The Wonder of Reality

There are so many amazing technologies that could push our society forward into a multitude of better futures. But what if none of them happened? In this, the final episode of Miniseries 3: The Technology of Tomorrow we look at where technology is today or will be soon and how it can be used to better our lives in small ways, leading to a huge change together. This is our last episode for 2013 so tell us your thoughts on the podcast and enjoy the episode! Clarifications: In the original Star Trek series, the medical tricorder prop was made from a salt shaker. Links: Our Show Notes cover the topics of Self-Driving Cars, Giving Sight to the Blind, Robotics in Surgery, Google Glass and Augmented Reality, Oculus Rift and Augmented Reality, Brain Computer Interface, Soylent and Liquid Diets, Genetic Testing, Medical Tricorders, Distributed Computing, Prosthetic Limbs, Exoskeletons, 3D Printing, 

Space is big, really big. Are their aliens? Is the truth out there, and if it is, would we be able to tell it apart from just noise? To answer that we look to the structure of information, our language, and how we've learnt about the stars and planets closest to us. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, millions of planets, and a pattern to language meaning that life could be out there and we could detect it. Join us on a journey that could start at any time in our sixth's episode of Miniseries 3: The Technologies of Tomorrow. Clarifications: 50 internets to whoever can tell us the full name of the starship mentioned in this episode! The version of the Drake Equation we mention is slightly modified from the original version, but it’s mathematically the same. The number of stars divided by the lifetime of a star gives the rate of star birth which is the usual first term. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode covering Understanding the Signal, Shannon Entropy, and the Drake Equation Edwin Hubble changed how we thought of the universe, including the discovery of galaxies The history of pulsar discovery The Brown Corpus, information on Ziph’s Law, and the intersection of the two The list of US Cities by Population For the Family Feud bit, we watched some clips of Family Feud with Steve Harvey and used data from A.L.I.C.E., a chatterbot Google Instant uses the structure of language to help predict what you’re searching for Information on Shannon Entropy, the languages of plants and animals, and what higher order Shannon En...

Could you live forever, and given the choice, would you take it? Being able to upload our brains to computers could happen within the next thirty years and the implications are enormous. But how would we get there? How close are we today? By exploring the technologies we have today, we try to predict how brain upload could become a reality, how long it would take, and if it would be a good thing. Enjoy the fourth episode of Miniseries 3: The Technologies of Tomorrow as we take you on a journey into the future. Clarifications: Like most science fiction shows, our ability to travel through time and that Travis uploaded his brain will be promptly forgotten about next episode. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode including Reading Minds, Understanding the Brain, Brain Simulation, How It Could Happen, and the Implications Dr. Gallant’s work on reading minds (and the resultant video) The resolution of an fMRI (the kind used in Dr. Gallant’s work) The size of a neuron Emotiv has been creating brain-computer interfaces since 2008 We can extract sensitive information using BCI Information on BigBrain, the project that took a human brain, sliced it into 7404 layers, and created the highest resolution reconstruction of a brain ever For a wealth of information on the European Brain Project, check out their website The story behind

Few technologies could revolutionize the world as completely as nanotechnology. Artificial intelligence would help us work smarter, solve complex problems, and perhaps even educate us while quantum computing has untold potential to quickly solve repetitive tasks and could be harnessed to better our lives in a myriad of ways. Nanotechnology could outdo both of them by a making a world of material wealth for everyone to the point of absurdity. Listen to episode 3 of Miniseries 3: The Technologies of Tomorrow and let us know what you'd want to see from nanotechnology in the comments below. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode including The Future of Nanotechnology, The Physics of Nanotechnology, and Getting to the Future Credit for the “roads becoming diamond-plated solar cells” goes to Robert J Sawyer, an incredible science fiction author The first reported case of a person being cured of HIV through a blood cell stem transplant Vaccines are often made from weakened versions of the virus The science behind gold nanoparticles as explained by Sigma-Aldrich (a company manufacturing them) and the corresponding article on Wikipeida The structure of diamond More on the history of pencils and lead can be found on Wikipedia Making graphene from a pencil and tape A wealth of information on graphene can be found on Wikipedia Research into bullet-proofing our shirts with carbon nanotubes

