Top all-time · #19606
Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
Personal blog · thestudiesshowpod.com/pscience
Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie writes The Science Fictions Podcast, a personal blog at thestudiesshowpod.com about science. Since 2023, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 6 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Podcast by Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie that examines scientific studies and health claims. Commenters link episodes on neurogenesis, teen social media, talc and WHO cancer lists, lead and IQ, and ultra-processed food.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie.
What Hacker News says?
Coincidentally this was the topic of the latest episode of "The Studies Show" podcast [0]. It covers similar aspects including carbon 14. [0] https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/episode-74-neurogenesis - There is a transcript available from this page.
Comment linking /p/episode-74-neurogenesis
on “Can adults grow new brain cells?”Refutes is a strong word. This is an ongoing debate and it’s not clear to me Haidt is on the right side of it. The Studies Show did a great episode on this, but unfortunately it’s paywalled. However, the show notes are public and link to the relevant back and forth if folks want to make up their own minds. https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/paid-only-episode-12-jon... Edit: And here’s a link to their earlier free e…
Comment linking /p/episode-25-is-it-the-phones
on “No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems”There was a recent (August 2023) The Studies Show episode[1] on WHO's cancer list. It goes in to why these lists are incredibly misleading. My own mother died of Ovarian Cancer at age 40 and used talc. I'm not confidence for a second there is sufficient evidence to even hint at causality. [1] https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/episode-3-aspartame
Comment linking /p/episode-3-aspartame
on “WHO says talc is 'probably' cancer-causing”There's an interesting 'The Studies Show' episode on the link between lead and IQ [0]. The gist being that at low level exposure there's a lot of uncertainty about whether there is any association with adverse outcomes, because any effect is effectively swamped by other effects. I thought it was relevant/interesting because the paper uses the EPA guidance maximum contaminant level goal of 0, while for example talkin…
Comment linking /p/episode-37-lead-and-iq
on “Estimated Childhood Lead Exposure from Drinking Water in Chicago”For a contrary perspective, see Stuart Ritchie's and Tom Chivers's episode on UPFs: https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/episode-6-ultra-processe...
Comment linking /p/episode-6-ultra-processed-foods
on “Big effort needed on UK diet to fight ultra-processed food, say health experts”