Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: Devon is single dadding it, while Jen is in Buenos Aires. Devon also admits that he didn't "get" Starship Troopers. Steven is about to spend soooooo much money at Disney, again. The duo go on and on about Easter, it's kinda pathetic. But then Devon starts talking about Kafka and a life sized Tinker Bell. Either you get it or you don't.

Robot Overlords: Scientists have decided that robots need to smile and everything is going to end soon, so why not? They built a robot face, then gave it a mirror so it could learn how to make faces like a human. Then it was trained on people smiling and learned to detect when a human is going to smile about 840 milliseconds before they do, so that they can make a co-expression with them. They named this robot 'Emo'.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240327154854.htm

This Week in Space: Two of the Milky Way's earliest building blocks identified. Astronomers have identified what could be two of the Milky Way's earliest building blocks: Named 'Shakti' and 'Shiva', these appear to be the remnants of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 billion years ago with an early version of the Milky Way, contributing to our home galaxy's initial growth. It turns out that the metals in some stars were a dead giveaway that they were much older than the stars around them. As amazing as this is, Steven gets distracted by the name Shakti and immediatly stars talking about the Jedi Shak Ti.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240321155515.htm

Book Club: Falling Bodies (The Far Reaches Collection) by Rebecca Roanhorse.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4QJBCFV?ref_=k4w_ss_details_rh

Devon starts us out with a stellar summary of the story. We chat about the Genteel and make allusions to what they mean in the context of the story. Devon slips into some Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes to talk about the Cardassians and the Bajorans...and Nazis.

Next book we will cover is Just Out of Jupiter's Reach (The Far Reaches collection) by Nnedi Okorafor. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C4QR4SX7?ref_=dbs_m_aos_rwt_calw_tkin_4&storeType=ebooks

This episode contains: Ben and Steven brave the spring sunday morning to bring you a 100% pure podcast experience. Where is Devon? Who knows?! Ben attended a symposium for work, and his badge did not work. Total Benergy. There was a live coding excercise where taco emoji were added to a website. Good? Bad? Who knows?! Steven is gearing up for a Fallout Wasteland Warfare game day and he is super excited to use his Gunner faction to melt some heads. Steven also has a double Disney trip coming up soon. Again?! Why?! We also talk some X-Men '97 and Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.

https://www.theverge.com/23794032/kizazi-moto-generation-fire-disney-plus-animation-streaming

Rama-lama-ding-dong: Montana traffickers illegally cloned Frankensheep hybrids for sport hunting. Conspirators used the genetic material of Marco Polo argali sheep from Kyrgyzstan to breed entirely new animals. We talk about how this real life John Hammond created his own private Sheep-rassic Park and then got caught. It's illegal if it's not on an island 120 west of Costa Rica.

https://www.popsci.com/environment/sheep-hybrid-hunting/

Let's Talk: Speaking without vocal cords, thanks to a new AI-assisted wearable device. The adhesive neck patch is the latest advance by UCLA bioengineers in speech technology for people with disabilities. A thin flexible device adheres to the neck and translates the muscle movements of the larynx into audible speech. We also take this opportunity to talk about AI speech in movies and how hopefully in the future you'll be able to have a Darth Vader voice all the time.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/speaking-without-vocal-cords-ucla-engineering-wearable-tech

Movie Trailers: Here's a bunch of links to the trailers we talked about!

Alien: Romulus

https://youtu.be/GTNMt84KT0k

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

https://youtu.be/e6yDanmWI1E

The Penguin

https://youtu.be/DQghiGQi6Lo

House of the Dragon (Black)

https://youtu.be/csSaSrJJPRs

House of the Dragon (Green)

https://youtu.be/gnxB9xZByyQ

Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver

https://youtu.be/UEJuNHOd8Dw

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

https://youtu.be/FVswuip0-co

Star Wars: The Acolyte

https://youtu.be/BtytYWhg2mc

This episode contains: We start off with two hosts and are eventually joined by a third. We talk about Ramadan and fasting in religion. Steven has been spending money on the CCG Star Wars games, Star Wars Unlimited. Devon finally wakes up and joins us. Steven and Devon have been playing Helldivers 2 and Devon built the Lego Ornithopter from Dune. Devon talks about the recent Space X launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htMpR7mnaM&ab_channel=ScottManley

