Episode #566
News Items
- Growing Human Embryos
- Overprescribing Antibiotics
- Earth-Sized Planets Around Red Dwarf
- Mike Adams Slanders Skeptics
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
Twenty separate Mercury spacecraft were built for the Mercury program, but only 15 were ever flown. http://www.spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/five-amazing-facts-about-project-mercury/htm
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Item #2
Science
The Mercury capsule was only capable of manned flight for a maximum of a day and a half, which was achieved on the final mission by L. Gordon Cooper lasting 34 hours, 19 minutes, 49 seconds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury
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Item #3
Fiction
John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, in the capsule Freedom 7, so named because it was the 7th mission of the Mercury Program. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/manned_flights.html
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘A scientific idea may require a lot of reasoning to work out an appropriate test, may be difficult to test, may require the development of new technological tools to test, or may require one to make independently testable assumptions to test — but to be scientific, an idea must be testable, somehow, someway. ‘ Berkeley University’s Understanding Science webpage ‘What is Science?’