Episode #989

Episode #989

News Items

• Sun’s Magnetic Field About to Flip
• Kids and Gun Safety
• Gates Goes Nuclear
• Nanodroplet Drug Delivery
• Potential Dyson Spheres

Who's That Noisy

• Answer to last week: Frog

Science or Fiction [ Show Answers ]

• Item #1 Fiction

  A recent analysis confirms that the current red spot of Jupiter is the same spot first observed by Cassini in 1665, making it at least 360 years old. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL108993

• Item #2 Science

  By analyzing tool-making researchers find that humans began cumulative culture around 600,000 years ago. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2319175121

• Item #3 Science

  For the first time astronomers witness the activation of a massive galactic black hole into an active galactic nucleus. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-astronomers-massive-black-hole-awaken.html

Skeptical Quote of the Week.

“The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.” ― Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk