Co-hosts Alan Katerinsky and Herb Kauderer announce that the February and March 2009 episodes of the sf talk radio program Orthopedic Horseshoes are a pair of themed shows celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Both have been posted in dialup and broadband at www.thinktwiceradio.com/kauderer/kauderer.html, and are (or will be) archived at orthohorseshoes.mypodcast.com.
In the February show, titled “The Squishiest Science”, Dr. Ron Eskew joins Katerinsky and Kauderer to talk about evolutionary psychology; philosophy’s debt to vintners; Dawkins, Persinger, and electromagnetically induced analgesia; self-domesticating dogs; “Sperm Wars”; practical uses for paranoia; middle-aged insomnia; the mind as home entertainment center; the real reason guys think about sex so much; “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation”; experiments that will get you locked up; and Descartes’ ideal person with Freud’s answer.
The March episode is titled “Biomolecular Cryptology: A Whole Lot of Monkeys Doing a Whole Lot of Stuff”. In this one, Katerinsky interviews Shmoocon presenter and cell biologist Dr. R. Mark Adams about what happens when cryptography meets biology. They muse on Reginald Punnett and his squares; Gregor Mendel; G.H. Hardy; simulating the genome; lousy lab technique; genetic transfers; Radio Free Genome; beer; curing cancer; and cornering HIV. Katerinsky and Kauderer discuss the former’s experiences at Shmoocon, the computer hackers’ convention; hacking vs. being hacked; Carl Fredrick, Paul Levinson, hacking the genome; and interdisciplinary synthesis.