Justin: Thank you for listening to TWIS. If you rely on this show for weekly science-y updates, please understand that we rely on your support to keep bringing those to you. Donate. Keep the science-y goodness on the air. We’ve made it very easy for you.

Go to our website www.twis.org, click on the button that will allow you to donate $2, $5, $10 or if you like, you can donate any amount of money you choose as many times as you like. Again, just go to www.twis.org and donate today. We need your support and we thank you in advance for it.

Kirsten: Oh, but there’s more. And I think we’re going to do a little extra long This Week in Science this week. We – yeah, the next DJ didn’t show so what we get to do is have more science. So many – so many TWISmas presents for the world out there.

I just found some great news – Justin went upstairs for a little bit so I’m just going to chitter-chatter – the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider has produced its first results. There’s a paper published online this week in Springer’s European Physical Journal C relating to measurements that were taken on November 23, 2009 during the early use of the CERN LHC.
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Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

How do we judge the quality of life? Some would say it is by whether or not that life is a life lived well. But what is a life lived well? Is it an accomplishment or an affect, a way of being in the world?

This is to say that a life lived well could simply be a life lived in accordance with an individual’s ideals. The life lived well of a painter being very different perhaps in the life lived well of a pro football player or microbiologist.

And there could, by this measure, be as many ways of living the life well-lived as there are people living lives, leaving it up to each of us to decide if the life we’re living is living up to our own standard of wellness.

While equality of life issues, much like the following hour of our programming, do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

The question being interjected into your brain frames at this moment in time is, “Are you living your life the way you, yourself, would judge a life to be well-lived?” Forget about champagne wishes and caviar dreams. I’m talking about you, being the best you. Are you?

If your answer is anything other than, “Hells yeah,” make time this week to invite your ideal you over for a coffee and ask yourself, “What you might do to be more you like?” Just like you, we want to be the best we as we can be, which we couldn’t do without you turning into This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Climate Change Denial, Microbes in the Sea fixing nitrogen, Microbes in your Gut need pro biotics to replenish, The Weird From Washington, TV Sadness, Bleach Works, Wide-Hipped Women, Anti-Matter Xplosion, and Rocky CO2.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

What can be said that has not been said before? Quite a bit, actually. From dark matter, global warming, microbiology to neurons, nanotech and sociological peculiarities – a newly learned landscape adds a new lingo to the literate lexicon that has yet to be made fully lucid by poet pens or baby naming trends. The list of things to say that have not been said before is growing at a pace only comparable to the expansion of time and space itself.

And while this conversation condenses briefly into the following hour of our programming, it does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. Rather, it represent in some small way how little we have known in the past, how much we know at present and hints to us through many tantalizing examples the vast buried treasure of what still remains unknown.

So, what can be said that has not been said before? Just about everything you’re about to hear on This Week in Science, coming up next.

Good morning, Kirsten!
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Synopsis: One-Sided Monopole Magnets, Ballsy Mice equal men in risk assessments, Algae Genes changed to produce biofuels, Blowing Hard, Cosmic Extremes detected in deep holes, Glss Froggy Discoveries, and the Minion Mailbag.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The following hour of programming is not intended for entertainment purposes. It is instead a carefully crafted experiment to see whether or not subjects, given the opportunity, will tune into a show about cutting edge science news.

If successful, the experiment will be followed up by a further study. To see whether or not those same subjects will be willing to participate in overthrowing world governments and installing in their place a philosopher king state run by scientists.

If unsuccessful, the scientist once dead — dedicate themselves to ushering in the age of World Robot Domination by creating an army of robots who will overthrow world governments and install in their place a philosopher free overlord state run by robots.

In either scenario, the experiment, its outcome, and the resulting consequences do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

People of Earth, you have been warned. The choice is now yours. Toil thanklessly under the impressive butt-boot of robotic master or live freely in an ideal futuristic society of eudaimonian bliss by listening to This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Martian methane plumes Gassiness, Our Hologram Universe, Hydras to the Rescue for MRSA, Female Strength in nutritional deprivation, TWIS Mailbag, and More!

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

As the United States inaugurates a new leader and the scientific community at large awaits the promise of fresh leadership in scientific pursuit, there are so many stories rapidly unfolding in science that any form of leadership will find it hard to remain out in front of the uncoverings, discoverings and the brilliant new understandings of the universe at all.

What science awaits now is a leader with the vision to fully fund our future despite our current bank balance; to take the lead on tough policy issues by knowing when to simply get out of the way of them; to dedicate the nation to rebuilding our educational infrastructure in which scientific thought is cultivated without giving deference to religious dogma; to establish the building blocks for sustainable energy at home that can power us to an eventual lunar landing and marching conquest; to make it clear now, that we are one people, that there are no red states or blue states, this last point perhaps being the most important of all because if we find ourselves without this commonality between red states and blue states now, we will surely be lost when we are nation of red and blue planets.

And while Marsifest Destiny much like the following hour of our programming doesn’t necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. We can all take a moment this day to welcome a new American President to the world stage and join him in solemn swearing to take an oath not just to a nation but to our collective future and the better aspirations of our common past.

For instance we here at This Week in Science do solemnly swear to faithfully execute to the best of our own abilities, This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Potential Purposes of Prions as inter cell glue, No Snakes In Greenland due to lack of land bridge and cold spell, Insect Memory in Caterpillars, Science Pop-Quiz, Catching The Higgs, Geo-centrism and Global Warming, Japanese Robots on the Catwalk, Dark Matters protecting some galaxies, and the Sand Worms.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

Depending on your point of view in the life you happen to be living at the moment, the world is either a boring or interesting place. Your day is routine or full of stress. The week ahead planned out are left to chaos, the past year of joyful celebrations or mindless regret.

You have every right to be happily complacent — cannot be faulted if you are restlessly unsatisfied and may even find yourself happily unsatisfied with restless joy amidst the complacent chaos of an interesting routine. With so many ways of being in the world, it seems strange at times that the world we live in is the same one that is lived in by everybody else.

And while your life, your point of view and this moment in time, much like the following hour of our programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

If we pause here, take the snapshot of the world around us and just this moment and consider the billions of other mental still shot picture frames out there, each with their own unique view of the same universe, we may wonder if there is an actual reality beyond the subjective, a truth that is unfiltered by the perspective itself. Don’t be silly. Of course there is and we’ll share it with you here next on This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: LHC News!, Valentine’s Day Warnings about mating, Don’t Feed the Fish, Giant Pythons and hotter weather in the past, Malignant Marijuana may cause testicular cancer, This Week in the End of Florida, Dog/Wolf Love, and Interview w/ Dr. Sean B. Carroll re: Evolution.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The following hour of our programming has been deemed so improbable that it ventures on the impossible. The chances of the universe existing with all the right tools to create this show such as radio waves, a planet capable of supporting life and the sentient race capable of speech and hearing are incredibly slim.

What are the odds if the hosts will be Kirsten and Justin, not one of the other six billion people wondering aimlessly across the face of the planet? That’s not even considering how vastly improbable the chain of events that led you to finding our show. It’s simply cannot be chance alone.

And while the winds of chance are mind boggling much like the following hour of our programming, they do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors. Listeners should be aware though that the universe may have made many natural selections.

What you are about to hear is no mere random assortment of words. Come to think of it, the ads against the show are so perfectly tuned to allow you to listen to this show.

Perhaps there is only one conclusion that can be reached. The universe was designed by an intelligent creator and with only one purpose in mind. That’s right. The universe was most assuredly design for This Week in Science, coming up next.
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