Shows
Science MonkeyEpisode 19 – A Pox Upon Both Your Monkey Houses
After more than two years of podcasting silence, Science Monkey returns with a discussion of…. Monkeypox! Graham and Ray run down what we know of this disease, whether it really is a public health threat, and whether the poor monkeys really are to blame. Also: how much sex do men think women have on a monthly basis? What really is the closest planet to Earth? (It’s not what you think). How many teeth does Graham have? (Again, it’s not what you think). And why is Raywat suddenly unable to do simple statistics?
This episode is availa...
2022-06-0100 min
IMPACT MedicomMYTHBUSTERS: Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Ep 3Welcome to IMPACT Medicom’s MYTHBUSTER series, addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. This series is aimed at health care professionals who are on the front lines of vaccine delivery, to help address common sources of misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines. In the third episode of the series, hosted by Anna Christofides (owner of IMPACT Medicom), we discuss with Dr. Raywat Deonandan:Strategies and tactics for discussing myths around COVID-19 with the publicThe difference between individual and population risk and how to discuss these concepts Lessons we can learn from other countries and experiencesThe efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines against known...
2021-04-2833 min
IMPACT MedicomCOVID-19: Playing Sports Safely with Dr. Ray DeonandanDr. Ray Deonandan is a Canadian epidemiologist, assistant director, and associate professor at the University of Ottawa. In this episode, we discuss how we can exercise safely during the COVID-19 epidemic as the cold weather approaches.The importance of exercise for physical and mental health is discussed as well as tips for reducing the chance of COVID-19 transmission while exercising. We discuss the differences in transmission risk for adults vs children and the types of exercises that are safest for each age group. Topics such as whether we should wear a mask outside while exercising, whether sw...
2020-10-1426 min
Elisa Unfiltered : Living Life Out LoudCOVID19: The End Game with Dr. Raywat DeonandonTODAY, I am speaking with Dr. Ray Deonandan. Dr. Deonandan was put on my personal radar after I read a pubished article of his titled: COVID19: The End Game. Dr. Deonandan is an Epidemologist and professor at Ottawa University and this particular article has over 80,000 reads. It’s popularity, in my opinion, is because of his comprehensive prediction of what is actually going on in the world, what we need to expect here, and how this Virus is predicted to play out. In other words—the End Game. After reading the article, I finally had a sense of what we are in...
2020-03-2554 minScience MonkeyEpisode 11 – Homo Habitus (Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That)Once again, a listener (Mary Ellen) asks us via Twitter to tackle a big topic: is there such a thing as free will? Graham and Ray examine this question from the perspectives of quantum physics, neurology, multiverse theory, semantics, and sociology. That’s an easy topic for a 30 minute podcast featuring two slightly tipsy professors, right? This episode is brought to you by Chekd and by our books sold on Amazon.
Some of the things we talk about are:
Pierre Bourdieu and his theory of habitus
Are all the ants as heavy as all the hu...
2016-06-2500 minScience MonkeyEpisode 10 – Boom Shakalaka! (Sweet, sweet potato)
Once more, the whiskey has begun to flow. In this episode, Graham and Ray tackle the question of how many published studies are likely invalid or not reproducible. We learn about Type I and Type II statistical errors, publication bias, the Proteus Phenomenon and the Winner’s Curse. As well, the wrath of Almighty Zod rains down in the form of thunder, eliciting a visit from Graham’s adorable dog Ouie. And we learn that Ray’s Wikipedia page has been taken down. (Hey, he never created it in the first place, so nothing lost, right?)
Links f...
2016-05-2400 minScience MonkeyEpisode 9 – The Facts and the Furious
Graham & Ray answer listener questions (yes, we have listeners now), including one from a dog who is very concerned about how dependent human civilization is on the existence of the sun. (Dogs are deep, man). We also answer that critical question currently plaguing the Internet: is 2016 a cursed year for celebrity mortality?
Links from today’s show
Prince dead: Is the celebrity death curse of 2016 really a thing?
The Curse of 2016, The Worst Year on Record for Celebrity Deaths
Aaron Ramsey Can’t Stop Killing Famous People
Is 2016 cursed for celebrities?
Here’s what would...
2016-05-1500 minScience MonkeyEpisode 8 – I’m Your Monkey
Graham and Ray are once more deep into the grown-up juice (i.e., whiskey), so much so that they confuse Willy Nelson with John Denver, Bob Denver, Bob Dylan, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and Cat Stevens. But they do eventually answer a question from a Twitter follower who asks, “Do we have too many friends?” This leads to discussion of Satoshi Kanazawa’s “Savannah Principle“, the ideas behind “knowledge mobilization“, and even an introduction to the science of bibliometrics.
Links from today’s show:
Why smart people are better off with fewer friends
Country roads, take me home… to my...
2016-04-2900 minScience MonkeyEpisode 7 – My Computer Could Paint That
Graham and Ray are deep into the whiskey, and are mumbling their way through this episode, which is ostensibly about whether an artificial computer intelligence can be …wait for it… artistic. Be forewarned: there was a weird hum when we did the recording, but it was removed in post-production. As a result, the audio quality might be a bit less than optimal. In this episode, we return to our regular “Facts & The Furious” and “The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge” segments. Also, Graham spoils the ending to the movie, Her, because that’s what he does; and Ray plugs the g...
2016-04-1800 minScience MonkeyEpisode 6 – European On My Leg
Responding to a question on our Facebook page, in this episode Graham and Ray talk about whether the flu vaccine is safe, why the formulation changes every year, what disease surveillance systems are, and introduce the epidemiological concepts, “bias” and “confounding.”
We mention that many modern vaccines don’t have the actual infective organism, but instead are made up of subunits of the organism which act as antigens. Here is a summary of which vaccines are typically made of actual organisms and which are made from inactive subunits:
Important links:...
2016-04-1000 minScience MonkeyEpisode 5 – That’s No Howler Monkey
How do “they” know what your “recommended daily allowance” is? Are diets truly evidence based? What’s the difference between a wet lab and a dry lab? In this episode, Graham and Ray reply to an actual listener question, as Rashi on Facebook wants to know how to navigate the confusing world of recommended diets. Yes, we talk about nutrition while eating pie and drinking whiskey. We also rename our “Didja Know That” segment to “The Facts and The Furious” because, you know, we’re clever and stuff. And our “Is This Still A Thing” segment is renamed “The Celestial E...
2016-04-0400 minScience MonkeyEpisode 4 – Melancholy Sasquatch
How would space aliens behave toward us? Can we even conceptualize something that is truly alien? In today’s show, Graham and Ray discuss the various ways in which human beings might interact with our galactic brethren. Carl Sagan and Charles Pellegrino are name-checked, as is comedian Jerrod Carmichael.
In our Is This Still A Thing segment, Graham quotes the Daoist text Wen Shi Zhen Jing. And we find out what the strongest organism on Earth is!
Science Monkey episode 4
2016-03-2800 minScience MonkeyEpisode 3 – Gerbils, Gerbils, Gerbils! (And Coffee)
Java, cup o’ Joe, brown sludge, learning juice, jet fuel, or even a euphemism for sex –today’s episode is all about everyone’s favourite (legal) drug: coffee! What does this have to do with gerbils? Well…. you’ll see.
In today’s Rigorous of Ridiculous segment, Graham and Ray discuss “Coffee and Cancer of the Pancreas” and another retracted paper, “A computer application in mathematics.” We also continue our favourite segment, Didja Know, in which one monkey must determine which science “fact” is not particularly facty.
Science Monkey episode 3
2016-03-2100 minScience MonkeyEpisode 2 – To The Moon!
Graham and Ray discuss “moonshots”, those huge, government-led science initiatives that promise to change the world forever. Curing cancer? Living forever? Hover boards? Where should we focus our energies? We also introduce our new segment, Is This Still A Thing, in which we look at some examples of ancient civilizations dealing with scientific issues that continue to be relevant today. In this episode, Graham quotes from ancient historical and philosophical sources cited in The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China by Joseph Needham.
In our Rigorous or Ridiculous segment, we discuss the following two papers: “Celesti...
2016-03-1500 minScience MonkeyEpisode 1 – Rigorous or Ridiculous?
Welcome to Science Monkey! In today’s episode, Graham and Ray talk about pseudoscience and why we are still engaged with it, even in the modern, technological era. We also shamelessly plug our books, Words Well Put and Nothing To Do With Skin. And Graham recommends his translation of Six Records of a Life Adrift, by Shen Fu.
Some of the things we mention include: a University course that has some anti-vaccination elements, a questionable diet described in the New York Times that purports to miraculously “cure” autism, why people tend to fall for pseudoscience, and a 199...
2016-03-1500 min
Institute for Knowledge MobilizationRay Deonandan - Episode 16 CCL KM PodcastWelcome to episode sixteen of the Knowledge Exchange Podcast. This podcast series is a product supported by the Canadian Council on Learning – Canada’s leading organization committed to improving learning across Canada and in all walks of life.
I want to thank the great staff at CCL for their efforts with this project to advance our understanding of effective knowledge exchange to improve the learning of Canadians.
You can download this episode, as well as one of the seventeen future episodes in the series from my website or from iTunes directly, just search for KM podcast.
The...
2008-02-0423 min