Show Notes for TWS128: Mind, Body & Snack
On the show this week:
- Brothers In Harms
- When Your Mind Is Not On Sex
- Broken Rules Will One Day Fly (EXTRA)
This week’s Challenge Question:
When the aliens come down, bent on destorying humanity, and they turn to you to represent humanity well… What joke will you tell?
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(I originally asked this question for George Hrab’s live version of The Geologic Podcast. Listen to his show for comedy, music, stories and a heapin’ helpin’ of skepticism. Not for everyone, but definitely for someone. 😉
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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: The Parsec Awards — The annual award recognizing particularly speculative fiction and surrounding genres. I was honoured to recieve the 2008 award for “Best Infotainment Podcast” (for which someone has nominated me again, for the first round, anyway), but if you listen to any sort of fiction podcast, you should let them know you appreciate them by nominated them.
- Brothers In Harms
- I’ll take mine with ketchup. Low salt ketchup! – The UK Daily Mail: How the Neanderthals met their grisly end 30,000 years ago…we ate them
- I’m sure the vegans will be really upset. Wait.. are they cannibals if they eat vegetables? :p – BBC: Orangutans cannibalise own babies
- Scientists are just so huggably insane sometime.. – Ananova: Scientists create luminous monkeys
- The beginning of the end of humanity, as we create servitor races? Or are we finally making animals do their part for the greater good? – Ananova: Monkey business
- This is “telepathy” in much the same way that my clothes read my mind and conveniently move with me.. – Wired/Danger Room: Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push
- EXTRA: That which does not kill us, makes us stronger… Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine… – ScienceDaily: Asteroid Attack 3.9 Billion Years Ago May Have Enhanced Early Life On Earth
- Looking to the stars is very important, but that kind of hope is hard to sustain.. – The Australian: Watch this space
- Great.. Mars was a dog’s nose… – NewsDaily: Mars may have been both cold and wet
- Kinda like trampling on the precious flower you were meant to discover and preserve.. Humanity’s a little clumsy like that.. sorry.. – New Scientist: Mars robots may have destroyed evidence of life
- The mistake that people make is, of course, that “global warming” means that *everywhere* will get warmer. That’s a lot like saying that because we’re in a recession, no one is making money anywhere. That’s foolish: it’s really a *net* change, but local variations can be up *or* down.. – ScienceDaily: Global Warming May Result In Some Periods Of Cooling In Southeastern United States
- Of course, so could many other things, but by sticking our heads in the sand we are just voluntarily putting ourselves partway into the grave. – New Scientist: Climate change could kill 500,000 a year by 2030
- A variation on the “hum” for goats? – STV/Reuters: Wind turbine noise suspected of killing 400 goats
- Well, sorta.. I mean, it’s not like they are going to swoop down and carry us off into the sunset of energy generation (!), more like the scavenged parts from the ships we may have knocked out of the sky will be made public. Still… Thank you, aliens! – Consumer Energy Report: Extraterrestrial Space Ships to Rescue us out of the Energy Crisis?
- Aliens: saving our lives from at least 1908. Either that, or they were just lousy drivers… Or maybe it will turn out to be one of those comical, cartoonish villians, where they actually sent the rock to hit the Earth, but screwed up and got in the way.. – Fox News/AP: Russian Scientist: UFO Crashed Into Meteorite to Save Earth
- Sometimes, you gotta wonder if all the government/military intelligence foul-ups are akin to Clark Kent’s mild-mannered screwups used to cover Superman’s powers. – The Herald Tribune: Memory-metal files are missing
- Something brought in the back door from our space-brothers? Of course, I still consider you homo sapiens — I mean, us humans to be very clever monkeys. Have a banana. – CNET: Future air-fueled battery could store 10 times more power
- EXTRA: Ok, but how many records do we want to preserve for that long? Alternatively: we should store everything for that long, to preserve humanity’s legacy through the Bad Times To Come. – ScienceDaily: New Memory Material May Hold Data For One Billion Years
- EXTRA: Such “ice circles” have turned up all over the place, but the depth of the lake precludes the usual “warm swell of water from below” explanation.. – Wired: Astronauts Spot Mysterious Ice Circles in World’s Deepest Lake
- EXTRA: Part of me has the very natural reaction: Ewww. – STV/Reuters: Cloud ice crystals carry biological matter: research
- EXTRA: Proof that we have long had odd rituals about the dead — but why? Is it all out of fear, or reverance? Or did something happen? Like, say… a zombie outbreak! – DiscoveryOn/ANI: 9,000 yr old mysterious burial ritual discovered in Iran
- EXTRA: Apparently, the sasquatch have a thing for leeks. Who knew? – MosNews: Siberians complain about Bigfoot’s appetite
- It seems that the answer is yes! I had no idea that wiretapping programs extended this far.. – Cryptomundo: Do Bigfoot Have A Language?
- EXTRA: Maybe we should use a gentler term, like “seek to disembowel”.. – Tulsa World: Researchers to hunt Bigfoot
- When Your Mind Is Not On Sex
- Simultaneously progressive (that it could exist) and dishearteningly old-fashioned (that it was shut down). – BBC: China sex theme park demolished
- It had to be there somewhere, but the height/weight genes being next door makes it even more fascinating. – BBC: Women’s menstruation genes found
- Unfortunately, *giving* orgasms is only marginally covered.. – New Scientist: Six things science has revealed about the female orgasm
- Another occurrence of the infamous “sounds that can’t be found”.. – BBC: Have you heard ‘the Hum’?
