neil deGrasse Tyson’s exclusive, one-on-one conversation with whistleblower Edward Snowden - via robotic telepresence from Moscow - concludes with a deeper dive into metadata, personal privacy and covert communications. Join us as Edward takes us further down the rabbit hole, where countries spy on their own citizens to protect them and “mere” metadata can be more intrusive and invasive than the actual content of a phone call. Decipher the differences between symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption and secret sharing schemes. But this episode isn’t just advanced math and n-dimensional matrices – Neil and Edward leave Earth behind and dive into the wavelengths of pulsars and cosmic background radiation in search of the perfect random number generator for an ideal seed value. Plus, Neil and Edward discuss the difficulty of separating the signal from the noise, both in astrophysics and in government mass surveillance.

Here's a little gallery of schmoozing, signing, and selfies - taken in the green room of The Beacon Theater after last night's StarTalk Live!

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In this week’s episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with whistleblower Edward Snowden via robotic telepresence from Moscow. The two card-carrying members of the geek community discuss Isaac Newton, the difference between education and learning, and even how knowledge is created. They also dive into the Periodic Table and chemistry, before moving on to the more expected subjects of data compression, encryption and privacy. You’ll learn about the relationship between private contractors, the CIA, and the NSA, for whom Edward began working at only 16 years old. Edward explains why metadata tells the government much more about individuals than they claim, and why there’s a distinction between the voluntary disclosure of information and the involuntary subversion of individual intent. Part 1 ends with a conversation about Ben Franklin, the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the CIA’s oath of service, and government Standard Form 312, which is the agreement Snowden violated.

A strange, and surprisingly funny, brew of poisons, parasites and infectious diseases is on tap at The Bell House in Brooklyn when Neil deGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman welcome guests Mark Siddall, the Leech Guy, and comedians H. Jon Benjamin and Jessica Williams. You’ll learn the difference between poison and venom, why magic mushrooms are safer than blowfish sushi, and how plants protect themselves by using cinnamon, vanilla, caffeine and nicotine as insecticides. You’ll also find out more than you might ever want to know about snakes, spiders, tapeworms, pinworms, bedbugs, and the parasites that live in your eyelashes. And that’s before Mark brings up the really scary stuff: Malaria and Ebola, and why mosquitoes and fruit bats aren’t the only things we have to worry about when it comes to protecting ourselves from infectious diseases.

Previously recorded live at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY.

Now extended with exclusive, never-before-heard content, in which Neil and his recently departed friend Oliver Sacks talk about evolution, religion and atheism, and compare a sense of wonder and awe towards the natural world with belief in the supernatural.

The brain’s 100 billion neurons speak to each other by chemical and electrical signaling, and this complicated communication provides us with everything we know and defines who we are. But when it is led astray, we can end up with false memories, hallucinations, and many other misunderstandings of the world around us. Learn about the role of the hippocampus in memory, the effects of LSD on the brain, the possible medical uses of LSD and other psychotropic drugs, and what a 19th century railroad worker named Phineas Gage can teach us about traumatic brain injuries.

Oliver Sacks, author of best-selling books on brain disorders, including Awakenings which was made into an Oscar-nominated film, discusses some strange cerebral shenanigans that can shape our senses. Neil is also joined by Cara Santa Maria, a science educator with a background in neuroscience, and the comedian Chuck Nice, whose mother used to tell him that “he ain’t right in the head.”

Now extended with “God’s Favorites,” plus “How Tweet It Is” with Neil and Bill Nye:

This Sunday, Neil deGrasse Tyson has the most exclusive interview in the history of StarTalk Radio – a one-on-one conversation with… God. Yes, God. Neil takes full advantage of the opportunity, asking God about everything from evolution and the fossil record to the Big Bang and the possibility of alien life. The two discuss free will, creationism, relativity, quantum physics and string theory. But that’s not all. You’ll find out why God put so many stars in the sky, which extinct animals he misses the most, how many universes there are in the multiverse, and how he was able to stop the sun in the sky for Joshua outside the walls of Jericho. More surprisingly, you’ll find out what God thinks of people who kill in his name and how old the universe really is. For these and other divine revelations, this is one episode of StarTalk Radio you can’t afford to miss.

On a hot night in Brooklyn, Bill Nye and Eugene Mirman get steamed up about climate change with help from their guests, Nobel Prize-winning climatologist Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig and comedians Jemaine Clement and Michael Che. Find out how climatologists create climate change and environmental impact models, and why those models show that the rate of global warming is faster than anticipated. Learn about albedo, the hockey stick, tipping points, and the “knock-on effects” of warmer temperatures. You’ll hear why fossil fuels are bad for the environment, what the global impact of a one degree Celsius change in temperature would be, and how cities are the “first responders” in addressing climate change. All this plus coastal flooding, melting glaciers, species migration, agricultural disruption, world-ending “cow farts” and the future of New York City and New Orleans.

