It’s been a while since I did the “Brains on Vacation” segment on Are We Alone, the SETI podcast, but one came out a week ago. You can download it on their shiny new website, or you can simply grab the MP3. My segment is the first one, starting about 2 minutes in, and in this episode Seth and I chat about the Bermuda Triangle. My verdict about the Triangle is: well, duh. Guess.
You can listen to the rest of the podcast if you want to, but I’m not in it, so it’s not as interesting.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. | |
 | Open Lab 2008 is a collection of the best blog posts of the year, all in one place. Are you a science junkie? Yeah, you want it. |
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July 29th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Way to phone it in, Phil. Or, since this is SETI, did you even use a phone, or did you just stand around while they adjusted the dish?
Aside from that, I kind of liked the theory I’d heard about frozen methane being released as a result of some sort of infrequent seismic event being responsible for the mystery of the Triangle. But, I do also like your talk about how things just get blown out of proportion.
Other than that, I love the little grey headphone holder. I think I need one of those. Badly. And, the eye-fryingly beautiful woman on the right in the picture above really makes me want to get a job there.
July 29th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Phil.
The link in the photo doesn’t work. It gives me a 404 error.
July 29th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Me, I like the look of the cute one with the headphones on bottom left. Each to one’s own.
July 29th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
A comment on your “full moon” article:
Your comment: “So tides within a human body are far, far too small to even measure, let alone to affect [on] our behavior.”
My comment on your comment: And, as every scientist knows, if we can’t measure it it doesn’t exist, since our measuring skills are perfect and will never be improved. Microbes, for example, did not exist until the microscope was invented, and even then were too small to do something like make people sick..
July 29th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Fru, that’s a tad off-topic for here.
And besides, it’s not relevant. We know how much tides affect a human, and someone walking past you has a bigger effect.
July 29th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
What’s this? Brains are on vacation so the cryptkeeper is filling in?
July 30th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Dan, it’s not frozen methane per se. It’s methane hydrates, held in a partially-stable state (as a solid) by nothing more than high pressure. The freezing point of methane is very much lower than the temperature at the bottom of the Atlantic.
According to what I recall of a New Scientist article from about 6 or 7 years ago, when these methane hydrates are disturbed (for example, by an earthquake), they do very rapidly decompose into water and methane gas. As the gas erupts to the surface, the average density of the sea-water decreases (because it is mixed with large bubbles of methane gas), causing any hapless ship traversing that piece of ocean to sink without warning.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
“You can listen to the rest of the podcast if you want to, but I’m not in it, so it’s not as interesting.”
I hope that’s said tongue-in-cheek, because otherwise I might think you’re getting a big head (hahaha). Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
July 30th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
When I read the title of this post: “Brains on Vacation”, I thought you were talking about the Republican National Convention, or alerting us to a “Discovery” Institute conference - my bad…
July 31st, 2007 at 8:37 am
I’ve wondered: does Seth come up with those awful puns on the fly, or is he scripted?