Science Faction Podcast

Devon Craft and Steven Domingues and Benjamin Daniel Lawless
  • 4.2 (10)
  • Science
  • Updated Weekly

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.

  1. 6d ago

    A Loose Set of Values

    This week, the Science Faction crew has rats, road trips, gaming marathons, and some surprisingly good superhero television before asking an important question: what happens when your dog gets its own digital assistant? We also look at a new weapon in the fight against AI scraping and tease what Steven has coming next week. Real Life Ben has some unfortunate pet news this week: tumors have appeared on one of the family rats. Meanwhile, the "fat" rat has been put on a diet, so apparently even the rodents are dealing with health and wellness goals. On the entertainment side, Ben wonders whether Star Trek: Strange New Worlds may finally be getting a little too strange. Joe Lo Truglio, best known as Charles Boyle on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, enters the conversation and gives us plenty to talk about. Devon has returned from Boston — but not the band. While there, he took one of the city's famous duck tours aboard an amphibious vehicle and ventured out on a ghost tour populated mostly by people in character. Somewhere along the way, we also discover that Devon may be skeptical about cemeteries. Thankfully, he has no tumor news to report. Steven, meanwhile, had an epic gaming weekend. That included Marvel Zombies, a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics, and a trip into the weird west with We Deal in Lead. He also checked out Lanterns and came away impressed. It's a genuinely good police procedural made for adults that also happens to exist in a comic-book universe. Future or Now Ben starts us off with a question inspired by something he saw on a morning walk: What if your digital assistant lived on your dog's collar? Imagine a near-future version of Dug from Up. We're probably not about to translate canine brain waves into speech, but a smart collar equipped with local AI, sensors, and a memory of your dog's life could do quite a bit. The collar could remember veterinary instructions and medication schedules, giving owners an easy way to keep track of their pet's care. That could be especially useful for elderly pet owners or anyone managing a complicated treatment schedule. It could also provide context when something goes wrong. If your dog eats something it shouldn't, sensors and location data might help determine where it happened and what the animal encountered. Instead of answering the vet's questions with a shrug, you'd potentially have an actual record. Then there's passive health monitoring. Think of it as an Apple Watch for dogs: heart rate, temperature, activity, blood oxygen, sleep, and other measurements tracked continuously. Rather than waiting for obvious symptoms, changes from an individual animal's normal baseline could provide an early warning that something isn't right. But putting an always-listening, always-sensing computer around your dog's neck creates an obvious problem: privacy. The device potentially knows where you go, when you're home, what your routines look like, and even what your house sounds like. Who owns that information? Where is it stored? Who can access it? A completely local system trained only around the pet could mitigate some of those concerns, but the temptation to turn that information into another giant pool of commercially valuable data would be enormous. That's the tension at the heart of the idea. The same technology could have tremendous benefits for animal health and welfare while simultaneously creating another surveillance system following us through our daily lives. We've already seen how technologies like automated license-plate readers can expand far beyond their original use cases. Ben would very much prefer that his helpful talking dog collar not eventually become the Canine Gestapo. Devon brings us another front in the ongoing battle over AI and the internet: "Devious New Font Turns AI Scrapers Into Mincemeat." Researchers have developed a font designed to remain readable to humans while confusing automated systems scraping text for AI. The idea opens up a much larger discussion about the future of AI training, ownership of online material, and whether technical tools can give creators more control over how their work is collected and used. If AI is going to remain part of our lives, finding ways to build systems around ethically sourced data may become increasingly important. Steven doesn't have a Future or Now story this week—but that's because he's saving something for next time. Consider this your tease for next week's episode.

