Shows
The DemystifySci PodcastWhat Your Face Says About You - Taylor Northcutt, DemystifySci #373Taylor Northcutt, the mind behind the Prosopa Youtube channel, dives into the forbidden science of physiognomy: the belief that the face is a map of the soul. From ancient mystics to modern algorithms, we trace how civilizations tried to read truth, sin, and destiny in bone and flesh. What if your features aren’t random? What if your face is the interface between body, mind, and fate?PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showHO...
2025-10-152h 43The DemystifySci PodcastTeleportation, Time, and Rabbit Hole Physics - Dr. Ivette Fuentes, DemystifySci #372Dr. Ivette Fuentes is a quantum physicist at the University of Southampton, where she studies the strange edge between quantum mechanics and relativity. We try to get on the same page about what it means to bend time, warp gravity, and what gives objects mass. We explore the philosophy of physics, the mystical cult of quantum woo, and how real science confronts the unsettling truth that reality might not exist the way we think it does. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFT...
2025-10-122h 46The DemystifySci PodcastJung, Pauli, and the Mathematical Atom - James P. Dowling, DemystifySci #371In this episode James P. Dowling talks us through the unlikely friendship between physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist Carl Jung. Their dialogue on quantum mechanics and archetypes pulled science and myth into the same room, forcing each to reckon with the other’s language. Out of their exchanges came visions of atoms haunted by the unconscious, and shadows that reached into equations. We follow their conversation to ask what happens when reason and dream try to share the same desk.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPA...
2025-10-082h 42The DemystifySci PodcastWe Need to Delete 500 Years of Fake History - Lance Weaver, DemystifySci #370Geologist Lance Weaver steps back into the circle, carrying a wild heresy: that five centuries in the Egyptian record are ghosts, smoke, a trick of the scribes. Strip them away, he says, and the Bible and the Pharaohs suddenly stare eye to eye, like two old enemies who’ve just remembered they were brothers. We walk with him through the obscurely sourced Kolbrin Bible, through the rubble of forgotten empires, through the hush of timelines cracking open. What if the past is not what we’ve been told, but a fever dream waiting to be woken from?
2025-10-052h 12The DemystifySci PodcastWhere Biology Goes Off the Rails - Dr. Michael Levin, DemystifySci #369Michael Levin is a synthetic biologist at Tufts University who believes that asking questions about “life” is a fruitless project. Instead, he argues that we ought to be trying to understand the emergence of cognition - a feature that he believes appears long before cells emerge. As part of this project, Levin has started to pull on a series of threads woven through the origin of life debate that seem to show basic elements of thinking systems - habituation, sensitization, conditioning - can be found in simple physical networks. We dig into how these systems work, what they reveal abou...
2025-10-041h 06The DemystifySci PodcastElectrons, LENR, & Ancient High Tech - Dr. Max Fomitchev-Zamilov, DemystifySci #368Max Fomitchev Zamilov is a nuclear physicist, inventor, and bubble fusion reactor builder who has also been a central figure in the characterization of the predynastic vases from ancient Egypt. We sit down with him for a conversation that can only happen with an experimental physicist - about overlooked electrical phenomena that diverge from theory, how all the reports of successful low energy nuclear fusion reactions fall apart under close scrutiny, and a wild theory about where these weird vases are coming from. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysci
2025-09-292h 55The DemystifySci PodcastWhy You Shouldn't Fear Bad Ideas - SOLO! Drs. A.V. Bendebury & M.S. DeLay, DemystifySci #367Shilo and Nastia sit down for a wide-ranging conversation about engaging with controversial thinkers, the role of skepticism in uncovering truth, and the cultural resistance to uncomfortable ideas. We cover the limits of philosophy and science, the prevalence of propaganda on all corners of the internet, and the sacred cow ideas that shape our understanding of reality. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showHOMEBREW MUSIC - Check out our new album!
2025-09-251h 49The DemystifySci Podcast1000 Year Plan to Crush Thought - Michael Vassar, DemystifySci #366Michael Vassar is a futurist philosopher who believes that our civilization has lost the ability to think clearly, as the result of a silent project to destroy education that has been running in the background for generations. At the core of his argument is that the modern world has been shaped by elites interested in taking over the world. Interestingly, he seems to think that this multi-generational plan has backfired, and produced a society where there is a vanishingly small number of people even capable of formulating such grand ambitions, let alone possess the cognitive abilities to execute on...
2025-09-243h 05The DemystifySci Podcast60 Second Theories - Paradigm Drift #6, DemystifySciDemystifySci is the place where we bring people together in search of the theories that will change the world, and Paradigm Drift is your chance to have a hand in that future. Theorists, randomly chosen, get 60 seconds to present their revolutionary idea... and then we see if it's gonna stand the test of time or if it's back into the tank for a little while longer.Next one will be Friday 10/17, @7pm Pacific. Sign up now: https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-show. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysci00:00 Go! 00:03:00 Memory in Biological Systems00:10:00 Evolutionary Biology's Limitations00:18:20 Exploring Environmental Factors in...
2025-09-182h 23The DemystifySci PodcastUnsolved Mysteries of Electrostatics - Dr. Andre Assis, DemystifySci #364Andre Koch Torres Assis is a professor of Physics at the University of Campinas in Brazil, who has been studying the history of electricity and electrodynamics for more than thirty years. As part of his research, he has assembled put together a collection of experiments that demonstrate some of the earliest experiences that natural philosophers had with electricity - and which show how poorly understood these phenomena still are today, more than two hundred years after they were first observed. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysci...
2025-09-162h 35The DemystifySci PodcastEntropy is a Death Cult - Howard Bloom, DemystifySci #362Howard Bloom is an author, scientist, and former music industry publicist, who argues that entropy has been disastrously misapplied as a universal law across physics, cosmology, biology, information theory, and culture. In this episode we explore how a concept that was initially formulated in context of steam engines was used to create a story of universe doomed from the start, and explore Bloom’s radical alternative: that the universe — from atoms to galaxies, evolution to economics, music to technology — is not destined for collapse, but driven toward order, complexity, creativity, and flamboyant progress.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demyst...
2025-09-082h 33The DemystifySci PodcastRationality Couldn't Replace God: What's Next? - Dr. Michael Hughes, DemystifySci #361Michael Hughes is a biochemist, water researcher and friend of the podcast with a passion for philosophy, mythology, and esoteric traditions. In this conversation, we explore the historical tension between priesthood and prophecy, the way science has replaced religion as a cultural authority, and ask why no society has ever thrived without a shared mythos. The discussion touches on mythology as a guiding force, Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual dualism, the balance between materialism and mysticism, the promises and failures of technology, transhumanism, and AI. We also dive into the rise of UFOs and alien narratives as new messianic myths, th...
2025-09-052h 41The DemystifySci PodcastHidden Payoff of Civilizational Ruin - Dr. Dani Sulikowski, DemystifySci #360Danielle Sulikowski, professor of evolutionary psychology, presents a controversial theory on why global fertility rates and birth rates are collapsing. She argues that an evolutionary strategy known as female mate suppression—where dominant women repress the reproductive success of rivals—has shifted in humans into a modern form of antinatal social contagion. Rather than direct biological suppression, the strategy manifests as propaganda and cultural messaging that discourage motherhood, promote career over family, and accelerate population decline. We explore how intrasexual competition among women could shape civilization itself, why some groups might defect against thei...
