Hey, everyone. Kara here right at the top of the show this week to remind you about that time when we had J.R. Becker on as a podcast guest. He's the author of our favorite children's book series, Annabelle and Aden. Well, he just released a new book celebrating scientific discovery and critical thinking over magical assumptions. It's satirically called It's Got to

Be Magic, and the Kickstarter campaign just launched this morning. You can pre-order the book and even

get your name or photos in it. All you've got to do is visit It's Got to Bemagic.com. Again, pre-orders

opened this morning for a limited time only at it's got to be magic.com.

Help support independent science authors and pre-order a book today.

Hello everyone and welcome to Talk Nerdy.

Today is Monday, May 12, 2025, and I'm the host of the show, Dr. Kara Santa Maria.

I'm just realizing today is the 550th episode.

I like those round numbers. I cannot believe that. It started way back in 2014. Now we're on episode 550.

Y'all are awesome for sticking with us this long. So I want to thank those of you who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember, from the beginning, this show has been free to download. I'm never going to

charge for the show. The way that we keep it going, because ad sales are minimal, although I did read

an ad today. It's the first time in a long time. It's mostly just Patreon. That's really the

main funding source for the show lately. So if you're interested in pledging your

support, you know, throwing a few bucks our way, and sort of offsetting that cost so that folks

who can't afford to pay never have to, all you've got to do is visit patreon.com slash talk nerdy,

where you can learn more. That's p-a-t-r-e-on.com-com slash talk-nerdy. Sorry, I'm a teeny tiny bit jet-lagged.

I've been out of the country for the last month traveling in Asia. I pre-recorded all the

intros for the last month's worth of episode. So this is the first time I'm recording

since I got back. But yeah, let's thank those of you who do make Talk Nerdy possible. This

week's top patrons include Anu Baravage, Daniel Lang, David J.E. Smith, Mary Neva, Brian Holden,

David Compton, Gabrielle F. J. Harmeo, sorry, Gabrielle, Joe Wilkinson, or maybe you go by

Gabriel. This whole time I've said Gabrielle,

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