Probably Science

Zach Reino (@zachreino), actor/writer/host of the improvised musical podcast Off Book, joins Matt and Andy to discuss ancient Chinese medicine’s surprisingly recent history, Germany’s weird Chinese tradition, Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws, reactivating dead pigs’ brains, a brain implant that produces speech, HIV curing a bubble boy, why vitamins from pills don’t work and the Galileo Fallacy.

Comedian Dave Waite (@davewaitecomedy) joins Matt and Andy to talk about khaki diaper butt, geography pride, a black hole image, the video Janna sent about said black hole, world records for rabbit fur and big pizzas, Stonehenge builders, measles and chicken pox and smiling.

Comedian Doug Mellard (@dougmellard) joins Andy and Matt to talk about All Space Considered, asteroid fossils, the Thatcher Effect, upside-down viewing, Tom Cruise's middle tooth, Catalina, earthquake prep podcasts, octopus attacks and octopus wrestling, the rules of kabaddi, eye bees, a four-legged whale fossil, Matt and Andy becoming parasite-famous, a Japanese bomb on an asteroid and India fucking up space.

Writer/comedian friend of the show Nick Doody (@NickDoody) returns to discuss linguistics, space herpes, atoms and the strong force, the reason for zebra stripes or maybe not, a physics theory as to why time flies more as we age, the first female Abel prize winner, famous Norwegians, lady strokes from lady strokes, the Citizens of Nowhere podcast and Bigipedia.

Returning guests Sarah Morgan (@sarahlmorgan) and Brendon Burns (@brendonburns) join Matt and Andy to talk about air travel, SpaceX’s new not-quite-manned flight, monkey peril, the Mars mission that may not be, rare semi-identical twins and a lot of talk about Brendon’s stonefish encounter. Listen to Brendon’s Dumb White Guy podcast and Sarah’s show The Fear.

Cannabis educator Emma Chasen (@echasen) and comedian Marcus Coleman (@MrMarcusColeman) join Matt and Andy for a live show in Portland as part of the Listen Up! festival, discussing the complex science of the effects of cannabis, the difficulties in researching it, and the many hard-to-dispell myths surrounding it.

The final stop of the Probably Science Australia tour brings Andy and Matt to Melbourne on Valentine’s Day, where they welcome Sheree Marris (@shereemarris), author of Kama SEAtra, and returning guest Wil Anderson (@Wil_Anderson) to discuss the sex lives of aquatic creatures, male seahorses who birth thousands of babies, necking sea slugs, barnacle penises, cross-dressing cuttlefish and the fact that the city of of Melbourne was almost called Batmania. This episode is brought to you thanks to the generosity of Inspiring Australia and The Australian Society for Parasitology.

Andy and Matt welcome comedian Liz Miele (@lizmiele) and astrophysicist/software engineer Samuel Hinton (@samreay) to the stage in Brisbane to talk about Brewsvegas pool parties, Australia's most retweeted tweet, the fun of e-scooters, lax Australian airport security, the various ways Matt has broken teeth, dyslexic comedians, Liz's veterinarian parents, resume padding, being on Australian Survivor, dark matter and dark energy, proving Einstein right time after time, criticism of LIGO data analysis, the vacuum catastrophe, meeting Destruction Lane, Bayesian modeling, Roko's Basilisk, the plot of Annie 2, Andy meeting an AC/DC offspring, arXiv vs. viXra and Samuel's upcoming PhD thesis. This episode is brought to you thanks to the generosity of Inspiring Australia and The Australian Society for Parasitology.

Matt and Andy descend upon Sydney for the third leg of the Australian tour, welcoming Ig Nobel Prize-winning researcher Callum Ormonde and comedian Jen Carnovale (@Jen_Carnovale) to talk about living down your sister's reputation, what to put in a microwave, the Ig Nobel Prize itself, how Callum accidentally unboiled an egg, past Ig Nobel nominees and winners who studied things like how a Moroccan emperor managed to father almost a thousand children, magnetically levitating a frog, why old men have big ears, how contact with a crocodile affects gambling decisions, using a didgeridoo to fix snoring, CEOs escaping natural disasters, putting a stick on a chicken's butt to make it walk like a dinosaur, human diet drugs satiating mosquitoes' bloodlust and Callum's TEDx talk. This episode is brought to you thanks to the generosity of Inspiring Australia and The Australian Society for Parasitology.

The second stop of the Probably Science Australia tour brings Andy and Matt to Perth to talk with Carey Marx (@careymarx) about watching the Super Bowl in Australia, the Perth's Fringe World Festival, working as a magician, drop bears, when kangaroos learned to hop, the correct population of Perth, vanadium mining, global warming making the oceans bluer, how America's colonization cooled Earth's climate, Australia's slow Internet, GOOP's upcoming Netflix show, Carey demonstrating spoon-bending with a fork (which Patreon subscribers can see the unintended consequences of), punching an asteroid, a USB stick found in frozen seal poo and what makes you cringe. This episode is brought to you thanks to the generosity of Inspiring Australia and The Australian Society for Parasitology.