SGU Episode 185
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| SGU Episode 185 |
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| 4th February 2009 |
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| (brief caption for the episode icon) |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
R: Rebecca Watson |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Links |
| SGU Podcast archive |
| SGU Forum |
Introduction
You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wed. Feb. 4th 2009 and this is your host Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella …
B: Hey everybody.
S: Rebecca Watson …
R: Hello everyone.
S: Jay Novella …
J: Hey guys.
S: and Evan Bernstein.
This Day in Skepticism (0:30)
E: And a very happy Across the Universe day to everyone today.
S: Across the Universe day …
R: Is it National Beatles' Day?
E: Not quite, not quite …
J: It's a good guess.
E: so on this day last year, just last year, NASA transmitted Across the Universe, the Beatles song, as you alluded to, Rebecca, in the direction of the star Polaris, which is 431 light years from Earth.
R: Hah!
S: Cool!
R: I would have gone with the Rolling Stones.
E: It was done to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the song's recording and the 45th anniversary of the deep space network, and, of course, the 50th anniversary of NASA, which was last year. So it marks several occasions all in one. Across the universe.
J: That's a very cool way to celebrate it.
E: I think so and the people in Polaris will appreciate it 430 years from now.
News Items
Singularity University (1:16)
S: Ah, so Bob, you're going to tell us about some interesting news from Google and NASA called the Singularity University. Tell us about that.
B: Yeah, that got my attention, NASA and Google, Inc. teaming up with scientists, especially futurist Ray Kurzweil, to create something called the Singularity University. This official announcement was made recently at the annual TED or Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference in Long Beach, California. Now the term singularity in this context does not refer to a black hole but the increasingly popular idea that technological change feeds on itself, accelerating beyond what intuition might tell us. This could create game changing technologies in industries, not in many generations but maybe in less than one generation and, ah, it is this idea advocated by Ray Kurzweil in his book "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology." That book is what gave Dr. Peter
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