Originally released four months ago, Episode 6: Statistics, Philosophy, and Science took the information from the first five episodes of Miniseries 1: "What is Science and How Does It Work?" and build on their foundation. We covered all new information including standard deviation, when scientists were allowed to say they had "discovered" the Higgs Boson, the largest object in the universe, and the half-life of facts. Refresh your memory or give it a listen for the first time. (We'll be back with new content on July 30th, 2013.) Without further ado, here's the culminating episode of miniseries 1. Corrections/Clarifications: The feedback episode for miniseries 1 has already been recorded; thanks to everyone who sent us feedback! "The Gender Paradox" is also called "The Boy or Girl Paradox" Links: Still one of our longest Show Notes yet (Bayesian vs Frequentist, Gender Paradox, Modelling, 5-sigma, and the null hypothesis, Bias, Error, and Simpson’s Paradox Redux, More than 1% of the universe, Statistical Fallacies, and The Half-life of Facts) A good article on the differences between Bayesians and Frequentists Wikipedia's article on 

Quantum Computing was only discovered in the past forty years even though quantum physics was born about one hundred years ago. During these past forty years, scientists have tried to understand how we could use it and what benefits it would bring us. It's a completely different way of computing, and makes a perfect addition to Miniseries 3: The Technologies of Tomorrow. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode (Binary in Classical and Quantum Computers, Qubits and Bits, Deutsch’s Problem, and Obstacles) Double Slit Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment Photoelectric Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect Blackbody Radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law How to count in binary The four conditions required for quantum computers to be dramatically faster than classical computers The World Community Grid is one example of how distributed computing is making the world a better place Folding@home’s website How to break our standard, large prime encryption scheme with Shor’s Algorithm Some possible ways to have encryption that isn’t easily broken by a quantum computer Quantum Error Correction An approachable account of how quantum computing works A much more technical explanation of how quantum computing works (a very good read)

Over the past two miniseries we've discussed how to conduct good science and how humans make mistakes. In this miniseries we wanted to look ahead at how technology could completely transform our world and revolutionize our lives. In this episode we discuss artificial intelligence, how it could come about, the impact it would have on our lives, and how we're on the path to achieve it. So sit back and take a trip to the future with us in our first episode of Miniseries 3: The Technologies of Tomorrow. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode Tic-tac-toe Number of possible chess positions Deep Blue Google Self-Driving Cars are accident free How driverless cars work Watson and understanding Jeopardy clues Strong AI Episode 6 and Netflix Prize Evidence of Machine Learning Watson and Medicine Watson and Customer Service

The brain is our most complex organ and does an amazing job of processing all the sensory information we perceive. In Episode 7 we talked about tetrachromacy in women and this episode we discuss why there might be so few recognized tetrachromats. Following up our discussion in Episode 8 on the structure of the eye, we dive into how language can affect what we see, even if our eyes are unaltered. Then we covered how itch and pain are different senses in Episode 9 and we explain how our brain interprets them in this episode. Finally, we continue our discussion on how neurons work from Episode 10 by explaining why brain freeze happens. Join us as we fill in the pieces in this, the last episode of the first half of Miniseries 2: "How Humans are Fallible". Links: Our Show Notes covering Pain vs Itch, Complimentary Colours and Afterimages, Colour Consistency, Language and Seeing Colours, and Divergent Buildings and Ice Cream Headaches The difference between itch and pain How our eyes see afterimages Identifying colours based on language The BBC’s documentary on how the Himba see things differently than we do Susan Hogan, interior designer, is probably a tetrachromat Tetrachromacy confirmed in humans, but scientists are still puzzled as to why so few women have it  How two identical images of buildings