  2. Aug 19

    A Third of a Good LEGO Set

    This week on Science Faction, we're confronting the inevitable decline of both man and machine. Steven's 3D printer is showing its age, patches are becoming increasingly relatable, and Ben has some thoughts about games that aren't quite what they first appear to be. We also dig into new Star Wars and Marvel trailers, a pair of Stephen King-adjacent movie reviews, strange new twists on Minesweeper, and several games that seem scientifically engineered to appeal directly to us. Real Life Ben starts things off by investigating a pressing technological crisis: what exactly is happening with Steven's 3D printer? The diagnosis seems to be that it's simply old and tired—which, frankly, is becoming a recurring theme around here. That leads us into FDM versus resin printers, the surprisingly low cost of getting into 3D printing these days, and the realization that you can apparently buy a new printer for about a third of the price of a really good LEGO set. Meanwhile, Steven is ordering patches again, including one featuring a skull giving a thumbs-up alongside the phrase "Everything Hurts." At some point, novelty merchandise stops being ironic and simply becomes an accurate description of middle age. Ben also reviews Tunic, a charming, Zelda-esque adventure game starring a tiny fox. But appearances can be deceiving, and Tunic turns out to have considerably more going on beneath the surface than its cute presentation initially suggests. Devon takes us outside our usual science-fiction territory with Green Book, starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. It's definitely not sci-fi, but sometimes a good movie is just a good movie. Check out Green Book on IMDb. Steven then turns his attention back toward the nerdier corners of entertainment with reactions to two big trailers. First up is the Ahsoka Season 2 trailer and what it suggests about the next chapter of the Star Wars series. Then we jump over to Marvel for the VisionQuest trailer and see what's in store for Vision. Future or Now Devon is preparing for his annual trip to Boston to watch the Giants, but there's still time for movies. He reviews The Life of Chuck, based on the Stephen King story and featuring a decidedly different flavor of King adaptation. You can find The Life of Chuck on IMDb. He also reviews The Drama, because apparently one movie review wasn't enough this week. Here's The Drama on IMDb. Ben brings us back to games with Quantum Sweeper, a free iOS variation on Minesweeper that takes the familiar formula in a new direction. Learn more about Quantum Sweeper. Unfortunately, Dragonsweeper has stopped working properly in iOS Safari. That's a shame, because Ben still thinks it's absolutely worth your time if you have another way to play it. You can find Dragonsweeper on itch.io. Finally, Steven has discovered what may be an entire genre of game designed specifically to generate Ben Energy. There's RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike on Steam, which combines the hypnotic appeal of a coin-pusher machine with roguelike mechanics. Then there's the wonderfully named How Many Dudes? on Steam, which asks one of the most important questions in modern gaming: just how many dudes are there? And rounding things out is Dogpile on Steam, completing a trio of games that Steven suspects Ben was genetically engineered to enjoy. From dying 3D printers and increasingly appropriate patches to deceptively deep indie games, new trailers, movies, and a suspicious number of dudes, we've got another episode full of the stuff we've been watching, playing, and obsessing over.

