LUEE

9 January 2023

Episode 187: Last Year’s News

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Lauren, Ashlyn, and Laura discuss the most important news of the twelve months. Who died? What were tech companies up to? And most importantly: Who brought snacks?

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Update: Shortly after this episode was recorded, vote tallying was completed and QA workers at ZeniMax announced that their union drive was a success. Microsoft has officially recognized the union. ZeniMax Workers United, organized under the Communication Workers of America, which is now the largest union in the American video game industry.

2022 in Tech: A timeline of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (NBC News) | Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk (Wikipedia) | Twitter under Elon Musk (Wikipedia) | Sony Paid Billions for Bungie and ‘Destiny,’ But What Are They Buying? (Vice) | The Consequences of Microsoft Buying Activision Blizzard Are Dizzying (Vice) | WarnerMedia (Wikipedia) | Netflix loses almost a million subscribers (BBC News) | Tech’s Biggest Companies Are Sending Worrying Signals About the Economy (The New York Times) | Top tech stories of 2022: Musk buys Twitter, Facebook’s struggles, TikTok’s rise (Rappler) | This Startup Is Selling Tech to Make Call Center Workers Sound Like White Americans (Vice) | VC firms are getting stingier. Tribe Capital’s struggles show why (Fortune) | Amazon Labor Union | Amazon Labor Union (Wikipedia) | Tech’s Biggest Companies Are Sending Worrying Signals About the Economy (The New York Times) | Activision Blizzard Is Acting Like a Company That’s Scared of a Union (Vice) | Activision Blizzard CEO Says Company Will Recognize Raven Software Union And Begin Negotiations (Game Informer) | Edmonton video game workers vote to unionize, an industry first for Canada (CBC News) | Video Game Workers at Microsoft and Activision Take Steps to Unionize (The New York Times) | Fallout and Doom QA Testers Just Formed the Biggest Union in the US Games Industry (Vice) | Tech Won’t Save Us

2022 in Snacks: Top 10 TikTok food trends 2022: Pink sauce, butter boards and more (CNBC) | What Is the TikTok Pink Sauce Controversy? (The Spruce Eats) | The Most Popular Snack Recipes of 2022 (Bon Appétit) | 7 Viral TikTok Food Trends That Defined 2022 (Eat This) | Cosmo Snack Awards 2022: Best Portable Snacks of the Year (Cosmo)

2022 in Death: World Population Data Sheet 2022 Highlights Excess Deaths Due to COVID-19 (SDG Knowledge Hub) | List of the oldest living people (Wikipedia) | 2022 (Wikipedia) | How many people die and how many are born each year? (Our World in Data) | Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations (Our World in Data)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 9 January 2023 in News and tagged death, news, snacks, tech.

Episode 186: LUEE Gets Cancelled

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, it’s cancel or be cancelled! Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, Gem, and special guest Kyle Joseph discuss a few people who really deserve a good cancelling.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Wednesday Night Wallop Podcast: Wednesday Night Wallop

Mother Theresa, Missionary of Misery: Criticism of Mother Teresa (Wikipedia) | Aroup Chatterjee (Wikipedia) | Mother Teresa (Wikipedia) | Canonization (Wikipedia) | The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Wikipedia)

Bill Gates, Dubious Philanthropist: Bill Gates (Forbes) | Every Time Bill Gates Engaged in Inappropriate Conduct (Business Insider) | Bill Gates’ Nerdy Do-Gooder Image Destroyed by Divorce Revelations (Business Insider) | Who Flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ Plane? Full List of People Named (Newsweek) | Um, who are Melinda and Bill Gates trying to kid? (The Washington Post) | Bill and Melinda Gates have spent billions to shape education policy. Now, they say, they’re ‘skeptical’ of ‘billionaires’ trying to do just that. (The Washington Post) | The media loves the Gates Foundation. These experts are more skeptical. (Vox) | Bill Gates, Vaccine Monster (The New Republic) | They Pledged to Donate Rights to Their COVID Vaccine, Then Sold Them to Pharma (Kaiser Health News)

