Episoder

  • Controlled Human Malaria Infections: Infecting people in the name of health – Katharina Grabowski, Matteo Putra, and Jo Salkeld

    Controlled Human Malaria Infections: Infecting people in the name of health – Katharina Grabowski, Matteo Putra, and Jo Salkeld

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    What is a Controlled Human Malaria Infection, and why are researchers at the University of Oxford and University of Edinburgh leaning on it to advance public health? Come along to a talk hosted by Katharina Grabowski and Matteo Putra to learn more about the ins and outs of this research approach, how it will be used to break new ground in understanding one of the most complex immune responses to an infectious disease, and how it could help save hundreds of thousands of lives by developing novel public health interventions alongside vaccines.

    Katharina Grabowski (BSc, MSc) is a Research Assistant and Matteo Putra (BSc, MRes, MScR) a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh who are working with the Oxford Vaccine Group and Department of Biochemistry on an upcoming Controlled Human Malaria Infection clinical trial. This study aims to understand how people become immune to malaria so that we can learn how to protect the most vulnerable from disease. And as bizarre as this may sound, we think controlled infections are the answer! This ground-breaking approach to malaria control was recently awarded an Medical Research Council Experimental Medicine Grant. You can find out more at malariaimmunology.com.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Myths and Mindsets in a Decade of Electric Transport – Robert Llewellyn

    Myths and Mindsets in a Decade of Electric Transport – Robert Llewellyn

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    In the last 10 years consumer production models of EVs have become more readily available. In spite of data which shows EVs are more efficient than fossil fuel vehicles, with reduced CO2, emissions and particulates, in a recent policy U-turn, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak kicked back the date for full transition to EVs to 2035, eliciting heavy criticism from the world’s major car manufacturers, who had already invested billions to meet the original deadline. There’s also been a significant uptick in anti-EV media headlines. Pervasive stories about EVs have returned. Aren’t they too expensive? Too heavy? With dangerously flawed batteries? Can our energy infrastructure even cope with the demand? Are they really ‘greener’ anyway? With 2023 global fossil fuel subsidies at a mind-blowing $7 trillion (IMF data) it’s no surprise there’s been pushback. In this talk, Robert Llewellyn aims to get us up to speed on progress during the last 10 years of electric vehicle production. They’ll aim to demonstrate how the barriers to electric transport are primarily psychological, not engineering.

    Robert Llewellyn is a British actor, presenter and writer, famous for his thirty-year stretch as the rubber-masked mechanoid Kryten in the much-loved science fiction comedy, ‘Red Dwarf’. With his interest in engineering, Robert then turned his hand to presenting the long-running TV gameshow, ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ and also ‘How Do They Do It?’ and ‘Carpool’. In 2010, after being blown away by early Electric Cars, Robert launched Fully Charged, a YouTube channel focussing on the future of electric vehicles, of all shapes and sizes, and clean energy. Fully Charged has exceeded 55 million views around the world and Robert was recently acknowledged as ‘Tech Legend’ at the T3 Awards.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

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  • How cholesterol skepticism became a pseudoscience – Dr Christopher Labos

    How cholesterol skepticism became a pseudoscience – Dr Christopher Labos

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    There was a time when you could be skeptical about cholesterol’s role in cardiovascular prevention. There was uncertainty about causality, diet seemed to have little impact and the drugs were either ineffective or potentially dangerous. But then things changed. Medications improved, genetic causes of high cholesterol became clear, and the cardiovascular benefits of cholesterol reduction were demonstrated in multiple trials. So how did cholesterol denialism become a thing and why has it become the latest pseudoscience? By reviewing the history of the “cholesterol controversy,” Dr Christopher Labos will show how this scientific debate played out in a real time over the span of the 20th century and why the best description of the cholesterol controversy now is that there isn’t one.

