SGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]

SGU Episode 357

2012-05-23T20:51:48Z

Thejmii: /* Ghost Box (03:34) */ At the rate I'm going I won't get it finished until tomorrow evening so I'm taking out the box if somebody else wants to do it sooner

{{Draft_infoBox
|episodeTitle = SGU Episode 357
|episodeDate = 19th May 2012 
|episodeIcon = File:Mayan1.jpg 
|previous = 
|next = 
|rebecca = y 
|bob = y 
|jay = y 
|evan = y 
|perry = 
|guest1 = PP: Phil Plait 
|guest2 = C: Chris Lewicki 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-05-19.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=357
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,41744.0.html
|qowText = You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right. 
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Graham Benjamin Graham] 
|}}
== Introduction ==
''You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, you're escape to reality.''

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, today is Tueday, May 15th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey Guys.

S: Evan Burnstein...

E: Top of the evening to you.

S: And we have a special guest rogue with us this evening, the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait...

PP: Hey, hey. You know...

R: Wow! For the first time ever.

PP: I was going to say...

S: Finally we got you on the show.

PP: This is like the 300th time I've been on this show I don't think I'm special anymore.

R: Awww... you'll always be special to us.

PP: Oh thank you, Rebecca.

J: God! Alright, can we please start with the science? Let's go...

== This Day in Skepticism (00:51) ==
R: You know what, Phil? If you were to die I would put your head in a device that maintained your life somehow. Much like the one that was Patendend... Patented.

J: Patendend.

S: Patendend.

R: It's a hard word to say

B: Paten-tated.

R: On May 19th 1987, a device for perfusing an animal head from Chet Flemming. Chet created a machine, or at least the drawings for a machine, which he called a cabinet, that wouldand I quote, "Provide physical and biochemical support for an animal's head which has been discorporated. (i.e. severed from its body). The device can be used to supply a discorped head with oxygenated blood and nutrients by means of tubes connected to arteries which pass through the neck." And there's al sorts of interesting little tubes and stuff in the drawings that provide for waste disposal and all that stuff.

B: Oxygenation, yeah.

R: Yeah, 1987, that was the year that the Futurama head in a jar became... well not a reality but... ah...

PP: A drawing.

S: A fiction.

E: A living breathing concept.

R: A slightly less implausible reality.

PP: So this guy had a drawing and Futurama is basically all drawings so I don't really think that's a step forward.

R: That's a good point.

S: In this guy's diagram it has the animal head which looks suspiciously like a human head.

R: It could be a chimp.

PP: Is it Richard Nixon?

S: It could be a chimp.

R: It's from the back so it's hard to tell.

S: I don't know, those ears are awfully humanoid.

J: But why? All kidding aside, and the Futurama thing, why the hell would you want to do that?

S: I think this actually a script for a horror movie.

E: Real horror show.

R: Jay, aren't you the one who is having his head frozen?

J: Oh my god. Yeah, because I want it in a box? No.

B: Cabinet. Cabinet.

S: Well, Jay, what if that's all they can do when they thaw out your head it's just going to be in a cabinet attached to tubes. Iit's not going to be actually attached to a robot or a flesh body, it's just going to be a head in a box.

J: Then I would tell them to kill me.

R: You'd still take it.

J: I would say melt my head down for spare parts.

R: No, come one, head in a box, they could put a monitor in there. You could still watch TV.

PP: What happens to the body? Does he talk about that? Do you become one of the headless monks from Doctor Who.

R: If he had plans for the body they're in another patent I haven't found yet.

E: That's a different category.

J: They have a cabinet that keeps a body alive without a head.

R: Oh yeah, I think Dr Caligari actually patented that. That'a a german expressionist joke there, thank you.

== News Items ==
=== Ghost Box (03:34)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/ghost-box/

=== Mayan Calendar (11:06)===
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18018343

S: Well let's move on. Phil, apparently there was an interesting archaeological discovery about the Mayan calendar and we're going to have to revise the date for the end of the world.

R: Oh no! But I already made a cake.

E: I packed my bags.

PP: You plan way in the future, Rebecca.

R: I like cake.

PP: I don't think we have to revise the date of the end of the world, we're pretty sure it's still six or seven billion years from now when the sun turns into a red giant and fries the planet. The deal here is the Mayan civilisation, now there are still Mayans around, but the sort of classical height of the Mayan, I wouldn't call it an empire, but a civilisation was you know a thousand years ago, something like that. And they were an interesting group of people, they were fascinated with the calendar and they were fascinated with cycles. Their calendars were similar to ours in that they're based on cycles. We have days and years which are sort of fundamental, they're physical things based on the turning of the Earth and the Earth going around the sun. But there are also weeks and months and collections of units like that that we use, they had a similar thing although they used of course different units. Now it turns out that you could think of it a little bit like an old-style odometer on a car where it would tick through tenths of a mile and then when you got to nine tenths it would click over to one point oh miles then when you got to nine point nine miles it would click over to ten, their cycles would do the same thing and our calendars do the same thing, at the end of the month you go to the next month, at the end of twelve months you go to the next year. So they have all these cycles and the idea here is that some people are saying that at the end of this particular cycle which lasts about 400 years, the Mayans were saying this was going to be the end of the world. Now mind you, this is totally wrong. This is the end of one cycle, it was just going to go to the other cycle, we have known for a long time that they have much larger cycles than 400 year cycles, they have some that last for thousands and even millions of years. So the whole idea that their calendar ends is wrong. The whole idea that this cycle that they though it was going to be the end of the world is wrong. The idea that there's any physical evidence that the world's going to end on December 21st 2012 is wrong, stop me if you've heard this before. So the news is that some archaeologists were poking around in a temple and found a room that had been discovered previously but hadn't been explored and when they went in there they found paintings on the wall that were sort of like notes as I understand it. And they found a lot of things that were clearly representing the cycles of Venus and Mars as they go around the sun so there were clear ties to astronomy and what they also found is that they had basically cycles that went on and on and on. So this isn't anything ground-breakingly new as far as what we knew about the Mayans. What this gives us is insight into how hey thought and how they were determining these cycles so it's not that they've discovered this new cycle that went past December 21st, it's nothing like that. It's just more depth and breadth to how they determined this stuff. So archaeologically, this is awesome. Skeptically and as far as the doomsday stuff goes, it's nothing new because we already knew that was all baloney in the first place.

S: Right, right.

R: And that's why I have a conspiracy theory and it is this: archaeologists got sick of everybody whining about the end of the world and ignoring everything they were saying about it's just the calendar turning over blah blah blah. So they're like oh, look we found a new calendar.

(laughter)

PP: Aah, but like all conspiracy theories, you have a fatal flaw that's obvious. Archaeologists who study Mayan civilisation are enjoying a heyday like they've never seen before right now.

R: That's true.

PP: So I'm seeing books, I'm seeing TV shows, you know stuff on the history channel say.

R: Yeah, and the discovery of a new calendar would not only put an end to the end of the world problems but would garner them a lot more media attention.

PP: Well, for a day or two.

R: Mmm?

PP: Well it's only May though, I mean they've got months and months to keep raking in all this sweet sweet cash from the media.

E: That's right.

R: From the history channel.

PP: They're making dozens of dollars from this, so.

R: Right. All right, good point.

S: Right there's free food in the green room. You know one of the cycles was 2.5 million days long, I think one that had to do with predictions of lunar eclipses, again an astronomical tie, so that's something like 6000 years right, so yeah clearly they were thinking well beyond December 2012.

PP: Yeah, and we've known that as a matter of fact...

S: Yeah.

PP: ...this particular cycle that is ending, the Bachtoon which is what it's called...

E: It's like Klingon.

PP: ...it's not even the last one. This is kind of like the end of May (laughs) right? And not December, so there's plenty more Bachtoons in the cycle that goes up to the next one which I believe is the Piktoon. I love that language, it's got all these glottal stops and different consonant combinations than we have in English, it just sounds, it's a little bit like Klingon actually, sorry Rebecca to bring that up.

R: It's OK

B: Ker balh!

PP: But it's fun to read about this stuff and think about it. So there's just, there's nothing to this basically from any direction you're looking.

J: The thing that bothers me about the whole 2012 BS is that it's going to come and go and then it's simply just going to fade away, there isn't going to be like, there might be a couple of days, but there won't be a big kind of like a reconciliation, people saying they were wrong or any of that stuff, they'll just click over to the next line of BS.

PP: That's the worst part of this, it's not that it's going to go away and then people will forget, it's that it will come again. And we had planet X in 2003 and the alignment in 2000 and Harold Camping if you want to talk about him, last year but these astronomical doomsday things, they come and they go and it's the same people over and over again. This one, they're recycling planet X for this one. I'm seeing it everywhere, Nobiru.

E: Yeah.

PP: It's nothing, no, no bad idea ever goes to waste.

E: Do you think we can declare December 22nd wah wah day?

PP: National sad trombone day. I like that.

S: (laughing) Yeah sad trombone.

=== Electricity from Viruses (17:52)===

S: All right, Bob you're going to tell us about getting electricity from viruses.

B: Yeah this was pretty cool, you've got to give viruses some credit I guess, you know they're not nearly as cool as bacteria but they do have some surprising benefits in the future in areas that you might not expect, like power generation. Scientists have recently been the first to generate electricity using the piezoelectric effect created from a biological material. Now this milestone was recently announced in Nature Nanotechnology in a paper called [http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2012.69.html Virus-based piezoelectric energy generation]. We've touched on piezoelectricity before, this is the generation of electric charge from simple mechanical stress. This is a phenomenon that was discovered in the 1880s by French physicists Jacques and Pierre Curie, uh jeez was there anything that that family did not do? But this type of electricity generation can be seen in lots of materials like crystals which you're probably most familiar with but also ceramics and DNA and protein...

S: Bone, yeah.

B: ...even bone, yeah. Now this, it's not just an esoteric lab curiosity I mean obviously we've got quartz watches which use the effect but also you could see this effect in electric guitars, ink-jet printers, electric cigarette lighters, scanning probe microscopy, it's pretty much in lots of different places but it's not easy to produce, this was a bit of a surprise to me, the materials apparently that are used to make this can be toxic and it's very hard to work with. So otherwise I would guess that it'd be even more common than it is today if it was a little easier to make.

S: So they want to use viruses which are entirely non-toxic and safe.

R: I can't think of a single problem with it.

S: What could possibly go wrong?

E: Yeah.

B: These are actually, well yeah these viruses these scientists discovered a virus that produces a piezoelectric effect. These aren't just ordinary viruses, these are M13 bacteriophages which are fascinating, I kind of, I really love these little guys now.

E: Isn't M13 a gang?

B: Look them up because just the image of these guys, I've seen this image for years and I've always thought it looked like this weird alien life form, but they only attack bacteria, they're harmless to humans so there's nothing really to worry about coming in to contact with them, and they're ubiquitous, there's few organisms on the planet that are more common and diverse as these phages are. The bottom line is these viruses produce this piezoelectric effect but it wasn't strong enough, they needed to beef this up, they needed to make the effect stronger so they used genetic engineering, specifically recombinant DNA techniques and what they did was they added negatively charged amino acids to one end of the helical protein structure on the bacteriophage so they essentially increased the charge difference between the ends and that boosted the voltage. This is one great way they figured out to make this more powerful. And the other idea they had was to stack these single layer films of the virus and like 20 different layers I think, they determined that 20 layers was optimum and the other interesting thing of course, with lots of things dealing with nanotechnology, things at that scale is that it was self-organising, so they just kind of had to just put the viruses in the proper environmental set-up and they would self-organise into these sheets. So then when they put all of these ideas together, they took the engineered viruses and they made them spontaneously organise into this multi-layered film, it was about as big as one square centimetre and then they placed this film between two electrodes which was connected to a liquid crystal display. And so when they applied pressure to this little square centimetre little device, it activated the piezoelectric effect in the viruses and it created a current of let's see it was, oh it was 6 nano amperes of current and 400 millivolts of potential and it flashed the number 1 on the display and I think the voltage was roughly equivalent to a quarter of a AAA battery so it's not entirely insignificant.

S: No, there's lots of, you know as we develop more and more tiny devices, especially ones that might be implantable or wearable or whatever, the ability to produce a self-sustaining amount of very small current is really useful, it's not that we need a lot of current, it's just that you can't necessarily get to that device to replace or recharge the battery so this, the potential uses for this are huge.

B: Well that's just it, what are we going to do with this kind of thing but the really cool thing is that you could accumulate electrical charge from the vibrations that you generate just from everyday activities such as, say charging your phone as you walk. You know, you put this little paper-thin generator in the sole of your shoe, you wouldn't even notice it, and as you're walking you're charging your cell phone, I really like the sound of that one. Things like walking up stairs or shutting a door, and I'm sure a million other ways that you'd be able to generate energy.

S: Masturbating.

B: Hah, there you go.

E: Solves all of our energy problems.

S: (laughs) Right.

B: Oh yeah. So, keep an eye out for viral electronics in the future, I think it's going to be a fun thing to watch.

S: Viral electronics.

J: And they're only five years away.

S: (laughs)

B: Yeah, right.

E: Viral electronics, catch it while you can.

=== UK Libel Law Update (23:13)===
http://skepchick.org/2012/05/uk-parliament-will-tackle-libel-reform/

S: OK well let's move on. Rebecca, you're going to give us a quick update on libel reform in the UK.

B: Yay!

R: There's very exciting news. We haven't talked about this for a while because there hasn't really been a whole lot of forward movement on it and in fact the past few years of the fight for libel reform in the UK has been two steps forward, one sometimes two steps back. So just to catch everyone up, you know we've spoken about libel reform in the past on the show particularly as it relates to science writers like Simon Singh who criticised the British Chiropractic Association several years ago in an article, they sued him for libel in the UK. The problem is that in the UK it's very very expensive to defend yourself against a libel case and the burden of proof is on you, you're guilty until proven innocent. It's more expensive than anywhere else in the world and you don't actually have to live in the UK to sue for libel or to be sued for libel if someone in the UK reads your blog post, that's considered good enough reason to be sued there. So there's, that's just a really brief overview of some of the problems with the current libel laws in the UK. You can learn more if you like by going to libel reform.org. But the great news is that after years of scientists and writers and other people petitioning the UK government to reform their libel laws, finally on May 9th, during the Queen's speech, it was revealed that the government will in fact be reforming the libel law this year. The Queen's speech is the opening for parliament, it usually happens at the end of the year but they've just moved it for the first time this year so from now on it happens in May and they open parliament by having the Queen read out this list of all the things they're planning to tackle this year, and that was one of them. And sure enough just a few days later on the next Friday, they introduced a bill that will in fact reform libel law and it's got a lot of support behind it and everybody is optimistic that at last they're going to fix that so science writers particularly, around the world and skeptics around the world can breath a sigh of relief soon because they'll be able to use scientific facts to criticize people like Andrew Wakefield, who is another one who has used the libel laws to his advantage, without being afraid of being completely bankrupted in British courts.

S: Phil, have you ever been sued for anything you've blogged?

PP: No, makes me kind of sad.

R: Yeah, you need to get on that.

PP: I've been threatened a few times, but yeah.

S: Yeah.

PP: In America, happily the truth is a decent legal argument but it would still tie me up in knots for months if somebody did, so I'm hoping that won't happen.

R: Well yeah and it was only just last year that the United States I believe passed a federal law that prevents American citizens from being sued in UK courts but before that there actually have been several American writers who have been sued in UK courts and it's been quite disastrous for them.

PP: Yeah, how screwed up is your legal system when the American legal system looks over at you and goes dude... dude.

S: Yeah.

R: Yeah, and in fact that law was, I think a really great push because it was very embarrassing, it was very embarrassing for them to see other countries, particularly the US actually enacting laws to protect their citizens from British law, so yeah I think that was a huge wakeup call for British politicians.

