Bob Siederer
24 February 2025

Hello again Science Fans!

In the two weeks since I last wrote the SciSchmooze, so much has happened in the world related to science that I’m not sure where to begin. I usually start collecting articles in the two weeks prior to the issue and have 10 - 15 to write about. Today, I have 28! Things have happened so fast, however, that some of them are sure to be outdated. So let’s see if I can make heads or tails of what I’ve saved for this issue.

Starting with … Space

Have you forgotten about Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts who were sent to t

Herb Masters
17 February 2025

Steven Newton
12 February 2025

Superbowl number … I’m going to say, XYXX? No. NXIVM? No, that’s something different. Does anyone still know Roman numerals? Let’s just call it Superb Owl 2025. In any event, it’s a big deal, with about 120 million people watching. Depending on your Roman numeral mathematical skills, that may or may not compare to the 1.5 billion people who watched the World Cup Final in 2022.

Carl Sagan posited that sports could be a great way to connect scientific ideas to everyone. Critical sports analysis could also help foster skeptical thinking by demolishing myths, such as the idea that a baseball player who hasn’t scored a hit in a long time is “due” a run.

So when Superb Owl 2025 commences wit

Bob Siederer
10 February 2025

Hello again Science Fans!

Have you ever suddenly wondered about a perfectly normal English word that you probably use now and then? I woke up the other day with the word “bushel” stuck in my thoughts. The more I wondered about why it was there, the stranger the word seemed.

I know how the word came into my head. The night before, I was in the YouTube rabbit hole again, watching a post from a young farmer in Nebraska who was talking about how many bushels of corn from her farm she was taking to the storage facility. My subconscous must have been working on this for me to wake up wit

2 February 2025

Hello again science fans!
科学ファンの皆さん、こんにちは！
(The first Japanese immigrants arrived in the Bay Area in 1869. Today about 20,000 Bay Area residents spe

Eugenie C. Scott
28 January 2025

My doc says I should walk a lot, and so I listen to a lot of podcasts as I trudge off on some errand. I listen to a variety of podcasts on a variety of topics, and I’ve been struck at how many podcasts I could classify as “skeptical”, dealing with topics we skeptics are concerned with, or that showcase good critical thinking.

There are a lot of self-identified skeptical podcasts, and you probably listen to some of them: Skeptics Guide to the Universe; The Skeptic Zone; Skeptoid; and so on. The “ Skeptisphere

Bob Siederer
27 January 2025

Hello again Science Fans!

It is the last week of the first month of 2025, and already it has been an unprecedented month. From the fires in and around Los Angeles to Trump’s first week in office, a lot has happened.

Let’s start with the end of the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. Gaia saw first light in July, 2014. As the image above shows, it was busy, lasting almost twice as long as expected.

Gaia’s primary mission was to develop a precise map of the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Data from the mission is still being analyzed and we can expect more announcement of discoverie

Herb Masters
20 January 2025

Greetings Science Fans,

I hope that you are not feeling too bad about how this week is starting out. I fear that “Science” is going to be put to many tests and challenges in the next few years. I’m going to try and avoid politics and polemics here! But to do that exclusively would be to deny what for many of us is reality, that science is being denied and decisions are being made without evidence or reason, and also to deny the use of science to preserve or even improve and understand our amazing home planet and universe. There will be risks to be taken as we move forward. Who will be empowered to decide? 

Hello and Happy Random (?) Point in the journey around the Sun!

As I’ve done for many years, I attended the Monterey County SkeptiCamp on the first weekend of the year. I find it to be a great opportunity to cleanse your skeptical palette and start a new year with new, rational ideas. Plus it’s a lot of fun.

A SkeptiCamp is a free, informal conference in which anyone, usually amateur skeptics,  present on a subject in science and/or scientific skepticism. Speakers may want to explore a new topic, be deeply passionate experts, or just have a need to rant about irrationality in society. This year, subjects included a discussion of the social contagion around drones that is sweeping parts of the USA, medical claims around stem cells curing all disease, and rationally assessing risk with data. 

A former teacher discussed creating constructiv