Month: June 2008

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The contents of this show will self destruct within the next half millennium. Britain’s Principia Mathematica changed physics in 1687. Einstein’s theory of general relativity changed it again in 1915. And someone will surely replace Einstein’s theory in the next 400 years or so.

On this show, we hope to learn something new every week. That hope is the one constant in science. And while the statements made on this show the not necessarily represent the views of University of California, Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. We can be assured of this much: as new discoveries in science change what we knew last week and what we learn next week overturns what we learn that change – what we thought was settled last week.

It’s nonetheless certain that the only way you can keep up with the changing state of knowledge and physics, biology, psychology and any other field of science (unintelligible) is by listening to what is being now newly known on This Week in Science, coming up next.
Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org June 24, 2008”

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

There is something wrong with the earth. There’s something wrong with our fair sister. Yes, we’ve ravaged and plundered and raped her in bitter, stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn, tied her with fences and dragged her down.

But it now seems that these actions have had an adverse effect on the climate of the earth. And that we ourselves are in jeopardy of coming to some ill-effect.

And while, ill-effects like the following hour of programming do not necessarily represent the views of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

Some say, we should take heed the warning of the warming signs of the planet in distress and take some action before it’s too late while others would have us wait and see.

In any case, before we sink into the big sleep, while the lights are still on and the music still plays, let us dance on fire as it intends with your good friends until the end, the very gentle sounds of This Week in Science, coming up next.

Good morning, Kirsten.
Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org June 17, 2008”

Justin: Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer!

Ten years ago, a crack commando unit was sent to the basement of a community radio station for a crime they didn’t commit. These people promptly formed the Science News Radio Show for the Davis underground.

And while the views and opinions in the following hour of programming do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California, Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, today still wanted by the government the survivor soldiers of science, do you have a question?

If no one else can answer it and if you can find them, maybe you can listen to This Week In Science, coming up next.
Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org June 10, 2008”

Kirsten: Welcome to This Week in Science this is Kirsten Sanford. And I am Justin-less today.

Disclaimer. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. There is no Justin in the house. And anything that I say probably can be held against me [laugh] but it doesn’t represent the views of University of California or anybody at this radio station. Today, it’s all me, there’s no Justin. This is such a sad day.

Anyway I have an interview for everyone. Dr Gary Marcus. He’s written a book called “Kludged” and it’s a fascinating analysis of the way that our brains are put together. I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and recorded it and I brought it today so that I can share it with everyone here.

Additionally at 9 o’clock we will be talking with Michael Stebbins with the Weird from Washington. And sometime after that I’ll be doing a brief rundown of the headlines in Science News – things that are interesting that I think you guys might enjoy.

Not to in depth today because I’m not so much fun to listen to when Justin is not around, that’s all I have to say. So without further ado I’m going to give you the Interview with Gary Marcus. I hope you enjoy it.

Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org May 06, 2008”

Justin: Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.

The following hour of programming makes no apology for these discoveries that science brings to the world of man. The Pandora’s box that opens wider with each passing eureka moment ushering a new challenges and new hope to the people who have ushered it will forever be pushed open wider – relentlessly until the only thing left within the box is the dust at its bottom accumulated by an eternity of waiting for us to find it.

And then we will study the dust and the container itself. Heck! Maybe it’s not even a box, maybe it’s a jar. Who knows?

But there’s no going backwards – only upwards, only onwards with new hope and fresh ideas. And while fresh ideas like the following hour of our programming do not necessarily represent the views of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors, we still ponder how from fire to the Phoenix Lander, from the wheel to the double helix, from absolute Aristotelian space to the relative principles of uncertainty, each new discovery in science takes us further from our humble beginnings and launches us fearlessly into the humble future.

Speaking of the humble future, get ready for This Week in Science, coming up next.

Continue reading “Transcript: TWIS.org June 03, 2008”

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

There is no absolute up or down, no absolute position in space. But the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies. There are constant changes in relative position throughout the universe. And the observer always seems to be at the center of things.

The keen observations of Giordano Bruno, over 400 years ago pointing out that which is considered obvious today, that the earth is not the center of the universe; the sun is just a star among many and that absolute anything is ever in the eye of the beholder.

Bruno was a believer in free thinking and always spoke his thoughts freely. Eventually, this man ahead of his time was rudely pulled back into his own time when the religious practice of inquisition, viewed his free thinking as a costly threat. He was locked away until his reason could be recanted in favor of the irrational.

But Bruno would not recant, would not trade a single free thinker’s thought in hell for the irrational authority of his captors. Not only did he deny them the satisfaction of recantation but he spoke truth to power right up to the end. “You fear me more than I fear you”, he told the judges.

With an iron spike through his tongue, stripped neck and hanging upside down while strapped to a pole in the town square, Giordano Bruno was burned alive before a crowd of faithful believers in, well, anything that they were pretty much told to believe after seeing that, I’m sure. Lucky for us time and brave thinkers have changed the world we live in.

So even though the views and opinions of the following hour program do not necessarily represent the views of University of California, Davis KDVS or its sponsors, we can still spend the next hour talking and thinking freely with little fear of reprisal because after all, there is no absolute up or down; no absolute position in space.

But the position of anybody is relative to that of This Week in Science, coming up next.

Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org May 27, 2008”

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer! There are by current estimates 70 sextillion stars in a known universe. That’s a seven followed by 22 zeroes, which means that if you collected every grain of sand from every beach on planet Earth you would still fall critically short in constructing a solar model of the universe.

And since this stellar magnitude maybe mentally incomprehensible like the following hour of programming, it therefore does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of University of California at Davis, KDVS or it’s sponsors.

And while pondering the scale of the universe may put some intimidating perspective on the day to day lives of the average earthling, you are not an average earthling. Yes, our earth may be comparable to a bit of dust and a grain of sand on the edges of the oceans of space but in all of the universe, there’s only one you.

Multiple magnitudes of galaxies may come and go but still, there can be only one you, which makes you a very rare properly of the universe indeed. So pull up a beach chair and together, let’s sun ourselves in the light of our mutually incomprehensible uniqueness as we improve our mental sandbox by listening to This Week in Science, coming up next.
Continue reading “Transcipt: TWIS.org May 13, 2008”