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Catching Fire
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The idea that the universe is made of tiny vibrating strings was once the science theory du jour. String theory promised to unite the disparate theories describing particles and gravity, and many people, not just scientists, were optimistic that a theory of everything might be within our grasp. But here we are, many years later, and string theory doesn’t seem to have delivered on its initial promise. What happened? We consider the science around string theory in this episode of Skeptic Check.
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Mot’am I’m Atom
Meet the Atom. It’s small, mostly empty, and held together by nature’s strongest force. Without this nanoid nuclear bundle, you and I wouldn’t be here. But the atom is not without its quarks. The uncontrolled splitting of atomic nuclei can vaporize civilization. When kept on a leash, this same mechanism… Listen ⇢
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Watch this Space
Maybe no one can hear you scream in space, but there’s plenty of news coming from the realms beyond Earth. And like human antennas, we’re here to pick it up, and send it down the wires to you. We’ll enlighten you on missions to both the nearby cosmos – the… Listen ⇢
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Hand Me Microbe (and Slippers)
You can try to get far from the madding crowd. But it’s a futile exercise. Wherever you go, you’re a traveling trillion-ring circus of bacteria. In fact, you have more microbes on you and in you than you do human cells (and bathing won’t help.) So come meet your closest… Listen ⇢
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Doomsday Part II: When the Smoke Clears
The worse case scenario has played out. It’s a few years from now, and Earth has suffered a major catastrophe – be it an asteroid impact, a nuclear holocaust or merely a global pandemic. Doomsday has arrived. In Part II of our two-part series, you’ll find out how the planet… Listen ⇢
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Skeptical Sunday: Take Eye of Newt and Call Me in the Morning
Here’s an important health tip: cell phones fry your brain. Oh, wait. Cell phones are safe. But red wine is bad for you. Except in moderation, in which case it’s good. Also, magnets cure arthritis, coffee causes heart attacks, and rhino horn is an aphrodisiac (but only for rhinos). Sorting… Listen ⇢
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Seth’s Basement
It’s always a surprise to go digging in Seth’s basement – who knows what we’ll find! In this forage, tucked between boxes of old radio tubes and an electric banana, we stumble upon a rare view of Uranus’s rings… a preview of the Aurigid meteor shower… claims that we’re living… Listen ⇢
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Let’s Do Launch
It’s a traffic jam in northern Florida these days – as a bevy of NASA spacecraft queue up for launch. We’ll get the lowdown of what’s going up; from missions to land near the poles of Mars and dig into its cold, crusty surface… to an investigation of the origins… Listen ⇢
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Skeptical Sunday: Tomb Be or Not Tomb Be: The Lost Tomb of Jesus?
This tomb near Jerusalem was discovered 20 years ago, but now a controversial film reasserts the claim that it contains the remains of Jesus and his family. We hear from the director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus who presents both statistical and DNA evidence, as well as from a… Listen ⇢
