Science Fictions

Around these parts, we have a tradition to do a paranormal episode at Halloween. We’ve done psychic powers, ghosts, and now… reincarnation. What are we to make of the stories—sometimes told in NYT-bestselling books—of children who appear to remember details of their past lives? What about the many peer-reviewed scientific papers that claim that something supernatural is going on here? In this EXTR...

Maybe it’s the most important thing any scientist can study: what makes people happy? The trouble is, despite the importance, a lot of the science on “wellbeing” tends to be very rickety. But did you know that even one of the best-known findings of wellbeing research—the midlife crisis, or “inverted U shape” of happiness over the lifespan—has been questioned? In this episode we discuss the controv...

You requested; we delivered. Lots of Science Fictions listeners have asked us to take a look into Donald Trump and RFK, Jr.’s recent claims about Tylenol (that is, paracetamol or acetaminophen—all the same thing). Does it cause autism? It turns out there’s more to this than you might’ve thought—regardless of all the recent hype, a lot of very reputable scientists take the idea seriously. But shoul...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com Warning: As you can tell from the title, this podcast covers a potentially distressing topic. Recent events have had us wondering about “copycat” violence. If people see violence reported in the media, are thRey more likely to do the same thing themselves? Does this apply to homicide, or suicide too? We s...

How can both of the following be true? (1) The world has record crop harvests this year; (2) climate change is ruining crop harvests and threatening food security. Does that make sense? Is it even really a contradiction? We look into how climate change is affecting crop yields, whether positively or negatively, and try to answer the biggest question of all: do we actually have to hand it to climat...

What is that? What is that!? What is it!? Augh! No! Not the bees! NOT THE BEES! AAAAAUGGGHHHHH MY EYES! MY EYES! AAAGGHHHH!!!! This episode is about bees. And all insects, actually—are they in the process of being wiped out, in what’s become known as “insectageddon”? It’s one of those scientific beliefs that a lot of people kinda-sorta hold without knowing much about the evidence, so we thought we...

5—6—3—4—3—1—7—2 In the first episode under our new podcast name (it’s now the Science Fictions podcast!), we ask whatever happened to all those games that claimed to tell you your “brain age”—games that turned into a whole scientific literature on brain training. We discuss: the still-unresolved question of whether training one specific cognitive ability makes you generally smarter; seemingly endl...

Where is most of the universe? And why don't we know yet? Yes—we’re talking about dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious stuff that’s predicted by physical theory, but which still remains elusive in experiments. After speaking to an actual physicist, Tom and Stuart attempt to explain what dark matter and dark energy are supposed to be, and what physicists would have to see in their experiment...

In our last standard episode, we talked about retraction—removing papers from the scientific literature. Well, it turns out there’s an awful lot of retraction to do, in large part due to paper mills . These are fraudulent enterprises that take money from nefarious scientists to put their name on fake scientific papers, and get them published in whatever journal will accept them. Sadly, paper mill...

We’re very sorry about the disrupted service over this summer! It’s been hectic with work and a house move and various things. To tide you over, here’s a formerly paywalled episode: our very first one. … If you’ve ever done a diversity training session at work, you’ll almost certainly have learned about unconscious bias, microaggressions, stereotype threat, and trigger warnings. Prejudice, racism,...

RETRACTED // In this episode of The Studies Show , Tom and Stuart discuss retraction, the process of removing articles from the scientific record. How often is it due to fraud? How many papers get retracted—and is the number increasing? Is it good or bad for a scientist to retract an article? // RETRACTED Want even more podcasts? Now our sponsor, Works in Progress magazine, has a podcast where the...

Pay attention. Focus on your breathing. Live in the moment. Accept yourself. Do you have a self? Focus on that self. And so on. This is, of course, the practice of mindfulness meditation, which seems to be everywhere: in schools, at work, in apps, and all over the scientific literature. Do any of the claimed effects of mindfulness meditation (relieving your depression! Changing the structure of yo...

