A lot of small threads are discussed in this episodes: The latest lunar eclipse and its relation to the Blood Moons phenomenon, the bright spots on Ceres and conspiracies surrounding them, MESSENGER's crash landing into Mercury, and a follow-up to the Pamela Gay interview about funding in science. Also in this episode is my - and listeners' - tribute to Leonard Nimoy.

Who can present at a scientific conference is often shrouded in mystery to non-scientists, and it is viewed as an Ivory Gate by pseudoscientists. In this episode, we hear from the program committee chair of the largest planetary science conference in the world, Dr. Dave Draper, about how selections are made and what happens when ideas against the mainstream are submitted for presentations at these meetings.

Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 3 of 3 episodes, I discuss the cult's belief system, their suicide, and the continued pseudoscience about Comet Hale-Bopp after their deaths.

Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 2 of 3 episodes, I discuss how decidedly unceientific claims and methods were used to divine information that became a key component of the mythology.

Comet Hale-Bopp put on a fantastic display for Earth-bound skywatchers for over two years, often considered "the" comet of the 20th century. But, conspiracies and fear marred the event and led to the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult. In this Part 1 of 3 episodes, I discuss the photographic claims of a companion object and their eventual reveal as a misunderstanding and fraud.

The issue of funding in science is near and dear to my heart ... or, perhaps to my grocery, rent, and utility bills. Most people who are not in science do not know - and have many misconceptions about - how research scientists get funding and what they do with it. In this episode, I interview and discuss with Dr. Pamela Gay this significant issue and why it is a larger issue than many realize.

Black holes seem like a given in popular culture: They exist, they have to, right? Well, some people claim they don't. In this episode, we go through the theoretical underpinnings for black holes, some of the observational evidence for their existence, and examine some of the claims made by credentialed and practicing physicists who state that black holes cannot exist.

Measuring distance in every-day life requires some basic tools like a ruler. But who holds the other end when we want to measure the distance to the next galaxy? In response to young-Earth creationist claims, this episode delves into some of the science of how we measure distances across the cosmos and how all those different measurements fit together in what we call the Astronomical Distance Ladder.

Lingust, Dr. Karen Stollznow, discusses some of the communication problems on our own planet and how that translates to the huge potential problems of communicating with any type of intelligent creature who originated off our planet. We used this information to discuss some claimed contactees and how linguists have debunked their claimed communication with aliens.

The Rosetta mission with a destination of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has faced numerous conspiracies circulating throughout the internet (and even more mispronunciations of its target). In this episode, I talk about a few of them.