SGU Episode 254

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

Energy of Early Life

 * http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100525094906.htm

End for Mars Phoenix Lander and Atlantis

 * http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64O06N20100525

Vaccine Safety

 * http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1976

Accepting Science

 * http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/05/psychological-barriers-facing-mmr.html http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123328312/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp15_3.pdf

Exonerated by Acupuncture

 * http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article466250.ece/Acupuncturist-pricks-holes-in-rape-conviction

Who's That Noisy

 * Answer to last week: Michael Savage

Interview with James Randi

 * Randi discusses his life-long friend, Martin Gardner, who passed away this week at 95.

Science or Fiction
Item #1: Doctors recently diagnosed a man as having the first ever brain infection with a computer virus. Item #2: Scientists have built the word's smallest electronic device - a transistor consisting of only 7 atoms. Item #3: New studies find that having allergies significantly reduces the risk of acquiring certain cancers.

Quote of the Week
"'Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals - the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.' Martin Gardner"