WHAT: Improbable Research and the Ig Nobel Prizes
WHO: Marc Abrahams is the co-founder and editor of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), and the author of This is Improbable , The Ig Nobel Prizes and other books. He edits and writes much of the website and blog www.improbable.com and the monthly newsletter mini-AIR. He also writes the weekly “Feedback” column in New Scientist. Before all of this, he was editor of the Journal of Improbable Results, and before THAT, a software engineer and before THAT, an applied mathematics graduate of Harvard, where he was a year behind Bill Gates. Unlike Gates, he finished college, although his software company was somewhat less successful.
WHEN: Thursday 8 June @ 7:30PM Pacific (0230 UTC)
WHERE : Online. Click HERE to join.
Previous SkepTalks:
11 May 2023 ¿Extraterrestrial Life? – Alex Filippenko 13 April 2023 ¿Did paleo people actually eat Paleo? – Briana Pobiner 9 Mar 2023 Netflix’ Ancient Apocalypse: Confronting Mainstream Pseudoarchaeology – John Hoopes 9 Feb 2023 The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal – Jennifer Reich 12 Jan 2023 Racism, Not Race: Answers to Questions Even a Skeptic Might Ask – Joseph Graves 8 Dec 2022 Gods and Robots: Imagining Artificial Life in Antiquity – Adrienne Mayor 10 Nov 2022 Science Education in an Age of Misinformation – Jonathan Osborne 13 Oct 2022 Science vs… History? – Wendy Zuckerman & Sebastion Major 8 Sep 2022 How to Effectively Push Back Against Misinformation – Jonathan Jarry 11 Aug 2022 What Does Evidence Do – Jenny Rice 9 Jun 2022 How to Talk to a Science Denier – Lee McIntyre 12 May 2022 Superstitions, Aliens, and Conspiracies: The Frontlines of Astronomy Outreach – Mike Simmons 14 Apr 2022 Confidence Men: How 2 Prisoners Made History’s Most Remarkable Escape – Margalit Fox 10 Mar 2022 The Reality of Reality TV – Yau-Man Chan 10 Feb 2022 Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls – Yudhijit Bhattacharjee 13 Jan 2022 Weirdness!: What Fake Science & the Paranormal Tell Us about the Nature of Science – Taner Edis 9 Dec 2021 Dangers of the “Lost Civilization” Trope – A.J. White 11 Nov 2021 Machineries of Doubt: Climate, Cigarettes & Confusion – John Mashey 9 Sep 2021 The Great Australian Psychic Prediction Project – Richard Saunders 12 Aug 2021 What To Do About Misinformation (in Four Dimensions) – John Cook 8 July 2021 Tilting at Strawmen & Other Tricks of Climate Denial Enablers – Mark Boslough 10 Jun 2021 The Truth Behind False Memories – Jill Yamashita 13 May 2021 Vaccine hesitancy in the era of COVID – Tara C. Smith 8 Apr 2021 Why storytelling is vital to science communication – Sara ElShafie 11 Mar 2021 Haunted Humanity: The Fringe Is Not Fringe, and That’s a Big Deal – Daniel Loxton 11 Feb 2021 From Junk to Genes: The birth of new miRNA genes in the human genome – Nathan Lents 14 Jan 2021 The Continuing Relevance of America’s Eugenic Legacy – Paul Lombardo 10 Dec 2020 Deepfakes, GANs and Visual Misinformation – Nick Dufour 12 Nov 2020 The Debate about Dark Matter: Is the Matter Settled? – Don Lincoln 8 Oct 2020 Facilitated Communication: Holding on to (False) Hope – Janyce Boynton 10 Sep 2020 Mad Myths: The Case for Using Persuasion to Promote Critical Thinking – Jay Diamond 13 Feb 2020 Big Data: What it is, how it’s used, where it’s headed – Mike Olson 12 Dec 2019 Are you sure that sippy-cup is safe? – Layla Katiraee 7 Nov 2019 Why Do People Reject Good Science? – Eugenie Scott 10 Oct 2019 Shit Students Say: Chem trails, hollow earths, and other strange ideas – Steven Newton 12 Sep 2019 Successful Skepticism: Creating Lasting Community – Tucker Phelps 9 May 2019 The Bitter M&Ms of Climate Change: Misconceptions and Misinformation – Brad Hoge 11 Apr 2019 The Year in Anti-Science-Education Legislation – Glenn Branch 14 Mar 2019 Australia’s Psychic Detectives and Psychic “Predictions” – Richard Saunders 14 Feb 2019 What Would Darwin Say to Today’s Creationists? – Eugenie Scott 10 Jan 2019 Common Misconceptions About CRISPR Genome Editing – Kevin Doxzen 13 Dec 2018 BAS BAH Fest 8 Nov 2018 A Skeptic’s Guide to Planet Hunting – Josh Lofy 11 Oct 2018 Beyond a Candle in the Dark – Mick West 13 Sep 2018 When a Biology Meets a Biology – David Almandsmith 10 May 2018 Common Misconceptions in Anthropology – Julie Hui 12 Apr 2018 Skepardy! — Bill Patterson 8 Mar 2018 A Quirky Colloquium Quashing Quantum Quackery — Miriam Diamond 8 Feb 2018 The Human Drive to Explain — Tania Lombrozo 14 Jan 2018 Neuroscience and the Great Questions — Ransom Stephens 14 Dec 2017 Top Ten Myths of Homelessness — Carrie Sager 9 Nov 2017 Myths of Mass Extinctions — Kevin Padian 12 Oct 2017 Hurricanes and Heat Waves: Is This Climate Change? — Brad Hoge 11 May 2017 Beyond the Choir – Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia — Susan Gerbic 13 Apr 2017 An Invisible Plague: the Growing Threat of Tuberculosis — Lauren Popov 9 Feb 2017 Are Saturated Fats Bad for You? Separating Fat from Fiction — Kent McDonald 12 Jan 2017 Harry Houdini vs. Psychics & Mediums — Mark Tarses 29 Dec 2016 Too Good to be True? – Richard Saunders 10 Nov 2016 Myths of Astronomy — Thomas Targett 10 Sep 2015 Angle Trisection: A problem many tried to solve — Paul Stepahin 9 Apr 2015 Herding Cats and Teaching Science — Dan Pemberton 12 Feb 2015 Quantum Pseudoscience and the Nature of Mind — Russel Willcox 8 Jan 2015 The Manson Family, Cults, and the Psychology of Commitment – Dr. Patrick O’Reilly 10 Oct 2012 Writing About Vaccines When Evidence Doesn’t Matter — Liza Gross 12 Sep 2012 Gay Conversion Therapy: You Make Me Sick — Sheldon Helms 8 Aug 2012 Documentary & Skype — “In God We Teach” 11 Apr 2012 A Skeptical View of Climate Change Skeptics — Mark McCaffrey 14 Nov 2011 Climate Change: From the Biotic to the Exotic — Minda Berbeco 12 Oct 2011 A Unicorn in Your Tank: Magic Tablets That Won’t Improve Gas Mileage — Yau-Man Chan 14 Sep 2011 Catastrophes! — Don Prothero
