Episode Reviews

I am pretty constantly having some kind of sleep trouble, whether it's "oh no I can't sleep and it's 4 am" to "oh no I overslept" to "oh no I want to take a nap" so this episode was fascinating. It wasn't super reassuring -- it does debunk some myths about sleep, sure, but it's so frustrating to find out that we actually just don't have great science on a lot of stuff. That said, it was nice to hear Michael point out what I have always felt in my soul at 2:49 AM when I'm trying very very hard to sleep, which is "I feel like stressing out about not sleeping is really not helping here!"

Another accessible and enjoyable trip into the world of junk popular science. I love this show because Aubrey and Michael don't just go into how the science was misrepresented (or wrong), they also talk about the motivations for misrepresenting the data and how basing your career on dubious claims has almost no repercussions. It's a good reminder that science is a great idea but it is performed by humans, who don't always have the best motivations.