Episodes

  • Episode 602: Artemis II and the AI Art Problem

    Episode 602: Artemis II and the AI Art Problem
    Apr 1 2026
    This week's episode kicks off exactly how you'd expect: a mix of chaos, parenting wins (and losses), and just enough sci-fi to keep things on-brand. Real Life Devon's been deep in the thick of family life—birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, and a firm stance on "No Kings in Texas," which is either a political statement or just a man trying to maintain order in a house full of sugar-fueled children. Either way, it's survival mode with style. Ben's living that logistical nightmare we all eventually face: coordinating kids' events, managing shifting social zones, and navigating the emotional weirdness of realizing your kid doesn't need you quite as much anymore. It's a mix of pride and quiet existential dread. Naturally, he copes the way any rational adult would—by getting wrecked in a Steam sale. Casualties include Speed Demons 2 (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2851640/Speed_Demons_2/) and Q-UP (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3730790/QUP/). No regrets. Probably. Steven's been volunteering at a "Kids Night Out," which sounds wholesome until you remember he also ran a Pirate Borg session where the players stripped their former captain completely bare. So yeah—community service on one hand, absolute pirate degeneracy on the other. Balance. Future or Now Ben brings in something surprisingly grounded this week: the science of purpose. Pulling from research and articles like Dan Harris' piece (https://www.danharris.com/p/if-you-care-about-longevity-you-need?publication_id=2723534&post_id=192338785), the conversation digs into how having a sense of purpose isn't just feel-good advice—it's statistically tied to longer life and better emotional resilience. Studies show it can predict mortality rates (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24815612/) and even how quickly you bounce back from negative experiences (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24236176/). It's one of those moments where the show briefly brushes up against self-improvement… before inevitably spiraling back into nonsense. Devon shifts gears with This Week in Space, highlighting NASA's Artemis II mission (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-artemis-ii-moon-launch-astronauts-flight-plan/). We're talking a real-deal crewed flight looping around the moon—something that still feels unreal decades after Apollo. It's a reminder that while we argue about Steam sales and parenting, humanity is quietly gearing up to head back into deep space. That leads naturally into For All Mankind talk—specifically the upcoming Season 5 and the teased "Star City" arc from a Russian perspective. If you're not watching the pre-season news reports, you're missing half the fun. The show continues to be one of the best "what if we actually committed to space?" thought experiments out there. Book Club This week's reading, Through the Machine by P.A. Cornell (https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/through-the-machine/), starts as a discussion about the story itself… and quickly mutates into something much bigger. What begins as a review turns into a full-on conversation about AI art—how it's made, how people consume it, and whether we're all just collectively deciding not to ask uncomfortable questions. The discussion pulls in real-world context, including coverage like Ars Technica's piece on AI-generated storytelling (https://arstechnica.com/features/2026/02/why-darren-aronofsky-thought-an-ai-generated-historical-docudrama-was-a-good-idea/), and asks the question nobody really has a clean answer to: what are we supposed to do with this? Next week's reading shifts tone a bit with The O'Neill Cylinder in Geostationary Orbit Above Earth's Equator by Katlina Sommerberg (https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/poetry/the-oneill-cylinder-in-geostationary-orbit-above-earths-equator/). Expect big ideas, space habitats, and probably at least one tangent that derails everything. This episode is a good snapshot of what the show does best: start grounded in real life, drift into science, and end somewhere in the middle of a philosophical argument about the future—while occasionally mentioning pirates stripping a man naked. Pretty standard week, honestly.
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Episode 603: We Broke the Episode

    Episode 603: We Broke the Episode
    Apr 8 2026

    Special Note:
    This episode fought us. Hard.
    There was some extreme editing required, and yeah—you might notice a slight dip in quality. We hear it too. But we're owning it, learning from it, and making sure it doesn't happen again. Appreciate you sticking with us through the chaos.

    Real Life

    Ben kicks things off with a classic combo: in-laws, tacos, and just enough drama to keep things interesting. Somewhere in the middle of that, he also put together a wild Spider-Man 3 edit with a Twilight Zone twist—honestly, it's worth your time:
    https://youtu.be/YDzSjRKUXuA

    Steven's house has officially entered a Gravity Falls era, and it's pulling him in too. The cyphers, the hidden messages—it's that perfect blend of kid-friendly and secretly brilliant that makes you feel like you're solving puzzles alongside the show.

