ASTROCOHORS ACADEMY: TheSkepticsGuide

Showing posts with label TheSkepticsGuide. Show all posts

Skeptics Guide #1104

Live from LA with guests Andrea Jones Rooy and Brian Wecht; Living in LA; What Ever Happened To: Breakthrough Starshot, Fen-phen, The Coming Hydrogen Economy, String Theory, The Segway, Going to Mars; Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1103

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1103 August 27th 2026 Segment #1. What’s the Word Encephalopathy Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – AI-Assisted Research Training https://theness.com/neurologicablog/ai-assisted-research-training/ News Item #2 – Robot Outruns Humans https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/robots-can-outrun-humans-can-they-plug-cable-2026-08-23/ News Item #3 – Latest CTE Study https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/us/nfl-cte-brain-disease.html News Item #4 – Bacteria Share Survival Genes https://phys.org/news/2026-08-antarctic-bacteria-lifesupport-genes-survive.html Segment 3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Peptides and Proteins Question #2: Stellarator I saw this and found it compelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUAKW1Dyek Science communicator 1/2 hour about Max Planck institute working decades on stellerator fusion design, and 2023 spinning off company to try to make viable reactor. Gaut Norway Segment #6. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Item 1: Researchers have developed an AI model that can diagnose hypertension with more than 90% accuracy and diabetes with more than 80% accuracy from a 5-second facial video. Item 2: Material scientists have demonstrated a living textile – a fungus-based fabric that can be used to make clothing. Item 3: New research shows how simply leaving reviews at common sites like Yelp can lead directly to identity theft. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT Obama “Lincoln refused to accept that our nation's sole purpose was mere survival. He created this academy, founded the land grant colleges, and began the work of the transcontinental railroad, believing that we must add -- and I quote -- ‘the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery... of new and useful things.’ At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.” Barak Obama At the National Academy of Sciences annual meeting 2009

View on YouTube.

Why doesn't my textbook auto update?!

🪐 SUBSCRIBE / 🚀 LIKE / 👽 COMMENT The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Website & Podcast: https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SkepticsGuide Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theskepticsguide Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theskepticsguide/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SkepticsGuide TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skepticsguide ✉️ Send your questions to: info@theskepticsguide.org Check out Our Books: 📘 The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake 📙 The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future: What Yesterday’s Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow https://www.theskepticsguide.org/our-book #SGU #SkepticsGuide #Science

View on YouTube.

Goodbye Dolly!

Goodbye Dolly!

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #11

View on YouTube.

Back from the UPSIDE DOWN!

Back from the UPSIDE DOWN!

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1101

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1101 August 13th 2026 Segment #1. News Items News Item #1 – Trump Order on Vaccines https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/trumps-frontal-assault-on-vaccines/ News Item #2 – Spying with WiFi https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260811052857.htm News Item #3 – Diminishing Vegetables https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-vegetables-are-vanishing-and-its-quietly-wrecking-our-diets News Item #4 – Two Origins of Life https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-study-suggests-life-on-earth-arose-from-non-living-matter-twice News Item #5 – More Pentagon UFOs https://theness.com/neurologicablog/another-pentagon-uap-release-more-dots/ Segment 2. Who’s That Noisy Segment #3. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Thousand Year Old Remedy Is this real? https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8ntJFSo/ Please explain if it is. Love you guys, been listening for years and saw you in Seattle last time you were here. William Woessner Seattle Segment #4. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Item 1: A recent study finds that increased screen time in childhood is associated with improved cognitive processing in adolescence. Item 2: Astronomers have discovered a new type of stellar object, a black hole star, which is a bright red object as large as our solar system and with a million solar masses. Item 3: A new study finds that adding iron to certain ocean ecosystems could increase phytoplankton and permanently sequester as much as 10% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions. Segment #5. Skeptical Quote of the Week “Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.” ― George Carlin