Ben played Cocoon on Xbox Game Pass.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1497440/COCOON/

Steven also talks about 3D printing for Shatterpiont, which has gone hard into Return of the Jedi. We are looking forward to the next season of Black Mirror, which will include a sequel to the Star Trek inspired episode "USS Callister." And yet another Star Trek feature film has been announced. Should Star Trek even be a movie?

https://trekmovie.com/2024/03/15/the-black-mirror-star-trek-inspired-uss-callister-is-getting-a-sequel/

Lasers Make Everything Better: Earth Received a Message Laser-Beamed From 10 Million Miles Away in NASA Test. NASA successfully demonstrated a key technology for interstellar communication by laser-beaming messages across a distance of 10 million miles, approximately 40 times farther than the distance from Earth to the Moon. This achievement, part of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, represents the first time that optical communications have been sent across such a distance.

https://www.notion.so/sciencefactionpodcast/Home-Page-79a3bb96145f4d3b8ca685fdeedd44e8?p=d8838d0ae925465385f00bc7b29a44fa&pm=s

Book Club: Devon returns from finally drinking some coffee. We read the short story by James S. A. Corey, "How it Unfolds." This is a story of human Von Neuman probes, space exploration and love. We discuss how some good short stories could be expanded into full books. Next week we will be discussing "Falling Bodies" by Rebecca Roanhorse, which is also part of the Far Reaches Collection.

Patreon only pre-pod: mike check, Devon's epic phone and family journey, and only Siths deal in absolutes. Have YOU ever dealt with unreasonable family members? NEVER, I'm sure!

This episode contains: We three hosts record on MAR10 day! Ben played so much Mario Kart, not in celebration but just alone, to be cool. Steven's plans to watch comedienne Taylor Tomlinson in Los Angeles fell through. Steven finally played Fallout Wasteland Warfare for real, shout out to Gordon's Good Games! Alliteration! What's up David!? You Fallout Collector you! There's a local Discord for tabletop games, and Steven has found his people. Ben watched 2010: The Year We Make Contact with his son, and that film holds up! It's a hard sci-fi film made for normals (not quite like the first film 2001: A Space Odyssey). It's almost like an entire season of For All Mankind, only filmed in 1984. Why don't they make film versions of 2061 or 3001? Devon managed to survive an Ewok attack, and then proceeds to discuss doors and rooms. Ahem, SECRET doors for SECRET ROOMS! Devon's R2D2 replica will get weathered if he puts it in a secret room for sure. Devon then considers making the ultimate scifi Halloween garage.

Hey! Books are smart: Autogenerating a Book Series From Three Years of iMessages. Software engineer Ben Kettle wanted to be able to easily browse through old iMessage conversations from years past, so he developed a process to extract the iMessage database from iPhone backups, query it with SQL, and generate LaTeX source code to create printable books from the messages. How does one pronounce LaTeX? LAY-tek! He made an on-demand printed book containing the longest thread he'd had over three years. He had some issues supporting emojis, but was able to work around it. He split the conversation into three volumes and was able to inexpensively print paperback books through Barnes & Noble Press. The source code is available online for others to generate message books from their own conversation histories. We're not going to make books like this… will you?

https://benkettle.xyz/posts/message-book/

Brain matters: Lack of focus doesn't equal lack of intelligence -- it's proof of an intricate brain. A new study provides insights into how the brain coordinates focus and filtering of distractions to pay attention. Lead author and neuroscientist Harrison Ritz has a cool name! Researchers used an fMRI task where participants had to distinguish colors and motions of dots. The anterior cingulate cortex tracks task difficulty and directs the intraparietal sulcus to adjust its "focusing and filtering knobs" - increasing focus on relevant information like color and reducing sensitivity to irrelevant information like motion. This shows the brain coordinates attention through multiple regions working together, rather than a single capacity limit. Understanding these coordination mechanisms provides insights into both effective attention and attention disorders. The research suggests lack of focus does not mean low intelligence, but rather shows how complex the brain's coordination of attention is.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308122958.htm

Patreon only mid-pod: Did y'all finish Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix? Ben discusses. Remember Wizards First Rule / Legend of the Seeker?… Ben loved to get drunk and angry at the show. Will they get to do a live action Legend of Korra? That would be cool. 3 Body Problem (Netflix) reviews are out, Devon talks about it. Fallout trailer! What's a good cadence to release streaming television?

