SoT 292: The Little Telescope That Could

April 15, 2018

Hosts: Ed Brown, Dr. Shayne Joseph, Lucas Randall, Jo Benhamu.

[00:01:00] New York researchers have detailled the “structure and distribution of an unrecognized interstitium in human tissues”. Or as some are calling it, a brand new organ.

[00:16:37] New evidence lends credibility to an old theory of how Vikings navigated the seas. They could have used ‘sunstones’ and polarised light to find the sun in cloudy conditions.

[00:24:39] Thanks to gravitational lensing, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the most distant star ever seen – 9 billion light years away.

[00:29:28] Non-profit news service Kaiser Health News has launched a large database tracking pharmaceutical companies and where they spend their money. In one year drug companies spent $63 million on political lobbying activities but almost double that on Patient Advocacy Groups.

[00:41:39] You probably didn’t realise it, but the puffins have flourescent beaks. So why is this researcher making them wear sunglasses?

This episode contains traces of Breakfast Television Toronto hosts Kevin Frankish and Frank Ferragine discussing the interstitium.