    From there, things spiral (as they do) into TV talk. Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is hitting right, but it raises a bigger question—are shows getting too dark for TV? We bounce through The Mandalorian and Grogu, try to remember what even happened in Season 3, and land hard on one standout: Maul: Shadow Lord. It's peak Star Wars animation and feels like a true evolution of what Clone Wars started. Also, For All Mankind gets some love in the mix.

    Future or Now

    Ben brings in a strong recommendation this week: more animated feature films—specifically Your Name.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU47nhruN-Q&pp=ygUReW91ciBuYW1lIHRyYWlsZXI%3D

    He walks us through the premise, the emotional weight, and why this one stands out. If you've been sleeping on animated films outside the usual Western stuff, this might be the one that pulls you in.

    Steven… had something planned.
    But we talked too much Star Wars.

    So… NOT THIS TIME.

    Book Club

    Next week:
    We're reading Terms of Enlightenment by Patrick Hurley:
    https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/default/terms-of-enlightenment/

    If you want to read ahead and join us, now's your chance.

    This week:
    We dive into The O'Neill Cylinder in Geostationary Orbit Above Earth's Equator by Katlina Sommerberg:
    https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/poetry/the-oneill-cylinder-in-geostationary-orbit-above-earths-equator/

    This one's a little different—it's sci-fi poetry, and we go line by line trying to unpack it. What does it mean? What's it saying about humanity, space, and perspective? We don't pretend to have all the answers, but that's kind of the fun of it. It turns into a thoughtful, slightly chaotic, and genuinely interesting conversation.

    If you made it this far—seriously, thank you.
    And if you want more of the show (bonus episodes, Discord access, behind-the-scenes chaos), you know where to find us.
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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Episode 601: Thank You, Flea!

    Episode 601: Thank You, Flea!
    Mar 25 2026
    This week we bounce from toy-filled offices and pirate obsessions into brain-powered computers and philosophical robot chaos—before wrapping things up with a very French film discussion and next week's Book Club pick. Real Life Devon kicks things off by giving some Texans a tour of his office—which, unsurprisingly, is packed with what can only be described as adult toys. Naturally, this spirals into a broader conversation about how we're all just kids with slightly more expensive hobbies. No shame there. Ben brings us into the world of VR with Walkabout Mini Golf's Hollywood course (check it out here: https://www.mightycoconut.com/hollywood). But it's not all smooth putting—there's some concern about rising course prices, less frequent releases, layoffs, and reduced iOS support. The vibe is shifting a bit, and not necessarily in a good way. Devon also caught Project Hail Mary in IMAX and came away seriously impressed—calling it one of the best book adaptations he's seen. High praise. That leads into some appreciation for Andy Weir's writing style and a detour into the Cheshire Crossing webcomic, because apparently we're doing high-concept sci-fi and surreal fairy tale mashups in the same breath now. Meanwhile, Steven has fully committed to pirates. A Pirates of the Caribbean rewatch has set the tone, but instead of just watching, he's gearing up to run a full-on Pirate Borg game (https://www.limithron.com/pirateborg). There's also a shoutout to Land of Eem, a muppet-inspired TTRPG being run by Christina's husband—which sounds delightfully weird—but yeah… pirates won this week. Future or Now Devon brings in something that sounds like it's straight out of a dystopian sci-fi script: data centers powered by human brain cells. Yes, actual biological neurons. https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/staff-brain-data-center-spine-fluid https://futurism.com/new-computer-neural-network-human-brain-cells These systems require daily maintenance—including swapping out cerebrospinal fluid—which is not a sentence you expect to hear in a tech discussion. What started as experiments where neurons learned to play Pong (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/10/14/1128875298/brain-cells-neurons-learn-video-game-pong) has now escalated to… potentially running DOOM. Because of course it has. If you want to go deeper into the company behind it, check out https://corticallabs.com/. But the real question is: at what point does this stop being "cool innovation" and start being "ethically complicated nightmare fuel"? Ben counters with some technophilosophy, specifically the Three Inverse Laws of Robotics (https://susam.net/inverse-laws-of-robotics.html). It's a fun twist on Asimov's classic rules—basically flipping the script to highlight how things could go very wrong. If Devon's segment is about can we do this?, Ben's is asking should we? Book Club Next week's read: Through the Machine by P.A. Cornell https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/through-the-machine/ This week, the crew dives into Arco!—which you can find here: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/arco/umc.cmc.16jgcgmdg48xptfayroel0yvy Ben gives a full rundown of the film, clearly coming in as the biggest fan of the group. Steven jumps in with context on the cast and sums up the experience as "very French," which tells you a lot if you've ever watched… well, anything French. Devon lands somewhere in the middle—appreciating a lot of what the movie does, even if it doesn't fully sweep him away. If you're into sci-fi that edges a little too close to reality, pirate RPG chaos, or just three guys trying to figure out where the line is between "cool tech" and "we've gone too far," this episode's got you covered. And if you want more—bonus episodes, unedited chaos, Discord access, and all the weird extras—head over to patreon.com/sciencefactionpodcast and join us there.
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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Episode 600: Almost Shakespearean

