This week we present our commentary on the Mibd, Body, Wallet Spirit fair held three weeks ago at Colorado State University. The presenters ranged from the earnest, to the nuts, to the outright fraudulent. Joining me for the fair itself, but not the commentary were Kai and Joe Haswell. Kai's blog can be found here.

This week we were joined by Naomi Baker. While I was present, I had a bad cold, barely participated, and have no memory of being there. But I'm sure it was fun. Naomi discussed the issue of paper versus plastic before we started following amusing tangents.

Scientists may have identified the first specks of interstellar dust in material collected by the US space agency's Stardust spacecraft.

A stream of this dust flows through space; the tiny particles are building blocks that go into making stars and planets.

The Nasa spacecraft was primarily sent to catch dust streaming from Comet Wild 2 and return it to Earth for analysis.

But scientists also set out to capture particles of interstellar dust.

The material was gathered by the Stardust probe in a seven-year, 4.8-billion-km (2.9 billion miles) interplanetary voyage.

It extended a retractable device containing cells filled with a material called aerogel, a porous substance designed to trap dust molecules.

A capsule containing the precious samples was then returned to Earth in January 2006.

Team members have now reported the possible discovery of two contemporary interstellar dust grains in the Stardust Interstellar Dust Collector (SIDC) deployed during the mission.

Dr Andrew Westphal, from the University of California, Berkeley, announced the find at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.

This week we were joined by special guests Michael Knauf and Darla Gabbitas to discuss the implications of medical marijuana. Jeff Wagg was unable to join us for this recording, he was halfway through his move at the time. More information about our guests can be found below.

Michael J. Knauf
Ogborn, Summerlin & Ogborn, LLC
1120 Lincoln Street, Suite 1100
Denver, Colorado 80203
(303) 861-7472

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Darla Gabbitas
Ogborn, Summerlin & Ogborn, LLC
1120 Lincoln Street, Suite 1100
Denver, Colorado 80203
(303) 861-7472
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I hate jukeboxes. It really doesn't matter what the music being played is, or who played it. The very concept of a jukebox is anathema to me. Here is a device that has more ability to ruin my evening than any other. Think about this scenario, you're enjoying a quiet evening at the bar watching the Olympics only to have some vapid idiots interrupt the lives of everyone present to hear some bass filled, loud, musicless track so they can jump around in spastic, possibly epileptic, contortions related to dance in only the most tangential way.

But that's just one specific example. The concept of a jukebox isn't being able to listen to what you want to hear, it's the ability to decide for everyone else what they will be forced to hear. Even if they were perfectly content hearing nothing at all. Playing music in a bar is an act of extreme arrogance. This does not apply to venues where dancing is expected, but to simple bars. This also raises the larger question, which I won't address, which is how can one individual be so oblivious to, and insensitive of, the feelings of the others in the small room they have decided to unleash their inner asshole upon.

I used to engage in jukebox warfare, interrupting the music, and mood, by playing something that those using the electronic torture device would hate, interfering with them as much as they interfere with me. But it doesn't work, so I have a new idea. Normally, a song on the jukebox costs one dollar to play. Manufacturers should add a feature that allows the song playing to be immediately stopped and skipped for only a quarter. This would increase revenue, and force the person picking a song to make a good choice. Failing that, users should be allowed to purchase, for the price of a song, an empty track lasting the duration of an average song.

These are just pipe dreams though. The problem won't go away until someone gets drunk enough to shoot the thing, or someone figures out how to hack the device remotely. I'm working on the second option, give it time.

This week we were joined by Kitty Mervine, alien expert and host of BadAlien.org. We discussed aliens, abduction, sex and holy pizza, and more.

*** Correction

In this episode we incorrectly stated that the SETI@home project is affiliated with the SETI Institute. Though they have similar goals they are separate organizations.

More information about SETI@home can be found here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/.

More information about the SETI Institute can be found here: http://www.seti.org/.

What would happen if biologists discovered a North American ape? Obviously the Bigfoot community would go, well, ape. They would very likely declare that the Sasquatch had finally been found and didn't we skeptics feel foolish now? But would that be the correct response?

The problem with Cryptozoology, and the reason it isn't science is that they are searching for specific animals, and not just something new. If what they wanted was to discover a new species they could become actual zoologists, and they would be successful. Instead they search for the elusive animal x. Lets go back to my opening question. What would happen if we found a large footed ape? It would be announced, of course, and studied. If it truly was something new, and not a deformed known animal, it would be given a Latin name, catalogued, and entered into the biological record. But would this be Bigfoot? The real Bigfoot? I'm sure many would say yes, but others would still hold the belief that this is just an ape and not the pandimensional creature they have been hunting. Were its feet really that big?

