Probably Science

We've made it to the big 2-0 with the help of writer/comedian extraordinaire Blaine Capatch (@blainecapatch)! Topics discussed include: Roller Darby O'Gill and the Little People! Blaine’s spelling bee prowess! The Yellowstone supervolcano! Messier gigs! Seeing the Smothers Brothers at an insurance convention! Young Blaine’s first onstage appearance with Red Skelton! Revisiting the airborne version of bird flu! Freaky Friday body switches! Tracking writers’ influences based on content-free words! Color-changing artificial muscles! Racist babies! Titan’s conditions: kind of good for creating life! Venus goes in front of the Sun! Lucha VaVOOM!

Justin Ian Daniels, comedian and co-host of the Rough House Podcast (theroughhousepodcast.com), joins us for a lively discussion of topics including: Members of Slipknot! Dee-Dee Ramone rapping! The Southern Gentlemen of Wrestling! Top-shelf bag-drainings! The origins of the Secret Service! The Find Brooks' Publicity Photo Listener Challenge! The Supermoon! Vibrating suits for Olympians! Learning from heathens! Super-fast wi-fi with common laser pointers! The decline of dinosaurs! New lizard species discovered! Can someone please get Dolph Lundgren to be a guest on our show? Ancient red blood cells! How exactly did Stevie Nicks get cocaine blown up her ass? Accidentally dropping nukes on South Carolina! Justin getting a 50-caliber pantload!

Comedian and host of the podcast The Dork Forest (thedorkforest.com) Jackie Kashian makes her long overdue debut on Probably Science to talk with the gang about: The legacy of Armenian comedy! Tweeting at Margaret Atwood and R.L. Stine! It’s gettin’ hot in here, if by “here” you mean “on wind farms”! Hercules Meets the Three Stooges! Brooks wants to know everyone’s takes on animals! The Wisconsin Dells! Working a summer job in a lame cave! Stalactites vs. stalagmites! Birds with GPS neurons! Donald Trump and his asshole offspring! The Unicorn Song! Number lines: learned or instinctual? Brooks sitting on the beach reading about Magellan! Jackie sells the boys on a new comic book! Are we scaring sharks away from their reefs? Fake DNA! Ghost-finding apps! C.S. Lewis’s *other* books! Andy was almost an extra in Twilight! Venus traipses in front of the Sun! “Drunken helpers” at comedy shows!

Brilliant comedian and master of characters James Adomian (jamesadomian.com) has returned from the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, as have Matt, Brooks and Andy, and they've got stories to tell! Bridgetown tales abound this week, but the gang also get around to discussing: Harry Potter names! Jesse Ventura! Skeletons in hot air balloons! Wrestling moves and pesticides! Particles that are their own antiparticles! Too much free time makes you feel too busy! Giant sharks! Eggless chickens! Asteroid mining with Jim Cameron! Adomian's famed academic grandfather!

Last Comic Standing winner Alonzo Bodden joins us this week, and it turns out he's got more science cred than the average comic, having been an aircraft mechanic for years before getting into comedy. We get into lots of fun stuff, including: Last Comic Standing challenges! Doing comedy for college kids! Fixing crashed airplanes! 600 mile-per-hour tape! Trying Gushers before the general public! Bikers on scooters! Brooks' rollerblading past! Smart sand! Measuring snake strength in units of grandpa shakes! The first use of fire! The refusal of ignorance! Space elevators! Getting stuck in the White House bathtub!

Funnyman Dave Holmes of the podcast A Drink with Dave (adrinkwithdave.com) joins us this week to talk about: Andy’s idiotic attempt at the Master Cleanse! Dave’s half-marathon training! Embarrassing high school stories! Involuntary boners! Diet soda: Maybe it *doesn’t* make you fat? Velveeta Cheesy Skillets! Do antibiotics cause weight gain? Could bacteria cause OCD? The effects of caffeine and speed on a rat’s work ethic! Cheaters at Draw Something! Dolphin gangs! Jeff Bezos digging up spacecraft engines! Dave’s surfing therapist! Matt owes his career to Saved By the Bell! Screech’s standup career!