    Episode 600: Almost Shakespearean
    Mar 18 2026
    This week we bounce from the eternal debate over pie superiority (and some truly questionable anti-pie opinions) into sci-fi revivals, strange travel stories, and the art of a good ending—before closing things out with a genuinely unsettling short story that may or may not leave you side-eyeing your bathroom forever. Real Life We kick things off with the most important topic we've ever covered: pie. Favorites, non-favorites, and a few takes that might genuinely damage friendships. No spoilers—but some of us have very strong opinions. Ben brings a little sci-fi hope (and caution) with talk of a possible return to the world of Firefly. Between comics and expanded universe material—like the recent developments covered over at SYFY Wire (https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/firefly-brand-new-verse-comic-boom-studios) there's clearly still life in the 'verse. But as always, the question is: should it come back, or is it better left alone? Meanwhile, the planned Buffy reboot/sequel has officially stalled out at Hulu, which… honestly might be for the best. [bad opinion AI] Devon takes us on a trip to Eureka Springs, a town built on the idea that its waters had healing properties. It's got that old-world charm mixed with just enough weird to make it interesting—complete with a glass-and-wood beam church, ziplining adventures, and a full-on St. Patrick's Day parade. A little history, a little adrenaline, a little chaos. Steven celebrates Pie Day the right way, follows it up with an all-day beach trip, and then pivots straight into Pirate Borg prep. There's a game on the horizon, and the hype is real. Future or Now Ben takes the wheel with a surprisingly thoughtful discussion about endings—what makes them work, why they matter, and how often they completely fall apart. This leads into Babylon 5 (with a shoutout to Josh), and if you want a refresher or a reason to revisit it, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z54XNJivHOs From there, it's all about what's next in Star Trek. Starfleet Academy Season 1 has people talking, and the future lineup is stacked: Strange New Worlds Season 4 is on the way this summer, with Season 5 already lining up some heavy hitters—including Thomas Jane stepping in as Dr. McCoy and Kai Murakami as Sulu. And then there's the truly baffling situation: Star Trek: Prodigy just won an Emmy… and is basically impossible to watch. If you want to feel equal parts excited and frustrated, here's the breakdown: https://trekmovie.com/2026/03/04/star-trek-prodigy-wins-emmy-for-animation/ Steven dives into some fun (and slightly chaotic) tech territory with green screen experimentation. Corridor Crew breaks it down here: https://youtu.be/3Ploi723hg4?si=Mu_9whhpY_gvJldY and if you want to mess with it yourself, the open-source tool Corridor Key is here: https://github.com/nikopueringer/CorridorKey Book Club Next week, we're checking out Arco!—you can find it on Apple TV right here: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/arco/umc.cmc.16jgcgmdg48xptfayroel0yvy We'll report back on whether it's worth your time (and money). This week, we read What We Mean When We Talk About the Hole in the Bathroom by Angela Liu: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-the-hole-in-the-bathroom/ And look—this one sparked some debate. Ben tries to walk Steven through it… because it didn't quite click at first. But Devon cuts straight through the noise and nails it: this is a horror story. Not loud, not obvious—but deeply, quietly unsettling in a way that sticks with you longer than you'd like. One More Thing Ben's got boots on the ground this weekend at the Beacon Art Show Ekphrastic Poetry Reading, happening Saturday (3/21) at 2pm at the SLO United Methodist Church. If you're local, go check it out—support some art, hear some poetry, and maybe report back. If you've got strong pie opinions, thoughts on whether Firefly should come back, or theories about that bathroom story, we want to hear them. And if you haven't yet—subscribe, follow, and share the show with someone who enjoys a good mix of chaos, sci-fi, and questionable food takes.
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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Episode 599: Devon Sold a Guitar for THIS?