- Every time the researchers weren’t looking, the mouse broke into Opera. Or Marylin Manson.. – New Scientist: Human speech gene gives mouse a baritone squeak
- More proof that meditation can help focus the mind to make it better. Or something. I lost focus. – ScienceDaily: Of Body And Mind, And Deep Meditation
- The irony of hypnotizing one’s self to not feel the pain of an operation which is intended to lessen chronic pain seems to be lost on people.. – The Worthing Herald: Third round of surgery without anaesthetic for Worthing hypnotherapist
- A positive attitude can be infectious, but can it cure? – NPR: Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?
- I try to eat words with more syllables for the fibre. – BBC: People may be able to taste words
- EXTRA: Rook to e9. Checkmate. CAAAAW! – BBC: Rooks reveal remarkable tool use
- EXTRA: I now imagine leading ant colonies away from a house with a magnet on a string… Or putting ants under glass and using them as a compass… – MSNBC: Magnets help ants lead the way
- EXTRA: Not just as a buffer or duplicate, but that “junk” DNA is really just part of a program with a very long development cycle and no comments. – ScienceDaily: ‘Junk’ DNA Has Important Role, Researchers Find
- EXTRA: Imagine genes as temporary, burn-after-reading instructions. – BBC: The Ghost in Your Genes
- EXTRA: Biological computation, in a way: creating genes which express counters and have a trigger when the count reaches a certain point. Bladerunner’s replicant expiry dates, anyone? – New Scientist: Counting cells could trigger their own destruction
- EXTRA: An introduction to something I always thought was more a branch of kinesiology than phrenology.. – New Scientist: What you should know about chiropractic
- Broken Rules Will One Day Fly (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: The perspective that all things live is one of those philosophical meanderings that evolves from the question: “What is this life stuff, anyway?”. – BoingBoing: Everything Is Alive
- EXTRA: One of my indirect influences for the creation of TWS, although I never have heard a whole show. – Wired: Art Bell: Radio’s Master of the Unexplained Explains Himself
- EXTRA: Nothing like moving maggots from one location to another with your mouth.. Except, maybe, *death*. – Ananova: Maggot man chews up record
- EXTRA: Feeling blue? Grab a nightcap and join the crowd! – Ananova: Gathering of the Smurfs
- EXTRA: The irony will come when he is struck by a bad driver. – Ananova: Bus driver awarded for safety record
- EXTRA: We must systematically remove all possible humour at our own expenses; that’s far better than making everyone realize that you’re too darned awesome to be made fun of.. – Ananova: Residents no longer butt of jokes
- EXTRA: Another case of a service that goes from cynical joke to legitimate service.. I mean, it’s basically the same deal as insurance.. – Orlando Sentinel: After the Rapture: Orlando man will deliver messages to those left behind
- EXTRA: Nothing like physics getting pwned by water.. – New Scientist: ‘Super-terminal’ raindrops break speed limit
- EXTRA: Not the first cat with wings… but maybe the *cutest*.. – The UK Daily Mail: Don’t get in a flap, it’s just a cat with furry wings
- EXTRA: The story I wish I’d mentioned.. But wait! Where’s the precursor study that proves that water is wet, and that the duck is, in fact, a duck? – The UK Guardian: Ducks like water study ‘waste of £300,000 taxpayers’ money’
- EXTRA: A snake with legs? Unheard of! At least, until you’ve *heard* of it… And seen the photographs.. (Remember, folks: not every fantastic thing is pure fantasy..) – Cryptomundo: The Notzuchitokage
- EXTRA: Apparently, it’s dripping.. Hey, where was The Stuff found again? Has anyone tried eating it? – MSNBC/LiveScience: Giant blob found deep beneath Nevada
- EXTRA: “Are you going to kill me?” “No… I already have!” – The UK Guardian: Komodo dragons use venom to kill their prey, scientists discover
- EXTRA: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! – MSNBC: Komodo dragon attacks terrorize villages
- EXTRA: Great: now the Scots even invented Merlin! But they can’t have Tim! – BBC: Merlin magics up Glasgow web link
- EXTRA: The only question, really, is if they are capable of carrying through the whole action of raising a child; childbirth itself is only the beginning. – BBC: Age ‘no issue’ for oldest mother
- EXTRA: A ghost picture sighting, with the one wrinkle that the cameraman is a BBC employee, and thus it is suggested that trickery and doctoring are anathema and grounds for dismissal if even hinted at, which suggests a more credible witness.. – BBC: Mystery figure shocks cameraman
- EXTRA: Maybe I read too many of these, but these reports turn out to be too typical, removing the wonder, mystery and raw weirdness that must be evoked from such an experience.. – The Chattanooga Times Free Press: Ghost hunters call Marsh House haunted
- EXTRA: A ghost hunting expedition with a twist: underwater ghosts! – SC Now: Paranormal divers plan summer of ghost-hunting in Tampa Bay
- EXTRA: The contrast between one country where witches are persecuted and don’t want to be known as witches and one in which being a witch is a social choice is staggering, in some ways.. – CNN: Abuse of child ‘witches’ on rise, aid group says
- EXTRA: Yes: they named it “Cheesus”.. – CBS11: Dallas Couple Sees Jesus Inside Cheese Snack
- EXTRA: I say its a warning: back away from the Marmite. – BBC: Family see Jesus image in Marmite
- EXTRA: I wonder if you could buy ads for skeptic shows or cryptozoology magazines… – Ananova: Vatican Radio goes commercial
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