Probably Science

Veterans of stage and screen Jimmy Shubert (twitter.com/JimmyShubert) and Matt Davis (twitter.com/mattdavis) join Jess, Matt and Andy this week to chat about: Performing for troops overseas! Rubbing strange lamps you find on the beach! Phillbillies! the Civil Rights Museum! Brooks Wheelan's 12 Years a Slave sketch on SNL! Baby tumors that have teeth! Unnecessary remakes! Dark matter that may have killed off the dinosaurs! Rumspringa! A drug that cures heroin overdoses! Nick Doody opening for Bill Hicks! Judging our furry listeners! Italian robots that can tell when you lie! Another AIDS baby who's been cured!

Comedian/writer James Bachman (twitter.com/MrJamesBachman, That Mitchell and Webb Look) and comedian/podcaster Danny Lobell (twitter.com/dannylobell) join Matt, Andy and Jesse to talk about: Almost failing physics and math at Cambridge! Nude women with flamethrowers at Burning Man! Sexy biology teachers! Having a Jewish-themed wedding! Jesse's high school friend dressing in blackface! Group theory! Danny's work medicating giant sea turtles! A recently unearthed 30,000-year-old megavirus! A polio-like outbreak in California! Older dads are more likely to have messed-up kids! Jesse as the spokesman for sober Taco Bell! The powerlessness of positive thinking! Turing machines! Could black holes be breaking the Eddington limit? A 3D-printed electronic glove for your heart! Danny Lobell's philosophy-themed podcast! Finding out that James wrote the hilarious Numberwang sketch!

Comedian and IT professional Andrew Solmssen (twitter.com/solmssen) joins the crew this week for a discussion of: Rating the podcast's hosts on Lulu! Getting matched with a comedian/prostitute on Tinder! Howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com! Gilbert chemistry sets! The Radioactive Boy Scout! Hacking the payphones in your dorm and the parking on your campus! Remembering 80MB hard drives that sold for $2,200! The severity of Apple's SSL security flaw! Jesse quitting Facebook! The illusion of digital privacy! A recent visible space rock crash on the surface of the moon! Looking at clips of severe Russian accidents as a profession! Doing IT for one-named pop stars! Holding Marlee Matlin's Oscar! Andrew's gadget recommendations! Facebook's $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp! Being a sysadmin vs. a programmer! Virtual machines! The discovery of a 4.4 billion-year-old crystal! Andrew and Andy's favorite iPhone game: Letterpress!

The hilarious and charming Wendy Wason (twitter.com/wendy_wason) makes her second appearance on the podcast to talk with Matt, Andy and Jesse about: Andy's swim meet! Jesse and Matt shaving their legs! Matt's serial killer neighbor! How John Wayne Gacy got caught! Beautiful equations that mathematicians appreciate as art! A computer-generated math proof that's bigger than all of Wikipedia! The statistics of celebrity infidelity! A correction to our stem cell story! Edward Snowden's election as rector of Glasgow University! Early animals that didn't need oxygen! Wendy's dinner with Bryan Adams! New developments in fusion technology! Phone phreaking! Mitch Hedberg's final shows!

This week's episode was recorded live at SF Sketchfest, with guests including sleep expert Professor Matthew Walker of UC Berkeley's psychology department, comedian Kurt Braunohler (twitter.com/kurtbraunohler) and a surprise drop-in from a Hollywood superstar!

Comedian and host of the Comedy Film Nerds podcast Graham Elwood (twitter.com/grahamelwood) joins Matt, Andy and Jesse to discuss: Volunteer firefighters! Squarespace's Super Bowl ad! The Ear Buds podcasting documentary! Jesse's multimedia promise for the upcoming live Probably Science! Suing NASA for not looking hard enough for aliens! Negotiating with scalpers! Marijuana lowering suicide rates! Bill Nye debating a creationist! Jesse finds out that Squarespace sponsors the podcast! The reason sloths leave the trees to drop a deuce! The sum of all positive integers is -1/12! Andy's grudge match swim meet!

The delightful Karen Gillan (twitter.com/karengillan2) of Doctor Who and the upcoming films Oculus and Guardians of the Galaxy returns to the program this week to help Matt, Jesse and Andy celebrate the 100th episode of Probably Science, covering a wide range of topics including: Matt’s electrical problems! Andy's sugarfree gum-loving rats! The wonders of the number 100! Ab inflation! A message from Brooks Wheelan! Why does no one remember that Jesse lives at Bluebell? Karen hanging outside with the cool kids! Karen’s upcoming horror film Oculus! Sheltering child actors from the terrifying movies they’re in! Children’s innate belief in immortality! The excommunication of Halley’s Comet! Matt and Andy’s trip to the trampoline park! Early humans picking up bad genetic traits by mating with Neanderthals! The Scottish royal mental asylum! Jonas Salk’s 100th birthday and the history of the polio vaccine! Rutherford’s atomic discoveries of 1914! The 100th anniversary of the gun synchronizer! Dipping blood cells in

