Probably Science

Troy Conrad (troyconrad.net) is a comedian, writer, director and producer, and he's the man behind the hilarious improvised standup comedy show Set List. He joins Matt, Andy and Jesse Case on this week's episode to talk about: Breaking Bad spoilers! Improvised debate! House/career dysmorphia! Hot tub clothing regulations! Comedy Jesus! Troy's Scientology experience! Probably History! Religions with boats! Beetles with handles! Howard Bloom! Tracking space debris! Inappropriate cell phone conversation volume! Keeping bread from growing mold! The Grand Canyon: Older than we thought?

Matt, Brooks, and Andy celebrate the 50th episode of Probably Science with their first repeat guest! Kyle Kinane, fresh on the heels of his Comedy Central special "Whiskey Icarus," sat down with the ProbSci crew to talk about: Brooks's love woes! Convincing housekeeping to let you watch a space jump! Free Jacuzzi! Public boners! Peeing in the shower! The cotton gin! Young Einstein! The deadliest bird! Brooks touched Bruce Springsteen! Undercover Boss! Log Cabin Republicans! Karaoke guitar solos! Barenaked Ladies cruises! Comedians opening for bands! Macy Gray! The physics of a halfpipe! Catfish eating pigeons! Japanese rollercoaster commuter trains! A parasite that makes mice fearless! A giant Texas meteor! Spending almost a billion dollars to go to the moon! Seeing extra colors! An attempt at historical science!

Comedian Tom Sibley (twitter.com/TheTomSibley) joins Matt, Brooks, and Andy to talk about: Advent calendars! Alternate endings to The Grey! Tom's secret robot teacher! Being sent to the bathroom during science class! Throwing your milk in a locker! Almost Live! Deep Blue Sea! Brooks travels to Hawaii! Matt's close encounter with a pod of killer whales! Instagram-iquette! Robotic snakes! Matt puts Miracle Balance energy bands to the test! Matt and Andy compare their Movember takes! Saturn's rings: A moon factory? Vernor's Herzog! Ice on Mercury! Alcoholic fly larvae! Doing comedy in Vegas!

Comic/actress Marianne Sierk (@MarianneSierk) of Tru TV and the upcoming reboot of Best Week Ever joins Matt, Andy and Jesse Case this week to discuss: The surplus of exposition in Lincoln! Impressions of Breaking Bad characters! Historical spoilers! The downside of co-education! Marianne's wiccan phase! The OCD nature of religion! D'Nealian and mumblety-peg! Finding your mother's diaphragm! Insects with giant testicles! Bug doctoring! Small-town sex! The lack of women in science jobs depicted in TV and movies! Girls who want to be princesses! Smother parties! Un-discovering an island! Chemtrails! Matt's kosher house! Making more rational decisions in a second language! Art therapy! Bees and birds solving the traveling salesman problem! Gus, the Kato Kaelin of dogs! Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings! The last week of Movember!

Comedian and actor TJ Miller (twitter.com/nottjmiller) hosts Comedy Central's new show Mash Up, co-hosts the hilarious podcast Cashing In with TJ Miller, and has been a scene-stealer in movies and TV shows too numerous to mention. Matt, Brooks, and Andy venture to his loft this week to talk about: Being a fan of high school theater productions! Andy and Matt's competing Movember 'staches! Dad teachers! Name-dropping famous meals! Utica circuses! Major League pseudo-nudity! Mastering the art of sushi! John Stamos's parallel universe version of Full House! Matt's Hogwarts education! George Clooney's penis! TJ's brother Dennis! Growing your own balsa wood! Charles Darwin getting 4,000 write-in votes! Congressmen who don't believe in evolution! Hollywood billboards that aren't kid-friendly! Nic Cage's dinosaur skull! A wandering planet! TJ's fear of astronomy! Stephen Hawking using his mind to kick you in the dick! The great white shark isn't descended from megashark! TJ's juggling audition to become a member of

Comedian Taylor Williamson (taylorwilliamson.com) of Last Comic Standing joins Matt and Andy this week to talk about: Election results! Bad presidential impressions! The historic Alex Theatre! Jeopardy! Novelizations of Jim Carrey movies! Acid rain experiments! Fake anti-Semitism! Beakman's World! Grapple forks and rock buckets! Watching Simon Pegg movies with subtitles! Show-off sharks! Aladdin sequels! Math anxiety creates actual pain! High school Republicanism! The diabetes/flu link! Doubling down on jokes that don't work! Being poor causes bad decision-making! Bar mitzvah DJ sets! Cybersquatting! Shia LaBeuof naked! Growing charity facial hair!

