In this episode we’re joined by science superstar (pun intended) Lucianne Walkowicz to talk about their research, who space belongs to (including whether it can “belong” to anyone), and how gay space is. Charles also defends leeches (they probably won’t give you diseases!), the animal, but not leeches, metaphor for the capitalist class.
In this episode which is definitely right on time for Valentine’s Day, Charles tells Tessa about a paper he read on the fruitless gene (originally identified in Drosophila melanogaster, the “laboratory fruit fly”) and its possible control over the courtship behavior in Blattella germanica, the “German cockroach,” another classic model organism. Tangents of variable length include how crucial genitals are to entomology, the placement of cockroaches in the insect family tree, and how cockroaches never get their due respect.
In this episode we use the TNG episode “The Neutral Zone,” in which three people from the 20th century are revived from cryopreservation to find themselves on the Enterprise 300 years later, to talk about cryonics. We touch on its history, whether it actually works (no), whether it could work (probably not), whether we’d do it (no way), and, just for fun, a little on the history and philosophy of death as a concept.
Assigned Scientist at Bachelor's 