  3. Aug 12

    A Block of Wood

    This week, we bounce from questionable kindergarten teaching techniques and a tour through old movies to a pile of upcoming sci-fi and superhero projects. Then, in Future or Now, AI gives hurricane forecasters a potentially huge advantage, NASA pulls off another bit of engineering wizardry to keep Voyager 2 alive, and the cast of The Pitt boldly goes where plenty of actors have gone before. Real Life Steven is officially over summer. Heat, summer schedules, summer in general—it's time to move on. Meanwhile, Ben has been watching OLD MOVIES, including Kindergarten Cop. Ben calls it an "exceptional film," but watching Arnold Schwarzenegger take control of a classroom in 2026 raises some questions. How would Detective John Kimble's teaching methods stack up against modern school employee safety training? How many policies would he violate before lunch? And perhaps most unsettling: just how old are all those kindergarteners today? That sends us down the inevitable road of examining an old movie through the lens of people who now have entirely too much experience with how schools actually operate. Steven also has a pile of upcoming genre television and movie news to talk about. Neuromancer is headed to Apple TV, while Blade Runner 2099 is coming as a limited series on Prime Video. San Diego Comic-Con also brought news about Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3, along with more X-Men casting news involving Cyclops, Emma Frost, Beast, and Professor X. Trailer Links: Neuromancer: Watch on YouTube Blade Runner 2099: Watch on YouTube Devon has been doing some family movie watching, working through the Jumanji movies and eventually arriving at Zathura. Technically part of the larger Jumanji family, Zathura doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It doesn't help that Dax Shepard's character has to exist in the shadow of Robin Williams, which leads to the assessment that Shepard comes across as "a block of wood" by comparison. Things get considerably darker with The Long Walk, based on Stephen King's novel originally published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. Devon found the adaptation interesting and well done—but extremely bleak. That conversation somehow takes a detour through Time Runner before eventually landing on Hokum and its supernatural layer. Future or Now AI Gets Better at Predicting Hurricanes Ben brings us a potentially enormous development in weather forecasting. Google DeepMind's WeatherNext AI system has demonstrated an ability to improve hurricane forecasts, potentially giving forecasters and emergency planners an additional day of warning. The system predicts both storm tracks and intensity and can rapidly generate thousands of possible scenarios. During Hurricane Melissa, it reportedly identified major intensification earlier than conventional forecasting models. That's potentially life-saving extra time for communities preparing for a major storm. But there's an interesting wrinkle: like many sophisticated AI systems, exactly how the model reaches some of its conclusions isn't always clear to the scientists using it. That makes WeatherNext another fascinating example of AI producing useful results while simultaneously raising questions about how much we need to understand a system before we're comfortable relying on it. And despite the improvement in modeling, humans aren't leaving the process. Meteorologists still have to interpret the information, communicate uncertainty, and turn forecasts into useful warnings for the public. Read the Ars Technica report on DeepMind's hurricane forecasting breakthrough This Week in Space: Voyager's "Big Bang" Nearly half a century after leaving Earth, Voyager 2 is still going, and NASA engineers are once again finding creative ways to keep it alive. In an operation nicknamed the "Big Bang," engineers simultaneously shut down power-hungry hardware and transitioned to lower-power alternatives while carefully keeping the spacecraft warm enough to survive. Voyager's dwindling power supply has forced NASA to make increasingly difficult decisions about which systems can remain operational, making every additional bit of usable energy precious. It's another remarkable chapter in a mission launched in 1977 that is still returning scientific data from interstellar space. Read more about the Voyager 2 operation at ScienceDaily Explore NASA's Voyager mission And while we're talking about space, we check back in on New Asgard and ask the important question: is Devon still going to space? The Pitt Goes to Star Trek Finally, there's an unusual crossover coming for fans of The Pitt and Star Trek. Noah Wyle and members of The Pitt cast are participating in a Star Trek table read benefiting the Writers Guild Foundation. It's not a new Trek series and it's not some bizarre medical-drama crossover episode—but it is an opportunity to hear a completely different cast tackle Star Trek material while supporting the foundation's programs. Read more about The Pitt cast's Star Trek table read at TrekMovie   From aging action comedies to AI-powered hurricane forecasts and a spacecraft that refuses to die, this week is a reminder that the future has a funny way of colliding with the past. Join us next time for more science, sci-fi, and whatever unexpected detours we stumble into along the way.