S: All right well it's good news and we'll see what actually comes from that intuitive.

== Who's That Noisy? (27:24)==
Answer to last week: a Wilsford flute, sounding as if it were played within the walls of Stonehenge http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17080299

S: All right well Evan, it's time for Who's That Noisy.

E: All right, last week we played a noisy and we're going to repeat it this week. Here we go, Who's That Noisy?

(flute sound)

S: Is it some kind of flute?

E: It is, it is, it is in fact something called the Wilsford Flute, which was found near Stonehenge and actually dates to about the same period as Stonehenge itself.

PP: Was the flute 18 feet high?

E: (laughs) Not quite, not quite that big. But this particular flute that was played was reconstructed by an archaeologist, Dr. Simon Wyatt and well he's got a, he's got an interesting theory in that Stonehenge itself, the design behind Stonehenge might have been inspired by musical sounds, specifically the flute sound. He's been able to show how two flutes played in a field, can produce an auditory illusion that mimics in space the position of the henge's pillars.

S: I don't even know what that means. An auditory illusion of a three dimensional structure?

PP: It scans up and down the flute frequencies and picks out...

S: (laughs) It's a ghost flute.

PP: ...the ghost flute.

E: That's right. All right, he said his theory is that the ancient Britons, when they were hearing two pipers in a field were experiencing sound wave interference patterns where in certain locations you walked around the pair of pipers you'd hear loud zones and quiet zones and other things such as that.

S: Eh, it sounds far-fetched to me.

E: Yeah, he says if you look at Stonehenge from an overhead view, it would look like the spokes of a wheel and as you walk around the circle every time you come to the sound wave cancellation points it gives the illusion that there's this object sort of in front of you.

S: What about the astronomical connection of Stonehenge, I mean Stonehenge is essentially a big stone calendar, right?

E: Yeah, well that's the, you know that certainly is the prevailing understanding of exactly the functionality of Stonehenge, but I thought it was interesting.

S: I don't know. All right, the guy, it's interesting, guy found a flute, let's not get crazy.

E: And had our listeners just read back a couple of months to a February 17th article on the BBC they'd have been able to guess that this was the Who's That Noisy for last week.

S: There were no, nobody got it? Aaah.

E: However, there were no correct guesses, so.

S: All right, well what have you got for this week?

E: All right, so this week we have a theme. In the past we've played themes before of Who's That Noisy. What you're going to here are three voices, three people talking and it's up to the listener to determine what the theme of this week's Who's That Noisy is based on what these three people are saying, so here we go.

First voice: I know that I'm disliked as an historian, I know that I'm hated by some people.
Second voice: (speaking Hebrew or Arabic?)
Third voice: I don't think I can actually make a good decision until I'm allowed to read and hear every point of view, how can we know the truth about every point of view?

E: How can we know the truth about any points of view?

S: All right, so what do those three voices have in common?

E: That's right, so come up with the answer and give it your best guess, info@thekepticsguide.org and [http://sguforums.com sguforums.com], you can post your answer there on our forums. Good luck everyone.

== Questions and Emails ==

=== Corrections (31:03)===

Rosalind Franklin and Jocelyn Bell Bernell

S: We're going to do a couple of emails this week, first a quick correction. Last week I brought up, we were talking about women in science who got screwed out of getting credit for their discovery so that brought up Jocelyn Bell Bernell but actually I confused her with Rosalind Franklin. So the women who used x-ray crystallography in order to help discern the three dimensional structure of DNA was Rosalind Franklin and she did not get, she did not share the Nobel Prize for that discovery with Watson and Crick because she died before the Nobel Prize was awarded. Jocelyn Bell Bernell is the woman who discovered pulsars and she did not get her Nobel because she got screwed.

E: What the hell? Phil!

S: Phil, do you have an explanation for that? Can you answer for the astronomical community?

E: Come on.

PP: Yeah, she's a chick.

(laughter)

S: That was it?

R: Mmhmm. It's all you need.

PP: We don't give Nobel Prizes to chicks. That's one of those, that's one of those stories, I hear the stories that she was denied because she was a woman and that's the way it was. I've also heard it's because she was a graduate student at the time and they typically give them to the leaders of the team. You know I hear all these things and I don't know, I don't know what was going on then.

S: Yeah.

PP: But either way you know, she made the discovery. (laughs) It really, it should really go to her. If Penzias and Wilson were discovering the background radiation of the universe and the recent one in physics for the discovery of dark energy, Adam Reese was a graduate student at the time that he was figuring all this stuff out, how to calibrate distant exploding stars and then figure out that the universe expansion was accelerating. So you know it seems a little inconsistent.

S: Yeah.

R: Yeah it seems like excuses get made because it's easier to do that than to say, oh we're a bunch of sexists. Not many people going to really come out and say that.

S: Yeah well it could have been a combination of things and certainly the notion of a senior researcher taking credit for the work of their underlings is nothing new and doesn't require sexism but that is an extra added element to that story.

=== SuperMoon (33:23)===

S: OK let's go on to the next one this one's just for you Phil, Kieren from Australia writes this.

<blockquote>The "BBC News" thread had this on it "'Supermoon' graces the night sky" A "supermoon", bigger and brighter than usual, is seen in the night sky as it comes closer to the Earth - bringing with it the chance of higher tides. I commented "nonsense, it's an optical illusion when the moon is near other objects we associate as big, the moon does not have an elliptical orbit, it never gets bigger or get's closer." was I right? this is my understanding, that the moon can look small when it's way up in the sky with nothing but stars to look at it next to, but when it's right next to a massive silo our brain says "this is now much more massive than normal" if I'm wrong please correct me, it's the only way I learn.</blockquote>

R: Good attitude.

S: Phil, are you going to teach Kieren?

PP: That was an awesome way to end that question because that means they'll be far more forgiving when I say yeah, you're wrong.

S: Yeah.

PP: This is actually fairly complicated, there are bits and pieces of this are correct and incorrect all kind of mixed together. So every now and then we have what's called a supermoon. Now this is a ridiculous term, I don't like it, it was invented by an astrologer, if that's an [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx#1 ad hominem], fine I don't care. The idea is in fact the moon does orbit the earth on an ellipse and it can be substantially closer at times than others. Now I'm not, not like half as close or anything, it's percents. But there are times when it's closer to the Earth than others, and we call that perigee when it's closer and apogee when it's farther away. If there's a full moon around the time of perigee then that's what we're calling a supermoon and what it means is the Moon is full so it's brighter when it's closer to the Earth, and since it's closer to the Earth it'll look a little bit bigger and a little bit brighter. The question is how much? And the answer is not a whole lot and certainly not much more than the day before so it's not like if you go see the moon on the 12th and it looks normal and you go on the 13th and it's the supermoon, it's ten times bigger, we're going to fall into it! It's nothing like that. What's worse is all this hubbub about the supermoon we had a couple of weeks ago. Just last month in April the Moon was also full very near perigee so where were the headlines, where was the news about this? Nobody noticed, and I think the reason nobody noticed is because nobody told them to notice. So I'm not a big proponent of this supermoon being that noticeably bigger and brighter. Now the second part of this is what's called the moon illusion, and that's where the moon looks really huge but it isn't any bigger than usual. When the moon is rising on the horizon it can look very big and this has been tested extensively, and there are people who say that it looks twice or even three times bigger than it normally does when it's up high in the sky. I've seen this many many times, it's a very convincing illusion and a lot of people say it's because the Earth's atmosphere is magnifying or you're comparing it to nearby objects, buildings and trees when it's up high in the sky it's all alone and so you're not comparing it to that. It turns out that's not correct. There are a lot of reasons we know that's not correct, for example the moon illusion persists when you're out on a boat in the ocean or if you're in the middle of Kansas with a flat horizon. It has nothing to do with foreground objects. What it turns out is that we don't perceive the sky as being a hemisphere, this is weird but it's critical. If you think about clouds that are overhead, they're maybe 2 or 3 miles up. Now look at a cloud on the horizon, it might be 100 miles away. Well that's how we perceive the sky, the sky is very flattened to our perception. So when something is on the horizon our brain interprets it as being far away, when it's up higher in the sky our brain interprets it as being nearer. Since the moon's size isn't changing, OK wrap your head around this, since it's not changing it is physically the same size up high in the sky and near the horizon, so your brain interprets it as being physically huge if it looks big but it's really far away it must be overwhelming ginormous. But when it's up high in the sky it looks like it's closer and your brain just interprets it as being normal. It's these two effects and this is actually fairly well determined at least in my opinion. I've read a lot of papers about it. And I think that's what really causing the moon illusion not that you're comparing it to foreground objects or anything like that.

== Interview with Chris Lewicki (37:55) ==

http://spacegrant.arizona.edu/node/438

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/04/24/breaking-private-company-does-indeed-plan-to-mine-asteroids-and-i-think-they-can-do-it/

S: All right, well let's go on with our interview. We are joined now by Chris Lewicki. Chris, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.

C: Why thank you.

S: And Chris is the president and chief engineer of a new company, planetary resources, but also the former space grant intern and formerly JPL's flight director for the Mars exploration rovers and the Phoenix Mars Lander.

B: Holy crap.

S: So Chris, we're having you on the show, it actually came to our attention through a couple of blog posts that Phil Plait wrote about you. What's the idea behind this venture?

C: Well, the general idea is that we've come to a time an place in the development of technology and our history in space exploration and our knowledge places out in place including the near earth asteroids that my founders and myself and my team all think that it's time that we start to try and develop that area and make a business around it and align a team and get them perusing space resources.

S: So, not to get too quickly to the punch line but the ultimate goal, it sounds like, is to start mining asteroids, but you apparently have a plan on how to get there, so tell us about how you're going to get to the point where you're mining asteroids.

C: Well, to even actually take it beyond mining asteroids, the vision of the company and the vision that we all shared when we signed up was really identifying those ways that we can develop space and explore space that extends our human activities and our business and our economic sphere of influence off the surface of the planet, off geostationary orbit and out into the solar system. And we feel that a critical way of doing that is the resources that are out there in space whether we use those resources to help explore the rest of space or whether we use those resources to develop facilities and capabilities in space and maybe even eventually bring some of those resources back for use on Earth.

S: So yeah it sounds like you want to, the goal here, the concept is that for in order for mankind to really have a permanent presence in space, there has to be some financial or economic angle to it.

C: Yeah, it uh...

S: Is that the goal?

C: Precisely, it has to be self-sustaining is a good way to describe it. If we had settled the Americas by constantly repeating shipments from Europe, our duration of our stay on the continent here would not have lasted that long, and of course what we learned to do and pioneers and the frontiers was to live off the land and this is just the 2012 version of that, and it's a little bit more technically advanced but it's the same general concept.

S: You think we'll be able to find all the resources we need in space, specifically among asteroids?

C: Um, I don't know, if it may in the long run be all of the resources, every last one of them, but certainly the majority of what we need to live and conduct operations and sustain ourselves in space, we find on the asteroids, the near Earth asteroids, potentially the surface and the poles of the moon and maybe even the surface of Mars one day.

S: The asteroids too can have a lot of volatiles like water and oxygen, those are obviously the two biggest resources that humans would need if we were going to have any prolonged presence in space.

C: Yeah, certainly the volatiles of carbonaceous asteroids in particular, starting with what everyone knows is water, the essence of life really, water is useful for so many things, you know beyond just drinking and growing plants and hydration, it's a critical part of various industrial processes where we use it to create solutions and process things, we can use it from a human exploration standpoint, for radiation shielding, just because of the mass that it provides and the dampening capability it has for cosmic rays and the like. If you want to get a little bit more complicated than just using straight water that you could potentially distil off of a near earth asteroid, you can electrolyse water into its hydrogen and oxygen components and then you have something to breathe and a fuel to burn and hydrogen and oxygen of course are the components that make up the rocket fuel that propelled the shuttle for so many years and we can use those same components for propellant in space. And beyond the water, there are other volatiles on asteroids that are useful for a number of different chemical and industrial processes and other techniques, ammonia and nitrogen, nitrogen is very rare in the solar system, things like carbon dioxide and even carbon in some forms is considered a volatile. These things are relatively plentiful on carbonaceous asteroids and the real benefit of them isn't that there are things that are rare here on Earth, but there are things that if we don't have to ship them into space and pay the shipping expense so to speak, it's a lot easier to use them where we find them.

S: Yeah, so obviously it would be pointless to go into outer space just to get water and then bring it back down to Earth.

C: Yeah, water would be interesting to bring it back down to Earth to study it but certainly no commercial interest.

S: But are you saying that it could become cheaper to get water from asteroids to use on say a space station like the international space station, than it is to bring water from the Earth to the space station?

C: Yeah, absolutely if you consider the least expensive capability that we have to launch any payload, whether that's water or a block of aluminium or a complicated space ship, you pay by the kilogram, and a litre of water is a kilogram and to take that litre of water and send it to the space station is, on the cheapest launch vehicle today if you filled the whole thing up is over $5000 a kilogram. If you wanted to send that water out to the orbit of the Moon for example, that price more than quadruples, you know more than $20000 for a litre of water, and to be able to get water en masse from a near earth asteroid and bring it back, it's a lot easier to ship it in space because you don't need as much rocket propellant since you're not escaping the gravity of the Earth and that's where the real benefit of space resources lie and even in the case where it becomes cheaper to launch it off the surface of the Earth, what that really means it's even cheaper then to send the thing back to the asteroid to go back and bring the water back so it's really kind of an amplification ratio of you know, every little bit of mass that you can send into space, you can leverage that to return a bunch more back to the various points of use for water as an example.

J: Hey Chris, I think a lot of people would thing that we're far away from having the technology for this type of space exploration, you know asteroid mining. How close are we actually, what technologies are your company developing or purchasing and how long until we get there?

C: So you know certainly, everything is science fiction right up to the point that someone figures out how to do it and it becomes a science fact, and the course that we're charting with planetary resources is trying to do something, as one of our investors Larry page says, is maintaining a healthy disrespect for the impossible. Asteroid mining has not yet been demonstrated to be possible and our plan that we're working through aims to change that, and for us it starts with decreasing the cost that it takes to actually go out and explore space with robotic spacecraft and to use what we learn from those robotic spacecraft to take the next step on how to develop the resources from the asteroids, how to extract them and how to deliver them to a point where there's a market for them. So what we're doing today is developing our core technology with the Arcade 100 series of space craft, and the Arcade 100 is a design of a spacecraft that we, if we had that spacecraft at the asteroid in orbit around it, we would be able to use it to learn about enough of the asteroid's properties to assess its value. But we don't put everything on that space craft that we needed, it doesn't have the propulsion for example, it doesn't have the deep-space communications, but in the internet view of development it's our first opportunity to learn how to make a really low-cost, innovative, better spacecraft and do it for really cheap. And so we will use that core technology in Earth orbit with a space telescope and that space telescope will be available to kind of a new class of users that aren't a circle of a limited audience in the scientific community that are using it for an extremely specific purpose, but this is something that we hope to make a use of a remote sensing platform in space more commonplace, something that maybe even college students and high school students and grad-school students could experience as a part of their education, maybe we could make it even that commonplace.

B: Hey Chris, you're targeting just near earth asteroids, correct?

C: That's correct.

B: What's the population, the estimated population of near earth asteroids that you think you'd have access to?