We celebrate our tenth official episode in our fourth part of Miniseries 2: "How Humans are Fallible".  The transmission of information from you fingertips to your brain is incredibly fast but a complicated journey that can be altered by what you eat, drink, how much you exercise, and even how much sleep you've gotten. Some information travels 50 times faster than others, meaning you will know how hot something is before you know how much it hurts. React fast and click below to listen in. Links: Our Show Notes Information on nerve transmission speed The different types of neurotransmitters For more information on neurotransmitter release, look into Dale's Principle The Wikipedia articles on electrical synapses, the synaptic cleft, and voltage-gated calcium channels Inhibitory neurotransmitters Perineurium General information on neurons and their size Conduction velocity of neurons The Wikipedia articles on cocaine, treating depression, paralysis, anesthesia, and depressants

With the eye taking two episodes to cover, we wanted to discuss the other senses in this, the third episode of "How Humans are Fallible". Our hearing allows us to detect threats from far away, our sense of smell tells us about threats that we can't hear or see, touch includes pain and heat perception, and taste is a complicated tangle of sensations. In researching this episode we discovered that we don't have just five senses, but an entire multitude. Use nearly all of them in this episode. Corrections/Clarifications: In the episode Travis says it takes 0.2 seconds for a sound to hit our left ear and then the right ear. In actually it's only 0.2 milliseconds between the two ears detecting the same sound. Links: Our Show Notes for the episode covering Hearing, Smell, Touch (and How We Have More than Five Senses), Taste, Caring for Your Human: The Senses, Miracle Berries, Alcohol on the Skin, and Wrap-up How our two ears detect the source of sounds Sound intensity and logarithmic hearing Here are some examples of different volume levels We can hear from 20 to 20,000 Hz Humans hear logarithmic pitch and we've based our music around it Pianos are a great example of logarithmic frequencies Follow this link to test what frequencies you can hear Anatomy of the olfactory sense More on what we can smell  How Stuff Works on how our noses work Odour fatigue and why it occurs Touch is a complicated sense because

In the second episode of Miniseries 2, "How Humans are Fallible", we continue to look at the eye and its complex interworkings. The structure of the eye poses many problems when we compare it to what we see. Do rods work in the daytime? How do we see colour in our peripheral vision when there are very few cones there? Can you really make things disappear in your blind spot? All of these questions will be answered as we explore the structure and biology of the eye and how that affects what we see. Corrections/Clarifications: When we mentioned that 20/20 is normal eyesight, we used the imperial units of feet. In the metric system that would be 6/6 in meters. Microsaccades are when your eye jumps around when you look straight ahead while saccades occur when you quickly look from one thing to another. Saccades are responsible for the stopped clock illusion and both are edited out by your brain. They do play Fizbin on Beta Antares Four, but it's not a team sport. It's a card game, a man's game, except on Tuesday. Links: Our Show Notes cover Caring for your Human, The Biology of the Eye, The Blind Spot, Aging, and Logarithmic Sensitivity, The Red Myth, and end with a Magic Show Two pages of content on Cones and Rods The Wikipedia aritcles on Mydriasis, Miosis, and Anisocoria About our eyes' logarithmic sensitivity and the exact sensitivity curve An article about the best light to use at night The fovea gives us half our visual information yet has less than 1% of the cones in our eye  Our blue cones undergo blue amplification in the brain Wikipedia’s article on visual acuity and eye charts An excellent XKCD on our visual field A picture of a fiber optic lamp in case you didn't understand the reference By 45, almost all adults will need reading glasses and half of people over 80 will have cataracts. Here's more information on age-related eye diseases Wikipedia's great article and image on the blind spot

