Episode #449
Skeptics with a K
Skeptic Media Limited
4.8 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marsh investigates a new paper from China, which supposedly shows that drinkers of plant-based milk alternatives are more likely to be depressed. Meanwhile, Mike visits Bristol and Alice has a haggis.
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Mixed and edited by Morgan Clarke.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It is Thursday, the 29th of January, 26, and you're listening to Skeptics with a K, |
| 0:12.6 | the podcast for Science, Reason and Critical Thinking. |
| 0:16.1 | Skeptics with K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society, |
| 0:20.9 | a non-profit organization for the promotion of scientific skepticism on Merseyside around the UK |
| 0:25.4 | and internationally. |
| 0:27.1 | I'm your host, Mike Hall. |
| 0:28.3 | With me today is Marsh. |
| 0:29.7 | Hello. |
| 0:30.3 | And Alice. |
| 0:31.3 | Hello. |
| 0:32.7 | It's still basically the start of the year. |
| 0:35.2 | We're still in January, just about. |
| 0:37.4 | And the start of the year, it always brings a few reliable types of news stories into the press. It used to be, you could expect to see quite a lot of Blue Monday headlines. For example, January is depressing, but hey, why not plan your next holiday? That's a very long-running thing for a good number of years. Lots of newspapers, lots of brands jumped all over Blue Monday for a long time. |
| 0:57.2 | I just still see some Blue Monday stuff this year. |
| 0:59.8 | What I saw was the Mind Mental Health charity debunking Blue Monday, which was very good, |
| 1:05.3 | although a little bit outdated, although apparently they've been doing that for a while. |
| 1:08.8 | And I did see, I got some emails from airlines telling me to book a holiday. |
| 1:14.2 | Yeah, exactly. |
| 1:14.9 | You still get that. |
| 1:15.5 | And in fact, those types of stories, they got so big that papers and brands |
| 1:18.1 | recognize that everyone just would see and tut and roll their eyes at such headlines. |
| 1:23.3 | And so they stopped running, by and large, straight Blue Monday stories and started running |
... |
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