Friday, December 9, 2016

Episode 64 - Our Cloudy Crystal Balls


Recorded: 9 December 2016
Released: 10 December 2016
Duration:95 mintes, 2 seconds


download the .mp3 audio file


Host Paul Carr welcomes new panelist Kenneth Wisian, and veterans Nick Nielsen, Chris Prophet and Adam "Synergy" Smith for a "bring your own prediction" episode.

Adam: International Missions to Cislunar Space
Ken: Cyberattack Fatalities
Nick: No SETI detection
Paul: Drop in US Coal Production
Chris: Kessler Syndrome


Links:

Human Mission to Cislunar Space
Spectacular Satellite Collisions
Annual Coal Report
The Wow! Signal's SETI Thread



US Coal Production

Recommendations

Paul Weller
National Geographics Mars
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Thinking Fast and Slow
SETI @Home
Icarus Interstellar
Doctors without Borders

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Kenneth Wisian, Adam Smith, Nick Nielsen, Chris Prophet
Music: DJ Spooky
Hardware: Shure, ART, Focusrite, Apple, Sony
Software: Loopback, Reaper
Postproduction: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com



The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license


Monday, December 5, 2016

Episode 63 - The Engines of Creation



Recorded: 2 December 2016
Released: 3 December 2016
Duration: 78 minutes, 47 seconds

nanotech drug delivery
Host Paul Carr welcomes back panelists Mateusz Macias, Marsha Barnhart, and Nick Nielsen for a
discussion that begins with nanotechnology and branches out from there.

Links:

Richard Feynman: Plenty of Room at the Bottom
Engines of Creation
Eric Drexler
A Future of Radical Abundance
Nanoparticles

 

Recommendations:

Marsha: Aeon Magazine
Nick: Impossibility
Mateusz: Astronomy's Finest
Paul: SETi Talks

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Marsha Barnhart, Mateusz Macias, Nick Nielsen
Music: DJ Spooky




The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Unseen Pub #1

Unsen Pub is a completely unstructured, uncensored, hostless, open participation conversation that is only on YouTube. You won't find the audio on our podcast RSS feed.  Here is the first one. The next will be in December and you should feel free to join us or watch live.


Saturday, October 29, 2016

Episode 62 - Not Necessarily Little Grey Aliens



Recorded: 28 October 2016
Released: 29 October 2016
Duration: 94 minutes, 52 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

cover of Whitley Strieber's book Communion
Jack Brewer, blogger and author of The Greys Have Been Framed - Exploitation in the UFO Community, joins host Paul Carr and panelists Marsha Barnhart, Ciro Villa, James Garrison, and Roger Wehbe to talk about a modern variation on things that go bump in the night - alien abductions, as made famous by Betty and Barney and Hill, Budd Hopkins, Whitley Strieber , John Mack, and David Jacobs.

There was a problem with Jack's connection to the YouTube hangout, and he had to re-enter the room several times. Since this is an unedited podcast, you get to endure that right along with us, but Jack was remarkably persistent.

We also had problems with James' connection, and he had to kind of type in his comments and recommendation.

Links:

The UFO Trail
Jack Brewer's book The Greys Have Been Framed
MK Ultra
Paratopia: The Emma Woods Tapes
Where you can SAFELY report a UFO experience
Travis: The True Story of Travis Walton
People of Earth
Jack Brewer On Podcast UFO
Jack Brewer on Project Archivist
Carol Rainey and Tyler Kokjohn

Recommendations:

Marsha Barnhart: HBO's Westworld
James Garrison: Drunks and Dragons
Ciro Villa: Lightyear.fm
Roger Wehbe: Contact
Paul Carr: Adam Ruins Everything (TV shows + podcast)

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Special Guest: Jack Brewer
Panelists: Marsha Barnhart, Ciro Villa, James Garrison, Roger Wehbe

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike License



Friday, October 14, 2016

Episode 61 - A Year of WTF



Recorded: 14 October 2016
Released: 15 October 2016
Duration:99 minutes, 40 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Paul Carr and Adam Smith talk about what has happened in the year since the release of the preprint by Boyajian, et. al. describing a very strange "alien megastructure" star. We talk about the work done so far, the controversies, and where we hope things will go in the near future.

