The Pseudoscientists: Recent Episodes
The Pseudoscientists
The Pseudoscientists is the official podcast of the Young Australian Skeptics - a weekly journey into the overlapping worlds of science, critical thinking, religion and pop-culture with a group of young skeptics and science communicators.
You find out more about The Pseudoscientists, as well as listen to the first 96 episodes of the show, HERE (http://youngausskeptics.com/podcast) .
Belinda, Liz and Jack are joined by Lauren Cochrane, President of the Canberra Skeptics, to chat about new developments in fish-tetrapod evolution, why coffee might boost your memory, and which scientific ideas are ready for retirement, while Jargonauts gets holistic with “emergence”.
Plus: hotness, coldness, and Belinda’s last regular episode! We’ll miss you, Belinda!
Jack, Rachael and Liz discuss why 432Hz isn’t a better reference pitch for your music, how an anti-epilepsy drug might let adults learn perfect pitch, and whether or not we should bring extinct animals back from the dead, while Jargonauts wades into the weird world of “magnetic fields”.
Plus: CSIRO dragons, British TV shows, and tapping for miracles!
Sarah and Jack are joined by guest host James Garth to discuss if Christians can be skeptics, why TED Talks aren’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, how children can be born with three parents, and what the latest Pew Forum data says about US acceptance of evolution. Jargonauts separates the in-group from the out-group with “shibboleth”, and Sarah presents an update on acupuncture vs. dry needling.
Plus: drones, exquisite compression, and Illuminati fireworks.
Jack and Liz share Christmas cheer in what will probably be the last Classic™ episode of 2013. A new mammal discovery in Brazil doesn’t mean Bigfoot is real, Wi-Fi routers are not killing your plants, and antibacterial soap isn’t killing more bacteria than regular soap. An episode of negatives! Jargonauts gets charged up with “ionisation”, and we share some of our favourite podcasts that you might want to listen to over the (short) break.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!
Belinda, Jack, Sarah are joined by their newest cohost, Elizabeth Riaikkenen, and discuss her adventures being a skeptic in high school. But there’s science news too: the base of the tree of life might be wrong, and exam results don’t correlate with fluid intelligence. Jargonauts is all about that “abiogenesis” life, and Question of the Week ponders whether or not it is unethical to teach your kids about Santa.
Tom, Sarah and Jack discuss bacteria acquiring mammoth DNA, beliefs on different sides of the political spectrum, and why memories and fears might be able to be passed to your children. Jargonauts works through “alignment”, and the Question of the Week is all about the public image of the skeptical community.
Ted Janet interviews British documentary filmmaker Tony Stark, who — while not related to either Iron Man or a powerful family in from the north of Westeros — has made numerous documentaries about religion. They chat about a couple of his latest films, as well as critical thinking in journalism.
Belinda and Jack present the audio from Belinda’s recent story at The Laborastory about pioneering female astronomer Ruby Payne-Scott. Plus a couple of other things, naturally.
You can find out more about The Laborastory and buy tickets to the next show at www.thelaborastory.com.
Jack, Belinda and Tom are finally back in the studio for a Classic™ episode of The Pseudoscientists: now with 100% more existence. They chat about microbes that are only found near spacecraft, why Australian science might receive a nasty blow in the near future, and how a genetic modification breakthrough might result in better gene therapy. Jargonauts is shockingly good with “voltage” and “amps”, and the Question of the Week looks at proving or disproving the existence of God…
Ted Janet interviews Adam VanLangenberg (maths teacher and the creator of the Sceptic School high school skeptical group at McKinnon Secondary College) and Elizabeth Riaikkenen (a writer for the Young Australian Skeptics and one of Adam’s students). They chat about skepticism in high schools, how to communicate as a skeptic, and what sorts of things skepticism needs to be taking seriously.
Plus, Jack apologises for the lack of a proper episode this week and lets you know about some cool things that are happening soon.