  4. Aug 5

    See It In IMAX

    This week the crew dives into everything from the enduring appeal of Star Trek and classic science fiction to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Saturday morning superheroes, and the ever-growing spoiler problem surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then it's on to the Future or Now segment, where Linux experiments with collaborative computing, the Large Hadron Collider may have stumbled onto an unexpected clue about dark matter, and the hosts speculate about what Spider-Man: Brand New Day means for the future of Marvel. Real Life Ben kicks things off with a reminder that, in his opinion, all Trek is good Trek. That naturally leads into a discussion about the six Star Trek movies featuring the crew of the USS Enterprise and why the franchise continues to find new fans across generations. He also revisits Carl Sagan's Contact, arguing that both the novel and the Jodie Foster film remain some of the finest examples of thoughtful hard science fiction ever created. Devon brings a dose of nostalgia with the return of Blockbuster Game and Movie Quotes, revisiting the classic video rental era and the memorable quotes that defined countless movie nights. Steven reviews The Odyssey, sharing spoiler-filled thoughts on the film's strengths, historical accuracy, and breathtaking presentation. His recommendation is simple: if you have the opportunity, see it in IMAX. One unexpected highlight was the Cyclops sequence, whose visual style reminded him of surreal 1990s rock music videos, channeling the atmosphere of bands like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. Steven also revisits X-Men '92, X-Men '96, and X-Men '97, praising how well the original animated series portrayed its female characters. Better yet, his kids were immediately hooked after watching the iconic two-part opener, Night of the Sentinels. Future or Now Ben explores the surprisingly underdeveloped world of multi-seat computing on Linux after reading an excellent write-up on the subject at https://blinry.org/multi-seat-wayland/. While the Wayland protocol already supports multiple users sharing a single computer remarkably well, many surrounding applications and libraries still lag behind. The project demonstrates exciting possibilities for collaborative gaming, pair programming, classrooms, and other shared computing experiences. He also highlights the cooperative physics game Heavenly Bodies (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1138850/Heavenly_Bodies/), whose unique gameplay feels like the perfect showcase for this kind of multi-user setup. Devon heads underground—literally—to CERN, where researchers continue investigating mysterious "unidentified falling objects" inside the Large Hadron Collider. According to a recent article from ScienceAlert (https://www.sciencealert.com/ufos-in-the-large-hadron-collider-may-be-hints-of-dark-matter), tiny dust particles unexpectedly drift into the proton beam, disrupting experiments. The bigger mystery isn't the dust itself, but what causes it to move in one of the cleanest scientific instruments ever built. Some physicists now wonder whether these events could be indirect hints of dark matter interacting with the detector in ways nobody anticipated. Steven wraps things up with thoughts on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, using it as a springboard to discuss the modern spoiler culture surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With audiences dissecting every trailer, casting announcement, and leaked set photos months before release, the hosts debate whether the excitement of surprise has largely disappeared. Along the way, Ben poses one of the episode's more important questions: If it's a gray movie... should Hulk be gray too?

  5. Jul 29

    Trash With Linux Glitter On It

    This week on Science Faction, life milestones collide with pop culture as Ben celebrates finally paying off over two decades of student loans while Devon contemplates a lifetime of payments. The crew also dives into Star Trek, Mothership, San Diego Comic-Con reveals, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Cowboy Bebop, and an unexpectedly deep rabbit hole exploring the technology behind the original Jurassic Park. As always, it's a mix of real life, science fiction, and everything wonderfully nerdy in between. Real Life Ben reached a major milestone this week by finally paying off his student loans after 21 years. It's the kind of accomplishment that deserves a celebration, especially considering how many people are still carrying student debt decades after graduating. Devon balanced out the optimism by joking that he's probably never going to finish paying his off. Steven has been spending time with Mothership: Wages of Sin, another adventure for the acclaimed sci-fi horror RPG. If you're interested in checking it out, you can find it here: https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership Ben also finds himself in an unfamiliar situation: waiting on absolutely nothing. Instead, he talked about his latest favorite gadget, the Clicks Keyboard for smartphones: https://www.clicks.tech/powerkeyboard The Star Trek discussion continued with Star Trek: Axanar – The Gathering Storm, where Faran Tahir's appearance was a welcome surprise. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFpTiIHNTJ0&pp=ygUGYXhhbmFy That naturally led into Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4's episode Valles Marineris, which managed to answer the timeless question: What if Star Trek had dinosaurs? The crew discusses whether that's exactly what Trek needed—or never knew it needed. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Valles_Marineris_(episode) Future or Now San Diego Comic-Con brought plenty of announcements to unpack, including new reveals surrounding Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Jean-Pool, and the surprise pairing of Ghost Rider and Starfighter. Ryan Reynolds continues to find creative ways to keep Deadpool in the spotlight. https://entertainmentnow.com/marvel-studios-movies-comics/ryan-reynolds-sdcc-deadpool/ Ben also rounds up several pieces of Avatar: The Last Airbender news, including the upcoming animated Aang film and the newly announced sequel series, Avatar: Seven Havens. https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/avatar-aang-the-last-airbender-in-theaters https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/avatar-seven-havens-release-date-revealed After finally finishing the original Cowboy Bebop anime and its movie, Ben shares his thoughts on why the series has remained such a classic for nearly three decades. The conversation then shifts into one of the nerdiest rabbit holes imaginable: a painstaking technical breakdown of every computer seen in the original Jurassic Park. It's a fascinating look at how the filmmakers blended real hardware with Hollywood magic. https://fabiensanglard.net/jurrasic_park_computers/index.html That naturally prompts Devon to shout, "SAM NEILL DIED! LET'S TALK ABOUT IT!" before everyone remembers they're actually talking about his characters. The discussion quickly turns into a debate over Sam Neill's best science fiction performance. Is it the cosmic horror masterpiece Event Horizon (1997), or the vampire thriller Daybreakers (2009)? To wrap things up, the crew also highlights Jurassic Systems, a fan project dedicated to faithfully recreating the iconic computer interfaces from Jurassic Park. https://www.jurassicsystems.com/ As always, expect plenty of tangents, questionable opinions, and passionate debates about dinosaurs, spaceships, anime, and why fictional operating systems from 1993 still look cooler than the ones we use today.

