Category: environment

Episode 192: Unsponsored Content, Part 2

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Laura, Ashlyn, and Lauren continue their discussion of products marketed to podcast listeners. On part two, Lauren does some composting with Lomi and Ashlyn discusses Noom’s approach to weight-loss.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Ashlyn’s Website: Noble & Whimsical: Glass Memorials

Lomi Composter: Lomi | Lomi Compost: Reviewing the Lomi Composter (Epic Gardening) | Lomi Composter – Review of cost, how it works & is it worth it? (Cansumer) | “Soil” vs. “Dirt” (Colby Digs Soil)

Noom: Noom review: How does this weight-loss program work? (USA Today) | Noom Diet Review (2023): Costs, Pros and Cons (Forbes Health) | What Is Noom? RDs Review How The Noom Diet Works Plus Cost (Women’s Health) | Can You Diet AND Do Intuitive Eating? (Christy Harrison, Intuitive Eating Dietitian) | Noom Is Just a Diet App. Our Expectations Are What’s Different. (Teen Vogue) | Noom – Nothing New, Everything Harmful (Dances with Fat) | Noom: Toxic Diet Culture in Disguise (Irene E. Schultz)

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Episode 179: Cursed Knowledge

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Gem, and Laura share things that they wish they had never learned. Warning: this episode contains parasites!

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

The Curse of Knowledge: Curse of knowledge (Wikipedia) | The Curse of Knowledge (Digital Learning) | The Curse of Knowledge | The Curse of Knowledge and How to Avoid It (All About Learning) | The Curse of Knowledge: How It Impacts You, and What to Do About It (User Testing)

Snail-borne Parasites: Schistosomiasis (CDC) | Rat Lungworm Disease and How to Prevent It (Corry’s) | Snail-borne parasitic diseases: an update on global epidemiological distribution, transmission interruption and control methods (PMC) | Eating Slugs Can Cause Paralysis—Here’s Why (National Geographic)

Fatal Familial Insomnia: Fatal Familial Insomnia (National Organization for Rare Disorders)

Face Mites: ‘Face Mites’ Live in Your Pores, Eat Your Grease and Mate on Your Face While You Sleep (Live Science) | Face Mites: They Really Grow On You (NPR) | Demodex (Wikipedia)

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Episode 172: Quiz Show XP

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Gem, Lauren, and Laura engage in a battle of wits over today’s most important scientific topics: eels, climate change, and… Jim Henson movies?

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Eels: Surprised Eel Historian, PhD (Twitter) | European eel (Wikipedia) | Interesting facts about eels (Just Fun Facts) | Trust Us, These 9 Slithery Facts About Eels Are The Real D-EEL (AwesomeOcean.com) | 20 Interesting Facts About Eels (Nature Tingz)

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC) | Summary for Policymakers (IPCC)

Jim Henson Films: Jim Henson (Wikipedia) | The Muppet Movie (Wikipedia) | Academy Awards (Muppet Wiki) | The Dark Crystal (Wikipedia) | Labyrinth (Wikipedia) | The Witches (Wikipedia)

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Episode 170: Fish Crime!

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Ashlyn, and Lauren revisit Seaspiracy and discuss transnational organized crime in the international fisheries industry with returning guest Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff, Director of Research for Oceans Asia.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Links: Teale Phelps Bondaroff | Oceans Asia | LUEE Episode 168: “Seaspiracy”

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Episode 168: “Seaspiracy”

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, and Gem watch the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy, and find that they have more to say about it than they expected!

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that explores the intersection of science and society.

Additional Music: This episode includes The Mariner’s Revenge Song by The Decemberists and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish performed by the Tenebrae Choir from the soundtrack to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Links: Seaspiracy (Netflix Official Site) | Seaspiracy (Wikipedia) | Seaspiracy: Netflix documentary accused of misrepresentation by participants (Environment, The Guardian)

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Episode 151: July at Christmas

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn, Lauren, Laura, and Gem escape winter briefly to talk about summery things: sunscreen, butterflies, the summer solstice, and whether drinking hot tea can really cool you down.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Note: Additional music this episode by Tim Minchin and Rajaton.

