Today our guest is a person I've wanted to meet for years: The founder of the Skepchick website, Rebecca Watson.

Our physicists are Dr. Katie Mack and Hannalore Gerling-Dunsmore.

TODAY'S TOPIC: Supermassive Black Holes!!

This episode is about the The Sunyaev–Zel'dovich Effect, where photons from the big bang are used to backlight giant galaxy clusters! My Physicists this episode are Dr. Michael Zemcov, and Dr. Danica Marsden.

Our guest this time is TED LEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOO! THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND! 

A phonon.. that's not a spelling mistake... is a quantum of vibration.

it's a particle... that lives as a vibration in a crystal. 

and it's bananas!!!

Doctors Fiona Burnell and Darren Peets have joined me to try to explain this all to Megan and Anthony Leon.

There are astrophysicists who study life on mars. 
specifically, the prospects of detecting life on mars. 


Zach Weinersmith Joins Catherine Neish and Briony Horgan 
and we talk about LIFE ON MARSSSSS!!!

How does a camera work?

no, a digital camera, I mean. 

yeah... yeah.. optics. I know all about lenses.
how does the plate at the back.. the one the photons hit..
how does it turn photons into electronic signals that turn into digital information?
we're talking: CCDs,CMOS cameras, MKIDs, and superconducting bolometers!

Dr. Danica Marsden and Dr. Suresh Sivanandam are here, and our guest today is award winning author Elizabeth Bear!

Maya Inamura Joins Me, Katie Mack and Leo Stein and we talk about
TEST OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

Patrick Mchale makes his triumphant return to the show!

Astrophysicists Catherine Neish and Brian Jackson explain how planets form around stars, and why the planets we see around other stars are so weird.

Hi!
LIGO just announced detecting.
1. gravitational waves
2. colliding black holes 1.3 billion years away.

this is just me talking about my feelings about it. 

Did you know that if something falls into a black hole it will "ring" like a bell, radiating gravitational waves at a very specific frequency. pretty fun! Brent Knopf and Matt Sheehy are back! 
Two new physicists: Leo Stein and Chiara Mingarelli! 

fun times!

*sorry about the audio quality*
*one guy was in china, and my mic broke and all sorts of bad stuff happened. :(*

OH MAN!!!
Erika Ensign, from all the dr. who podcasts, has come on our show
so that Darren Peets and Abby Shockley and I can do our best to explain how

VORTICES enable MAGNETIC PINNING in TYPE 2 SUPERCONDUCTORS. 

rad.