Episode #945
News Items
- Deep Space Network
- Identifying Misinformation
- Regret and Gender Affirming Care
- Localizing Hidden Consciousness
- Ice Baths
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: bread
Question #1: Metazoans
- I am a big fan of the SGU and pod! I noticed that on the Aug 12 science or fiction, the item about ctenophores was fiction as stated because it was missing a word. For the item to be science, it needed to be ‘ctenophores are the oldest extant *metazoan* branch of life’ , and by metazoan I basically mean multicellular animal. There are some much older extant branches of non-metazoan life. For example, cyanobacteria and archaea that form stromatolites have been around for a few billion years and can still be found alive in the Bahamas. The source of the ctenophore statement is a recent paper in the journal Nature (Schultz et al. 2023) showing evidence that ctenophores were the first animals, challenging a decades long consensus that sponges were the first animals. Thank you all for this great podcast, community, and outlet for my pedantry! I started listening years ago as a broke grad student, and just became a patron. Lastly, huge congrats to Dr. Santa Maria! Cheers, Lauren
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Fiction
In medieval Europe women were forbidden from being jesters, as it was unacceptable for a woman to make fun of a man. https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/what-was-life-like-for-a-court-jester/
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Item #2
Science
Jesters typically only worked part time as a jester, while most of the year they would engage in other mundane jobs around the castle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester
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Item #3
Science
So-called “jester’s privilege” meant that jesters could mock or insult any noble, even the king or queen, without fear of punishment. https://www.kinfolk.com/jesters-privilege/
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
“The tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution.” — Brian Greene