C: The current population of near earth objects if you go look at the minor planet centre's website is 8898 objects and these are not necessarily all asteroids, but they primarily are and they are near Earth because they have an orbit that crosses near a particular defined vicinity of Earth. So this is the number by the end of next summer it'll be crossing 10 thousand and it's really about doubled in really the past six or seven years and for planetary resources, the thing that has changed in our knowledge about the asteroids is not necessarily the number of the ones that are classified as near earth but if you consider the fraction that are really close to us, that are very easy to get to from an energy standpoint, there's over 1500 of those objects today that are actually as easy to get to as it is to land on the surface of the moon, and some of them even easier, and it's the energy that is really the most important in terms of being able to collect material from an asteroid, to potentially get that material back to Earth and in the near term what's most important for Planetary Resources is that it's very easy, it's on the easiest end of the scale to make a spacecraft that is able to make that trip out to the asteroid to study it in the first place.

S: Chris it sounds like what you're saying is the more we could access in space, the easier it will be for people to then exist in space, but also the more people there are in space then you'll have somebody to use those resources, so it sounds like you're trying to just bootstrap that whole process a little bit.

C: Yeah, it's you know, how do you start an economy from scratch? And that economy today extends out to geostationary orbit and the government has part of that economy that makes occasional visits out to the planets and other interesting places in between and it's just gotten to a point where the capability to build the spacecraft and to do it at a cost that can be considered privately or commercially is something that we are actually at today and we're just charting the course on how we can best navigate that space to develop this area to continue to grow that economy in the future.

S: You said before that you would want to put like a telescope in orbit near or around an asteroid evaluate if it had anything valuable, so are there asteroids that would not be worth it for you to mine, like just a regular nickel/iron asteroid, would that not be worth it?

C: Well, it's a matter of what steps we're prepared to take from our resource extraction and development standpoint. The resources of a carbonaceous asteroid are conceptually among the easiest to extract because it could be something as simple as a solar collector and a reflector and simple distillation process whereby you melt and evaporate water and condense it into a storage vessel, and of course conceptually that's rather simple, the implementation details of course are always a bit more difficult but to consider that problem is a much easier problem to start with than trying to figure out how to extract iron for example from a metallic asteroid. So our first targets that are of most interest are of course the easiest ones to develops and the ones that have the highest payout for the resource itself and that's our interest in water in space.

B: Chris, regarding the volatiles on the near earth asteroids, wouldn't the sun have vaporised a lot of them off of the asteroid?

C: Actually no, one of the most fascinating things in the space environment in what goes on and physics and chemistry of the solar system is the asteroid kind of after a while, and comets may actually be this case as well, they end up being self-insulating so you do boil off and evaporate a percentage of the exterior of an asteroid after a certain amount of time but what you leave behind in solid material is an excellent insulator and this is all things that have been lightly tested, probably the deep impact mission might be the one that has provided the best direct data for this in understanding what the bulk properties of a near-earth object might be, but you have this self-insulating thing that could be just a meter below or so that exterior crust if you want to call it that, it may not be a hard crust, are materials that are as high as 20% by the weight in water.

S: But are you hoping that you're going to find an asteroid that's essentially a huge chunk of platinum or something, could that be the most valuable kind of find?

C: (laughs) Well it's probably not the case that it's a huge chunk of platinum, this is something that we actually know fairly well from meteoritic science, the near earth asteroids that end up on the surface of the earth are the meteorites and the things that we see streaking through the night sky, and laboratory tests have revealed that certain types of meteorites have a very high concentration of platinum-group metals and by very high we're talking about still parts per million, so I think the highest is on the order of 200 parts per million, which as it happens is still more than 20 times as concentrated as the most productive platinum mines on Earth, and when you consider just the massive amount of material that exists in a large object, say a 500 meter asteroid, that still at 200 parts per million is a lot of platinum and this relates to in the long term when you become more of a master of space exploration and the extraction of space resources, especially enabled by the development of the fuel source that you can get from carbonatious asteroids, you then have a capability which you can turn to the development of resources like platinum-group metals, even in those quantities that I'm talking about, all that, all those other technologies have to precede it before it might be economically viable to return things like platinum-group metals back to the Earth.

B: How would you get vast quantities of a metal back to the Earth, what's the plan on actually doing that?

C: There's a number of options, this is an area that NASA is actively researching in terms of advanced re-entry technologies, getting things back to the surface of the Earth. We of course know a number of ways to come back in terms of re-entry capsules and space shuttle and the military is working on winged aircraft that are in orbit right now and then the office of the chief technologist has recently funded work in inflatable re-entry shields that are much lower mass and can be deployed to precisely, you know maybe in that particular application bring humans back to a precise landing location. And you know, the time-line that we're talking about returning the material back to the Earth will allow us plenty of time to perfect and develop the most appropriate technologies to bringing back significant quantities of metal to a terrestrial market.

PP: One of the things that I didn't ask you before when I actually interviewed you for the blog was specifically the technology used to mine these asteroids to get out the volatiles like water and air and eventually the metals.

C: Yeah, I can speak a little bit more to that in terms of a number of concepts, what I'll speak to first though is getting out and doing the prospecting activity, starting with our Arcade 100 series space telescopes and getting out to the Arcade 300 prospecting capability. We realised that we needed a capability to visit asteroids, get out to their native environment, where they're at, to be able to essentially do that development work that will allow us to develop the best process for extracting any given resource, and at the cost of the way that we're doing it right now and what it typically costs within the government, these are on the order of a billion dollar proposition and of course that is not necessarily commercially viable. But to be able to visit an asteroid, a particular one repeatedly or a number of them to develop a technology for extraction and recovery and storage and transport is probably going to require many visits and we need to be able to do that as economically as possible. So when we do that, we'll be able to do small-scale techniques in terms of demonstrating touching down on the surface of an asteroid, demonstrating technologies for staying on the surface with the manner of an anchor so to speak, to use a simple terminology for that, and how you can in the case of extracting volatiles, how you can use solar concentrators or other techniques to do that. For small asteroids, and this is something that was studied in the Keck Institute of Space Studies, move an asteroid study which myself and our advisor Dr. Tom Jones participated in, what was considered there was cosying up to a relatively small near earth asteroid about 7 m or so across, you know not very big at all but still something that weighs hundreds of thousands of kilograms, that's something that you could envelop with a material to essentially be a vapour barrier and you can slowly heat up the entire object and through evaporation and condensation using both the solar energy from the sun and the cold sink of the rest of the 3 Kelvin sky, you can work a process where you might not be able to extract 100% of the volatiles, but you can get a fair recovery in terms of something as simple as water. Now, when you get into for example, separating platinum-group metals from the matrix that they're in and the rest of the asteroid, that requires much more exotic techniques and there's a number of concepts there that have been discussed over time that we'll of course have to consider and develop but that really is work that will require a detailed understanding of the asteroid itself and that's been our primary focus today.

S: Well Christ it's really, this is very interesting, we're definitely going to want to keep track of how you guys do. Is there anything that we didn't ask you about that you really want to talk about?

C: You know we certainly appreciate that what we're trying to do is audacious and it's something that is a very hard task and we expect that we're going to stumble along the way in terms of figuring that out, but we feel that it's important enough to develop this area and important enough to do it in a way that sustains itself that we as a company are committed to doing that and are going to use the best resources that we have available to us, both in terms of who we have working here in the company, and the other opportunities of the other exciting businesses that have similar goals in space and similar goals here on the planet, is just to kind of move all areas of humanity forward in all the ways that we have opportunities to do and it's great work if you can get it, I enjoy it tremendously.

S: Yeah, it sounds exciting, you know I mean seriously, it doesn't sound like you're over selling it, you're acknowledging that there are a lot of unknowns, it's going to be very difficult, you have, you're just figuring your way as you're going along, but it sounds like you have a pretty reasonable plan for how to go forward.

C: It just might work.

S: It just might work. Well hopefully we'll be able to get you back on the show sometime in the future when you guys hit pay dirt.

J: (laughs)

C: Certainly.

S: (laughs)

B: Pay platinum, pay platinum.

S: Pay platinum? All right, thanks a lot Chris.

J: Thanks Chris.

B: Thanks Chris.

R: Thanks.

E: Thank you Chris.

== Science or Fiction (60:09) ==

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine and one fictitious and I challenge my panel of skeptics (and Phil) to sniff out the fake. And you all can play along at home. We have a theme this week because I couldn't find jack for news items this weeks So I had to go to a theme. The theme is, this as about actually a very interesting character that I've been interested in for a while, Florence Nightingale.

PP: She was the mother in the Brady Bunch, right?

S: That's right. So see how much you guys know about Florence Nightingale. All right, here we go. [http://protomag.com/assets/florence-nightingale-nursing-a-profession Item number one]. In 1860 Florence Nightingale founded the first secular nursing school, essentially establishing the modern nursing profession.
[http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/florrie.html Item number two]. An early believer in the benefits of sanitation, Nightingale's policies during the Crimean war quickly dropped the death rate in British Army hospitals from a high of 42% to as low as 2.2%. And [http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/florrie.html item number three]. Nightingale suffered from a mystery chronic illness and lived as an invalid from 1857 to the end of her life in 1910 at the age of 90. Phil, as our guest, you get to go first this week.

PP: All right, so let's see, we've got her establishing a secular nursing school, and I've got to say I know very little about Florence Nightingale except they named a bird after her, so um that may not be true... so if you'd said that I'd probably say that one's the fake one. But the establishing the modern nursing profession sounds legit. An early believer in sanitation. I'm not really buying that she dropped the death rate that much. And the chronic illness is just a coin flip for me. So I'm going to say number two is the fiction.

S: The uh, the sanitation.

PP: Yeah.

S: OK, Bob?

B: First secular nursing school. Yeah, I mean I can't think of anything out of whack with that one. The third one, the mystery chronic illness, I mean that is a hell of a long chronic illness, from 1857 to 1910. Wow, yeah that one, that's possible sure, like Phil said, a coin flip. It's the second one that I'm having trouble swallowing, that's such a huge drop, 42%, 2.2$ and you say here British Army hospitals, so multiple hospitals. I would think that they just could not ignore that kind of a drop and just kind of like abandon it, if they even did. Yeah, I'll have to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to do a GWP here and I'll go with Phil, uh it just seems like too much of a drop, because I think that would have been too early, you know far too early in, you know the benefits of sanitation. So yeah, I'll say that one's fake. Dammit.

S: OK, Rebecca?

R: Yeah, that's the, I do know that Nightingale was a huge proponent of sanitation, and that she did have some huge successes I think in her life with establishing sort of sanitation routines in her hospitals but yeah, that's a huge, that's a big drop. And also I'm not sure that she would have been able to institute all those policies during the Crimean War. I guess what I'm stuck on is whether or not she would have been that in control of that many hospitals in order to create that kind of drastic difference and be credited with it, even if that drop did happen, which I'm not convinced it did because it's a huge drop. So yeah, I'm going to have to go with that one as well as being the fiction.

S: OK, Evan?

E: Well, I'll agree, I think perhaps the issue with the Crimean War one is that she probably did have some kind of affect, maybe it wasn't as dramatic as it says here, but was more like it was a piece of the puzzle, not the only reason or even the primary reason, I'll bet you there were other reasons for it as well, other people of less notoriety working on the same issues perhaps because this was a pretty significant war. Whereas the other ones, the first secular nursing school, establishing the modern nursing profession, I seem to recall this somewhere, I can't exactly say where, somewhere in my reading over the last 20 years or so. And then the chronic illness that she suffered from, a mystery chronic illness. See, I don't see any issue with that, I have no reason to think that that one would be fiction, it seems pretty straight forward, I'll have to go with the crowd.

S: And, Jay.

J: So I'm it, hey? Well, everyone had something intelligent to say, I think it makes a lot of sense to say that 2 is fake because you know, 42% down to a 2.2% drop is so dramatically significant. I'm going to go with the group and say that that's the fake.

S: OK. So you all agree on number 2 so we'll take these in order I guess, we'll start with number one. In 1864 Florence Nightingale founded the first secular nursing school, essentially establishing the modern nursing profession. You guys all think this one is science, and this one is science. That is absolutely true, she really did, I remember growing up you hear the name Florence Nightingale, it's like iconic but I always heard and just thought of her as just a particularly compassionate nurse, when in fact she really established the modern nursing profession in terms of a lot of the, not only the role of nurses but the discipline and the dedication to the quality of care and the quality of life of their patients and sanitation, cleanliness, nutrition, you know a lot of things. She was a massive advocate for proper nursing prior to her, you know it really wasn't a profession like it is today, it was more run by churches and religious institutions and they were female volunteers who just helped, not that there wasn't any knowledge before her, but I mean she really did bring it together into a profession. Let's go on to number two, an early believer in the benefits of sanitation, Nightingale's policies during the Crimean War quickly dropped the death rate in British Army hospitals from a high of 42% to as low as 2.2%. You guys all think this one is the fiction. Let me first say that everything you said about this item is wrong.

R: That means we got it right.

B: Yeah, it does.

S: But it's still the fiction.

B: Yay!

E: All right!

J: Sweet!

S: This is the most massively you have all been correct for the wrong reasons and I, this is what I suspected was going to happen, I debated with myself whether to put the actual percentages in there...

J: Uh huh.

B: Come on.

S: Because it kind of made it easy. There is actually a belief, and you will read this on a lot of sites, that Nightingale dropped the death rate in British Army hospitals from 42% to 2% and those figures are correct, they did drop during the Crimean War from a high of 42% to as low as 2% but Nightingale doesn't get the credit for that although a lot of people do give it to her only because she's the most famous person associated with the British Army hospitals during that war. And Rebecca, she absolutely did have the authority to dramatically control and essentially the secretary of war who was a personal friend of her said you can do whatever you want, you have any resources you want, you're in charge. And she really had a tremendous amount of authority. It's questionable how much credit she should get for the drop, but here's the sequence of events that occurred. When Nightingale brought her little army of nurses into the hospitals in the Crimean War, the British Army hospitals, the conditions were deplorable. The soldiers were in their own, in their uniforms, they did not have clean clothes or hospital clothes to wear, their nutrition was horrible, they had really no good food to eat, no fresh water, they were not being cleaned, their wounds were dirty, they were really completely scandalous and deplorable conditions. And Nightingale immediately became an advocate for massively changing the conditions, and she did have a huge effect and instituted a nutrition program and a laundry and a lot of basic things that you associate with a modern hospital she initiated. But the one thing she, although she advocated for cleanliness she didn't think that the high death rate among the soldiers was due to...

B: Oh no.

S: ...was due to infection, she thought it was due to poor nutrition. In fact, after she and her nurses started working at the hospitals, the death rate went up although that had nothing to do with her, it had just to do with the war progressing and the hospitals getting overwhelmed and then epidemics started to break out, of Cholera and Typhoid etc. Then the army did bring in a sanitation unit and measures to increase the sanitation in the hospitals and the death rate dropped from a high of 42% to around 2% which is dramatic and incredible, and certainly Nightingale was, you know her advocacy was probably part of that, but that wasn't really, she refused to take credit for it because she really didn't do it, and the death rate didn't drop just because of her policies, it actually was increasing after what she was doing, but again not as a result of it just it was kind of incidental. But that myth is repeated in many online histories of Nightingale, that the death rate plummeted as a direct result of her ministrations, where in fact she, it was after she returned to England from the Crimean War, and she looked over her statistics, because she kept really good records, did she see the connection to infection and sanitation. And this is around the same time that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis Ignaz Semmelweis] was advocating for sanitation in hospitals and showing that instituting hand washing, you know, physicians shouldn't be going from the morgue to the delivery room without washing their hands, because that was literally what was happening, the death rates from hospital-acquired infections plummeted. And Nightingale later came to accept that as part of, as good hospital and nursing practice but she was not an early believer in the benefits of sanitation, she learned that lesson after sort of looking over the statistics that she had gathered during the Crimean War. I figured that's what, those numbers would be so dramatic that would make you think that would make you think that the item was fiction but for the wrong reason. Anyway, let's move on to number three, Nightingale suffered from a mystery chronic illness and lived as an invalid from 1857 to the end of her life in 1910 at the age of 90. That one is science. There's, I could not find any definitive answer as to what the illness was, there are some historians speculate in fact that it was psychosomatic. Others have speculated that she was faking it deliberately just as a way of gaining privacy because she was already famous at that point in time and she wanted to work and write her books and she didn't want to be bothered by people so she kind of used it as a way of titrating her own visitors and keeping the public at bay.

