The DemystifySci Podcast

Carver Mead is an emeritus professor of engineering and applied science at Caltech, where he has taught for more than thirty years. We talk to him about his work on simplifying the foundations of mathematical physics, his days as a pioneer in integrated circuit technology, incorrect interpretations of Gravity Probe B, and some proposed experiments for testing the coupling between gravitation, mome...

Joscha Bach is a German artificial intelligence researcher and cognitive scientist who works on on cognitive architectures, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, and multi-agent systems. We got connected over the hard problem of consciousness - namely, why do people seem to think it’s so hard? During our conversation we deal with the foundational questions of the technological future be...

Dr. Martin Sweatman is a chemical engineer at the University of Edinburgh working in both statistical mechanics and archaeoastronomical studies of symbolism at Göbekli Tepe. Our conversation with Dr. Sweatman circles around the missing pieces in our modern narrative of the emergence of civilization after the last glaciation. Might Göbekli Tepe have not been the first city but merely the oldest rem...

Dr. Dallas Abbott is a research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Her studies of Marine Geology, Geophysics, Precambrian Geology, and Impact Geology revealed that early history and pre-history are necessarily shaped by mega-tsunamis that result from regular astrophysical impacts. Support the scientific revolution by joining our Patreon: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB...

In this episode we take a break from interviewing the coolest scientists we can find and take a moment to introduce ourselves. Who are we? How did we get here? Who do we think we are? This is a short look into what we want for this project, for ourselves, and for the world. Support the scientific revolution by joining our Patreon: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB Tell us what you think in the comments or on...

Dr Edward Bryant is a Research Fellow in Exoplanets Characterisation at University College London. His research has uncovered the existence of giant planets in orbit around low-mass stars, potentially upsetting our current paradigms of solar system formation. We discuss the detection of planets in strange places, the odd distribution of heavy stuff in our solar system, and the art of piercing the...

Dr. Ogi Ogas is a theorist, author, and former visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he serves as Project Head for the Individual Mastery Project. Ogas boasts to be in possession of the end theory of consciousness, and he makes a rock solid case for it. You be the judge. Our conversation begins with an introduction to the problems of consciousness and walks through a...

Dr. Clarice D. Aiello is a quantum engineer studying how subatomic physics affects biology. She has engineered quantum nanosensors that harness ambient systemic energies. Our conversation begins with the mechanics of electron spin and in the end imagines how cheap, readily available, technology - like that found in your cellphone - might be used in the future for personal quantum diagnostics and h...

Leighton Akio Woodhouse is a journalist, Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, and co-founder of Public, a Substack focused on cities, energy, and the environment. His recent work has been focused on untangling the urban decay that is sweeping through American cities, with a focus on the downwing incentive structures that have created a self-perpetuating homeless industrial complex whose existence...

Dr. Mike McCulloch is a University of Plymouth lecturer in geomatics, physicist, and author who is best known for developing Quantized Inertia, a cosmological explanation for Newton’s first law that states an object in motion will tend to stay in motion. We discuss the principles of quantized inertia as a derivation of photon pressure at the cosmological horizon in the form of Unruh radiation, the...

Dr. Susan Blackmore is a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth with an interest in psychology, consciousness, memes, and anomalous experiences. We speak with her about the arc of her research into out of body experiences. We talk with her about her fruitless search for robust evidence of astral phenomena, her transition into psychological research, and how she squares the illusory self...

Geoffrey Drumm is an Egyptologist and self-taught chemist who has theorized that several ancient Egyptian pyramids were not pharaonic burial chambers - they were industrial manufacturing plants for ammonia based fertilizer and the raw materials used for metallurgy. His presentation begins inside the red pyramid, whose three chambers mirror the three stages of nitrogen fixation used in the Haber-Bo...

Aella is a sex worker and survey artist turned data scientist of human sexuality. She’s accumulated an enormous amount of information on everything from sexual fetishes to threat tolerance, and has begun the long process of creating models for the development of people’s inner lives, relationships, and sexual preferences. We talk life paths, success in unconventional markets, the demarcation probl...

Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Chair of the Biology department and director the Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University who is focused on understanding the cellular motivations that govern biological systems. In other words, why do cells create the bodies that they do, and what are the environmental conditions that need to change in order to rewire the bodies that...

Dr. Glenn Borschardt is a geologist and philosopher of science who has written extensively on the irrational nature of the Big Bang, the religious roots of relativity, the infinite universe, and the ten assumptions of science. We sit down with him for a conversation on the staying power of the birth of the universe, reluctance among physicists to consider alternatives, push vs pull, and the art of...

Dr. Beatriz Villarroel is a researcher at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics who is the brains behind the VASCO project - a study of Vanishing and Appearing Sources During a Century of Observation. The project asked a stunningly simple question - if we compare photographic plates of the cosmos taken in the 1950s with photographs taken in the last few years, would there be much of a diffe...

Visakan Veerasamy is a kindred spirit who is on mission is to build the greatest social graph of friendly, ambitious nerds that the world has ever seen. He's been studying the history of how great ideas come into being, how scenes are born and maintained, and is focused on using the knowledge he's gleaned from the exploration to bring together people ho are working on a new golden age for...

Dr. Patrick Moore was a founding member of Greenpeace who served as both director and president in the early days of the organization before leaving due to divergent philosophies about the future of the green movement. These days, his most controversial claim has to do with our obsession with CO2 as the sole marker of planetary health. We dive into the surprisingly robust science of why he thinks...

Dr. James Garvin is the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Chief Scientist, currently focused on two main projects - massive terrestrial impacts, and the mysteries hidden beneath the clouds of Venus. Based off of lunar and Martian observations, Garvin believes that our models for the history of impacts on Earth might be nowhere near severe enough. Then there’s also the ambitious DAVINCI mission to V...

Dr. Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist and cosmologist who served as the longest running chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department, and who was an early advocate for the alien origins of ‘Omouamoua. During round two, we dive into unsolved questions of fundamental physics, the dark matter paradox, details of his mission to pull an alien object from the ocean floor off the coast of Papua New Guinea, and...

Dr. Richard Hammerschlag is a retired professor of Eastern medicine who spent his career studying acupuncture and other biofield therapies. We speak with him about the search for mechanism in unconventional medicine, the delicate balance of the spiritual and the physical, conditioning the mind for openness to experience, and the ritualistic nature of health and wellness. Support the scientific rev...

Lance Weaver is a geologist, desert guide, and amateur archaeologist who explores alternative narratives of history since the last ice age. We catch up about new developments in his pole shift research before diving into his paleoarchaeological research on pre-Columbian contact between the Mediterranean and Meso-American cultures. Along the way we wrestle with convergent iconography on both sides...

Dr. John G. Williamson is a founding member of the Quicycle Society, and is back for a third conversation - this time about cosmological, electrical, and institutional questions. He is a veteran of CERN and the R&D division of Philips research who spends his days thinking about the unanswered problems in physics. In his view, there are foundational problems with key physical theories that scie...

Dr. Philip Goff is a philosopher and writer on panpsychism who has recently turned his attention to the teleological aspects of the universe. In his upcoming book he explores the radical idea that perhaps the appearance of humans, animals, and all other life isn’t just a random outcome of pure physics bumping into itself.. it’s a phenomenon that has a grander point on the scale of the universe. We...

Arnie Benn is a writer, composer, designer whose recent work has been focused on the behavior of humans and magnets. In his upcoming book, the Animal in the Mirror, Benn explores the evolutionary patterns still at play in the human mind, with an emphasis on the animalistic aspects that tend to govern cognitive processes. For the Quantum Bicycle Society, he has been exploring material explanations...