Book Club: You Have Arrived At Your Destination by Amor Towles. Devon picked this one because he really enjoyed Towles' book A Gentleman in Moscow. The audiobook for You Have Arrived At Your Destination was read by David Harbor. We go over it. Is it about choice? Is it about a multiverse? It's confusing, but not if you apply True Lies logic to it. We discuss predestination: How accurate can the prediction be? What affects the choices we make? If they can be that accurate, how much does feee will affect the outcome? Do we have free will at all? Do our lives fit a three act structure? What act are you in in your life? Is this act structure about what happens to you, or is it about the perspective you bring to your life? Are you just waiting to die? Is that bad or good? Which of three lives would you pick for your child? Ben gets irrationally angry at the possibility of a different structure for the story that is only hinted at. Steven and Devon give it a high rating, but Ben gives it 1/5 of a star out of 4 stars.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49665863-you-have-arrived-at-your-destination

Next week, our book club will be covering How it Unfolds by James S. A. Corey.

Patreon only post-pod: Next week, Devon may talk about Determined by Robert M. Sapolsky. Do you listen to books at 1x, like a MONSTER?!

This episode contains: Devon, Steven and Ben all host this episode. Unfortunatly we end up talking about gurd and vomit right off the bat. Ben helped some kids play The Zone. Devon took another journey to Lousiana. Ben did a poem at an Ekphrastic poetry workshop, and it's good.

https://play.thezonerpg.com/

https://beaconartshow.com/#gallery

Robot Overlords: AI outperforms humans in standardized tests of creative potential. In a recent study, 151 human participants were pitted against ChatGPT-4 in three tests designed to measure divergent thinking, which is considered to be an indicator of creative thought.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240301134758.htm

Brain Matters: Surprisingly simple model explains how brain cells organize and connect. A new study by physicists and neuroscientists describes how connectivity among neurons comes about through general principles of networking and self-organization, rather than the biological features of an individual organism.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240117143741.htm

Surprising Human Tricks: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise, study finds. Why electric bikes actually give more exercise than pedal bikes. A new study that found tai chi is more effective than aerobic exercise at lowering blood pressure in people with prehypertension. Electric bikes provide more exercise than traditional pedal bikes based on multiple studies, this is because e-bike riders tend to ride for longer periods of time and distances since the motor assistance makes biking less strenuous, especially on hills.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/14/1231232197/tai-chi-aerobics-exercise-blood-pressure-hypertension-mindfulness

https://electrek.co/2024/02/20/why-electric-bikes-give-more-exercise/

Book Club: Slow Time Between the Stars by John Scalzi. We discuss. Devon has some additional thoughts on last weeks story, Randomize.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/151908304-slow-time-between-the-stars?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=HpJzWGPkkH&rank=1

This episode contains: Steven and Ben host this all new leap year episode. Ben thinks about how his life would be if he had kids at an earlier age. Steven has also been going through a midlife crisis, which has caused him to start journaling. Steven wants to stop wasting his life on his phone using focus mode. "How I Setup My iPhone — So It Doesn't Ruin My Life..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrQHz-1UJ3g&ab_channel=TimKoa Ben reminds us at the phone should be the tool, not you. Ben is having an Obsidian Obsession. Steven recommends Pacific Drive, which has big Half Life 2 vibes. https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1458140/ We also talk about the live action Avatar on Netflix. Listener Hank points out that the HeLa Cells were in Emergency Skin were a reference to an historical wrong done to Henrietta Lacks. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02494-z Thanks Hanks! And thanks Henrietta Lacks!

