Synopsis: Short Legs In A Single Step, A Bloody Mess, Screaming Moths, This Week in The End Of The World, Ancient Dung balls Tell Tales, A Catastrophic Reduction, and Interview w/ Physicist Jon Singleton About Traveling Faster Than Light.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

Welcome to life! Don’t be bashful. Don’t be shy. There’s no need to walk on by. This is it. The big go around on Theme Park Earth. No pushing now. No need to crowd yourselves. It doesn’t matter where you’re standing now, as the line is irrelevant to where you will end up.

The maps you are handed at the entrance are for general reference purposes only and should not be considered entirely accurate navigating the many points of interest ahead as they were printed before your life was conceived and may bare little resemblance to it once your events are unfolded. There’s a lot to see here if it is your first day on the planet or if you’ve been here for a while now.

And while the rides have ups and downs and bubble gum may occasionally get stuck in your shoes, keep in mind that much like the following hour of programming, this does not necessarily represent the views or opinions at the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

If you think you have seen it all, I encourage you to take another look as the park is under constant renovation. If you have yet to see it all, I highly recommend starting at one of the planet’s many informational booths such as This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Miracles fruit from Japan makes bitter tastes seem sweet, Flies Gone Wild delivering larva instead of eggs, Mammoth Operations, To the Birds, Sweet Space, Planetary Discovery, Madness, Genetic Explanations, and Learning to Speak.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

The following hour of our programming deals with subject matter too interesting from most audiences. The show’s content does not represent the views or opinions of University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors as there is no way to tell what the host will say or do while under the influence of breaking science news stories.

The subjects covered here can at times be controversial, often debatable and endlessly offensive even to those who hold world’s views founded without scientific facts.

And while this host may perhaps arrogantly at times, hold scientific fact to be a greater truth in other beliefs or reasonings, it should be noted that the universe is much stranger than any of us realize. It is just now beginning to hint to us the bizarre nature of its quantum mechanical and biological inter-workings.

Such strangeness awaits us in this next hour. Such strangeness that has the power to change what you know about the universe you live in. So, get ready to have your reality altered with This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Skinny Monkey with less calorie intake live longer? Bacterial Bloat, Flower Power burst confounds Darwin, When Good Words Go Bad, World Robot Domination–crickets, bats, Bad Words Done Good, and Interview w/ Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

Science! The act of learning by a careful observation that often starts fast in a question, a “how”, a “what”, a “why”, sort of a thing is followed up then by experiment, observation. This is the basis of the whole scientific set up, observing, testing, observing some more and then learning from it.

We have taken the simple act of looking at things to a wide-range of amazing places in recent years. Making observations of everything from spinning electrons to orbiting planets and distant stars, from the double Helix to galaxy clusters, billions of light years away from our Earthly observatory.

And between the gathering of the stars, we humans plot these points of interests, seek out more and even create new ones ourselves. The picture that is forming is actually quite stunning, both in what it reveals and in our ability to reveal it.

If the human may be allowed a narcissistic moment to lavish phrase upon humanity itself, I think we’re doing a really good job. And while spinning clusters of observant narcissistic humans, 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.

We can all take pride knowing that, of all the life forms on planet Earth, it is we humans who have contributed the most to scientific knowledge. We are so well adapted to learning new things that at times it seems, we just can’t get enough. Even now, even this very moment, we are eager to perform the act of observing as we turn our attentions to another episode of, This Week In Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: The Top 11 Science Stories of 2008… Merry TWIS-mas!!!

Justin/Kirsten: We wish you a Merry TWIS-mas. We wish you a Merry TWIS-mas. We wish you a Merry TWIS-mas and a Happy New Year.

Bring us some sciencey stories. Oh, bring us some sciencey stories. Oh, bring us some sciencey stories.

Justin: We want them right now.

Kirsten: Right now.

Justin/Kirsten: We won’t go until we get some. We won’t go until we get some. We won’t go until we get some. So bring them right now.

Kirsten: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

You are listening to This Week in Science. And…
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Synopsis: Kirsten was late here!Transmission Dismission, Chemical Replication, Defrosting Beef, Little Girl is Back!, My How the Fruit Flies, Mossie Love Songs, This Week in Science History, and Headline Round-up.

