Dr. Kiki: This is Twis. This Week in Science episode number 653 recorded on Wednesday, January 10th, 2018. The 2018 prediction show.
Hey, everyone, I’m Dr. Kiki and tonight, on This Week in Science, we are going to fill your heads with predictions from last year, predictions for this year and yeah, actually, some science news. But first, TWIS is supported by listeners like you. We thank you for your support. We really couldn’t do it without you.
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
Those who can not remember the past, it has been said, are condemned to repeat it. As if the past were only a thing to avoid. Many good things have come from the past. Every good thing, in fact, has its origins in the past. Much of it worth repeating. So, it’s just as well to point out, those who don’t remember the past will have a hard time replicating the positive results that they’ve received at some point before.
Synopsis: The End of the World Dead sea zones, This Week in Evolution, Why Being an Astronaut Isn’t So Hip, Police and Non Lethal Weapons increases death rates? Don’t Mix, Recess Makes You Smarter, and Interview on Autism w/ Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen
Kirsten: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
I’m not Justin. You are listening to This Week in Science. And anything that you hear during the next hour does not represent the views of the University of California, at Davis, ASUCD or even KDVS. This is all us.
Justin: Good morning, Kirsten!
Kirsten: Good morning, Justin! Welcome everyone. It’s This Week in Science. And we have so much science news. We have a great show ahead. We are planning to interview Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen today.
Justin: For the second time.
Kirsten: For the second time.
Justin: We’re planning to have.
Kirsten: Exactly. We’ll see. We’ll make sure all the phone numbers are accurate and all of the overseas connections are working properly. You know, I went out and hand check all the under sea cables just to make sure it’s going to work.
Justin: Nice. See. That’s why you’re so thorough, Kirsten.
Kirsten: I know, I plan – I really do try and plan ahead when I’m producing a show. What do I have today? I have got stories about The End of the World and Evolution. Continue reading “Transcript-TWIS.ORG jan 27, 2009”
Synopsis: Martian methane plumes Gassiness, Our Hologram Universe, Hydras to the Rescue for MRSA, Female Strength in nutritional deprivation, TWIS Mailbag, and More!
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
As the United States inaugurates a new leader and the scientific community at large awaits the promise of fresh leadership in scientific pursuit, there are so many stories rapidly unfolding in science that any form of leadership will find it hard to remain out in front of the uncoverings, discoverings and the brilliant new understandings of the universe at all.
What science awaits now is a leader with the vision to fully fund our future despite our current bank balance; to take the lead on tough policy issues by knowing when to simply get out of the way of them; to dedicate the nation to rebuilding our educational infrastructure in which scientific thought is cultivated without giving deference to religious dogma; to establish the building blocks for sustainable energy at home that can power us to an eventual lunar landing and marching conquest; to make it clear now, that we are one people, that there are no red states or blue states, this last point perhaps being the most important of all because if we find ourselves without this commonality between red states and blue states now, we will surely be lost when we are nation of red and blue planets.
And while Marsifest Destiny much like the following hour of our programming doesn’t necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. We can all take a moment this day to welcome a new American President to the world stage and join him in solemn swearing to take an oath not just to a nation but to our collective future and the better aspirations of our common past.
For instance we here at This Week in Science do solemnly swear to faithfully execute to the best of our own abilities, This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript-TWIS.ORG Jan 20, 2009”
Synopsis: Potential Purposes of Prions as inter cell glue, No Snakes In Greenland due to lack of land bridge and cold spell, Insect Memory in Caterpillars, Science Pop-Quiz, Catching The Higgs, Geo-centrism and Global Warming, Japanese Robots on the Catwalk, Dark Matters protecting some galaxies, and the Sand Worms.
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
Depending on your point of view in the life you happen to be living at the moment, the world is either a boring or interesting place. Your day is routine or full of stress. The week ahead planned out are left to chaos, the past year of joyful celebrations or mindless regret.
You have every right to be happily complacent — cannot be faulted if you are restlessly unsatisfied and may even find yourself happily unsatisfied with restless joy amidst the complacent chaos of an interesting routine. With so many ways of being in the world, it seems strange at times that the world we live in is the same one that is lived in by everybody else.
And while your life, your point of view and this moment in time, much like the following hour of our programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.