Previously recorded live at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY.

Join us at The Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman investigate society and the human condition with the help of bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, sociologist Dr. Alondra Nelson and comedian Wyatt Cenac. Using Gladwell’s books Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath and The Tipping Point as background, Neil and our guests explore issues like sexism, class privilege and whether racism is an innate reflex or the result of socialization through religion, family and the media. You’ll hear how moving to blind auditions changed the gender mix in major orchestras overnight, and how your facial expressions indicate whether you’ll get divorced. Find out how the culture of NASA led to the Challenger disaster and whether institutional change is even possible. Learn why it takes 10,000 hours of work to turn talent into genius – with comparisons to Mozart and Beyoncé. Plus, Gladwell explains why the legend of David and Goliath, which plays into society’s love of underdogs, is really the story of an experienced warrior using superior firepower and technology to beat a blind man in a knife fight.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the information age with two of its digital elite: Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington and BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis. Learn how The Huffington Post helped elevate and legitimize blogging, and whether blogging and aggregation should even be considered news. Find out whether modern journalism can thrive in a “post-Gutenberg era” where fragmentation has replaced mass. You’ll hear a spirited in-studio discussion between Neil, Jeff and co-host Chuck Nice about trust, bias, and bubbles of reinforced narrative in the world of online media. Explore “Godwin’s Law” – that given enough time, any chat thread will end up with a reference to Hitler or the Nazis – and find out why “Don’t Feed the Trolls” is everyone’s responsibility. Plus, Arianna explains the role of science and religion in her life and in HuffPo’s science section, and Bill Nye shares about sharing.

If Superman followed the laws of physics, how could he fly? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice answer this and other questions from our fans about super powers, from the scientifically sound, to the supremely silly. Geek out as we take a realistic look at flight, super sight, super speed, telekinetics, telepathy, invulnerability, energy absorption, mastery of magnetism and more through the eyes of your own personal astrophysicist. Find out what super power you’d need to successfully traverse the multiverse, and whether there’s anything remotely feasible about the way Doctor Who’s TARDIS travels through time. You’ll also learn why using more than 10% of our brain wouldn’t give us super powers like in the movie Lucy. Neil answers questions about Thor’s Hammer, Batman vs. Iron Man, Lois Lane’s prenatal concerns, which super power he’d want, and which super heroes he thinks are most and least believable according to physics. Plus, Neil and Chuck come up with a new super power for the Man of Steel that will leave you gasping for breath.

Are science and religion compatible? That’s the question Neil deGrasse Tyson explores with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and in-studio guest Rev. James Martin, SJ. Join us as we look at both sides of the issue, from whether rational thought is an evolutionary benefit, to the astronomical contributions of Jesuit scientists at the Vatican Observatory, to the question of contemporary scientists believing in a supernatural power. Martin, a firm believer in evolution, asks why scientists who are content with unsolved mysteries like what came before The Big Bang, or those that exist in quantum physics, are any different than people of faith who are content with an incomplete understanding of God or the universe? Dawkins discusses how a scientist’s appetite for wonder and understanding leads science forward, and explains why pre-Darwinian scientists like Isaac Newton saw a designer’s hand in creation. And of course, no discussion of this subject would be complete without addressing Einstein’s repeated use of the word god and Galileo’s persecution by the Catholic Church and their eventual, albeit ridiculously late, pardon. Plus, Bill Nye rants about rocks and evolution and co-host Eugene Mirman explains why Pope Francis is the first “Fun Pope.”

Just in case Part 1 wasn’t controversial enough, Bill Nye and Chuck Nice are back to answer more of our fan’s questions about Genetically Modified Organisms. Find out whether there are nutritional and health differences between GMO and non-GMO food, and whether GMOs are even tested for their impact on human health. Learn about the unintended consequences of GMOs, including the decimation of the Monarch Butterfly and the impact of monoculture farming on pollinators like honeybees. Explore whether we can, or should, modify animals for research and drug testing, or for other purposes, like creating plants and bacteria for the bioremediation of heavy metal soil contamination or oil spill clean up. You’ll also hear about government regulation, agricultural policy, international restrictions on seed importation, and whether companies like Monsanto, Dow and Con Agra are acting as monopolies, or if marketplace competition keeps them in check. Bill and Chuck also discuss food labeling, and whether there are any truly non-GMO foods that have never had human input.