Tag: science

Transcript-TWIS.ORG jan 27, 2009


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.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG Jan 20, 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.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG Dec 30, 2008


Synopsis: Science and Celebrities pronuncements, Predictions for 2009, Mars Alive with carbon deposits, Bacteria Support Groups that form biofilms, Bird Songsters sing out competition for breeding, Favoring Orangutans due to token trading, and TWIS Question of the Month about geological activity that releases sequestered carbon!

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

This TWIS-mas, I was visited by three ghosts! Whisking me through time and space the ghost of TWIS-mas past, showed me beyond any doubt what humble beginnings science began with. What great heights it has soared to since and how heavily our modern civilization rests on the shoulder of giants, giants not only of intellectual prowess but giants of dedication, courage and sacrifice as well.

What we enjoy today are not the fruits of the modern era at all but the combined harvest of all of human history. The bounty of culture and intellectual pursuit that has been going on since the first great conversation took place outside of some cave and some now long forgotten language lost to time.

I was then visited by a second ghost who wanted to remind me that while all of human history had a hand in our high tech harvest it, like the following hour of our programming at present does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

I then found the third ghost haunt my TWIS-mas eve. A dark and looming specter this was, I felt the chill run down my spine, unsure for a moment of the phantom’s intention until at least at last the phantom spoke. “Hey, big fan of the show, just want to stop by”, the dark minion said. We high-fived and popped the rock.

“These are the things I’ve seen.” The minion hinted. “Are you ready for the future?” “Ready”, I said. It’s already in the show notes for, This Week in Science coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG Feb 17, 2009


Synopsis: Searching Synthetically, Teach the Children, Neander Clear-Up, Weakest Winners, Oceanic Melting Pot, The End of the World, Tattoos and Health Tips, Space Age Break-Up, and the Question of the Month.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

From the first moment life stirred into being on the Earth to the latest discovery in genetic engineering, life on Earth has not been boring. It may have looked a little slow in the beginning not much in the way of what we are used to thinking as exciting stuff going on at first, although I think we can all agree it was time well spent, there has been a lot of action in between — with fascinating creatures coming in and going like members in some sort of Evolutionary time share.

And for all we know, we are the first and only species ever to look at things with any sentient level of esthetic, artistic, or scientific appreciation, well, us and the Neanderthals anyway. And while appreciating the esthetic of Neanderthals, 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.

And while it may have taken nearly 4 billion years for television, radio, Internet, let alone books to come along, it is all here now. Now is by far the most excitable, accessible incomprehensively, understandable era that the planet has ever known. Now is by far the best time to be alive as long as we’re looking backwards in the time line anyway.

I have no doubt that the people of tomorrow will look back at our primitive time and be glad they were not forced to trudge through such ho hum times. But until that day comes and even when it does, now will remain the best time ever to be alive on planet Earth. This now, especially if for no other reason then this now includes, This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG July 7, 2009


Synopsis: Special Evolutionary Episode! The Debate Rages Between Justin and Kirsten (Or, Was It Lamarck and Darwin?), Refereed By Dr. Tim Coulson and His Shrinking Sheep

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

What we hold in our minds to be the world is an illusion, constructed out of observation and often crafted by our parents, teachers, friends, and in the current age by media full of messages. Our personal illusion of the world is always filtered through some combination of these influences.

One of the wonderful things about science is that it is the only motive thinking that seeks to ignore that personal world to reject our illusions and force the mind to look at information each time as if the real world were brand new and in need of introduction.

This way of saying without assumption of knowing can make visible in a glance that which would have remained invisible to the filtered eye — a glance of Hubble’s data plot revealing an expanding universe; a glance like Fleming’s bacterial dish ushering in the age of antibiotics, a glance that patterns across a flickering screen signaling that a cosmic discovery; a genetic breakthrough or needed cure is on the way, one step closer or at least within our reach.

And while the world without science remains illusionary at best, it like the following hour of our programming still does not represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

Yet, we will continue with wide-eyed introductions to reality, continue glancing over steady strings of data that flows past our radio vision seeking that data plot that oddly dotted dish, that flickering signal from an illusion free world of This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Transcript-TWIS.ORG March 17, 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.
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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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