Belinda and Jack get another dose of astrophysics with Alan Duffy, a charming cosmologist, and chat about Australia’s new lack of a science minister, Voyager 1’s trip out of the solar system, and the scientific argument against gay marriage. Jargonauts goes into questionable territory with “harassment”, and Question of the Week is a brutal free-for-all about which area of science deserves the least amount of funding.
Plus: Jack does fly work, Belinda has glasses, Alan gets bitten by a penguin, and someone pretends to be a creationist.
Jack and Sarah are joined in the studio by past host Alastair Tait and huge friend of the show Kylie Sturgess to chat about Alastair’s time at NASA, how DNA might be used to make super-fast computers, and why we have a 300,000 year-old mitochondrial genome. Jargonauts gets scared of a couple of phobias, and Question of the Week asks what Australian skepticism needs to deal with in the future.
Plus: New Zealand skepticism, dropbears, Seal, and ludicrous Christian films.
Jack is joined by returning guest Upulie Divisekera to delve into discovering element 115, why NASA wants to put a vacuum cleaner on the Moon, and how genomics is changing the way we treat tuberculosis. Jargonauts emits information about fluorescence and phosphorescence, and Question of the Week finds out if you want to upload your consciousness to the Internet.
Plus: Australian politics, dissecting flies, nanotechnology, and Tony Abbott.
Belinda, Sarah and Jack are joined by Annika Victoria, a blogger who injects science into fashion and inspires young people along the way, and they chat about human-human brain interactions and why the UN is causing floods in central Queensland (or why an Australian political candidate thinks so). Jargonauts divides the world into science and pseudoscience with “demarcation”, and Question of the Week thinks wishfully and wonders which pseudoscience should be real, in an ideal world.
Plus: Belinda on The Laborastory, Jack is unfit, Audioboo, and life from peanut butter.
Jack and Belinda explode into the new (podcast) century with astrophysicist Katie Mack, returning for her second podcast experience. They chat about black hole firewalls, fake bomb detector fraud and why music might be judged more by sight than by hearing. Jargonauts disappears over the “horizon”, and Question of the Week gets extremely… self-indulgent. We apologise. Maybe.
Bloopers, ramblings, rants, arguments and generally semi-salvageable bits that never made it into the last 50 episodes. Now with old-school jazz, because we’re classy.
Belinda, Jack, Rachael, Tom, Sarah and very special guest Lawrence Leung celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast with a live show at Pugg Mahones in Carlton. They discuss how they each got into skepticism and doing the podcast, and their favourite news items over the first 99 episodes. The Houston clip is a mashup, Jargonauts turns into a bit of a game, and Question of the Week reflects on some terrible misconceptions about science, with some help from the show’s audience. It was heaps of fun.
Jack and special guest Ted Janet revisit lab-grown meat, and then interview Shelley Segal about her and Ted’s graphic anthology project “Balaclava Junction”, about growing up in a Jewish community in Melbourne (plus a song!), and Question of the Week looks at superheroes and which ones are most scientifically unrealistic!
Plus: Ted’s very sick, Lawrence Leung on the 100th episode live show, and Jewish conspiracies.
Tom, Belinda and Jack find out why there are healthy and unhealthy forms of happiness, and interview Nat, Aaron and Andrea from The Laborastory storytelling night about why science makes for such good stories. Jargonauts fixes the definition of "polymorphism", and Question of the Week tries to find some ideas in science that might actually be a little bit pseudoscientific.
Plus: more plugs for our 100th episode live show on the 14th of August, banana lollies, and wondrous, cancer-curing Vitamin C (or not).
Jack, Sarah and Belinda discover why oxytocin isn’t the wonderful hormone we all thought it was, why rainforests may actually be releasing carbon dioxide (and why we’re all screwed because of it), and why huge viral genomes may redefine the tree of life. Jargonauts rains on everyone’s parade with “precipitation”, and Question of the Week looks at thought experiments. No one mentions Schrödinger’s Cat.
Plus, 100TH EPISODE LIVE SHOW, Jack’s tweeting at @realscientists, another European message from Rachael, and the Royal Baby horoscope.