Episode #656
News Items
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: kookaburra
Interview with Brian Dunning and Emery Emery
- sciencefriction.tv
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
A traditional Hawaiian diet consisted mostly of poi, resulting in a ratio of 12 percent protein, 18 percent fat and 70 percent carbohydrates. http://www.cds.hawaii.edu/kahana/downloads/curriculum/SectionII/Unit3/3.D.MeaaiaaOlaHealth/3.D.1.FoodinOldHawaii.pdf
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Item #2
Science
The Hawaiian alphabet includes only 13 letters, one of which is the ‘ or okina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_alphabet
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Item #3
Fiction
Hawaii is home to over a dozen venomous snakes, second only to Australia in terms of deadliest vipers. https://www.factretriever.com/hawaii-facts
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
“No idea should be suppressed. … And it applies to ideas that look like nonsense. We must not forget that some of the best ideas seemed like nonsense at first. The truth will prevail in the end. Nonsense will fall of its own weight, by a sort of intellectual law of gravitation. If we bat it about, we shall only keep an error in the air a little longer. And a new truth will go into orbit.” Cecilia Payne – British–American astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her Ph.D. thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium