Well..... Yes and no. Political science expert Joe Magestro joins us for a fascinating conversation! We catch up on a little bit of Wisconsin politics. The news is actually pretty decent lately! And then we talk about the concept of polarization. There are many different ways to look at it, including one you might not have considered that is perhaps the most important going forward!    Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO405: Are we Really More Polarized Than Ever?

As crazy as that sounds, it seems to be the case! How does that work? And also... how does the immune system work? And can someone please explain it using vampires and hot dogs as analogies? If those are for some reason questions you've ever had, then Dr. Rick Sullivan is your guy!    Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO404: Are We Attracted To Our Mate's Immune System?

Dr. Elizabeth Deitch returns to the show to take us through some science thingies! CRT bannings and other conservative nonsense got Beth interested in the question: when should we actually talk to kids about race? When will they understand it? When do they actually notice race? These questions brought her to two studies. These studies reveal some interesting things about how parents approach conversations on race. When do they think they should have them? And when do they actually have them? And there's a bit of a Thanksgiving tie-in as well! Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO403: At What Age Can You Talk To Kids about Race? Parents Wildly Overestimate

Today's expert takes us through some of the ways that Biden's underrated climate legislation is driving research and investment into clean energy, carbon capture, and more!     Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO402: How Biden's Climate Legislation Is Making A Difference

You may have heard our episode about our struggles with food labeling and Arlo's allergies. Well, so did Dr. Steve Proper, and he is an actual expert in the field! He teaches us about the medical science involved. What are allergies? What aren't they? How are they different from other seemingly similar phenomena?   But even more interestingly, a somewhat recent study completely changed our understanding of how food allergies are caused! Dr. Steve takes us through it.   Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO401: Dr. Steve Proper on the Science of Food Allergies

Seriously Awful Movies 3, Good Will Hunting, was approximately 3 episodes worth of content. So, we thought it would be fun to put out some of that for everyone! Dr. Alan Smerbeck and returning SAMtacular guest Omar Najam join us as we explore the science (?) in Good Will Hunting. Is this how therapy actually works? Is Robin Williams even a therapist? Is this movie actually any good? Stormy also tells us about the actual disease Robin Williams died of, and how his case was a cautionary tale of why we shouldn't do armchair diagnosis. If you want to hear more of this SAM, head on over to patreon.com/seriouspod and pledge 2nd tier or above to snag access to these episodes, ad-free shows, and more!     Coming up VERY SOON: You can catch Omar on the brand new Dungeons and Dragons series DesiQuest! Their first episode premieres 11/14! Omar's annual 13 Days 13 Shorts project just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. You can still see all of the submissions from folks around the world - and maybe get inspired to participate next year!     The Share Banned Books project is going strong! Huge kudos to Stormy (and you all!) for donating books and serving as librarians for your community's Little Library. Please check it out and contribute if you can!     Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show?  Apply here!  

SIO400: Good Will Hunting, Bad Science Thingy

Special Education teacher Kelly Burke joins us to debunk the classic Andrew Wakefield vaccine study, but there's probably a whole lot that you don't know about it because holy crap this thing was shockingly terrible. It's especially insane that it had such an impact on the anti-vax movement when it was literally a pile of garbage in every way imaginable. Come learn more about truly one of the worst science thingies to ever thing.     Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!  

SIO399: Andrew Wakefield's "Study" Was So Much Worse Than You Know

We're borrowing this brilliant title from a panel at QED, and while we're at it, we're also borrowing one of the panelists, Nicola Throp, to cover all things Menopause - what it is, why we need to talk about it, and the barriers that women face in not just its treatment, but the recognition of what is happening to them and diagnosis from their providers. This is a significant life event that half of the world will experience, and women have historically kept it to themselves. It's well beyond the time to break this taboo. Some fantastic resources that Nicola shared: British Menopause Society; Menopause Support UK; The Menopause Charity;  Black Menopause & Beyond Podcast (with Anita Powell); The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists  Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show?  Apply here!

SIO398: Hot Women In Your Area

It's a phun physics phepisode! Dr. Bryan Gillis is here to teach us about some of the interesting physics of air travel. Why is breaking the speed of sound so difficult? What's a sonic boom? How do flights make up time in the air? And probably some way more interesting stuff as well!     Veritasium video on turbulent flow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zI9sG3pjVU Extra-Life charity link:  https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=517279   Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO397: Why Is Flying Not Any Faster Than 60 Years Ago?

That's what the UN's top official Secretary General António Guterres said recently. Israel completely blew a fuse over that sentence, and demanded he resign or be removed. They canceled UN Visas. They canceled diplomatic meetings. They say his statement "justifies terrorism." But is he right? I've collected some elements of the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict you might not be aware of, and my contention is that this situation is far from a "vacuum."    Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO396: "This Didn't Happen In A Vacuum"

It's Israel's 9/11. Or as Biden says, it's like 15 9/11s. So I guess they get to do 15 Iraq Wars? This feels like an incredibly difficult time to do anything other than sympathize with the Israeli victims of the brutal, horrifying terror attack. But right now 7,000 Palestinians are dead, 19,000 are injured, and 1.2 million are displaced. When is enough enough? What exactly is justice? We need to speak up. Our (American) tax dollars are funding a genocide. Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO395: Are We Complicit In A Genocide?