R: I had no idea that you could titrate people.

S: Yeah, sure. She could choose who to see and who not to see and just would blame her illness whenever she didn't want to see somebody. But she also might have, in the 1800s, could have had some chronic illness, who knows, that made life miserable for her. A very humble person, by reports, it's hard to know how much of this is really historically accurate, but multiple reports that I read indicated that while during the Crimean War which is really where she became famous, that she was working 20 hour days. That just really her work ethic was incredible. She, do you know what her nickname was during that time?

J: Worky McWorkerson.

E: (laughs)

PP: All day and Nightingale.

S: Oh that's pretty good!

E: Nice, Phil!

J: That's good Phil, nice.

E: Not bad.

S: Good one.

E: Not bad.

S: No, the lady of the lamp, because she would make her evening rounds with a lamp.

R: Oh yeah.

PP: Oh right.

S: That became her sort of symbol.

J: Was it a lava lamp?

S: No, it was probably a torch lamp, you know.

E: Whale oil.

S: Yeah. You know a really very interesting historical figure, had a profound effect, again I don't, I don't really think that most people know what a profound effect she had on nursing, they know she's a famous nurse but didn't realise what she actually accomplished during her lifetime was actually amazing.

E: She's rolling over in her grave about that whole therapeutic touch thing.

S: Oh my god, you'd hope. But good job everyone, you guys came to the right answer.

R: Thank you. That's what really matters.

PP: That may be the first time I got it right.

B: Hah.

PP: Oh, whenever I'm on to do this I get it wrong. I don't know, I can't remember.

E: All right then, it's the first time.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (74:03) ==

S: All right, Jay you got a quote for us?

J: All right, I've got a quote from a man named Benjamin Graham, and the quote was sent in by a listener named Holly from Minnesota, thanks for the quote Holly. And the quote is:

<blockquote>You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.</blockquote>

J: Benjamin Graham!

E: Inventor of delicious crackers.

J: Influential economist and professional investor, Graham is considered the first proponent of value investing which means you know you want to earn money, so you buy things of value.

S: Hmm, really? Someone had to come up with that?

PP: Wow.

R: Good description.

(laughter)

S: OK.

B: Someone's got to be the first.

== Announcements (74:44) ==

R: Steve, a quick announcement. Because we've recorded so many shows leading up to and during NECSS, we missed what I originally said would be the deadline for the magnetic poetry contest, so let's extend it to June 1st.

S: June 1st.

R: If anyone wants to send in a work of art using their magnet, their word magnets for skeptics which you can get on [http://skepticalrobot.com skepticalrobot.com], you can still send that to us through our email, info@theskepticsguide.org. And the winner will get a t-shirt.

S: Phil, what have you got coming up?

PP: I'm giving a bunch of public talks, and I'll be putting those up on the blog. Dragon Con for sure, probably Comicon. And you know, I'll throw in a plug. My wife and I have started a company called science getaways, and you can find that at [http://sciencegetaways.com sciencegetaways.com] where we are taking vacation packages and adding science! So our first one is in September and it's going to be at a luxury ranch basically in the Rocky Mountains. And it's going to be, it's a dude ranch.

J: Dude!

E: (laughs)

PP: All inclusive dude ranch. But yeah, it's great. Think City Slickers except totally different. And we'll have a geologist, a biologist and me, so we'll be having some talks and then hikes and star gazing and all kinds of stuff. It's going to be awesome.

S: Cool!

PP: I've been out to this place and it's beautiful and the food is fantastic.

S: And if there's anyone out there who doesn't know, Phil writes a very popular blog called bad astronomy, you can find him at [http://discovermagazine.com/badastronomy discovermagazine.com/badastronomy] and is a frequent flyer among several podcasts including [http://radio.seti.org/ Big Picture Science], you're on there once a month with Seth who was just on our show recently, great guy.

PP: No way, yeah.

S: And occasionally you'll find him on the Skeptics' Guide podcast, every now and then, occasionally.

(laughter)

S: Well Phil, thanks so much for joining us this week.

PP: It was great as always, thanks to all you guys.

R: Thanks Phil.

B: Thanks Phil.

E: Thank you doctor.

R: Thanks Steve.

S: Thank you, and may I thank of you for joining me as well.

E: Thank you Steve.

J: Doctor.

S: Doctor.

E: Doctor, doctor.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

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SGU Episode 357

2012-05-22T16:40:52Z

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|episodeDate = 12th May 2012
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|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=356
|forumLink =
|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

R: Hey it's funny you should mention it, Steve, because I'd also like to talk about farting dinosaurs.

E: It is kinda funny.

J: What?

S: Really?

R: Yeah, who would have guessed? This is one of my favourite news to come out this week. The first article I saw was an AP news-story and the headline was, 'study: dinosaurs may have caused extinction with flatulence' so obviously I had to click on that. I read the article but the article completely did not justify the headline, it didn't talk about extinction at all. So I found another article on, of all things, Fox News' website and there the headline was even stronger, 'dinosaurs gassed themselves into extinction, British scientists say'

E: Okay...

R: This is how that article began, "Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction according to a new study by British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beast pumped out more than 520 million tons or 472 million metric tons of methane a year. Enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction." So that's pretty strong language to suggest this study apparently says that dinosaurs pooted themselves to death.

J: So they did or they didn't?

R: Well, it turns out that they didn't in all likelihood. Because when you read this article you'll notice even the Fox News article all the quotes from scientists don't say anything about extinction, they're all entirely about how much greenhouse gas was pumped out of dino-butts and what kind of effect it had on the mesozoic climate, which is quite a bit. The researchers said that the wetlands, forest fires and leaking gas fields of that time period might have contributed upwards of 8 parts per million methane to the air and their study suggests that sauropods, which are the plant-eating dinosaurs, may have contributed another 2 to 4 parts per million.

E: Ah-hah

R: They think that that would have a significant impact on the warm, wet climate of the mesozoic. Luckily, P.Z. Myers on his blog Pharyngula saw this article and read the actual paper and clarified that the researchers did not in fact mention anything about extinction in the actual paper.

S: Are you saying that the science journalists were just making stuff up that wasn't in the original research?

R: No, because I would never call them science journalists.

(laughter)

R: I think to achieve that moniker you have to have a modicum of interest or education in science.

S: Do you mean the generalist-journalist-who-are-now-on-the-science-beat-because-the-infrastructure-of-journalism-no-longer-supports-science-journalists didn't read the original research before reporting on it?

R: Yes, Steve, that is exactly what I'm saying.

S: Wow!

E: Can you say that in four notes?

R: P.Z. very helpfully wrote out the exact part of the research paper that probably lent itself to being completely misconstrued by the quote unquote "journalists" in question and here it is, "Although dinosaurs are unique in the large body sizes they achieved there may have been other occasions in the past where animal-produced methane contributed substantially to global environmental gas composition. For example, it has been speculated that the extinction of megafauna coincident with human colonization of the Americas may be related to a reduction of atmospheric methane levels." So of course that paragraph has nothing to do with dinosaurs but I'm sure that many Fox News readers assume that dinosaurs would be included on a list of megafauna that existed during the time of humans so you can kind of understand where they get that.

E: Ooh!

R: Zing!

J: So do they know what it smelled like?

R: Well, you know, methane itself is odorless but I think juding by the diet of sauropods and comparining it to the diet of present-day methane-producing animals like cows I think that scientsits would classify it as, 'totally rancid'.

E: Yeah, in direct proportion to the size of their movements I would guess.

B: I think I know what really took them out though. I think it's pretty obvious that with all that gas in the atmosphere when the meteor did arrive it just ignited the entire atmosphere.

E: Ha ha! Good point.

R: P.Z. did note that according to the researchers and I quote, "A medium-sized sauropod would have farted out 2675 litres of gas a day."

J: Wow.

S: See the problem was they weren't advanced alien dinosaurs.

R: Mmmm...

E: Let's face it, yeah.

S: The advanced dinosaurs don't gas themselves to death.

R: That's true.

J: Or they shoot their farts with the lasers and it burns them up.

S: They light their own farts?

E: Yeah...

R: Yeah.

E: Convert it to a usable form of energy.

S: Now one serious question I had about this, I don't know if it was addressed in the article, is that yeah dinosaurs were big, the sauropods were huge, but was the total animal bio-mass greater at that time than it is today? Wouldn't there just be more, smaller animals today and fewer, large animals during a megafauna era? You could think, perhaps naively, that it would all balance out but I guess they took that into consideration when they did their calculations.

R: Yeah, I'm not actually sure but there must be some figures for today as to how many parts per million methane are released into the atmosphere by living creatures.

S: Yeah, it's less than what they calculate. They said it's the same if you add the biologically-produced methane plus industrial-produced equals what the dinosaurs were putting out by themselves.

R: Yeah, you're right. One thing that I would suggest then is that different species equals different ways of processing food and also different ways of expelling gas the large amounts of herbivores, like very large herbivores, would probably contribute to a greater amount of methane.

S: Yeah, maybe that's it, maybe they produced more methane per biomass maybe. Interesting.

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

S: The next news item has a similar theme, Rebecca, to your item.

R: Is the them farts?

S: It's not farts. See if you can pick up on what it is? So I was trawling through science news items looking for something to blog about when I hit science blogging gold. An interesting study that everyone was reporting completely wrong. This is a study about people who claim to see auras, you guys know about...

R: When people fart.

S: ...about aura reading. People think that you're surrounded by with like a halo of purple and that says something about your spirit or your personality.

R: Like a cloud of methane.

S: No. So there actually has been a hypothesis out there for a while about 10 years or so that perhaps some people who believe they are seeing auras have a form of synaesthesia, specifically face/colour synaesthesia. So there are synaesthetes who do report that familiar people and also familiar emotions (often these two things overlap) are associated with a colour - they actually see a colour in association with a specific person or even like an emotional concept. Synaesthesia, again for a bit of background, is when two processing areas in the brain are connected, the connections between them are more robust and this leads to a bleedover of one sensation or one information type into another so people might see sound or taste colour or numbers might have a texture to them. Very interesting. So with face/colour synaesthesia it's the faces that they see get associated with specific colours so the hypothesis was that maybe seeing the colour associated with the person is interpretted by some people as reading an aura. There was prior research that indicates that people who claim to read auras do have a slightly higher incidents of synaesthesia than the general population. But there really hasn't been any specific evidence linking the two, there have been really just some case reports. So a recent study set out to compare the two phenomena, face/colour synaesthesia and aura reading, they did a number of things, they compared stroop test outcomes and some other things that are interesting. But the primary thing that is being reported on is they interviewed another of people with the face/colour synaesthesia and then came up with typical features of that phenomenom and then they compared that to typical new-age spiritual guru aura reading and they determined that if you look at the specific features they actually are very different and they concluded that they are quote unquote "phenomenologically...dissimilar" they are not the same thing. For example people claim that you could learn to aura read, right? Typically those people who read auras learn to do this later in life as adults, for example whereas the synaesthetes have synaesthesia from as young as they can remember. It seems to be something they're born with. The synaesthetes tend to see the colour more overlayed over the subject whereas the aura reading is more of a silhouette around it. Synaesthesia is always one colour whereas aura reading, in some concepts of what the aura is, is supposed to have these 7 layers that correspond to different layers of your spirituality.

B: Do they change over time, Steve?

S: That's another distinction that two different synaesthetes will see different colours associated with the same person, the colours are personal to them. Whereas aura readers agree on like what personality types are supposed to have what colour. You know, so when they're cold reading somebody and then go this is a bubbly personality they'll assign the same colour to it. Wheras synaesthetes can be purple for one synaesthete, yellow for another, there's really no rhyme or reason to it, it's only consistent within that one person. So very different when you look at all the details they said it's basically not the same thing. That doesn't mean that there isn't somebody out there that has synaesthesia and thought that maybe they were seeing auras, it just means that phenomenologically these are two dfiferent things. But I came to this news item from a press release the title of which is, "Synaesthesia may explain healers claims of seeing people's aura." It sounds like the research is showing that there is an explanation for aura reading, that synaesthesia explains the phenomenon of aura. So that's what I thought when I first read it and some articles reproducing the same press release get rid of the 'may' they just say synaesthesia explains the healer's claim of seeing people's aura and some even say 'proves' like, "scientists prove that synaesthesia explains aura reading."

E: Now we're just making stuff up.

S: So I went from that to the abstract and I read through the abstract and yeah it does kinda read as if it's supporting that notion and then I got to the last sentence where they said, "and are results showed that they're phenomenologically dissimilar." I had to read that a couple of times. I have to say the abstract was not really written very well in that, you know, sometimes you read scientific papers and the authors are just using really obtuse language and it's like they're trying to be difficult to understand rather than explaining or at least summarising or explaining their concepts in easy-to-understand language. They're not using technical terms when they have they're just being, "well they're phenomenologically dissimilar." you know. Really? You couldn't say, "they're not the same"? Just say something that would make the average person reading it would understand what the hell you're talking about. But anyway, then I had to dig into it and say, 'am I reading this correct?' The main article, the first third of it is the hypothesis and why people thought this hypothesis was reasonable so if you just read the introduction to this article you would get the sense that they were supporting the hypothesis. But then they say, 'so we set out to test the hypothesis' then they tested it and found out that it wasn't true at least as far as their analysis went. The conclusion of the actual evidence from this study is that synaesthesia and aura reading are not the same and yet universally, 100% of the science news reporting that I found on the internet said the opposite, that it explains aura reading. They got it 180 degrees wrong.

E: Sounds like classic sensationalism.

R: That's even more than sensationalism, that's...

S: Wrong. It's wrong...

R: ...dishonesty.

S: ...they blew it. They got it wrong.

R: It's intellectually dishonest.

S: I think it all traces back to the press release from Granada University.

B: It's laziness.

S: The University of Granada set out the original press release, I think that's probably the university where at least one of the scientists is from, and whoever put that press release together blew it. They got it wrong. They must have misunderstood because they didn't read deeply into the paper and then they interviewed the researchers with the premise that showed there is a connection so all of the researcher quotes are explaining like 'what the implications would be if synaesthesia did explain aura reading which makes no sense given that's the opposite conclusion of the study. I think the researchers didn't pick up on this or, you know, you could talk to a reporter for an hour and they're just mining for a quote or two and you have no idea what's going on in their head. There's a good book about how scientists talk to the media and it says you can't just do that, you can't just answer the journalists' questions and assume they know what they're talking about. You have to ask them, "so what story are you telling here?" Make sure that they understand what you're research said. You never know how much to blame the reasearchers, you don't know how complicit they were or how naive they were in the whole process. They might have done all of that but the quote unquote "journalists" didn't care, they had their story and they were going with it. But then the worst thing is, I don't know if it's worse but just as bad, is all of the news outlets that just copied it.

R: Yeah.

S: And nobody went to, even some sites that should know better, went to the original study to confirm that that's what it actually showed.

E: *cough* Science Daily *cough*

S: Science Daily blew it, every outlet blew it, Evan, nobody got it wrong.

R: Yeah, that sort of gets back to something we used to hammer on about quite a bit but we've sort of dropped talking about it because now it's just so obvious and depressing but it's the fact that so many mainstream new sources have cut their science departments and assigned the science beat to a general reporter who probably doesn't even know that there's an original paper to go to, you know, and they're on a deadline and they're like, "oh, here's something cute that will get clicks." and that's it.