Christmas in July: Christmas in July (Wikipedia)

Sunscreen: Ask the Expert: Does a High SPF Protect My Skin Better? (The Skin Cancer Foundation) | Vitamin D Fact Sheet (MS Society) | UV Radiation (The Skin Cancer Foundation) | The science of sunscreen (Harvard Health) | Safety of Oxybenzone: Putting Numbers Into Perspective (JAMA Dermatology) | Five Common Sunscreen Myths You Need To Stop Believing (Forbes)

Butterflies: Butterfly (Wikipedia) | Mud-puddling (Wikipedia) | Butterflies remember a mountain that hasn’t existed for millennia (Gizmodo) | What happens in a chrysalis? (WSU Ask Dr. Universe)

Summer Soltice Festivals: Indigenous Day Live | National Indigenous Peoples Day (Wikipedia) | Dragon Boat Festival (Wikipedia) | Willkakuti (Wikipedia) | Willkakuti Winter Solstice (Aymara New Year) | Tirgan (Wikipedia) | Day of Private Reflection (Wikipedia)

Thermoregulation: Thermoregulation in humans (Wikipedia) | Waste heat (Wikipedia) | Thermoregulation (Healthline)

Pseudoscientific Articles on Temperature and Food: 7 Food And Drinks Scientifically Proven To Warm You Up (Tastemade) | Foods That Produce Heat In The Body (NDTV) | 8 Foods That Help Cool You Down (HuffPost)

Scientific Articles on Temperature and Food: A Hot Drink on a Hot Day Can Cool You Down (Smithsonian) | What are the effects of alcohol on the brain? (Scientific American) | Ayurveda (Wikipedia) | Ginger (WebMD) | Going nuts for coconut oil (Dietitian at Home)

Dwarf Mistletoe: Thermogenesis-triggered seed dispersal in dwarf mistletoe (Nature Communications)

What Are You Enjoying?: All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely | Amazon Warehouse Reports Show Worker Injuries (The Atlantic) | The Bell Curve (Shaun) | Overcooked (Nintendo Switch)

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Episode 150: The Anthropocene Extinction

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Lauren, Ashlyn, and Laura discuss the ongoing Holocene Extinction through the lens of four extinct species, and conservation through the lens of four endangered species.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Note: The term “American Incognitum” was applied to early finds of both fossilized mammoth and mastodon bones, as no distinction was made between these animals at the time of these excavations.

The Holocene Extinction: Holocene extinction (Wikipedia) | World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice | Plant extinction ‘bad news for all species’ (BBC News)

The Mammoth and the Great Chain of Being: Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America, by Jon Mooallem | Woolly mammoth (Wikipedia) | Mastodon (Wikipedia) | Great chain of being (Wikipedia)

Thylacine: Thylacine (Wikipedia) | The Thylacine (The Australian Museum) | The shared evolution of the Tasmanian tiger and the wolf (Phys.org) | Tasmanian tiger sightings raise questions about extinct Australian predator (CNN) | Tasmanian tiger doomed long before humans came along (Phys.org) | 14 Creatures Scientists Thought Were Extinct, But Aren’t (The Travel)

Newfoundland Wolf: Assessment and Status Report on the Caribou (Environment Canada) | Newfoundland Wolf (Wolves of the World) | A Brief History of the Extinct NL Wolf, and Recent Wolf Captures in NL (The Overcast)

Northern White Rhino: Northern white rhinoceros (Wikipedia)

Rafflesia: Rafflesia (Wikipedia)

Steelhead Trout: Steelhead numbers at yet another all-time low (Kamloops This Week) | DFO buried scientists’ concerns about endangered steelhead, B.C. deputy minister says (Vancouver Sun) | Federal-provincial steelhead recovery plan mired in dysfunction (Vancouver Sun) | Decisions not to add the Steelhead Trout populations to the List of Wildlife Species at Risk (Environment Canada) | Fraser River (Wikipedia) | Republic of Archaeology | Column: Thompson River steelhead swimming toward extinction (Penticton Western News)