Hey everyone, a big heads up. This episode is about an issue that is literally life or death for our son Arlo. This was not easy to talk about and things get emotional. I did my best to edit all that out but some of it is still pretty tough. (At least normies have auto-ads to break up the tension in the worst possible way though!)    A new law went into effect this year adding sesame as the 9th allergen with all the requirements that go with that. Arlo has a pretty bad sesame allergy. So... great, right? Yeah except due to capitalism, companies are literally adding sesame to everything to get around the law. It seems impossibly cruel and stupid, but it's true. Arlo has already been affected twice by this. We tell a bit of our family story around this, and then Lydia takes us through some of the public policy history. We also stop by Joe Manchin's daughter making millions from ripping us off on Epipens. (no, really.)  Be sure to stay for the end, if you can, to hear our interview with incredibly cute and silly expert Arlo Smith.   Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO394: New Law Makes Sesame 9th Allergen. Companies Are Now Adding Sesame to Foods To Get Around It

Stormy's back! Dr. Smerbeck joins us today to discuss the current research around trigger warnings. Are they a no-brainer or are there downsides? If there are, are we going anti-woke and telling triggered snowflakes they need to be able to handle different ideas? Or is that still dumb?   But first we start off with a fantastic update from the Little Library Project that Stormy has been spearheading. Be sure to check out sharebannedbooks.com to donate books for this initiative! A big shout out and thank you to Bookishly for providing READ BANNED BOOKS bookmarks to include in each book.   And, if you live in an area where books are at risk or have already been banned, censored, or challenged, please consider signing up to deliver gifted books to a Little Library near you!     Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO393: Dr. Alan Smerbeck on Trigger Warnings

Dr. Wisdom Dogbe, an agricultural economist out of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, joins me to discuss a recent study he led investigating consumer choice with regard to taxing foods that are categorized as high fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS) in the UK. Does it change behavior? How much? And what are the consequences of that? It's a really fascinating story of the trade-offs involved in public policy. Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO392: How Taxes on Foods Affect Health and Climate

Dr. Bryan Gillis is here to tell us why it just isn't aliens. Sorry. BUT WHAT IF IT WERE. That question too. This one is a super fun and educational deep dive on space, space travel, the Drake Equation, and more! I also get Bryan's best guess for how aliens ever COULD visit. Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO391: Astrophysicist Wet Blankets All The Alien Talk

So what's the deal with all this? UFOs or now UAPs... government programs... crash retrieval... basically... what the hell? Also werewolves. Hot correspondent and now FULL TIME PODCASTER Lydia Smith is here with the skinny. It actually ties back to some of our other work in an unexpected way... THEN In part 2, astrophysicist Dr. Bryan Gillis will science the heck out of about why it isn't aliens! We've also got some really cool announcements at the end of the show!  Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO390: So Wait, Are There Aliens? What Were Those Hearings

So says my esteemed guest, Dr. Amy Bruckman! Is she right? I won't be coy, I tend to think she is. But what a fascinating statement! And her thesis makes for an equally fascinating book -  Wikipedia: The Most Reliable Source on the Internet? So let's dig in! Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO389: “Wikipedia Is the Most Accurate Form of Information Ever Created”

We've got even more great answers to questions in part 2! Many are about therapy. How do you know when you need it? How do you make sure you're getting good therapy? Should you change therapists? And more!   One more reminder about Stormy's Woke Little Library Project. If you are able to contribute to these efforts, you can purchase banned books through the following Amazon wishlist accounts, where three incredible people will be ensuring their communities have access to topics that are being targeted and censored.   http://tiny.cc/kbannedbooks  http://tiny.cc/lbannedbooks  http://tiny.cc/sbannedbooks       Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO388: Get Psyched! More Dr. Decisis QnA

It was such a great turnout of questions for our first ever Q&A with Dr. Smerbeck that we ended up going double! This first part touches on the misnomer of "chemical imbalance" with regard to depression, personality tests, and Alan's favorite dinosaur, among other things. Be sure to check out Part 2 later this week!   Dr. Smerbeck also shares an update on the Woke Little Library Project, and if you are able to contribute to these efforts, you can purchase banned books through the following Amazon wishlist accounts, where three incredible people will be ensuring their communities have access to topics that are being targeted and censored.     http://tiny.cc/kbannedbooks  http://tiny.cc/lbannedbooks  http://tiny.cc/sbannedbooks     Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

SIO387:  Chemical Imbalance, Personality Tests, Double Empathy Problem, and More! It's a Psych QnA!

It's another fun science thingy! Today's guest is Tanya Horwitz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Institute for Behavioral Genetics with University of Colorado at Boulder. She is one of the lead authors on a new meta-analysis of studies including millions of couples over more than a century. In the vast majority of traits, sames(?) attract. There are a few exceptions that are interesting to talk about and we go through those as well. This one is fun and relatable, and even if the top-line conclusion is pretty predictable, the data is very interesting and the discussion was great! Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!

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