https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/comments/1h2ls6g/michigan_whooping_cough_cases_spike_amid_falling/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://preview.redd.it/cio99wi9jj3e1.png?width=515&format=png&auto=webp&s=9492308ed3b57eddddccf158d20fd0957758681b

What percentage of the earths surface does the sunlight never directly touch. Caves and under water don’t count. What do you think? Edit - I’m not sure how to define this more specifically, we are still talking through the details. I knew you’d all be too smart for me to ask this. Let’s say within a one year period so that the earth is in all four seasons once.

The Insane Story of How the Onion Bought InfoWars (and How Alex Jones Is Trying to Steal It Back)

Highest elevation over 4000ft above sea level, lowest point under 300ft above sea level.

Not sure how that got through to the article and past fact checking.

Oh, man. I just listened to this week's episode (#1011). I thought this was widely known in skeptical circles, but Steve was fooled by the theist revisionist version of the phrase "blood is thicker than water". Richard Pustelniak, a member of a Christian sect called "Messianic Judaism", claimed without evidence in his 1994 book "How Shall I Know - The Blood Covenant" that the original phrase was "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". He cites no source for this and no source has ever been found to back up his claim. In fact, the earliest known evidence for the Puselniak version is his own book. Wikipedia has a good overview and traces the evolution of the phrase from the earliest known version, which appeared in the 12th Century. I expect they'll get emails about it and correct themselves next week.

The Rogues have a group basilica in Florence, but they forgot to include Evan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_Novella

Is there a reason that we should find it significant that electromagnetic radiation is traveling at the speed of light?

EDIT: I misheard. He correctly stated that the electrons were moving close to the speed of light, not the x-rays. That is remarkable.

Evan reported on a Kyrgyzstan law banning "advertising of clairvoyants, fortune tellers, spiritualism, divination, shamanism, incantations, hexing and other procedures of 'magical influence'...” on this week's episode, #1010. While I'm also inclined to support such a law, it is troubling that such a law was passed in a country with a troubling human rights record at least according to Amnesty International.

The rogues asked a few questions about the law, but were not very inquisitive about the law's origins or purpose. It seems suspicious to me that such a law is needed especially in a country that is demographically dominated by one religion, Islam, and has a history of persecuting religious minorities. It seems such a law could be used against any unpopular group.

Personally, when I prefer to err on the side of free speech over government censorship of woo.

This is pedantic, but I wanted to point out that centripetal acceleration IS a change in velocity. Bob said it is a type of acceleration where the velocity does not change. Since velocity is a vector with a scalar component and a direction component, and in centripetal acceleration the direction changes, therefore the velocity is changing.

last week (ep 1009) there was a brief discussion/reference to the mid Atlantic accent. Its been referenced repeatedly on the show over the years. But it's an urban myth.

The evidence against it is compelling. Geoff Lindsey makes a compelling argument:

Want to know why actors in Golden Age Hollywood movies sound different from people today? A legend has grown up that it was all because an Australian and a Canadian invented a fake accent that studios forced their stars to use. Here I'll try to show why that's a load of you know what, and get closer to the fascinating reality.

https://youtu.be/9xoDsZFwF-c?si=rTyLxIMfsAn6y7uo

Maybe I’m losing my mind, but I don’t recall another participant being introduced during the Brian Cox interview. There was definitely another non-rogue involved. Who else was speaking?

george your levels are fine on sgu, but your own podcast is so low.i tried to tell you before. something with the compresssion/limiting

just listen to geologic podcast and then listen to the sgu podcast. almost inaudible (probaly like -15db)

What was the elephant in the room in Steven's talk at Skepticon?

Not being a Canadian, I only stumbled across “House Hippos” today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE

Vintage skepticism!

Patreon supporters have two episodes today: the usual ad-free main episode, and the full interview. Does anyone else wish the Patreon episode just had the full interview in it? To avoid listening to most of the interview twice, I'll be skipping past the interview in the main episode and trying to find where it ends. I wish the main episode would either leave out the trimmed version, or include the full version. I'm sure the latter would be more work, since there may be levels where supporters get the ad-free episode but not the full interviews and other premium content, but it would be great if there were some way to avoid this small annoyance.

Anybody else watching the professor Dave Sabine "drama" on YouTube? He's got solid points about cranks and how science communication can facilitate conspiracy theorists talking points.

https://youtu.be/70vYj1KPyT4?si=8YYpHKrsW9rmCGBO

https://youtu.be/6P_tceoHUH4?si=rYXWb7-cD7VE0rUT