Links:

The Wow! Signal Podcast
Montet and Simon's Dimming

Where's the Flux?
Planet Hunters
Jason Wright: What Could Be Going on with Boyajian's Star?
Ben Montet Makes a Star Weirder
The Most Mysterious Star in the Universe
Tabby's Star for the Perplexed, part 3
The Gaia Data Release 1 and Tabby's Star
Sonnenberg Plate photometry in two colors for KIC 8462852

Almost Certainly Wrong

Freeman Dyson: Let's Look for Life in the Outer Solar System

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelist: Adam Smith
Music: DJ Spooky







Saturday, October 1, 2016

Episode 60 - The Big Friendly Rocket to Mars



Recorded: 30 September 2016
Released: 1 October 2016
Duration:93 minutes, 39 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

The Heart of Gold on Its Way to Mars
Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Chris Prophet, Sam Lichtenstein, and Roger Wehbe to talk about
the recent SpaceX announcement of a Mars colonization transportation architecture.  What are the risks, and who will pay for it? Why did they go with an all-chemical approach and no nuclear? Will NASA get on board with Space X?
We apologize for the glitches - these were caused by brief power interruptions in Maryland. Fortunately the team were resilient and we only had to edit a little bit of silence out.

We didn't do our usual recommendations this episode, but they'll be back in Episode 63 in November.

Links

To be on a panel, join this G+ Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/101282054085485216267
Our Episode Plan
The Wow! Signal

Elon Musk: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species
the SP 100
Transatomic
Episode 27 - The Mars One Candidates Respond


Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Chris Prophet, Roger Wehbe, Sam Lichtenstein
Music: DJ Spooky
Electrical Power: PEPCO
Postprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.



Friday, September 16, 2016

Episode 59 - Big Time



Recorded: 16 September 2016
Released: 17 September 2016
Duration: 87 minutes, 40 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Roger Wehbe, Chris Prophet, David Grigg, and Nick Nielsen to
James Hutton

talk about the very long stretches of time that reality evolves over vs. the the very local perception of time that we humans have. With a bigger concept of time, could we colonize the galaxy? Wht would we? Has someone else already done this, but left us out of the party?

Links:

XKCD: Global Temperatures
James Hutton
Globular Clusters as Cradles of Life and Advanced Civilizations
The Wilderness Hypothesis
Wow! Signal Burst 20 with Tabetha Boyajian
The Transcension Hypothesis
Total Fertility Rate

Recommendations:

David Grigg: The Hunt for Vulcan
Chris Prophet: Elon Musk at Upcoming Conference
Nick Nielsen: Series of Papers by Jay Olson on Aggressively Expanding Civlizations
Paul Carr: Voices from L5

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Rober Wehbe, Chris Prophet, David Grigg, and Nick Nielsen
Music: DJ Spooky

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Episode 58 - Fusion Powered Killer Robots


Recorded: 2 September 2016
Released: 3 September 2016
Duration: 77 minutes, 12 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

National Ignition Facility
Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Chris Prophet, Sam Lichtenstein, and James Garrison to talk about what's real, what's commercializable, and what's not in nuclear fusion.  Then we turn our attention to the ostensibly grave dangers of AI.

Links:

The Unseen Podcast Blog

The National Ignition Facility
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics
The Princeton Plasma Physics Lab

Not Even Wrong - Fusion Energy at Lawrenecville Plasma Physics
RationalWiki: Fusion Woo
Eric Lerner: The Big Bang Never Happened



Recommendations:

Chris Prophet - Iain Banks
James Garrison - Scott Sigler Generations Trilogy
Sam Lichtenstein - Uluru in Austraila
Paul Carr - Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart: Bongo Fury

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: James Garrison, Chris Prophet, Sam Lichtenstein
Music: DJ Spooky



Monday, August 22, 2016

Episode 57 - How Noble In Reason, How Infinite in Faculty...



Recorded: 19 August 2016
Released: 23 August 2016
Duration:65 minutes

download the .mp3 audio file

A quote from Hamlet.
Host David Grigg welcomes Chris Prophet, Patrick Festa, and (eventually) Nick Nielsen to talk about
the future of humanity.

Producer's Note: about 1 minute of content-free technical difficulty was edited out.

Links:

Credits:

Host: David Grigg
Panelists: Chris Prophet, Patrick Festa, Nick Nielsen
Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky



Friday, August 12, 2016

Episode 56 - Morgan Rehnberg



Recorded: 12 August 2016
Released: 13 August 2016
Duration: 86 minutes, 20 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Morgan Rehnberg
Host Paul Carr is joined by planetary scientist and science communicator Morgan Rehnberg. Our panel consists of Adam Smith, Marsha Barnhart, Chris Prophet, and Mateusz Macias. We talk about the weird rings and moon of Saturn, traveling to Mars, and the search for life in the universe - on Mars, Enceladus, Europa, titan, and even Venus.

Links:

Morgan Rehnberg
Interview with Ben Montet
Hyperion
Iapetus - Saturn's Ying/Yang Moon
What is the Decadal Survey?

The new Public G+ Community
The G+ Listener's Community

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Special Guest: Morgan Rehnberg
Panel: Adam Smith, Chris Prophet, Marsha Barnhart, and Mateusz Macias
Music: DJ Spooky


Friday, July 15, 2016

Episode 55 - The Summer Hiatus Star-studded Non-Episode



Recorded: 15 July 2016
Released: 16 July 2016
Duration:97 minutes

download the .mp3 audio file

It's our Summer hiatus, so we just had a free form conversation hosted by Paul with Mike Mongo, Nick Nielsen, and Patrick Festa. James Garrison was with us in spirit.

Links:

George Clinton
George Clinton
Maggot Brain
Maggot Brain Live
Sun Ra
Bernie Worrell
Big Lebowski
Episode 54
Daniela De Paulis
Sarah Jane Pell
Nick Nielsen: The Spoor Of Civilizations
Astronaut instruction Manual
Natalie Cabrol's new paper on SETI

Lev Vygotsky

The Lorentz Transformation
The Michelson Interferometer

The Outer Edge of Star's Habitable Zone is a Hard Place for Life

Recommendations:

Nick Nielsen: Rethinking the Snow Line
Paul Carr: Silicon Valley

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Mike Mongo, Nick Nielsen, Patrick Festa
Music: DJ Spooky
Hardware: Shure, Pro ART, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Loopback, Reaper, OS X Yosemite
Post Production: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com






Monday, July 4, 2016

Episode 54 - Artists without Boundaries


Recorded: 4 July 2016
Released: 4 July 2016
Duration: 74 minutes, 44 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Adam Smith, Gita Jaisinghani, and Daniela De Paulis (our first completely non-American and majority female panel), to talk about the relationship between art and science, SETI, and METI.
  • Encouragement to contribute to "Earthling's Quest" kickstarter.
    A Moonbounce Image
  • Daniela's work to unite art and science
  • Confusion about art - should art be explained?
  • Daniela has published papers about her work.
  • Visual Moonbounce
  • STEM to STEAM
  • Daniela's technical team
  • METI and Breakthrough Messaging and the artist's role.
  • METI as a human exercise
  • Should we put our best foot forward in the ET message or tell the ugly truth?
  • Is any advanced ET highly evolved? Do they have a violent past?
  • DO we know that alien consciousness would be like ours?
  • Advanced civilizations likely to be long lived.
  • Is ET leaving us alone for a good reason?
  • The terms in the Drake Equation and the fourth term in particular
  • Martian life?
  • Communicating with technological ET - is there a universal?
  • Technological progress not correlated with language complexity
  • Consciousness and SETI do we need to understand consciousness better?
  • Past human conceptual revolutions
  • Philosophers plugged into science and vice versa?
  • Morality and science - are there questions science shouldn't ask?
  • Resistance to science in the US
  • The evolution of scientific ethics in recent generations
  • The importance of ethics
  • Human sex differences should be researched?
  • There will always be ethics "cheaters."
  • Wrapup
  • Recruiting, nagging, promoting
  • Goodbye