Pangolin: What is a pangolin? (World Wildlife FUnd) | Poaching is pushing the shy, scaly pangolin to extinction (National Geographic) | Pangolin scale medicines no longer covered by Chinese insurance (National Geographic)

Conservation-reliant Species: Conservation-reliant species (Wikipedia) | Conservation-Reliant Species (BioScience) | Conservation-Reliant Species: Toward a Biology-Based Definition (BioScience) | The question of delisting conservation-reliant species (Conservation Corridor) | The Dilemma of Conservation Reliance: When a Species Needs Help Indefinitely (All About Birds) | 10 endangered species saved from extinction by zoos (Taronga Conservation Society Australia) | About the Species at Risk Act (Environment Canada) | 20,000 Species Are Near Extinction: Is it Time to Rethink How We Decide What to Save? (National Geographic)

What Have You Been Enjoying?: The Last Movie Podcast | TANIS | The Black Tapes Podcast | The Horror of Dolores Roach | The Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy | The Double Shift Podcast | Stealing from Wizards: Volume 1: Pickpocketing, by R.A. Consell | Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America, by Jon Mooallem | Wild Ones Live (99% Invisible) | Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine | Outer Wilds

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Episode 144: Twenty Questions

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem talks about Google’s search autocomplete feature, then Lauren, Ashlyn, Laura, and Gem answer twenty of the most popular questions suggested by Google.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Correction: When answering the question, “Where is your liver?” Ashlyn misspoke: the liver is of course located below the diaphragm, not above it. Whoops!

Google and Autocomplete: How Google autocomplete works in Search (Google Blog) | Censorship by Google (Wikipedia) | Leaked Google research shows company grappling with censorship and free speech (The Verge) | Google to End Pentagon AI Contract, Will Remain a Defense Contractor (Tom’s Hardware)

How: Avoirdupois system (Wikipedia) | Troy weight (Wikipedia) | How to Make Slime: Our 4 Most Popular Slime Recipes (Home Science Tools) | How to Tie a Windsor Knot (Ties.com) | How to write a cover letter (Youth Central) | Hard Boiled Eggs Recipe (Food Network)

Where: Stages of transcription: initiation, elongation & termination (Khan Academy) | Archibald (Wikipedia) | Where is Xur? | History of pizza (Wikipedia)

Can: Can You Start a Sentence with "Because"? (Writer’s Digest) | Can I give my pet…? (Park Road Veterinary Clinic) | Ibuprofen Poisoning in Dogs (VCA Animal Hospital) | What Shall You Not Wear to an Indian Wedding Reception as a Guest? (Discover India) | Is it Legal to Marry Yourself? (Parry & Pfau)

Why: Rayleigh scattering (Wikipedia) | Diffuse sky radiation (Wikipedia) | Photosynthesis (Wikipedia) | Polar bear (Wikipedia) | Effects of Earlier Sea Ice Breakup on Survival and Population Size of Polar Bears in Western Hudson Bay (Journal of Wildlife Management) | Why Asparagus Makes Your Urine Smell (Smithsonian) | Benjamin Franklin’s Letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels (Early Americas Digital Archive) | Moore’s law (Wikipedia) | Why is Caillou bald? (Chouette Publishing)

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Episode 143: Animal Culture

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Ashlyn leads a discussion of culture in nonhuman animals. Laura discusses tool use, Lauren talks about crows, and Gem talks about the destructive effect humans have on chimpanzee culture. And everyone has bad opinions about sandwiches.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular humanism.

