Episode 4 - Sports Gene Snake Oil, Death of an Amnesiac, Trading Bodies With a Mannequin

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Like an old friend who struck it rich by bringing clean drinking water to the impoverished millions, Episode 4 of Grand Unified Weekly does well by doing good.

Episode 4 includes: Move over Baby Einstein, helicopter parents have a new weapon of choice: a genetic test that will tell them whether those after-school sports clubs are a waste of time; H.M., the world’s most famous amnesiac and friend-to-science, dies at 82; and a new techno-trick will help you swap your brain into a body that is way more ripped than you were even in your salad days. SABROSO!

Awesome theme song Comrade Elvis courtesy Hilotrons and Kelp Records, awesome co-host Christie Nicholson courtesy Scientific American

Notes on This Week’s Episode

0401 - Jock-ugenics: meh science, worse parenting

Did you hear the one about the company that’s offering a test to determine whether your kid should go into endurance or power sports? It sort of made Will Saletan want to poke his eyes out!
As our scientist-in-residence put it, the original science is fantastic, it’s the application that stinks.
Feel fee to gorge yourself on the media frenzy that inevitably followed.

0402 - Let us now praise famous amnesiacs

In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.

For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend, each time he ate a meal, each time he walked in the woods, it was as if for the first time.

– H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 (NYTimes)

0403 - Mind-melding with mannequins

Our buddy Alexis over at Wired Science wrote this up but good.
But only GUweekly.com has the following exclusive images of the rig used to create this illusion. Click on any of the images that follow for a larger version.