Science and/or Fiction

Hello, and welcome to the Science and/or Fiction Podcast! Or should we say “welcome back?” Probably not. It’s been six years. We’re just starting over from the beginning. On this first episode we’re talking about the things we thought were cool in 2025 and predictions we have for 2026. Show Notes Stuff we liked from …

Continue reading "2025 in Review & Predictions for 2026"

We discuss the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and NASA's ambitions Artemis missions back to the Moon and forward to Mars.

We discuss the newly-discovered Neanderthal cave paintings and Jon Favreau's live action Star Wars series.

We talk about the Falcon Heavy launch and what we can learn about Solo from new Star Wars toys! Enjoy!

We’re back. This episode is a long overdue discussion of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. This episode will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the movie, go watch it first!

We talk about weird objects in space and the Saudi government granting citizenship to a robot.

This is a serious episode about a serious topic, but it's something that's important to talk about. Mass shootings and gun violence end the life of more than 30,000 Americans every year. In this episode we discuss the Las Vegas shooting, Australia's gun laws following a similar tragedy in 1996, and how a recent study has shown with little doubt that addressing gun violence as a public health crisis has saved lives in that county.

Halloween's right around the corner, so we thought we'd start of Episode 11 with a truly terrifying topic: anti-biotic resistant superbugs. We talk about how we came to have them and what we might do to get rid of them. And because we want to leave things on a much happier and less scary note, we talk about NASA's naming of it's Langley computer research facility after famed mathematician Katherine Johnson.

Last but not least, we're starting a book club. We'll not really, because we're reading sci-fi published in short and long form on the internet, not in print. Our first reading is East, from the Josef K. Stories by Cameron Suey.

Episode 10 is here! We thank our first Patreon supporter (Tony Troxell), follow up on the end of the Cassini-Huygens mission and the total solar eclipse of this year and 2024. We talk about research to use algae to turn fatty acids into hydrocarbons and a US appellate court's ruling that distributing altered versions of Star Wars is still copyright infringement. Enjoy!

Would you like to help us keep making the podcast? For as little as $1 per month, you could help us out, get a reward, and you'd have our eternal gratitude! Go to https://patreon.com/sciandorfi

Hello friends! We're back after missing an episode (sorry about that!) with Episode 9. In this episode we talk to you about how you can help us make the Science [and/or] Fiction podcast by becoming our sponsor on Patreon. Get more info about that here: patreon.com/sciandorfi

We also take some time to do a little retrospective of our past episodes: our favorite moments and what we've learned from experience and listener feedback along the way. And finally, we bring it all back to where it first began in Episode 1: Cassini. We give you a surprisingly-emotional look at the upcoming final days of NASA's groundbreaking mission to Saturn. Enjoy!