Actor/comedian and host of the Travel Tales podcast Mike Siegel (funnymike.com) joins Matt, Brooks and Andy on a lovely November afternoon to discuss: Favorite Boogie Nights scenes! Brooks Skywalker! Matt's Movember mustache! The Iowa wrestling legacy! Pick-up grappling! The unifying power of soccer! Mike's scientist parents! The venomous, egg-laying, otter-footed, beaver-tailed, duck-billed platypus! Australia: penal colony for all species! Mike's world travels! Winnipeg's giant teepee! Felix Baumgartner is anti-space exploration! Self-fixing concrete! Red Bull Flugtag mishaps! A planet made of diamond! Andy's Pioneertown zombie prom! The health impact of drying your clothes! Psychic powers disproved! Brooks Wheelan selected as one of Comedy Central's Comics to Watch for 2012!

Writer/comedian Chip Pope (Austin Stories, Beavis & Butthead, Last Comic Standing) joins Andy, Brooks, and Jesse Case (twitter.com/jessecase) for this week's Probably Science, with a spook-tacularly unnecessary intro courtesy of the built-in effects on the mixing board. Topics discussed include: Working with Mike Judge! Luke and Owen Wilson: Actually brothers? The upcoming Probably History spinoff! R. O. Manse! Rabbits overtaking Australia! Steely Dan: Not just for dads! The Texas town that busts tour buses! Vote "no" on all ballot propositions! The degree symbol comes from hieroglyphics! Decoding the oldest-known writing system! The Wachowski siblings! Probably Science Blind Items! Moving asterozone hole! oids with paintballs! The incredible shrinking ozone layer hole! The Red Hot Chili Peppers playing in Brooks's neighborhood! The obsolescence of representative democracy! Hermit crab key parties! The Milky Way munching on star clusters! Jesse pays for $40 worth of gas and drives away! Rugrats conspiracy

Comedians Josh Cheney (twitter.com/JoshCheenee) and Dax Jordan (twitter.com/DaxJordan) join Andy and Brooks this week to talk about: King Tuff vs. Pearl Jam! The Hot House comedy show! Josh's role as Professor Kelp on The Homework Show! Dax vs. Josh in Weird Al fandom! Watching Armageddon and grabbing boobs! Celery-based science fair projects! Dax's disappointing attempt at crossbreeding carrots! Comparing Christmas gift-opening traditions! Felix Baumgartner's record-setting jump! Ball lightning: What is it? How long would it take for something to fall to the center of the earth? A commitment ceremony for the smashing-together of two galaxies! Is anything really bad for the planet? Should we protect polar bears? Tickling baby penguins! Traumatizing mice, then trying to fix said trauma! Brooks finally unveiling his Red Hot Chili Peppers tattoo! What memory would you erase if you could? A rogue climate hacker dumping 100 tons of iron sulfate into the ocean for science!

Emery Emery, host of the podcasts The Ardent Atheist (ardentatheist.com) and Skeptically Yours (skepticallyyours.net), makes his first Probably Science appearance with a full cast of Matt, Andy, and Brooks to talk about: The origin of Probably Science! Andy putting his foot in his mouth on Emery's podcast! Neil Young burying the Skynyrd hatchet! Blowing up a rat with 8 M-80s! The Bogdanov Affair! Trusting expertise! Brooks giving himself nicknames! Pegged jeans! Andy's ukulele project! Cheating yo-yos with mechanical clutches! Robot bee brains! Emery gets revenge on Andy via Shane Battier!