    Dr. Christopher Labos is a cardiologist with a master’s degree in Epidemiology. He is a columnist with the Montreal Gazette and Medscape, featured on the Sunday Morning House Call on CJAD radio, and has a regular TV segment with CTV Montreal and CBC Morning Live. He is an associate with the McGill Office of Science and Society and co-hosts the award-winning podcast “The Body of Evidence.” He is the author of “Does Coffee Cause Cancer?” published by ECW press, a story about food epidemiology and why food headlines are usually wrong. He occasionally practices as a cardiologist so he can buy groceries. To date no one has asked him for his autograph.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time – Dr Emma Chapman

    First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time – Dr Emma Chapman

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual black hole. There’s a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe’s history, known to astrophysicists as the ‘Epoch of Reionisation’, represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. This was the point at which the chaos of the Big Bang first began to yield to the order of galaxies, black holes and stars, kick-starting the pathway to planets, to comets, to moons, and to life itself.Incorporating the very latest research into this branch of astrophysics, this talk sheds light on this time of darkness, telling the story of these first stars, hundreds of times the size of the Sun and a million times brighter, lonely giants that lived fast and died young in powerful explosions that seeded the Universe with the heavy elements that we are made of. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today. She also offers a first-hand look at the immense telescopes about to come on line to peer into the past, searching for the echoes and footprints of these stars, to take this period in the Universe’s history from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of observational astronomy.

    Emma Chapman is a Royal Society research fellow and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, based at Imperial College London. She is among the world’s leading researchers in search of the first stars to exist in our Universe, 13 billion years ago, and she is involved in both the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) in the Netherlands and the forthcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in Australia, a telescope that will eventually consist of a million antennas pointing skywards in the desert.Emma has been the recipient of multiple commendations and prizes, the most recent of which was both the 2018 Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship and STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship, two of the most prestigious science fellowships in the UK. She won the Institute of Physics Jocelyn Bell Burnell Prize in 2014, and was runner-up for the UK L’Oreal Women in Science award in 2017. In 2018 she was also the recipient of the Royal Society Athena Medal.Emma is a respected public commentator on astrophysical matters, contributing to the Guardian, appearing on BBC radio and regularly speaking at public events. Among others, she has spoken at Cheltenham Science Festival, the European Open Science Forum and at New Scientist Live.

    You can buy Emma’s book at https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Emma-Chapman/First-Light–Switching-on-Stars-at-the-Dawn-of-Time/24856473

    Emma is on platform formerly known as twitter at https://twitter.com/DrEOChapman

    Emma has been involved in challenging and ending sexual harrassment in science. You can find out more about her work in this area here: https://dr-emma-chapman.com/diversity-work/

    Information on the LOFAR telescope is available at https://www.astron.nl/telescopes/lofar and the Square Kilometer Array at https://www.skatelescope.org

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Tourette Syndrome: Sounds, movements and myths. – Adrienne Hill

    Tourette Syndrome: Sounds, movements and myths. – Adrienne Hill

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    During her presentation, Adrienne will delve into the myriad myths surrounding Tourette Syndrome, the intriguing TikTok Tics phenomenon that started during the pandemic, and the pseudoscientific “cures” targeting vulnerable parents who seek to support their children. Be ready with pencil and paper to experience what it is like to live with TS+.

    Adrienne, a retired high school mathematics teacher, has been a volunteer educating teachers, students and community members about Tourette Syndrome and its comorbid disorders (TS+) since 2005. She is a board member and educational consultant for the Tourette OCD Alberta Network. Her personal journey as a mother of three children includes two who have been diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome +. Beyond her involvement with the network, Adrienne actively contributes as a board member to Susan Gerbic’s nonprofit organization, “About Time.” She also volunteers as a Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia editor and is a regular reporter for “The Skeptic Zone” podcast. Her written work has been featured in publications like The Skeptic (Australia) and Skeptical Inquirer magazines.

    https://cumming.ucalgary.ca/resource/tourette-ocd/tourette-ocd-alberta-network

    https://www.zonegiggler.ca/

    This episode includes the empathy exercise, for which you will need a pen and paper, and this section of a poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carrol:

    The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things:Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings —And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.'But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat;For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!'No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • The science of mental health; how it goes wrong, how it’s treated, and the many misunderstandings in between – Dr Dean Burnett