2025-09-022h 17The DemystifySci PodcastIf Telepathy Happens, By What Physics? - Helanê Wahbeh, DemystifySci #359What if telepathy isn’t fantasy, but an undiscovered frontier of biophysics? In this conversation, Helené Wahbeh of the Institute of Noetic Sciences joins us to explore how mind-to-mind communication could be studied through neuroscience, quantum theory, and consciousness research. We’re not obsessed with whether it’s real — we’re asking how it would work if it were. A tightrope the edge of what's known, where psi phenomena meets mechanism and physics.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showOUR HOMEBREWED MUSIC Check out our ban...
2025-08-272h 36The DemystifySci PodcastIf Teleportation Happened, By What Physics? - Ashton Forbes, DemystifySci #358What if Flight MH370 wasn’t just lost, but simply became hidden from view? In this episode with controversial youtuber Ashton Forbes, we take the mystery seriously: not as magic, but as a challenge to what we think we know about plasma, quantum mechanics, and fusion. The question isn’t about belief, but about possibility: if teleportation happened, what physical mechanisms could explain it? We're at the edge of reason for this one, where mystery bashes up again rationality.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showOUR HOMEBREWED MUSICCheck out our band's new album:https://secretaryofnature.band...
2025-08-242h 45The DemystifySci Podcast60 Second Theories - Paradigm Drift #5, DemystifySciDemystifySci is the place where we bring people together in search of the theories that will change the world, and Paradigm Drift is your chance to have a hand in that future. Theorists, randomly chosen, get 60 seconds to present their revolutionary idea... and then we see if it's gonna stand the test of time or if it's back into the tank for a little while longer.Next one will be September 5th, 7pm Pacific. Sign up now: https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-show. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysci00:00 Go! Introduction to Paradigm Drift #500:04:48 – Austin: Theory of...
2025-08-242h 10The DemystifySci PodcastZero-Point Energy Unifies Physics - Nassim Haramein, DemystifySci #357Nassim Haramein, mathematical physicist and director of the International Space Federation, has spent three decades chasing the holy grail of science — unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity. Building on Einstein and Rosen’s 1930s equations, wormholes, and failed proton radius predictions, Haramein claims a simple tweak unlocks the secrets of the proton, the strong force, gravity, and the fluid dynamics of spacetime itself. In this conversation, we explore zero-point energy, the quantum vacuum, and a vision for future technologies rooted in a unified theory of physics.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showOUR HOMEBREWED MUSICCheck out...
2025-08-172h 47The DemystifySci PodcastThe Speed of Light is a Big Problem - Dr. C.S. Unnikrishnan, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #356Filmed at DemystiCon 2025 in Portugal, Dr. C.S. Unnikrishnan, from India's Tata Institute, reveals a very different take on the nature of light. Beyond the noise of headlines and textbooks, the speed of light's measurement isn't proving to be so simple. Drawing on years at the heart of experiments that listen for the universe’s faintest signals, he questions whether the speed of light is truly constant. Here, gravity and clocks intertwine, and relativity itself stands on uncertain ground. PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showOUR HOMEBREWED MUSICCheck out our band's new album:https://secretaryofnature.ba...
2025-08-1458 minThe DemystifySci PodcastAntennas Expose the Secrets of Light - Dr. Hans Schantz, DemystifySci #355From the copper spines of antennas to the invisible dance of light, our conversation with Dr. Hans Schantz traces the story of physics most students never hear about. Dr. Schantz, a theoretical physicist turned engineer who studied under John Wheeler, unpacks the forgotten role of physical mediators in electromagnetism and what modern antenna design can reveal about light itself. Along the way, we wander through the epic moments of the 20th century quest for understanding light, from aether theory to pilot waves, connecting lost ideas to cutting-edge engineering. This is a signal worth listening to.PATREON https://www.patreon...
2025-08-102h 41The DemystifySci PodcastStellar Cold Fusion & CMB Suspicions - Dr. Patrick Vanraes, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #354At "Beyond the Big Bang" 2025, Dr. Patrick Vanraes, a plasma scientist at the University of Antwerp, delivers two quiet revolts against the reigning cosmological order. In the first talk, he develops Dr. Pierre Marie Robitaille's vision of the Sun not as a chaotic gas ball, but as a layered, liquid structure—dense enough to host fusion through lattice confinement, where matter itself conspires in silence. Patrick takes Dr. Robitaille's model one step further, examining the possibility that diverse types of fusion may be occurring throughout different regions of the liquid plasma. In the second talk, Patrick takes aim at th...
2025-08-081h 02The DemystifySci PodcastCan This Unlikely Man Unstick Physics? - Dr. Rick Doblin, DemystifySci #353The institutions are broken because their hearts are broken. In this conversation with Dr. Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, we explore whether substances used to great effect in the treatment of PTSD can become the scalpel and the flame for stuck culture—cutting delusion, sparking communion. Physics, like politics, stalls when minds forget how to meet. What if the revolution isn’t in data, but in daring to see things in a new light?PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showMUSICCheck out our band's new album:https://secretaryofnature.bandcamp.com/albu...
2025-08-053h 02The DemystifySci PodcastWhy the CMB Is Evidence Against the Big Bang - Dr. André Assis, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #352What if one of modern cosmology’s greatest triumphs was built on a false story? In this talk from DemystiCon: Beyond the Big Bang, physicist and historian of science Dr. Andre Koch Torres Assis digs deep into the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the so-called “fingerprint” of the Big Bang, and uncovers a history that challenges the dominant narrative. Contrary to popular belief, George Gamow and the Big Bang camp never predicted the CMB’s 2.7K temperature. In fact, their estimates were off by nearly an order of magnitude. Meanwhile, steady-state cosmologists consistently predicted the correct...
2025-08-0541 minThe DemystifySci PodcastFusion’s Fringe Is Getting Results - Bob Greenyer, DemystifySci #351Bob Greenyer is part of a dedicated crew of researchers who think they have cracked the holy grail of energy - sustainable fusion reactions that take place with ordinary elements at room temperature and pressure, with nothing but some copper wire and five volts of input. Greenyer is an active player in the emerging field of low energy nuclear reactions, has stewarded the Martin Fleischmann memorial project for many years, and is working on producing public demonstrations of plasmoid fusion devices for all those who want to come and see them in action. Much of his work is informed...
2025-07-282h 48The DemystifySci PodcastQuantum Vacuum Propulsion - Dr. Mike McCulloch, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #350What if inertia isn't a built-in property of matter? What if it’s an interaction with the fabric of the universe itself? So says Physicist Dr. Mike McCulloch of the University of Plymouth, whose Quantized Inertia theory is a radical challenge to our understanding of motion, mass, and the very structure of the cosmos. In this talk at DemystiCon ’25, McCulloch blends the Casimir effect, Unruh radiation, and boundary conditions of the universe, to propose a framework that explains galaxy rotation without dark matter and hints at the future of propellant-less space travel. He walks us through the theory, experiments, and...
2025-07-2551 minThe DemystifySci PodcastRoom Temperature Fusion is Here - Lawrence Forsley, NASA, DemystifySci #349For decades, fusion energy has been the promise that never arrives—always twenty years away. Despite billions poured into tokamaks, inertial confinement, and plasma reactors, the finish line keeps moving. But what if the answer was never in extreme heat... but in solid metal at room temperature?In this explosive episode, we sit down with NASA researcher Lawrence Forsley to explore lattice confined fusion—a revolutionary approach that produces nuclear fusion inside metal lattices using just five volts. No reactors, no plasma, no fire. It’s a direct descendant of the infamous 1989 "cold fusion" press conference by Fleischmann and Pons...
