In the podcast, you may hear Mike refer to John as a "Vulcan Historian." What Mike meant to say is that John J. McKay is a historian with a specialty in the history of the Balkans, and that is an important distinction. He is also interested in the many weird theories that abound to explain (often not very well) natural history of the earth. He discovered that the mammoths are used as ersatz evidence in many of those theories, such as the idea that the ice build up at the poles became so heavy that the poles slid southward 40 degrees latitude and that pushed Atlantis to where Antarctica now freezes.
There were many other strange ideas to explain the discovery of these giant bones and Mr. McKay relates how the process of discovering the mammoth is important to the development of science itself. You can read more from John at Mammoth Tales, his blog, but we highly advise that you read his book!
Said book you may conveniently purchase here to support Ikonokast.
Discovering the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science
We are back!
[caption id="attachment_321" align="alignright" width="199"] Bill Schutt, auther of Pump: A Natural History of the Heart[/caption]
Join us with part one of an interview with zoologist and author Bill Schutt, as we discuss his latest book, Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, a delightful and informative exploration of the heart, in all its (anatomical) forms.
We have changed our format a little, and hope you enjoy it. Feedback is welcome as long as you are nice about it.
Material discussed in this and the next episode:
Pump: A Natural History of the Heart
Meteorite Crash-Landed in Canada Woman's Bed
COVID-19 slows birth rate in U.S., Europe
Bat guts become less healthy through diet of 'fast food' from banana plantations
Threatened rattlesnakes' inbreeding makes species more resistant to bad mutations
Dr. Karen Stollznow is a linguist who earned her PhD at the University of New England, in Australia. She hosts the skeptical podcast Monster Talk with Blake Smith (subscribe, you'll thank us!) She is also a prolific author, having published academic works, non-fiction as well as fiction.
In this episode, we open with the ways in which we judge and stereotype each other based on the dialect and language that we use and move on to the meanings of words and how the change in time and space. Not only does the cafe lose the accent after a time, but bad words turn good and good words turn bad. It's hysterical, how that works.
We marked this episode "explicit" because we discuss some of the words that are not used in polite language and how the relative offense of using some words varies based on where the speaker is as well as how the audience may be.
Check out her Amazon Author's Page Here and also check out Monster Talk.