Links:

Daniela De Paulis
The Earthling's Quest Kickstarter
METI International
The Pioneer Plaque
The Drake Arecibo Message
Carrie Peterson
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Drake Equation
Shadow Biosphere
Wights on Game of Thrones
The Tuskeegee Syphilis Study

 

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Adam Smith, Gita Jaisinghani, Daniela De Paulis
Music: DJ Spooky
Hardware: Shure, ART, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Loopback, Reaper, OS X Yosemite
Popstprocessing: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn.com



Friday, June 24, 2016

Sorry, failed to record Episode 54 on 24 June

We did not get it together for a 24 June recording of Episode 54. It may just be a bad time of year for an open participation podcast to put a panel together however, I do have some hope we will record Ep. 54 soon, and I hope that some of our international participants can join in. We have never wanted this to be a USA only podcast, but we think the conversations we want to have need to engage the entire world.

Much gratitude to people like Adam Smith, David Grigg, Chris McGinlay, and Mateusz Mateus who have joined us at very inconvenient times in the past episodes. We will try to make things easier for them when we can.


Friday, June 10, 2016

Episode 53 - War in Heaven



Recorded: 10 June 2016
Released: 11 june 2016
Duration: 98 minutes, 44 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr is joined by panelists Adam Smith, Marsha Barnhart, and Nick Nielsen to talk about
the future of human conflict.

  • Intro
  • Cyber warfare
  • Snowden and the NSA information
  • Snowden hero or traitor?
  • Drawing the line where cyberwar starts
  • Defining warfare
  • The cold war and limited war
  • War in low Earth orbit and cyber warfare
  • Easy and cheap to bring down big expensive satellites
  • Anti satellite weapons
  • Kessler syndrome
  • Weather satellites and the military value of weather data
  • Warfighting platforms in space
  • GPS and their military value
  • Boots on the Ground in space.
  • Supersoldiers?
  • DARPA does proof of concept.
  • Asymmetric warfare
  • Camouflage and concealment
  • Suicide bombers as smart bombs
  • The enemy gets a vote
  • Counterinsurgency warfare
  • Suicide bombers in space?
  • Humans really a warlike species? Are we done with big wars?
  • What purpose would war in space serve?
  • Proxy wars and shadow wars
  • Plausible to send large military forces into space?
  • Private companies quietly supporting government spying?
  • An analogy to Chinese new islands?
  • Transhumanism a moral horror? Would it make wealth inequality worse?
  • The first CRISPR baby soon? The first cloned baby?
  • The great firewall of China
  • Weapons in space  and the Soviet pistols
  • Space the next flashpoint?
  • recommendations
  • recruiting,nagging, begging
  • brief pitch for the Wow! Signal
  • Final round of goodbyes
  • outro

Links
TheCosmonaut's TP-82 pistol

Avoiding War in Space
NOAA Weather Satellites
The Weather Forecast that Saved D-Day
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Chiquita admits to paying terrorists
NSA Infiltrated RSA Security
AT&T Helped NSA Spy on Internet
The TP-82 Pistol
Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapon
The Outer Space Treaty and Lucite Balls

Recommendations:

Marsha: DARPA
Nick: Alain de Botton: Status Anxiety
Adam: Star Wars Audiobooks: Darth Bane Trilogy
Paul: Raging Bitch

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky


Saturday, May 28, 2016

Episode 52 - Space X on Mars, Simulations, CRISPR, Monument Probes



Recorded: 27 May 2016
Released: 28 May 2016
Duration: 94 minutes, 52 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file
SpaceX has plans for Mars


Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Chris Prophet, David Grigg, Marsha Barnhart, and Patrick Festa, each of which brings their own topic:
  • Chris: SpaceX going to Mars and Chris Prophet's book on SpaceX
  • David: The validity of computer simulations
  • Marsha: CRISPR-cas9 gene editing
  • Patrick: Monument Probes for humanity

Links

Chris Prophet: SpaceX from the Ground Up (USA)
Chris Prophet: SpaceX from the Ground Up (UK)
Active Shielding on Spacecraft
Effectiveness of Artificial Mini-Magnetospheres
Gregory Benford: The Martian Race
The Genesis Engine (article on CRISPR)
The Promise and Peril of Gene Editing
The Billion Year Pyramid
The Benfords: Messaging with Cost Optimized Interstellar Beacons


Recommendations:

Chris Prophet: Interstellar Propulsion
David Grigg: The Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow and Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Marsha Barnhart: Orphan Black
Patrick Festa: Juno Mission
Paul Carr: Where's The Flux Kickstarter (please donate)

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license.


Saturday, May 21, 2016

Sorry, failed to get it together on the Towel Day episode

Over about a day or so, my panel for the Towel Day episode fell apart, and the remaining folks just didn't show up. So, no Towel Day episode this year. Maybe in 2017.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Episode 51 - The Human Side of Space Development



Recorded: 13 May 2016
Released: 14 May 2016
Duration: 76 minutes, 20 seconds

Space Visionary Gerard K, O'Neill
download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr welcomes Liam Ginty of the Voices from L5 podcast and panelists David Grigg, Marsha Barnhart, and Patrick Festa to talk about the human side of Space Development: politics, economics, education, and the will to make things happen.

Links:

Voices from L5

O'Neill's Classic book The High Frontier
the NASA Budget
The ESA Budget

books by David Grigg

Recommendations:

Marsha Barnhart: Bigelow
David Grigg: Full Moon by Michael Light
Patrick Festa: Get excited about the Juno Mission
Liam Ginty: The Astrosociology Institute
Paul Carr: Raspberry Pi

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Liam Ginty, David Grigg, Marsha Barnhart, and Patrick Festa
Music: DJ Spooky


The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License


Friday, April 29, 2016

Episode 50 - Looking into the Near Future



Recorded: 29 April 2016
Released: 30 April 2016
Duration: 109 minutes, 48 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Sam Lichtenstein, Adam Smith, Patrick Festa, and Mike Bohler to
Phillip Tetlock of the Good Judgment Project
talk about the human relationship with the near future: predictions, forecasts, prediction markets, and super forecasting. What do we get wrong, and what can we hope to get right? Our panelists offer their own forecasts.

What is YOUR prediction?

Links

Philip Tetlock on Rationally Speaking
Tetlock's Book Superforecasting
PredictionBook.com - log your forecasts
GJOpen.com - The Open Good Judgment Project
The Hypermind Prediction Market
PredictIt Prediction Market
Alpha Cast
SportsCast

Robin Hanson's idea of Futarchy

Forecasts

Sam Lichtenstein: SpaceX to Mars
The Red Supergiant Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis)
Paul Carr: SETI Detection
Adam Smith: UK Police with Face Recognition
Patrick Festa: Betelgeuse exploding by 2046
Mike Bohler: SpaceX on Mars before 2021

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Sam Lichtenstein, Adam Smith, Patrick Festa, Mike Bohler
Music: DJ Spooky
Hardware: Shure, Pro Art, Focusrite, Apple
Software: Reaper
Postproduction: Auphonic.com
Hosting: Libsyn
Betelgeuse: Aladin Sky Atlas

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.






Friday, April 15, 2016

Episode 49 - The Billion Year Pyramid



Recorded: 15 April 2016
Released: 16 April 2016
Duration: 79 minutes, 8 seconds

We apologize if some of you got the wrong .mp3 file in your feed. Please re-download for the correct audio file.
download the .mp3 audio file
This guy.


Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists David Grigg, Marsha Barnhart, and Nick Nielsen to talk about preserving the artifacts of human culture and civilization of the very long term: why, what and how.

