All the world's greatest skeptical podcasts combined into a single RSS feed for your listening pleasure.
Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale University, and has written and edited a number of critically acclaimed and prize-winning books about twentieth-century European history: Bloodlands won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in the Humanities and the literature award of the American […]
Flying saucers hold a special place in American folklore, and it's one that's more intimately interwoven than you knew.
We take on your science questions: Can animals feel guilty? Could drones detect landmines? What's the furthest a paper plane could fly, and why don't spiders get stuck on their webs? Plus, a look at this week's science news - a development for Europe's Extra Large telescope, and the health challenges faced at the Rugby World Cup.
0:00:00IntroductionHeidi Robertson 0:03:12Knowing AnimalsWe chat to Dr Siobhan O'Sullivan from the 'Knowing Animals' podcast who gives us her perspective on animal politics and so-called animal communicators. 0:23:30A Week in ScienceThe Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science. 0:27:27The Raw Skeptic Report with Heidi RobertsonThis week Heidi gives us her analysis on the stage performance of someone claiming to have psychic powers? Hello... anyone there...?
Forgotten Superheroes of Science: Ruth Rogan Benerito; News Items: Predatory Pharmaceuticals, Ocean Populations Declining, Election Graphology, Conspiracy Thinking; Who's That Noisy; What's the Word: Efferent; Your Questions and E-mails: Proof of God; Science or Fiction
TRC brings you a hella diverse show this week! First, Pat sidles up to the bar code to determine whether the 666 conspiracy theory holds any weight. Next, Adam takes a facts-based look at the recent controversy around 14 year old Ahmed Mohamed’s homemade clock. Finally, Darren points his skeptical lense at the political argument that small business tax cuts stimulate job growth.
Our episode this week begins with a correction. Back in episode 28 (Monkeys on Typewriters), Kyle made some bold claims about the probability that monkeys banging on typewriters might produce the entire works of Shakespeare by chance. The proof shown in the show notes turned out to be a bit dubious and Dave Spiegel joins us in this episode to set the record straight. In addition to that, out discussion explores a number of interesting topics in astronomy and astrophysics. This includes a paper Dave wrote with Ed Turner titled "Bayesian analysis of the astrobiological implications of life's early emergence on Earth" as well as exoplanet discovery.
Hello Listeners. I hope you can hear me, because if you can’t we’re in trouble! In this accidental special episode of Skeptics with a K, Marsh talks about what happened when he went to see Peter Popoff in London earlier this year.
The last of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, ahead of the award ceremony on Thursday 24th September. This week Neil Denny talks with Matthew Cobb, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Alex Bellos from May 2014. The show also includes a short […]
This episode features a live recording of Derek and James Randi on stage at Skeptrack 2015 this past Labor Day weekend at Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA. Derek and Randi discuss the origins of The Amazing Randi and his work exposing fakers and other harmful charlatans over the years.
Incredibly, the number of people who deny the Holocaust never seems to diminish. We discuss why this is, and what to do about it.
This week we find out what it takes to save a life, from doctors performing open chest surgery in the street to helping people recover in the longer term from severe brain injuries. Plus, news of a real invisibility cloak, how caffeine gives us a boost, and why scientists need you to quiz your dog.
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:04:50 Fly me to the moon... or Pluto... or Mars! We chat to Dr Pamela Gay who gives us her perspective on the recent misson to Pluto. Also what's happening on Mars and what's all this about a blood moon? 0:29:00 A Week in Science The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science. 0:31:30 Irresponsible breast cancer alternative cure Ross Balch from the Brisbane Skeptics Society reads an open letter to the Sunshine Coast Daily after it published an uncritical report dealing with cancer. (With a voice over from Jo Alabaster.) 0:39:25 Maynard's Spooky Action.. Maynard chats to more people doing outreach at the recent Science Week Festival at the Australian Museum.
Dumbest Thing of the Week: Stone UFO; Forgotten Superheroes of Science: Hedy Lamar; News Items: Solar Hydrogen, Homo naledi, Terraforming Mars, Metallic Glass; What's the Word: Anosmia; Your Questions and E-mails: Fibromyalgia; Science or Fiction
An action packed show this week! Susan Gerbic joins the crew to discuss Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia. Next, Cristina tells us about an industry funded study on butter with surprising results. Lastly, Darren looks into facts and stats about deaths from heat and cold.
