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.
Kirsten: This show was brought to you by listeners like you and your contributions. We couldn’t do it without you. Thanks.
Justin: Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. The following hour of programming is not a part of a clandestine operations sponsored by secretive governmental departments or intelligence agencies to covertly strengthen the scientific awareness and critical thinking capabilities of freedom loving people.
It is not funded by any nation’s military or insurgent guerillas with the intention of making you a more secure person and you’re understanding of the world. Listening is not enforced by or mandated by any law, statute, or men with guns.
No part of this program was conducted by or supported through a charitable organization of citizens concerned with the state of science literacy in this country. What the following hour is not says as much about what it is, as we will say on This Week in Science. Coming up next.
Justin This show is brought to you by you, the listener, and other people like you who listen. We couldn’t do this show if it wasn’t for you listening because then we’d just be talking to ourselves. So thank you.
Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
There are, by my own account, only two ways of being in the world: as though it is the first day or as if it is the last. If it is the last day, then what we do now has little consequence for tomorrow never comes. Our debt is reasonable, we can spend well beyond our means; for tomorrow never comes. Our use of natural resources does not need to be sustained beyond today for tomorrow never comes.
The climate of the earth, pfft! If it’s suitable today is all that you’re concerned with; for tomorrow never comes. And there’s little reason to learn that which will only be useful tomorrow for tomorrow never comes. But if you see this day as the first day, that can have unreasonable consequence.
Natural resources are precious commodity to be managed and sustainably watched over, not squandered. And the environment is something worth stewarding. And any knowledge gained is useful. However intangible, its benefit is in the now.
And while being a sustainably squandered commodity – 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; be it the first day or the last, the choice is always yours: to be at the beginning of your life or near the end.
To give you a little perspective today, we’ll let you in on a few things that started many yesterdays ago and will continue to develop over many tomorrows. Here on This Week in Science coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.org Oct 13, 2009”
Justin: Thank you for listening to TWIS. If you rely on this show for weekly science-y updates, please understand that we rely on your support to keep bringing those to you. Donate. Keep the science-y goodness on the air. We’ve made it very easy for you.
Go to our website www.twis.org, click on the button that will allow you to donate $2, $5, $10 or if you like, you can donate any amount of money you choose as many times as you like. Again, just go to www.twis.org and donate today. We need your support and we thank you in advance for it.
Kirsten: Oh, but there’s more. And I think we’re going to do a little extra long This Week in Science this week. We – yeah, the next DJ didn’t show so what we get to do is have more science. So many – so many TWISmas presents for the world out there.
I just found some great news – Justin went upstairs for a little bit so I’m just going to chitter-chatter – the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider has produced its first results. There’s a paper published online this week in Springer’s European Physical Journal C relating to measurements that were taken on November 23, 2009 during the early use of the CERN LHC. Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.org Dec 15, 2009 Part 2”
How do we judge the quality of life? Some would say it is by whether or not that life is a life lived well. But what is a life lived well? Is it an accomplishment or an affect, a way of being in the world?
This is to say that a life lived well could simply be a life lived in accordance with an individual’s ideals. The life lived well of a painter being very different perhaps in the life lived well of a pro football player or microbiologist.
And there could, by this measure, be as many ways of living the life well-lived as there are people living lives, leaving it up to each of us to decide if the life we’re living is living up to our own standard of wellness.
While equality of life issues, much like the following hour of our programming, do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.
The question being interjected into your brain frames at this moment in time is, “Are you living your life the way you, yourself, would judge a life to be well-lived?” Forget about champagne wishes and caviar dreams. I’m talking about you, being the best you. Are you?
If your answer is anything other than, “Hells yeah,” make time this week to invite your ideal you over for a coffee and ask yourself, “What you might do to be more you like?” Just like you, we want to be the best we as we can be, which we couldn’t do without you turning into This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript:TWIS.ORG Jan 26, 2010”
The following hour of programming contains language of a scientific nature, which may be considered offensive to some people. If you believe that evolution is an attempt to undermine your creation; if you are sure that the moon landing was a government hoax; if you are certain of the age of the earth and that it is less than 10,000 years; if you know global warming is fake because of an email you have never read; if you think developing cures to human disease from ten-cell blastocysts shatters human dignity – then you are listening to the right show.