Links:

The Decipherment of Linear B
Murmurs of the Earth by Carl Sagan
The Corbis Photo Vault at Iron Mountain
The Digital Dark Age
The Swerve
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke
Corpus Juris Civlis
The Future of the Past
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Omnilingual
Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition


Recommendations:

David: Murmurs of Earth by Carl Sagan
Nick: Lectures of Alan B. MacNeil on Evolutionary Psychology I
Marsha: Silent Running
Paul Carr: Vikings


Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky
Hardware: Shure, Pro Art, Focusrite, Apple, Sony
Software: Reaper, OS X Yosemite, Loopback
Hosting: Libsyn



Sunday, April 3, 2016

We are on a 2 week tempo now.

We are going to try reducing our episode production rate from one every week, to one every two weeks. This will help reduce the time burden on the producer, but more important, it will help us concentrate our efforts on fewer upcoming episodes so that each one might be of higher quality.

If you want to see the schedule for upcoming episodes, please see our planning and stats sheet. The next "call for panelists" invitations will go out around 15 April, so we will have two sets of invitations active at any one time, instead of four.

We would have to consider returning to a 1 week tempo if enough people joined the panel pool, committed to energetically participating in an episode a few times each year (maybe every 6-7 episodes), and if there were a few more people like James Garrison or Adam Smith who were willing to occasionally step in as guest host. We'll see how it goes.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Episode 48 - Hoaxes: who doesn't like a good show?



Recorded: 1 April 2016
Released: 3 April 2016
Duration:82 minutes, 12 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host James Garrison welcomes Mike Mongo, Mike Bohler, and Marsha Barnhart to talk about
The Project Alpha Perpetrators
hoaxes.

Erratum: It was the Stanford Prison Experiment, not Berkeley.
  • The Patterson Bigfoot footage
  • Piltdown Man and the Cardiff giant
  • P.T. Barnum
  • The Sokal Hoax 
  • Anthropogenic Climate Change - who is being misleading?
  • E-mail scams
  • Martin Gardner's book "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" on pseudoscience and furthering a political agenda
  • Pseudoscience on YouTube
  • Mike Mongo discusses a student's UFO experience - was he delusional? Marsha is not so sure.
  • Some scientists are religious
  • Giant spiders
  • Flat Earthers
  • Hollow moons? Nope.
  • Martian caves.
  • Johann Beringer hoaxed by his students.
  • Project Alpha, Randi and Banachek
  • Poetry hoax
  • Art hoaxes
  • Steve Allen's music hoaxes
    Album Cover of one of Steve Allen's Hoax Records
  • more discussion of the Sokal hoax.
  • Cold Fusion
  • Randi exposed Uri Geller who fooled scientists
  • Stanford Prison Experiment
  • Fitting in with preconceived notions
  • Michael Cremo's cherry picking
  • More on P.T. Barnum
  • What is our current Freak Show? Donald Trump?
  • The Microsoft Tweetbot
  • Wrap Up and Recommendations

 

Links:

The Museum of Hoaxes

The Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot Film
Piltdown Man
P.T. Barnum
The Lying Stones of Johann Beringer
Project Alpha
The Ern Malley Poetry Hoax
The Paul Jordan Smith Painting Hoax
Hoax Cane Spider
The Microsoft Tweetbot

 

Recommendations:

David Grigg: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner
Marsha Barnhart: practice discernment
Mike Mongo: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
James Garrison: Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracy


Credits:

Host: James Garrison
Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky





Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Changes are afoot for this podcast

I recently expressed my frustration to the Unseen Podcast team about the internal processes of the podcast, and how it is too stressful for me to continue with it as is. Our audience continues to grow, but our engagement within the team has not grown with it. So, either we need to fix the process, find new team members who can really help out, or end the podcast. I would rather not do the latter, if we can find a way.

