Absurd Statistical Links, Human Obedience Experiments, And Mice Perform CPR On Friends A Little Bit Of Science podcast

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Absurd Statistical Links, Human Obedience Experiments, and Mice Perform CPR on Friends

15h ago 49:32

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This week's science stories prove that statistics can be meaningless and humans are disturbingly obedient. Spurious correlations like margarine predicting Maine divorces and Will Smith movies matching Kosovo electricity are hilarious reminders not to trust numbers at face value. Meanwhile, new research validates Milgram's obedience experiments - ordinary people really will electrocute strangers just because someone in a lab coat tells them to.

NASA's Mars rover might have found ancient microbial life while humans plan red planet vacations, and this year's satirical Ig Nobel prizes celebrated seemingly ridiculous research that often reveals genuine insights - like 35 years of fingernail growth studies or painting cows as zebras to repel flies. Most remarkably, scientists observed mice performing what looks like CPR on unconscious buddies, licking faces and manipulating airways like tiny paramedics.

From meaningless correlations to authority-induced cruelty and rodent emergency medicine, science keeps serving up combinations of absurd, terrifying and adorable discoveries that prove reality has a seriously twisted sense of humor. At least when the robot uprising comes, we'll have trained mice to perform CPR on the survivors.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction

01:47 Autism and Paracetamol Controversy

08:26 Spurious Correlations

13:33 Milgram's Obedience to Authority

23:50 Fascism and Authority

27:11 Mars Rover Perseverance

28:55 Exploring Martian Rocks for Signs of Life

29:22 Perseverance's Advanced Chemical Analysis Tools

29:41 Potential Evidence of Microbial Life on Mars

30:28 Challenges in Proving Biological Origins

31:10 NASA's Perseverance Project and Its Implications

33:38 Mars Sample Return Mission

36:20 The IG Nobel Prizes: Celebrating Unusual Science

37:03 Notable IG Nobel Prize Winners

44:23 Mice Performing CPR: A Surprising Discovery

48:41 Conclusion

SOURCES:

Jesus on toast and baby-poop sausages: 2014 Ig Nobel Prizes

Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate pizza-eating lizards, drunk bats and garlic-flavoured breast milk

Teflon diet, garlic milk and zebra cows triumph at 2025 Ig Nobel prizes

Mouse-to-Mouse Resuscitation: Rodents Try to Revive Unconscious Buddies

True believers: The incredulity hypothesis and the enduring legacy of the obedience experiments

Milgram’s Infamous Shock Studies Still Hold Lessons for Confronting Authoritarianism

The U.S. government has jumped the public health shark

NASA Says Mars Rover Discovered Potential Biosignature Last Year

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars

Trump's 2026 budget plan would cancel NASA's Mars Sample Return mission. Experts say that's a 'major step back'

Spurious Correlations

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