    The science of mental health; how it goes wrong, how it’s treated, and the many misunderstandings in between – Dr Dean Burnett

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Mental health awareness is a very big concern in 2021, particularly with the impact of the pandemic and lockdown. But while being aware that mental health can and does go wrong is important, very little attention is paid to how and why this happens. In his new book, Psycho Logical, neuroscientist, author, and former Psychiatry lecturer Dr Dean Burnett explores all that and more, using the latest science to explain what happens in the brain when mental health goes awry, how these problems and treated and why they work (or often don’t), and why the whole issue is so slippery and uncertain, and why stigma still endures despite everything. Dean will also be answering questions and challenging misconceptions about mental health flagged up by the SITP community, making this talk very unique.

    Dr Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist, lecturer, author, blogger, podcaster, pundit, science communicator, comedian and numerous other things, depending on who’s asking and what they need.Previously employed as a psychiatry tutor and lecturer at the Cardiff University Centre for Medical Education, Dean is currently an honorary research associate at Cardiff Psychology School, as well as a Visiting Industry Fellow at Birmingham City University.However, Dean is currently a full-time author, previously known for his satirical science column ‘Brain Flapping‘ at the Guardian, which ran from 2012 to 2018. This led to his internationally acclaimed bestselling debut book ‘The Idiot Brain‘, which has resulted in several further books and even more interesting brain stuff.

    You can buy one of Dean’s excellent books at https://www.hive.co.uk/Search?Author=Dean+Burnett (by buying from Hive you also support local indendent bookshops).

    It’s okay to not be okay. Here are some helpful places to talk and get help when you need it. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/your-mental-health/getting-help.

    If you need someone to talk to there is a free active listening service at https://www.7cupsoftea.com they cannot offer advice but can be useful if you need soneone to talk to annonymously,

    Dean is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/garwboy.He writes a blog at https://cosmicshambles.com/words/blogs/deanburnettand his website is https://www.deanburnett.com/.

    The slides used by Dean are available here.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Does life know about quantum mechanics? – Professor Jim Al-Khalili

    Does life know about quantum mechanics? – Professor Jim Al-Khalili

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Physicists and chemists are used to dealing with quantum mechanics, but biologists have thus far got away without having to worry about this strange yet powerful theory of the subatomic world. However, times are changing. There is now solid evidence that enzymes use quantum tunnelling to accelerate chemical reactions, while plants and bacteria use a quantum trick in photosynthesis – sending lumps of sunlight energy in multiple directions at once. It even appears that some animals have the ability to use quantum entanglement – what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” – as a compass to ‘see’ the earth’s magnetic field. In our research at Surrey we are discovering that life may even have evolved mechanisms to control genetic mutations caused by quantum tunnelling of protons between strands of DNA. Welcome to the exciting new field of quantum, biology.

    Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS is a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Surrey and a well-known author, broadcaster and science communicator. He received his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics in 1989 and has published widely on few-body quantum scattering methods to study nuclear structure, particularly as applied to the study of exotic nuclei. He has more recently focussed on the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum thermodynamics and quantum effects in biology. He currently leads an international interdisciplinary research collaboration on the arrow of time in quantum mechanics. Jim is a prominent author and broadcaster and has written 15 books on popular science and the history of science, between them translated into twenty-six languages. He is a regular presenter on TV and hosts the long-running weekly BBC Radio4 programme, The Life Scientific. He is a past president of the British Science Association and a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday medal and Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medals, the Institute of Physics Kelvin medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He recently served as the only non-engineer judge on the QE Prize for Engineering and is a commissioner on the board of the 1851 Royal Commission.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Born to dance? The evolutionary origins of music making – Dr Jacques Launay

    Born to dance? The evolutionary origins of music making – Dr Jacques Launay

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    What’s the point in making music? Is there a point? Although music surrounds us for a large proportion of our time it doesn’t seem to serve an obvious purpose, and this talk will explore that problem. Darwin suggested music could be involved in sexual selection, used to flaunt genetic fitness to potential partners, but there are also several alternative explanations, ranging from Pinker’s null hypothesis (it’s auditory cheesecake) to the Mozart Effect (music makes you clever). Spoiler alert – those theories are probably both wrong! This talk will primarily explore the role of music in social bonding, and whether music is best understood as the alternative to language.

