Show Notes for TWS125: Do You Sense Me Sensing You?
On the show this week:
- For Great Justice!
- Distraction for Discovery
- Don’t Believe Everything You Sense
- Unsensed but not Unseen (EXTRA)
This week’s Challenge Question:
I think it’s fair to say that today, we communicate with each other more than we ever have before: email, blogs, web pages, Twitter, telephones, instant messaging… But are we really saying anything more than we were 50 years ago — or anything that will be important in another 50? Or is the conversation always, essentially, the same?
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Full links to all stories covered and many more after the jump!
- Theme Song: Caffeine by Grubspoon from The Podsafe Music Network
- Promo: The House Of Grey — A story of a typical teenaged life: going to high school (albeit the most exclusive high school in the world), living life (albeit with scars both physical and emotional), dealing with growing up (albeit with no memory of who you are except frightening visions of a power you don’t understand), meeting girls (albeit some of the most beautiful and mysterious girls on the planet) and doing homework (albeit some of it is magical training). A story revealing layers both mundane and supernatural in the life of Monson Grey, sole survivor of the attack on Barity Bridge.
- Promo: Short Cummings — Very short, very humourous essays from Kevin Cummings. This guy knows how to make the funny slice of life without taking forever. A great comedy looks at eh world askew, even when looking at the everyday. This is one I’ve been listening to forever, and I highly recommend it.
- For Great Justice!
- Love drug, indeed! – The NY Daily News: Coke cop says oral sex to blame for dirty test, but judge not buying it
- Maybe it was a no pull-over zone.. – Ananova: Motorist arrested for sex while speeding
- EXTRA: That would be one way to go, I suppose.. Hard to explain to the grandkids, but great for them to tell at cocktail parties.. – MSNBC: Man Trapped in Blueberry Waffle Mix
- I’m surprised she wasn’t tazered. I mean, the nerve of some people.. – CBS/AP/KITI-AM: Woman Gets Theft Citation For Picking Daffodils
- Have you ever tried to get gum out of your hair? This is serious business.. – Northwest Florida Daily News: Boy charged with domestic battery for throwing gum, grabbing girl
- Something tells me that this goes way beyond Ketchup. Maybe all the way to… MUSTARD! – CBS/AP: Eccentric Man Found Guilty Of Ketchup Bottle Theft
- It’s getting tough out there, when snack pouches are stolen.. – CBS/AP: Police Say Man Stole Chicken Wings And Hot Pockets
- There is a certain creativity to these scams that makes me think that Lovejoy must be behind them. – BBC: Sewing machine hoax hits S Arabia
- When designing security systems (or anything), try to think outside the box. – The UK Dispatch: “Ticking box” in garage causes bomb scare
- EXTRA: Besides the obvious association (frog, French), there really is the other one (bus, amphibian)… – Ananova: French bus driver sacked for saving frog
- Justice delayed is justice.. kinda smelly.. – Ananova: Crown court closed by garlic
- Personally, I think *all* cops should be Jedi, but I also realize this kinda goes against my secular nature. (Hmm… Why is it that I only now thought of the “Force” pun? I’m slipping.. Maybe that wasn’t the pun I was looking for?) – Metro: Scottish police say their religion is Jedi
- No, it’s not the tasty-but-highly-unhealthy luncheon “meat” that is causing our downfall (well, probably it too) but those scamming letters about Viagra and nekkid pictures that is killing us.. – New Scientist/ComputerWeekly.com: Spam tramples environment with huge carbon footprint
- Another occurrence of the Lizard Man — or is somebody keeping their werewolf secret badly? – KHOU: Unknown creature rips apart family SUV
- EXTRA: So, more furious calculations show that the asteroid won’t drown us if it hits on water. (Well, it might drown *us*, as we’re relatively coastal. Montana not so much..) – New Scientist: Asteroids won’t raise killer waves – but mind the splash
- EXTRA: I think we may be seeing some of the inginuity of the last recession again.. – Ananova: Gran devours snail problem
- EXTRA: PETA must be stopped before the world is destroyed! 😉 – Ananova: Vegetarian cat
- EXTRA: Sure, they’re cute and cuddly.. Well, until one kicks in your ribs and steals your money, while running away to make more gang members. Er.. To make more kids.. – AP: Capital may take up arms against a kangaroo glut
- EXTRA: When it comes right down to it, humans are simply animals. Albeit, pretty pathetic ones.. – BBC: Man bites snake in epic struggle
- EXTRA: There may be hope that honey-glazed donuts will never be extinct. – ScienceDaily: Cure For Honey Bee Colony Collapse?
