Episode #355

News Items

    Science or Fiction

    • Item #1 Fiction

      Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest an extremely recent common ancestor between two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths, which occupy the same territory, subsist on the same diet, and even have the same number of toes despite the name difference.

    • Item #2 Science

      Sloths move so slowly that a blue-green algae grows on them, living symbiotically in their hollow hair and providing sustenance for dozens of varieties of arthropods.

    • Item #3 Science

      Despite the fact that they are incapable of walking, sloths climb down from the trees, poop in a small hole at the foot of the tree, and then climb back up.

    Skeptical Quote of the Week.

    ‘The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there’s no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.’ – Carl Sagan, Cosmos television series