Hello everyone and welcome to Talk Nurdy.

Today is Monday, July 19th, 2021 and I'm the host of the show, Kara Santa Maria and

whoof, it's been a rough summer so far.

I think that, you know, COVID is still nagging, COVID is still very much here.

A lot of us are really tired. I'm also, you know, just so that you guys

know where I'm at, I sometimes talk about my work on the show, but in the intro I don't

talk about kind of where I'm at with things. I am pushing through to finish my

qualifying examination and my my dissertation proposal for my PhD program and so

if you know anybody or you yourself have gone through this

process you know that it can be really grueling this is one of those

important kind of rate limiting steps and whoof today's a day it's been a

doozy but I'm really excited about the newest episode. I cannot believe that I've managed to put out an episode every week.

It's been tough to do, but gosh isn't this one important?

Before we dive into this week's episode with Dina Pyro,

I do want to talk to you a little bit about,

not talk to you, that sounds very stern, let's have a chat you guys.

I want to thank those of you who continue to make the show possible.

You know, you're, between my ad sales and the pledges from all of you who do so, this is what makes me just enough money to be able to keep producing this show each week because I do pay an editor and I do pay my

incredible assistant Noel Dilworth who helps keep the calendars book the

episodes and it just manage all of the things that go into producing a show every single week on top of working on the Skeptics Guide to the universe

lately doing some work on God awful movies

seeing patients every week at the cancer center where I work,

...