    Dr Jacques Launay is an expert in music and social bonding, and has worked on this from a range of perspectives, including the origins of music making, the health benefits of singing in choirs, and the neuroscience of moving to sounds.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Dangerous Products: In The Home & In Our Stomachs – David Frank and Virginia Ng

    Dangerous Products: In The Home & In Our Stomachs – David Frank and Virginia Ng

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    The societal and scientific consensus says only irrational people fear things like WiFi, artificial sweeteners, and fluoridated water, but there have been legitimately dangerous products sold as safe in the past. ​Flammable, toxic, radioactive and generally bad for you, we’ll look at products throughout history that killed, injured and poisoned, and the marketing campaigns that went along with them. ​Plus, we’ll explore some formerly dangerous things that turned out to be fine, and things we know are bad for us that we consume anyway. ​Come along. It’ll be good for your health.

    David Frank

    David Frank is a marketer, a writer and a former radio show host. He is a former event organiser for Perth Skeptics in Australia, and Edinburgh Skeptics here in the UK. Pre-COVID he has toured talks across a dozen Skeptics in the Pub groups here in the UK, on such topics as “how to market yourself on online dating”, and “how big tobacco circumvents marketing restrictions” (the latter of which you can watch on his website). He has a Master’s of Science in Marketing from Edinburgh Napier University, and is currently based in Seattle. David is free range, organic, with no added hormones or unnecessary antibiotics.

    Virginia Ng

    Virginia is a food microbiologist and is the Director of Regulations and Food Processing at the Seafood Products Association in Seattle. She has a Masters of Science in Biological Sciences from California State Polytechnic University – Pomona, where she studied toxin formation and sporulation patterns in various Clostridium botulinum strains. In her day job, among other things, she is a sensory expert using organoleptic analyses to keep good quality seafood on the shelves. She has previously given talks on food preservation. ​Virginia’s favorite vices include ice cream, the extra dose of cosmic radiation that comes with flying, and movie marathons.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Resisting Incarceration: Prisons, Activism and Abolition – Professor Phil Scraton

    Resisting Incarceration: Prisons, Activism and Abolition – Professor Phil Scraton

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Since Michael Howard’s pronouncement that ‘Prison Works’ the prison population in the UK has doubled with the current Government planning to build several more multi-occupancy ‘Titan’ prisons to incarcerate thousands more men and women. This reflects an ill-founded commitment to what became a cross-party mantra. In what sense does ‘prison work’? Does the claim stand scrutiny? Or, as Jonathan Simon suggests, does locking away an ever-increasing number of women, men and children amount to ‘social warehousing’? Derived in three decades of activist work and academic research Phil Scraton will address the harms of imprisonment for those locked away, their families and their communities. He will critique the reformist ‘rehabilitation’ agenda and explore the potential for prison abolition. What would decarceration look like? What are alternatives and how would harms caused to individuals and communities by ‘criminal’ and ‘anti-social’ acts be addressed without the ‘punishment’ of incarceration?

