Skeptics Guide #956

Dragoncon 2023 Private Show With special guest: Christian Hubicki Segment 1. DragonCon Panels 1 - Skepticism and Gaming 2 - Government Coverup of UAPs 3 - Generation Ships Segment 2. News Items News Item #1 – Augmented Reality Interactions https://neurosciencenews.com/ar-social-behavior-23847/ News Item #2 – Star May Become a Magnetar Bizarre star may one day become a magnetar | Astronomy.com News Item #3 – Recent Mission to the Moon https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/23/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-mission.html News Item #4 - Different Types of Mass https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mass-moon-orbit-gravity-space Segment #3. Special Segment What Policies Affect Climate Changev Segment #4. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Theme: Conventions #1) The largest fan convention in the world is the Comiket held in Tokyo Japan and primarily dedicated to the sale of self-published manga, with a total of 750,000 attendees in 2019. #2) The first event considered to be a fan convention was held in 1862 in London, celebrating the works of Charles Dickens, including attendees dressing as their favorite Dickens character. #3) The longest running convention in the world is PhilCon, the Philadelphia Science Fiction Conference, held in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Segment #5. Skeptical Quote of the Week “The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking - it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.” Carl Sagan