2025-07-222h 51The DemystifySci PodcastNo Bang. Just Currents - Eric Lerner, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #348Physicist and fusion researcher Eric Lerner presents a sweeping critique of the Big Bang theory and the standard model of cosmology at Demysticon 25. He builds on the foundations of plasma physics and the work of Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén to outline an alternative cosmological framework rooted in known physical laws—gravity, nuclear fusion, and electromagnetic plasma behavior—rather than hypothetical concepts like dark matter, dark energy, or cosmic inflation. He explores how filamentary plasma structures may account for galaxy formation, how fusion research using dense plasma focus devices parallels cosmic processes, and how the cosmic microwave background may not b...
2025-07-171h 04The DemystifySci PodcastThe Physics of Stars is Broken - Steve Crothers, DemystifySci #347What if everything we think we know about stars is wrong? In this explosive conversation, mathematician Stephen Crothers dismantles the foundations of modern astrophysics, arguing that black holes, neutron stars, and gravitational waves are mathematical illusions built on misapplied thermodynamics and flawed logic. With the rigor of a forensic investigator, he exposes how simple errors in stellar models went unchecked for a century—raising unsettling questions about the integrity of science and the nature of the cosmos itself.PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-show00:00 Go! Thermodynamics and Astrophysics Foundations 00:05:15 Historical Context of Celestial Understanding 00:12:30 Ev...
2025-07-132h 40The DemystifySci PodcastChris Lehto, Mike McCulloch, Gareth Samuel - Paradigm Drift LIVE @ DemystiCon '25DemystifySci presents Paradigm Drift, the show where theorists of all stripes present their ideas about how the world works. In this space it doesn’t matter where you came from, where you’re going, or what letters are after your name. The only thing that matters is that you’ve got a deep insight into the universe that you can explain in SIXTY SECONDS. This is our first live edition, recorded at Demysticon 2025 with live music from the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillators. Theorists include C. S. Unnikrishnan, Robin Booth, Ben Wilson, Gareth Samuel (@seethepattern), Chris Lehto (@lehtofiles), Mike McCulloch, Michael Gunnin...
2025-07-131h 48The DemystifySci PodcastThis Tech is the Future of Tripping - Till Holzafpel, DemystifySci #346Till Holzafpel is an engineer, programmer, consciousness researcher, and hardware psychonaut who designs virtual reality systems that can evoke the transcendent components of psychedelics… without requiring the consumption any substances. Much of his work is based on fact that there appears to be a massive component of psychedelic experiences that comes from sensory feedback, like sounds, patterns in the visual field, and the tactile components of the environment. Even something as simple as a flashing light can induce mystical experiences in a significant fraction of the population, and plenty of research suggests that there’s a visual component to the...
2025-07-121h 52The DemystifySci PodcastAncient Delphi & Cycles of Collapse - Needle in the Hay #3, DemystifySciThe Demystify Duo goes to Delphi! This is the place that used to be at the center of the ancient world, a bustling hub of commerce, politics, and religion. At the center of the place was the Delphic Oracle, an event as much as it was a location. Young girls ordained as Pythias would be locked into a room where they would huff volatile gases that emerged from a crack in the floor. As they muttered the details of their psychedelic visions into the ears of priests, they were transmuted into the counsel that would move the world. Today...
2025-07-0417 minThe DemystifySci PodcastRethinking Physics Itself - Gareth Samuel, DemystiCon '25, DemystifySci #345We're back to it!!! DemystiCon 2025 was a smashing success, and we're thrilled to share it with you. The first talk we're posting is by Gareth Samuel, host of See the Pattern. His videos explore the frontier models of physics, where they break, and what that means for our understanding of the universe. At this year’s DemystiCon, Samuel gave an incredible talk about “What Would it Take” to restructure our understanding of the Big Bang. Rather than assuming a gradualist approach, where the field slowly changes to accommodate a radically different perspective, Samuel suggests a radical revamp to the way we...
2025-07-0353 minThe DemystifySci Podcast60 Second Theories - Paradigm Drift #3, Ohio - DemystifySciParadigm Drift is the show where we celebrate theories, theorists, and freedom of thought. Each theorist gets 60 seconds to present their idea of the world, followed by an interview with us an our panelist. This week’s episode was taped in Columbus, Ohio with Chris Ranney as panelist, Jay Smith on guitar, and Megan Ranney as supporting cast. Next one will be live in Portugal but you can sign up for the online version again in July: https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-show. Theorists: Ricky Cisco, Matthew Fox, Lyndon Ashmore, Eugene Yashkin, Gary Barham, Jack Neefus, Bradie Lee, Ryan Mckenna, Wayne Co...
2025-05-302h 11The DemystifySci PodcastMistaking the Map for the Territory in Physics - Dr. Jacob Barandes, Harvard, DemystifySci #344Dr. Jacob Barandes is a professor of Physics at Harvard University who studies the foundations of physics. He has emerged as a leading skeptic of the idea that our universe is somehow fundamentally mathematical in nature, marking a full cycle of more than two thousand years of ink spilled about the nature of the universe. Barandes has found that there is a way of modeling the basement membrane of reality as being made of bodies with location, where everything from superposition to electricity and magnetism are a product of the motions of these bodies. Our conversation spans the basic...
2025-05-271h 50The DemystifySci PodcastCan Simple Rules Explain Reality? Dr. Stephen Wolfram, DemystifySci #343Stephen Wolfram is a physicists, mathematician, and programmer who believes he has discovered the computational rules that organize the universe at the finest grain. These rules are not physical rules like the equations of state or Maxwell’s equations. According to Wolfram, these are rules that govern how the universe evolves and operates at a level at least one step down below the reality that we inhabit. His computational principles are inspired by the results observed in cellular automata systems, which show that it’s possible to take a very simple system, with very simp...
2025-05-183h 00The DemystifySci PodcastTetralogue on the Liquid Sun Revolution- Dr. P.M. Robitaille & Jim Keller, DemystifySci #342What if we’re wrong about the sun? Current consensus in the astrophysics community suggests that our planet orbits a burning ball of gaseous plasma - but there’s compelling evidence that suggests the sun is actually made out of liquid metallic hydrogen. If this is true, it isn’t just that we have a new model of the sun. All of astrophysics, from the Big Bang to the nature of white dwarf stars and neutron stars - will have to be rewritten. For this conversation about the true nature of the sun, we bring together two titans of scienc...
2025-05-122h 53The DemystifySci PodcastRewriting Plasma Physics - Dr. Patrick Vanraes, DemystifySci #341Patrick Vanraes is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp whose research into liquid plasmas has led him to believe that we have radically, completely, totally misunderstood what it means for something to be “plasma.” All presentations on the subject begin with a rote recitation of the fact that plasma is a fourth state of matter - solid, liquid, gas, then plasma. But Patrick makes the point that this is an incomprehensible perspective, because the phase change between solid - liquid - gas is one of motion. Each phase has more degrees of freedom than the previous one, and...
2025-05-092h 18The DemystifySci PodcastWhat Happened Here? - Needle in the Hay #1, DemystifySciWe found some strange, and extensively networked, piles of rocks in the Southern Oregon woods. We take you into the woods with us as we try to figure out if there’s some natural explanation for what we’ve found, or if we have stumbled on some man-made structures that predate the presence of Western settlers. Along the way we try to read how the landscape relates to the river that runs through it, evaluate different strategies for establishing the age of features we come across, and make the case that the huge complex of rounded rocks that we’ve fou...