    Episode 599: Devon Sold a Guitar for THIS?
    Mar 11 2026
    Real Life This week's episode begins the way many of our weeks began: confused, slightly annoyed, and one hour short on sleep thanks to the time change. Ben kicks things off by voicing what everyone is feeling — daylight saving time is rough. Losing an hour never gets easier, and the collective fog hangs over the whole episode like a mild but persistent headache. Devon isn't exactly escaping the chaos either. Between a hockey game down in Louisiana and spring break activities with the kids, his schedule is all over the place. Add the time shift on top of that and it's a miracle anyone is awake enough to record. Ben quickly pivots into defending Starfleet Academy, which he insists is a "tremendously good show." According to him, the loudest critics clearly aren't watching it. During the conversation Steven realizes he somehow made it this far in life without fully understanding what the Omega Particle is, which becomes a small but hilarious rabbit hole. Meanwhile the group grumbles about the Voyager game releasing day-one DLC — a move that feels more than a little gross. Steven brings a literary palate cleanser to the table. After wrestling with the famously labyrinthine House of Leaves, he recommends another unsettling architectural mystery: Strange Houses by Uketsu. If eerie homes and unsettling mysteries are your thing, it might be worth checking out here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/strange-houses-uketsu/1146276773 Ben contributes a strange internet gem called Pricemaster, a bizarre and hypnotic video that quickly becomes one of those "you just have to see it" moments during the episode. If you want to experience the same confusion we did, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/CUmmxW7Ksc8?si=6s1IRr2FuGy72Zo8 Devon then unveils the real headline of the Real Life segment: a brand-new guitar amp. He picked up a Fender Mustang GTX 100, and the excitement level is off the charts. The amp includes digital modeling, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity, and an accompanying app that lets him endlessly tweak tones. Devon is talking about it so much that it raises a bigger question — he actually sold a guitar to buy the amp. If you know Devon, that's a shocking development. Future or Now Ben kicks off this segment with a fascinating animated project called Arco, produced by Natalie Portman. The story follows a ten-year-old boy from the year 2932 who isn't supposed to time travel yet. Naturally, he steals a time-travel cape and gemstone, aiming for the age of dinosaurs… and instead crash-lands in the year 2075. There he meets a girl named Iris and her robot nanny, and the unlikely trio may be the only ones who can prevent a global catastrophe. You can read more about the project here: https://collider.com/arco-streaming-online-natalie-portman/ Devon brings a science question that sounds simple but gets weird fast: why aren't mammals as colorful as reptiles, birds, or fish? If you look around the animal kingdom, mammals mostly stick to browns, blacks, and muted tones. The explanation has a lot to do with fur structure and evolutionary pressures — bright pigments are much easier to display in feathers, scales, and bare skin than in thick mammalian fur. The article that sparked the discussion is here: https://www.livescience.com/animals/why-arent-mammals-as-colorful-as-reptiles-birds-or-fish Steven rounds out the segment with something even stranger — humans secretly have stripes. Not visible stripes, unfortunately, but real biological patterns called Blaschko's lines. These lines emerge from the way skin cells divide and migrate during development. Under certain lighting conditions or medical circumstances, these patterns can actually appear, meaning everyone is walking around with hidden tiger stripes or cow-like patterns built into their skin. You can read more about that discovery here: https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-actually-have-secret-stripes-and-other-strange-markings Book Club Next week's reading is "What We Mean When We Talk About the Hole in the Bathroom" by Angela Liu, a title that raises several questions before you even start the story. If you want to read ahead with us, you can find it here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-the-hole-in-the-bathroom/ This week the group dives into "Presence" by Ken Liu, which you can read here: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/presence/ The story centers on an elderly parent living abroad and the adult children trying to care for them remotely through telepresence technology. The discussion quickly expands beyond the story itself. The hosts talk about the stark contrast between elder care in America and in other countries where multi-generational households are more common. That leads into a broader conversation about American individualism — the cultural idea that success means leaving home, chasing opportunity, and building an independent life. While that independence can open doors,...
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Episode 598: The Twenty Year Window

