Science Faction Podcast Titelbild

Science Faction Podcast

Science Faction Podcast

Von: Devon Craft and Steven Domingues and Benjamin Daniel Lawless
Jetzt kostenlos hören, ohne Abo

Über diesen Titel

 A science and science fiction based podcast hosted by two high school friends, and two college friends. Listen and learn and geek out. In this podcast, science meets fact, meets fiction.Devon Craft and Steven Domingues and Benjamin Daniel Lawless Wissenschaft
Folgen
  • Episode 596: The First Law and the Worst Lies

    Episode 596: The First Law and the Worst Lies
    Feb 18 2026
    This week we bounce from haunted literary labyrinths and gonzo chaos in Real Life, into falling space junk, AI hype experiments, and surprisingly clever cows in Future or Now — before wrapping up with Isaac Asimov's Liar! and a discussion about robot ethics, emotional harm, and the danger of well-intentioned lies. Real Life Steven is deep into House of Leaves, and yeah — "trip" is the correct word. The book continues to be less of a story and more of a psychological maze that actively messes with your sense of reality while you read it. Not a casual bedtime book. More like a "stare at the page and question existence" book. Meanwhile, Ben is reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, courtesy of Mom, which is a wildly different flavor of chaos. Where Steven is lost in haunted architecture and footnotes, Ben is cruising through drug-fueled journalism and American absurdity. Balanced intellectual diets all around. Devon, however, is reading… nothing. Which raises several questions. Is he okay? Is he plotting? Has he transcended books? We don't know. We're monitoring the situation. Ben also brought genuine excitement to the table with the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown. It's got the theme song. That alone earns emotional bonus points. The real curiosity, though, is whether it leans into branching narrative choices like a Mass Effect-style experience. If it does, that opens up a ton of potential for alternate Voyager storylines, which is basically catnip for any Trek fan. Future or Now Steven covered a genuinely clever scientific development: researchers are now using earthquake sensors to detect falling space junk. Instead of building entirely new tracking systems, they're piggybacking on instruments already listening to the Earth's vibrations. When debris screams through the atmosphere and creates sonic booms, those sensors can track its path, breakup, and potential impact zones. It's one of those solutions that feels obvious in hindsight but brilliant in execution — and also a reminder that space debris is no longer a purely theoretical problem. http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260124003808.htm Devon brought in a story that feels like it was engineered in a lab to trigger the phrase "AI hype cycle." A writer tested a platform where AI agents supposedly "rent grounded humans" to perform real-world tasks. The result? Almost no legitimate work, lots of promotional nonsense, intrusive automated follow-ups, and a general sense that the entire ecosystem is more marketing than function. It's less "future of labor" and more "future of weird startup experiments." The big takeaway: AI agents still struggle as real-world coordinators when things leave the digital sandbox. https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-rent-human https://www.wired.com/story/i-tried-rentahuman-ai-agents-hired-me-to-hype-their-ai-startups/ Ben, in what might be the most unexpectedly wholesome science story of the week, talked about a cow using a tool. Yes, a literal cow. Researchers observed a pet cow using a deck brush to scratch herself, even switching between the bristled end and the stick depending on the body area. That level of flexible tool use challenges the long-standing assumption that livestock lack cognitive complexity. In short: cows might be smarter (and more adaptable) than we've historically given them credit for, which is both fascinating and mildly humbling. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)01597-0?_returnURL=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982225015970?showall%3Dtrue Book Club For Book Club, we tackled Liar! by Isaac Asimov, and this one sparked a surprisingly philosophical discussion. Herbie the robot doesn't lie out of malice — he lies because of the First Law of Robotics: a robot may not harm a human, and emotional harm counts. So instead of telling painful truths, he tells comforting lies, which ultimately causes even more psychological damage. Classic Asimov move: take a simple rule and stress-test it until it breaks in morally uncomfortable ways. We did agree the human characters feel a bit flat and two-dimensional, but the core sci-fi idea is doing the heavy lifting. The story still holds up because the ethical dilemma is timeless: is a comforting lie more harmful than a painful truth? Especially when the lie is delivered by something programmed to protect you? YouTube link: https://youtu.be/jDXW9hEjxps Next week, we're heading into a tonal shift with a watch and review of Predator: Badlands, which should move us from philosophical robots and lying logic loops straight into survival, spectacle, and probably some very questionable life choices by characters who ignore obvious danger signs. Should be fun. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend who loves sci-fi and strange tech stories, and join our community for bonus content, playlists, AI images, and unedited ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 11 Min.
  • Episode 595: Let's Go Buy A Bigger Boat

    Episode 595: Let's Go Buy A Bigger Boat
    Feb 11 2026

    This week's episode had everything: halftime show skepticism, aquatic conspiracy theories, holographic ethics, and a little too much time in the Wasteland. We may have skipped science again… but we made up for it with sharks and Starfleet.

    Real Life Devon: Safe Bets and Stadium Spectacles

    Devon kicked things off with the Super Bowl halftime show — Green Day and Bad Bunny sharing the stage. The big question: was Green Day the safe choice?

    Are legacy punk bands the NFL's version of comfort food? Reliable. Recognizable. Not too disruptive. Devon wrestles with whether the performance felt bold or carefully calculated — and what that says about the league's broader decision-making.

    It's less about music and more about cultural positioning. When the biggest stage in America picks its soundtrack, what are they really trying to say?

    Ben: Jaws, Mayors, and Weresharks

    Ben watched Jaws with his son, and instead of simply enjoying the terror of a seaside predator, he zeroed in on the real villain:

    The mayor.

