SUMMER SCIENCE SPECIAL!

That’s right! We’re back for a special! The amazing Sean Ellis reports from the Winchester Science Festival for our Summer Science Special – featuring Terry Harvey-Chadwick, Helen Czerski, Ken Farquar, Ben Littlefield, Alex Boxley, Mini Saaj, Radu Sporea, Andy Pye, John London, Mark Thomas, Matt Denton, Dareck Gorecki, Paulo Viscardi and Sally LePage. Music is by Jo Stephenson and Being 747.



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Pausing our weekly programmes

Hi gang,

After nearly five years, we’ve decided to take a break from our weekly programmes here at The Pod Delusion.

The reason for this change is fairly predictable: The two of us (James and Liz) are simply too busy – and are struggling to fit producing an hour of audio every week into a schedule where we also have other voluntary commitments, let alone a need to earn a living! So rather than let the show suffer as a result, we’ve decided the best thing to do is to take a brief pause.

To reflect for a brief moment, it has been an incredible half decade. The show has grown to have many thousands of listeners every week, we’ve seen so many incredible contributions to the show and our guest-list is a who’s-who of interesting figures from politics, science, technology, comedy. Speaking personally, it has been amazing both for professional reasons, and also because I can tick-off having met the vast majority of my personal heroes (I mentioned we interviewed Chris Hadfield, right?).

It has been amazing, but like I say, exhausting.

We’d obviously like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported the show – there’s far too many contributors to name individually, but without your contributions the show would be nothing. It has been a team effort – and everyone has brought incredible things to the Pod Delusion table. Similarly, we’d like to thank everyone who listens and all of the organisations we’ve worked with for supporting the show (most notably the British Humanist Association and Resonance FM).

Worry not though – this is very definitely not the end, and is more of a break to catch our breath. We plan to keep making special programmes, but want the flexibility not to have to produce a programme on a weekly basis. One such future special will be on the World Humanist Congress in August – and we hope to have released at least a couple more in addition before then. Our intention currently is also to go back to weekly programmes later in the year (maybe even in a couple of months, work-load depending). We’re also working on one or two other secret things that should be fun, should they see the light of day.

In the meantime, you can find me (James) on Twitter, YouTube, and my personal website. By day, I am a freelance writer and broadcaster, so I’d love to hear from you if you’d like me to write or produce audio/video content for you – I specialise in consumer technology though can also talk more broadly about technology, politics, international relations, skepticism and media.

Similarly, you can find Liz on Twitter or on her blog – or inevitably co-starring in all of the stuff that I do.

We’re also both trustees of the excellent Conway Hall in London – so do check that out if you like similar stuff to what is on The Pod Delusion. Better still, join up as a member!

You can also still follow The Pod Delusion on Twitter for updates on when we do make new stuff – or of course subscribe to our RSS feed.

Thanks again for all of the support over the last few years – we’ll be back!

Cheers,

James and Liz

Episode 230 – 28th March 2014

This week Kash speaks to the author of a new novel that puts the science into science fiction, and Sal explains why daylight savings time might be unnecessary. And more!



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The Martian (1:09) by Kash Farooq (ft Andy Weir)
Daylight Saving (14:03) by Salim Fadhley
Reconnecting Young People (20:26) by Cory Hazlehurst
Death (28:50) by Alex Fitch

Follow-Up Links

Episode 229 – 21st March 2014

Fred Phelps, that awful invasive Mick Jagger frontpage and NASA predicting doom… it’s going to be a cheerful show!



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Fred Phelps is Dead (1:20) by Dave Landon Cole
Leveson and Jagger (11:41) by James O’Malley
Nasa Doom (16:34) by Liz Lutgendorff
Nissan Leaf (21:40) by Salim Fadhley
Big Bang Fair (26:00) by Bethany Jenkins

Episode 227 – 7th March 2014

This week we look back at some of our favourite space themed reports – including interviews with NASA scientists working on Kepler and the Curiosity space rover, an interview with former Apollo astronaut Al Worden (!), and we also remember Patrick Moore.



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Kepler Retires by Kash Farooq (ft Dr Jon Jenkins from NASA)
Curiosity Landing by Liz Lutgendorff (ft Dr Joy Crisp, deputy project scientist on the Curiosity mission at NASA!)
Apollo Astronaut Al Worden Interview by Carl Hutchinson
Analogue Missions by Liz Lutgendorff (ft Prof Gordon Osinski)
Patrick Mem-Moore-ial by Carl Hutchinson (ft Jon Culshaw and more!)

Episode 226 – 28th February 2014

How can you end up in court for blasphemy in France? What’s the point of banking? And why is scifi so sexist? We answer these questions and more on this week’s show!



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Blasphemy in France (1:31) by Marc Naimark
Banking Benefits (11:33) by Alex Douglas
One Web For All (21:07) by Chris Hofstader
The File (29:43) by Cory Hazlehurst
Sexist Sci-fi (37:26) by Liz Lutgendorff

Follow-Up Links:
Will be added in the morning!

Episode 225 – 21st February 2014

This week we look back at some of our most interesting segments from last year – including land grabbing in the developing world, hacking planes with just a mobile phone, political apathy and neurophilosophy!



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Landgrabbing by Chris Fitch
Plane Hacking by Liz Lutgendorff (ft Hugo Teso)
Political Apathy by Cory Hazlehurst
Mental Health & Videogames by Chris Chapman
Neurophilosophy by Liz Lutgendorff (ft Patricia Churchland)

Episode 224 – 14th February 2014

Who knew that Flying Spaghetti Monsters were controversial? We also talk space balloons with the Canadian Space Agency, Olympic Pictograms and much more!



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Flying Spaghetti Monster Censored (1:54) by James O’Malley (ft Rory Fenton)
Space Balloons! (13:52) by Liz Lutgendorff (ft Daniel Levesque)
Olympic Pictograms (30:25) by Henry Hocking
Vatican UN Report (36:08) by Paul Orton (ft Keith Porteous Wood)
Marriage Certificates (44:43) by Morgan Phillips (ft Ailsa Sadler)

Follow-Up Links: