TheESP – Ep. #408 – A miracle for the season?

– don’t use Reddit to find out…

Suddenly Poland emerges as a possible example against populism in Europe – strange times indeed. In TWISH we hear about Marconi‘s groundbreaking radio transmission over the Atlantic – not very long ago when you think about it, and pretty cool since he didn’t really know how radio waves work! In the news this week we look at these items:

• SWEDEN: Supreme Court awards damages to persons exposed to PFOS
• EU: EU regulating AI
• HUNGARY: Nutrivigilancia – a new site to collect side-effects of food supplements
• DENMARK: No more burning the Quran
• UK: Daily Mirror reporting a Christmas miracle?
• INTERNATIONAL: Developing inoculation strategies to fight climate misinformation in 12 countries – with limited success

Enjoy!

Segments: Intro; Greetings; TWISH; News; Really Wrong / Really Right; Quote and Farewell; Outro; Out-Takes
 
0:00:27 INTRO

0:00:54 GREETINGS

• End of the PiS party?
  • AP News: https://apnews.com/article/poland-government-tusk-cabinet-transition-44e67f596c617e1f55b77bbafab2bbfb
  • Politico EU: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-bye-to-pis-and-hello-to-donald-tusk/

0:06:19 TWISH – THIS WEEK IN SKEPTICAL HISTORY

• 12 December 1901: Marconi sends first radio signal across the ocean
  • Wired: https://www.wired.com/2011/12/1212marconi-radio-demo-transatlantic/
  • Academia: https://www.academia.edu/5172606/Marconis_first_transatlantic_wireless_transmission

0:17:20 NEWS

• SWEDEN: Supreme Court awards damages to persons exposed to PFOS
  • Omni: https://tt.omni.se/nytt-pfas-larm-flygplatsomrade-forgiftat/a/zEppx9
• EU: EU regulating AI
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/eu-agrees-historic-deal-with-worlds-first-laws-to-regulate-ai
• HUNGARY: Nutrivigilancia – a new site to collect side-effects of food supplements
  • Pirulakalauz: https://pirulakalauz.hu/2023/11/28/nutrivigilancia-hu-honlap-az-etrend-kiegeszitok-biztonsagosabb-alkalmazasaert/
• DENMARK: No more burning the Quran
  • the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/07/danish-mps-vote-to-ban-desecration-of-religious-texts-after-quran-burnings
• UK: Daily Mirror reporting a Christmas miracle?
  • Daily Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/my-girlfriend-pregnant-weve-never-31602415
• INTERNATIONAL: Developing inoculation strategies to fight climate misinformation in 12 countries – with limited success
  • Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01736-0

0:42:38 REALLY WRONG / REALLY RIGHT

• Really Wrong / Really Right: Really Wrong to Anti-choice forces in the UK Upper house; a Really Right to Humanists UK who is fighting back.
  • Humanists UK: https://humanists.uk/2023/11/29/anti-choice-christians-in-parliament-launch-triple-attack-on-abortion-rights/

0:46:29 QUOTE AND FAREWELL

“The kind of knowledge which is supported only by observations and is not yet proved must be carefully distinguished from the truth; it is gained by induction, as we usually say. Yet we have seen cases in which mere induction led to error. Therefore, we should take great care not to accept as true such properties of the numbers which we have discovered by observation and which are supported by induction alone. Indeed, we should use such a discovery as an opportunity to investigate more exactly the properties discovered and to prove or disprove them; in both cases we may learn something useful.”
/ Leonhard Euler (15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783), Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician, and engineer. /

0:49:46 OUTRO

0:51:00 OUT-TAKES