The gang's all here! Pride of Portland and recent Los Angeles transplant Richard Bain joins Matt, Brooks, and Andy to talk about: Scaring Dave Chappelle! The greatness of Undeclared! Matt and Andy trying to convince Richard and Brooks to vote! Brooks gets his tattoo covered to host Comedy Central's upcoming Retro Weekend! The aphrodisiac effects of Troll 2! What if Hitler was into troll dolls? Blowing up a rollerblade with a propane tank! Brooks has a bone to pick with the old woman who lived in a shoe! Insects with mechanical brains! Latino mechanics who pit black widows against bees! Hiring a green exterminator! Brooks hosting toddler fight clubs! Bees that make blue and green honey! Niels Bohr's birthday! The discovery of a dwarf vampire porcupine dinosaur! Brooks loves New York City! A Nazi Buddha made from a meteorite! Papa John's car! Bears and tigers moving to the city! Baboon burglars!

Matt and Brooks are out of town, so we're bringing you a lost episode with Hampton Yount (hamptonyount.com) recorded in December of 2011. Enjoy this glimpse into the not-to-distant past... A simpler time... A time when we only had one microphone. Seriously, though, it's a good episode, even if the science stories are a bit out of date. Enjoy!

Andy Haynes (imandyhaynes.com) came up in the Pacific Northwest comedy scene before making his mark on Fallon and Conan, and he joins Brooks, Andy, and guest co-hosts Auggie Smith (auggiesmith.com) and Alice Wetterlund (alicewetterlund.com) to talk about: Getting the star treatment for late night sets! Andy Richter's cartoonist brother-in-law Tony Millionaire! The sobering effects of the Bridgetown Comedy Festival! Powering through the Human Centipede sequel! Andy confusing Mengele, Mendel, and Mendeleev! Haynes's fear of zombies! Walking out of movies! Stealing 100,000 miniature airplane liquor bottles! Brooks's lack of callbacks! More dry ice bombs! Grilling burgers: Worse for the environment than driving a diesel truck? Vegetarianism! Studying Central American revolutionaries and their relationship to the Catholic church! Bands with semen-related names! Dead baby pandas! Favorite bears! The Space Shuttle flyover! Challenger street jokes! Bane impressions! International Observe The Moon Night! Finally figur

You've seen the very funny Mark Agee (twitter.com/MarkAgee) on Last Comic Standing, and he makes his Probably Science debut this week, joining Andy and a fresh-off-the-plane Matt Kirshen to talk about: Performering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! Taking Brooks's grown-up appliances! Living in comedian squalor! Putting a wrench in the works of conversations! Nash equilibria! Game theory! Why do people keep working after making their fortunes? Heisenberg -- not as uncertain as we'd thought? Matt's jet lag! Don't drink on planes! Getting paid in drink tickets! King Tut's girlish figure! Could epilepsy have saddled human civilization with monotheism? John Wayne Gacy's head injury! Pedophilia sympathy! Studying the innate clocks of mice! The concept of second sleep! Go-go juice! The evolutionary explanation of the placebo effect! The high cost of turning on our immune systems! Cocktails vs. mixed drinks! Computing with water droplets!

LA-based comedy team Power Violence (facebook.com/powerviolencecomedy) host one of the best weekly comedy shows in town, and they're now Brooks's roommates as well. Andy and Brooks do an on-site recording at the new residence to talk with Whitmer, Rodney, Budd, and Clay about: The magic of Andrew WK! Living down the street from Booger from Revenge of the Nerds! Hurricane preparedness! Setting your house on fire! Voyager I reaching the edge of the Solar System! The golden space record! Whit’s family Challenger connection! Dead fish in Lake Erie! Bowling balls of hardened BP oil! Time actually does slow down for elite athletes! Tigers and humans working in shifts! Andy getting charged by a moose! Discovering a new species of stick bug! Pilot whales getting moved to Sea World! Animal abuse on the set of The Adventures Milo and Otis!

