Tag: paleontology

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 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 31, 2009


Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

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.
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Transcript:TWIS.ORG Sept 16, 2008


Justin: Heading through the Large Hadron Collider, the Physics world buzzes with excitement about the many potential discoveries, confirmations and unexpected revelations, the media and the general public are scrambling to learn the basics of the Physics at play.

Why – what is a Hadron? What is a Higgs? How did they accelerate one? Is it safe to do so? Are Proton beans colliding going to cause a big bang? What is a Big Bang anyway? And I heard they want to make a big black hole and it’s going to swallow the whole Earth. Is that true? Have they gone mad? Should we stop them? And where, oh where on earth is the country of CERN I keep hearing about anyway?

While the location of CERN much like the following hour of our programming, does not represent the views or opinions of the University of California, Davis KDVS or its sponsors. The real benefit of the LHC may lay as much in the minds and imaginations of the curious public as it does in the 17 miles of buried tunnel.

As fears of impending doom circulate, like rumors in a mill, the incredible need for the man on the street to know his Higgs from a Hadron Collider in the ground becomes clear. And so, too the solution to such dire need also becomes clear. For where else can the public turn to for on the fly science learning but This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript: TWIS.ORG April 14, 2009


Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. The mortal words of the anthropomorphic little engine that did while face the seemingly undoable task of scaling a steep mountain grade. Much like the little engine, bound to travel the rails laid before it, science too has little choice but to take head on the obstacles and its path.

There are less treacherous tasks to tackle in life than those of astrophysics quantum unification and autoimmune disease. There are much smaller mountains to master than those of global climate, cancer or the multitude of mental afflictions that assault the human line.

And just like the moralistic little engine tail, it is the belief that anything can be accomplished through persistent thinking and doing that science ultimately makes a grade.

And while making the moralistic mental grade, 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, the plain old fashion pluckiness of science continues to push us to new heights chugging away with pistons of persistent PhDs patiently plodding out data proofs like pops of smoke from the stack of a story book steam engine.

“I think I can” unify all forces under one theory. I think I can cure cancer. I think I can put a man on Mars. And while the plucky mountain climb continues, other trains are just now returning to the station 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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Transcript: TWIS.ORG May 26. 2009


Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

Being brilliant is easier than you think. All it requires from you is that you learn, teach or otherwise share information. Sparking of new neurons ever small or seemingly uneventful is the very thing that all human knowledge is based on.

From a student perceiving the previously unknown, the furrowed brow of confusion that follows and following that in illuminating detailed explanation leading to a nodding head of newly acquired knowledge.

As though defying the thermo dynamic laws of conservation, new knowledge has been created and nothing has been lost. This ability, incredible ability to learn, to create something out of nothing is in the hands of both teacher and student. The patience to teach, the desire to know and the willingness to be mindful for a few moments in time that such thing is giving and getting information can be productive for the greater and personal good of all mankind.

While the nodding heads of mindful, thermodynamics 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.

Every discovery that brought about the enlightenment of the modern age from fire to the Phoenix Lander, from the first water wells to the latest in stem cells could not have come about if not for the simple acts of people talking, thinking and sharing.

If we all take advantage of our ability to spark new information, the future will not only be bright, it will be down right brilliant. Speaking of simple acts of information sharing, get ready for This Week in Science, coming up next. Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.ORG May 26. 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.

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Transcript:TWIS.org Sept 4, 2007

Justin: Good morning Kirsten.

Kirsten: Good morning Justin.

Justin: I can’t hear any…

Kirsten: Hold on.

Justin: Where is the – ouch!

Kirsten: I got it.

Justin: What’s going on around here? What’s happening?
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Transcript:TWIS.org Oct 30, 2007

Justin: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Online searching for a story of sciencey news lore.
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my farmhouse door.
‘Tis just Kirsten”, I muttered, “tapping at my farmhouse door –
Only this and nothing more.

Open here I flung the portal, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my farmhouse door –
Perched upon a bust of Plato just above my farmhouse door –
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my late night study into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of its countenance it wore,
‘Though scientific names escape me, I bet Kirsten, she could name me.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore –
Tell me what is new in science on this night before the show.
Quote the raven…

Kirsten: “Nevermore”.
Continue reading “Transcript:TWIS.org Oct 30, 2007”