Kirsten: Today’s show is brought to you by Audible. Please visit www.audiblepodcast.com/twis for your free Audio Book download.

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

There are more dinosaurs that have been discovered that you have never heard of than there are ones that you know about. For that matter, there are more creatures living on the planet today that you don’t know about than there are creatures living on the planet that you do know about.

There are more colors in the garden than your eye can see. There are more stars in unknown universe than our grains of sand and all the beaches of planet Earth.

There are more ways to the human heart than soft words or surgery, while a little knowledge is dangerous. More knowledge will make you down right lethal.

There are more reasons for the things you are thinking than the fact that they were thought by your brain. There are more discoveries in Science taking place now than any other time in the history of scientific pursuit. And the number of findings will continue to grow as technology becomes more and more efficient over time.

And while this pursuit of Moore’s Law like the following hour of our programming does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

And while the pursuit cannot be grammatically stated that one thing is more truer than another it is true that there is more going on between the gutter and the stars than what is happening in the day you are now having. Still, we understand how busy your brain must be keeping up with the push and pull of being a human.

So, we offer you an easy way to keep the universe under your skullcap without having to wonder what more you should be knowing about. We accomplish this by offering you more This Week in Science, coming up next.
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Synopsis: Science and Celebrities pronuncements, Predictions for 2009, Mars Alive with carbon deposits, Bacteria Support Groups that form biofilms, Bird Songsters sing out competition for breeding, Favoring Orangutans due to token trading, and TWIS Question of the Month about geological activity that releases sequestered carbon!

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

This TWIS-mas, I was visited by three ghosts! Whisking me through time and space the ghost of TWIS-mas past, showed me beyond any doubt what humble beginnings science began with. What great heights it has soared to since and how heavily our modern civilization rests on the shoulder of giants, giants not only of intellectual prowess but giants of dedication, courage and sacrifice as well.

What we enjoy today are not the fruits of the modern era at all but the combined harvest of all of human history. The bounty of culture and intellectual pursuit that has been going on since the first great conversation took place outside of some cave and some now long forgotten language lost to time.

I was then visited by a second ghost who wanted to remind me that while all of human history had a hand in our high tech harvest it, like the following hour of our programming at present does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

I then found the third ghost haunt my TWIS-mas eve. A dark and looming specter this was, I felt the chill run down my spine, unsure for a moment of the phantom’s intention until at least at last the phantom spoke. “Hey, big fan of the show, just want to stop by”, the dark minion said. We high-fived and popped the rock.

“These are the things I’ve seen.” The minion hinted. “Are you ready for the future?” “Ready”, I said. It’s already in the show notes for, This Week in Science coming up next.
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Synopsis: Special Evolutionary Episode! The Debate Rages Between Justin and Kirsten (Or, Was It Lamarck and Darwin?), Refereed By Dr. Tim Coulson and His Shrinking Sheep

Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

What we hold in our minds to be the world is an illusion, constructed out of observation and often crafted by our parents, teachers, friends, and in the current age by media full of messages. Our personal illusion of the world is always filtered through some combination of these influences.

One of the wonderful things about science is that it is the only motive thinking that seeks to ignore that personal world to reject our illusions and force the mind to look at information each time as if the real world were brand new and in need of introduction.

This way of saying without assumption of knowing can make visible in a glance that which would have remained invisible to the filtered eye — a glance of Hubble’s data plot revealing an expanding universe; a glance like Fleming’s bacterial dish ushering in the age of antibiotics, a glance that patterns across a flickering screen signaling that a cosmic discovery; a genetic breakthrough or needed cure is on the way, one step closer or at least within our reach.

And while the world without science remains illusionary at best, it like the following hour of our programming still does not represent the views or opinions of the University of California at Davis, KDVS or its sponsors.

Yet, we will continue with wide-eyed introductions to reality, continue glancing over steady strings of data that flows past our radio vision seeking that data plot that oddly dotted dish, that flickering signal from an illusion free world of This Week in Science, coming up next.
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