Conversations With Joe

The Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is pretty much set in stone - or so you would think. Turns out there are several problems with the Big Bang model, some of which are answered with Inflation Theory; the idea that in the first trillionth of a second the universe expanded from a singularity to something the size of a basketball, then slowed its expansion.

But there is another idea, one based on string theory and gives the possibility for the universe to renew itself over and over again in cycles. It's called the Ekpyrotic Universe Theory. And it's weird. Real weird.

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Centralia is a town at the heart of coal country that now sits abandoned and forgotten. The story behind what happened there is far from uncommon, and may give us a glimpse of what's to come in the future.

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Lance Geiger, better known as The History Guy on YouTube, is a storyteller at heart and focuses on lesser-known history - or "forgotten history" as he calls it - on his YouTube channel. I've been following his channel for a while and decided it would be a lot of fun to do a long-form interview with him, and I was right. Hope you enjoy it.

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What makes a person join a cult? What makes a person give up their families, their life savings, even take their own lives in the service of a cult? We often think of cult members as weak-minded or sheep, but the fact is, cults work by employing psychological tactics that work on everybody. And that may be the scariest thing about them.

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Genetic editing has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade, but many are worried that it may lead to something terrible - a new kind of eugenics. Do the potential benefits outweigh the risk? Let's take a look.

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The Quantum Suicide experiment (ironically also known as quantum immortality) is a product of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which says that quantum particles never leave superposition, just that our perspective makes it look to us like the wave function collapses. It gets deep. And weird.

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A recent paper has made some waves theorizing a way to generate wind energy with no moving parts. I spoke with the author of the paper and break down how it works, with a bit of a reality check.

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I recently talked about some of the most habitable exoplanets which unfortunately we'll never be able to reach because our technology can't do it. But there are some very interesting concepts being developed that could change all that - if they work.

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The number of known exoplanets seems to grow every day. Most of them are worlds completely unlike our own. But some get pretty close to something resembling home - and may someday become exactly that.

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