There are several factors that are important to selecting an appropriate sample size and dealing with small samples. The most important questions are around representativeness - how well does your sample represent the total population and capture all it's variance? Linhda and Kyle talk through a few examples including elections, picking an Airbnb, produce selection, and home shopping as examples of cases in which the amount of observations one has are more or less important depending on how complex the underlying system one is observing is.
Our series on the Founding Fathers of the world concludes with this episode on John MF Adams, Thomas MF Jefferson, and James MF Madison, all intellectuals and all to varying degrees heterodox or even (in the case of Jefferson) an outright heretic. Also we cover a few skunk dicks, including Planned Parenthood which seems to […]
The second of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with David Adam, and there’s a repeat of our interview with Gaia Vince from August 2014. This show also marks the 10th anniversary of Little Atoms. We first broadcast on […]
History doesn't always record the accomplishments of women in science as thoroughly as it does for men. This episode helps straighten the record.
Climate change - and concerns about rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - are often in the headlines. However, looking back in the history of the earth, it's clear that this isn't the first time carbon dioxide levels have risen. So why should we worry now? We delve into the past to explore the effects climate change can have on the oceans and how that, in turn, can impact the climate. Plus, in the news, a new species of early human ancestor, the scientist who's jumping the Hubble queue with a helium balloon, and why humans are hard-wired for laziness...
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:04:10 Dragon*Con report We chat to Angie Mattke who reports on the Skeptrack at the recent Dragon*Con in Atlanta. 0:18:35 A Week in Science The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science. 0:21:40 Tell me this, you Skeptic! An overview of some of the questions and comments put to skeptics at the Paranormal and Spiritual Expo. 0:31:35 The Atheist Hour - Podcast Timothy Graham fills us in on a new podcast from Sydney.
Three interesting segments this week. First, Cristina addresses a listener email ‘aboot’ cultural stereotypes and subjective judgments based on people’s accents. Next, the gang is once again joined by Dina Tsirlin who looks into some shocking facts about electroconvulsive therapy. Lastly, Adam takes aim at recent headlines suggesting that a cat ‘took’ a bullet for a kid.
Forgotten Superheroes of Science:Fritz Haber; News Items: Night Skies, Thinking Style and Paranormal Belief, Psychic Detectives; Special Report: Time Travel; What's the Word; Science or Fiction
There's an old adage which says you cannot fit a model which has more parameters than you have data. While this is often the case, it's not a universal truth. Today's guest Jake VanderPlas explains this topic in detail and provides some excellent examples of when it holds and doesn't. Some excellent visuals articulating the points can be found on Jake's blog Pythonic Perambulations, specifically on his post The Model Complexity Myth. We also touch on Jake's work as an astronomer, his noteworthy open source contributions, and forthcoming book (currently available in an Early Edition) Python Data Science Handbook.
Slippers, collagen, football, and boiled eggs. Plus mincing proteins, bleeding deer, and what happened in Amsterdam. Standing on the Devil, it’s Skeptics with a K.
The first of three episodes of Little Atoms in association with the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. This week Neil Denny talks with shortlisted authors Jim Al-Khalili & Johnjoe Mcfadden, and Jon Butterworth. Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE is an academic, author and broadcaster. He is a leading theoretical physicist based at the […]
These important scientists are virtually unknown, even though their accomplishments are among the greatest in science. Let's see if we can fix that.
This week we're asking whether scientists and technologists are in short supply, and how the way that we teach science in schools is changing: some classrooms are pumping out published papers! Plus, in the news, a 2 metre-long scorpion, seabirds with stomachs stuffed with plastic, and the facts behind fat - is butter really all that bad for you?
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:05:40 Maynard's Spooky Action.. Maynard chats to pubbers at Sydney Skeptics in the pub including Ken McLeod and Dr Elena Kupriyanova. 0:32:20 A Week in Science The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science. 0:36:10 Evidence Please... with Jo Alabaster Jo visits the Australian Paranormal and Spiritual Expo and interviews some of colourful charaters at their stalls. 0:54:37 Signe's Stories Guest reporter Signe Dean at the expo asking everyday people why they attend.