2025-05-0912 minThe DemystifySci PodcastIs the Brain a Quantum Receiver? Dr. Tiffeny Todd, DemystifySci #340Tiffeny Todd is a physics professor and filmmaker who became obsessed with the nature of consciousness after having an out of body experience and discovering that her field had absolutely no way of explaining the experience of mind separate from body that she had. This set her on a quest to discover the theoretical basis for what had happened to her. Along the way, she discovered a wealth of literature on parapsychology that suggested it was possible for the mind to influence the outcome of quantum experiments, which led her to formulate her theory of vacuum orchestrated spin signaling...
2025-05-052h 29The DemystifySci PodcastSource Code of Mystical Experiences - Andrés Gomez Emilsson, QRI, DemystifySci #339Andrés Gomez Emilsson is the director of the San Francisco–based Qualia Research Institute (QRI), a nonprofit developing formal models of consciousness and emotional valence. QRI’s research aims to untangle the harmonic, computational, and symmetry-driven mechanisms underlying phenomenological experience. They approach the optimization of subjective experience through two powerful psychotechnologies — psychedelics and meditation — using them to explore the state-space of mind and map the structure of qualia. In this conversation, we discuss the phenomenology of enlightenment, the non-local field effects of consciousness, and one of Andrés’ side projects: how perfumes and smells modulate perception and emotional geometry. Ch...
2025-04-303h 22The DemystifySci PodcastThe Electric Universe Inside You - Dr. Michael Hughes, DemystifySci #338Michael Hughes is a postdoctoral researcher at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital who studies the overlooked role of water in living systems. His work builds on a growing body of research suggesting that water is not just a passive solvent, but a highly structured, information-rich medium. Hughes proposes that under normal biological conditions, water’s ability to form liquid crystalline phases, hydration shells, and coherent domains allows it to act more like an information storage system than an inert backdrop to biochemistry. Drawing on ideas like EZ water, interf...
2025-04-242h 02The DemystifySci PodcastThe Big Bang Never Happened? Eric Lerner, DemystifySci #337Eric Lerner is a popular science writer, plasma physicist, and long-time collaborator of the late Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén. He’s also one of the featured speakers at our Beyond the Big Bang event this summer in Sesimbra, Portugal. For over thirty years, Lerner has been a leading voice in plasma cosmology and a critic of Big Bang cosmology, who argued for a non-expanding, steady state universe as the central claim of his landmark book The Big Bang Never Happened (affiliate link to puchase: https://amzn.to/4jEez8H). Our conversation dives into the history and foundations of pla...
2025-04-212h 59The DemystifySci PodcastMissing History, MH370, Kurt Cobain's Killer + More - Matt Beall, DemystifySci #336Matt Beall is the host of the Limitless Podcast, where he explores everything from the impossibly precise predynastic vases, to ancient civilizations, planetary catastrophes, nuclear explosions on Mars and, most recently, the suspicious circumstances of Kurt Cobain’s death. Our conversation spans the meta of the weird space we all find ourselves in as people who are willing to play with ideas that we don’t necessarily believe are totally correct - but find intriguing enough to spend our days wrestling with them. MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demy...
2025-04-182h 23The DemystifySci PodcastCan Electricity Fill Gravity's Gaps? - Gareth Samuel, DemystifySci #335Gareth Samuel is host of the @SeethePattern YouTube channel, where he explores theories of physics that have been neglected by the mainstream. He’s one of the speakers at our BEYOND THE BIG BANG meeting this summer in Sesimbra, Portugal, and joins us now for a conversation about what it’s going to take to unseat the Big Bang, why no one’s managed to do it yet, the incredible theories he’s uncovered from years of work in the fringe mines, from the electric universe to plasma cosmology to the structured atom model and much more. Check out his channe...
2025-04-132h 52The DemystifySci PodcastCosmic Catastrophes & Prehistoric Resets - George Howard, DemystifySci #334George Howard is a weaver of ideas who runs the Cosmic Tusk blog and organizes the Cosmic Summit annual gathering. He’s also one of the longest-lived players in the Comet Research Group, a heterodox collection of theorists and scientists that has been working on the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis since the 1990s. We talk with Howard about bone beds, Carolina Bays, mass extinction, catastrophic history, weirdly magnetic mammoth tusks, and just how little we can actually say with certainty about the distant past. MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c...
2025-04-132h 46The DemystifySci PodcastWhy Did We Really Abandon the Aether? - Dr. Adam Forrest Kay, DemystifySci #333Adam Forrest Kay is the author of Escape From Shadow Physics, a rip-roaring tour through the history of physics that suggests the quantum world might be a lot less legible than anyone realizes. Much of his work is informed by the logic of Hydrodynamic Quantum Analogs, which are classical systems whose behavior can be described by same mathematics that’s used for quantum mechanics. Kay makes the case that if a classical system, made of materials and substances, can be described by the same statistical mathematics, that it’s possible the quantum intuition that reality dissolves into a sea of p...
2025-04-062h 20The DemystifySci PodcastFormscapes | Andrés Gomez Emilsson | Michael Hughes – Paradigm Drift #2Invited theorists: Kehlan Morgan (Formscapes), Andrés Goméz Emilsson, Michael HughesRandom theorists: Edwin's Basye, Wendi Gardiner, Ricky Cisco, Philip Sportel, Jack Neefus, David de Hilster, Casey BrophyPanel: Kate Owlsley, Anastasia Bendebury, Michael Shilo DeLayLearn how to think, not what to think! Paradigm Drift is the show where we celebrate the principles of scientific anarchy. Anything goes, as long as you can make a coherent presentation about your theory and why you think it’s going to change the world. Each theorist gets 60 seconds, followed by an interview with us and our panelist. MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:http...
2025-04-042h 06The DemystifySci PodcastWe've Been Wrong About Cancer For 100 Years - Dr. Thomas Seyfried, Boston College, DemystifySci #332Cancer is one of the most terrifying illnesses of our age - a sudden change that happens silently inside our bodies and slowly eats away at us until there’s nothing left. It’s also one of the biggest failures of the pharmaceutical age - somewhere between 90 and 97% of all cancer drugs fail at clinical trials. Which is why we’re unbelievably excited to bring you our conversation with Dr. Thomas Seyfried, Professor of Biology at Boston College who appears to be hot on the trail of a cure cancer that has nothing to do with the oncology-industrial-complex. According to the...
2025-03-302h 02The DemystifySci PodcastNew Physics of Galaxies, Earthquakes, and the Sun - Dr. Anne Hofmeister, Wash. U., DemystifySci #330MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showAnne Hofmeister is an applied physicist, mathematician, and theorist at Washington University, whose heterodox approach to physics has not made her a lot of friends, but has solved a lot of paradoxical problems. Hofmeister’s background in analytic materials science has given her a deeper than average understanding of how to deal with complex physical systems, which allows her to see what others miss. Often, she will investigate a system that’s thought to behave in strange ways - like...
2025-03-251h 54The DemystifySci PodcastLiving in Cosmic Myths of the Future - Formscapes, Kehlan Morgan, DemystifySci #329MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysciKehlan Morgan is a philosopher, scholar of the esoteric, and the host of the Formscapes channel, where he posts long-from essays at the intersection of history, philosophy, culture, and science. He has recently been looking into a...
2025-03-202h 24The DemystifySci PodcastDelusions of Cosmic Expansion - Dr. André Koch Torres Assis, DemystifySci #328MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysciAndré Koch Torres Assis is a professor of Physics at Brazil’s University of Campinas, an invited speaker at our Beyond the Big Bang meeting this June, and a brilliant historian who has devoted his life to unc...