It's True, All Of It: Scientists scanning the seafloor discover a long-lost Stone Age 'megastructure'. In the fall of 2021, a marine geologist and students mapped the shape of the seafloor at high resolution and found something interesting. Not quite 70 feet below the surface, they stumbled upon a stone wall more than half a mile long that dated back to the Stone Age — one of the oldest such megastructures on the planet. In research published in PNAS, Geersen and his colleagues say this piece of ancient hunting architecture may have been used to corral and hunt reindeer, adding a level of sophistication to the prehistoric hunter-gatherers who lived 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

https://www.npr.org/2024/02/22/1232694592/blinkerwall-stone-age-megastructure-hunting-underwater-baltic-sea?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

This One's For Devon: Deliverance Forevermore!: Power Metal: is it really about dragons? Some years ago, Matt Daniels wrote a great article on who has the largest vocabulary in hip-hop, comparing Shakespeare to famous hip-hop artists. What about Power Metal? People know metal or heavy metal but not necessarily power metal. Power metal has speed (remember that last song on Guitar Hero), clean vocals (you can understand the words, looking at you grind metal) and lyrics about dragons. Is it really only about dragons? Running Wild (2949 unique words) has the biggest vocabulary, followed by Helloween (2641) and Elvenking (2505). Bands from Spain, Germany and Finland have an average of more than 1600 words vocabulary; in comparison native countries like UK, US and Scotland have an average of 925, 1383 and 1501 words respectively. The most metal words are deliverance, defender, honour, forevermore, realm and the least are shit, baby, fuck, girl, verse. The most negative song is Condemned To Hell by Gamma Ray and the most positive There's Something In The Skies by Dark Moor.

https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html

Book Club: We read the short story by Andy Weir: Randomize. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49661162-randomize As you likely already know, Andy Wier is the author of The Marian and Project Hail Mary. This is a SPOILER filled discussion. The story concerns quantum computing, random number generation and gambling. The story presents the craziness of quantum computing to the lay person using a casino as the backdrop. But was the story racist?

The next short story is Slow Time Between the Stars by John Scalzi.

This episode contains: We're recording just after Valentine's Day. Sorry, we didn't get you anything, EXCEPT FOR THIS PODCAST! Ben was a bit disappointed in Valentine's Day this year... he's also working on "not wasting his midlife crisis." He chats about layoffs and opportunities and productivity, but Steven thinks that perhaps Ben's having a midlife revelation. Ben's reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. Steven and Devon have been managing democracy in HELLDIVERS 2. Devon doesn't know how to define video games, or perhaps he knows too much how to define video games. HELLDIVERS is pretty much the video game equivalent of Starship Troopers, with all the satire involved. Steven also really enjoyed Blue Eyed Samurai on Netflix. Not science fiction, but it's worth your time. Guess what? Ben's dental company had a major data breach. It's time to freeze your credit FOR FREE at the following addresses to to avoid ID theft:

• https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
• https://service.transunion.com/dss/login.page
• https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

Unless you're planning on taking out a new credit card or buying anything in the next few days, you should freeze your credit. If they are asking you for money, you're in the wrong place. It took Ben 15 minutes to do it, big thanks to password managers. Ben is now the Credit Score Fairy.

This Week on the Internet: Not all TLDs are Created Equal. In light of the recent cancellation of the queer.af domain registration by the Taliban, the fragile and difficult nature of country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) has once again been comprehensively demonstrated. When the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, it fell foul of the EU's rules for the registration of domains under the "eu" ccTLD. To register (and maintain) a domain name ending in .eu, you have to be a resident of the EU. When the UK ceased to be part of the EU, residents of the UK were no longer EU residents, and lost their .eu domain names. Also, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukranian Vice Prime Minister asked ICANN to suspend ccTLDs associated with Russia. While ICANN said that it wasn't going to do that (they should change their name to ICANT), because it wouldn't do anything useful, some domain registrars (the companies you pay to register domain names) ceased to deal in Russian ccTLDs, and some websites restricted links to domains with Russian ccTLDs. Generic TLDs (gTLDs) like .com, .net, .gov and other really cool new gTLDs like .rocks, .ninja, and .supplies are far better to register.

https://www.hezmatt.org/~mpalmer/blog/2024/02/13/not-all-tlds-are-created-equal.html

This Week in Space: Tiny moon of Saturn holds young ocean beneath icy shell. Saturn's moon Mimas harbors a global ocean beneath its icy shell, discovered through analysis of its orbit by Cassini spacecraft data. This ocean formed just 5-15 million years ago, making Mimas a prime candidate for studying early ocean formation and potential for life. This discovery suggests life-essential conditions might exist on seemingly inactive moons, expanding our search for life beyond Earth. Guess where else we've discovered oceans? Devon says "Earth." Ben knows he got that info from SeaQuest DSV. Saturns rings may have always been there for us, but what have they done for us lately?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240207120512.htm

Patreon-only mid-pod: Ben has changed his note taking game, using Obsidian. Steven has rewatched Deadpool and Deadpool 2. Will X-Men 97 be terrible or radical?

