The Reality Check

Le Gang is back! The freethinking foursome kick off the show with Darren taking us down an entertaining rabbithole that is the AI text bot, ChatGPT. Cristina investigates if at-home cosmetic LED masks are worth the hype and introduces us to evidence-based YouTubers Doctorly in the process. Finally, Pat orchestrates a delightful - as Darren would say - game of Name That: Spot The Fake.

Darren clears up some misinformation about a viral post that Iran was planning to execute 15,000 protesters. Adam looks into a claim that medieval peasants work far fewer hours than we do in modern times. Lastly we check in with our fifth Beatle, Dr. Stuart Robbins, about the slug in response to a listener email.

Greenwashing is making unsubstantiated claims to deceive consumers into believing that a company's products are environmentally friendly. Cristina takes us through it. Darren asks: Is social media bad for us? The answer must be yes, right? As usual, it's complicated.

It's an all hallows eve mashup! Darren takes us through the interesting history of Halloween. Cristina debunks some long held Halloween myths and, lastly, Adam wonders if less kids are trick or treating.

Adam ran into a recent article which posed questions about whether nuclear power presents issues of racism, sexism and ageism. He takes a deep dive and explores if and how this could be true. Next up, our favourite astronomer and 5th Beatle joins us to talk all about lenses, following up on a segment about daredevil "Mad Mike" Hughes who died in a homemade rocket attempting to "prove" the Earth is flat.

Darren is joined by our resident economics expert, Lars, for an interesting conversation about inflation, deflation and related economic issues. Darren and Lars discuss the biography "The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann", who is a revered mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath.

On Saturday the world lost a world renowned cardiovascular researcher in a tragic accident. It was the day of his 50th wedding anniversary. Over the course of his 50-year career, he published more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles and his work has earned some of the most prestigious research awards.

His name was Dr. Jeffrey Robbins, father of our good friend and TRC's 5th Beatle, Dr. Stuart Robbins. In honour of Stuart's father and his scientific legacy, we are running an interview Stuart did with him in 2014 for his Exposing PseudoAstronomy podcast about ethics in scientific research. Our hearts go out to Stuart and his family.

It's been a while since we had our favourite planetary scientist Astro Stu on the show! Stuart gives us a breakdown on the James Webb Space Telescope, what we're seeing in released images, and what's next for the mission. Adam rounds out the show with a look into the recent "massive" Rogers Communications outage that disrupted telecommunication services for over a quarter of Canada's population.

Le Gang is back together at last! We kick off with an interesting discussion about a claim that the Google LaMDA Chatbot has become sentient. Adam investigates whether the smell most people associate with chlorine is due to its reaction with pee. Darren rounds out the show with a look at David Chalmers' book 'Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy', an analysis of our technological future.

In an effort to settle a hot household debate, Cristina looks into whether it's more eco and pocket friendly to hand wash dishes versus using your dishwasher. Adam checks out a new study that suggests dog personalities have little to do with their breed. Lastly, Darren gives us an overview of the bestselling book, "The Road to Unfreedom" by Timothy Snyder, which chronicles the rise of authoritarianism.