Animal Intelligence: Episode 104: Animal Intelligence (LUEE)

Animal Culture: Culture (Wikipedia) | Animal culture (Wikipedia) | Do Animals Have Culture? (NPR) | Strongest Evidence of Animal Culture Seen in Monkeys and Whales (AAAS) | Cumulative culture in nonhumans: overlooked findings from Japanese monkeys? (Primates: Journal of Primatology)

Tool Use: Animal Tool Use (Current Biology) | Tool use by animals (Wikipedia)

Chimpanzees: Chimpanzee (Wikipedia) | Do Chimpanzees Have Culture (Jane Goodall Institute) | What do chimp ‘temples’ tell us about the evolution of religion? (New Scientist) | Wild chimps make their own “dolls” (New Scientist) | The genetical evolution of chimp culture (New Scientist) | Unique chimpanzee cultures are disappearing thanks to humans (New Scientist)

Corvids: The Cleverness of Crows (Advocacy for Animals) | An Impressive Encounter Of Cultural Learning In Corvids (Corvid Blog) | Corvidae (Wikipedia) | Crow (Wikipedia) | The Unexpected Genius of Corvids (Motherboard) | 16 Unnerving Facts About Corvids Most People Don’t Know (Ranker.com) | FAQs about crows (CorvidResearch.blog) | Crows Cope With Family Values, City Living, and West Nile Virus (All About Birds) | Marc Bekoff

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Episode 117: Trump

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Ashlyn, Laura, Lauren, and Brendan discuss a few of the many myths and conspiracy theories endorsed by Donald Trump, and Brendan points out that a simple fact check isn’t enough.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a program promoting secular humanism and scientific skepticism that is produced by the Winnipeg Skeptics.

Note: For further context on Trump, fact-checking, border control, and claims of journalistic objectivity, Gem recommends these excellent episodes of On the Media: The Game Has Changed (On the Media) | The Ties That Bind (On the Media) | What We Know About the Border (On the Media)

Links: Episode 110: Science & Race (LUEE) | Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks in America (Global Research) | New Research Shows That More Immigration Means Higher Wages for All Workers in Cities (CityLab) | 3 Ways to Immigrate to USA (uscitizenship) | Immigration and the Economic Status of African-American Men (SSRN) | Unskilled Workers Lose Out to Immigrants (NYTimes.com) | An Aging U.S. is Revitalized by Immigrants (NYTimes.com) | Immigrants Are Replacing, Not Displacing, Workers (NYTimes.com) | Immigration Doesn’t Hurt Native Jobs or Wages in the U.S., Report Finds (Time) | Immigrant Employment by State and Industry (Pew) | Does Illegal Immigration Disadvantage American Workers? (ProCon.org) | Immigrants Aren’t Stealing American Jobs (The Atlantic) | Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories (Wikipedia) | Central Park jogger case (Wikipedia) | COINTELPRO (Wikipedia) | What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals (The New York Times) | Episode 101: “Trace Amounts” (LUEE) | 10 facts on immunization (WHO) | About Vaccines (Manitoba Health) | The GOP’s dangerous “debate” on vaccines and autism (The Washington Post) | Trump team denies skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked to head vaccine commission (CNNPolitics.com) | Gregg Phillips: Trump’s Favorite Voter-Fraud Activist (The Atlantic) | 25% of Voters Believe President Trump’s Unfounded Voter Fraud Claim (Time) | President Trump’s Voter-Fraud Expert Was Registered to Vote in Three States (Time) | President Trump Vowed to Investigate Voter Fraud. Then Lawmakers Voted to Eliminate an Election Commission (Time) | Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says (Skeptical Science) | Fact Check: Trump’s Cabinet Picks on Human-Caused Global Warming | Ice-albedo feedback (Wikipedia) | Yes, Donald Trump did call climate change a Chinese hoax (PolitiFact) | 2012 Benghazi attack (Wikipedia) | A Comprehensive Guide To Benghazi Myths And Facts | Hillary Clinton emails – what’s it all about? (BBC News) | Essays: To Profile or Not to Profile? (Schneier on Security) | Protestors call on mayor to make Winnipeg a sanctuary city (Winnipeg Free Press)

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