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Linear Higgs, 4 Quark Mystery, Blitzars and Blue Planets, Human Language Is Old, Sharks Are Awesome, Cat Poop, Dark Matter Ponderings, Battling The Bugs, Life In Vostok, Moth Sex, Sphinxes, And Much More…
Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer!!!
The world around us is filled with information.
Quantitative, qualitative, subjective and objective data swirl around us in every instant of our conscious daily activities…
From mental meandering over the myriad of detailed minutia that are present in each moment of observation…
To the less conscious calculations of the motor cortex, predictively plotting fleshy limb travel through landscapes of gravity, trajectory, distance and time…
We reason, we reduce, we reuse and recycle rational and irrational judgments in algorithmic responses to our allegorical reality…
We don’t know everything, can’t know everything of this world in the real time flow with which it unfolds…
So overwhelmingly abundant is the potential amount of sensory and cognitive input we could be putting into our brains that the brain refrains from putting up with much of it at all… and instead filters out much and narrows down some until a refined sense of knowing some things about the world is what we ultimately allow to be put into our head…
And so we must gesticulate our bodies and minds through time and space with a great deal of generalized guessing… mostly make-ity-upping the world as we go a long…
The only thing that it can be said we know of reality with any measure of certainty
The only fact our minds can with crystal clarity and concrete conviction rely upon in this un-correlative data collection of swirling chaos and cosmic uncertainty
The only truth before us that can truly be said to be self-evident is
This week in science… coming up next
One word. Blitzars.
Maybe they explain FRBs?
Blue planets don’t always mean water
Sometimes they mean the air is made of liquid glass.
Get a free audiobook at Audible.com!
Dark matters to ponder
Where is it?
Cat poop problem
There is way too much of it. And, it’s full of Toxo.
Beating disease!
Mosquito disease on the run
A second pesticide receptor discovered that might be useful in the ever escalating war against malaria.
Vaccine for birds
A potential vaccine for West Nile virus created.
Blocking disease with gene therapy…
Two tales of success!
Life in Vostok?
The answer so far is YES!
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I'm the host of this little science show. 
1:21:45 Fundamental particles may experience or act differently, in spacetime.
Can you link to this article in the show notes?
The on-air explanation was intriguing, but incomprehensible for being too vague.
51:45 If this study is correct, then it makes you question how much dark matter there is.
Hate to break it to you, guys, but that dark matter article is dead wrong. Experimental error is still too large to detect local dark matter. There is no tension, whatsoever, between theory and experiment. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet!
http://thephysicspolice.blogspot.com/2013/07/local-dark-matter.html
52:00 Dark matter within Saturn’s orbit … does not fit with [the theory].
Not true at all! The paper used observations to find an upper limit on the local dark matter density. This upper limit is 20,000 larger than the density of dark matter predicted theoretically. In other words, the Russians found their experimental error too large to detect local dark matter. The Russian paper is a step in the right direction, new, better limits. But we need more accurate measurements of planetary orbits to test predicted dark matter density.
53:30 [Dark matter only exists] to explain the rotation speeds of galaxies.
Yeah, dark matter explains Galaxy rotation curves. Also, don’t forget:
* Velocity dispersions of galaxies
* Gravitational lensing
* Cosmic microwave background
* baryon acoustic oscillations
* Lyman-alpha agreement
* Type Ia supernovae agreement
Justin, you clearly want to believe in a paucity of evidence for dark matter. This is an act of willful ignorance on your part, because I’ve given you this list before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Observational_evidence
53:40 Dark matter isn’t even defined as a matter, at this point.
Wrong. Dark matter is defined precisely as non-hadronic matter. It’s got the word “matter” right in its name! Come on.
54:15 We’re fooling ourselves if we think we can make that, at this point.
You’re right. You had a better instinct than Kirsten, who bought into this bogus story.
55:10 [Maybe dark matter] isn’t something that is omnipresent …
No. Dark matter pervades space, having a particular density profile. This density profile has been accurate modeled and tested by lensing observations. The shape and size of dark matter halos are a matter of fact. It agrees remarkably well with computer models.
Your ramblings about “emergent” dark matter don’t make any sense. Your argument is that dark matter only has a gravitational effect at large distances. This would violate General Relativity. This “idea” is also contradicted by the observational fact of dark matter acting as a cold gas on a wide range of energy scales.