where science meets fact meets fiction

Category: Podcast

  • Episode 099: Steven’s Best Favorite SciFact Clips Thing!

    Episode 099: Steven’s Best Favorite SciFact Clips Thing!

    Clip Show! This episode contains: Pocket Mortys, Poke Mon, Rock-Paper-Scissors, rookie mistakes, freemium games, rewards for watching commercials, Black Mirror, Clash of Clans, pay-to-win Brain Matters: wired for gaming, the brains of gamers, internet gaming disorder, the gaming chair, DSM-5, predisposition?, specific links in the brain, impulse control, addiction, phantom vibration syndrome  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151221194124.htm Biological Imperative:…

  • Episode 098: Robotic Arousal

    Episode 098: Robotic Arousal

    This episode contains: Waiting frantically, bachelor party, hand foot and mouth disease Robot Overlords: Touching robots elicits psychological arousal in humans, robot asked participants to touch different parts of body, measured humans response, more emotion for certain body parts, “arousal,” what about different types of robots, Animatrix, serial killer sweater, deaths in Vegas, moving dead…

  • Episode 097: Quantum Sympathy

    Episode 097: Quantum Sympathy

    This episode contains: Thin ice, San Jose Sharks, arctic sharks, dinosaurs, ST: VOY, ancient ruins, hockey Evolutionarily Speaking: new spider fossil, ancestor to spiders, 305,000,000 year-old rock, silk production, Charlotte’s Web, predators, megafauna, origins of spiders, is a scorpion an arachnid?, all life on Earth is connected http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/close-spider-relative-found-305-million-year-old-rocks Tree of life: http://www.united-academics.org/earth-environment/feeling-small-the-tree-of-life/ Brain Matters: mind…

  • Episode 096: Cloning Fungus

    Episode 096: Cloning Fungus

    This episode contains: Internet naming things, boat names, hand, foot and mouth disease, Web MD, chemical burn Nature Watch: Fungus that threatens chocolate forgoes sexual reproduction, frosty pod rot, several mating types, over 20,000 combinations, cloning when isolated from mating pair, cloning anyway https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160322120406.htm Brain Matters: What makes us conscious?, humans, animals, computers, Integrated Information…

  • Episode 095: AI Obligations

    Episode 095: AI Obligations

    This episode contains: Marriage license, state issued pamphlet, mandatory blood tests, role of government, bonus episode Break a Leg: first prosthesis with connection to bone and muscle, titanium v. other materials, sockets, removable parts, The Borg, control of prosthesis, cricket  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160314141412.htm Get Mental: smart phones reactions to mental health questions, conversational agents, asking Siri dumb…

  • Episode 94: Fly Safe

    Episode 94: Fly Safe

    This episode contains: Special guest host: Scott Manley! https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg Intro: Science fiction music, Flash Gordon, accents, academics, astronomy, internet radio, Asteroid Day (June 30th), saving the world Kerbal Space Program: space program simulation, video tutorials, video games and science, getting to space and orbiting Kerbin, new versions and mods, planet scale: 1/10th, Manley’s Mountain, development…

  • Episode 093: Finding Banksy

    Episode 093: Finding Banksy

    This episode contains: Commodore Craft and Demigod Domingues, Republican Presidential Primary, Star Wars analogies, Mitt Romney, Trump (the fun’s over), small hands…, Clinton v. Trump, presidential candidates and space, written questions This Week in Space: breaking the cosmic distance record, furthest galaxy, 13.4 billion years old, red-shifting, what if extra-terrestrial observers called but nobody heard?,…

  • Episode 092: Time Pushes Back

    Episode 092: Time Pushes Back

    This episode contains: Flying down mountains, snowboarding, steep learning curve, cost of entry, ski bus, maintenance of equipment, Straight Outta Compton, NWA, dropping knowledge Biological Imperative: alcohol exposure during pregnancy affects multiple generations, rats, drinking during pregnancy, wine, drunk on their back, back in their forepaws, alcohol sensitivity and alcohol preference, drinking and driving, alcohol…

  • Episode 091: Protagonist of Humanity

    Episode 091: Protagonist of Humanity

    This episode contains: All sci-fi, Valentines Day, early celebration, bad food, screwing up filet mignon, bland food, Steven’s non-Valentines, gifts Deadpool: theater too busy, ticket refunds, wine tasting, Devon: 4/5, first Wolverine movie,  funnier than expected, 4th wall, actors playing Professor X, Green Lantern, Ryan Reynolds, Steven: 3/5, marketing, straight forward plot, Ant Man, Captain…

  • Episode 090: Act of Vishnu

    Episode 090: Act of Vishnu

    This episode contains: Forgetting names, Periscope, podcast influences, The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, Skeptoid, Stuff You Should Know The Buzz About Bees: Bee virus is human made—driven by European honey bees, virus is natural, the spread is human, Varroa virus, wing deformity, mites, eating larva, transporting bees for pollination, bee population decline factors, preventative…