  6. Jul 22

    Beyond Beads

    This week on Science Faction, summer is in full swing as the hosts swap stories about kids, water parks, drama camp, and surviving the relentless heat. From AI writing Firefox extensions and Apple's latest legal battle with OpenAI to why horror suddenly clicks for one of the hosts, the conversation bounces between technology, entertainment, and the strange ways artificial intelligence can make us more confident while making us less correct. Real Life Steven's household traded the Renaissance Faire for a visit from his nephew, which led to the realization that "boy energy" really is its own force of nature. While the kids spent the week at drama camp, thoughts turned to Shakespeare, with the conclusion that Romeo + Juliet would be vastly improved if Dream Theater handled the soundtrack. Book club is also gearing up for Macbeth, because apparently there's never a bad time for a little murder and prophecy. Ben has been embracing peak summer with trips to the water park, while Devon is trying to survive the brutal Texas heat. His family's solution? Buying an old-school lawn sprinkler so the kids could cool off the classic way. Once again, the phrase "boy energy" proves to be an unexpectedly recurring theme. Technology also found its way into everyday life. Ben explained how AI helped him build a Firefox extension that converts webcomics into CBZ files, explored locally running language models with OpenCode, and used AI to determine which models would best fit his hardware. In one particularly fitting moment, he asked an AI how to repair some aging Python code, only for it to recommend an existing Firefox extension that solved the problem entirely. The hosts also wondered who keeps naming Google's AI products after notebooks before discussing https://notebooklm.google.com/. The conversation then shifted to Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI over allegations of trade secret theft involving former employees. You can read more about the case here: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-sues-openai-alleging-misappropriation-trade-secrets-court-records-show-2026-07-10/ Entertainment wrapped up the segment with Steven declaring that all five episodes of X-Men '97 Season 2 are absolute bangers, along with praise for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced and a reminder that Assassin's Creed Origins includes one of gaming's coolest educational features: an interactive museum tour through ancient Egypt. Ben also celebrated the release of Heave Ho 2, while everyone wondered whether it's destined to become a terrible influence on Devon's kids. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2802740/Heave_Ho_2/ Future or Now The hosts somehow found themselves discussing more Game Changer chaos before moving into horror. Devon admitted that he may finally be developing a taste for the genre after watching Backrooms and Obsession, both of which started life as YouTube shorts before becoming full productions. He praised Backrooms for its eerie liminal-space atmosphere, while describing Obsession as a more traditional "be careful what you wish for" horror story. If you've been horror-curious but never quite crossed over, these might be good starting points. Ben then highlighted a fascinating study showing one of AI's biggest hidden dangers. Researchers found that people using AI assistance became three times less accurate while also becoming twice as confident in their answers. Even more striking, the willingness to simply admit "I don't know" dropped from 44% to just 3% when AI was available. It's a reminder that AI works best when treated as a helpful assistant—not an unquestionable authority. https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-advice-suppresses-critical-thinking-wrong-answers-study Finally, the crew couldn't resist talking about the newly revealed Star Trek crossover sets coming to Magic: The Gathering. Whether you're a Trek fan, a Magic player, or just someone whose wallet is already crying, the crossover looks like another ambitious mashup worth checking out. https://trekmovie.com/2026/07/18/magic-the-gathering-star-trek-sets-revealed-preorders-open-now/ Steven rounded out the week by admitting that, for once, he didn't have a specific science story to bring—which may have been the most surprising revelation of the episode.

