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Science Saturday

Science Saturday: Earthquake Edition
Ramon Arrowsmith & Mike Treder

Mar 6

2010

	How earthquakes happen
	Haiti’s catastrophe vs. Chile’s catastrophe
	The nascent science of earthquake forecasting
	Danger zones that might surprise you
	How bad is the worst possible earthquake?
	Natural disasters and human responsibilities

Science Saturday: Sex and War Edition
John Horgan & Thomas Hayden

Feb 27

2010

	The uncertain future of science journalism in the digital age
	Tom’s book “Sex and War”
	What do our genes have to do with our violence?
	What can Ardipithecus tell us about the origins of warfare?
	Religious passion and the heat of youth
	Can powerful women and plentiful condoms prevent war?

Science Saturday: Learning Curves
Rhett Allain & Ed Grabianowski

Feb 20

2010

	Rhett on the study of teaching and learning physics
	The value of educating science educators
	The best and the worst science on television
	Is bad science more entertaining than good science?
	The journalistic vice of “balance”
	Is science fiction a guide to the future?

Science Saturday: Valentine’s Day Edition
John Horgan & George Johnson

Feb 13

2010

	Does love make the world go round?
	Cell phones and brain tumors
	Tinfoil hats and electromagnetic waves
	These kids today and their tinnitus-inducing gadgetry
	NYT “most emailed” list shines ray of hope
	Blizzard warms hearts of climate skeptics

Science Saturday: Gulping Down the Potion of Health
Eliezer Yudkowsky & Razib Khan

Feb 6

2010

	Recreational genetics and self-identity
	Do racial categories have a biological basis?
	Will gene sequencing undermine racism?
	Ways to make awesome babies
	Are most of us crazy or are we both crazy and stupid?
	Politicians, scientists, and other nutcases

Science Saturday: Climate Chaos
Jamais Cascio & Mike Treder

Jan 30

2010

	Damage done by delicious cheeseburgers
	Why global warming is the biggest problem of our century
	The evil and the stupid among those who welcome a warmer world
	Is geoengineering the solution?
	Asteroids, intelligent machines, and other threats to humanity
	Will our civilization survive much longer?

Science Saturday: Awesome Feats We Haven’t Achieved
John Horgan & George Johnson

Jan 23

2010

	The large and the small in Switzerland
	Glories and shortcomings of “Avatar”
	Shouldn’t we have cured cancer by now?
	Is American psychiatry exporting its own pathologies?
	Orchids, dandelions, and extravagant scientific claims
	Leaving Earth in order to discover it

Science Saturday: Like Animals
Frans de Waal & David Berreby

Jan 16

2010

	Frans’s latest book, “The Age of Empathy”
	Empathy as a social contagion
	A biological basis for morality and soccer hooliganism
	Does religion have to be at war with science?
	The fragility of empathy
	Enron, the selfish gene, and Nazi pseudoscience

Science Saturday: Electroconvulsive Edition
John Horgan & George Johnson

Jan 9

2010

	George’s Caribbean Christmas
	Sulfur dioxide (and other wild solutions to the climate crisis)
	John on the improvement of women’s lousy sex lives
	A disturbing look back at early menopause-drug marketing
	Old-school mental-illness therapies make a comeback
	John and George on battling depression

Science Saturday: Religiosity’s Phylogeny
Razib Khan & Nicholas Wade

Jan 2

2010

	Is religion like language?
	Nicholas defends his view of religion as an adaptation
	Communal dancing, primitive gods
	The creation of Christianity
	A surprising hypothesis about the birth of Islam
	Faith and the future

Science Saturday: Visions of the Future
James Hughes & Annalee Newitz

Dec 26

2009

	Cataloging stuff white people like before it was cool
	The hidden meaning of zombies
	The ever-changing apocalypse
	A puzzle about culture analysis
	Is science fiction gaining cultural market share?
	The posthuman in pop culture

Science Saturday: Warm Below the Storm
John Horgan & George Johnson

Dec 19

2009

	Scientists outwitted by ants and proteins
	Has dark matter been detected in Minnesota?
	Climategate, skepticism, and the Amazing Randi
	What is “cap and trade,” anyway?
	The tool-using octopus
	Does Obama believe there will always be war?

Science Saturday: Climategate and Beyond
David Roberts & Jim Manzi

Dec 12

2009

	Is Climategate a big deal?
	Is bad faith especially frequent on the right wing?
	Responsibility for global warming: the moral puzzle
	David vs. Jim on what to do about global warming
	Is inaction economically justifiable?
	Virtues and vices of libertarian skepticism

Science Saturday: Multi-Level Selection Theory
Razib Khan & David Sloan Wilson

Dec 5

2009

	Group selection: what it is and why it’s controversial
	David defends group selection against its strongest critics
	Does group selection have a socialist dark side?
	Razib on how a scientist went in a “dark direction”
	Using evolutionary science to solve real-world problems
	How understanding evolution can make you a better teacher

Science Saturday: Looking for Love
John Horgan & George Johnson

Nov 28

2009

	John tries online dating
	The science of Internet romance
	Lies and the lying Match.com users who tell them
	John and George put their personalities to the test
	Does online dating make you hopelessly unrealistic?
	The wastefulness of the Thanksgiving turkey

Science Saturday: Verbs and Violence
Robert Wright & Steven Pinker

Nov 21

2009

	The distance between Noam Chomsky and evolutionary psychology
	How Chomsky snuck in to Bob’s 9th-grade English class
	Steve’s book, “The Stuff of Thought”
	How language reveals the structure of the human mind
	Why has violence been declining for centuries?
	Is morality something we just make up?

Science Saturday: Denialism
Michael Specter & Chris Mooney

Nov 13

2009

	Michael’s new book, “Denialism”
	Vaccine skepticism: an expensive decadence
	Americans admire science—so why do they distrust it?
	Irrational fear of genetically-modified food
	Personalized medicine and genetically-programmed children
	The uselessness of vitamin supplements

Science Saturday: The Greatest Diavlog on Earth
John Horgan & George Johnson

Nov 7

2009

	John to viewers: Read any good green books lately?
	What’s new in Richard Dawkins’s latest book
	Who isn’t confused about what a scientific theory is?
	Dawkins’s critique of essentialism about human nature
	The improbability of humankind
	Remembering Claude Lévi-Strauss’s perplexing ideas

Science Saturday: Deep Inside DARPA
James Hughes & Michael Belfiore

Oct 31

2009

	Michael’s new book, “The Department of Mad Scientists”
	How to get anywhere on the planet in about four hours
	How much good does DARPA do us?
	The slightly scary-sounding “Total Information Awareness” project
	DARPA’s legendary secrecy
	Should all organizations do it DARPA style?

Science Saturday: The Good, the Bad, and the Woo
Peter Lipson & Isis the Scientist

Oct 24

2009

	The difference between science and medicine
	What is evidence-based medicine?
	Learning to live with incomplete answers
	Irreverence, professionalism, and the brutal truth
	Does Isis’s spirituality make her irrational?
	Is anti-woo Peter himself guilty of woo?