Welcome to the first episode of Miniseries 2 "How Humans are Fallible". Once we finished the first miniseries "What is Science and How Does It Work?" we realized that the biggest issue we have with conducting and understanding science is being human. To start our discussion on how humans are fallible we talk about how we see colours. How do computer monitors trick us into seeing most colours? Are their colours that do not exist in the rainbow? How does our vision change at dusk? See it for yourself by clicking below (video stream sold separately). Corrections/Clarifications: In saying that we would only see one minute of footage every hour, we made a few assumptions. Read through all our calculations here When saying that we could only see from 400 to 700 nanometers, we skipped that some parts of our eye including the lens can block ultraviolet light though we could still perceive it if it made it to our retina: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1860240/ Links: Read our Show Notes on Caring for your Human, Cone Sensitivities, How Cones Work Together to See Colour, Colourblindness, and How Rods Work NASA's discussion on the entire electromagnetic spectrum The visible spectrum and colours Cones and colour reception Why men are more often colourblind than women A technical discussion on colourblindness and camoflouge detection The genetics of passing on colourblindness or any other X chromosome disease Deuteranopia Some woman have four rods and can see 100 million colours Cones vs Rods More information on Rods and Cones

We got together on March 19th, took all your feedback to Miniseries 1,  "What is Science and How Does It Work?", and answered every last comment you made. What changes did we make during the first six episodes? Is the universe quantized? Is bacon irrelevant? And can you see all the references in this episode's art? Listen in and find out!

In continuing our first miniseries  "What is Science and How Does It Work?", we need to look at how science can go wrong. In this episode we argue that not all arguments are created equal, and lead you down the slippery slope from identifying fallacies to avoiding them. We appeal to you, listen us duke it out as we poorly present evidence, ineffectively counter, and ignore that we're wrong. 100% of surveyed podcasts agree, it's the best show around. Corrections/Clarifications: In hindsight we shouldn't have used the term "logical fallacy" in the episode but just "fallacy". The cited "Leo's have twice the rate of cancer as the national average" is completely made up (as far as we know). The "Fallacy Fallacy" isn't part of the third category (it's actually an informal fallacy) but we put it there so we could end the show on that note. Links: Read through our Show Notes covering Formal Fallacies, Informal Fallacies, and (spoiler) The Third Category Looking for Additional Information? We've said all that we could fit in; feel free to look through our links though! Wikipedia's List of Fallacies (be advised: it can consume an afternoon) A great site to direct your friends to when they've committed a fallacy: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ A link to Cheech & Chong's website for the unfamiliar Issues with the US education system The Time's lists of the Top 10 College Dropouts circa 2010, with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs topping the list The line "restore science to its rightful place" is from President Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address. He goes on to say "and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its costs," which clearly means that he's in favour of science, but the first part of the sentence alone is ambiguous.

In order to better understand science, probability, and the statistics we use, we need to understand the units of science and be able to visualize the numbers they deal with. In this, the fourth episode of our first miniseries  "What is Science and How Does It Work?", we talk about the metric and imperial systems of measurement, the incredible difference between a single electron and the entire universe, and how to visualize large numbers. Dana even sings us a little song. Find a comfy chair and join us on an amazing adventure. Corrections/Clarifications: When we discussed computer storage, we said that a kilobyte was 1000 bytes. In reality, it's both 1024 bytes (which is 2^10 bytes) and 1000 bytes, depending on the context. For a more unique term you can use kibibyte which is 1024 bytes without question. Of course, the larger question is how 1970's Canada would know about kilobytes and gigabytes. The metric system actually uses kilograms for its standard unit of mass and not the gram. This doesn't affect our discussion much, but it will sound slightly odd to hear the mass of a human measured in grams and not kilograms Links: Our Show Notes for the episode (Imperial vs Metric System, Scientific Notation, SI Prefixes, Visualizing Large Numbers, and Different Sizes and the Universe) All of our issues with the Imperial System are listed in the Additional Notes The Planck system of measurement A list of all the SI prefixes Understanding scientific notation Distances to different astronomical objects in light-seconds, minutes, and years Wikipedia's list of different masses XKCD's post on "What if everyone jumped in the same place at the same time?"