The hilarious Dwayne Perkins (twitter.com/funnydp) joins the crew this week to talk about: Piscopo-ing and Carrot Topping! Texting parents! Depressing 99 cent store purchases! Dogs aligning themselves with the earth's magnetic field to poop! The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island! A computer 1,500 years ahead of its time! Learning to drive as an adult! Squarespace's Care Bear Lair! Gigantopithecus brought down by sweet, sweet fruit! Dying carnivores changing the courses of rivers! Jesse's attempts at getting real jobs! Baiting a rat trap with almond butter! A black hole sucking up a giant gas cloud! Composing a song based on auditory hallucinations!

Science and comedy collide once again this week as Dr. Peter McGraw (twitter.com/petermcgraw), author of the upcoming book The Humor Code, and Man School podcast host Caleb Bacon (twitter.com/CalebEatsBacon) join Jesse, Matt and Andy to talk about: Jesse’s near death polar vortex experience! Whatever the Fahrenheit scale is based on! Pre-ordering The Humor Code! Michael McDonald’s Probably Science backing vocals! An audiophile rendition of Probably Science! Ramona Quimby’s street! Recording an album in Guitar Center! The Dennis Miller reference generator! Peter McGraw: Wanted: Dead or Alive! Japan’s comedic oligarchy! Tanzania’s laughter outbreak! PBA: The laughing disease! Comedy in the West Bank! Homonyms and homophones! The comedy terrorist! Humor in Auschwitz! Comedy as a thermometer vs. a thermostat! Democrats vs. Republicans as comedy audiences! The Benign Violation Theory! The Seinfeld vs. Silverman approach! Becoming immunized to comedy!

Comedians Emily Heller (twitter.com/MrEmilyHeller) and Auggie Smith (twitter.com/auggiesmith) join Matt and Andy on the first episode of the new year, discussing: Suck My Dick, New Yorker! Two and one half dollars! Cheat sheets! Eighth grade listeners and science fairs! Making belly button cheese! The polar vortex! Throwing boiling water in the air! The lack of great comedy sequels! Eclipsing binary asteroids! Cliche dorm room posters! The unicycling guy on campus! River blindness! Doing comedy for a glass company! One-in, one-out social networks! Upworthy spoilers! Quitting Facebook! The Dennis Miller Reference Generator! Probably Science at SF Sketchfest February 8th!

This week Matt, Jesse and Andy are joined by Caltech Planetary Science Postdoctoral Scholar Bjoern Benneke and author Lee Billings to talk about the many topics covered in Lee's new book, Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars, including: Hunting for exoplanets! Dating sites for farmers! The Drake equation! Earth's recent trend toward radio silence! Oxygen: The first great pollution crisis! Harold Urey's pessimistic time capsule predictions! Energy-hungry alien civilizations creating Dyson spheres! Competition in the exoplanet field! The philosophical reasons for searching for extraterrestrial life!

This episode kicks off two weeks in a row of real science, as Matt, Jesse and Andy welcome Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, author of Newton's Football, and comedian/football fan Sarah Tiana (twitter.com/sarahtiana) to discuss Dr. Ramirez's new book, and more specifically: Footballs in humidors! Football suicide pools! Andy's football ignorance! The brutal early days of the sport! Football's concussion epidemic! A new style of safer tackling! Refrigerator Perry's rapping prowess! Desperation giving rise to the A-11 offense! Vince Lombardi's background as a science teacher! Choosing plays based on game theory! Waffle House waiters who are like quarterbacks! Risk-averse monkeys! The toe-less placekicker! Greg Cook's injury giving rise to the West Coast offense! The origin of the no-huddle offense! The reasons for the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry! Compulsory pep rallies! Andy's football announcer grandfather Bob Ufer!

Scottish comedy wunderkind Daniel Sloss (twitter.com/daniel_sloss) is here in the US to perform on Conan, and he stopped by Bluebell Ranch to talk with Matt, Jesse and Andy about: British comedian intros! Doing comedy at a rave! Scottish pride! Upkilt photographs! Ben and Jerry-inspired homophobic slogans! Bot Out Of Hell: Daniel and his father's Robot Wars competitor with a diamond sawblade! A new drug that fixes bent boners! Everyone's fingers connect! Adolescent mice that drink alcohol because of peer pressure! Where humans really sit on the food chain! Eating animals to teach them a lesson! Throwing pennies away! The nuts and bolts of being hanged, drawn and quartered!

