LUEE

14 January 2019

Episode 140: Three Pseudosciences

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Lauren, Laura, and Ashlyn dive into three unscientific practices: flower remedies, feng shui, and iridology.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Flower Remedies: The Original Bach Flower Remedies Information and Sale (Directly from Nature) | Rescue Remedy is an effective all-natural stress, anxiety reliever, study suggests (Medical News Today) | Bach flower remedies: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials (Swiss Medical Weekly) | Bach Flower Remedies (Science-Based Medicine)

Iridology: Iridology (Wikipedia) | Iridology
Not Useful and Potentially Harmful (JAMA Ophthalmology) | An Evaluation of Iridology (JAMA) | Looking for gall bladder disease in the patient’s iris (BMJ) | An investigation of the relationship between anatomical features in the iris and systemic disease, with reference to iridology (Complementary Therapies in Medicine) | Does Iris Change Over Time? (PLoS One)

Other Pseudosciences: Flat Earth: A Measured Response (Hbomberguy) | Episode 96: The Moon Landing Conspiracy (LUEE) | Episode 100: Silly Pseudoscience Special! (LUEE) | Episode 106: Parapsychology (LUEE) | Episode 108: Cryptozoology & Mythical Creatures (LUEE)

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Episode 139: The Unnecessary Christmas Show

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, and Gem talk about several elements of the holiday consumer frenzy. Lauren tackles gift guides, Gem explains why corporations love gift cards, Ashlyn talks about holiday debt, and Laura ends the show with a discussion of some truly bizarre holiday products.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Gift Guides: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop gift guide suggests you buy a whole village (Vox) | Gwyneth Paltrow’s 2018 Goop Gift Guide (Cosmopolitan) | Totally Random, Totally Useless Holiday Gift Guide (Chefdruck) | Holiday Gift Guide 2018 (Chatelaine) | Subchronic inhalation toxicity of gold nanoparticles (NCBI) | The Hater’s Guide (Deadspin) | The 2012 Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalog (Deadspin)

Gift Cards: Gift Card Warning: Check Retailer’s Health (NPR) | Gift Card Review: Public Consultation Paper & Survey (Government of Manitoba) | Prepaid Purchase Card Requirements (Manitoba Consumer Protection Office) | Scam alert: Be wary of gift cards sold on a retailer’s rack! (Consumer Affairs)

Charitable Giving: LUEE Episode 115: Holiday Charity Special

Holiday Debt: Debt Snowball Versus Debt Avalanche: What The Academic Research Shows (Forbes) | 5 ways to cure your Christmas debt hangover (MoneySense) | Holiday hangover: Americans racked up more than $1,000 each in holiday debt (CNBC) | Christmas on Credit: How to Avoid the Debt (My Money Coach) | Here’s how you can avoid piling on holiday debt (Global News) | Don’t Let the Ghost of Christmas Gifts Past Hurt Your Finances (Huffpost) | Why Don’t People Manage Debt Better? (Scientific American Blogs)

Strange Holiday Gifts: As Seen on TV Clever Cutter (Canadian Tire) | 5 Condom Variety Christmas Fun Pack (Amazon) | Christmas Tinner Is the Dinner in a Can You Never Knew You Needed (BestProducts.com) | Shoppers take to Twitter to mock stores’ Christmas bleaches (Daily Mail) | Inhealer Himalayan Salt Inhaler (Showcase)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 17 December 2018 in Consumerism, Law and tagged christmas, debt, holidays, pseudoscience.

Episode 138: Wikipedia

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Ashlyn, Lauren, and Laura talk about the history and reliability of Wikipedia and its many controversies, then end the episode with some of our favourite Wikipedia finds. Also on this episode: Lauren and Gem disagree about punctuation, and Laura does a lot of yelling about buffalo.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Skepticism: List of common misconceptions (Wikipedia) | List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events (Wikipedia) | Perverse incentive (Wikipedia)

Reliability: Reliability of Wikipedia (Wikipedia) | Wikipedia is not a reliable source (Wikipedia) | How Accurate Is Wikipedia? (Live Science) | Is Wikipedia trustworthy when it comes to science? (The Washington Post) | How reliable is Wikipedia as a source of information, and why? (Quora) | Study shows Wikipedia Accuracy is 99.5% (ZME Science) | List of Wikipedias (Wikipedia)

