Did you catch the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, doing an advertisment for a JJJ radio show, where she jokingly talked about the impending end of the world?

This episode of the Token Skeptic takes a closer look at whether Australians are more skeptical or just as drawn into the claims as any other country when it comes to 2012 apocalypse prophecies - and investigates what makes a sensible approach to take, particularly with believers of younger years.

Dr Joseph Gelfer works as an Adjunct Research Associate at the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University and holds a doctorate in religious studies from the Victoria University of Wellington.

A number of people believe that the end of the world is due in December 2012 - or, at the very least, the end of the world as we know it. Dr Gelfer recently produced a range of scholarly analyses in his book 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse, which includes perspectives from various disciplines such as  religious studies, anthropology, Mayan studies, cultural studies and the social sciences.

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K. Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.com. 

Please leave positive comments and reviews on iTunes and consider supporting the show via visiting  Tokenskeptic.org - and I’d love to get your feedback via tokenskeptic@gmail.com.

Let's talk about sex. And not just any old sex. The animal kingdom is a wild place -- and it's got mating habits to match. We're getting it on with kinky rituals, titillating pheromones, post-coital cannibalism, golden showers, orgy marathons and penises that put King Kong to shame. Biologist-with-a-twist Dr Carin Bondar is stripping down to the bare truth of nature's X-rated side - with the new web-series Wild Sex!

Wild Sex has already featured on the Huffington Post, I09, Jezebel and a great interview featured on Scientific America's Science Sushi Blog. 

For this Token Skeptic interview, we discuss Dr Carin Bondar's start in science, her work as a PhD in freshwater ecology and in science communication (particularly film-making and blogging); whether sex, sexy and science should ever mix and what's in store for viewers of the brand-new online series Wild Sex.

Dr Carin's site can be found at http://www.carinbondar.com - she is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/drbondar - and here is the YouTube site for Wild Sex, brought to you by Earth-Touch.com.

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K. Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of  www.miltonmermikides.com. Please leave positive comments and reviews on iTunes and consider supporting the show via visiting  Tokenskeptic.org - and I’d love to get your feedback via tokenskeptic@gmail.com.

This is an investigative episode about some of the key figures in skepticism that you may not know much about… and should know more about!

Pat Linse is an award winning illustrator who specialized in film industry art before becoming one of the founders of the Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, and the creator of Junior Skepticmagazine. As Skeptic magazine’s Art Director, she has created many illustrations for both Skeptic and Junior Skeptic. She is co-editor of the The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience.

Donald R. Prothero is a Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University in 1982, and a B.A. in geology and biology (highest honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of California, Riverside. He is currently the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 28 books and over 250 scientific papers, including five leading geology textbooks and four trade books as well as edited symposium volumes and other technical works. He is on the editorial board of Skepticmagazine, and in the past has served as an associate or technical editor for Geology, Paleobiologyand Journal of Paleontology.

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to get your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com. Song used in this episode: “Laundry“ by makardos.

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of www.miltonmermikides.com.

Jonny Scaramanga is an independent musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and teacher in Bath. He once attended an ACE school and questions whether the system has done the right thing by him and thousands of students world-wide, at "Leaving Fundamentalism".

His article "Fundamental Errors With Evangelist Schooling" features at the Times Educational Supplement site:

Visitors to Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) schools see how quiet classrooms are and how polite pupils are. You would be polite too if you attended a school where anything less than vigorous, smiling agreement with the teachers was seen as an act of rebellion. Rules were enforced with, if not a rod of iron, then a hefty paddle...

...Like all pupils, I taught myself from ACE textbooks containing information on core subjects interspersed with comic strips in which pupils with side-partings reminded me how good Christians behave. I sat in my "office", a small desk with high partitions separating me from my neighbours. Talking wasn't allowed, but staff were not taking chances. I went to the school as someone who loved learning, and left it seeing education as a necessary evil.

Jonny continues to raise awareness about the Accelerated Christian Education's influence world-wide, not only via writing articles and a book about his experiences at Leaving Fundamentalism, but through an engaging series of audio essays featured on the Pod Delusion podcast: ACE creationism and Word of Faith (episodes 135 and 136).

This show is available on Zune, mp3 via Libsyn or iTunes. Visit www.tokenskeptic.org – and I’d love to get your feedback at tokenskeptic@gmail.com.

Theme songs are “P&P” by Derek K Miller of www.penmachine.com and “Leap Second” by Milton Mermikides, of www.miltonmermikides.com. Please considering supporting the show via visiting Tokenskeptic.org.