This episode is a complete shambles. With Andy out of town, Canadian/British comedian Jason John Whitehead (twitter.com/jjwhitesnake) drops in on Matt and Jesse attempting to make a Thanksgiving bonus episode in Jesse's bedroom. Topics include: Birthright trips to Israel! Thanksgiving stuff! Jesse's typewriter collection! Mighty hunters! Genetic inheritence of fears! Seahorse fluid dynamics! Illegal koala handling! Goosing!      

British comedian/actor/writer Andi Osho (twitter.com/andiosho) now lives here in the US, where she's recently appeared on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and @midnight, and she joins Matt, Jesse and Andy this week for a listener-centric episode focused on topics sent in by our lovely fans, including: The speed of gravity waves! How to pronounce Trygve! Andy's Nicaraguan rental car! Jesse and Andy's roommate's iTunes woes! Jesse's dad was a mall Santa! The gray area of children's photos! Ridiculously fast LED-based Li-Fi internet connectivity! A fluid dynamics discussion of fart dissipation! A scientific analysis of urinal splashback! Dogs reacting to the directions of fellow dogs' tail wags! Why spoilers might increase your enjoyment of a story! Junk DNA corrections!

Actor Samm Levine (twitter.com/SammLevine) who made a name for himself on Freaks and Geeks and Inglourious Basterds and comedian Susan Burke (twitter.com/ThatSusanBurke) who's received rave reviews for writing the film Smashed join Matt, Andy and Jesse this week to discuss: All-night comedy shows at UCB! Halloween robot costumes! Samm's Short Circuit 2 nostalgia! Samm playing doctor as a kid! Losing to Jon Hamm in the Leonard Maltin game! Monkeys who are hardwired to be scared of snakes! Hotel living! Jesse's fake Zagat binder for solo dining! The perks of priesthood! The secret to sneaking into things! Using levitating droplets of water to create nanoparticles! Samm's gold-collecting dentist father! Using teeth to make replacement eye lenses! Actress Hedy Lamarr's frequency-hopping spread-spectrum invention! The early days of Jim Jones! Asteroid-hunting space telescopes!

Hilarious writers/comedians/producers Scotty Landes (twitter.com/MarylandMudflap) and Heather Thomson (twitter.com/CasualVelvet) join Matt, Andy, and Jesse this week for the show.  Man about town James Austin Johnson (twitter.com/JAustinJohnson) sits in for color commentary!  Together, they dive deep into: Pepto Bismol!  Scientific Hippie poetry!  Sitting in the shower!  Women are better multitaskers!  Self-pleasuring in cars!  Rubbernecking!  Professional hugging!  The science of Captchas!  Second rate sex parties!  Selling your own blood!  Robotic dogs!  Facial recognition software!  Animals doing math!  Sam Elliott!  India's space program!  Scratch-off tickets and champagne!

Caltech and LIGO physicists Jamie Rollins and Larry Price (www.ligo.caltech.edu) join Andy, Jesse and Matt to up the Science:Probably ratio for just one week as they discuss: Why we don't go straight through tables! What's inside an atom! Why chemistry isn't their forté! Dark matter and WIMPS! Gravity waves and what LIGO actually is! How to measure something that's smaller than the smallest thing you can think of! Putting experiments in space! What inspired Einstein to come up with relativity (hint - the two of them didn't agree on it)! How scientists fake getting a result to test each other! The feebleness of gravity!

Edinburgh Comedy Award-winner Brendon Burns (twitter.com/brendonburns) sits in with Matt, Jesse and Andy this week to dig into: Worrying about your Google-ability! LA streets named for celebrities! Orange people in the Australian outback! Making "Be a Lady" T-shirts! Naked children on giant slip-n-slides! Underwear that filters your flatulence! Learning how to pronounce "awry"! Finding bombs with dolphin-inspired radar! The four-disc Flaming Lips experimental album! Whatever killed the dinosaurs wiped out a load of bees, too! Personality trends across the US! Junk DNA that shapes your face! Perthans!

You've seen comedian Nate Craig (twitter.com/NateCraig1) on truTV's World's Dumbest and Comedy Central's Mash Up, and he joins Matt, Andy and Jesse to discuss: Jesse's new co-host status! Lowball podcast donations! Exchanging a million pennies! Fake IDs! Figuring out what Yetis actually are! Farting into tissues! Ancient human ancestry! Youtube videos of Danny Devito cuddling with Michael Jordan! Los Angeles coyotes! Flushing out brain toxins while you sleep! Matt's experience with colonics! Andy's Jack In The Box confession! Our upcoming live video stream of the show! Using static electricity to dispose of space debris! Rapidly aging breast tissue! Ironing your jeans! A possible cure for baldness! Toupee stories! Ironic combovers!