245 - Science... Hodor

This week is all about Game of Thrones and/or A Song of Ice and Fire featuring returning guest to the show Miles Traer! If you're not caught up on both the show and the books, consider this your all-purpose SPOILER WARNING. 00:00:00 - First up: time travel. How does time travel in a fantasy story work? Apparently, there are three options, and we mainly stick to one, but it's not without its paradoxes. Check out this nifty drawing from Ben for a diagram of just what we think happened in the already infamous Hodor episode. 00:37:53 - They drink a lot in Westeros, so to keep it authentic, we follow suit. Ben begins with a double shot of weird Sangaria brand soft drinks: carrot and traditional. Miles follows up with a 'Westerosi'-style cocktail, the Sazerac; even if he and Ryan disagree about the proportions. Ryan does what his wife does, and has a Three Philosophers from Brewery Ommegang. It makes sense in context. 00:44:15 - There's a lot more science to be done in Westeros than just time travel. Fortunately, Matt Shipman organized a blog carnival, featuring science posts from some of our favorite former guests such as Brian Switek, Jacquelyn Gill, and David Hone. If you want more info on the solar neighborhood of the planet and how that affects climate, check out this paper from the ArXiv. And finally a geology post from Miles Traer, which he tells us a bit about, but you'll need to read the whole thing for the details. 01:08:38 - PaleoPOWs are a lot like open-ended epic fantasy series; they're both often long overdue. We being with Ben announcing a new recurring donation from Peter C. Thanks, Peter! Next up, Tyler V. wants to know, based on our previous hesitation to call the Anthropocene a thing, how future paleontologists might respond to the discovery of mass human graves as a feature of the debated epoch. That's pretty dark, Tyler, but we sort of have an answer, and it reminds Ryan in particular of a certain dinosaur site called Ghost Ranch. Ryan has an anniversary message from Cyn, who found the show thanks to Ben, because Ben is great. Finally, be sure to also check out Miles' excellent podcast Generation Anthropocene. Thanks for listening and be sure to check out the Brachiolope Media Network for more great science podcasts! Music for this week's show: Game of Throne theme on the Seaboard RISE - ROLI Theme from Game of Thrones - New Orleans Swamp Donkeys Game of Thrones Theme (Western Cover) - Benedikt Mendzigal