The Reality Check celebrates its 7th birthday! This week we’re bringin’ the science and the sci-fi with two fact-filled segments. First, Darren kicks things off with an analysis of the Reproducibility Project which looks at experimental and correlational studies published in the field of Psychological Science. Adam dives head first into recent DNA studies on octopuses and the resulting headlines suggesting they come from an alien world.
In Memoriam - Oliver Sacks; Forgotten Superheroes of Science: Granville Woods; News Items: Reproduction in Psychology, Brain Booster Drug, Defying the Standard Model, Rock Art Pterodactyl Debunked; Who's That Noisy; Science or Fiction
There are many occasions in which one might want to know the distance or similarity between two things, for which the means of calculating that distance is not necessarily clear. The distance between two points in Euclidean space is generally straightforward, but what about the distance between the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the ocean? What about the distance between two sentences? This mini-episode summarizes some of the considerations and a few of the means of calculating distance. We touch on Jaccard Similarity, Manhattan Distance, and a few others.
Or specifically, one clerk in particular named Kim Davis, who refuses to perform the basic duty of issuing marriage licenses because she’s a bigot. Bereft of any legal grounds, out of appeals, and in direct violation of the specific court order of a federal judge, she continues to refuse, citing “God’s authority” and ends up […]
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Prize in 2009. Her debut novel is The Book of Memory.
This episode Derek digs into a recording which he conducted out in California at the Skeptic Society "I The Year 2525" conference. It is a recording Derek did with Dr. Donald Prothero not long after he finished his talk which was about the current state of the climate, how we know that humans are causing massive change, and what we might be able to do to help mitigate and, possibly, improve things going forward as a global society.
The fate of Franklin's Lost Expedition provides a unique lesson in the value of different types of evidence.
This week is a very special, edition of the Naked Scientists as we dedicate a whole hour to the world's favourite dwarf planet - Pluto. But how did it get there in the first place? What has the New Horizons probe uncovered? And what's beyond Pluto? Graihagh Jackson puts the mission under the microscope, talking some of the leading scientists from the New Horizons operation and taking a trip to the edge of our solar system...
Dr. Stu is back to talk about participating in the New Horizons mission to Pluto and various conspiracies.
0:00:00 Science reports from Oscar and Daph Alabaster... then... Introduction Richard Saunders and Fred the cat. 0:08:30 North to Brisbane! We chat to Ross Balch about the upcoming Australian Skeptics National Convention. 0:22:10 Evidence Please... with Jo Alabaster Jo looks at the case of the seemingly anti-vax cartoonist. 0:33:00 A Week in Science The Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus) is a national scientific not-for-profit organisation with a mission to bring science to people and people to science. 0:37:00 Vale Prof. Colin Keay We remember a great skeptic and a world renowned astronomer. 0:41:50 Even further north to Darwin Find out about the new Darwin Skeptics group as we talk to Michelle Franklin.
On this week’s show, Cristina rouses the panel with some research that addresses whether we can ever really catch up on lost sleep. Guest Lars Péloquin explains the concept of Trickle-down Economics. Finally, Pat looks into why NASA recently had to address rumours which suggested an impending Asteroid catastrophe.
Interview with Miles Greb; Forgotten Superheros of Science; News Items: Anti-Vax Nonsense, Group Think Lie Detection, WiFi Lawsuit, Universal Flu Vaccine; Who's That Noisy; Science or Fiction
ContentMine is a project which provides the tools and workflow to convert scientific literature into machine readable and machine interpretable data in order to facilitate better and more effective access to the accumulated knowledge of human kind. The program's founder Peter Murray-Rust joins us this week to discuss ContentMine. Our discussion covers the project, the scientific publication process, copywrite, and several other interesting topics.
Lifting weights, grinding corn, what happened in Edinburgh, and the Berenstein Bears. Plus polymers, Sliders, Nelson Mandela, and California Proposition 65. Fully tested for contamination by GMOs, it’s Skeptics with a K.
John Higgs is the author of I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary, The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, and the novel The Brandy of the Damned. His latest book is Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century.
Many stories tell of Captain Kidd's buried treasure. But is there any reason to believe it exists, or is it more hyping of a character from history for the purpose of sensationalism?
Every once in a while, we post a podcast here. This one is about the movie “Do You Believe?” from the same Pureflix guys who brought us “God’s Not Dead.” Is it amazing? Why yes. Yes it is.
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