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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 298 - 3/30/2011

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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.

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Podcast 298 - March 30, 2011

Interview with Kenny Feder
This Day in Skepticism
News Items: Colorado UFO, Breaking Heisenberg, Dinosaur Petroglyph
Who's That Noisy
Your Questions and E-mails: Dinosaur Taxonomy
Science or Fiction



Segment:   This Day in Skepticism     
April 2, 1845     In 1845, the first surviving daguerrotype photograph showing details of the sun was taken by French physicists Armand Fizeau and Léon Foucault. The 5-inch (12 cm) image had an exposure of 1/60 second, and showed the umbra/penumbra structure of several sunspots, as well as limb darkening. The photographic process was new: Daguerre perfected the daguerrotype only a few years earlier, in 1838. Fizeau and Foucault had been collaborating with their own experiments on the process since 1839. Fizeau had much improved the durability of a daguerrotype image with a treatment, published in Aug 1840, using a solution of chloride of gold mixed with hypo-sulphite of soda, then heated over a spirit-lamp. April 2 is also World Autism Awareness Day

Segment:   News Items     
Colorado UFO     http://abcnews.go.com/US/ufo-sighting-spooks-lafayette-colorado-town/story?id=13235459
Breaking Heisenberg     http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45535
Dinosaur Petroglyph     http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0329/Image-of-dinosaurs-living-with-humans-A-smear-say-paleontologists

Segment:   Who's That Noisy     
Who's That Noisy     Answer to last week - sonic boom from entering meteor

Segment:   Questions and Emails     
Dinosaur Taxonomy     saber toothed vegetarian therapsid GAH?! Curses to you newspaper headlines ignorant of animal taxonomies. Therapsids are not dinosaurs! They are early mammals and are no more related to dinosaurs then the marine plesiosaurs or flying pterosaurs. Some amateur paleontology would tell you that dinosaurs don't really have specialized teeth they are instead all fairly uniform in shape and use. *insert more futile dinosaur nerd rage* In closing don't lump the filthy unwashed masses therapsids in with my dinosaurs. Bug girl's not the only one that gets ticked by taxonomical ignorance. Love the show please don't do that again Michael Waters Ottawa Canada With special feature - Is It A Dinosaur?

Segment:   Interview     
Interview with Kenny Feder     News Item: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=3039 Feder: http://www.anthropology.ccsu.edu/faculty/feder/Feder.html

Segment:   Science or Fiction     [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
Item #1     Researchers have successfully extracted the protein from a 600,000 year old mammoth. http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2011/research/elephant/
Item #2     Researchers find that greater short term evolutionary fitness does not always predict long term survival over competitors. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=119029&media_id=69255&org=NSF
Item #3     Astronomers announce the discovery of the most earth-like exoplanet discovered to date - orbiting just 2 million miles from a white dwarf star. http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/uw-astrophysicist-white-dwarfs-could-be-fertile-ground-for-other-earths

Segment:   Skeptical Quote of the Week     
Skeptical Quote of the Week     "There are two sources of error: Either you lack sufficient date, or you fail to take advantage of the data that you have" -Brian Caplan, The myth of the rational voter
 
 
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