Are cancer rates going up or down? It seems like depending on where you look, you’ll find different answers to the question. What’s going on here — have some writers just got it completely wrong? Is it something to do with different types of cancer? Are we being confused by some kind of weird statistical artefact? All of the above? In this episode of The Studies Show , we do our very best to find...

Seconds out! Round one! Ding ding! And other boxing terms. We’ve found a topic on which Tom and Stuart actually disagree. Kind of. In this episode of The Studies Show , they use the examples of “the worm wars” (does deworming kids in developing countries help them stay in school?) and a new craze for “tooth bacteria” (can colonizing your mouth with a genetically-modified bacterium stop you getting...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com Inspired by a new Nature paper on how the “maths gap” emerges between girls and boys in school, Tom and Stuart look into the evidence for psychological sex differences: in maths, in mental rotation, and, yes—in whether they like pink or blue. To listen to the full episode and read the show notes, you’ll n...

Whether it’s people giving themselves goat blood transfusions in an effort to maintain their youth, or yet another influencer telling you to buy XYZ miracle supplements, anti-ageing is big business. In the first part of what will surely become a longer Studies Show series, Tom and Stuart look at the evidence for a few supposed “breakthrough” treatments that can slow down ageing: rapamycin, metform...

Would you like to do 80% of your current job but for 100% of the pay? Well, of course you would. But would it be good for the economy? It’s been suggested that companies who move to four-day working weeks have happier, less frazzled employees and no noticeable loss in productivity. Some people even claim their productivity goes up! In this episode of The Studies Show , Tom and Stuart explore the t...

We all hate “urban decay”—graffiti, litter, boarded-up buildings. But does urban decay cause crime? That’s the premise of the “broken windows” theory: seeing a dilapidated and poorly-maintained physical environment emboldens criminals. In this episode of The Studies Show , Tom and Stuart discuss the history of, and the evidence for, broken windows theory. The theory has inspired social psychologis...

Hello everyone! Thanks to Tom’s holiday and Stuart’s job we weren’t able to record this week, so we’ve put out a classic paid episode to tide you over. We hope this goes some way to scratching your Studies Show itch. Most people think it’s obvious that you should wear a helmet when cycling. It might save your life if you fall off and hit your head. Duh. But over the years, many contrarian argument...

Can adults still grow new neurons in their brains? You’d think we might know the answer to the question of adult “neurogenesis” after more than half a century of neuroscience research. But it turns out we don’t. In this episode of The Studies Show , Tom and Stuart look into the suprisingly controversial question of adult neurogenesis. Are you “stuck with” the number of brain cells you had as a chi...

Do you know anyone who has extremely intense relationships—one minute totally in love with someone; the next, flying into a rage and calling them the worst person ever? It’s possible that they have borderline personality disorder. Whatever that is. What is a “personality disorder”, anyway? How is one diagnosed? In this episode of The Studies Show , Tom and Stuart discuss a disorder that gets a lot...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com Did you miss our live show last week? Good news if you happen to be a paid subscriber: we’re posting the audio in full. Listen as we’re joined by Jesse Singal from Blocked and Reported to discuss the strange “science” of Multiple Personality Disorder (or is it Dissociative Identity Disorder?), as well as...

The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is this week! Friday 9 May, Conway Hall, London, 8pm. Get your tickets AT THIS LINK or at bit.ly/tss_live . Welcome to a new series of The Studies Show , all about parenting. We’ll cover the weird claims, fads, and controversies about how you should raise your kids. In this first episode, which focuses on infancy, we cover some feeding-relate...

The Studies Show LIVE (with special guest Jesse Singal) is next Friday, 9th of May, at Conway Hall in London. Get your tickets right HERE ! Or go to bit.ly/tss_live . Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can’t be wrong about literally everything , can he? His latest controversial statement is that he wants to find the “environmental exposure” that has been causing the huge spike in autism rates over the past fe...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sciencefictionspod.substack.com Some scientific controversies are quite surprising (why would the shape of the Earth be controversial, for example?). But some aren’t. The controversy surrounding circumcision—which involves disputed medical science, bodily autonomy, children, disease, religion, sex, tradition, family, and, of course, gen...