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)

Contact Us: Email | Twitter | Facebook

Listen: Direct Link | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

Posted by on 12 September 2022 in Medicine, News, Politics, Science and tagged , , , , .

Leave a comment

8 August 2022

Episode 182: He’s not a scientist, okay?

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Ashlyn, Lauren, and Laura give a primer on some astronomical pseudosciences, including astrology, the expanding Earth theory, the hollow Earth hypothesis, and the effects of the full moon on human health.

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

Astrology: Is Astrology Real? Here’s What Science Says (Scientific American) | Astrology and Horoscopes Uncloaked (Relatively Interesting) | Astrology is bullsh*t. NASA’s scathing takedown perfectly explains why. (Mic) | Horoscope (Wikipedia) | List of astrological traditions, types, and systems (Wikipedia) | Astrology (Wikipedia) | Zodiac (Wikipedia) | Free Astrology Reports: Natal Chart, Compatibility, Future (Cafe Astrology) | Understanding the Free Natal Chart Report (Cafe Astrology)

Lunacy: Full Moon Effects: What Research Has Discovered (Healthline) | Lunacy and the Full Moon (Scientific American) | Lunar effect (Wikipedia)

Expanding Earth: Alfred Wegener’s Hypothesis on Continental Drift and Its Discussion in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research) | Limits to the expansion of Earth, Moon, Mars and Mercury and to changes in the gravitational constant (Nature) | What’s Hitting Earth? (NASA Science Mission Directorate) | It’s a small world, after all: Earth is not expanding, NASA research confirms (ScienceDaily) | Debate with Hollow-Earth Proponent Neal Adams (NeuroLogica Blog) | Expanding Earth (Wikipedia) | Continental drift (Wikipedia) | Plate tectonics (Wikipedia) | J. Marvin Herndon (Wikipedia) | Neal Adams (Wikipedia) | Finally: The Utter Insanity of ‘Batman: Odyssey,’ Part 6 (Comics Alliance)

Hollow Earth: Hollow Earth (Wikipedia) | John Cleves Symmes Jr. (Wikipedia) | John Cleves Symmes: Believer in hollow Earth theory sent this open letter (Slate) | Our Rich History: The Earth’s not flat, it’s… hollow? (Northern Kentucky Tribune) | Canadian Geography (Statistics Canada)

Face Mite Update: Human Follicular Mites: Ectoparasites Becoming Symbionts (Molecular Biology and Evolution) | Face mites are losing genes (Popular Science)

Correction: Meteoroids are not “converted to energy” as they combust. Ram pressure results in atmospheric ablation, vaporizing some of the meteoroid material and reducing a good deal of it to meteoric dust. This dust can remain in the atmosphere for months, and some of this vaporized material may persist in the atmosphere indefinitely, but it does add mass to the Earth system—just not enough to cause any meaningful growth in the diameter of the Earth.

Contact Us: Email | Twitter | Facebook

Listen: Direct Link | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

Posted by on 8 August 2022 in Conspiracy, History, Science, Skepticism and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Comments Off on Episode 182: He’s not a scientist, okay?

18 July 2022

Episode 181: The Extraordinary Science of Everyday Things

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn is joined by Lauren, Gem, and Laura to discuss the amazing hidden science behind common objects and phenomena, including coloured glass, toilets, foam, and placebos.

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

Coloured Glass: Chemistry of Colored Glass (Science Notes) | The Chemistry of Coloured Glass (Compound Interest) | Bottle Colors (Society for Historical Archaeology) | What Causes Color in Stained and Colored Glass (Geology.com) | Glass (New World Encyclopedia) | Glass: Composition, types and uses (Jagran Josh)

The Placebo Effect: Semantics of the placebo (Psychiatric Quarterly) | A systematic review and meta-analysis of placebo versus no treatment for insomnia symptoms (ScienceDirect) | Is the Placebo Powerless? — An Analysis of Clinical Trials Comparing Placebo with No Treatment (NEJM) | The Powerful Placebo and the Wizard of Oz (NEJM) | The Powerful Placebo (JAMA) | The Powerful Placebo Effect: Fact or Fiction? (ScienceDirect) | Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions (Cochrane Library) | Are Treatments More Effective than Placebos? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PMC) | Correction: Are Treatments More Effective than Placebos? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PMC) | Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (Cochrane Library) | Greater Response to Placebo in Children Than in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in Drug-Resistant Partial Epilepsy (PMC)

Toilets: Gravity and Your Toilet: A Beautiful Science Relationship (Homeschool.com) | How toilets work (Explain That Stuff) | Learn Who Invented the Toilet (Brubaker) | A Brief History of The Flush Toilet (The British Association of Urological Surgeons) | Who Invented the Flush Toilet? (HISTORY) | 8 Inventions By African Americans That Helped Shape Civilization (Black Then) | Gravity Fed Toilets (Toiletology) | 2.972 How A Toilet Works (MIT) | Bernoulli’s principle (Wikipedia) | Indus Valley civilisation (Wikipedia) | The Physics of Toilets (University of Alaska Fairbanks)