And this is the problem. When one sets out to discover an animal that they are sure exists, but no one has ever seen, they will fail every time. I chose Bigfoot for this example because there is such a rich mythology surrounding it, but it could be applied to any mythical animal. Is that a unicorn or just a horse with a horn? Something matching some, or most, of the features for animal x could be found, but one could never identify it as being animal x. There is simply nothing to compare it to.

Cryptozoology is, and will always remain, non-science. New species are discovered every day, none of them are, or ever were mythical. Any "science" that operates from a conclusion first will always fail. We may find a large footed ape, but you still won't have found Bigfoot.

This week we were joined in studio by Dr. Tom Stohlgren, a research ecologist for Colorado State University. Tom came in to discuss the scientific method, how to properly run a study, and critical thought.

*** A Correction From Jeff Wagg

"Folks, I apparently described the Bernoulli Effect BACKWARDS. Air flows faster over the wing, not under it, and this is what causes lift. Also, I learned that there is a huge controversy over the Bernoulli Effect and flying that rivals the Anthropomorphic Global Warming debates. Anyway, I'm sorry I screwed that up. If you'd like more gory details, please visit this article: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/873-skeptic-be-not-proud.html"

Another brilliant piece from Tim Minchin!

On Wednesday, February 10th, Colorado State University's Health Network hosted its sixth annual Mind, Body, Spirit Fair.  According to their website, the fair is "designed to enhance participant’s awareness of complementary and alternative wellness practices related to the mind, body and spirit connection".  As the dedicated skeptics (read: party-crashing assholes) we are, Brian and I decided it might be interesting to check it out.  We showed up at around 9:30 am with a tape recorder and some brochures that I had made up the day before (in which I laid out, very briefly, the potential harm in taking untested medicine, especially in leiu of established health practices).

We didn't make it to the early events, but it doesn't appear as though we missed all that much.  According to the itinerary, some quack babbled about the "Quantum Field of all possibilities" for a while and someone else read auras with the help of colored bottles filled with herbs.  Apparently she had received inspiration for this method through prayer and meditation.  Need I say more?  Didn't think so.

We briefly stopped by a student panel on "Connecting Spirituality to the Earth's Environment", but after 10 minutes of sheer tedium, I was begging Brian to let us get the hell out of there.  None of the speakers made any attempt to comment on real issues; instead, they settled for throwing around vague phrases like "people need to appreciate the environment more" and "everything is about cycles".  One student kept harping on about how "everything has a soul--a spiritual energy".  (How does he know?  I mean, come on.)

Finally, the main event began at 1:00 pm, when around 50 vendors showed up to peddle their rabbit feet and snake oil to the unsuspecting hordes.  Brian broke out the tape recorder, and I began scanning the crowd for the most outrageous booths.  One table, bedecked in very scientific-looking graphs, held a monitor with a bleeping display.  I went to check it out while Brian headed over to the Laser Therapy booth. Ten minutes later, I still had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at, or why I should be convinced to buy one.  As far as I can tell, the machine was supposed to be able to accurately assess the condition of every one of your organs, just by having you hold a shiny metal bar.  When I asked the vendor what would happen if the machine were used on a dead person, he said all the results would show up as 'Perfect'.  He managed to keep a straight face when he said this, which led me to believe that he was actually serious.

Over at the Laser Therapy booth, Brian was interrogating the vendor about his multi-thousand dollar laser machine that was supposed to cure, well, everything.  After the seller spectacularly avoided answering most of our technical questions, Brian ventured to ask what the difference was between this laser thingy and any $5 laser pointer you can pick up at Office Depot.  "Well, nothing," the vendor admitted, "Except this one has a broader range."  So if you were thinking about dropping $8,000 on this machine, don't.

We visited most of the other booths over the course of the afternoon, but we were largely met with vague claims about "energy healing" and "spiritual enhancement".  At some point, it's just impossible to engage in useful conversation with these people.  If you believe that there's a floating aura surrounding your body, and I don't, there's not a whole lot to be said.  It was actually very annoying how careful most of the vendors were to make claims that could not possibly be refuted.  Even the psychics weren't really teaching you how to be psychic: it was all about personal potential, or something equally inane.

Around 4:00, I became too dead weary to go on any longer.  There was supposed to be a keynote speaker, and some other smaller events, but by God, I couldn't take any more.  My only hope is that most of the people who showed up realize that those treatments shouldn't replace real medicine.  And realistically, I think most people do realize that.   If something is seriously wrong with them, most everyone is still going to end up in a doctor's office at the end of the day.  It's only the serious nutjobs we have to be really concerned about.