    Episode 598: The Twenty Year Window
    Mar 4 2026
    This week we bounce from weddings with questionable video evidence to universal vaccines, rogue dubstep artists named after shingles shots, and a time-loop story that left us… conflicted. Let's get into it. Real Life Ben officiated a wedding. It was beautiful. It was meaningful. It was legally binding. There may or may not be video proof. Somewhere, there's a phone with 3% battery and a shaky clip of vows. Or maybe not. Either way, two people are married and that's what counts. If you're going to officiate a wedding, here's the lesson: double-check the recording situation. Memory is not a backup drive. Ben also discovered that in newer versions of iOS, you can type to Siri. This is huge for anyone who has ever whispered a text into their phone in public and immediately regretted it. We are slowly evolving into silent thumb-typers talking to machines. The future is polite and awkward. Devon talked about how he uses ChatGPT — not casually, but intentionally. He uses it for work. He uses it to rewrite drafts, fix spelling, tighten arguments. Think of it as a second-pass editor that doesn't get tired. He went deeper into why he chose to pay for it and what "professional analysis" even means in an AI context. If you're billing by the hour, clarity matters. He also raised the question: does LexisNexis have AI baked in now? (Short answer: of course they do. Long answer: it depends how you define AI, which is half the battle in 2026.) Ben uses "AI" differently — mostly for data sifting. Large piles of information. Pattern spotting. Less magic robot, more extremely fast intern. Steven admitted he uses ChatGPT to help generate episode notes and images. If you're creating consistently, tools matter. The question isn't "Is this cheating?" The question is: "Are you using the tool to think better or to think less?" Big difference. We also watched The First Minute of Demi Adejuyigbe Is Going To Do One (1) Backflip — and yes, he does the backflip. Watch the full clip on YouTube and the full special on Dropout. Demi Adejuyigbe (pronounced DEM-ee ə-DIJ-oo-EE-bay) is sharp, chaotic, and there's a killer Marge Simpson joke in the full show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kveA4wgIhI Speaking of Marge — Marge Simpson is not dead. The French voice actress passed away. RIP. The character remains immortal yellow. Ben also plugged his ekphrastic poetry workshop — Write Poems with Me — happening Saturday 3/7 at the Beacon Art Show or online. If you've been waiting for a sign to try poetry, this is it. Show up. Make weird art. https://buttondown.com/penciledin/archive/write-poems-with-me-saturday-37-at-the-beacon-art/ Future or Now Steven brought in a wild one: a possible "universal" vaccine from researchers at Stanford Medicine. Instead of targeting a specific virus, this nasal spray supercharges the lungs' immune defenses. In mice, it reduced viral load, prevented severe illness, and even blocked allergic reactions. COVID. Flu. Pneumonia. Allergens. If this holds up in humans, that's not incremental. That's foundational. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260222092258.htm Ben followed with research suggesting shingles vaccines might lower dementia risk. Studies around the shingles vaccines Zostavax and Shingrix have shown reduced dementia incidence in vaccinated older adults. There's also data suggesting the vaccine may slow biological aging markers, including inflammation. https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/ This is where Steven held his jokes until the very end. Zostavax and Shingrix are dubstep artists. "Twenty Year Window" is their debut collaboration. "Dementia" is their first single. Sometimes you need the bit. But seriously — if preventing viral reactivation reduces neuroinflammation and long-term cognitive decline, that's massive. It's early. It's correlation-heavy. But it's promising. Pay attention to this space. Book Club This week: All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein (1958). https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/robert-a-heinlein-all-you-zombies/19420/ Time travel. Identity loops. Paradoxes stacked on paradoxes. There are also… problems. Ben had major issues with the problematic elements. And they're not small issues. The story reflects the era it was written in, and not in a flattering way. Devon didn't love the no-stakes feeling. When a story collapses into inevitability, tension can evaporate. If everything always already happened, what are we gripping onto? Steven's take: the story is valuable as a historical artifact. It shows where science fiction was. You can see the mechanics. The ambition. The blind spots. You don't have to endorse it to learn from it. That's maturity in reading: understanding context without pretending flaws don't exist. Next week, we're reading Presence by Ken Liu, published in Uncanny Magazine. Ken Liu tends to blend emotional precision with speculative ideas, so ...
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • Episode 597: Yautja, Genetics and You