2025-03-162h 22The DemystifySci PodcastBergson's Harmonic Theory of Consciousness - Dr. Jack Bagby, DemystifySci #327MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysciDr. Jack Bagby is a professor of Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies who is one of the world’s foremost experts on the philosophy of Henri Bergson. Bergson was an early pr...
2025-03-132h 48The DemystifySci PodcastA Case for Scientific Anarchy - Jim Keller, DemystifySci #326MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysciJim Keller is on of the all-time great computer architects who has shaped the tech revolution during his tenure at Digital Equipment Corporation, AMD, Tesla, Intel, AMD and Apple. In addition to being a crack engineer, Keller...
2025-03-092h 21The DemystifySci Podcast9 Theorists Try to Blow Our Minds in 60 Seconds! - Paradigm Drift #1 (Pilot)Invited theorists: Ogi Ogas, Michael Hughes, David Ian Howe. Random theorists: James McGinn, Zarrin Leff, Austin Baldinger, Matthew Fox, Joe Cook, Shane SimonsenPanel: Doug Lee, Anastasia Bendebury, Michael Shilo DeLayLearn how to think, not what to think! Paradigm Drift is the show where we celebrate the principles of scientific anarchy. Anything goes, as long as you can make a coherent presentation about why your theory and why you think it’s going to change the world. Each theorist gets 60 seconds, followed by an interview with us and our panelist. MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PA...
2025-03-062h 00The DemystifySci PodcastThe Real Telepathy Tapes - Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell, DemystifySci #325MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell is an independent researcher into the telepathic ability of non-speaking autistic children, whose research was the basis of the wildly popular Telepathy Tapes (TT) podcast. She is a Johns Hopkins trained neuropsychiatrist, former Harvard faculty member, and award-winning therapist for autistic children. We host her for a conversation the real telepathy tapes - evidence that she has collected over decades of research into parapsychological phenomena in her autistic patients. Dr. Powell paints a more measured, mechanistic, and intriguing picture of the Telepathy Tapes...
2025-03-022h 09The DemystifySci PodcastLost Engineers of Prehistoric Egypt - Ben van Kerkwyk, UnchartedX #323MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER: https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFT https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@demystifysci...
2025-02-232h 52The DemystifySci PodcastWhen a Theory’s Popularity Masks a Cultural Crisis - Drs. A.V. Bendebury & M.S. DeLay - #322MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showPATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasBMERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/allAMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@UCqV4_7i9h1_V7hY48eZZSLw@demystifysciShilo leads us in a discussion of simulation theory, quantum theology, and the strange feeling of hopelessness that these philosophies seem tuned to evoke. The conversation is inspired by Tom Campbell’s recent appearance on Rogan, where he...
2025-02-201h 08The DemystifySci Podcast(PART 2/2) A President, The Mafia, and a Lost Future - Louis Ferrante, Ex-Mobster, #320MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFT! Sign up to present YOUR theory: https://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showWhat’s still hidden inside the JFK files Trump has promised to release? Since the 1960s historians have been trying to assemble an accurate story that weaves together the shadowy trinity of cuban revolutionaries, secretive three letter agencies, and powerful organized crime families with the fate of JFK. With us for the discussion of what those files will reveal is Louis Ferrante, former member of the Gambino crime family. Check out his bo...
2025-02-141h 46The DemystifySci PodcastA President, The Mafia, and a Lost Future (PART 1/2) - Louis Ferrante, Ex-Mafia #319MAKE HISTORY WITH US THIS SUMMER:https://demystifysci.com/demysticon-2025PATREON https://www.patreon.com/c/demystifysciPARADIGM DRIFThttps://demystifysci.com/paradigm-drift-showWhat’s still hidden inside the JFK files Trump has promised to release? Since the 1960s historians have been trying to assemble an accurate story that weaves together the shadowy trinity of cuban revolutionaries, secretive three letter agencies, and powerful organized crime families with the fate of JFK. With us for the discussion of what those files will reveal is Louis Ferrante, former member of the Gambino crime family. Check out hi...
2025-02-102h 12The DemystifySci PodcastThe Secretive Dynasties Who Hijacked the Food Supply - Austin Frerick, Barons, Yale University, #318Austin Frerick is an economist, Yale Fellow, former Congressional Research Assistant, and author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry. He investigates how the U.S. food system became both outrageously expensive and dangerously toxic—not just for consumers, but for the farmers who grow our food. Instead of blaming deregulation alone, Frerick exposes the real culprits: the Big Ag monopolies that have spent billions to rig the system, buy politicians, and crush opposition to expand their hidden empires. We break down how these corporate Barons pulled off their silent coup, the devastating impact of mo...
2025-02-072h 55The DemystifySci PodcastLanguage v. Thought in Animals, AI, and Humans - Dr. Gašper Beguš, UC Berkeley Linguistics, #317Dr. Gašper Beguš is a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics who studies the interface between human, machine, and animal language. We head into the conversation with a question - is there something fundamentally different about the way that humans learn and the way that machines like LLMs learn? Vector embeddings of the relatedness of language and the map that we carry in our heads of abstract concepts don’t seem that different at the end of the day. This leads us into a discussion of the ways in which humans acquire language, how language evolves, evidence for abstract thoug...
2025-02-022h 47The DemystifySci PodcastAre Receipts Androgynizing America? - SOLO!!! Drs. M.S. DeLay & A.V. Bendebury - #316DSPod SOLO returns for a conversation about a recent edition of “you can just do things,” where Github CEO Nat Friedman and company tested the levels of endocrine disrupting chemicals in 700 common food items. And friends, it does not look good! We dig through the data to pull out some trends that can help us avoid getting slowly poisoned by our food, try to figure out if akshually no it’s fine that there’s plastics everywhere, and debate if there’s a better way of naming these chemicals that reflects their ball-crushing nature.
Don't miss the historic cosmology summit in...
2025-01-301h 33The DemystifySci PodcastA World that Values IQ Above All - Dr. Richard Haier, UC Irvine Psychology #315Dr. Richard Haier is an emeritus professor of Pediatric Neurology at UC Irvine, who spent his career studying the neuroscience of intelligence. Over the course of his career, Haier has come to believe in the existence of a “g-factor,” a measurable quantity of broad spectrum intelligence that is universally predictive of success in all cultures. He also believes that intelligence is a fixed characteristic, and that it’s possible to predict someone’s intelligence by watching how their brain works when trying to solve a puzzle. We sit down with him to figure out how far one can take this the...
2025-01-302h 55The DemystifySci PodcastPredatory Value Extraction Turns the World - Dr. Bill Lazonick, UMass Economics/AIRnet, #314Professor William Lazonick, emeritus Professor of Economics and founding director of the Academic Industry Research Network, is one of the world’s foremost experts on Shareholder Value Ideology and its impact on society. In our first conversation, we uncovered the fundamentals of shareholder value ideology and the harmful effects of stock buybacks on the working class and economic inequality. This discussion goes deeper into how financial institutions capitalized on the deregulation of the financial industry in the 1980s, leading to a wave of corporate greed and wealth concentration. Topics include the rise of hedge funds, the devastation caused by co...
