SGU Episode 276

Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

Ghosts Calling Cell Phones

 * http://sify.com/news/paranormal-expert-claims-ghosts-are-using-cell-phones-to-contact-friends-news-international-kkxpaegaeee.html

Hawking Radiation

 * http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/44093

More on Radioactive Decay Rates

 * http://www.nist.gov/mml/analytical/14c_091410.cfm

The Science of Medicine

 * http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=7734

Enter very brief news headline

 * - NECSS 2011 - save the date: April 9th and 10th - Physics.org Podcast Nomination: http://www.physics.org/toplistdetail.asp?id=15

Who's That Noisy

 * Answer to last week - the US Space Shuttle launching

Question #1 - Time Traveling Cell Phone User
"Cell phone in Charlie Chaplin Flick? Just saw this in my feed reader....any ideas? Love the show! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU Todd Barnard Denver CO"

Interview with SGU Forums Moderators

 * SGUForums.com Moderators Doug, Karen, Amanda, and Steven join us for a chat about the SGU Forums

Science or Fiction
Item #1: The world record for the heaviest pumpkin is 1810.5 pounds Item #2: According to Celtic superstition, if you look into a mirror at midnight on Halloween you will see your own death. Item #3: Americans consume about 25 pounds of candy per capita per year. Item #4: In a process called saponification, some corpses spontaneously turn partially into soap rather than decompose.

Quote of the Week
"'All scientific work is incomplete - whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that is appears to demand at a given time. 'Who knows, asked Robert Browning, but the world may end tonight? True, but on available evidence most of us make ready to commute on the 8:30 the next day.' - Sir Austin Bradford Hill, “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58 (1965), 295-300. Sir Austin Bradford Hill"