Episodes
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Great American Fake Off
Some 82% of middle-schoolers couldn’t distinguish between an ad labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story on a website, according to a Stanford University study of 7,804 students from middle school through college. The study, set for release Tuesday, …
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Never Thaw It Coming
Ancient viruses and bacteria that have been cryogenically frozen for millennia are waking up, due to global warming. Siberia’s permafrost and Greenland’s glaciers are melting and thawing, releasing spores that haven’t been seen on Earth in millions of years. Can …
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Charged Into Battle
US military scientists have used electrical brain stimulators to enhance mental skills of staff, in research that aims to boost the performance of air crews, drone operators and others in the armed forces’ most demanding roles. The successful tests of …
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A Light Punishment
Police in southern China are punishing drivers who dazzle other road users with full-beam headlights by making them stare into the lights for a minute. Does the punishment fit the crime? Is it effective? Jeff and Anthony discuss.
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Re-poo-able Energy
According to a report from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, researchers have converted human feces to oil using a process called hydrothermal liquefaction. Hydrothermal liquefaction “mimics the geological conditions the Earth uses to create crude oil, using high pressure and temperature …
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Don’t Worry, Bee Happy
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London who study bees suggest that insects have something like emotional states, and that a sweet treat can change the way bumble bees make decisions, producing something akin — although perhaps distantly related — …
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A Glass Half Foul
How do you handle nuclear waste that will be radioactive for millions of years, keeping it from harming people and the environment? It isn’t easy, but a researcher has discovered ways to immobilize such waste – the offshoot of decades …
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Motivational Freaker
Basketball players that were grimly reminded of their own inevitable demise before playing took more shots and scored more points in a study published in an upcoming issue of Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. The researchers behind the experiments …
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We Didn’t Fart the Fire
A woman in her 30s was undergoing an operation that involved applying a laser to her cervix, when she passed gas that caught fire causing serious injuries to her body. Jeff and Anthony discuss the idea that all of the …
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