2025-01-232h 26The DemystifySci PodcastGobekli Tepe Doesn't Make Any Sense - Andrew Collins, #313Andrew Collins is a historian and journalist who has devoted over four decades of his life to the study of ancient civilizations, much of it among the enigmatic T-shaped pillars that dot the stone hills of the Turkish highlands. He believes that Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe are more than ceremonial sites of hunter-gatherers—he takes these monuments to be the remnants of a foundational proto-culture that authored the earliest versions of the myths and narratives found in the Bible, Torah, and Qur’an. He walks us through why he believes that the imagery carved into the stones of Ka...
2025-01-192h 45The DemystifySci PodcastIs "Age of the Universe" the Wrong Question? Dr. Martín López Corredoira, IAC Astrophysics, #312Martin Lopez Corredoira is a physicist, philosopher, author, and playwright who has written extensively on the issues with standard cosmological theories, the role of science in society, and a number of short biographies of key figures in the history of science. He is both a theoretical and observational cosmologist, and we sit down with him for a conversation about what it would take for a theory like the Big Bang to finally come undone. In the course of our talk, we narrow down the list of substantive criticisms of the standard model, lay out the reasons to be optimistic...
2025-01-182h 12The DemystifySci PodcastTelepathy Tapes + Cosmologic Ouiji Boarding - SOLO! Drs. A.V.Bendebury & M.S.DeLay, #311Shilo and Anastasia sit down for a discussion of the Telepathy Tapes, motivated belief, and the difference between grift and ignorance. For those who don’t know, the Telepathy Tapes is a hugely popular podcast about the telepathic abilities of non-verbal autistic children, where a reporter interviews a bunch of families where the parents claim to have telepathic connections with their children. The kids are reported to have a 100% success rate of reading their caretaker’s mind, are supposedly able to communicate with each other, and carry a message to the rest of us about the need for peace and...
2025-01-121h 20The DemystifySci PodcastA Theory of Live Players - Geoff Anders, Leverage Research - DSPod #310Geoff Anders is the director of Leverage Research, a think tank devoted to understanding the nature of progress and the arc of scientific insights. Anders wants to understand what sort of cultural context creates the ability to make valuable insights into the mechanisms of nature. After mapping some of the interplay between science, society, and religion, we turn to the questions of how to spark a golden age at a time where institutions feel increasingly frail, just how effective we want our science to be, and what to do with the fact that everyone seems to really love magic.
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2025-01-092h 44The DemystifySci PodcastWhy Nobody Talks Class Anymore - Dr. William F. Mitchell, University of Newcastle, #309Professor Bill Mitchell is an economist at the University of Newcastle. In addition to being one of the founding figures of Modern Monetary Theory, Mitchell has also been preoccupied by the interplay of culture and economics that led to the death of the left over the course of the last fifty years. We sit down with him to trace the economic transformations that gradually eroded class consciousness and replaced it with divisive identity politics, the role of shadowy thinktank money in the transformation, and to understand qui bono from the complete absence of a salient leftist critique of the...
2025-01-072h 16The DemystifySci PodcastGoethian Science, Transhuman Traps, & Steinerian Axiology - Kehlan Morgan, Formscapes - DSPod #307Kehlan Morgan is @Formscapes , a philosopher whose work is focused on esoteric science. He brings to the table a great depth of insights about how Goethian and Stienerian metaphysics have silently shaped our approach to understanding nature, and how our abandonment of those metaphysics has produced a kind of science that is both perplexed and incapable. As modern science studies the world, it locks up at the stage of the Experimentum Crucis. Instead of mapping the dizzying variety of experiences, it lasers in on a single proof. Instead of creating a map of the universe that encompasses it's inherently pe...
2024-12-192h 28The DemystifySci PodcastThe 'Big Science' Bottleneck - John Horgan, Science Writer - DSPod #306Today we're sitting down for a second conversation with acclaimed science author John Horgan, to discuss the burning heart of natural inquiry where science, philosophy, and spirituality collide like waves crashing against the jagged rocks of the unknown. We examine the ache of human progress, the way it builds towers of steel but leaves people hungry for hope, connection, and meaning. Through the lens of art, literature, and the stories we collectively shoulder, we seeks a way to stitch together the fabric of our fraying approach to understanding nature. Woven into the dialogue is the struggle with morality, the...
2024-12-122h 47The DemystifySci PodcastMagnetism Subtly Orchestrates Biology - Dr. Clarice Aiello - DSPod #305Today we're falling head first into the mind-bending chaos of quantum biology, piercing the veil between the microscopic world and the bizarre playground of quantum mechanics. Dr. Clarice Aiello of the newly founded Quantum Biology Institute, formerly of UCLA, guides us through the magnetic highways of nature, where cryptochromes and electron spins become the rogue navigators of life’s hidden machinery. The discussion is a madcap chase after how these quantum phenomena might drive not only the migration of birds but the very basis of human cells—bordering on sci-fi insanity, but with hard evidence in tow. By the end...
2024-12-092h 37The DemystifySci PodcastGoethian Science Reveals a Hidden World - Austin Abigt, Renewal of Science - DSPod #304Austin Abigt is a philosopher, writer, and one of the key members of the of the Renewal of Science movement, which seeks to chart a path for scientific rebirth. In this conversation, Abigt explains how modern science is the product of two distinct philosophical lineages - one founded by Newton and Descartes, the other by Goethe. The Newtonian paradigm, roughly summarized by "shut up and calculate" has been invaluable for the development of the modern world, but Abigt argues that its ability to keep moving us forward to a deeper and deeper understanding of nature is inherently limited. To...
2024-12-072h 49The DemystifySci PodcastQuantum Computers are Reality Simulators - Dr. Steve Girvin, Yale University - DSPod #303Yale's Steve Girvin is a pioneer of quantum computing, and our guide for our first foray into understanding how these systems do and don't work. Over the course of our conversation, we come to realize that quantum computers are not performing computations per se - they're more devices that an be used to answer a specific set of questions about reality. We dig into the details of why some questions can only be answered with a quantum computer, how next generation encryption services will come with a way of detecting eavesdroppers, and try once more to understand if there's...
2024-12-042h 45The DemystifySci PodcastWater: Action at a Distance, Light Speed Computation, Distributed Memory - Dr. Michael Hughes, #302Today we're back, for a third podcast, with long time friend of the pod, Dr. Michael Hughes - a biochemist at St. Jude's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. We plunge into the secret story of water, revealing its role as more than a silent spectator in the dance of cellular processes. Like a conductor in an unseen ballet, water’s dynamic and nuanced structures orchestrate communication across cells, acting as a transient computationally competent actuator. Michael reveals how much of this story has been buried for years under blanket abstractions like "pH" and electrochemistry. We see the emergence of a...
2024-11-252h 17The DemystifySci PodcastMachine Intelligence and the End of History - Jeffrey Ladish, Palisades Research - DS Pod #301Jeffrey Ladish is the director of Palisades research, and AI safety organization based in the San Francisco Bay. Our previous conversations about the dangers of AI left us insufficiently concerned. Ladish takes up the mantle of trying to convince us that there's something worth worrying about by detailing the various projects and experiments that Palisades has been undertaking with the goal of demonstrating that AI agents let loose on the world are capable of wreaking far more havoc than we expect. We leave the conversation more wary of the machines than ever - less because we think hyper-intelligent machines...
2024-11-222h 29The DemystifySci PodcastCan We Avoid Collapse? - Ben Landau Taylor, Bismarck Analysis - DS Pod #300Ben Landau Taylor is a writer, historian, and one of the minds behind the Bismark Brief, whose research is focused on understanding the life cycle of civilizations. Much of his work has been informed by the work of Caroll Quigley, who in the 1970s put together a seven part framework for how civilizations are born, mature, and eventually go extinct. His model was one of an economic instrument of expansion, where the tools of growth defined the success of the empire - a direct contradiction to contemporary Arnold Toynbee's perspective that it wasn't economics that drove civilization - it...