S: Yeah, that's a big part of the problem but as Evan was saying Science Daily got it wrong and they're a science news outlet. They only have a science beat.

B: That's bad.

R: Yeah, that is a problem.

S: And they're usually pretty good. I noticed that while most other sites reproduce press releases without changing a period, Science Daily actually adds some content. They actually do some reporting, not just reproducing press releases so it's a little disapointing to see how throoughly they blew this. I mean it was so bad I had to read the article a couple of times just to make sure I got it right but it's clear, it's absolutely crystal clear that the conclusion of the research is that these are not the same phenomenon.

B: I would love to hear a recording of that interview with that journalist and the researchers and hearing them talk past each other and each side missing the point, like, "oh man!"

S: I've been there, I've spoken to journalists who clearly are on their own agenda and don't give a rat's ass about what you're saying. They're just like, "Can you say this? Can you give me this quote so I can plug it in to my story?" it's so obvious. Then I have to ask them or you have to back up and say this is what's really going on here but they just don't care. It's tough, it's really difficult but this is the state of news reporting that we have now. But we have science blogs and the good news is, it's hard to say now because now that I've learned my own google searches are honed towards me, like when I search on this topic now I come up against 20 websites linking back to my article but I don't know if it's because I'm doing the search from my own computer or not.

J: Steve, did I hear you right? Are you saying when you search for stuff you actually find yourself talking about it?

R: I get that too, my top resutls are usually Skepchick.

E: It's part of Google profiles.

R: It's because Google is very targeted.

J: They would be like me looking up some porn video I want and there's a video of me up there.

S: Just like it, Jay, just like it.

E: Horrifying.

R: Have you made a lot of porn, Jay?

E: The internet shuts down when you start searching for porn, Jay, that's when the internet shuts down.

B: That would turn me off porn permanently.

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-19T17:24:29Z

Thejmii: Removed Rwh86's comment

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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

R: Hey it's funny you should mention it, Steve, because I'd also like to talk about farting dinosaurs.

E: It is kinda funny.

J: What?

S: Really?

R: Yeah, who would have guessed? This is one of my favourite news to come out this week. The first article I saw was an AP news-story and the headline was, 'study: dinosaurs may have caused extinction with flatulence' so obviously I had to click on that. I read the article but the article completely did not justify the headline, it didn't talk about extinction at all. So I found another article on, of all things, Fox News' website and there the headline was even stronger, 'dinosaurs gassed themselves into extinction, British scientists say'

E: Okay...

R: This is how that article began, "Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction according to a new study by British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beast pumped out more than 520 million tons or 472 million metric tons of methane a year. Enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction." So that's pretty strong language to suggest this study apparently says that dinosaurs pooted themselves to death.

J: So they did or they didn't?

R: Well, it turns out that they didn't in all likelihood. Because when you read this article you'll notice even the Fox News article all the quotes from scientists don't say anything about extinction, they're all entirely about how much greenhouse gas was pumped out of dino-butts and what kind of effect it had on the mesozoic climate, which is quite a bit. The researchers said that the wetlands, forest fires and leaking gas fields of that time period might have contributed upwards of 8 parts per million methane to the air and their study suggests that sauropods, which are the plant-eating dinosaurs, may have contributed another 2 to 4 parts per million.

E: Ah-hah

R: They think that that would have a significant impact on the warm, wet climate of the mesozoic. Luckily, P.Z. Myers on his blog Pharyngula saw this article and read the actual paper and clarified that the researchers did not in fact mention anything about extinction in the actual paper.

S: Are you saying that the science journalists were just making stuff up that wasn't in the original research?

R: No, because I would never call them science journalists.

(laughter)

R: I think to achieve that moniker you have to have a modicum of interest or education in science.

S: Do you mean the generalist-journalist-who-are-now-on-the-science-beat-because-the-infrastructure-of-journalism-no-longer-supports-science-journalists didn't read the original research before reporting on it?

R: Yes, Steve, that is exactly what I'm saying.

S: Wow!

E: Can you say that in four notes?

R: P.Z. very helpfully wrote out the exact part of the research paper that probably lent itself to being completely misconstrued by the quote unquote "journalists" in question and here it is, "Although dinosaurs are unique in the large body sizes they achieved there may have been other occasions in the past where animal-produced methane contributed substantially to global environmental gas composition. For example, it has been speculated that the extinction of megafauna coincident with human colonization of the Americas may be related to a reduction of atmospheric methane levels." So of course that paragraph has nothing to do with dinosaurs but I'm sure that many Fox News readers assume that dinosaurs would be included on a list of megafauna that existed during the time of humans so you can kind of understand where they get that.

E: Ooh!

R: Zing!

J: So do they know what it smelled like?

R: Well, you know, methane itself is odorless but I think juding by the diet of sauropods and comparining it to the diet of present-day methane-producing animals like cows I think that scientsits would classify it as, 'totally rancid'.

E: Yeah, in direct proportion to the size of their movements I would guess.

B: I think I know what really took them out though. I think it's pretty obvious that with all that gas in the atmosphere when the meteor did arrive it just ignited the entire atmosphere.

E: Ha ha! Good point.

R: P.Z. did note that according to the researchers and I quote, "A medium-sized sauropod would have farted out 2675 litres of gas a day."

J: Wow.

S: See the problem was they weren't advanced alien dinosaurs.

R: Mmmm...

E: Let's face it, yeah.

S: The advanced dinosaurs don't gas themselves to death.

R: That's true.

J: Or they shoot their farts with the lasers and it burns them up.

S: They light their own farts?

E: Yeah...

R: Yeah.

E: Convert it to a usable form of energy.

S: Now one serious question I had about this, I don't know if it was addressed in the article, is that yeah dinosaurs were big, the sauropods were huge, but was the total animal bio-mass greater at that time than it is today? Wouldn't there just be more, smaller animals today and fewer, large animals during a megafauna era? You could think, perhaps naively, that it would all balance out but I guess they took that into consideration when they did their calculations.

R: Yeah, I'm not actually sure but there must be some figures for today as to how many parts per million methane are released into the atmosphere by living creatures.

S: Yeah, it's less than what they calculate. They said it's the same if you add the biologically-produced methane plus industrial-produced equals what the dinosaurs were putting out by themselves.

R: Yeah, you're right. One thing that I would suggest then is that different species equals different ways of processing food and also different ways of expelling gas the large amounts of herbivores, like very large herbivores, would probably contribute to a greater amount of methane.

S: Yeah, maybe that's it, maybe they produced more methane per biomass maybe. Interesting.

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

S: The next news item has a similar theme, Rebecca, to your item.

R: Is the them farts?

S: It's not farts. See if you can pick up on what it is? So I was trawling through science news items looking for something to blog about when I hit science blogging gold. An interesting study that everyone was reporting completely wrong. This is a study about people who claim to see auras, you guys know about...

R: When people fart.

S: ...about aura reading. People think that you're surrounded by with like a halo of purple and that says something about your spirit or your personality.

R: Like a cloud of methane.

S: No. So there actually has been a hypothesis out there for a while about 10 years or so that perhaps some people who believe they are seeing auras have a form of synaesthesia, specifically face/colour synaesthesia. So there are synaesthetes who do report that familiar people and also familiar emotions (often these two things overlap) are associated with a colour - they actually see a colour in association with a specific person or even like an emotional concept. Synaesthesia, again for a bit of background, is when two processing areas in the brain are connected, the connections between them are more robust and this leads to a bleedover of one sensation or one information type into another so people might see sound or taste colour or numbers might have a texture to them. Very interesting. So with face/colour synaesthesia it's the faces that they see get associated with specific colours so the hypothesis was that maybe seeing the colour associated with the person is interpretted by some people as reading an aura. There was prior research that indicates that people who claim to read auras do have a slightly higher incidents of synaesthesia than the general population. But there really hasn't been any specific evidence linking the two, there have been really just some case reports. So a recent study set out to compare the two phenomena, face/colour synaesthesia and aura reading, they did a number of things, they compared stroop test outcomes and some other things that are interesting. But the primary thing that is being reported on is they interviewed another of people with the face/colour synaesthesia and then came up with typical features of that phenomenom and then they compared that to typical new-age spiritual guru aura reading and they determined that if you look at the specific features they actually are very different and they concluded that they are quote unquote "phenomenologically...dissimilar" they are not the same thing. For example people claim that you could learn to aura read, right? Typically those people who read auras learn to do this later in life as adults, for example whereas the synaesthetes have synaesthesia from as young as they can remember. It seems to be something they're born with. The synaesthetes tend to see the colour more overlayed over the subject whereas the aura reading is more of a silhouette around it. Synaesthesia is always one colour whereas aura reading, in some concepts of what the aura is, is supposed to have these 7 layers that correspond to different layers of your spirituality.

B: Do they change over time, Steve?

S: That's another distinction that two different synaesthetes will see different colours associated with the same person, the colours are personal to them. Whereas aura readers agree on like what personality types are supposed to have what colour. You know, so when they're cold reading somebody and then go this is a bubbly personality they'll assign the same colour to it. Wheras synaesthetes can be purple for one synaesthete, yellow for another, there's really no rhyme or reason to it, it's only consistent within that one person. So very different when you look at all the details they said it's basically not the same thing. That doesn't mean that there isn't somebody out there that has synaesthesia and thought that maybe they were seeing auras, it just means that phenomenologically these are two dfiferent things. But I came to this news item from a press release the title of which is, "Synaesthesia may explain healers claims of seeing people's aura." It sounds like the research is showing that there is an explanation for aura reading, that synaesthesia explains the phenomenon of aura. So that's what I thought when I first read it and some articles reproducing the same press release get rid of the 'may' they just say synaesthesia explains the healer's claim of seeing people's aura and some even say 'proves' like, "scientists prove that synaesthesia explains aura reading."

E: Now we're just making stuff up.

S: So I went from that to the abstract and I read through the abstract and yeah it does kinda read as if it's supporting that notion and then I got to the last sentence where they said, "and are results showed that they're phenomenologically dissimilar." I had to read that a couple of times. I have to say the abstract was not really written very well in that, you know, sometimes you read scientific papers and the authors are just using really obtuse language and it's like they're trying to be difficult to understand rather than explaining or at least summarising or explaining their concepts in easy-to-understand language. They're not using technical terms when they have they're just being, "well they're phenomenologically dissimilar." you know. Really? You couldn't say, "they're not the same"? Just say something that would make the average person reading it would understand what the hell you're talking about. But anyway, then I had to dig into it and say, 'am I reading this correct?' The main article, the first third of it is the hypothesis and why people thought this hypothesis was reasonable so if you just read the introduction to this article you would get the sense that they were supporting the hypothesis. But then they say, 'so we set out to test the hypothesis' then they tested it and found out that it wasn't true at least as far as their analysis went. The conclusion of the actual evidence from this study is that synaesthesia and aura reading are not the same and yet universally, 100% of the science news reporting that I found on the internet said the opposite, that it explains aura reading. They got it 180 degrees wrong.

E: Sounds like classic sensationalism.

R: That's even more than sensationalism, that's...

S: Wrong. It's wrong...

R: ...dishonesty.

S: ...they blew it. They got it wrong.

R: It's intellectually dishonest.

S: I think it all traces back to the press release from Granada University.

B: It's laziness.

S: The University of Granada set out the original press release, I think that's probably the university where at least one of the scientists is from, and whoever put that press release together blew it. They got it wrong. They must have misunderstood because they didn't read deeply into the paper and then they interviewed the researchers with the premise that showed there is a connection so all of the researcher quotes are explaining like 'what the implications would be if synaesthesia did explain aura reading which makes no sense given that's the opposite conclusion of the study. I think the researchers didn't pick up on this or, you know, you could talk to a reporter for an hour and they're just mining for a quote or two and you have no idea what's going on in their head. There's a good book about how scientists talk to the media and it says you can't just do that, you can't just answer the journalists' questions and assume they know what they're talking about. You have to ask them, "so what story are you telling here?" Make sure that they understand what you're research said. You never know how much to blame the reasearchers, you don't know how complicit they were or how naive they were in the whole process. They might have done all of that but the quote unquote "journalists" didn't care, they had their story and they were going with it. But then the worst thing is, I don't know if it's worse but just as bad, is all of the news outlets that just copied it.

R: Yeah.

S: And nobody went to, even some sites that should know better, went to the original study to confirm that that's what it actually showed.

E: *cough* Science Daily *cough*

S: Science Daily blew it, every outlet blew it, Evan, nobody got it wrong.

R: Yeah, that sort of gets back to something we used to hammer on about quite a bit but we've sort of dropped talking about it because now it's just so obvious and depressing but it's the fact that so many mainstream new sources have cut their science departments and assigned the science beat to a general reporter who probably doesn't even know that there's an original paper to go to, you know, and they're on a deadline and they're like, "oh, here's something cute that will get clicks." and that's it.

S: Yeah, that's a big part of the problem but as Evan was saying Science Daily got it wrong and they're a science news outlet. They only have a science beat.

B: That's bad.

R: Yeah, that is a problem.

S: And they're usually pretty good. I noticed that while most other sites reproduce press releases without changing a period, Science Daily actually adds some content. They actually do some reporting, not just reproducing press releases so it's a little disapointing to see how throoughly they blew this. I mean it was so bad I had to read the article a couple of times just to make sure I got it right but it's clear, it's absolutely crystal clear that the conclusion of the research is that these are not the same phenomenon.

B: I would love to hear a recording of that interview with that journalist and the researchers and hearing them talk past each other and each side missing the point, like, "oh man!"

S: I've been there, I've spoken to journalists who clearly are on their own agenda and don't give a rat's ass about what you're saying. They're just like, "Can you say this? Can you give me this quote so I can plug it in to my story?" it's so obvious. Then I have to ask them or you have to back up and say this is what's really going on here but they just don't care. It's tough, it's really difficult but this is the state of news reporting that we have now. But we have science blogs and the good news is, it's hard to say now because now that I've learned my own google searches are honed towards me, like when I search on this topic now I come up against 20 websites linking back to my article but I don't know if it's because I'm doing the search from my own computer or not.

J: Steve, did I hear you right? Are you saying when you search for stuff you actually find yourself talking about it?

R: I get that too, my top resutls are usually Skepchick.

E: It's part of Google profiles.

R: It's because Google is very targeted.

J: They would be like me looking up some porn video I want and there's a video of me up there.

S: Just like it, Jay, just like it.

E: Horrifying.

R: Have you made a lot of porn, Jay?

E: The internet shuts down when you start searching for porn, Jay, that's when the internet shuts down.

B: That would turn me off porn permanently.

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

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2012-05-19T17:21:17Z

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==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

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== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2010 ===
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 113]], May 9 2012, What's the Harm?
* [[5X5 Episode 112]], May 2 2012, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 111]], Apr 25 2012, Facilitated Communication
* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

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SGU Episode 356

2012-05-19T17:20:53Z

Thejmii: /* Aura Reading (9:46) */ >> FIRST DRAFT - RUSHED <<

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|episodeDate = 12th May 2012
|episodeIcon = File:T-rex.jpg
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|rebecca = y
|bob = y
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|evan = y
|perry =
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|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-05-12.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=356
|forumLink =
|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley] 
|}}

== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

R: Hey it's funny you should mention it, Steve, because I'd also like to talk about farting dinosaurs.

E: It is kinda funny.

J: What?

S: Really?

R: Yeah, who would have guessed? This is one of my favourite news to come out this week. The first article I saw was an AP news-story and the headline was, 'study: dinosaurs may have caused extinction with flatulence' so obviously I had to click on that. I read the article but the article completely did not justify the headline, it didn't talk about extinction at all. So I found another article on, of all things, Fox News' website and there the headline was even stronger, 'dinosaurs gassed themselves into extinction, British scientists say'

E: Okay...

