A SkepTalk by Dr. Lauren Popov on 13 April 2017 Dr. Popov’s cheerful voice contrasted strangely with the horror of tuberculosis; indeed, she commented on that herself. However, her upbeat delivery and highly informative details kept me and the rest of the audience captivated throughout her presentation. She began by pointing out that:

• Although the ebola virus outbreak that began in 2014 in West Africa killed about 9,000 people, a similar number of people die from tuberculosis every 44 hours
• One-third of the world’s population is already infected
• About 30,000 people become infected every day
• Tuberculosis is strongly associated with poverty
• It disperses through the air from coughing sufferers to infect others
• Strains of tuberculosis continue to arise that are resistant to antibiotics
• Most infected people remain asymptomatic for years

Dr. Popov hopes to understand how tuberculosis bacteria manage to avoid destruction by our disease-fighting macrophage cells. In fact, the bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, live and multiply within our macrophages. Conducting her research on tuberculosis is both difficult and dangerous.

• Tuberculosis bacteria grow and replicate very slowly which can make the simplest experiment last many months
• Inhal

The Bay Area Skeptic’s SkepTalk of 8 August 2012 attracted a packed house and delivered a riveting program that included a one-hour documentary movie followed by the Skype presence of the movie’s principal character, Matthew LaClair. The story begins when Matt LaClair, a student at a suburban New Jersey public high school, hears his history teacher insert Christian proselytizing into his lessons. LaClair believed the teacher was doing this in the other classes he taught and probably had been for years. LaClair also believed that if he voiced an objection [on the basis of respecting the separation of church and state] the teacher would still continue proselytizing in other classes. Matt decided to bring a tape recorder to class and recorded what the teacher had to say about Jesus. [Teacher on tape] “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.” LaClair and his parents released the tape to the media

The demonstrators wore white t-shirts with ???10²³ Homeopathy: There???s Nothing In It??? emblazoned in blue. One demonstrator, Athena, had blue hair to match. We assembled at the corner of Franklin & California Streets in San Francisco with a banner & leaflets to protest the marketing of homeopathic ???remedies??? by Whole Foods, CVS, Walgreens, and others. Similar and simultaneous demonstrations were taking place in 22 other cities on all seven continents around the planet. We passed out the small information leaflets, took pictures of each other, and chatted in uncharacteristically warm weather. Among the demonstrators were folk from The Exploratorium, the California Academy of Science, Atheist Nexus, Reason 4 Reason, East Bay Skeptics Society, two board members from the Bay Area Skeptics, miscellaneous skeptics, scientists, programmers, and students. At 10:23 AM, we all quaffed ???over-doses??? of homeopathic remedies ??? sort of. Since ???real??? homeopathic fake medicine costs ???r