2024-11-182h 43The DemystifySci PodcastCosmic Lifeforms, Abiogenesis, Machine Consciousness - Drs. M.S. DeLay & A.V. Bendebury, #299Today we're bouncing off our recent conversation with evolutionary biologist, Dr. Michael Lachmann from SFI, and unpacking why the modern definition of life sucks and why it matters. We attempt to construct a more scientific (i.e. less circular) definition of life and take it for a walk in the park. As a test case we examine an inadvertent hypothesis, which stems from Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, a science fiction work that supposes stars themselves have an interior life and that when they move according to gravity they are simply doing the dance of a school of fishes or...
2024-11-161h 30The DemystifySci PodcastSigns of an Ice Age Sundaland Civilization - Dr. Danny Hillman Natawidjaja, LIPI, #298In today's episode we chart the debate surrounding Gunung Padang, an enigmatic site in Indonesia, and its implications for the possibility of ice age civilization. Our guide, Dr. Danny Hillman Natawidjaja, an Indonesian geologist specializing in earthquake geology and geotectonics at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Research Center for Geotechnology, walks us through the difficulties of dating archaeological structures with tools like seismic imaging and LiDAR, particularly in a region shaped by natural upheavals. We unpack how environmental changes have influenced historical narratives and the survival of early sites. We also critique the institutional barriers and interpretative conflicts...
2024-11-102h 11The DemystifySci PodcastIt Doesn’t Have to Be This Way - Helena Norberg-Hodge, Local Futures, DSPod #297Helena Norberg-Hodge, from Local Futures, joins us to discuss a brighter future than that which is most commonly advertised. Her particular wisdom is drawn from her experiences in pre-globalized Ladakh, highlighting the corrosive effects of 'West envy' and the accelerating race toward techno-utopia. Together, we challenge inherited narratives about progress, exploring the complexities of global trade, urbanization, and modern education on our lives back home. Helena does a killer job of crushing conventional myths surrounding civilizational advancement, depression, sustainable agriculture, free trade, etc.. This mounts to a discussion of what it means to foster resilience, community connection, and a...
2024-11-082h 33The DemystifySci PodcastOrigins of Evolution Itself - Dr. Michael Lachmann, SFI, DSPod #296Today we're digging into the deep and often overlooked connections between neodarwinian evolution, life’s origins, and the evolution of non-living systems. We're guided by Dr. Michael Lachmann of the Santa Fe Institute, who investigates how life may have begun as a more generalized cosmic selection process, with planetary conditions shaping its emergence and survival. Through discussions of thermodynamics, functional information, and entropy, we examine whether life might be present in forms beyond Earth’s biology - and how'd know what to look for. In the end, this discussion swirls around what it means to be “alive” and how we can n...
2024-11-032h 27The DemystifySci PodcastHow Math Is Used to Manipulate You - Dr. Norman Fenton & Dr. Martin Neil - DS Pod #295Dr. Norman Fenton and Dr. Martin Neil are mathematicians from Queen Mary University of London who are experts in the unreasonable power of mathematics. For example - it is possible to produce an algorithm that will predict the likelihood that a piece of hardware or software will fail - and then to use that information to predict the stability of much larger systems - military vehicles, fly-by-wire software for aircraft, medical technologies. Along the way, they developed a rare intuition for statistics and probability, which allowed them to start to see places where statistical analysis was being done in...
2024-10-312h 37The DemystifySci PodcastEntropic Gravity + Atomic Interconnectome - Dr. Andreas Schlatter - DS Pod #294Dr. Andreas Schlatter is a classically trained physicist (EPFL, Princeton) with a decidedly heretical approach to physics. Though deeply mathematical in his approach, he dispenses with the purely field-based approach to understanding the building blocks of nature, and asks far deeper question about what the mathematics is telling us about the hidden structures of nature. Rather than take the positivist approach, which suggests that anything that cannot be experimentally encountered is not worth considering, Schlatter follows in the tradition of Gödel and the other mid 20th century logicians, who believed that a layer of the universe beyond the v...
2024-10-272h 08The DemystifySci PodcastWalter Russell & the Universal One - Drs. A. V. Bendebury and M. S. DeLay DSPod #283DemystifySci is on the road again, still thinking hard about the nature of the universe. In this episode, recorded on a tropical island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, we dive into the noble tradition of mystical physics, with a little help from Walter Russel, a painter, sculptor, and mystic from the turn of the 20th century. Our goal is twofold. First, to lay the groundwork for why we think there is much to be gained from finding the “needle in the hay” in the ideas of visionary thinkers who approach nature by an intuitive rather than empirical vect...
2024-09-191h 17The DemystifySci PodcastEndless War - Dr. Jeremi Suri, University of Texas, Austin - DSPod #268Dr. Jeremi Suri is a professor of Public Affairs and History at the University of Texas, Austin whose recent work explores the idea that the American civil war never ended. Suri argues that the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse at the end of the Civil War was just a superficial conclusion of outright hostilities, not a true end to the massive division that ran across America during colonial times. Our conversation with Suri centers around the question of where these divisions come from, what has entrenched them, why the same social rifts are opening not just in America, but all...
2024-07-282h 31The DemystifySci PodcastChallenging Einstein with ChatGPT - Steven Bryant, Computer Scientist DSPod 185Steve Bryant is an author, researcher and futurist who studies the innovative application of emerging technologies, who has long been curious about the gaps and inconsistencies of general relativity. Armed with Chat GPT with a Wolfram Alpha plugin, Bryant combed through Einstein’s papers, where he discovered key mathematical inconsistencies that invalidate the mathematical basis of Einstein’s most famous theorem. We discuss the simple mathematical proof for what Bryant has discovered, the difficulty of unseating beloved ideas, and what comes after relativity.
Support Steven & the DemystifySci Podcast by puchasing DISRUPTIVE: Rewriting the Rules of P...
2023-09-101h 50The DemystifySci PodcastMaking Contact with Alien Minds with Dr. Ogi Ogas, Mathematical NeuroscientistDr. Ogi Ogas is a computational neuroscientist, former Harvard scholar, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant. He’s the author of two published books - "This is What it Sounds Like," about the cognitive signatures of individual music preferences, and "A Billion Wicked Thoughts," an analysis of human sexuality through the impartial lens of web searches. who has previously appeared on the DemystifySci podcast to explain how we’ve had a solution to the hard problem of consciousness for decades, and is back to discuss his upcoming book, "Large Gods for Small Children," a memoir where he lays...
2023-07-302h 52The DemystifySci PodcastTransformative Pain, Inherited Guilt, & Structured Water - Shilo & Anastasia, DemystifySciDemystifySci goes solo. We talk about placebo mechanisms in psychedelic research, why no one can put together a good protest any more, and most importantly, Shilo lays out his structured water hypothesis for why spores stay asleep, in context of his recent Nature paper about hydration solids, a new kind of biomaterial: https://rdcu.be/ddZgd
Evaporation Machines from the Sahin Lab @columbia (set to Shilo's music): https://youtu.be/d_VkSPV7d2I
Shilo's dissertation on the physical basis of spore germination: https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8FJ3PNH
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2023-07-061h 43
The DemystifySci PodcastMyth of The Lone Genius - Dennis McCarthyDennis McCarthy is a writer, historian, and independent researcher who, in the process of tracing Hamlet’s origin, ended up unwinding the entire legend of Shakespeare. Digging deeper into the history of Shakespeare's plays alongside collaborators June Schlueter and Michael Blanding, McCarthy uncovered evidence that all but two of Shakespeare’s plays were written by Sir Thomas North, an English translator, lawyers, and justice of the peace. We dig into the evidence for the overlap between the two figures, unpack the myth of the lone genius, and seek to understand how the origin of ideas is driven by the sum...