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1100

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1100 August 1st 2026 Live from Christchurch, New Zealand Guests Andrea Jones Rooy, Brian Wecht and George Hrab Segment #1. Intro The SGU Down Under Segment #2. News Items News Item #1: Telescope Ranch https://starfront.space/ News Item #2: The Fate of Earth https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/earth-might-not-be-engulfed-by-the-sun-in-5-billion-years-after-all/ar-AA26q9TH News Item #3: The Science of Community News Item #4: Terraforming Mars https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260714225535.htm News Item #5: Fauci Under Fire https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/us/politics/fauci-in-private-diary-reflected-on-covids-origins-and-his-own-fame.html?emc=edit_ufn_20260729&nl=from-the-times&segment_id=223861 News Item #6: AI Satellites https://theness.com/neurologicablog/proposed-satellites-would-ruin-astronomy/ News Item #7: AI Solves 90 Year Math Puzzle https://mathworld.wolfram.com/JacobianConjecture.html Segment #3. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Theme - Science and Rock Item 1: Brian May, the guitarist of the rock band Queen, holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Physics and a PhD in Astrophysics, both from Imperial College London. His doctoral thesis, was titled "A survey of radial velocities in the zodiacal dust cloud.” Since earning his doctorate, he has remained highly active in the scientific community, working with NASA on missions like New Horizons and OSIRIS-REx Item 2: Jerry Speiser, original drummer from Men At Work was a physics major from La Trobe University. He is currenbtly the foremost Austrailian scholar on the works of American architect and systems theorist Buckminster Fuller, whose 'generalised principles' Speiser has used to coach the likes of pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb and Melbourne software group Zero Corporation. Item 3: Tom Scholz, founder of the band Boston, is an MIT-trained engineer who designed and built his own recording studio in an apartment basement in the early 1970s. Among his many, many studio inventions was an unreleased proprietary headphone design, that he eventually sold to Noel Lee from the company Monster Cable. Monster Cable then partnered with Dr.Dre’s company Beats Electronics which eventually went on to became the multi-billion dollar brand Beats by Dre. Segment #4. Skeptical Quote of the Week "It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you." Ernest Rutherford

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1099

Live from CSIcon Buffalo; CSI 50th Anniversary; News Items: Artemis III Crew Announced, Sniffing Out the Spotted Lanternfly, Human Echolocation, Are Cold Stars Alien Megastructures, Ediacaran Sex; Interview with Michael Mann, Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1098

Live From Madison Wisconsin; Amending the Constitution; News Items: Believing in the Supernatural, Desalinating Water, Superheavy Cosmic Rays, AI Designed Bioweapons; Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1097

Live from Seattle; Theaters vs Home Streaming; News Items: The Enshittification of Academic Publishing, Ending Forever Plastic, Reanalysis of Type Ia Supernova, Manipulating Gravitational Waves; Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1096

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1096 July 9th 2026 Special Guest David Kyle Johnson Segment #1. Quickie with Bob Two States of Water https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-molecular-evidence-liquid.html Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Using AI To Detect AI Cheating https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01358-2 News Item #2 – Teens Using AI Chatbots https://neurosciencenews.com/ai-chatbots-teen-relational-displacement-30971/ News Item #3 – NYT Article on Rapid Prompting Method https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/nyt-article-on-rapid-prompting-method/ News Item #4 – SETI Partly Explains Fermi https://www.iflscience.com/seti-may-have-figured-out-why-we-havent-detected-any-alien-signals-yet-explaining-at-least-part-of-the-infamous-fermi-paradox-83897 Segment #3. Skeptical Philosophy What is “Falsifiability” Segment #4. Who’s That Noisy Segment #5. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Item 1: An analysis of the scat of the California Gray Wolf finds a significant contribution of domesticated pets in their diet. Item 2: A recent study finds that individual human neurons have significantly more computational information than rat neurons, which is likely one mechanism for increased human intelligence. Item 3: A new analysis finds that a bilaterally symmetrical species from the Ediacaran fauna shows signs of “handedness”, or one-sided preference. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.” – Poul Anderson

View on YouTube.

