As we all know, space is the ideal place for computers. The cold vacuum of space insulates them, and there are plenty of muons to keep them company. Liv is predictably thrilled at this prospect, so much so that she coughs her way through explaining it to Sandra and Dan
10 Apr 2026
March Sadness [UNLOCKED FOR NON-PATRONS]
On this very special (unlocked) episode, Sandra and Dan(i) shepherd Liv through the listener-created March Sadness™ bracket, and witness apotheosis
4 Nov 2025
One Weird Trick™ to Fund Science in Perpetuity
From 2021 to 2024, many Americans were worried that Trump would begin a second term as president in 2025, and slash federal funding for scientific research. But the leaders of the Democratic party rose to the top for a reason: namely, their clear-eyed insight into the best strategies for achieving their party's goals. On today's episode, Sandra, Liv, and Dan discuss how the Biden White House and Democrats in Congress worked together to (almost-but-not-quite) protect funding for American science (particularly the National Science Foundation), through One Weird Trick™, regardless of the outcome of the 2024 general election.
17 May 2025
The People Who Die Are Still Dead
Sandra, Liv, and Dan are back to discuss the impacts of Trump and DOGE on science from destroying the scientific progress our society is based on to somehow making grad school even worse, including their most heinous crime: getting us to defend the status quo
28 Sept 2024
Introductory Statistics for Unwashed Rationalists
What happens when you combine internet libertarians’ favorite woman, questionably-supported statistical analyses of human sexuality, and show tunes written by guys from a prediction market? On today’s episode, Liv shows Sandra and Dan why the answer is “psychic damage.”
Content warning: sex and sexual assault, transphobia
6 Jun 2024
You say Land Back, Lee Berger says out to space
The past year and a half has been quite eventful for National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger. He has made big claims about fire and burials and art. Far less attention has been paid to the pair of white men who are using paleoanthropology as an excuse to buy up land outside of Johannesburg, South Africa—and the fact that their wacky antics might have increased the value of that land, and any future fossils found there, had said antics not been met with such widespread condemnation from the scientific community. What if we can’t fully grasp the meaning of reprehensible publicity stunts unless we think about the economic incentives for landowners whose recent moves will grant them even greater control over future paleoanthropological discoveries?
18 May 2024
Fossils and Cannibals and TV Cameras, oh my
Scientists are encouraged to share their findings with the general public; organizations that communicate scientific discoveries, such as National Geographic, are helping to build an informed and rational citizenry in a changing world full of misinformation. But what if the incentives of the magazine and TV businesses come into conflict with responsible scientific research and communication? On second thought, let’s not make a big deal out of this—it’s not like a beloved scientific organization would promote a narcissistic huckster who invented a geologic feature in the pursuit of publicity.
27 Mar 2024
The Retracted Mifepristone Papers
Questionable research was retracted long after the damage was done in the federal court case that will allow the Supreme Court to restrict mifepristone access. We need to prevent shoddy research from getting published in the first place, but is academia capable of enforcing even the most basic scientific standards? To answer this question, we travel back to 2018, when Trump was president, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 85 years young, and the MIT-adjacent Whitehead Institute was still enjoying its approximately $12 million dollars in fun money from federal research grants to the laboratory of one David M. Sabatini - a laboratory that published some very interesting photographs in studies of the cancer/autoimmune/abortion drug methotrexate.
29 Jan 2024
Science Fought the Law, and the Law Won
You wouldn't trust a scientist—not even a physicist!—to enforce the law. But we trust judges to translate science into many of its impacts on society. Dan assures Liv and Sandra that nothing could possibly go wrong.
https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2011/02/book-of-week-frogs-in-trousers.html (https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2011/02/book-of-week-frogs-in-trousers.html)
4 Dec 2023
Machine Learning for Reactionary Centrists
On today’s episode, Sandra, Liv, and Dan take you through the tale of a climate scientist cancelled by his own petard.
Free Press article (https://www.thefp.com/p/i-overhyped-climate-change-to-get-published)
Nature paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06444-3)
Referee report (https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-023-06444-3/MediaObjects/41586_2023_6444_MOESM2_ESM.pdf)
30 Oct 2023
Science Wants To Be Free? Can’t Reach The Low Hanging Fruit From Your Knees
On today’s episode, Liv, Sandra, and Dan explore the exciting world of open access journals, where science is liberated for just a fraction of a graduate student's annual salary (per paper).
16 Sept 2023
Physicists Can Do Anything, Part I: Never Retire
Tired: a reasonably well-supported scientific consensus based on numerous lines of evidence collected by countless researchers over decades.
Wired: a rando in the twilight of his career who eventually learns to get his unique ideas through peer review.
Inspired: the most unqualified people imaginable spouting off on social media about topics they don't care to understand.
25 Aug 2023
$10,000 Baby Einsteins
On the debut episode of Principal Instigators, Sandra, Liv, and Dan discuss ProPublica's uncovering of a scheme to make your high schooler a peer-reviewed published author. https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications (https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications)
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