Tag: bioethics

Transcript: TWIS.ORG April 28, 2009

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

It is said that a little knowledge can be dangerous. By this logic, having no knowledge at all may make you safe. Well, the following hour of our program is potentially lethal. More accurate perhaps is to say that too little knowledge can be an annoying thing — like finding a subtype strain of human-swine-avian flu that had not been previously documented and freaking out based on zero information, assuming that it can persist to a pandemic proportion.

While fear of such scenarios may be warranted, action out of that fear is not. And we attribute to the unknown the properties that lurk within our worst case scenarios our worst fears and then act on that fear without any true information, we spread the fear, incubate misinformation, making the potential or false fear and ignorant actions become a global pandemic freak out.

Enough with the surgical masks already! With patient to patient observations, we will learn that this flu is likely just a flu and therefore defeat-able. Fear served no purpose in solving such things. And then our best solution is soap and water, covering mouths while coughing, not leaking fixtures in public places and to avoid kissing pigs.

While licking fearful farm animals in public, much like the following hour of our programming, does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

We live in a world with the mysteries of disease are few. A world with a source and transmission of most illness is generally well known, identifiable and preventable, a world in which science has concurred many mortally challenging ailments and will continue to do so into the future. We will do so by seeking a lot of dangerous knowledge by gathering a lot of dangerous information and by acting out of reason, not fear.

While science is busy making us safer, it’s time to make you more dangerous here on This Week in Science, coming up next.
Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.ORG April 28, 2009”

TWIS.org March 3, 2009

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

While the following hour of our programming is not intended to be offensive, if you feel yourself in any way provoked, you should be provoked into thinking not to anger.

The content is for mature audiences. Though, by mature audiences, we mean to include five-year olds with the love and interest in science. The show itself well about science and employing scientific means to get science-y news to your ears, does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

And though the world is strange enough as it is, each week here we seem to discover that it can stranger still. “What can be stranger than ants raised by butterflies or see-through frogs?” One might ask. The answers await us in This Week in Science, coming up next.

Good morning, Kirsten!

Kirsten: Oh, great morning.

Justin: Yeah.

Kirsten: Do you know what today is?

Justin: Tuesday, right?

Kirsten: Besides that, what’s the date today?

Justin: No idea.

Kirsten: Today is the third month – the third day of the third month of the ninth year of 2000, whatever.

Justin: What? You’re – now what?

Kirsten: And I’m rambling. No I’m not. Today is Square Root Day.

Justin: Oh yeah, 03-03-09, yeah.

Continue reading “TWIS.org March 3, 2009”

Transcript: TWIS.org Aug 12, 2008


Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

As the Earth turns and meanders along its orbital path about the nuclear fireball in the center of our solar system, we find ourselves launched effortlessly into tomorrow after tomorrow.

A new morning, a new day, a new chance to get out and explore new possibilities. In no other territory of the world does this spirit of exploration offer greater opportunity for discovery than in the pursuit of science.

Each day, the exploration of the scientific territory bears new fruit, new tasty morsels of the universe explained, to feed the curiosity of our insatiable hunger for knowledge.

And while tasting the fruits of knowledge, like we do so often on the following hour of programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, it is the main ingredient in the ambrosia of sciencey goodness that has been plucked from only the very latest developments in This Week In Science, coming up next.
[music} Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.org Aug 12, 2008”

Transcript: TWIS.org Aug 08, 2008

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! There is information all around us – from the spinning spools of the newspaper press to the planet that is spinning. And the solar system is spinning. Spinning in our atoms too. Electrons spinning since before the day began, spinning now and into the future and beyond that too.

And while the dizzying spin of information – much like the following hour of programming, does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, the potential loss of these spinning bits of information once threatened the very foundations of modern physics.

As massive black holes loomed in even the tiniest waves of anthropic space, even though ships ahead had singled back their eventful fates, one man fearlessly refused to abandon ship and set course for the heart of the swirling gravity well with a singular determination.

“Oh captain, my captain, will we ever see the shores of home?” “Both yes and no,” Captain Susskind assures us and raises sails made of the finest threads to catch a cosmic wind. So, batten your mental hatches, me miniony mates and get ready to cast off with us on This Week in Science, coming up next.
[music] Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.org Aug 08, 2008”

Transcript:TWIS.org Oct 23, 2007

Justin: Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer!

The following hour of programming is not intended for the weak minded. You’ll hear things here that are by design intended to brainwash you into being more autonomous in your thinking, may constitute actually an act of passive treason once the scientist revolution begins. No subject will be considered too brainy, too bascule or too unsexy to be undressed.

Natural resistance to learning new things will be pinned down and tickled until it pees itself. If you are afraid of being ostracized by those around you for quoting scientists or ruining a romantic moment by correcting misconceptions about quantum physics or if you’re just concerned about being irreparably enlightened about the environment, you are listening to the wrong show.

If on the other hand, you believe that science is better than small talk, knowing stuff makes you more sexy and that the only way to survive the future is to prepare for it, then, I have good news for you because This Week In Science, Extra Brainwashy Edition is coming up next.

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Transcript:TWIS.org Oct 16, 2007

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! The following hour of programming is intentionally grounded in reality. If you are tuning in hopes of escaping reality, you have tuned in to the wrong frequency, downloaded the wrong podcast, or worse, you are actually a host of this show.

While many fear to seek truth, let alone face it, the next hour of time spent here is dedicated to exploring and dissecting that, which is truth from that, which is not, peeling away layers of presumption, intuition and supernatural inklings until the onion of the unknown is no more.

If you feel yourself tearing up now, it is an intellectual anticipation of This Week in Science, coming up next.
Continue reading “Transcript:TWIS.org Oct 16, 2007”