A.J. Jacobs learned the hard way that donning a tricorne hat and marching around Manhattan with a 1700s musket will earn you a lot of strange looks. In the wake of several controversial rulings by the Supreme Court and the ongoing debate about how the Constitution should be interpreted, Jacobs set out to understand what it means to live by the Cons…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss443_A.J._Jacobs_2024_06_25.mp3 Download MP3 A.J. Jacobs learned the hard way that donning a tricorne hat and marching around Manhattan with a 1700s musket will earn you a lot of strange looks. In the wake of several controversial rulings by the Supreme Court and the ongoing debate about how the Cons…

Is Lemuria a real place, or the fever dream of crackpots, mystics, conspiracy theorists, and Bigfoot hunters? Below the waters where the Pacific and Indian Oceans lies a lost continent. One of hopes and dreams that housed a race of beings that arrived from foreign planets and from which sprang humanity, religion, civilization, and our modern world.…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss442_Justin_McHenry_2024_06_22.mp3 Download MP3 Is Lemuria a real place, or the fever dream of crackpots, mystics, conspiracy theorists, and Bigfoot hunters? Below the waters where the Pacific and Indian Oceans lies a lost continent. One of hopes and dreams that housed a race of beings that arrived f…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss441_Michelle_Dowd_2024_06_18.mp3 Download MP3 As a child, Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest. She was born into an ultra-religious cult, “The Field,” started in the 1930s by her grandfather, who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live five hun…

Michelle Dowd was born into an ultra-religious cult, “The Field,” started in the 1930s by her grandfather, who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live five hundred years and ascend to the heavens when doomsday came. Michelle Dowd is a professor of journalism at Chaffey College and contributor to The New York Times, Alpinist…

Robert Powell, a founding Board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, has studied the UFO subject for 17 years. His work is encapsulated in UFOs: A Scientist Explains What We Know (And Don’t Know)which provides a scientific rationale for the reality of non-terrestrial craft that are intelligently controlled. Powell begins his book by …

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss440_Robert_Powell_2024_06_15.mp3 Download MP3 Robert Powell, a founding Board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, has studied the UFO subject for 17 years. His work is encapsulated in UFOs: A Scientist Explains What We Know (And Don’t Know) which provides a scientific rationale for t…

We often assume that religious beliefs are no different in kind from ordinary factual beliefs—that believing in the existence of God or of supernatural entities that hear our prayers is akin to believing that May comes before June. Neuroscientist and philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen shows that, in fact, these two forms of belief are strikingly differen…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss439_Neil_Van_Leeuwen_2024_06_11.mp3 Download MP3 We often assume that religious beliefs are no different in kind from ordinary factual beliefs―that believing in the existence of God or of supernatural entities that hear our prayers is akin to believing that May comes before June. Neuroscientist and …

Each year at least a billion children around the world are victims of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that range from physical abuse and racial discrimination to neglect and food deprivation. The brain plasticity of our most vulnerable makes the adverse effects of trauma only that much more damaging to mental and physical development. Those de…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss438_Marc_Hauser_2024_06_08.mp3 Download MP3 Each year at least a billion children around the world are victims of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that range from physical abuse and racial discrimination to neglect and food deprivation. The brain plasticity of our most vulnerable makes the adver…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss437_Einat_Wilf_2024_06_04.mp3 Download MP3 Dr. Einat Wilf is a leading intellectual and original thinker on matters of foreign policy, economics, education, Israel, and the Jewish people. She was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties. Dr. W…

Dr. Einat Wilf is a leading intellectual and original thinker on matters of foreign policy, economics, education, Israel, and the Jewish people. She was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010-2013 on behalf of the Labor and Independence parties. Dr. Wilf has a BA in Government and Fine Arts from Harvard University, an MBA from INSEAD in Franc…

So much of what we hear about China and Russia today likens the relationship between these two autocracies and the West to a “rivalry” or a “great-power competition.” Some might consider it alarmist to say we are in the midst of a second Cold War, but that may be the only responsible way to describe today’s state of affairs. What’s more, we have co…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss436_George_Takach_2024_06_01.mp3 Download MP3 So much of what we hear about China and Russia today likens the relationship between these two autocracies and the West to a “rivalry” or a “great-power competition.” Some might consider it alarmist to say we are in the midst of a second Cold War, but th…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss435_Charan_Ranganath_2024_05_28.mp3 Download MP3 A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In Why We Remember, pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessi…

A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In Why We Remember, pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessible language with cutting-edge research, he reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past …

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss434_Tricia_Rose_2024_05_25.mp3 Download MP3 In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism’s very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain mud…

In recent years, condemnations of racism in America have echoed from the streets to corporate boardrooms. At the same time, politicians and commentators fiercely debate racism’s very existence. And so, our conversations about racial inequalities remain muddled. In Metaracism, Brown University Professor of Africana Studies Tricia Rose cuts through t…

Those who are pursuing social justice too often fail to incorporate the insights of sociology, and when they do make use of sociology, they often draw heavily from claims that are highly contested, unsupported by the evidence, or outright false. This book shows why learning to think sociologically can help us to think better about social justice, p…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss433_Bradley_Campbell_2024_05_21.mp3 Download MP3 Those who are pursuing social justice too often fail to incorporate the insights of sociology, and when they do make use of sociology, they often draw heavily from claims that are highly contested, unsupported by the evidence, or outright false. This …

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss432_Sean_Carroll_2024_05_18.mp3 Download MP3 Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step …

Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way. Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at it…

As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends—until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on …

In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book’s heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain …

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss430_Christof_Koch_2024_05_11.mp3 Download MP3 In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book’s heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself,…

At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account f…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss429_Tom_Chivers_2024_05_07.mp3 Download MP3 At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains …

For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we’re alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life? As founding director of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute, ast…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss428_Lisa_Kaltenegger_2024_05_04.mp3 Download MP3 For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we’re alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic dista…

We all want to be happier, but our brains often get in the way. When we’re too stuck in our heads we obsess over our inadequacies, compare ourselves with others and fail to see the good in our lives. In The Science of Happiness, world-leading psychologist and happiness expert Bruce Hood demonstrates that the key to happiness is not self-care but co…

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss427_Bruce_Hood_2024_04_30.mp3 Download MP3 We all want to be happier, but our brains often get in the way. When we’re too stuck in our heads we obsess over our inadequacies, compare ourselves with others and fail to see the good in our lives. In The Science of Happiness, world-leading psychologist a…