    Phil Scraton PhD, DLaws (Hon), DPhil (Hon) is Professor Emeritus, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. He has held visiting professorships at Amherst College, USA, the Universities of Auckland, Monash, New South Wales and Sydney. Widely published on critical theory, incarceration and children/ young people his books include: In the Arms of the Law – Coroners’ Inquests and Deaths in Custody; Prisons Under Protest; ‘Childhood’ in ‘Crisis’?; Hillsborough The Truth; Power, Conflict and Criminalisation; The Incarceration of Women; Women’s Imprisonment and the Case for Abolition. He co-authored reports for the NI Commissioner for Children and Young People (Children’s Rights) and the NI Human Rights Commission (Women in Prison) and a member of the Liberty Advisory Committee on deaths in custody. He led the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s research and was principal author of its ground-breaking 2012 Report, Hillsborough. Seconded to the families’ legal teams throughout the 2014-2016 inquests, in 2016 he published a revised edition of Hillsborough: The Truth. Consultant on, and contributor to, the 2017 BAFTA winning documentary Hillsborough, he holds a Leverhulme Fellowship addressing the unique work of the Panel and the legal processes that followed. In 2018, with Rebecca Scott Bray at the University of Sydney, he initiated a community-based international research programme on coroners’ inquests into deaths in custody. He was a member of the JUSTICE Working Party into inquests and public inquiries: When Things Go Wrong: The Response of the Justice System (2020). Also in 2020 he edited ‘I Am Sir: You Are A Number’: The Report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Circumstances of the H-Block and Armagh Prison Protests 1976-1981. He is lead investigator for the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ research project Deaths in Contested Circumstances and Coroners’ Inquests. Having refused an OBE, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in recognition of his Hillsborough research.

  • A Dog’s World – Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World without Humans – Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff

    A Dog’s World – Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World without Humans – Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    What would happen to dogs if humans simply disappeared? Would dogs be able to survive on their own without us? A Dog’s World imagines a posthuman future for dogs, revealing how dogs would survive—and possibly even thrive—and explaining how this new and revolutionary perspective can guide how we interact with dogs now.

    Drawing on biology, ecology, and the latest findings on the lives and behavior of dogs and their wild relatives, Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff—two of today’s most innovative thinkers about dogs—explore who dogs might become without direct human intervention into breeding, arranged playdates at the dog park, regular feedings, and veterinary care. Pierce and Bekoff show how dogs are quick learners who are highly adaptable and opportunistic, and they offer compelling evidence that dogs already do survive on their own—and could do so in a world without us.

    Jessica Pierce is with the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School. Her most recent book is Who’s A Good Dog? And How To Be A Better Human. For more information, go to www.jessicapierce.net.

    Marc Bekoff is professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. His books include Dogs Demystified: An A-to-Z Guide to All Things Canine. His website is marcbekoff.com and his Twitter is @MarcBekoff

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Jewish Space Lasers – Mike Rothschild

    Jewish Space Lasers – Mike Rothschild

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    For more than 200 years, the name “Rothschild” has been synonymous with two things: great wealth, and conspiracy theories about what they’re “really doing” with it. Almost from the moment Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons emerged from the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt to revolutionize the banking world, the Rothschild family has been the target of myths, hoaxes, bizarre accusations, and constant, virulent antisemitism. Over the years, they have been blamed for everything from the sinking of the Titanic, to causing the Great Depression, and even creating the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018 Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media to share her suspicions that the California wildfires were started by ‘space solar generators’ which were funded by powerful, mysterious backers. Instantly, thousands of people rallied around her, blaming the fires on “Jewish space lasers” and, ultimately, the Rothschild family.Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories is a deeply researched dive into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family – from the “pamphlet wars” of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn’t related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschilds? Who are they today? Do they really own $500 trillion and every central bank, in addition to “controlling the British money supply?” Is any of this actually true? And why, even as their wealth and influence have waned, do they continue to drive conspiracies and hoaxes?

    Mike Rothschild is a journalist and conspiracy theory expert whose work has examined scams, frauds, moral panic, conspiracy theories, and how their impact has gone from the online world into everyday life. He has written two previous books, including The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything, which examines the roots and the impact of the QAnon movement. Rothschild has been interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times among many others to discuss conspiracy theories; has testified to Congress on the threat of election disinformation; and appeared in numerous documentaries and podcasts.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission

  • Pseudo-Archaeology: Fake news and new fakes – Mirko Gutjahr

    Pseudo-Archaeology: Fake news and new fakes – Mirko Gutjahr

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Light bulbs in antiquity? UFO landing sites in Peru? Giant pyramids in the Balkans? Authors like Erich von DĂ€niken or TV shows like “Ancient Aliens” accuse archaeologists of hiding important discoveries and masking the truth. According to them the monumental buildings of the past were created not by our ancestors but by aliens or extradimensional beings. At first glance this appears harmless – fantasies written by science fiction authors. However, those claims are deeply rooted in creationist and racist ideas. In times when fewer and fewer people trust in science such views become more popular and thus give rise to right-wing esoteric ideologies. This talk sheds light on the problem of “pseudo-archeology” and will try to prove that real archeology is much more exciting – and true – than archaeological fantasies.