R: This is how that article began, "Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction according to a new study by British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beast pumped out more than 520 million tons or 472 million metric tons of methane a year. Enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction." So that's pretty strong language to suggest this study apparently says that dinosaurs pooted themselves to death.

J: So they did or they didn't?

R: Well, it turns out that they didn't in all likelihood. Because when you read this article you'll notice even the Fox News article all the quotes from scientists don't say anything about extinction, they're all entirely about how much greenhouse gas was pumped out of dino-butts and what kind of effect it had on the mesozoic climate, which is quite a bit. The researchers said that the wetlands, forest fires and leaking gas fields of that time period might have contributed upwards of 8 parts per million methane to the air and their study suggests that sauropods, which are the plant-eating dinosaurs, may have contributed another 2 to 4 parts per million.

E: Ah-hah

R: They think that that would have a significant impact on the warm, wet climate of the mesozoic. Luckily, P.Z. Myers on his blog Pharyngula saw this article and read the actual paper and clarified that the researchers did not in fact mention anything about extinction in the actual paper.

S: Are you saying that the science journalists were just making stuff up that wasn't in the original research?

R: No, because I would never call them science journalists.

(laughter)

R: I think to achieve that moniker you have to have a modicum of interest or education in science.

S: Do you mean the generalist-journalist-who-are-now-on-the-science-beat-because-the-infrastructure-of-journalism-no-longer-supports-science-journalists didn't read the original research before reporting on it?

R: Yes, Steve, that is exactly what I'm saying.

S: Wow!

E: Can you say that in four notes?

R: P.Z. very helpfully wrote out the exact part of the research paper that probably lent itself to being completely misconstrued by the quote unquote "journalists" in question and here it is, "Although dinosaurs are unique in the large body sizes they achieved there may have been other occasions in the past where animal-produced methane contributed substantially to global environmental gas composition. For example, it has been speculated that the extinction of megafauna coincident with human colonization of the Americas may be related to a reduction of atmospheric methane levels." So of course that paragraph has nothing to do with dinosaurs but I'm sure that many Fox News readers assume that dinosaurs would be included on a list of megafauna that existed during the time of humans so you can kind of understand where they get that.

E: Ooh!

R: Zing!

J: So do they know what it smelled like?

R: Well, you know, methane itself is odorless but I think juding by the diet of sauropods and comparining it to the diet of present-day methane-producing animals like cows I think that scientsits would classify it as, 'totally rancid'.

E: Yeah, in direct proportion to the size of their movements I would guess.

B: I think I know what really took them out though. I think it's pretty obvious that with all that gas in the atmosphere when the meteor did arrive it just ignited the entire atmosphere.

E: Ha ha! Good point.

R: P.Z. did note that according to the researchers and I quote, "A medium-sized sauropod would have farted out 2675 litres of gas a day."

J: Wow.

S: See the problem was they weren't advanced alien dinosaurs.

R: Mmmm...

E: Let's face it, yeah.

S: The advanced dinosaurs don't gas themselves to death.

R: That's true.

J: Or they shoot their farts with the lasers and it burns them up.

S: They light their own farts?

E: Yeah...

R: Yeah.

E: Convert it to a usable form of energy.

S: Now one serious question I had about this, I don't know if it was addressed in the article, is that yeah dinosaurs were big, the sauropods were huge, but was the total animal bio-mass greater at that time than it is today? Wouldn't there just be more, smaller animals today and fewer, large animals during a megafauna era? You could think, perhaps naively, that it would all balance out but I guess they took that into consideration when they did their calculations.

R: Yeah, I'm not actually sure but there must be some figures for today as to how many parts per million methane are released into the atmosphere by living creatures.

S: Yeah, it's less than what they calculate. They said it's the same if you add the biologically-produced methane plus industrial-produced equals what the dinosaurs were putting out by themselves.

R: Yeah, you're right. One thing that I would suggest then is that different species equals different ways of processing food and also different ways of expelling gas the large amounts of herbivores, like very large herbivores, would probably contribute to a greater amount of methane.

S: Yeah, maybe that's it, maybe they produced more methane per biomass maybe. Interesting.

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

S: The next news item has a similar theme, Rebecca, to your item.

R: Is the them farts?

S: It's not farts. See if you can pick up on what it is? So I was trawling through science news items looking for something to blog about when I hit science blogging gold. An interesting study that everyone was reporting completely wrong. This is a study about people who claim to see auras, you guys know about...

R: When people fart.

S: ...about aura reading. People think that you're surrounded by with like a halo of purple and that says something about your spirit or your personality.

R: Like a cloud of methane.

S: No. So there actually has been a hypothesis out there for a while about 10 years or so that perhaps some people who believe they are seeing auras have a form of synaesthesia, specifically face/colour synaesthesia. So there are synaesthetes who do report that familiar people and also familiar emotions (often these two things overlap) are associated with a colour - they actually see a colour in association with a specific person or even like an emotional concept. Synaesthesia, again for a bit of background, is when two processing areas in the brain are connected, the connections between them are more robust and this leads to a bleedover of one sensation or one information type into another so people might see sound or taste colour or numbers might have a texture to them. Very interesting. So with face/colour synaesthesia it's the faces that they see get associated with specific colours so the hypothesis was that maybe seeing the colour associated with the person is interpretted by some people as reading an aura. There was prior research that indicates that people who claim to read auras do have a slightly higher incidents of synaesthesia than the general population. But there really hasn't been any specific evidence linking the two, there have been really just some case reports. So a recent study set out to compare the two phenomena, face/colour synaesthesia and aura reading, they did a number of things, they compared stroop test outcomes and some other things that are interesting. But the primary thing that is being reported on is they interviewed another of people with the face/colour synaesthesia and then came up with typical features of that phenomenom and then they compared that to typical new-age spiritual guru aura reading and they determined that if you look at the specific features they actually are very different and they concluded that they are quote unquote "phenomenologically...dissimilar" they are not the same thing. For example people claim that you could learn to aura read, right? Typically those people who read auras learn to do this later in life as adults, for example whereas the synaesthetes have synaesthesia from as young as they can remember. It seems to be something they're born with. The synaesthetes tend to see the colour more overlayed over the subject whereas the aura reading is more of a silhouette around it. Synaesthesia is always one colour whereas aura reading, in some concepts of what the aura is, is supposed to have these 7 layers that correspond to different layers of your spirituality.

B: Do they change over time, Steve?

S: That's another distinction that two different synaesthetes will see different colours associated with the same person, the colours are personal to them. Whereas aura readers agree on like what personality types are supposed to have what colour. You know, so when they're cold reading somebody and then go this is a bubbly personality they'll assign the same colour to it. Wheras synaesthetes can be purple for one synaesthete, yellow for another, there's really no rhyme or reason to it, it's only consistent within that one person. So very different when you look at all the details they said it's basically not the same thing. That doesn't mean that there isn't somebody out there that has synaesthesia and thought that maybe they were seeing auras, it just means that phenomenologically these are two dfiferent things. But I came to this news item from a press release the title of which is, "Synaesthesia may explain healers claims of seeing people's aura." It sounds like the research is showing that there is an explanation for aura reading, that synaesthesia explains the phenomenon of aura. So that's what I thought when I first read it and some articles reproducing the same press release get rid of the 'may' they just say synaesthesia explains the healer's claim of seeing people's aura and some even say 'proves' like, "scientists prove that synaesthesia explains aura reading."

E: Now we're just making stuff up.

S: So I went from that to the abstract and I read through the abstract and yeah it does kinda read as if it's supporting that notion and then I got to the last sentence where they said, "and are results showed that they're phenomenologically dissimilar." I had to read that a couple of times. I have to say the abstract was not really written very well in that, you know, sometimes you read scientific papers and the authors are just using really obtuse language and it's like they're trying to be difficult to understand rather than explaining or at least summarising or explaining their concepts in easy-to-understand language. They're not using technical terms when they have they're just being, "well they're phenomenologically dissimilar." you know. Really? You couldn't say, "they're not the same"? Just say something that would make the average person reading it would understand what the hell you're talking about. But anyway, then I had to dig into it and say, 'am I reading this correct?' The main article, the first third of it is the hypothesis and why people thought this hypothesis was reasonable so if you just read the introduction to this article you would get the sense that they were supporting the hypothesis. But then they say, 'so we set out to test the hypothesis' then they tested it and found out that it wasn't true at least as far as their analysis went. The conclusion of the actual evidence from this study is that synaesthesia and aura reading are not the same and yet universally, 100% of the science news reporting that I found on the internet said the opposite, that it explains aura reading. They got it 180 degrees wrong.

E: Sounds like classic sensationalism.

R: That's even more than sensationalism, that's...

S: Wrong. It's wrong...

R: ...dishonesty.

S: ...they blew it. They got it wrong.

R: It's intellectually dishonest.

S: I think it all traces back to the press release from Granada University.

B: It's laziness.

S: The University of Granada set out the original press release, I think that's probably the university where at least one of the scientists is from, and whoever put that press release together blew it. They got it wrong. They must have misunderstood because they didn't read deeply into the paper and then they interviewed the researchers with the premise that showed there is a connection so all of the researcher quotes are explaining like 'what the implications would be if synaesthesia did explain aura reading which makes no sense given that's the opposite conclusion of the study. I think the researchers didn't pick up on this or, you know, you could talk to a reporter for an hour and they're just mining for a quote or two and you have no idea what's going on in their head. There's a good book about how scientists talk to the media and it says you can't just do that, you can't just answer the journalists' questions and assume they know what they're talking about. You have to ask them, "so what story are you telling here?" Make sure that they understand what you're research said. You never know how much to blame the reasearchers, you don't know how complicit they were or how naive they were in the whole process. They might have done all of that but the quote unquote "journalists" didn't care, they had their story and they were going with it. But then the worst thing is, I don't know if it's worse but just as bad, is all of the news outlets that just copied it.

R: Yeah.

S: And nobody went to, even some sites that should know better, went to the original study to confirm that that's what it actually showed.

E: *cough* Science Daily *cough*

S: Science Daily blew it, every outlet blew it, Evan, nobody got it wrong.

R: Yeah, that sort of gets back to something we used to hammer on about quite a bit but we've sort of dropped talking about it because now it's just so obvious and depressing but it's the fact that so many mainstream new sources have cut their science departments and assigned the science beat to a general reporter who probably doesn't even know that there's an original paper to go to, you know, and they're on a deadline and they're like, "oh, here's something cute that will get clicks." and that's it.

S: Yeah, that's a big part of the problem but as Evan was saying Science Daily got it wrong and they're a science news outlet. They only have a science beat.

B: That's bad.

R: Yeah, that is a problem.

S: And they're usually pretty good. I noticed that while most other sites reproduce press releases without changing a period, Science Daily actually adds some content. They actually do some reporting, not just reproducing press releases so it's a little disapointing to see how throoughly they blew this. I mean it was so bad I had to read the article a couple of times just to make sure I got it right but it's clear, it's absolutely crystal clear that the conclusion of the research is that these are not the same phenomenon.

B: I would love to hear a recording of that interview with that journalist and the researchers and hearing them talk past each other and each side missing the point, like, "oh man!"

S: I've been there, I've spoken to journalists who clearly are on their own agenda and don't give a rat's ass about what you're saying. They're just like, "Can you say this? Can you give me this quote so I can plug it in to my story?" it's so obvious. Then I have to ask them or you have to back up and say this is what's really going on here but they just don't care. It's tough, it's really difficult but this is the state of news reporting that we have now. But we have science blogs and the good news is, it's hard to say now because now that I've learned my own google searches are honed towards me, like when I search on this topic now I come up against 20 websites linking back to my article but I don't know if it's because I'm doing the search from my own computer or not.

J: Steve, did I hear you right? Are you saying when you search for stuff you actually find yourself talking about it?

R: I get that too, my top resutls are usually Skepchick.

E: It's part of Google profiles.

R: It's because Google is very targeted.

J: They would be like me looking up some porn video I want and there's a video of me up there.

S: Just like it, Jay, just like it.

E: Horrifying.

R: Have you made a lot of porn, Jay?

E: The internet shuts down when you start searching for porn, Jay, that's when the internet shuts down.

B: That would turn me off porn permanently.

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

Main Page

2012-05-19T17:05:05Z

Thejmii: /* The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts */ new one's out, just finishing off the last one then I'll get started on a few sections of the new one

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 357]], May 19 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2010 ===
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 113]], May 9 2012, What's the Harm?
* [[5X5 Episode 112]], May 2 2012, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 111]], Apr 25 2012, Facilitated Communication
* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
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* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
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Template:5X5 infobox

2012-05-19T15:15:20Z

Thejmii: temporarily added to break up the infobox while discussions are on going

{| style="float: right;border: 1px solid darkgray;padding: 5;background:#F8F9F9;margin: 1em;width:180px;" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"
! colspan ="2" style="background:LightSteelBlue;padding-top:0.5em" | {{{episodeID}}}
|-
| colspan ="2" | ''{{{Contents}}}''
|-
| colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Info }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{{episodeDate}}}
|-
|style="text-align:left;width:50%;padding-left: 1em" |{{#if: {{{previous|}}} | [[5X5 Episode {{{previous}}}|5X5 {{{previous}}}]] | [[5X5 Episode {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}-1 }}|5X5 {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}-1 }}]] }}
|style="text-align:right;width:50%;padding-right: 1em" | {{#if: {{{next|}}} | [[5X5 Episode {{{next}}}|5X5 {{{next}}}]] | [[5X5 Episode {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}+1 }}|5X5 {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}+1 }}]] }}
|-
| colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Skeptical Rogues }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="padding-top:0.5em; text-indent:3em"| S: Steven Novella
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{rebecca|}}} | R: Rebecca Watson}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{bob|}}} | B: Bob Novella}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{jay|}}} | J: Jay Novella}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{evan|}}} | E: Evan Bernstein}}
|-
| {{#if: {{{guest1|}}} |colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Guest}} }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{guest1|}}} | {{{guest1}}}}}
|-
| colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Links}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{downloadLink|}}} | [{{{downloadLink}}} Download Podcast]}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{notesLink|}}} | [{{{notesLink}}} Show Notes] }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{forumLink|}}} | [{{{forumLink}}} Forum Topic] }}
|}

Template:5X5 infobox

2012-05-19T15:12:11Z

Thejmii: removed image as per discussion

{| style="float: right;border: 1px solid darkgray;padding: 5;background:#F8F9F9;margin: 1em;width:180px;" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0"
! colspan ="2" style="background:LightSteelBlue;padding-top:0.5em" | {{{episodeID}}}
|-
| colspan ="2" | ''{{{Contents}}}''
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{{episodeDate}}}
|-
|style="text-align:left;width:50%;padding-left: 1em" |{{#if: {{{previous|}}} | [[5X5 Episode {{{previous}}}|5X5 {{{previous}}}]] | [[5X5 Episode {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}-1 }}|5X5 {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}-1 }}]] }}
|style="text-align:right;width:50%;padding-right: 1em" | {{#if: {{{next|}}} | [[5X5 Episode {{{next}}}|5X5 {{{next}}}]] | [[5X5 Episode {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}+1 }}|5X5 {{#expr: {{#sub:{{PAGENAME}}|12|0}}+1 }}]] }}
|-
| colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Skeptical Rogues }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="padding-top:0.5em; text-indent:3em"| S: Steven Novella
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{rebecca|}}} | R: Rebecca Watson}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{bob|}}} | B: Bob Novella}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{jay|}}} | J: Jay Novella}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{evan|}}} | E: Evan Bernstein}}
|-
| {{#if: {{{guest1|}}} |colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Guest}} }}
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| colspan ="2" style="text-indent:3em"| {{#if: {{{guest1|}}} | {{{guest1}}}}}
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| colspan ="2" {{Draft_infoBox_Headers |header = Links}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{downloadLink|}}} | [{{{downloadLink}}} Download Podcast]}}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{notesLink|}}} | [{{{notesLink}}} Show Notes] }}
|-
| colspan ="2" style="text-align:center;" | {{#if: {{{forumLink|}}} | [{{{forumLink}}} Forum Topic] }}
|}