    Episode 597: Yautja, Genetics and You
    Feb 25 2026
    This week we jump from stand-up comedy, missing co-hosts, and fallen plant heroes in Real Life into pre-life genes, ancient genetic risks, and cosmic-scale evolution in Future or Now — before closing out with Predator: Badlands, franchise nostalgia, and a deep appreciation for Yautja lore. Real Life Ben was not present this week. The official explanation given: he's out marrying his sister. We chose not to ask follow-up questions for legal and emotional reasons, and instead moved forward with cautious respect and mild concern. Devon had a far more socially acceptable outing, hitting a comedy show and discovering a cool new cocktail bar right next to the venue — which is objectively the correct pairing for live comedy. He caught sets from Heather Shaw (https://www.instagram.com/heathershawiskidding/) and Tyler Elliott (https://www.instagram.com/tylerelliottcomedy/), both of whom absolutely delivered. Tight pacing, sharp jokes, and the kind of live energy that reminds you comedy hits different when you're in the room instead of watching clips online. Steven, meanwhile, has been locked into A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and is fully endorsing it. Strong characters, grounded storytelling, and that classic slow-burn worldbuilding that rewards patience. On the tabletop side, his MCC game took a brutal turn when a player character died — goodbye Plank the Plantient. A true legend. A photosynthetic casualty. The kind of loss that only high-lethality RPG systems can deliver with a straight face. Future or Now Devon brought in a genuinely mind-bending scientific development: researchers are finding duplicated genes that appear to have existed before the last universal common ancestor of all life on Earth. In other words, parts of the genetic toolkit may predate what we traditionally define as "life" itself. By tracking these rare, ancient gene duplications, scientists can reconstruct how early cells may have functioned and what biological features emerged first. It pushes the origin story of life further back than expected and turns evolution into less of a starting point and more of a long prologue. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260210082913.htm This spiraled naturally into broader science discussion, including a Veritasium breakdown of complex scientific ideas and some internet discourse around aliens and political commentary, because no modern science conversation remains purely scientific for long. Veritasium: https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=dRNcQst0xU_XKcYE Brian Tyler Cohen (Aliens & Obama discussion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0438rjwS7c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZP90ldOByo&t=134s Steven followed with a topic that sounds mythological but is very real: the so-called "Celtic Curse," better known as hereditary hemochromatosis. Researchers have now mapped the genetic risk across the UK and Ireland, identifying major hotspots in north-west Ireland and the Outer Hebrides. In some regions, roughly one in 60 people carry the high-risk gene variant linked to iron overload. The dangerous part is how quietly it develops — symptoms can take decades to appear, yet untreated cases can lead to liver cancer, arthritis, and other serious complications. It's a reminder that genetics isn't just about ancestry curiosity; it's about long-term health awareness. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260221000332.htm Book Club Next week's reading is All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein (1958), which means we are heading directly into time loops, identity paradoxes, and classic golden-age sci-fi mind-bending territory. https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/robert-a-heinlein-all-you-zombies/19420/ This week's discussion centered on Predator: Badlands and, naturally, the broader Predator franchise as a whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator:_Badlands We talked about our personal history with the series, how it evolved from pure action-horror into something closer to mythological sci-fi, and where Badlands lands within that spectrum. Devon was a bit mixed on some of the action beats but still enjoyed the overall experience, while Steven leaned much more positive — especially when it came to the expanding Yautja lore. The cultural codes, the hunting philosophy, and the deeper worldbuilding continue to be the franchise's strongest hook. It's less about "monster shows up" now and more about an alien warrior culture with rules, hierarchy, and legacy, which makes revisiting the older films even more interesting in hindsight. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend who loves sci-fi, genetics, and chaotic pop culture discussions, and check out our Patreon for bonus episodes, playlists, AI images, unedited recordings, and access to our Discord community. Come hang out, talk books, science news, and sci-fi with us — and don't forget to read All You Zombies before next week, because the timeline is about to get weird.
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Episode 596: The First Law and the Worst Lies