- EXTRA: Not sure how the medieval seige engine can be considered home defence, really.. Not sure what sort of marauding army he needs to keep away.. – The UK Telegraph: Businessman burgled after being banned from using giant catapult
- EXTRA: Seems to me like he’s actually out of sync.. – Ananova: The loneliness of the male synchronised swimmer
- EXTRA: Next time a woman protests when you stuff money in her bra, you might be able to say that it’s for her own safety — although at that point, it’s definitely not for *yours*! – ABC Australia/AFP: Money in bra saves woman’s life
- Distraction for Discovery
- I *really* wish I understood even half of this article, but right now I just want to know what kind of coffee beans they have.. – ScienceDaily: Physicists See The Cosmos In A Coffee Cup
- EXTRA: The world’s first extreme recycler? – MSNBC/Discovery: Leonardo portrait found in cathedral window
- “Ratchet up the thrusters, Doctor Brown, we’re going for the record here!” – New Scientist: Land-speed record attempt builds up steam
- To fly, you should really have feathers… Every bird knows that! – New Scientist: Fake feathers could take the drag out of flights
- Does Winter make you feel heavy? Do you have more spring in your step in Spring? Well.. that may be.. – New Scientist: Does gravity change with the seasons?
- They’re a little more than meets the leg. – New Scientist: Transformers: Protecting pedestrians from killer cars
- If Newton could look at an apple falling and understand how the moon stays where it is, why not study dogs to find out about human intelligence? Or, at the very least, to find out why we drool.. – The Boston Globe: For hints on humans, scientists study dogs’ thinking
- He misunderstood: it’s an *apple* a day, not a *seed*.. – Ananova: Tree grew in man’s lung
- I now believe that the full set of requirements to bring about Idiocracy have been reached… – BBC: Scientists find ‘pleasure nerves’
- EXTRA: I guess I always figured that feather colour is like hair colour, rather than liver waste.. – ScienceDaily: Birds: Feather Color Is More Than Skin Deep
- Dolphin army FTW! – Xinhua/Chinaview: Thousands of dolphins block Somali pirates
- Just because I can do a thousand information things at once, doesn’t mean I’m evolved — it means I’m *involved*.. – Yahoo!/McClatchy: Modern life’s pressures may be hastening human evolution
- The more we learn about humanity in general, the more we find that we are all unique, just like everyone else.. – New Scientist: Our ears may have built-in passwords
- Sometimes I wonder why we have so many senses; other times, like this, I realize the beauty of redundancy in overcoming limitations.. – New Scientist: Echo vision: The man who sees with sound
- David Kish’s organization. – World Access For The Blind: World Access For The Blind
- EXTRA: Turns out, the misconception that all autistics are also savants may be less of a misconception than we thought. – New Scientist: Savant skills may be widespread in people with autism
- EXTRA: There is something strange about a study that is trying to show a link between getting effects where the isn’t one and people for whom real effects are the source of their joy.. – New ScientistThrill-seekers could explain placebo mystery
- EXTRA: Is this another instance of the placebo effect working for thrillseekers? – ScienceDaily: Energy Drinks Work — In Mysterious Ways
- EXTRA: Not exactly what I was looking for when I typed in “swimsuit edition”.. – MSNBC/AP: Uni-flipper turtle gets it straight with swimsuit
- EXTRA: I’m sure they gave them back — unless they paid off the mortgage. – New Scientist: Early land visitors borrowed shells for protection
- EXTRA: One person’s treasure is another person’s dung. (Well, most other person’s, really..) – The Australian: Hooroo, where’s the poo?
