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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 115 - 10/3/2007
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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, LLC - dedicated to promoting critical thinking, reason, and the public understanding of science through online and other media. The first episode of the SGU podcast went online on May 4th, 2005. It soon became a popular science/skeptical podcast, and remains one of the most popular science podcasts on iTunes.
SGU Podcasting Awards: SGU on XM: You can listen to the SGU on America's Talk XM 166 every Saturday night from 8-9pm Eastern.
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Podcast
115
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October 03, 2007
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Interview with Jon Blumenfeld; News Items: Tom Cruise Bunker, The View of a Flat Earth, Fly Boy Follow up, Martial Arts Woo, Vaccine follow up; Your Questions and E-mails: 30 Year Battery, Orthomolecular Medicine; Science or Fiction; Skeptical Puzzle
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Questions and E-mails
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30 Year Battery
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As a heavy laptop user, the following article linked on digg.com piqued my interest, and I am curious as to the validity. The article even seems to contradict itself, saying the batteries "do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste" while later stating "when they eventually run out of power they are totally inert and non-toxic." The article gives no citation, and the mere fact that the website features a section on "free energy" which includes perpetual motion machines makes is all suspect to me. What is your take, and is a long-lasting battery like this out of the realm of possibility?
Thanks,
Mike Kolodoski
Texas
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-betavoltaic-10.1.html
Blog discussing this story
community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006069o--000331777b,00.htm
Nuclear battery
http://www.answers.com/topic/nuclear-battery?cat=technology
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Orthomolecular Medicine
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Dear Dr. Novella,
I've been meaning to see an endocrinologist and I ran across what is, to me, a new field: orthomolecular medicine.
I looked into it some, but the little information I could find was ambiguous and seemed a somewhat fishy to me. I was wondering if you had any additional info and could shed some light on the matter.
Thanks a lot!
-Fernanda Abdala
Brazil
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Segment: Interview
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Interview with Jon Blumenfeld
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Jon is the former Chairman of the CT chapter of the NESS, he has also joined the SGU team as a contributing blogger for the Rogues Gallery blog, and discusses his research into the life and science of Isaac Newton
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Question #1  Fiction
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Astronomers have discovered a brief extra-galactic radio-wave burst so powerful it defies natural explanation, causing some leading astronomers to speculate that it may be of artificial origin.
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Question #2  Science
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Researchers estimate that one human language goes extinct about every two weeks.
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Question #3 Science
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New fMRI study shows that doctors are less empathic toward their patient's pain than matched controls.
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Segment: Skeptical Puzzle
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Puzzle
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This Week's Puzzle:
For a feline and fowl he is known
This styling, for years, he had grown
Auras foretold his seizures
In the meantime his leisures
Would yield fame from these seeds he had sewn
Whom is this describing.
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Segment: Quote of the Week
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Quote
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle 384 BC- 322 BC
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