    Episode 596: The First Law and the Worst Lies
    Feb 18 2026
    This week we bounce from haunted literary labyrinths and gonzo chaos in Real Life, into falling space junk, AI hype experiments, and surprisingly clever cows in Future or Now — before wrapping up with Isaac Asimov's Liar! and a discussion about robot ethics, emotional harm, and the danger of well-intentioned lies. Real Life Steven is deep into House of Leaves, and yeah — "trip" is the correct word. The book continues to be less of a story and more of a psychological maze that actively messes with your sense of reality while you read it. Not a casual bedtime book. More like a "stare at the page and question existence" book. Meanwhile, Ben is reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, courtesy of Mom, which is a wildly different flavor of chaos. Where Steven is lost in haunted architecture and footnotes, Ben is cruising through drug-fueled journalism and American absurdity. Balanced intellectual diets all around. Devon, however, is reading… nothing. Which raises several questions. Is he okay? Is he plotting? Has he transcended books? We don't know. We're monitoring the situation. Ben also brought genuine excitement to the table with the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown. It's got the theme song. That alone earns emotional bonus points. The real curiosity, though, is whether it leans into branching narrative choices like a Mass Effect-style experience. If it does, that opens up a ton of potential for alternate Voyager storylines, which is basically catnip for any Trek fan. Future or Now Steven covered a genuinely clever scientific development: researchers are now using earthquake sensors to detect falling space junk. Instead of building entirely new tracking systems, they're piggybacking on instruments already listening to the Earth's vibrations. When debris screams through the atmosphere and creates sonic booms, those sensors can track its path, breakup, and potential impact zones. It's one of those solutions that feels obvious in hindsight but brilliant in execution — and also a reminder that space debris is no longer a purely theoretical problem. http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260124003808.htm Devon brought in a story that feels like it was engineered in a lab to trigger the phrase "AI hype cycle." A writer tested a platform where AI agents supposedly "rent grounded humans" to perform real-world tasks. The result? Almost no legitimate work, lots of promotional nonsense, intrusive automated follow-ups, and a general sense that the entire ecosystem is more marketing than function. It's less "future of labor" and more "future of weird startup experiments." The big takeaway: AI agents still struggle as real-world coordinators when things leave the digital sandbox. https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-rent-human https://www.wired.com/story/i-tried-rentahuman-ai-agents-hired-me-to-hype-their-ai-startups/ Ben, in what might be the most unexpectedly wholesome science story of the week, talked about a cow using a tool. Yes, a literal cow. Researchers observed a pet cow using a deck brush to scratch herself, even switching between the bristled end and the stick depending on the body area. That level of flexible tool use challenges the long-standing assumption that livestock lack cognitive complexity. In short: cows might be smarter (and more adaptable) than we've historically given them credit for, which is both fascinating and mildly humbling. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01597-0?_returnURL=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982225015970?showall%3Dtrue Book Club For Book Club, we tackled Liar! by Isaac Asimov, and this one sparked a surprisingly philosophical discussion. Herbie the robot doesn't lie out of malice — he lies because of the First Law of Robotics: a robot may not harm a human, and emotional harm counts. So instead of telling painful truths, he tells comforting lies, which ultimately causes even more psychological damage. Classic Asimov move: take a simple rule and stress-test it until it breaks in morally uncomfortable ways. We did agree the human characters feel a bit flat and two-dimensional, but the core sci-fi idea is doing the heavy lifting. The story still holds up because the ethical dilemma is timeless: is a comforting lie more harmful than a painful truth? Especially when the lie is delivered by something programmed to protect you? YouTube link: https://youtu.be/jDXW9hEjxps Next week, we're heading into a tonal shift with a watch and review of Predator: Badlands, which should move us from philosophical robots and lying logic loops straight into survival, spectacle, and probably some very questionable life choices by characters who ignore obvious danger signs. Should be fun. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend who loves sci-fi and strange tech stories, and join our community for bonus content, playlists, AI images, and unedited ...
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    1 hr and 11 mins