Editors: WikiProject Women in Red (Wikipedia) | Women in Red (Wikipedia) | Wikipedia Editors Study Report (Wikipedia Meta) | Wikimedia Conference 2011 Editor Trends Study (Wikipedia Meta) | Wikipedia's 15 Anniversary: The Site Is in Trouble (Time) | Inside the Fight to Change Wikipedia’s Gender Problem (Inverse) | Women through the glass ceiling: gender asymmetries in Wikipedia (EPJ Data Science)

Edit Wars: Top 10 Strangest Wikipedia Edit Wars (Listverse) | CongressEdits (Wikipedia) | Judiciary Committee Members Doxxed During Kavanaugh Testimony (Huffington Post) | Edit war (Wikipedia Meta) | Edit warring (Wikipedia) | Wikipedia Wars: 10 Biggest Edit Battles (PCWorld) | Wikipedia’s lamest edit wars show why the site is amazing and infuriating (Vox) | 6 Wikipedia edits made from Capitol Hill (Columbia Journalism Review)

Controversies: List of Wikipedia controversies (Wikipedia)

Lauren and Gem’s Punctuation Dustup: How to Use Quotation Marks Correctly (Grammar Girl)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 19 November 2018 in Geekery, History and tagged citations, feminism, humour, media, research, technology, wikipedia.

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22 October 2018

Episode 137: Where’s My Jetpack?

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Gem, and Laura discuss science fiction technologies that have become science fact, and Gem depresses the hell out of everyone.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Links: Power Glove (Wikipedia) | 50 Scifi Books Featuring AR and VR Technology (Upload) | How Sci-Fi Literature Predicted the Rise of Modern Virtual Reality (Upload) | Virtual Reality (Science Fiction Encyclopedia) | Virtual reality was first imagined in a sci fi story… and it may soon take over entertainment (Big Think) | Virtual reality (Wikipedia) | Virtual reality in fiction (Wikipedia) | 10 Top Sci-Fi Tech Predictions That Actually Came True (CDL) | 10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Came True (HowStuffWorks) | 12 Star Trek Gadgets That Now Exist (Mental Floss) | 15 Star Trek Gadgets That Exist In Real Life (ScreenRant) | Star Trek Is Right About Almost Everything (National Geographic) | How Transparent Aluminum Armor Works (HowStuffWorks) | 3D Printed Food: A Culinary Guide to 3D Printing Food (All3DP) | Replicator (Wikipedia) | Food 3D Printer Manufacturers (3D Printing Business Directory) | How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad nearly 30 years ago (Ars Technica) | Post-atomic horror (Memory Alpha) | How Star Trek inspired Amazon’s Alexa (VentureBeat) | BigDog Overview (YouTube) | Every time Boston Dynamics has abused a robot (YouTube)

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Posted by Gem Newman on 22 October 2018 in Geekery, History, Humanism, Politics, Science and tagged military, replicator, science fiction, star trek, technology, virtual reality, where's my jetpack.

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17 September 2018

Episode 136: Patent Medicine

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Laura, Ashlyn, and Lauren discuss the history and future of patent medicine, from snake oil and Piso’s Cure for Consumption through Bovinine and bitters all the way to the Burzynski Clinic.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Note: Additional music in this episode by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.

Patent Medicine: Patent medicine (Wikipedia) | Snake oil (Wikipedia)

Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound: Advertising Motherhood with the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) | Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound (The Embryo Project Encyclopedia) | Lydia Pinkham (Wikipedia)

Piso’s Consumption Cure: The Great American Fraud, by Samuel Hopkins Adams (Wikisource) | Piso’s Trio: One Step Ahead of the Law (Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors)

Micajah’s Medicated Wafers: Micajah’s Medicated Wafers (Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health) | The Fundamental Antagonism: Veritism and Commerce in Medical Practice (Bennett Holman)

Bovinine: Bovinine (National Museum of American History) | Bovinine Beef Food Tonic (National Museum of American History) | The Bovinine Co. blotter (National Museum of American History) | 15 Curious Quack Remedies From the Age of Patent Medicine (Mental Floss) | Bovinine, by the Bovinine Company (Google Books) | Bovinine Bottle | New Haven Morning Journal and Courier (1895-06-19) | Hand Book of Haematherapy with Clinical Reports, 1902, by the Bovinine Company | The Medical Times and Register (Google Books) | The Popular Science News and Boston Journal of Chemistry (Google Books) | Hemotherapy (Wikipedia) | Misbranding of Bovinina. U.S. v. Bovinine Co. (National Library of Medicine)