    Mirko Gutjahr is an archaeologist and historian working at as a scientific advisor at “LuthergedenkstĂ€tten”, a Martin Luther memorial foundation with five museums and UNESCO World Heritage Sites at three locations in Saxony-Anhalt. He also produces German language podcasts about curious facts from history. One of his podcasts has been translated into English at https://play.acast.com/s/secretcabinet

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Too dangerous to publish? Navigating the high-stakes nature of AI research – Rosie Campbell

    Too dangerous to publish? Navigating the high-stakes nature of AI research – Rosie Campbell

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    As AI becomes increasingly advanced, it promises many benefits but also comes with risks. How can we mitigate these risks while preserving scientific inquiry and openness? Who is responsible for anticipating the impacts of AI research, and how can they do so effectively? What changes, if any, need to be made to the peer review process? In this talk, we’ll explore these tensions and how they are playing out right now in the AI community. AI is not the first high-stakes, ‘dual-use’ field to face these questions. Taking inspiration from fields like cybersecurity and biosecurity, we’ll look at possible approaches to responsible publication, their strengths and limitations, and how they might be used in practice for AI.

    Rosie Campbell leads the Safety-Critical AI program at the Partnership on AI, a multistakeholder nonprofit shaping the future of responsible AI. Her main focus is on responsible publication and deployment practices for increasingly advanced AI. Previously, she was Assistant Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley, a Research Engineer at BBC R&D, and cofounder of Manchester Futurists. Her academic background spans physics, philosophy, and computer science. Rosie is also a productivity nerd and enjoys thinking about how to optimize systems, and how to use reason and evidence to improve the world.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • The Human Cosmos – Dr Jo Marchant

    The Human Cosmos – Dr Jo Marchant

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    For most of human history, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with the stars shaped who we are – our religious beliefs, power structures, scientific advances and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we have separated ourselves from the universe that surrounds us. And that disconnect comes at a cost. In her latest book, The Human Cosmos, Jo Marchant takes us on a tour through the history of humanity’s relationship with the heavens. We travel to the Hall of the Bulls in Lascaux and witness the winter solstice at a 5,000-year-old tomb at Newgrange. We visit Medieval monks grappling with the nature of time and Tahitian sailors navigating by the stars. We discover how light reveals the chemical composition of the sun, and we are with Einstein as he works out that space and time are one and the same. A four-billion-year-old meteor inspires a search for extraterrestrial life. And we discover why stargazing can be really, really good for us. It is time for us to rediscover the full potential of the universe we inhabit, its wonder, its effect on our health, and its potential for inspiration and revelation.

    Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist. She has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, London, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College. She has worked as an editor at New Scientist and Nature, and her articles have appeared in the Guardian, Wired, Observer, New York Times and Washington Post. She is the author of Decoding the Heavens, shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, and Cure, shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books and longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission

  • The Patriarchs: How men came to rule – Angela Saini

    The Patriarchs: How men came to rule – Angela Saini

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Award-winning science journalist Angela Saini goes in search of the true roots of gendered oppression, uncovering a complex history of how male domination became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.

    Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, analysing the latest research findings in science and archaeology, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she overturns simplistic universal theories to show that what patriarchy is and how far it goes back really depends on where you are.

    Despite the push back against sexism and exploitation in our own time, even revolutionary efforts to bring about equality have often ended in failure and backlash. Saini ends by asking what part we all play – women included – in keeping patriarchal structures alive, and why we need to look beyond the old narratives to understand why it persists in the present.