And while offending, undermining, hoaxing and faking and shattering the world views of certain minded people — much like the following hour of programming — does not represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, if you listen, you will gain knowledge and will become powerful because knowledge is intellectual power.
If you listen long enough, that power will corrupt you. Once corrupted, you will realize that you are still as good or rotten a person as you were before having been corrupted by a powerful intellectual content; that knowledge in fact does not corrupt people but that it is people that can corrupt knowledge; that the same can be said of truth, money, power and This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript:TWIS.ORG Dec 08, 2009”
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! It’s a new day, a new year and a new decade. A time of resolutions and commitments to a better you in the future to come. With all of the things real or invented that we worry about in the course of making our way through a day, this year, let’s agree together – that the best way in which we can improve ourselves is to create a balance between the need for survival and the act of enjoying our lives.
Let us dedicate the coming year to doing those things that bring us joy, pleasure and peace of mind. While the Epicurean philosophy of tempered enjoyment 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, we hope that you enjoy your time with the conversations to come on This Week in Science. Coming up next.
Justin: This show is brought to you by listeners like you and the contributions that people like you are giving. People who aren’t you, who are actually giving. We couldn’t do it without them. So please, be one of them or unless that’s one of you in which, thank you.
Kirsten: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
As we passed from one holiday to the next, Valentine’s Day to President’s Day, the reasons for celebration change. We celebrate love and we celebrate those who work to make our nation great. Yet the underlying reason for celebration does not change.
We are humans who struggle through life who need a psychological break from the monotony of our existence. Celebrations remind us that we are alive and share this world with so many others who, like us, need to be reminded that each day is an amazing achievement.
And while the following hour of programming does not represent the views of KDVS, KDVS’ sponsors or the University of California, you are not alone in your love of science. And others are here to celebrate the wonders of science with you. Take the next hour as your holiday in the name of science and be reminded just how cool life really is on This Week in Science, coming up next.
Synopsis: Tiny Eyes, Roving Mars, Feeling Secure, Vitamin Hopes, Alcoholic Assays, and an Interview w/ Scott Sigler re: Contagious.
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
The following hour of programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. This is lucky because if it did, it would be very boring, all about when you can take a class, what after school or things you can be doing, all kinds of boring UCD stuff.
Synopsis: Skinny Monkey with less calorie intake live longer? Bacterial Bloat, Flower Power burst confounds Darwin, When Good Words Go Bad, World Robot Domination–crickets, bats, Bad Words Done Good, and Interview w/ Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America
Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
Science! The act of learning by a careful observation that often starts fast in a question, a “how”, a “what”, a “why”, sort of a thing is followed up then by experiment, observation. This is the basis of the whole scientific set up, observing, testing, observing some more and then learning from it.
We have taken the simple act of looking at things to a wide-range of amazing places in recent years. Making observations of everything from spinning electrons to orbiting planets and distant stars, from the double Helix to galaxy clusters, billions of light years away from our Earthly observatory.
And between the gathering of the stars, we humans plot these points of interests, seek out more and even create new ones ourselves. The picture that is forming is actually quite stunning, both in what it reveals and in our ability to reveal it.
If the human may be allowed a narcissistic moment to lavish phrase upon humanity itself, I think we’re doing a really good job. And while spinning clusters of observant narcissistic humans, much like the following hour of our programming, do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.
We can all take pride knowing that, of all the life forms on planet Earth, it is we humans who have contributed the most to scientific knowledge. We are so well adapted to learning new things that at times it seems, we just can’t get enough. Even now, even this very moment, we are eager to perform the act of observing as we turn our attentions to another episode of, This Week In Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript-TWIS.ORG July 14, 2009”
Dr. Kiki: This is Twis. This Week in Science episode number 653 recorded on Wednesday, January 10th, 2018. The 2018 prediction show.