- EXTRA: I wonder if we should use the Timothy Zahn precident for naming clones, and name this a caamel.. – BBC: ‘First camel clone’ born in Dubai
- EXTRA: This is what happens if women dominate: they eliminate men and go for the cloning technique instead. Is it a scary analogy? – BBC: Ants inhabit ‘world without sex’
- Don’t Believe Everything You Sense
- Michael Shermer proves that he can deceive people and that people can be tricked — but not whether they *were* tricked, or that there *were* deceivers involved. Beware all magicians, *especially* those who are trying to trick you into thinking you were tricked… – CBS/WTRF: Science vs. ESP: Skeptic Ponders UFOs, Mothman
- Granted, it’s a friend who doesn’t talk back, won’t let you borrow his bike, and generally just send you nasty text messages, blaming you for everything that’s gone wrong. – New Scientist: Praying to God is like talking to a friend
- EXTRA: It’s a natural mistake. A Natural Born Mistake.. – CNN: Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie
- Road rage: 1; carnage: 0. – New Scientist: Driving beats violence for emotional gaming
- EXTRA: I don’t think that “calm” is what someone going over a pothole becomes.. – Ananova: Council to leave potholes to calm traffic
- Now I have to start thinking what I want played. Maybe a cover of “The Dukes Of Hazzard” theme done by Kronos Quartet and sung by Tom Waits.. – Ananova: TV themes more popular than hymns at funerals
- Do we take fiction too seriously? Or does fiction really *deserve* to be taken seriously? Is all life really just a form of fiction anyway? – MSNBC: You’re sitting too close to the Internet
- Now, you get to know if you date stinks before you go out.. But doesn’t that take the romance out of it? – ScienceDaily: Odor Matching: The Scent Of Internet Dating
- EXTRA: The strange feature of this story is that the woman rubbed the peppers in her eyes when she started. Masochism? Distraction for victory? Insanity? I like hot food, but this seems like it’s just… malicious delicious. – CafeTerra/ANI: Indian Woman Eyes Chili-Eating Record
- EXTRA: Turns out, people on Facebook have actually grown up, over time.. – Metro: Facebook users no longer insulting each other as much – or having as much sex
- EXTRA: I think they may be watching the wrong bottom line, here.. – Metro: Nurse made redundant halfway through operation
- EXTRA: Turns out: the sun just hates them. Hates them all.. – New Scientist: Why some people sneeze when the sun comes out
- EXTRA: Turns out, if you see the outside safely, you might feel safe enough to go outside. Take that, rich Londeners who want to remain off the Google grid! – Ananova: Google Street View gets agoraphobic mum outside
- EXTRA: As much as I poke fun or abhor the diehard denials of skeptics, articles like this one make me cringe, due to inaccuracies and distortions.. – The Huffington Post: Why What Frightens ‘Skeptics’ Frightened Einstein
- EXTRA: A highly debated question that may also be pure speculation. If it is something we cannot know, maybe we just need to prepare for the worst.. – New Scientist: Will climate change spread disease?
- EXTRA: The answer is: because we see patterns, some of which may not be there. In other words, we make mistakes. Counterpoint: skeptics make mistakes too, and simple denial can also be a mistake. Heck, even “rationality” itself might turn out to be a mistake. – Time: Why We’re Superstitious
- EXTRA: At first, I thought this was a religious version of World of Warcraft.. Holy Smite FTW! – CBS/AP: Feeling Sinful? Get SoulWow, Available Now In NY
- EXTRA: Politicians and idiots might also be bred the same way.. – ScienceDailyBorn To Be Caught: Largemouth Bass Vulnerability To Being Caught By Anglers Is A Heritable Trait
- Unsensed but not Unseen (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: Nothing like a contact high at a bar.. – Ananova: Walk in gin and tonic
- EXTRA: There are tough people, and then there are those who frighten me.. – BBC: Bullet found in cheek 12 years on
- EXTRA: Will we be able to tell people about the afterlife (in 140 characters or less) – Haunted America Tours: Paranormal Communication: Twittering the Dead
- EXTRA: I blame Edison for a lot of things, but I guess I can accept that he might have been the father of EVP research.. – Florida Today: Modern detector steeped in history
- EXTRA: Oh great.. Turns out that we defeated not one but *three* groups for dominance? Yay, us..? – ScienceDaily: Three Neanderthal Sub-groups Confirmed
- EXTRA: Robert Pirsig seemed to have an interesting take on “Dark Ages”. I think it basically boiled down to: “they had nothing they felt they needed to write down”. – ScienceDaily: Archaeologists Discover Temple That Sheds Light On So-called Dark Age
- EXTRA: I say it doesn’t count unless its proper overtime.. – Ananova: World’s longest football match
- EXTRA: In three days, he’ll be resurrected as a massive city, then as airplanes, maybe an AT-AT.. – CBS/AP: Swedish Parishioners Unveil Lego Statue Of Jesus
- EXTRA: With 6 billion people in the world, we’re going to need a bigger boat.. – The Wall Street Journal: Hong Kong Christens an Ark of Biblical Proportions
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