    Angela Saini is an award-winning journalist based in New York, known globally for her work on race and gender. She has presented science programmes on BBC radio and television, and her writing has appeared in National Geographic, Wired, the Lancet and Nature. She is the author of four books, including Superior: The Return of Race Science, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, which has been translated into fourteen languages. Both are on university reading lists across the world. Her latest book The Patriarchs, on the origins of patriarchy, has been hailed as a highlight for 2023 by the Financial Times, Guardian and New Statesman. Angela has a Masters in Engineering from the University of Oxford and has been a Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Humboldt Foundation in Berlin. In 2020 she was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. She has delivered distinguished lectures and keynotes at Oxford, Yale, Princeton and CERN in Geneva.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Planetary Protection: Guardians of the Galaxy or lame science-party poopers? – Dr Jennifer Wadsworth

    Planetary Protection: Guardians of the Galaxy or lame science-party poopers? – Dr Jennifer Wadsworth

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    What is planetary protection? Is it even important? Because it sounds like it’s either an incredibly exciting space battle strategy from Independence Day or an exceedingly dull health and safety class that future generations will be subjected to. In reality it’s kind of both (except that thankfully it’s not from Independence Day). I’m a space scientist who recently finished my postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California, where I spent my time developing new ideas to help in the often-overlooked field of planetary protection. I’ll (hopefully) convince you of its importance for our continued exploration of the solar system and how it can even be applied to help solve some of our problems here on Earth.

    Jennifer Wadsworth is an astrobiologist who did her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and recently completed her postdoc at NASA Ames Research Center, California. She’s particularly interested in how microbes can survive extreme radiation environments 
 or not, as the case may be! She enjoys long walks on the beach, and subjecting bacteria to a plethora of lethal conditions. For science.

  • Lost and found in the Science of Emotion – Dr Dean Burnett

    Lost and found in the Science of Emotion – Dr Dean Burnett

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    Why can’t we think straight when hungry? What’s the point of nightmares? And why can’t we forget embarrassing memories?Emotions can be a pain. After losing his dad to Covid-19, Dean Burnett found himself wondering what life would be like without them. And so, he decided to put his feelings under the microscope – for science.

    In this talk, Dean takes us on an incredible journey of discovery, stretching from the origins of life to the end of the universe. Combining expert analysis, brilliant humour and powerful insights into the grieving process, Dean uncovers how, far from holding us back and restraining logic and reason, our emotions make us who we are and allow us to think at all.

    Dean Burnett, neuroscientist, lecturer, author, blogger, podcaster, pundit, science communicator, comedian and numerous other things, depending on who’s asking and what they need. Previously employed as a psychiatry tutor and lecturer at the Cardiff University Centre for Medical Education, Dean is currently an honorary research associate at Cardiff Psychology School, as well as a Visiting Industry Fellow at Birmingham City University.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • Unidentified Flying Objects: Are there any images that require an extraterrestrial explanation – Dr Steve Barrett

    Unidentified Flying Objects: Are there any images that require an extraterrestrial explanation – Dr Steve Barrett

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    As a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Physics, my research interests span all aspects of imaging, image processing and image analysis. This includes medical imaging (biophysics), scanning probe microscopy of atoms, molecules and surfaces (nanophysics), microscopy of earth materials (geophysics) and astrophotography.

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

  • A critical perspective on what cognitive science can tell us about first impressions and stereotypes – Dr Lou Safra

    A critical perspective on what cognitive science can tell us about first impressions and stereotypes – Dr Lou Safra

    · Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

    In this talk, I will present the key findings on first impressions and stereotypes offered by cognitive science. By presenting the main experimental designs that are used to product these results, I will question the limits and issues of this research and discuss how we can ensure a safe use of these results

    Lou Safra holds a PhD in cognitive science awarded by the Ecole Normale SupĂ©rieure, Paris in 2017. She is currently assistant professor in political psychology at CEVIPOF-Sciences Po and an associate researcher at the Institut d’Études Cognitives (Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives & Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Computationelles, École Normale SupĂ©rieure, Paris).

    The music used in this episode is by Thula Borah and is used with permission.

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