https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss422_Robert_Zubrin_2024_04_13.mp3 Download MP3 When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today’s space entrepreneurs, here is what we will achieve on Mars and how. SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are building fleets of space vehicles to make interplanetary travel as affordable as Ol ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss421_Eve_Herold_2024_04_09.mp3 Download MP3 If there’s one universal trait among humans, it’s our social nature. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them. Socially interactive robots will soon transform friendship, work, home life, love, healthcare, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. This book is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the o ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss420_Lance_Grande_2024_04_06.mp3 Download MP3 Thousands of religions have adherents today, and countless more have existed throughout history. What accounts for this astonishing diversity? This extraordinarily ambitious and comprehensive book demonstrates how evolutionary systematics and philosophy can yield new insight into the development of organized religion. Lance Grande―a leading evolutionary systematist―examines the growth and diversification of hundreds of religions over time, highlighting their historical interrelationships. Combining ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss419_Maggie_Jackson_2024_04_02.mp3 Download MP3 In an era of terrifying unpredictability, we race to address complex crises with quick, sure algorithms, bullet points, and tweets. How could we find the clarity and vision so urgently needed today by being unsure? Uncertain is about the triumph of doing just that. A scientific adventure tale set on the front lines of a volatile era, this epiphany of a book by award-winning author Maggie Jackson shows us how to skillfully confront the unexpected and the unknown, and how to harness not-knowing in t ..read more

Several years ago, I came across an imaginative essay entitled “Explaining Affirmative Action to a Martian.”1 The author, who I had never heard of, described a fictious interaction where a human explains the rationale of affirmative action to an alien. Among its gems is the following interaction: Earthling: Black people were enslaved and subjugated for centuries, so, sometimes they get special dispensations. It’s only fair… Visitor: So those black kids…were enslaved and subjugated, so they get to score 450 [standardized test] points lower than Asians? Earthling: Well these particular black stu ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss418_Coleman_Hughes_2024_03_30.mp3 Download MP3 As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents–who lived through segregation. The End of Race Politics is the culmination of his years-long search for an answer. Contemplative yet audacious, The End of Race Politics is necessary reading for anyone who questions the race orthodoxies of our time. Hughes argues for a return to ..read more

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” —Sherlock Holmes The “game” of my title refers to the one played by media outlets and podcasters for the past seven years interviewing rogue scientists and conspiracy theorists to spin tales of Americans being zapped by nefarious foreign actors with sonic or microwave weapons. This includes the authors of studies suggesting that there were brain and inner ear injuries suffered by many victims of Havana Syndrome when those studies were clearly fl ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss416_Abigail_Shrier_2024_03_23.mp3 Download MP3 In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth? In Bad Therapy, bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s the ..read more

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” —Theodosius Dobzhansky Why can one person smoke and drink heavily into their 90s while another dies from cancer in their 40s? Why are we fat? Why does a suntan look and feel so good if it is bad for us? Why is alternative medicine so popular? Do vaccines work and are they safe? Do toxins in our food cause cancer? In this article I outline the emerging field of Evolutionary Medicine, looking at how our Stone Age ancestors lived, got sick, and got well over millions of years, and pointing to how we can live longer, healthier, a ..read more

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss415_Dan_Stone_2024_03_19.mp3 Download MP3 The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of “industrial murder” is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguin ..read more