  7. Jul 15

    More Effort than a Prompt

    This week the crew covers everything from beach vacations and superhero movies to fascinating new discoveries about the human brain and the future of artificial intelligence. Devon reports back from a family-filled Mississippi beach trip, Steven shares his thoughts on Supergirl, Ben highlights listener feedback and celebrates a birthday, and the science discussion dives into how anesthetized brains may be doing far more than we ever imagined. Then the conversation shifts into the strange world of AI's "latent space" and why it may become one of humanity's most important creative tools. Real Life Ben starts things off by wishing a very happy birthday to longtime listener Hank before sharing some thoughtful listener feedback from Episode 615. We always appreciate hearing what everyone thinks, so keep those comments coming! You can read the feedback here: https://sciencefactionpodcast.com/2026/07/01/episode-615-spreading-the-word-of-totally-local-ai/#comment-151 Devon returns from a family vacation in Long Beach, Mississippi. Between the huge gathering of relatives, plenty of kids running around, and an incredibly shallow beach stretching nearly a mile into the Gulf, it was the perfect destination for a laid-back family getaway. Steven finally catches Supergirl and discovers a movie that lands squarely in the middle of the review spectrum. While online opinions seemed split between "masterpiece" and "disaster," the film ended up being... fine. The crew discusses its themes surrounding human trafficking and the metaphor of women having their power stripped away, while also pointing out that the constant switching of powers eventually became distracting. Despite its flaws, everyone agrees the performances, visual effects, and sound design were excellent, with Ben giving special praise to the imaginative creature designs. Future or Now Devon brings a study that challenges what we thought we knew about consciousness. Researchers discovered that people under general anesthesia may continue processing language at a surprisingly sophisticated level. Even while completely unconscious, patients could distinguish different types of words and showed neural activity suggesting they were predicting upcoming words before hearing them. The findings raise fascinating questions about what consciousness really is and could eventually influence both anesthesia research and future brain-computer interfaces. Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260624025514.htm Ben explores Kevin Kelly's idea that latent space is becoming an entirely new creative medium. Rather than acting as giant databases that memorize information, modern AI models compress enormous amounts of human knowledge into abstract mathematical relationships. This "latent space" becomes something people can navigate—moving between concepts, artistic styles, scientific ideas, or even alternate histories. Kelly argues that this shared conceptual landscape could become a platform for scientific discovery, personalized AI systems, and entirely new ways of thinking, where generating ideas and thinking become nearly the same process. Read Kevin Kelly's article here: https://kevinkelly.substack.com/p/latent-space-as-a-new-medium Steven wraps up the discussion with a practical example of AI in everyday life, explaining how it helped troubleshoot and update his Raspberry Pi Pi-hole installation. What could have been a frustrating afternoon of terminal commands and Linux troubleshooting turned into a quick collaborative problem-solving session, highlighting how AI can be just as useful for practical technical tasks as it is for creative ones. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe, leave us a review, and share the podcast with a friend. Your support helps us keep exploring the latest science, technology, and the wonderfully weird stories that make Science Faction what it is.