Comedian Paul Jay of the podcast The Biggest Mistake (thebiggestmistake.net) sits in with the boys to talk about: Armchair astronomy! Getting Robert Plant to guest on the podcast! Pronouncing Led Zeppelin song titles! More horrible segues! How much would you pay to go to space with Tom Cruise? Sub-orbital streaking! Vibrating tattoos! Checking off items on Paul’s Probably Science bucket list! Growing new body parts! The search for Amelia Earhart! Venice is sinking! Brooks asks German kids the tough questions! Hydrogen-powered robotic jellyfish! The theory of circulation! Lobotomies! The Bridgetown Comedy Festival!

Chris Franjola (@ChrisFranjola) of Chelsea Lately, After Lately and Are You There, Chelsea? may not have studied much science, but he has some great takes on topics including: Being a theater nerd! Midwest tubing adventures! KISS-brand deodorant! Dave Grohl and the Heartbreakers! Catching a NASA spy Chris Hansen-style! Audition tips from Brooks! Figuring out why shock therapy works! Does Chris believe in depression? Our phone-obsessed culture! Comedy: Chris’s anti-drug! Have we found the cause of baldness? Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam: Two cowboy hats away from being Radio Shack managers! Brooks get a #1 Arthur Fonzarelli haircut for $6! Don’t judge a movie by seeing it on a plane! Why hasn’t the Segway conquered the world? Using lasers to see around corners! Laserdisc nostalgia! Brooks’s racist pet names! Hollywood Boulevard superheroes! Holding a gun makes you think everyone else is, too! Drunk Steven Adler buying Top Ramen! Sean Young crashes Andy’s comedy show! How did we discover mass extinction? Chris’s love of Theodore Rex! Wolfmother intros!

Auggie Smith (auggiesmith.com), winner of the Seattle and San Francisco International Comedy Competitions, sits down with the boys in Andy’s backyard to talk about: Auggie and Andy trying out for Jeopardy! Matt explains what “gunged” means! Guiding lightning with lasers! Matt’s Dickensian childhood! Babies are smarter than computers! Is Carl Weathers a poor man’s Clark Gable? Who’s your favorite painter? Did Bill Murray think “Garfield” was a Coen Brothers movies? Brooks and Andy’s juvenile “Into the Wild” fixations! What do you do when your island ends up underwater? Setting the 3-D nanoprinting speed record! Going to space: Bad for your eyes? Chuck Yeager: Bigger badass than Buzz Aldrin? Thumbs up or thumbs down on foreskins and motorcycles? Isaac Newton’s apocalyptic predictions! Has anyone turned down being knighted?

“Who Charted?” host Howard Kremer (@howardkremer) is our guest this week as we discuss: Jim Cameron’s adventures under the sea! Solar Flares acting up again! Old memories interfering with new ones! Cockfosters and Crouch End! Andy's Andrew WK/Iggy Pop/Bob Seger connection! The Cleveland Volcano in Alaska is acting up again (and that's not a sex joke)! Summah solidarity! Giant insects found on a patch of dirt on Skull Island! The Clap: Now drug-resistant! The history of anesthesia!

You’ve seen comedian Jesse Case (twitter.com/jessecase) on Last Comic Standing and this season of Parenthood. Oh, and he’s Andy’s roommate, and the creator of our theme music! Jesse joins Matt, Brooks and Andy to talk about: Breakups! Andy and Jesse’s strange living situation! Asteroids ending the world in 28 years! Plans for the apocalypse! Microchip fraud! Tutoring software that responds to emotion! The T. Rex: It bit even harder than we thought! Solving our energy crisis with poop! Eulogy for a surrogate sea otter! Andy the cat hitman! Magellan’s magical mystery tour!

