SGU Episode 442

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

This Day in Skepticism

 * January 4, 1904: Thomas Edison electrocutes Topsy the Elephant

Predictions 2013

 * Predictions 2013: The rogues compare their predictions to the professional 'psychics'

Atmosphere on a super earth

 * http://m.phys.org/news/2013-12-hubble-telescope-reveal-cloudy-weather.html

Reverse Ageing

 * http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/reverse-ageing-hype/

Magnetic Pooping

 * http://www.frontiersinzoology.com/content/10/1/80/abstract

Virgin Births

 * http://www.today.com/health/just-time-christmas-could-virgin-births-be-real-2D11762820

Who's That Noisy

 * Answer to last week: Castrati

Interview with Hai Ting Chinn and Matthew Schickele

 * scopesmonkeychoir.com

Science or Fiction
Item #1: Researchers find that human hunter/gatherers follow a movement pattern that is the same as the foraging patterns of many animals, such as sharks and honey bees. Item #2: Astronomers report the first discovery of a possible exomoon. Item #3: A new survey of dinosaur species concludes that as many as half of known species sported some type of feather.

Skeptical Quote of the Week
"“Science advances through tentative answers to a series of more and more subtle questions which reach deeper and deeper into the essence of natural phenomena.”~Louis Pasteur"