If we pause here, take the snapshot of the world around us and just this moment and consider the billions of other mental still shot picture frames out there, each with their own unique view of the same universe, we may wonder if there is an actual reality beyond the subjective, a truth that is unfiltered by the perspective itself. Don’t be silly. Of course there is and we’ll share it with you here next on This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript-TWIS.ORG March 17, 2009”
Synopsis: Chickosaurus!, Horsing Around, The Moon Rules, Religious Brains, Cells and Ladders, Asteroids, Moonlets, and Holes, Oh, My!, Optimism, Naptime, and Avoiding Old Age, and The Question of the Month Minion Style
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
With the spring season rapidly approaching, time is running out for declarations of wintery discontent. Though it may still be chilly, the Northern hemisphere thaw is about to kick in. And a great veil of blossoming, sprouting upward surging vegetative life will sprig forth anew.
This time if you are also tense to foster fresh fancy for flirtation in more of fleshy forms of biological life as the winter coats come off and the bare skin becomes more common.
And while spring times is sprigging, much like the following hour of programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.
Listeners need not wait for the fall harvest to enjoy the bounty of new knowledge. As each week, we attempt to catch glimpses of science-y seedlings before they break through the informational soil surface of main stream media. Ever so tenderly tending the radio tiller of truth it’s This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript-TWIS.ORG March 10, 2009”
Synopsis: Brains, brains, brains! Cold Fusion, Bad For Baby, Kiki needs to drink less, and lots more
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! The Earth is facing an immediate global threat of self-annihilation. And while the vast majority of Earth’s inhabitants do nothing to fight the threat of global warming, this is likely because most of its habitants are non-sentient life forms.
Yet even among these sentient thinking reasoning informational adaptive earthlings, there seems to be a little initiative taken. Either from a lack of knowledge, absence or of awareness or worse, a sense that the trouble ahead is too terrible.
The challenge is too great and so they ignore the issue resolving the Earth to a coward’s fate. And though terribly troubled earthlings much like the following hour of our programming do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of University of California at DAVIS, KDVS or its sponsors.
The fate of the world is NOT so predetermined. There are some human principles that do not back down from the challenge. Science ever thinking, never blinking, innovating answers instead of hesitating the question, inventing the tools needed to face the future instead of pretending that tomorrow will never come.
With science, a new energy portfolio is being designed. Roof tiles integrated with solar cells, algae and hydrogen fuel sources, emission-free vehicles backed up by better battery technology, rooftop, wind turbines and water turbines and ocean currents, geothermal power plants tap in deep into the Earth below and pursuit of perhaps the greatest of potential prices. Even fusion is on the table still.
Nothing is impossible. No challenge too great, no question too tricky for the brave-minded modern scientist. And speaking of brave minds, hello! Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science, coming up next.
Getting it wrong is one of the most important things you can do in the pursuit of science. The more things you get wrong, the less places truth has to hide. More than simply a process of elimination, getting it wrong can actually produce new facts.
For instance, if we go back in time to the days of early men, we can imagine an early attempt to reach the moon by throwing a rock while it is directly over head. Not only does this attempt illustrate the wrong way to reach the moon, it also produces facts about gravity, acceleration, and potentially head injuries that could be later studied.
And while throwing rocks at the moon 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 should all feel like great Liberty to get things wrong on a daily basis. For every wrong answer is a step towards the truth. Every dumb question – one less that needed to be asked. Every failed experiment eliminates the need for it to be done that way again.
And every intuitive false belief refuted finds us a more objective understanding upon which to stand. In fact, wrong thinking makes the impossible possible.
If only by learning new ways of not going about attempting it, it could be said and therefore it’s about to be that getting things wrong is the easiest way to learn new things.
And while you ponder the possible wrong things you can think today, we will eliminate a few facts so as not to make your efforts in vain. You’re on This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.ORG March 31, 2009”
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”
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates in defense of his life lived in endless pursuit of examinings, so what of an unexamined universe?
While many people find the unexamined universe worth living in, they are likely the same truck of folk living the unexamined life, never questioning, ever mindless of the vast intricacies of the oceanic abundance of the reality that surrounds.
It is an illness of mental potential. Have they ever stopped for a moment to consider why it is that they don’t examine themselves or the world around them, they would be cured of this mindless fate?
While the following hour of program does not necessarily represent the views of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, it does attempt to keep you on the path of mindful pondering, endless examining and tireless thinking.
Dr. Kiki: This is Twis. This Week in Science episode number 653 recorded on Wednesday, January 10th, 2018. The 2018 prediction show.