2023-03-032h 18
The DemystifySci PodcastConsciousness First Universe - Dr. Jude Currivan, Cosmological ArcheologistCould the universe be shaped by consciousness, rather than the other way around? Most researchers working under the classical paradigm would say no - awareness is something that emerges from space time. But a new generation of cognitive neuroscientists, philosophers, and physicists has rebelled against the stalemate at the heart of consciousness research by asserting that clearly, obviously, inexorably... awareness must come first. This conversation with Dr. Jude Currivan, cosmological archaeologist with Masters in Physics from Oxford university, is our second attempt to understand how the physical world can spring from an abstraction. We talk about the mythmaking powers o...
2023-01-021h 32The DemystifySci PodcastAncestors of the Americas - Dr. David Carballo, Archeologist, Boston UniversityDr. David Carballo is back for another round with DemystifySci, this time all about the timeline of the peopling of the Americas. We talk about the timeline for human habitation of the Americas, where those people might have come from, and how it was that they came to organize themselves into villages, cities, and eventually empires. The first half of the conversation deals extensively with the early human history of the Americas, and the second half is all about the specifics of Teotihuacan - who built it, how did they do it, and how do we know?
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2022-12-291h 43The DemystifySci PodcastResonant Structures of the Mind - Dr. Joseph Arpaia & Dr. Lobsang RapgayFundamentally, this is a conversation about applied consciousness. We talk about the way that the "self" emerges from the resonant "structures" of the mind. These antennae decide the way that external stimuli are processed and integrated into experience, and so serve as the roots from which conscious experience springs. We talk about what happens when the antennae are tuned to a destructive resonance, the meditation industrial complex, the radical act of changing your mind, and much, much more.
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2022-12-121h 55
The DemystifySci PodcastUnderworld Economy & Wall Street Create Tent Cities - Sam Quinones, The Least of UsUntold numbers of people across North America have been caught up in the wake of the opioid crisis - loved ones lost, lives interrupted, cities overrun with addicts. This tableau has unfolded in countless cities, against the faraway backdrop of an underworld drug empire that terrorizes the people of Mexico. Author Sam Quinones has spent the last decade of his life on both sides of the border, reporting from the front lines. He's traced the origin of the crisis, detailed the toll it took on the government of Mexico, the people living there, and how unlimited quantities magic pain...
2022-10-101h 38
The DemystifySci PodcastModified Physics v. No Big Bang - Dr. John Moffat, Theoretical PhysicistThis is the second installment of three episodes this month in the astro/cosmo department at DemystifySci. This is John Moffat, Cambridge cosmologist and out-of-the-box mathematical physicist. Dr. Moffat is working on various modified gravity regimes to make sense of the latest James Webb data, which suggests Galaxies were fully formed just a couple hundred million years after the Bang. We discuss the possibility that we are witnessing modern renditions of the classical Ptolemaic epicycles as mathematicians scramble to patch up the standard models.
Support the scientific revolution with a monthly donation: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB
2022-09-261h 55
The DemystifySci PodcastAIRWAVES#1 Life in the Deep Hot Underworld - Dr. Karen Lloyd, University of TennesseeDid life emerging from the Earth itself? This week on AIRWAVES we talk to Dr. Karen Lloyd about the mysterious world of the deep, hot biosphere. Miles below our feet is a dark world of filled with creatures for whom we have no context, and who far outnumber those who bask in the light of the planet's surface. Who lives down there? How will they rewrite the book of biology? Are we ready for what we'll find in the depths?
We talk origin of life, bacteria that AIRWAVES is a new audio-only series from DemystifySci where we explore...
2022-08-031h 22
The DemystifySci PodcastAnnouncing AIRWAVES! A new series from DemystifySciAIRWAVES is a new audio-only series from DemystifySci where we explore topics that don't yet fit into the dialogues we're releasing here every week. Let us know what you think and which of these paths we should explore even farther.
Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience
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PODCAST INFO: Anastasia completed her PhD studying microbial communication at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting and exploring the woods. Michael Shilo also did...
2022-08-0102 min
The DemystifySci PodcastThe Crisis of Mass Formation Psychosis - Dr. Mattias Desmet, Ghent UniversityThere are three steps to mass formation psychosis, and signs point to the fact that we are living through the very last stage. In this week's conversation, Ghent University's Dr. Mattias Desmet, lays out his psychological theory of how entire societies go insane and fall prey to totalitarianism. What are the conditions that bind people into collectives rather than communities? What causes a woman to hang her own child? Most importantly, we finish on a ray of optimism - about how to balance on the knife's edge of chaos and come out whole on the other side.
Su...
2022-05-091h 06The DemystifySci PodcastDid Aliens Just Crash Into the Pacific? - Dr. Avi Loeb, Harvard AstrophysicsDid an Alien Craft crash into the Pacific Ocean near Papua New Guinea? Dr. Avi Loeb, Harvard University astronomer, certainly seems to think so. We have him on the show to talk about his potential discovery of a second interstellar object (following up on his earlier model for Oumuamua) and his mission to find the fragments that will settle the debate once and for all. We talk about what it takes to find an alien civilization, what that search may bring, and the path forward for astrophysics.
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2022-05-021h 06The DemystifySci PodcastWitches, Gods, and Voices - Dr. Tanya Luhrmann, Stanford AnthropologyWhat makes the voice of god real? This is the question that has driven Tanya Luhrmann's research for the last twenty years. She has lived with witches, with christians, with zoroastrians, with psychologists, and finds the same pattern woven through the lives of believers: They have trained themselves to have a sensory experience of god. On the podcast we talk about where this ability comes from in the mind and how it changes the initiates. If you like this conversation, you might also like our talks with Brian McVeigh (https://youtu.be/z1-ivI6QgXQ) and Dan Smith (https...
2022-04-251h 00The DemystifySci PodcastDecompressing Earth vs. Plate Tectonics - Dr. Marvin Herndon, GeochemistWhat if plate tectonics isn't settled science? Consensus suggests Earth's crust has been going through relatively constant supercontinent cycles for as long as there has been a solid crust. There are all kinds of measurements and experiments that seem to confirm this observation - but there are whose who insist that the ancient history of the Earth is not what it seems. Rather than being formed as a molten ball of naked space goo, condensed from the sun's protoplanetary disk, it's possible that the Earth formed hot and gassy - like Jupiter, or the sizzling gas giants that Kepler i...
2022-04-112h 31The DemystifySci PodcastFirst Hand Food - Tamar Haspel, The Washington PostSupply chain collapse and food shortages are on everyone's mind these days. Is the answer to homestead, to prep, to drop out? Most likely not - it's nearly impossible to grow enough food in a small garden to sustain a family. But don't let the garden grow over quite yet - there's more to growing and getting your own food than survival. Tamar Haspel moved from NYC to the woods and was surprised to find that growing, gathering, and hunting brought her a lot more than food. We discuss how bringing our lives closer to the foods isn't about o...
2022-04-041h 03