Episode 534: The DNA Origami Field

The Science Faction Podcast

This episode contains: We three hosts gobbled up Thanksgiving, celebrating with families, parents and in-laws. Why did Ford call their electric car a Mach-E? Or is it Maquis? A Mockery? Ben gives a slightly different (and more positive) take on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice than Devon’s review from a couple months ago (https://sciencefactionpodcast.com/2024/09/11/episode-522-incomprehensibly-gravelly/). The first half hour is definitely rough but it comes together, in the back half especially. Big shout-out to the production design of the afterlife and the cameos. Devon’s a pickleball-player now, and we contrast it with racquetball. Steven and his family saw Moana 2 and opinions varied wildly among the family. Don’t expect a Lin Manuel Miranda soundtrack, but do expect them to set up a bunch of sequels.

Future or Now:

Right now, in the 1960s: Ben’s ready to spoil The Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” On a peaceful suburban street, strange occurrences and mysterious people stoke the residents’ paranoia to a disastrous intensity. This is nearly REQUIRED VIEWING for anyone on the internet these days. “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.” Despite this being a story very inspired by McCarthyism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism), our current paranoia about our neighbors needs to stop.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734664

Three things to ponder (“Eat the 1%”): Devon wonders why don’t we eat turkey eggs? It’s all about the downsides: even though they’re not hazardous, turkeys have slower egg production, larger size and space requirements, and tougher egg shells than chickens. Why will some pets (especially dogs) eat their dead owners, even when there’s food available? The current hypothesis is that the dogs are trying to frantically wake up their owners, and after biting the face, their instinct takes over. Also, the Higgs particle only accounts for 1% of the mass of an object.

https://www.iflscience.com/turkey-eggs-why-dont-we-eat-them-77017

Get over here! (Don’t “TOASTY” me): Steven brings us this morsel of news: a tiny, four-fingered ‘hand’ folded from a single piece of DNA can pick up the virus that causes COVID-19 for highly sensitive rapid detection and can even block viral particles from entering cells to infect them, researchers report. Dubbed the NanoGripper, the nanorobotic hand also could be programmed to interact with other viruses or to recognize cell surface markers for targeted drug delivery, such as for cancer treatment.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241127165721.htm

“Book Club”

This week: Big Oxygen by exurb1a

A janitor on a spaceship wakes up from an emergency alarm to complete bedlam. Every group he runs across has a different ideology, in fact, their baseline ideologies have been erased, and it doesn’t go well for anyone. Turns out belief without facts and reason will destroy, but also just getting facts without context is disastrous. It’s about how you digest facts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKouPOhh_9I

Also, ChatGPT cheats against Stockfish in Chess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSCNW1OCk_M

Next week: WHERE RABBITS COME FROM, a French animated short film that’s being shopped around for awards this season. The answer will surprise you.