Comedian Shane Mauss (shanemauss.com), as seen on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Conan, joins Brooks and Andy on a lovely Labor Day weekend afternoon to discuss: Summer surfing! Comedy about time travel! Evolutionary psychology, A.K.A. science about dicks! Wisconsin's extreme drinking claims! Michio Kaku, the less-optimistic Ray Kurzweil! Dumbing-down the science portions of your standup act! Blowing up mailboxes! Soliciting advice on keeping birds and bats out of wind turbines! The science refuting Todd Akin's mind-bogglingly stupid statement about rape and pregnancy! Shane throwing away his whole act to write comedy about sexual selection! Finding 40,000 Euro worth of whale vomit! Forming smell/sound associations while sleeping! The upcoming LA Podcast Festival, October 12-14 (lapodfest.com)!

Baron Vaughn (baronvaughn.com) of Fairly Legal, Conan, and Fallon makes his first Probably Science appearance as he helps Brooks, Andy, and guest co-host Jesse Case figure out: Ways to straighten teeth! Which parts of Des Moines are New Jack City! 50 Shades of Dorian Gray! Oppenheimer/Bhagavad Gita quotes! OJ Simpson chase memories! Super-fertility causing miscarriage! Brooks scares off Mumford & Sons! Andy pisses off Ed Norton while surfing! Brooks cries his eyes out at Beasts of the Southern Wild! Bill Nye stands up to creationists! Misrepresenting evolution! Determining hair and eye color of crime suspects from DNA! Baron's deleted scene with Will Ferrell! HD format wars! Raising funds for a Nikola Tesla museum! Brooks goes to SummerSlam! Ray Kurzweil and the technological singularity! Fixing a century-old Spanish fresco the Mr. Bean way!

It looks like Summer Country has drawn to a premature close, and we bring Julian McCullough, co-host of the upcoming E! show Love You Mean It with Whitney Cummings, along to help us come to terms with that. Auggie Smith also guest co-hosts, helping Brooks and Andy get to the bottom of: Lies told on This American Life! Hitting on girls in chemistry class! Andy recants his anti-Cornell statements! Julian tells his personal story of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake! The moment you realize that not all British people are better than you! Denmark's kickass penal system! The awesomeness of Jack White! "Green" cremation! Turning your loved ones into a water bottle! Endangered sharks! The golden ratio: Now in uteruses! Ultrasound mischief! Mars pictures! Julian's near-death experience on a scooter! Using DNA to encode the contents of a book! Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction!

As seen on Last Comic Standing and Girls Behaving Badly, comedian Kira Soltanovich (kiracomedy.com) joins Matt, Andy, and guest host Auggie Smith to talk about: Shift workers are at risk for heart attacks! Heckles worse than "Too soon!" Siphoning out the contents of Rod Stewart's stomach! Auto-erotic self-asphyxiation! Fixing the hellmouth hot tub! The mysteries of Branson, Missouri! What does Perestroika mean? Pussy Riot! Tracking people's eye movements to predict what they'll say! Bodily changes brought on by pregnancy! Why do dogs wear bandanas? Would you give up your arms and legs to be able to unhinge your jaw? Chewbacca's Russian etymological origins! Going as a low-rent mummy for Halloween! Matt's wizard onesie! Strobe goggles can improve your memory! Auggie can summon death upon unruly audience members!

Actor and comedian Guy Branum (guybranum.com) of No Strings Attached and Chelsea Lately joins Matt, Andy, and guest co-host Jesse Case (twitter.com/jessecase) this week as they discuss: Rural sociology! Wasting a law degree! Calling out Guns, Germs and Steel! Quinoa: Not just for Incans anymore! What makes us fat: diet or lack of exercise? Andy's swimming past! Acai, antioxidants, and free radicals! Fake Einstein quotes about bees! Anna Chlumsky! Suicide-bombing termites! Cornell's former College of Home Economics! The UK's nationalized virginity-loss system! Fooling iris-recognition scanners! Guy outs some closeted celebrities! Andy's snail mail Nigerian scam!