Man Doctor Diet Book Authors: Vintage Diet Books are My Favorite Thing to Collect and I’m a Fat Activist (SELF) | The problem with diet books written by doctors (Vox) | About Dr. William Davis | About Dr. Gundry | About Carnivore MD | About Paul Saladino MD (Psychology Today Canada)

J.K. Rowling, TERF: J.K. Rowling (GLAAD) | Is J.K. Rowling Transphobic? (Them) | Robert Galbraith Heath (Wikipedia) | A Complete Breakdown of the J.K. Rowling Transgender-Comments Controversy (Glamour) | J.K. Rowling’s transphobic tweets failed Harry Potter fans (Vox) | The metamorphosis of J.K. Rowling (Politico) | J.K. Rowling’s new book is about a character accused of transphobia (NPR)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 21 December 2022 in Geekery, History, Medicine, Politics, Religion and tagged bill gates, catholicism, christianity, hulk hogan, jk rowling, mother theresa, nutrition, religion.

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14 November 2022

Episode 185: They forgot to reveal the sinister truth!

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem subjects Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, and Dave to a documentary of questionable quality.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Links: Sasquatch Unearthed: The Ridge – The Sinister Truth Revealed (YouTube)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 14 November 2022 in Conspiracy, Science, Skepticism and tagged bigfoot, cryptozoology, pseudoscience.

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10 October 2022

Episode 184: Revenge of the Quiz Show!

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, and Marissa test each other’s knowledge of creation myths, fall foods, historical clocks, anthropology, and medicine.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Timekeeping: A Chronicle Of Timekeeping (Scientific American) | The Very Long and Fascinating History of Clocks | A Brief History of Time-Keeping (The Washington Post) | Decimal time: the revolution that never was (Watches and Culture) | Decimal time (Wikipedia) | The Evolution of Timekeeping: Water Clocks in China and Mechanical Clocks in Europe (Encyclopedia.com) | Wrist Watches: From Battlefield to Fashion Accessory (The New York Times) | A Brief History of the Wristwatch (The Atlantic) | History of timekeeping devices (Wikipedia) | Water clock (Wikipedia)

Diagnosis: UpToDate | Centor Score for Strep Pharyngitis (MDCalc) | Classification criteria for systemic lupus erythematosus (UpToDate) | Overview of the management and prognosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (UpToDate) | Polymorphic light eruption (NHS) | Osteosarcoma: epidemiology, pathology, clinical presentation, and diagnosis (UpToDate) | Diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state in adults (UpToDate) | Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: clinical manifestations and diagnosis (UpToDate) | Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: treatment and prognosis (UpToDate)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 10 October 2022 in Geekery, History, Medicine, Religion, Science and tagged clocks, food, History, medicine, mythology, religion, science.

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12 September 2022

Episode 183: Hope (to replace every tree with a chest freezer)

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, and Laura discuss scientific advances that give them hope for the future, and Gem issues a correction.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

The HIV Vaccine: NIH launches clinical trial of three mRNA HIV vaccines (National Institutes of Health (NIH)) | HIV Vaccines (HIV.gov) | Zidovudine (Wikipedia) | HIV vaccine development (Wikipedia) | HIV/AIDS (Wikipedia) | Retrovirus (Wikipedia) | Why Is It So Difficult to Find an HIV Cure? (American Gene Technologies) | Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines (CDC)

The Four Day Work Week: The 4-day workweek: How realistic is it really? (NPR) | The Workweek Revolution: a Solution to the Health Care Exodus (Clinical Advisor) | More Employers Are Trying a 4-Day Workweek and Finding Benefits (Business Insider) | Why the four-day working week is ‘doomed to fail’ (HRD Canada) | Can the four day work week save us? A look at the statistics (Fingerprint for Success)

The Moxie Experiment: NASA’s Moxie instrument successfully makes oxygen on Mars (The Guardian) | Small Device Currently on Mars Is Generating as Much Oxygen as a Tree, Scientists Reveal (Vice) | MOXIE experiment: NASA made enough oxygen on Mars to last an astronaut for 100 minutes (New Scientist) | MIT’s MOXIE experiment reliably produces oxygen on Mars (MIT News) | Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (Wikipedia) | Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) – Preparing for human Mars exploration (Science Advances) | Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment: MOXIE (NASA)

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