SGU COMMUNITY Livestream // Wednesday July 8th 2026

SGU COMMUNITY Livestream // Wednesday July 8th 2026

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1095

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1095 July 2nd 2026 Segment #1. Back to Basics What Is Scientific Skepticism I'm a long-time listener to your podcast, and I always listen to you when I commute to and from work - which is about a 45-minute drive in each direction. I believe I have a fairly good understanding of the scientific method, and I do believe I understand, and practice, a skeptical view of things regularly in life. I work as a correctional officer, and I find the skeptical principle very useful when I deal with inmates' often strongly biased views on many topics. I have recommended the show to a lot of friends and co-workers, and many have followed those recommendations. But, and this is the main point of this letter, I feel that many simply don't understand the basic concepts, the very foundation, of what you're doing. Terms like skepticism and your adherence to concepts like the scientific method are not that widely known, and I believe that could be easily remedied. I would suggest that you every now and then take some time on the show to explain these basic concepts to retain any new listeners, to make them up to speed with what the show is really about. I am aware of your recurring segment on cognitive bias, logical fallacies and the like (and I do appreciate it). But I feel those discussions require knowledge of the more basic concepts - which I find mostly omitted. I strongly believe your work is extremely important, probably more so in our bubble-ridden, AI-advised, TikTok-brainrot present. Especially, I'd guess, for U.S. listeners given the almost oppressive stance from your government on science in general. With that said, thank you so much for your hard work! When writing this I noticed I wasn't a Patreon member. So I remedied that. I can't access my private e-mail account from work, so I can't start a paid membership right now. I will though, as soon as my job stint is up this weekend. Best regards, Fredrik Granlund, Sweden Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Synthetic Cell https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/science/spud-cell-what-to-know.html News Item #2 – Trust in Science https://theness.com/neurologicablog/how-the-brain-pays-attention/ News Item #3 – Geothermal Update https://theness.com/neurologicablog/where-are-we-with-geothermal/ News Item #4 – Solar Corona Heating https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cosmic-play-key-role-mystery.html Segment #3. Quickie with Cara Radiation Eating Fungus https://www.sciencealert.com/this-chernobyl-fungus-seems-to-have-evolved-an-incredible-ability Segment #4. Who’s That Noisy Segment #5. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Responses to Evan Segment #6. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Theme: American History Item 1: George Washington, while a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia, committed an epic blunder which was responsible for starting the French and Indian War. Item 2: During part of the Revolutionary War, Abigail Adams was a spy for the Continental Congress, engaging in espionage to gather intelligence and plant misinformation. Item 3: Thomas Jefferson popularized Macaroni and Cheese in America, and even designed his own pasta-making machine. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week “Asking the right questions is as important as answering them.” – Benoit Mandelbrot

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1094

Evan Leaves SGU; News Items: Paying attention, How Queen Bees are Made, Canceling Wind, Goodbye International Space Station, US Military Restores Flu Vaccine; Who's That Noisy; Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1093

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1093 June 17th 2026 Segment #1. SGU Down Under https://www.theskepticsguide.org/events Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Donut Lab Battery Followup https://theness.com/neurologicablog/donut-lab-claims-looking-like-fraud/ News Item #2 – Fungal Superhighway https://data.lib.vt.edu/articles/dataset/Range_of_Detection/30984718 News Item #3 – Echochambers https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2026.2671765#abstract News Item #4 – Payam Method https://www.cbsnews.com/news/payam-method-piano-lessons-60-minutes/ News Item #5 – Strength Training and Longevity https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260611024609.htm Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. ADIct Agree-Disagree-It's complicated Segment #5. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Item 1: Researchers have developed a synthetic fabric that is highly insulating in cold temperatures, but is heat releasing at room temperature or warmer. Item 2: A new study finds that female chickadees preferentially mate with more intelligent males. Item 3: Neuroscientists at the University of Michigan have demonstrated an implantable wireless brain-computer interface that allows subjects with aphasia due to damage to their speech areas regain functional speech. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

View on YouTube.

Skeptics Guide #1092

Quickie with Steve: Ebola Update; News Items: Ben Franklin's Anti-Counterfeiting Innovations, Mars Maven, Human Cooperation, Pre Cambrian Animal Senses, Peudoscience Protection Bill; Your Questions and E-mails: Sucking, Audio Cables; Science or Fiction

View on YouTube.

ASTROCOHORS ACADEMY

ASTROCOHORS CLUB Departments