Brody Stevens (brodystevens.com, @BrodyIsMeFriend) of both “Hangover” films, “Due Date” and general awesomeness, joins the gang to discuss: Favorite HBO Shows! Erotic thrillers! PG-13 boobs! The government’s “Avatar” ripoff! Prancertron-2000! Who’s worse at a party -- the guitar guy or the magic guy? Partying with Dane Cook and Jerry Cantrell! Listener feeback: Whales are delicious!, Resurrecting a 30,000-year-old plant! Vegan dogs! Tarzana: Actually named for Tarzan! Census-designated places! Russian gangster accents! ASU baseball! Brody’s 91 mph fastball! The world’s longest kidney chain! "Human Centipede": Not that good! The “Troll 2” dentist! A "Mythbusters" cannonball pulls a Family Circus through the 'burbs! Firing ranges with racist targets! Boozy fruit flies! Babies learn faster than we thought! Will the Hangover baby be traumatized? Poorly researched name-dropping! Calling out your friend’s "ALF" lies! The magic healing power of magnets! John Glenn’s historic space flight! Buzz Aldrin: Ultimate badass!

Chelsea Lately's April Richardson (aprilrichardson.com) sits in with the boys to talk about: Brooks making his own "Drive" lab gloves! Ryan Gosling & Tom Brady: attractive? Science proves that booze makes you smarter! Brooks got some eyeball pieces in his mouth! Should all scientists just work on cancer? April hates space, went to Space Camp! Robot camel jockeys! And that's not racist! Swiss space janitors! Which Batman is your generation's Batman? Salman Rushdie's Red Shoe Diaries! April: class clown or class heckler? Brooks gives everyone 100%! Don't judge flying 'til you've tried it! $23 million textbooks! Dueling mathematicians! Fermat's last theorem! Brooks had too much positive reinforcement!

Comedian Kyle Kinane (kylekinane.com) joins Matt, Brooks and Andy to discuss: Sexy snakes! C. Everett Koop dissecting cats! Pangaea 2: Tokyo Drift! Aliens and atheists! Human hypersleep! How the zebra got its stripes! War dolphins! Loose shakers! Deadly farting lakes!

21 Jump Street's Johnny Pemberton (www.johnnypemberton.com) talks with us about: Subliminal science projects! Fallback jobs! Using monkeys to measure radiation! Who would last in a zombie apocalypse? Shutting down Occupy LA! Chimp attacks! Brooks’ helper monkey! Warmest cold year on record? 2011: not so good for weather catastrophes! The Bill of Rights! Brooks and Johnny love guns! The God particle! Old Testament science! First humans to leave Africa! Mnemonic devices! 100th anniversary of reaching the South Pole! Johnny loves Antarctica!

Matt's back, and we discuss: Horror movie bird flu! Are the Japanese whaling addicts? Brooks' borderline racist accents! Russian scientists disappear searching for prehistoric lake! Own your own drone! How big is that ice chunk? Turing's gayness pardoned!

What killed all those New Zealand whales? Shooting nudist colony videos! What’s your worst job? World’s lightest substance! Extraterrestrial real estate! A vacuum is not nothing? Barry’s Conan suit! We're gonna be astronauts! Space Camp! Galileo!

Comedian Mike Burns of the podcast Gentleman Scumbags (http://www.pantswise.com/scumbags/) Joins us to discuss: iPhone anger! It’s official: no secret government aliens! Why is Mike scared of quinceañera aliens? Spontaneously obese monkeys! Bob Seger! Squeezing into Air Jordans! Mike got stabbed in the back! Literally! Naming new elements! Dr. Guillotine!

Nick Rutherford (goodneighborstuff.com) joins us to discuss: Favorite dinosaurs! Land Before Time: documentary? Predicting gang violence with math! Fake Mars missions in Russian parking garages! The logic of gambling! Sending gold records to space! Arm wrestling documentaries! Did we find Scrat from Ice Age?

Matt, Brooks and Andy take on the week in science, delving into important matters including: Comet close calls! Speeding neutrinos! Turing test -- is Matt a robot? How about Andy? Space junk! Seals and kangaroos: cute or a nuisance? Did Columbus's arrival cool the earth? The Glassblower's Oath: Thou shalt not make a bong. Murderers for science!