Over the next 2-3 weeks, we will be looking for that way. As always, listener thoughts and impressions are important to us. You can comment here on this blog, or go to our G+ Listener's Community, or our Listener's Subreddit. Everything posted there will be read by the team. If you want to keep your thoughts private, you can just e-mail to our Gmail account, unseenpodcast. here's the trade space as I see it:
  1. Keep things as they are essentially, but recruit several new people, who, once every two months or so, make a serious commitment to be on the panel and do what they can to make it a great episode. Some of these people would occasionally also host an episode (maybe 1-2 times a year)
  2. Change the tempo to bi weekly or monthly, but everyone puts the same effort in, concentrated on fewer shows.
  3. Other, as yet unidentified process changes that result in better preparation for episodes.
  4. Some combination of 1, 2, and 3 above.
  5. Find someone else to produce the podcast who has more time and is better at influencing people. I would reduce my participation to occasional panelist and financial supporter.
  6. End the podcast, plowing some of the saved time and effort into the Wow! Signal.
What do you think? 

Friday, March 18, 2016

Episode 47 - Science Based Everything




Recorded: 18 March 2016
Released: 19 March 2016
Duration: 103 minutes, 24 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr is joined by panelists James Garrison, Mike Bohler and Nick Nielsen, for a wide ranging discussion about science, society, and the messy process by which science gets the money it needs to move forward. First, congratulations are in order for Pamela Gay and her Cosmoquest grant.


  • A completely unnecessary throwaway comment about Fantastic Voyage.
  • A brief update on the repeating Fast Radio Bursts and the (possible) negative detection of any FRB at LOFAR
  • A digression into shortwave radio and the number stations and the changes in maker culture
  • Alternative medicine can kill
  • Steven Novella's recent essay on the hijacking of Evidence Based Medicine and the difference maker by Science Based Medicine.
  • Clever Hans and Facilitated Communication
  • Recovered memories - Satanic Ritual Abuse and Alien Abductions
  • Smart, honest people can be taken in by con artists
  • Civility in Asia
  • The NECSS disinvitation to Richard Dawkins.
  • How Dawkins and Lalla Ward met.
  • The Tully Monster
  • Science Funding
  • Reaching people who don't care about science
  • Recommendations (see below)
  • Nagging, begging

Links:
Raquel Welch in
Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage

Pamela Gay's Cosmoquest.org
Our 2015 Episode (Ep. 20) with special guest Pamela Gay

The Wow! Signal: Jason Hessels on Fast Radio Bursts

The Number Stations


Boy's Fatal Meningitis Treated with Home Remedies
Clever Hans
Clever Hans
Facilitated Communication
John Ioaniddis: Why Most Published Research Findings are False
Steven Novella: Evidence Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked
Our Episode with Bob Novella
Persiflagers' Infectious Disease Puscast

Jim Bakker is Indicted on Federal Charges

Witch Hunting
Roper: The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Century

NECSS and Richard Dawkins
Peter Gabriel - Not One of Us lyrics
An Update on Richard Dawkins' Condition
Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward - How We Met
Lalla Ward in Dr. Who

The Ancient Tully Monster

G. Catalano, et. al., Willingness to Pay for Basic Research
Nick Nielsen: The Social Context of SETI
Mike Mongo, The Astronaut Instruction Manual for Preteens
Google Balance Sheet
Apple Balance Sheet
Laurie Anderson, Lyrics to Big Science

 

Recommendations

James Garrison: George Hrab's Music
Lalla Ward and her husband
Mike Bohler: Nick Nielsen's Blog
Paul Carr: Galaxy Zoo

Credits:

Producer and Host: Paul Carr
Panelists: James Garrison, Mike Bohler, Nick Nielsen
Music: DJ Spooky


Friday, March 11, 2016

Episode 46 - My Anomaly


Recorded: 11 March 2016
Released: 12 March 2016
Duration: 93 minutes, 56 minutes

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Adam Smith, Ciro Villa, Marsha Barnhart, and Patrick Festa. The
Exoplanets Map
team discuss a number of interesting anomalies an how valid and strange they really are. We talk about Quasar clusters, the Kuiper Cliff, Questions about human evolution, flowing water on Mars, and Long Delay Echoes.