Foam: Nitrogen in Guinness Beer (Inertion) | Wildfire Retardants (Government of the Northwest Territories) | Researchers discover the physics of foams (ScienceDaily) | Practical Foam Science (Cosmetics & Toiletries) | The science behind the foam in your cappuccino (The Splendid Table) | Two new papers explore the complicated physics behind bubbles and foams (Ars Technica) | The Basics of Engineering with Foam (MachineDesign) | Foam (Wikipedia) | The Strange Physics of Foam (NASA Science Mission Directorate) | Science of Sloshing: Why Foam is Important (Science Connected Magazine) | Unraveling the science of coffee foam (Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition) | The science of foaming (ScienceDirect) | Shuffling bubbles reveal how liquid foams evolve (EurekAlert!) | Spray Polyurethane Foam Basics (American Chemistry Council)

Contact Us: Email | Twitter | Facebook

Listen: Direct Link | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

Posted by on 18 July 2022 in History, Medicine, Science and tagged , , , , , , , .

Comments Off on Episode 181: The Extraordinary Science of Everyday Things

13 June 2022

Episode 180: “Icebergs”

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Marissa McCool leads Lauren, Ashlyn, Laura, and Gem on an exploration of ideas as “icebergs”, with layers of hidden secrets just below the surface. Topics of discussion include US cities, the sinking of the Titanic, artificial sweeteners, and the curse of the pharaohs.

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

Correction: This year marks Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th year on the throne, not her 75th.

Marissa’s Podcasts on Spreaker: Marissa McCool (Host/Producer)

The Sinking of the Titanic: Sinking of the Titanic (Wikipedia) | Titanic Coincidence? (Commonplace Fun Facts) | 5 Titanic Coincidences That Prove Reality is Stranger than Fiction (Travel Thru History) | Titanic Conspiracy Theories: When Did the Titanic Sink? (Popular Mechanics) | Fire and Ice: The Titanic’s Top 10 Weirdest Conspiracy Theories (Spyscape) | Titanic conspiracy theories (Wikipedia) | Fact Check-J.P. Morgan did not sink the Titanic to push forward plans for the U.S. Federal Reserve (Reuters) | Saved from the Titanic (Wikipedia) | Fact-checking QAnon conspiracy theories: Did J.P. Morgan sink the Titanic? (The Washington Post) | Haunted mirror ‘possessed by the ghost of the Titanic captain’ up for auction (Mirror Online)

Artificial Sweeteners: G.D. Searle, LLC (Wikipedia) | Aspartame (Wikipedia) | Artificial sweeteners get more than their fair share of grief (AGDAILY) | Is Aspartame Responsible for ‘An Epidemic of Multiple Sclerosis and Lupus’? (Snopes.com) | Hayes Planning To Resign as Head of FDA (The Washington Post) | Why Did the FDA Ever Approve Fake Sugar? (Vice) | Donald Rumsfeld and the Strange History of Aspartame (HuffPost) | ‘Aspartame Causes Cancer’ Was a Classic Internet Hoax (Smithsonian Magazine) | Aspartame controversy (Wikipedia)

The Pharaoh’s Curse: British Museum is world’s largest receiver of stolen goods, says QC (The Guardian) | Curse of the pharaohs (Wikipedia) | Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (Wikipedia) | Did a Cursed Mummy Sink with the Titanic? (Snopes.com) | Did a mummy’s curse sink the Titanic? Probably not, but the Washington Post once suggested that it did. (Slate) | The most famous myths about the Titanic (SFGate) | Brendan Fraser got ‘fully choked-out’ shooting ‘The Mummy’ (EW.com) | Here’s How Brendan Fraser Almost Died on the Set of ‘The Mummy’ (TheThings)

Contact Us: Email | Twitter | Facebook

Listen: Direct Link | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

Posted by on 13 June 2022 in Conspiracy, History and tagged , , , , , .

Comments Off on Episode 180: “Icebergs”

2 May 2022

Episode 179: Cursed Knowledge

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Gem, and Laura share things that they wish they had never learned. Warning: this episode contains parasites!

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

The Curse of Knowledge: Curse of knowledge (Wikipedia) | The Curse of Knowledge (Digital Learning) | The Curse of Knowledge | The Curse of Knowledge and How to Avoid It (All About Learning) | The Curse of Knowledge: How It Impacts You, and What to Do About It (User Testing)

Snail-borne Parasites: Schistosomiasis (CDC) | Rat Lungworm Disease and How to Prevent It (Corry’s) | Snail-borne parasitic diseases: an update on global epidemiological distribution, transmission interruption and control methods (PMC) | Eating Slugs Can Cause Paralysis—Here’s Why (National Geographic)

Fatal Familial Insomnia: Fatal Familial Insomnia (National Organization for Rare Disorders)

Face Mites: ‘Face Mites’ Live in Your Pores, Eat Your Grease and Mate on Your Face While You Sleep (Live Science) | Face Mites: They Really Grow On You (NPR) | Demodex (Wikipedia)

Contact Us: Email | Twitter | Facebook

Listen: Direct Link | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

Posted by on 2 May 2022 in Medicine, Science and tagged , , , .

Comments Off on Episode 179: Cursed Knowledge