Template talk:5X5 infobox

2012-05-19T15:11:36Z

Thejmii: /* image & title/content */ potential solution

==image & title/content==
Thanks for the input, but I can't say I like including the 5X5 image, it would be the same for all of them, and not very pretty.
 Regarding the title, most of the episodes have a short entry in the 'contents' section in the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 5X5 archive] that would make a good title. The longer ones can be shortened easily to a few words.
 What do people think?
--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] ([[User talk:Teleuteskitty|talk]]) 20:52, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
:If the image was prettier would you mind including one (even though it would be used across all the 5x5 transcripts)? I'm a fan of having an image in the infobox and wouldn't mind working on an image that was more satisfying ''(perhaps 5 'people icons' around a clock or something - just the first thing that popped into my head)''. If you really don't like the idea of the same image being repeated across all of the 5x5 transcripts feel free to take it out now - no objections here.
:Regarding the title/contents I don't know why you want a 'title' - perhaps you could explain it and that might help me see things in a different way. For me, I don't see the benefit of making up a title for the episode by shortening the contents when it's just as easy to include all of the contents. [[User:Thejmii|Thejmii]] ([[User talk:Thejmii|talk]]) 23:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

::Image – Personally, I don't think the image adds anything, and that one kinda dominates on such small pages, but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise if that's the consensus, just giving my opinion.
::Title – I like having an easily identifiable topic for the pages, like the podcast archive has adopted since ~2009. If this is clear from the page headers, then it doesn't ''need'' to be included in the infobox, but as the infobox is a kind of summary of important points, I think it helps clarity. From a quick look at the 5X5 archive, around 70% have short 'contents' that are effectively keyword titles. The others - especially the first 30 or so - have a full sentence in their 'contents', but contain easily identifiable keywords. I like the idea of keyword-based 'titles' to improve clarity and uniformity, based on the current format of the 5X5 podcast notes, not the original one. I think adding the longer contents to infoboxes is too cluttered, and unnecessary, and should be left to the page itself. In this way, I think we need to leave the 'contents' in the main page, as page titles (i.e. episode numbers) aren't informative (see [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_1&oldid=1070 ep.1]).
::Thanks for the discussion, it's been difficult to get feedback on stuff thus far.
::--[[User:Teleuteskitty|Teleuteskitty]] ([[User talk:Teleuteskitty|talk]]) 10:54, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

:::Image - While I still disagree, I'll take out the image as I don't think it's too important and I don't want to take up any more of our time than is necessary. You can run a vote for this if you'd like but I'm okay with just dropping it.
:::Quick note, I think we can leave the discussion as to the episode list contents on the main page as a separate issue and I'm not fussed by what's included there (full or shortened).
:::Title - I guess I'll start with the points we agree on. There is a benefit to having an easily identifiable topic for the pages. Also, we agree that having the content information in both the page as well as the infobox is unecessary. Finally we agree that there is an issue of clarity and cluttering, we just have different takes on these issues.
:::Now we just need to see if we can find a way to do this that satisfies all parties concerned. ☺
:::My understanding is that you would like to include the contents (or a shortened version thereof) as a title in the infobox, the full contents (or the remaining part) as an introductory sentence and the shortened contents as a section header before the transcript. Essentially [http://www.sgutranscripts.org/w/index.php?title=5X5_Episode_2&direction=next&oldid=1071 this] (if the template was slightly modified). You think this is clearer and including the contents in the infobox is too cluttered. Based on your comments I think that by 'too cluttered' you mean that for around 30% of the time there would be too much information included in the infobox, please let me know if that's not accurate. If you could explain in what way you find this option to have better clarity it may help us move towards a solution.
:::For me I would like the full contents in the infobox and the page only to include the transcript. I think doing it this way decreases clutter as it is not repeating essentially the same information 2 or 3 times on the page, it just appears once. Also I think that including an introductory sentence actually decreases clarity as it's not immediately obvious that the introductory sentence is not actually part of the transcript.
:::So considering all of this I have an idea for a solution, it's not without it's downsides but hopefully it will satisfy the main requirements. I propose that we do not include any contents section in the infobox (so more like the main SGU episode infobox) or in the main text, instead we make a 'content box' template to include at the start of the article that is immediately distinguishable as not being part of the transcript.
:::What do you think?
:::[[User:Thejmii|Thejmii]] ([[User talk:Thejmii|talk]]) 15:11, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-19T11:00:18Z

Thejmii: /* Aura Reading (9:46) */ >>STARTED<<

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|episodeDate = 12th May 2012
|episodeIcon = File:T-rex.jpg
|previous = 
|next = 
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|perry =
|guest1 = 
|guest2 = 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-05-12.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=356
|forumLink =
|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley] 
|}}

== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

R: Hey it's funny you should mention it, Steve, because I'd also like to talk about farting dinosaurs.

E: It is kinda funny.

J: What?

S: Really?

R: Yeah, who would have guessed? This is one of my favourite news to come out this week. The first article I saw was an AP news-story and the headline was, 'study: dinosaurs may have caused extinction with flatulence' so obviously I had to click on that. I read the article but the article completely did not justify the headline, it didn't talk about extinction at all. So I found another article on, of all things, Fox News' website and there the headline was even stronger, 'dinosaurs gassed themselves into extinction, British scientists say'

E: Okay...

R: This is how that article began, "Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction according to a new study by British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beast pumped out more than 520 million tons or 472 million metric tons of methane a year. Enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction." So that's pretty strong language to suggest this study apparently says that dinosaurs pooted themselves to death.

J: So they did or they didn't?

R: Well, it turns out that they didn't in all likelihood. Because when you read this article you'll notice even the Fox News article all the quotes from scientists don't say anything about extinction, they're all entirely about how much greenhouse gas was pumped out of dino-butts and what kind of effect it had on the mesozoic climate, which is quite a bit. The researchers said that the wetlands, forest fires and leaking gas fields of that time period might have contributed upwards of 8 parts per million methane to the air and their study suggests that sauropods, which are the plant-eating dinosaurs, may have contributed another 2 to 4 parts per million.

E: Ah-hah

R: They think that that would have a significant impact on the warm, wet climate of the mesozoic. Luckily, P.Z. Myers on his blog Pharyngula saw this article and read the actual paper and clarified that the researchers did not in fact mention anything about extinction in the actual paper.

S: Are you saying that the science journalists were just making stuff up that wasn't in the original research?

R: No, because I would never call them science journalists.

(laughter)

R: I think to achieve that moniker you have to have a modicum of interest or education in science.

S: Do you mean the generalist-journalist-who-are-now-on-the-science-beat-because-the-infrastructure-of-journalism-no-longer-supports-science-journalists didn't read the original research before reporting on it?

R: Yes, Steve, that is exactly what I'm saying.

S: Wow!

E: Can you say that in four notes?

R: P.Z. very helpfully wrote out the exact part of the research paper that probably lent itself to being completely misconstrued by the quote unquote "journalists" in question and here it is, "Although dinosaurs are unique in the large body sizes they achieved there may have been other occasions in the past where animal-produced methane contributed substantially to global environmental gas composition. For example, it has been speculated that the extinction of megafauna coincident with human colonization of the Americas may be related to a reduction of atmospheric methane levels." So of course that paragraph has nothing to do with dinosaurs but I'm sure that many Fox News readers assume that dinosaurs would be included on a list of megafauna that existed during the time of humans so you can kind of understand where they get that.

E: Ooh!

R: Zing!

J: So do they know what it smelled like?

R: Well, you know, methane itself is odorless but I think juding by the diet of sauropods and comparining it to the diet of present-day methane-producing animals like cows I think that scientsits would classify it as, 'totally rancid'.

E: Yeah, in direct proportion to the size of their movements I would guess.

B: I think I know what really took them out though. I think it's pretty obvious that with all that gas in the atmosphere when the meteor did arrive it just ignited the entire atmosphere.

E: Ha ha! Good point.

R: P.Z. did note that according to the researchers and I quote, "A medium-sized sauropod would have farted out 2675 litres of gas a day."

J: Wow.

S: See the problem was they weren't advanced alien dinosaurs.

R: Mmmm...

E: Let's face it, yeah.

S: The advanced dinosaurs don't gas themselves to death.

R: That's true.

J: Or they shoot their farts with the lasers and it burns them up.

S: They light their own farts?

E: Yeah...

R: Yeah.

E: Convert it to a usable form of energy.

S: Now one serious question I had about this, I don't know if it was addressed in the article, is that yeah dinosaurs were big, the sauropods were huge, but was the total animal bio-mass greater at that time than it is today? Wouldn't there just be more, smaller animals today and fewer, large animals during a megafauna era? You could think, perhaps naively, that it would all balance out but I guess they took that into consideration when they did their calculations.

R: Yeah, I'm not actually sure but there must be some figures for today as to how many parts per million methane are released into the atmosphere by living creatures.

S: Yeah, it's less than what they calculate. They said it's the same if you add the biologically-produced methane plus industrial-produced equals what the dinosaurs were putting out by themselves.

R: Yeah, you're right. One thing that I would suggest then is that different species equals different ways of processing food and also different ways of expelling gas the large amounts of herbivores, like very large herbivores, would probably contribute to a greater amount of methane.

S: Yeah, maybe that's it, maybe they produced more methane per biomass maybe. Interesting.

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/
{{transcribing
|transcriber = Thejmii
}}

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

Main Page

2012-05-19T10:36:46Z

Thejmii: /* 2012 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2010 ===
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 113]], May 9 2012, What's the Harm?
* [[5X5 Episode 112]], May 2 2012, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 111]], Apr 25 2012, Facilitated Communication
* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

5X5 Episode 113

2012-05-19T10:35:28Z

Thejmii: >> DRAFT COMPLETED - PLEASE REVIEW <<

{{5X5 infobox
|episodeID = 5X5 Episode 113
|Contents = What's the Harm?
|episodeDate = 9th May 2012
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52012-05-09.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=113
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=41712.0
|}}

{{5x5intro}}

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and tonight we're talking about the harm done by belief in pseudo-science and magic. Often times, as skeptics, we here the question of, "What's the harm? What harm does it do if people have innocent beliefs in psychics or in some paranormal belief or other?" But this is actually a naive position and skeptics have actually carefully documented in many articles and books etc. that there is quite a bit of harm that comes from believing in magic. In my own field of medicine perhaps it's the most obvious, if people believe in treatments that are ineffective then they may forgo treatments that are effective. There are numerous cases and in fact there's now a website called ''What's the harm?'' dedicated to documenting cases in which people came to significant medical harm from delaying treatment because they believed in fanciful, implausible or magical treatments. But that kind of direct physical harm, either because the treatment itself is risky or because delaying legitimate treatment is not the only type of harm that comes from believing in implausible treatments. There is also the lost time and effort, some times people go through great personal expense flying to China to get stem cell therapy from a clinic there for example that may cost tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. They may saddle their families with extreme debt pursuing a treatment that really has no chance of working. Further there is a huge psychological harm in addition. People will often put a great deal of hope in treatments that are being offered, especially if the claims are extraordinary like being cured of an otherwise incurable disease. And then when that hope is dashed that adds additional psychological harm to an already difficult situation. So there are many types of harm, not just direct physical harm that comes from false hope and false belief in magical cures.

R: One recent case that's been in the news has been a particular cult death. Cults are very good at preying on people who may be marginalised or in need of help. They are able to take advantage of the lowest members of society, people for instance who are...

S: People who are vulnerable

R: ...vulnerable is the word I was looking for. One cult in particular that does this quite often is one we talk about on SGU quite a bit: Scientology. They even have a group called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narconon Narconon, not to be confused with Narcanon. Narcanon is a valid recovery group for drug-addicts, Narconon is a Scientology front-group that finds people who are drug-addicts and gets them addicted on Scientology which ends up costing them quite a bit of money, often requiring people to disconnect from family members and friends and relying entirely on the cult. The other one that's been in the news lately has been the Breatharian death, Breatharians are a cult that believe you don't need to eat and you can survive entirely on sunlight. It may seem silly but when they find people who will actually believe in this for maybe they need the social structure or maybe they have mental problems, the cult finds these people and what ends up happening just last week it was reported that a Swiss woman starved to death after believing that she could survive on light.

B: The belief that the apolcalypse is imminent didn't start with Y2K fears back in 2000, it actually has a very long and harmful history. The earliest record of such beliefs date back to around 2800 BC according to a Syrian clay tablet which reads, "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Now related to and often causing this fear of an apocalypse is a host of pseudo-sciences including numerology, cultish beliefs, fundamentalism, UFOs, even just general scientific illiteracy and a lack of critical thinking. Belief in an imminent apocalypse may seem somewhat harmless on the surface, you know, once the date of the supposed apocalypse passes (if there is one) you go on living your life right? Well often that's not the case, a very sad example that I never really forgot occured in 2008 when the Large Hadron Collider was coming online. There was much news, if you guys remember, around that time about the possibility of the LHC causing the end of the world through the creation of things like mini black holes or destructive strange matter or things like that. In fact all serious scientists thought none of these scenarios would come to pass. Unfortunately 16-year-old Chayya Lal of India wasn't aware of any of this. She became very frightened of the news reports she was seeing on TV regarding this imminent apocalypse caused by the Large Hadron Collider. She became so terrified, in fact, that the world would end that she drank poison and killed herself instead of seeing everything and everyone she loved die. Now this is just one example but the toll from apocalyptic thinking is much higher than you may think, according to the ''What's the Harm?'' website created by Tim Farley, over the years the harm has been quite significant. His tally is over 368,000 people killed, over 306,000 people injured and 2,815,000,000 in economic damages.

J: Psychics can do a serious amount of damage because people tend to use them when something serious is going on in their lives and this leaves them very susceptible to misinformation and fraud. The typical psychic uses cold reading to fool their customers into thinking they have mystical powers and then once people start to believe that this information is true that they're getting from the psychic pretty much anything is possible at that moment. So as a quick example, imagine a circumstance where a family member has died and the psychic claims that they can talk to them, people end up paying an incredible amount of money to say their goodbyes and they get emotional closure but actually the only thing they're saying goodbye to is their money.

E: James Randi once said to a national TV audience, "It's a dangerous thing to believe in nonsense." Some people end up paying for it with their own lives but in some cases other innocent people pay the price. Belief in witchcraft is not an artefact of ancient of medieval times, it's currently widespread across swathes of areas, most notably sub-saharan African countries. The primary targets of these witch-hunts are the most vulnerable among us, namely children. Children accused of witchcraft are subject to psychological and physical violence, typically first by their family members and circles of friends but then they get passed on to church pastors and traditional healers. Once accused of being a witch these children are stigmatized and discriminated for the rest of their lives. They are caught in the cycle of accusation and they risk yet further accusations of witchcraft as they get older. Children accused of witchcraft are often abandoned by their families and they are forced to live on the street and some of them die of neglect or are outright killed. Those that survive are subject to further violence, tortures and indignations including physical and sexual violence by members of the authorities supposed to be protecting them. They have to live in appalling conditions, they often resort to using drugs and alcohol and they are at increased risks of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection. These archaic beliefs have spread out beyond the boundaries of places such as Africa, we've seen these kinds of heinous crimes against children being committed in Western Europe and even North America. As believers emmigrate around the globe, sure they might assimilate in some way to their new surroundings, yet they'll continue to embrace the notion that some children are witches or possessed in some fashion and for what? Because these cultures cling so tightly to their 7th century ideas in our 21st century world. Medieval beliefs yield medieval results.