Links

The Huge Large Quasar Group
Clowes, et. al., A Structure in the Early Universe
The Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper Cliff
Forbidden Archaeology
Vedic Creationism
The Long Delay Echoes
Volker Grassman's Overview of the LDEs (.pdf)

Recommendations

Adam Smith: Pamela Gay's Cosmoquest
Ciro Villa: Exoplanets Map (density vs. temperature)
Marsha Barnhart: Michael Cremo
Patrick Festa: Brains On
Paul Carr: The Man Who Found Time, a book about Michael Hutton

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Adam Smith, Ciro Villa, Marsha Barnhart, and Patrick Festa
Music: DJ Spooky


The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license.


Friday, March 4, 2016

Episode 45 - Fast Radio Bursts - O to have breath to say what is like thee!


Recorded: 4 March 2016
Released: 5 March 2016
Duration: 94 minutes, 14 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Parkes Observatory
Host Paul Carr welcomes panelists Adam Smith, James Garrison, Marsha Barnhart, and Nick
Nielsen, to talk about the flurry of news over Fast Radio Bursts. What are the facts, and how has the Mainstream Media got it wrong?

Links

Lorimer, et. al. A Bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin

locations for the repeating burst
E. Petroff, et. al., A real-time Fast Radio Burst: polarization detection and multi-wavelength follow-up.
Hippke, et. al., Discrete Steps in Dispersions Measures of Fast Radio Bursts
E. Petroff, et. al., Identifying the source of preteens at the Parkes radio observatory
Keane, e.t. al., A Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxy
P. Williams, et. al., Cosmological Origin for FRB 150418? Not so fast.
Radio Brightening of FRB 1501418 Host Galaxy Candidate

Hessels, et. al., A Repeating Fast Radio Burst

FRBs.txt
Ravi, et. al., A Fast Radio Burst in the Direction of the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy.
S. Burke-Spolaor and K. Bannister, The galactic position dependence of Fast Radio Bursts and the discovery of FRB 011025.
Luan and Goldreich, Physical Constraints on Fast Radio Burst
Petroff, et. al., A survey of FRB Fields: Limits on Repeatability

Recommendations:

Adam Smith: Einstein @Home
Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff
James Garrison: Brains On
Marsha Barnhart: Ex Machina
Nick Nielsen: Unsubscribe
Paul Carr: The Hollow Crown

Credits:

Host and producer: Paul Carr
Panelists: Adam Smith, James Garrison, Marsha Barnhart, Nick Nielsen
Music DJ Spooky

The Unseen Podcast is distributed under the Creative Commons Attributions/Share-Alike License.



Friday, February 26, 2016

This is NOT Episode 45


Recorded: 26 February 2016
Released: 26 February 2016
Duration: 7 minutes, 40 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

A quick audio explanation for the break in our regular rhythm and a plea for more panelists. We hope you will consider joining us, if only for a few times per year.


Friday, February 19, 2016

Episode 44 - Contact with ET Civilizations



Recorded: 19 February 2016
Released: 20 February 2016
Duration: 93 minutes, 16 seconds

download the .mp3 audio file

Host Paul Carr and Panelists Adam Smith, Ciro Villa, Nick Nielsen, and Patrick Festa discuss some scenarios for contacting ET civilizations and what could happen, including some of the protocols that have been defined by the SETI community, and the discovery of a Bracewell Probe.

Note: while we remain an uncensored podcast, we did edit out about 30 seconds of a strange audio glitch that sounded horrible and was of no interest. We left in about 2 seconds of it so you can be glad you didn't hear the whole thing.

Links

Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Protocols for an ETI Signal Detection
Bracewell Probes
Ben McGee on the Search for Alien Artifacts
The Rio Scale
Almar and Tarter: The discovery of ETI as a high-consequence, low-probability event

Recommendations

Adam Smith: Future in Space Hangout
Nick Nielsen: After Contact by Albert A. Harrison
Ciro Villa: If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel
Patrick Festa: Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Paul Carr: Scary Monsters by David Bowie

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky