SoT 290: There's No Fuel Gauge

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

00:01:15 Stephen Hawking led a remarkable life, and a brilliant career in theoretical physics and cosmology. His genius will be sorely missed.

00:08:53 Contrary to many news reports, NASA's twin experiment did NOT find that 7% of astronaut Scott Kelly's DNA was changed by space travel. There were some health effects, but he definitely remained human.

00:15:58 Some media outlets, such as LiveScience, issued corrections.

00:17:56 The long-billed corella is a parrot may have become a pest to many farmers in Australia, but not so long ago their numbers were very low.

00:22:27 There's a Chinese space station that's hurtling out of control towards Earth. We don't know when it will hit, where it will hit, how much will burn up in the atmosphere or what toxic substances may still be on board. But you'll probably be fine.

00:29:37 NASA's super-successful planet-hunting spacecraft, Kepler, is running out of fuel.

 

This episode contains traces of Stephen Hawking talking to Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke about black holes in 1988.