SGU Episode 281

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

SETI 50th Anniversary

 * http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/50th_Anniversary_Of_SETI_Commemorated_With_New_Observing_Project_999.html

Antimatter Breakthrough

 * http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101117/full/468355a.html

Nanoparticles and Glowing Trees

 * http://www.popsci.com.au/?s=Trees%20Infused%20With%20Glowing%20Nanoparticles%20Could%20Replace%20Streetlights

Oprah Promotes Psychic Surgeon

 * http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/for_shame_oprah_winfrey_shills_for_faith.php

Latest PSI Research

 * http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/feeling-the-future-is-precognition-possible/

Bending Time and Space

 * http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2372850,00.asp

Question #1 - Neurology of Belief
"Neurology of Belief"

Question #2 - Coincidence
"What rhymes with 'orange?'"

Question #3 - Multi-Level Marketing
"Super-oxygenated water scam"

Science or Fiction
Item #1: Researchers at UBC have found that an organism with the world's smallest nuclear genome, E. cuniculi, can have 20% of its genes removed with no impact on its function. Item #2: UBC researchers have been able to directly observe for the first time, the moment when electrons in a super conductor transition from coherent particles into a superconducting state. Item #3: UBC researchers have discovered a marsh-dwelling freshwater fish that can evolve to survive in a saltwater marine environment in only 3 generations.

Quote of the Week
"'We work by exorcising incessant superstition that there are mysterious tribal gods against you. Nature has neither rewards nor punishments, only consequences. You can use science to make it work for you.' - Edwin Land"