Tag: genetics

Transcript-TWIS.ORG June 30, 2009


Synopsis: Digg’n Physics via Twitter, Dino Skinny, Bird Brain Insights, Fish Freakouts!, Tunguska Shuttle Hugs, Building Better Melons, Minion Mailbag, and The Question of the Month!

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

What is right is right. And what is wrong is wrong. What is true is true. And what is untrue is untrue. What is science is science. And what is not science is not science. Such absolutes are hard to find in the push-pull of human nature driven world.

For what is right, like a free election can be untrue in it’s result. What is most easily condemned as wrong, like the murder of innocents can be true as we have seen too often in the past than most recently in Iran.

What is not science can be disguised as science in order to gain our trust. And fake science journals rigged industry research and false claims by hired assassins of truth — tobacco isn’t addictive, global warming isn’t happening, drugs will never kill you.

As the fabrication of false denials are found out, defrocked, defiled and filed under fraudulent, they 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.

As living in a world without absolutes can make for a foggy notions sense of being, let us create a few absolutes upon which to stand. What is science is absolutely right and never wrong. For it is a continuing process, the self-correction, that is willing to change when it isn’t correct.

What is science is absolutely true and never untrue. For this ever moving towards truth, regardless of where it started and what we want truth to be has no relation to what truths we find.

And science is a process of getting it right. That is willing to get it wrong until we are getting at what is true more often than we are settling for what is untrue. And so, science therefore rejects all absolutes. All absolutes that is a long the way to becoming, This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.org June 16, 2009


Synopsis: Bisphenol A and estrogen, Toxoplasma Gondii causing car crashes?, Beware of Robo-Ferret used to sniff out hidden things, RoboGames Redux, Adventures in Popularity, Move Over Silicon!, Go Fly A Kite, TWIS Bits, and Interview w/ Dr. Greg Gibson re: Genes and Illness.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

It’s no secret, no one gets out of here alive. The question then, if anyone asks, is what if anything we do with the time we have in the great go around. Suggestions are plenty and opinions abound or regardless of intentions of what we do or who we are and why we are doing these things, our opinions, like the following hour of our programming, do not necessarily represent those of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. Still, regardless of self-opinion, this is the moment in which we can do.

In a sense, what we can do is who we are, we are all about to be, This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG Feb 10, 2009

Synopsis: LHC News!, Valentine’s Day Warnings about mating, Don’t Feed the Fish, Giant Pythons and hotter weather in the past, Malignant Marijuana may cause testicular cancer, This Week in the End of Florida, Dog/Wolf Love, and Interview w/ Dr. Sean B. Carroll re: Evolution.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The following hour of our programming has been deemed so improbable that it ventures on the impossible. The chances of the universe existing with all the right tools to create this show such as radio waves, a planet capable of supporting life and the sentient race capable of speech and hearing are incredibly slim.

What are the odds if the hosts will be Kirsten and Justin, not one of the other six billion people wondering aimlessly across the face of the planet? That’s not even considering how vastly improbable the chain of events that led you to finding our show. It’s simply cannot be chance alone.

And while the winds of chance are mind boggling much like the following hour of our programming, they do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. Listeners should be aware though that the universe may have made many natural selections.

What you are about to hear is no mere random assortment of words. Come to think of it, the ads against the show are so perfectly tuned to allow you to listen to this show.

Perhaps there is only one conclusion that can be reached. The universe was designed by an intelligent creator and with only one purpose in mind. That’s right. The universe was most assuredly design for This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG Feb 24, 2009

Synopsis: How To Say Kiki, Decade of Data, This Week in The End of The World, Fighting The Good Fight, Lots of Health, Saving Humanity, and a Competition For God

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The following hour of our programming much like the human genome is full of endless possibilities, yet comprised of a few relatively simple base arrangements in a specific manner.

From these endless possibilities, it is virtually guaranteed that the host will be led on tangent spinning the show out of control. As their ideas and inquiries twirl about an endless spiral. It is comparable only to the coiling double-helical form of Deoxyribonucleic acid more commonly known as the abbreviated form DNA.

And while these twirling ideas and spinning inquiries do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, it is these such ponderings that have allowed scientist to methodically discover the countless breakthroughs and advancements which led ultimately to the creation of This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG March 10, 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.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG March 24, 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.

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Transcript-TWIS.ORG May 5, 2009

Synopsis: Remote Control Brains, Making Blood Crawl, Birdsong Basics, This Week in Science History, Drink To Your Sanity, and an Interview with Dr. Leonard Mlodinow re: The Drunkard’s Walk.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

In the wake of the H1N1 worry, the world has a new wave of statistical woe on the way. As the number of confirmed deaths continued to drop, from hundreds, to dozens down to only ten within a single week.

The latest statistical projections of the un-die-ing situation now suggest that we are trending towards a potential population explosion!

If people continue to un-die at this rate, we may soon be looking at a human transmittable in fallopian pregno-demic that could grow exponentially over the next nine months.

And while this exponential growth oddly mirrors the rate of natural human reproduction it, 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 should be wary, as face masks will not be enough to protect you from the probability of procreation. Staying indoors with loved ones might actually contribute to the further spread of parental syndromes.

While the CDC sits idly by and does nothing to slow the rapid rate of confirmed un-deadenings, you can be comforted to know that we will be dedicating the next hour to keeping you reasonably safe by offering you something else to do, here on This Week In Science coming up next.
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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.
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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.

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Transcript: TWIS.org Sept 18, 2007


Justin: Good morning Kirsten.

Kirsten: Good morning Justin. Have a good weekend?

Justin: Yes.

Kirsten: Awesome. We’re back, this is This Week In Science, it’s 8:30 in the morning on Tuesday, the 18th of September. Welcome, welcome, welcome to all you listening out there. We’ve got a lot of Science right?

Justin: Big week in science News. My goodness.

Kirsten: Actually, I thought last week was bigger.

Justin: This week is the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Kirsten: Ever.

Justin: Ever.

Kirsten: We have an interview at the top of the hour, the 9 o’clock.

Justin: The biggest interview we’ve ever had on this show.

Kirsten: Ever.

Justin: Ever.

Kirsten: Well that might be next week. I’ll see what I can do about that but…

Justin: Why are you guys – we have an invited guest today, no. Today’s show.

Kirsten: You got to tease for next week too.

Justin: Oh, yes right.

Kirsten: Okay, today…
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