Science Fiction Book Club: This week we're doing a spoiler-filled review of the novella Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin. An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet's finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out eons ago. After all this time, there's no telling how they've devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49669410-emergency-skin

TLDR: Ben and Steven loved it, but Devon was a little lukewarm and wished it was longer and more nuanced.

Next week in the Science Fiction Book Club we'll discuss Randomize by Andy Weir. Get it for free if you have Amazon Prime and be informed for next week's discussion: https://www.amazon.com/Randomize-Forward-collection-Andy-Weir-ebook/dp/B07VDJBKNJ

This episode contains: Devon, Ben and Steven are here this week to give you live coverage of the Super....nah, just kiddin'. We do talk about the Super Bowl though, and with that comes Taylor Swift talk, becuase of course it does. Ben chats about roller derby practice and Devon wonders why us Californians get extra days off of school. We also talk about the death of baseball as it pertains to Star Trek Deep Space Nine. There is also some cricket talk and what would this episode be if we didn't talk about Bluey? Before we get to the science, Ben and Steven recount a gaming experience they had with The Zone RPG.

https://play.thezonerpg.com/

We were not DISAPPOINTED.

Ben is The Password Fairy: I Know What Your Password Was Last Summer... and we talk about why. Ben tells us of old passwords, how they are typically cracked and why having passwords at all is not a great idea. We talk about password creation, and the different options available to have super secure passwords that you would never have to memorize.

https://labs.lares.com/password-analysis/

Don't Worry, This Is Not A Threat: Low voice pitch increases standing among strangers. According to researchers, if you're looking for along-term relationship, or to boost your social status, lower the pitch of your voice. Researchers found that lower voice pitch makes women and men sound more attractive to to potential long-term partners, and lower pitch in males makes the individuals sound more formidable and prestigious. Devon tells us about Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, and how she lowered her voice as part of her schemes. Steven and Ben had no idea who she was, and Devon was shocked.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240208142418.htm

Science Fiction: Ben is ready to talk about B words! We start of with a lengthy chat about Barbie, which Ben just watched, and we talk about which awards it was nominated for (and which it was snubbed). Ben then once again talks some Beacon 23, which we recommends. Finally, we get a chat about Babylon 5 and Ben tells us the plans for season 4, and how that impacted season 5.

Book Club: We're starting a book club, kinda! Steven recently found some amazing short fiction, and we've decided to start a sort of book club. Our first story that we're going to read id "Emergency Skin" by N.K. Jemisin. It can be found as part of the Forward Collection on Amazon Prime. If you're Devon, you can pay extra for the audio version, or just use the kindle app and get it for free (with Prime of course).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WK7PVFT?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1707678484&sr=8-1&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin

We'll have a spoiler filled discussion on this story next week and announce the next title to read. Join the discussion! Read a Book!

This episode contains: We're coming to you from a rainy Sunday. Devon is BORING, but also has rearranged a room in his home. Ben has Star Trek trivia night, which Steven had to miss to play D&D (BG3 actually). Ben's team won, of course. Ben then gives us some of his great Star Trek team names. Also, Ben showed up in costume. Steven's family is healthy. Steven finished a full game of Core Space and paint some minis. Steven also got to watch a movie: Self Reliance on Hulu.

Brain Matters: The theory that consciousness is a quantum system gains support. Hameroff and Penrose's Orch Or Theory sees consciousness as the outcome of a quantum collapse of a wave function.

https://mindmatters.ai/2024/01/the-theory-that-consciousness-is-a-quantum-system-gains-support/

Other reading: Quantum Approaches to Consciousness.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/

Wikipedia: Quantum mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind#:~:text=The%20quantum%20mind%20or%20quantum,entanglement%20and%20superposition%20that%20cause

Da-Na, Da-Na, Da-Na: First-ever sighting of a live newborn great white. Great whites, the largest predatory sharks in the world with the most fatal attacks on humans, are tough to imagine as newborn babies. That is partially because no one has seen one in the wild, it seems, until now.

https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240129122437.htm

Hurt Me Plenty: "Can it run Doom?" (Gut bacteria edition). Ramlan explains her bacterial grid display model and how it fits into the wider " Doom runs on everything" tradition. Simulated 1-bit, 32x48 cellular grid runs at a blazing 0.00003 fps.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/01/can-it-run-doom-gut-bacteria-edition/

The Big Question:

Time travel is possible, but only into the future. How far would you go? Why?

Time travel is possible, but only into the past. How far would you go? Why?

Rules: Travel is one way. You can affect the past/future, but may result in a different timeline. You cannot bring anything with you.

We discuss.

Pre-pod Patreon-only: Is Matt our constant? A blank minute with Flint Lawless, Palworld and AI, your parents aren't cool anymore

This Episode Contains: Steven and Ben grace your ears this time 'round, having a chill time. Why are we on our best behavior when Devon's around? He's not our dad! Ben has to get dad energy sometimes when dealing with crossing guard stuff, especially when it turns into fight club. The Domingues house has been sick, so that's been really disordered. He's excited to continue to overdose on the board game Core Space (Thanks Damon!) https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/240271/core-space. Ben's sketchbooks he's been creating are now on Amazon!

A Woman Holding a Weasel:

Sketchbook : Da Vinci's Doodles, a Woman holding a Weasel Funny Notebook for Sketching, Drawing and Doodling: Perfect gift for art lovers with a sense ... (Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches | 150 Blank Pages)

Cats versus Sailboat:

Sketchbook: Cats versus Sailboat, Wrong Turn, A Cat-Themed Notebook for Sketching, Drawing and Doodling: Perfect gift for school-age birthday (Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches | 150 Blank Pages)

Come On You Apes, You Wanna Live Forever?! The fountain of youth is… a T cell? It's Osmosis Jones meets Palworld: Scientists have discovered that T cells can be reprogrammed through genetic modifications to target and eliminate senescent cells, which accumulate in the body with age and contribute to inflammation and age-related diseases. When these modified "CAR T cells" were used to clear senescent cells from mice, the mice showed benefits like lower weight, better metabolism, and protection against conditions like obesity and diabetes. Even a single dose of CAR T cells early in life provided lifelong protection in mice. This suggests reprogrammed T cells could potentially be developed as a "living drug" treatment for aging and age-related disease that only requires one administration.

The fountain of youth is ... a T cell?

Reasons To Never Leave The House Again: Disney Unveils the HoloTile Floor, Inching Us Closer to a Real-Life Holodeck. Alongside announcing that Lanny Smoot will be the first Disney employee besides Walt to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Disney also shared one of his newest projects called the HoloTile floor, which just may be a game changer for VR and could bring us ever closer to experiencing the Holodeck from Star Trek. This floor is made up of a bunch of tiles that all work to keep people in the center of them. The HoloTile floor can do more than just let people walk on it, as it can also move objects around. In a video, we see an object being moved around the floor and an arm extending at the corner of the screen, as if they were using the Force to move an object.

Disney Unveils the HoloTile Floor, Inching Us Closer to a Real-Life Holodeck - IGN

Can we just stop for a bit and talk about how amazing it is that we're putting man-made structures on the moon for the first time since 1972? Japan's lunar lander landed.

Mid-pod Patreon-only: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On follow-up, Droids in training at Galaxy's Edge, Droid Lightsaber Caddies

Science Fiction: Did we need a mashup of Simpsons and AKIRA? No, but it's pretty awesome! BARTKIRA!

http://www.bartkira.com/

Ben finished A Closed and Common Orbit, and his son knows that TRON is superior to TRON: Legacy but seriously, why do modern CGI films have trouble making amazing cinematography a la TRON: Legacy? How come modern CGI blockbusters are so sterile in their cinematography? We have some thoughts but this video sums it up:

https://youtu.be/VvLk9G9XuPw?si=e3PmXJCHktxomoR8

Yo, there was a TRON 2.0 video game in 2003 and it was originally meant to be a canon sequel to the original? You can get it on Steam and on GOG:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/327740/TRON_20/

https://www.gog.com/en/game/tron_20

Post-pod Patreon-only: Ben finished Star Trek Resurgence