Science Monkey

Graham and Ray are once more deep into the grown-up juice (i.e., whiskey), so much so that they confuse Willy Nelson with John Denver, Bob Denver, Bob Dylan, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and Cat Stevens. But they do eventually answer a question from a Twitter follower who asks, “Do we have too many friends?” This leads to discussion…More

Science Monkey episode 8

Graham and Ray are once more deep into the grown-up juice (i.e., whiskey), so much so that they confuse Willy Nelson with John Denver, Bob Denver, Bob Dylan, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and Cat Stevens. But they do eventually answer a question from a Twitter follower who asks, “Do we have too many friends?” This leads to discussion of Satoshi Kanazawa’s “Savannah Principle“, the ideas behind “knowledge mobilization“, and even an introduction to the science of bibliometrics.

Links from today’s show:

* Why smart people are better off with fewer friends

* Country roads, take me home… to my friends: How intelligence, population density, and friendship affect modern happiness

 

Graham and Ray are deep into the whiskey, and are mumbling their way through this episode, which is ostensibly about whether an artificial computer intelligence can be …wait for it… artistic. Be forewarned: there was a weird hum when we did the recording, but it was removed in post-production. As a result, the audio quality…More

Science Monkey episode 7

Graham and Ray are deep into the whiskey, and are mumbling their way through this episode, which is ostensibly about whether an artificial computer intelligence can be …wait for it… artistic. Be forewarned: there was a weird hum when we did the recording, but it was removed in post-production. As a result, the audio quality might be a bit less than optimal. In this episode, we return to our regular “Facts & The Furious” and “The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge” segments. Also, Graham spoils the ending to the movie, Her, because that’s what he does; and Ray plugs the great science-fiction novel, Spin.

Links from today’s show:

* “A novel written by AI passes the first round in a Japanese literary competition”

* “Meet Nadine, the ’emotionally intelligent’ companion robot”

* “Google’s AI Can Dream, and Here’s What it Looks Like”

* “These Abstract Portraits Were Painted By An Artificial Intelligence Program”

* “Trump Deep Nightmare: Google’s Deep Dream AI run against a Donald Trump speech”

Responding to a question on our Facebook page, in this episode Graham and Ray talk about whether the flu vaccine is safe, why the formulation changes every year, what disease surveillance systems are, and introduce the epidemiological concepts, “bias” and “confounding.” We mention that many modern vaccines don’t have the actual infective organism, but instead…More

Science Monkey episode 6

Responding to a question on our Facebook page, in this episode Graham and Ray talk about whether the flu vaccine is safe, why the formulation changes every year, what disease surveillance systems are, and introduce the epidemiological concepts, “bias” and “confounding.”

We mention that many modern vaccines don’t have the actual infective organism, but instead are made up of subunits of the organism which act as antigens. Here is a summary of which vaccines are typically made of actual organisms and which are made from inactive subunits:

Important links:

* “Risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome after seasonal influenza vaccination and influenza health-care encounters: a self-controlled study”

* “Post-H1N1 Flu Vaccination Narcolepsy in Switzerland: A Retrospective Survey in the 30 Sleep-Certified Swiss Centers”

* “AS03 adjuvanted AH1N1 vaccine associated with an abrupt increase in the incidence of childhood narcolepsy in Finland”

* “Risk of Narcolepsy after AS03 Adjuvanted Pandemic A/H1N1 2009 Influenza Vaccine in Adults: A Case-Coverage Study in England”

* “Narcolepsy and influenza A(H1N1) pandemic 2009 vaccination in the United States”

* Influenza mortality and morbidity stats in Canada

* “Overdue for a Pandemic?”

* “Is SARS a precursor to pandemic?”

 

 

 

How do “they” know what your “recommended daily allowance” is? Are diets truly evidence based? What’s the difference between a wet lab and a dry lab? In this episode, Graham and Ray reply to an actual listener question, as Rashi on Facebook wants to know how to navigate the confusing world of recommended diets. Yes,…More

Science Monkey episode 5

How do “they” know what your “recommended daily allowance” is? Are diets truly evidence based? What’s the difference between a wet lab and a dry lab? In this episode, Graham and Ray reply to an actual listener question, as Rashi on Facebook wants to know how to navigate the confusing world of recommended diets. Yes, we talk about nutrition while eating pie and drinking whiskey. We also rename our “Didja Know That” segment to “The Facts and The Furious” because, you know, we’re clever and stuff. And our “Is This Still A Thing” segment is renamed “The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge”, in honour of Jorge Luis Borges.

Graham’s impression of a howler monkey was wayyyy off. Here‘s how one actually sounds.

Important links:

* “Status of nutrition education in medical schools”

* “What Do Resident Physicians Know about Nutrition? An Evaluation of Attitudes, Self-Perceived Proficiency and Knowledge”

* “Nutrition education in U.S. medical schools: latest update of a national survey”

* “Science and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutrition Research and Practice”

* “The Truth About Nutritionists”

* “How an 1836 Famine Altered the Genes of Children Born Decades Later”

 

How would space aliens behave toward us? Can we even conceptualize something that is truly alien? In today’s show, Graham and Ray discuss the various ways in which human beings might interact with our galactic brethren. Carl Sagan and Charles Pellegrino are name-checked, as is comedian Jerrod Carmichael. In our Is This Still A Thing…More

Science Monkey episode 4

How would space aliens behave toward us? Can we even conceptualize something that is truly alien? In today’s show, Graham and Ray discuss the various ways in which human beings might interact with our galactic brethren. Carl Sagan and Charles Pellegrino are name-checked, as is comedian Jerrod Carmichael.

In our Is This Still A Thing segment, Graham quotes the Daoist text Wen Shi Zhen Jing. And we find out what the strongest organism on Earth is!