Darren touches on recent events in Nepal and offers suggestions on how to help during disaster relief efforts. Guest host Dina drops a segment we can all get behind regarding promising research around fecal transplants, aka transpoosions. Next up, Adam goes where no TRC segment has gone before…does wearing a red shirt on Star Trek equal impending doom? Finally, Cristina shines a light on why diamonds are really nobody’s friend.
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SHOW NOTES
Tim Caulfield at CFI: Ticket Information
Nepal Disaster Relief
Fecal Transplants
Gut Microbiota Worldwide Watch
Review: Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Study on Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Star Trek Red Shirts
Keep your redshirt on: a Bayesian exploration
Diamonds
Marketplace: Freakonomics Radio – Diamonds
Huff Post: Diamonds Are Bullshit
Huff Post: 7 reasons why diamonds are a waste of money
De Beers and Beyond: The History of the International Diamond Cartel
Marketplace: Diamonds are not a jewel of an investment
Wiki: Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend
YouTube: Why Engagement Rings Are a Scam – Adam Ruins Everything
Hi Reality Checkers. Another great show with interesting segments. There was one line in Dina’s segment that stood out to me to the point where I feel a comment is warranted. Dina mentions that Élie Metchnikoff tested his idea that the consumption of fermented milk leads to a longer lifespan, by consuming it himself, “like any good scientist”. Now of course, as you all know (since you’ve discussed it many times on your podcast), any kind of anecdotal uncontrolled evidence that Metchnikoff would have gotten by this experiment on himself, is hardly the kind that any good scientist is after. Perhaps this was just a throwaway line, or this might be one of those cases where “sarcasm doesn’t work on a podcast”, but since it relates to the core of your show (the workings of science), I thought it worthwhile pointing out.
And on a completely unrelated note, in Adam’s segment the red shirt death percentages will probably become even less impressive if you assume that every time someone dies, someone else comes to the ship to take their place, so that the total number of crew over the span of the show was equal to the 430 Adam mentioned plus the number of killed (and thus replaced) crew members.