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  • Alan Rickman as Stephen Spurrier in the film Bottle Shock

    Grading Wine: What is the 100-Point System?

    If you purchase wine regularly, you’ve probably come across “shelf talkers,” the laminated tags displayed with wine that often include a review from a prominent magazine or critic such as Wine Spectator magazine or Robert Parker. The review typically contains a few sentences describing and appraising the wine, followed by a drinking window (“Drink now” vs. “Drink 2017 through 2020,”…

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  • Man Defends Man, Fails #GirlsWithToys

    A few weeks back, the hashtag #girlswithtoys was trending thanks to female scientists responding to astronomer Shri Kulkarni, who gave an interview in which he labeled astronomers as “boys with toys.” #girlswithtoys showed pics and stories of women working with awesome research equipment. It was fun. But apparently, Kulkarni is in dire need of defense, and so his good friend…

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  • Charlie Charlie: The Science of Summoning Demons with Pencils for Fun and Profit

    Support more videos like this at patreon.com/rebecca! Sorta transcript: Charlie, Charlie is a newly popular game in which people film themselves summoning a demon using two pencils and a piece of paper. I have to say, this is such an improvement over demon summoning when I was a kid, when you had to use at least four crystals and a…

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  • artist's rendition of galaxies colliding

    Stick to the Science! Or, Why I am Deeply Annoyed at Some Fellow Astronomers

    All too often when a public (or semi-public) discourse involves many facets of a problem, someone is going to make a point to tell scientists to “stick to the science!” And all too often, this is used as a way to shut down someone saying something rather uncomfortable. Here’s why I’m not going to abide by that statement. Over the…

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  • Bad Chart Thursday: The Natural News Spam Machine of DOOM

    Did you know that the US government is going to install microchips in our toilets to conduct surveillance on our poop? It’s true! I read it in Natural News. Many people are aware that Natural News is a conspiracy website, run by Mike Adams, who calls himself the Health Ranger with a straight face, which is impressive. He’s a Birther…

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  • Scientific Fraud: Gay Marriage Study Retracted

    Support more videos like this at patreon.com/rebecca! Sorta transcript: The popular radio show and podcast This American Life recently publicized what appeared to be an astounding piece of research that was published in the journal Science: two political scientists named Michael LaCour and Donald Green sent out thousands of surveys to gauge people’s opinions on various issues. They then had…

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  • More on the Duggar Scandal, or Why People Are More Important Than Ideals

    Here on the Skepchick network, Mary has already covered the fact that Josh Duggar recently admitted to molesting his younger sisters as well as other children. She provided a comprehensive review of the hypocrisy of the situation, as well as some of the responses. There’s another lesson here, beyond “fundamentalist Christians are awful people who do awful things” though, and…

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  • Guest Post: The Popcorn Movie in Jeopardy?: A Response to Sady Doyle

    Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is by Leah Misemer and talks about the difficulties faced when translating comics, which can be produced cheaply and serially, into movies, which are expensive and take time to produce. Specifically, she is responding to this article by Sady Doyle at Wired. ****** As comics move from the page to the screen, it is inevitable that…

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