Edinburgh Skeptics Presents...

Well, this was an odd one to edit. Today's Skeptics in the Pub talk comes to you courtesy of my wife Heather Pentler. We also have a 10 Questions interview with her which you can download along with this podcast.

Since being diagnosed with a chronic condition, Heather has been snooping into the dangerous advice given by various alternative medical practitioners. Her talk will take you through her experiences and how and why this advice is so harmful.

Heather Pentler is a long-time member of the skeptic community, having first been involved with the Merseyside Skeptics Society, and later on becoming part of the video crew at QEDCon. As a humanities dropout and not a scientist, Heather likes applying skepticism to areas where it would not normally be applied, although she still has a passion for science, evidence and facts.

She has lived and moved all over the country, spending her formative years in East Lancashire, before finding her way to Edinburgh with her husband. She still coos at all of the pretty buildings when she gets off the bus.

Twitter: @LadyPenny

After telling us about the future of biodegradable materials in her Skeptics on the Fringe talk, we interview Fern Sinclair and hear more about the subject. We also speak to Seth Amanfo, who also did a talk for us, but which we were unable to record. His research is incredibly interesting, however, touching on Malaria research and the diagnosis methods available.

The pair talk to us about what its like to be young researchers in the scientific world, including the challenges of balancing the amount of work involved, and the pressures of needing to produce results.

Both Fern and Seth are research students at the University of Edinburgh. You can find more about their work at the following links:Seth: http://pig.bio.ed.ac.uk/people/seth/Fern: https://greenmaterialslaboratory.wordpress.com | @GreenMatLab

Medical devices, cars, clothes, toys, kettles, toothbrushes… Everyday commodities that we all take for granted. Everyday objects that are sourced from petroleum resources. Resources that are running out. Resources that contribute to global waste build-up and can cause serious detriment to the environment and wildlife. The development of new to the world biodegradable materials is key. With a simple dance this research can be explained. So join us to see how traditional ceilidh dancing transfers to science.*

* The dance doesn't work well on a podcast... Hopefully Fern's narration will help you visualise it...

Fern’s passion for Science began during her school years in Aberdeenshire. She went on to graduate with a first class Master of Chemistry degree from the University of Edinburgh which included one years industrial experience in the USA.

Following graduation, Fern was awarded a prestigious Principal Scholarship from the University which provides four years fully funded research and focuses on entrepreneurial development. She is currently in the second year of her PhD working for Dr Michael Shaver of the Green Materials Laboratory.

Twitter: @greenmatlabWeb: greenmaterialslaboratory.wordpress.com

A special interview for you this week, with apologies for the sound quality. Phone recordings, eh?

David Frank talks to skeptical cartoonist Polyp about his new Kickstarter project "thINK the Book". He talks about the content of the book, the trouble he's had getting it published, and his own life and skepticism.

The book will be a mix of one off vicious panel gags and several longer cartoon 'short stories'. As well as the collected cartoons themselves, the book is peppered and buffed up with juicy skeptic quotes from the likes of Carl Sagan, Thomas Paine, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Charles Darwin... and so on. Religion, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories get the full treatment from Polyp.

For details on how you can help fund the project, visit: http://www.thinkthebook.org - there are links on there to the Kickstarter page. The project is currently at 63% funded, so there's still room to grow! Polyp's own website is at http://www.polyp.org.uk

Before we celebrate our atavistic winter solstice festival of choice based on our cultural or family heritage (or go home and get pished as you might call it) we like to let our hair down, kick up our heels, open the mic and have a good party.

This episode we have a series of short talks for your listening pleasure from our 2015 event, and we're only a month late with it!

• Podcast co-host David Frank talks about growing up as a Jew at Christmas
• Our chair Ewan Leeming gives us his Christmas Quiz
• Dave Colville is talking about replicating psychology studies
• Skeptics regular Tracey Joliffe will be enlightening us on 'The 12 Lays of Christmas' as she summarises some interesting bugs we can catch (STIs)

Your compere for the evening is the inimitable Twist!

Media dons and science journalists are regularly publishing emotive and dramatic headlines about the purported negative effects of screentime on child development. In particular scaremongering links have been drawn between technology use by children and young people and the increasing rates of diagnosis of autism. In this talk Sue uses scientific evidence and draws on personal testimonies to pick apart the claims made in the papers and expose the truth about the impact of technology on children today.

Sue Fletcher Watson holds the post of Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is an associate of the Patrick Wild Centre for research into autism, fragile X syndrome and intellectual disabilities and of The Salvesen Mindroom Centre to understand and resolve learning difficulties. Sue is interested in the application of psychological research methods to questions with clinical, educational and societal impact. Sue’s current work focuses on: intervention for children with autism, especially using technology; outcome measurement for early intervention studies; longitudinal follow-up of at-risk groups especially infants born preterm.

Follow Sue at

http://www.dart.ed.ac.uk/

And @suereviews

After our wonderful talk on autism and technology by Sue Fletcher-Watson, we decided to use the tools in our arsenal and handover the 10 Questions this week to our regular Heather Pentler. Heather works with adults with autism, so it seemed logical to have somebody who knows what they're talking about to interview Sue.

Sue Fletcher Watson holds the post of Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is an associate of the Patrick Wild Centre for research into autism, fragile X syndrome and intellectual disabilities and of The Salvesen Mindroom Centre to understand and resolve learning difficulties. Sue is interested in the application of psychological research methods to questions with clinical, educational and societal impact. Sue’s current work focuses on: intervention for children with autism, especially using technology; outcome measurement for early intervention studies; longitudinal follow-up of at-risk groups especially infants born preterm.

Follow Sue at http://www.dart.ed.ac.uk/ & @suereviews

After wowing us with his Skeptics in the Pub talk, we sat down with Paul Burns to fire our 10 (ish) Questions barrage at him. Paul talks more about science fraud and his science fiction writing with our very own David Frank.

Paul is a physics graduate, mass-spectrometer engineer and now a novelist (SF). He became interested in the truth and lies surrounding free energy and cold fusion in particular.

We're back for 2016! Hopefully you had a great holiday, and you're ready for some skepticism. We have a couple of episodes for you, in the form of a great Skeptics in the Pub talk AND a 10 Questions interview afterwards with our speaker for this episode Paul Burns.

Why are so many otherwise intelligent people duped by scientific fraud?

Paul became fascinated by Andrea Rossi's claims about cold fusion and set up the website eCatNews to examine them and find out more. At one point the site was receiving over 300k unique views per month. Inviting skeptics and believers alike, the discussion on site is often heated but illuminating and has given Paul insight into what happens when people believe There Is Someone Wrong On The Internet.

It's a fantastic story, and we can't do it justice here, so we'll let you listen to Paul's engaging yarn about what happened...

Paul Burns is a physics graduate, mass-spectrometer engineer and now a novelist (SF). He became interested in the truth and lies surrounding free energy and cold fusion in particular.

With apologies for being a day late, here's a fantastic 10 Questions for you with the amazing comedian and skeptic Iszi Lawrence.

Join our very own David Frank as he talks to Iszi about the more interesting but forgotten people from history. Iszi produces a podcast called the Z List Dead List where you can hear even more on the subject with guest appearances from top celebrities from the world of comedy, journalism, and more.

Web: zlistdeadlist.com | http://iszi-lawrence-ym2t.squarespace.comTwitter: @iszi_lawrence