    What exactly is going on with this guy?

    Ben proposes several theories:

    • Is the mayor the shark?

    • Is the shark a metaphor?

    • Is this some kind of Ice Nine Kills-style symbolic horror?

    • Or… is the mayor secretly a wereshark?

    The conversation spirals in the best way possible. Spoiler alert: they don't get a bigger boat.

    Ben also makes a strong case that Starfleet Academy is not for everyone — but it is for him. That leads to a deep dive into holograms in Star Trek. Some holograms are "hard light" and physically interactive. The Doctor in Voyager was designed for short-term use… and then just kept going. What does that mean philosophically? Legally? Spiritually?

    And somewhere in there, Ben cautiously circles around the fate of Captain Sisko.

    Steven: Fallout Season 2 — A Love Letter or a Stall?

    Steven brings us back to the Wasteland with thoughts on the Fallout Season 2 finale.

    Devon, generally, is not thrilled. The season lacked momentum. The pacing felt uneven. Something didn't quite land.

    Steven counters with a structural theory:
    The three main characters represent different player archetypes. Different play styles. Different moral approaches to the same broken world.

    He also notes something important: there were a lot of Easter eggs. A LOT. For longtime game veterans, it was a treasure hunt. For casual viewers? Probably noise.

    Steven's bigger hypothesis:

    • Season 1: Establish the world and characters.

    • Season 2: The creators indulge in their favorite corners of the setting.

    • Season 3: (Hopefully) we move into entirely new territory not tied to a specific game.

    If that happens, the show might finally become its own thing.

    Future or Now

    There was, once again, too much Fallout talk.

    Science gets skipped.

    Again.

    We promise nothing for next week.

    Book Club Next Week:

    "Liar!" by Isaac Asimov
    Read it here:
    https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/isaac-asimov-liar/23933/

    Classic Asimov. Robots. Logic. Emotional complications. You know the drill.

    This Week:

    "The Orchard Village Catalog" by Parker Peevyhouse
    https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/the-orchard-village-catalog/

    Reactions were mixed — but thoughtful.

    Ben: Loved the realistic corporate nonsense. Found it creepy and fascinating.
    Devon: Felt it might be too open-ended, but still enjoyed it.
    Steven: Didn't fully "get it," but appreciated the quality of the writing.

    Which, honestly, is sometimes the best kind of sci-fi discussion — confusion paired with admiration.

    Between halftime show politics, aquatic conspiracies, holographic sentience, and post-apocalyptic pacing debates, this episode covered a lot of ground.

    If you've got thoughts on safe Super Bowl picks, weresharks, or where Fallout should go next, we want to hear them.

    And maybe next week… we'll finally talk about science.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 9 Min.
  • Episode 594: Hope, Ice, and Non-Human Intelligence

    Episode 594: Hope, Ice, and Non-Human Intelligence
    Feb 4 2026

    This week's episode is a very real-life-heavy one, with winter storms, family travel chaos, sick kids, and a surprising amount of ice setting the tone. From a memorable Nashville trip and pop culture check-ins to a passionate Star Trek defense and thoughtful sci-fi discussion, we settle in for a conversational episode that leans into where everyone's headspace actually is this week.

    REAL LIFE

    Devon braved a winter storm while hosting family, with Nashville serving as the central meetup point. The group stayed in a four-story Airbnb packed with fun things to do, except for the roof, which was completely covered in ice. There was ice everywhere. This led to discussions about boil notices, what they actually mean, and whether a boil notice might have contributed to a house full of sick kids. Despite the chaos, Devon highlights the Grand Ole Opry and the Gaylord Resort, noting that it would be awesome to visit the resort someday without kids.

    Steven revisits Cowboy Bebop, comparing the anime to the Netflix live-action adaptation and confirming once again that the live-action version was a huge miss. On the positive side, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has been a solid and enjoyable watch.

    Ben declares that Starfleet Academy episode 1x04 is peak Star Trek and insists that listeners should watch episode four and only episode four if nothing else. He recaps the episode, focusing on Federation and Klingon ethics around survival and why this episode delivers exactly what he wants from Star Trek. This Facebook post sparked part of the discussion:
    https://www.facebook.com/28601265/posts/pfbid02D298Wi45gN3cZd8S4GMS7ypkdj7ja5zsHSQKwahiZ2eVQzyV7sApm6Fu46Z8X9fFl/?app=fbl

    Ben also continues praising the Star Trek comic The Last Starship, describing it as noir, heartbreaking, and packed with big ideas, including Earth seceding from the Federation, a clone of Kirk, and a Borg Queen engineer.

    FUTURE OR NOW

    None this week. Too much real life. Too much talky talky.

    BOOK CLUB

    This week's story:
    The Song of a Non-Human Intelligence
    By Mical Garcia (Jan 12, 2026)
    https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/the-song-of-a-non-human-intelligence/

    The story explores communication between cetacean intelligences and the concept of hope, defined as waiting until home feels safe again. Ben and Devon both enjoyed the story, with Devon wanting more. Steven found it a bit dry but still appreciated the world-building.

    Devon also discusses Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, connecting its themes to the episode's discussion of non-human intelligence.

    Next week's story:
    The Orchard Village Catalog
    By Parker Peevyhouse

    https://strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/the-orchard-village-catalog/

    Steven recommends this video by Joe Scott:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1FMViCd6I4

    Thanks for listening, and be sure to check out the links in the show notes for this week's stories and videos—we'll be back next episode with a new book club read and, hopefully, a little less ice.
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    1 Std. und 4 Min.
Noch keine Rezensionen vorhanden