  8. Jul 8

    The Existential Horror Of Being A Sentient Toy

    This week, Steven is away, leaving Ben and Devon to hold down the fort. That means plenty of movie reviews, travel plans, museum science, unexpected tsunami discoveries, and, naturally, a healthy dose of Star Trek discussion. Real Life Devon is getting ready for a family vacation to Long Beach, Mississippi, where a whole group of friends will be joining in on the fun. Their last trip didn't exactly provide ideal beach weather, so everyone is hoping for sunnier skies this time around. Ben, however, refuses to acknowledge any alternative naming conventions—it will always be the Gulf of Mexico. The movie marathon continues this week. Ben checked out Young Washington and came away feeling... lukewarm. While it wasn't terrible, he felt it leaned far too heavily into its religious themes for his tastes. Devon's household has been busy catching up on family movies. Minions and Monsters earned mixed marks, mostly because the title promises far more monsters than it actually delivers. Devon joked that it should have been called "Minions Do Hollywood" instead. With kids currently obsessed with both Super Mario and the Minions, though, it was still a hit at home, and the Rabbids look like they'll be another favorite before long. Ben also saw Masters of the Universe and had a much stronger recommendation. Fans who grew up with the franchise will apparently find plenty to appreciate, echoing comments from Red Letter Media that longtime viewers will get the most out of it. Devon rounded out the week with Toy Story 5. Surprisingly, he couldn't remember much about the third or fourth films, but still found himself enjoying the newest installment. As always, Pixar somehow manages to package deeply unsettling existential questions—like the horror of being a sentient toy—into a heartfelt family film. Future or Now Ben brought one of the stranger scientific discoveries of the week: museums may soon have a new employee... superworms. Researchers have found that the larvae commonly sold as pet food may actually outperform the flesh-eating beetles traditionally used to clean skeletons for museums and forensic research. Superworms efficiently strip away soft tissue without damaging delicate bones, while also being much easier to contain than dermestid beetles, which have a nasty habit of escaping and infesting museum collections. With the proper number of larvae, scientists can produce clean, display-ready skeletons while avoiding many of the downsides of chemical treatments or boiling. Read more here: Ars Technica – Museums could use ravenous superworms to clean skeletons Devon followed up with an incredible story about tsunamis and satellites. After a massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the Kamchatka Peninsula, a NASA satellite captured one of the most detailed observations ever made of a giant tsunami crossing the Pacific Ocean. The data revealed something scientists didn't expect. Large tsunamis have traditionally been considered "non-dispersive," meaning they should largely maintain their shape as they travel across the ocean. Instead, researchers observed dispersion, where different portions of the wave traveled at slightly different speeds, causing the tsunami to spread into a leading wave followed by several trailing waves. Even more impressively, these observations suggest the original earthquake rupture was larger than early models indicated. Learn more here: ScienceDaily – A NASA satellite caught a giant tsunami doing something no one expected Of course, no Ben and Devon episode would be complete without a Star Trek update. Strange New Worlds Season 4 is on the horizon, and Ben has been enjoying The Last Starship, calling it well worth the read for Trek fans looking for more spacefaring adventures. That conversation naturally led to Prelude to Axanar and Axanar: The Gathering, two impressive fan productions that continue to spark discussion among Star Trek enthusiasts. Watch them here: Prelude to Axanar Axanar: The Gathering Finally, Devon has also been watching Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. While he's enjoying it overall, he admitted it hasn't quite lived up to his expectations. It's a tense, stressful watch that keeps him engaged, even if it hasn't completely won him over yet.

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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Devon Craft and Steven Domingues and Benjamin Daniel Lawless
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Devon Craft and Steven Domingues and Benjamin Daniel Lawless
  • Show Website
    Science Faction Podcast