S: And even without the specific examples that we gave off when people ask, "What about just believing in UFOs or believing in ghosts?" Beliefs that may seem to be innocent but perhaps the most insidious and dangerous aspect of, as Evan said, "believing in nonsense" is the toll it takes on critical thinking skills and scientific literacy. Believing in one form of nonsense definitely leads to believing in other forms of nonsense which can result in unpredictable harm. So even in its most benign form I would say that believing in nonsense does do incalculable harm.

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

5X5 Episode 113

2012-05-19T07:06:09Z

Thejmii: STARTED

Main Page

2012-05-19T07:05:09Z

Thejmii: /* The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts */ I'll be working on all three this weekend so I figured I may as well add the links at the same time.

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2010 ===
* [[SGU Episode 252]], May 12 2010 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 113]], May 9 2012, What's the Harm? {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 112]], May 2 2012, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 111]], Apr 25 2012, Facilitated Communication
* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-19T00:16:08Z

Thejmii: /* Dinosaur Farts (3:05) */ draft added

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

{{Draft_infoBox
|episodeTitle = SGU Episode 356
|episodeDate = 12th May 2012
|episodeIcon = File:T-rex.jpg
|previous = 
|next = 
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|perry =
|guest1 = 
|guest2 = 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-05-12.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=356
|forumLink =
|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley] 
|}}

== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

R: Hey it's funny you should mention it, Steve, because I'd also like to talk about farting dinosaurs.

E: It is kinda funny.

J: What?

S: Really?

R: Yeah, who would have guessed? This is one of my favourite news to come out this week. The first article I saw was an AP news-story and the headline was, 'study: dinosaurs may have caused extinction with flatulence' so obviously I had to click on that. I read the article but the article completely did not justify the headline, it didn't talk about extinction at all. So I found another article on, of all things, Fox News' website and there the headline was even stronger, 'dinosaurs gassed themselves into extinction, British scientists say'

E: Okay...

R: This is how that article began, "Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction according to a new study by British scientists. The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beast pumped out more than 520 million tons or 472 million metric tons of methane a year. Enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise. Until now an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction." So that's pretty strong language to suggest this study apparently says that dinosaurs pooted themselves to death.

J: So they did or they didn't?

R: Well, it turns out that they didn't in all likelihood. Because when you read this article you'll notice even the Fox News article all the quotes from scientists don't say anything about extinction, they're all entirely about how much greenhouse gas was pumped out of dino-butts and what kind of effect it had on the mesozoic climate, which is quite a bit. The researchers said that the wetlands, forest fires and leaking gas fields of that time period might have contributed upwards of 8 parts per million methane to the air and their study suggests that sauropods, which are the plant-eating dinosaurs, may have contributed another 2 to 4 parts per million.

E: Ah-hah

R: They think that that would have a significant impact on the warm, wet climate of the mesozoic. Luckily, P.Z. Myers on his blog Pharyngula saw this article and read the actual paper and clarified that the researchers did not in fact mention anything about extinction in the actual paper.

S: Are you saying that the science journalists were just making stuff up that wasn't in the original research?

R: No, because I would never call them science journalists.

(laughter)

R: I think to achieve that moniker you have to have a modicum of interest or education in science.

S: Do you mean the generalist-journalist-who-are-now-on-the-science-beat-because-the-infrastructure-of-journalism-no-longer-supports-science-journalists didn't read the original research before reporting on it?

R: Yes, Steve, that is exactly what I'm saying.

S: Wow!

E: Can you say that in four notes?

R: P.Z. very helpfully wrote out the exact part of the research paper that probably lent itself to being completely misconstrued by the quote unquote "journalists" in question and here it is, "Although dinosaurs are unique in the large body sizes they achieved there may have been other occasions in the past where animal-produced methane contributed substantially to global environmental gas composition. For example, it has been speculated that the extinction of megafauna coincident with human colonization of the Americas may be related to a reduction of atmospheric methane levels." So of course that paragraph has nothing to do with dinosaurs but I'm sure that many Fox News readers assume that dinosaurs would be included on a list of megafauna that existed during the time of humans so you can kind of understand where they get that.

E: Ooh!

R: Zing!

J: So do they know what it smelled like?

R: Well, you know, methane itself is odorless but I think juding by the diet of sauropods and comparining it to the diet of present-day methane-producing animals like cows I think that scientsits would classify it as, 'totally rancid'.

E: Yeah, in direct proportion to the size of their movements I would guess.

B: I think I know what really took them out though. I think it's pretty obvious that with all that gas in the atmosphere when the meteor did arrive it just ignited the entire atmosphere.

E: Ha ha! Good point.

R: P.Z. did note that according to the researchers and I quote, "A medium-sized sauropod would have farted out 2675 litres of gas a day."

J: Wow.

S: See the problem was they weren't advanced alien dinosaurs.

R: Mmmm...

E: Let's face it, yeah.

S: The advanced dinosaurs don't gas themselves to death.

R: That's true.

J: Or they shoot their farts with the lasers and it burns them up.

S: They light their own farts?

E: Yeah...

R: Yeah.

E: Convert it to a usable form of energy.

S: Now one serious question I had about this, I don't know if it was addressed in the article, is that yeah dinosaurs were big, the sauropods were huge, but was the total animal bio-mass greater at that time than it is today? Wouldn't there just be more, smaller animals today and fewer, large animals during a megafauna era? You could think, perhaps naively, that it would all balance out but I guess they took that into consideration when they did their calculations.

R: Yeah, I'm not actually sure but there must be some figures for today as to how many parts per million methane are released into the atmosphere by living creatures.

S: Yeah, it's less than what they calculate. They said it's the same if you add the biologically-produced methane plus industrial-produced equals what the dinosaurs were putting out by themselves.

R: Yeah, you're right. One thing that I would suggest then is that different species equals different ways of processing food and also different ways of expelling gas the large amounts of herbivores, like very large herbivores, would probably contribute to a greater amount of methane.

S: Yeah, maybe that's it, maybe they produced more methane per biomass maybe. Interesting.

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T23:36:54Z

Thejmii: /* This Day in Skepticism (0:28) */ minor correction

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts. I mean how complicated is it.

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/
{{transcribing
|transcriber = Thejmii
}}

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

Template talk:5X5 infobox

2012-05-18T23:18:40Z

Thejmii: my thoughts

5X5 Episode 3

2012-05-18T22:27:41Z

Thejmii: removed timestamps

{{Template:5X5 infobox
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|Contents = Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
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|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
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|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=7884.0
|}}

{{5x5intro}}

S: Hello, this is the SGU 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics. Today is Sunday, January 20th 2008. Our topic for this week is multilevel marketing or pyramid schemes. Now, Rebecca, I know that you're a long time critic of multilevel marketing...

R: I am indeed and to give those of you who might not know an idea: a pyramid scheme is basically on the outisde it looks like a company that sells a product but in fact nobody's making money off of selling the overpriced product. What they make money off of is by convincing people to pay for the opportunity to sell that product. For instance, you've got a big batch of, oh, I don't know, diet bars and to get them to be sold the company convinces you to buy a bunch of boxes from them which you then have to sell to your friends and family. You quickly realise that nobody actually wants to buy these overpriced things so in order for you to make money that means you have to convince your friends and family to do the same thing that the company did to you. In other words, buy the bars from you which they then sell to their friends and family. Very quickly it becomes obvious that nobody's going to make any money off of this except for the people at the top of the peak of the pyramid.

S: Right, and that's called a pyramid scheme when it gets to that level which is illegal. Such a scheme should be reported to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission FTC], in fact, the Federal Trade Commision in this country. But there's a fine sometimes between multilevel marketing, which is not illegal (although I think they're dubious in my opinion though they're not strictly illegal), and a pyramid scheme. The government actually gives some guidelines if you're considering becoming a multilevel marketer and Rebecca named a few of them: Does the product have a market? Is it overpriced? Do you have to recruit sellers or other distributors in order to make money or are you going to make money by selling a legitimate product at a fair price? That's the basic thing you need to consider.

J: Some of these companies though, sure like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay Mary Kay's] is a good example, in order for you to move up in the organisation you not only have to sell product but you have to have more recruits underneath you. So every level, and I think they have about 15 levels that you can go through, every time you want to take a step to the next level you need three or more recruits underneath you that add to your network. So there is a grey line and I think Mary Kay's are just below the waterline of being a pyramid scheme even though, you know, they sound fairly inocuous and everybody knows of the company and knows who they are.

S: Yeah, you also have to ask yourself, "why is the company choosing to sell their product with this model?" They say it's because they want their sales people to also be users so they'll be believers but it's because they want their sales people to also be buyers and I know a lot of snake oil schemes operate this way and essentially with some of these companies the distributors are often barely making enough money from selling products to support their own habbit, if you will, just to keep themselves in the overpriced supplement or snake oil that their buying.

J: Yeah, the goal is, and most people if you've talked to anyone or know anyone who's done this and if they're going to be honest with you, the real goal here is to get people underneath you. Because you won't get money until you get, it depends obviously on the particular company, but you won't make any real money until you have a large network underneath you generating sales for the company.

E: Yeah, a good website for our listeners to go and take a look at if they want to learn more about this [http://www.pyramidschemealert.org www.pyramidschemealert.org], seems like a pretty good resource. They're good at making the public aware of the pitfalls and what the red flags are for companies that are pyramid schemes and illegal multivel marketers.

B: I'll throw one statistic out there, pyramid schemes are losing propositions for at least 90% of the people that get involved.

R: Yeah, basically...

S: That's pretty bad odds

R: ...one thing to look out for is if it seems like a deal that's too good to be true it probably is.

S: So I guess the bottom line of this whole thing is: when it comes to multilevel marketing be skeptical.

E: Well said.

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T22:20:05Z

Thejmii: /* Dinosaur Farts (3:05) */ adding transcribing template

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts...

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/
{{transcribing
|transcriber = Thejmii
}}

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

Talk:SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T21:53:49Z

Thejmii: added notes

==this day in skepticism notes==
a couple of notes of the transcript...
*0:01:05.0 Evan says 'yeah' while Rebecca is speaking - not included in the transcript.
*0:02:07.7 Jay (or Evan?) says something that sounds like 'peace' - not included in the transcript
[[User:Thejmii|Thejmii]] ([[User talk:Thejmii|talk]]) 21:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T21:52:34Z

Thejmii: /* This Day in Skepticism (0:28) */ removed ambiguous word

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|episodeDate = 12th May 2012
|episodeIcon = File:T-rex.jpg
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|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|perry =
|guest1 = 
|guest2 = 
|guest3 = 
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2012-05-12.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=356
|forumLink =
|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
|qowAuthor = [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley] 
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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts...

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T21:49:02Z

Thejmii: Moved 'this day' segue to the part leading to the 'this day' section; added 'this day' section.

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

R: Well, you know, we're all celebrating the 102nd birthday of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin].

J: Sure

R: Of course.

S: Absolutely.

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==

R: On May 12th 1910, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin was born and, in case you don't know who she was, allow me to give you a quick synopsis. She was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and she's best known for discovering three-dimensional biomolecular structures. In fact, she won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of Vitamin B12 but she also figured out the structures of penecilin and insulin. For insulin she actually had to help develop the entire field of X-ray crystallography and she did it and it was amazing. So she was a really cool lady in the 1940s. Fun Dorothy Hodgkin fact: one of her students was Margaret Thatcher though you can't blame Dorothy for what happened there as Dorothy tended to hang out mostly with communists and she herself put a lot of effort into using her scientific knowledge to help end social inequality. Because of that from 1976 to 1988 she was president of the Pugwash Conference which is an international organization that...

E: Washes pugs.

R: ...seeks to reduce the harm caused by armed conflicts.

E: That too.

R: Dorothy died in 1994. Happy birthday Dorothy.

E: We miss you. Thanks for the insulin.

S: Interestingly, another woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, used X-ray crystallography to figure out the helical structure of DNA.

R: Mmmm... uh-huh.

S: Which then Watson and Crick stole.

R: Bastards!

(laughter)

J: (peace?)

R: Man's always keeping us down.

S: Nah, they deserve credit but Jocelyn Bell Burnell definnitely got totally hosed out of her credit for that experiment.

R: And speaking of awesome women, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkins' mother was a huge influence in pushing her to pursue her love of chemistry. So it's good to have great female role models.

S: Or supportive parents in general.

R: Yeah.

S: Even supportive fathers correlate really highly with girls going into science fields.

R: Indeed.

B: Rebecca, you mentioned three-dimensional biomolecular structures.

R: Uh-huh, I did.

B: Are there two-dimensional ones?

R: Yeah, the kind you draw on a piece of paper.

B: Ah-hah, I hadn't considered that.

R: Dummy.

(laughter)

J: Yeah, Bob, what the hell?

E: Yeah, now if you'd said one-dimensional then we'd be like, "Aw, c'mon..."

R: Somebody is going to write in with a really intelligent response to that and I look forward to it.

S: There probably are two-dimensional structures.

R: Yeah, that's what I'm waiting for.

S: Like flat molecules.

E: Oh yeah, flat.

S: C'mon, Bob, this isn't Dinosaur Farts...

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T21:19:45Z

Thejmii: transcribing template

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|bob = y
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|evan = y
|perry =
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|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==
May 12, 1910 Today is the birthday of Dorothy Hodgkin
{{transcribing
|transcriber = Thejmii
}}

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T20:25:29Z

Thejmii: /* Introduction */ well that was rather short

I'm going to work on this one backwards, as usual, in the hope that someone else will work on it from the start. -- [[User:Rwh86|Rwh86]] ([[User talk:Rwh86|talk]]) 17:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

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|jay = y
|evan = y
|perry =
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|qowText = Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
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== Introduction ==
S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, May 8th 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson...

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novalla...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Howdy-doo everyone.

S: Hey Evan.

R: Super.

E: How's everyone tonight?

== This Day in Skepticism (0:28) ==
May 12, 1910 Today is the birthday of Dorothy Hodgkin

== News Items ==
=== Dinosaur Farts (3:05)===
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/07/study-dinosaurs-may-have-caused-extinction-with-flatulence/

=== Aura Reading (9:46)===
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/is-aura-reading-synaesthesia-probably-not/

=== 48 Frames per Second (22:13)===
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-high-cinema-booed.html

S: All right well let's move on. Bob, in preparation for the summer blockbusters, you're going to give us a little update on film technology.

B: Yeah, it's blockbuster movie time, I'm so excited. Are you guys excited about all the great movies coming out this summer?

S: Oh, yeah.

B: There's so much. This is the time when movie studios really don't give a crap about Oscar contenders and all they want to do is blow stuff up and I love it. And uh, this season, unofficially started, I think it's unofficial, I'm not sure how official it was, started with the release of Avengers, and I hear it was an awesome movie, everyone is telling me it's awesome.

R: It was so awesome!

S: Highly recommended.

B: Oh, I know OK

E: Most of what I saw was awesome.

R: Let's talk about all the spoilers.

B: No, no!

E: Easter eggs, Easter eggs.

B: But I haven't seen it yet but I plan to see it very very soon.

S: My wife who is a reluctant nerd I call her, she's not really a nerd, she loved it it's a fun movie really for anyone.

E: She didn't dress up in a black widow costume?

S: No, no I tried, I tried Evan. No.

(laughter)

S: But go on, Bob.

J: Oh my god, that's rid...

B: So coinciding with the release of these movies is news that a new film technology may soon be in widespread release. This is called HFR which stands for High Frame Rate technology. Movies for the past 80 years have been filmed at 24 frames per second, but in the near future they may be made, they may be filmed at 48 or 60 frames per second which some say could revolutionise the movie-viewing experience, but unfortunately many who previewed this technology were surprisingly completely underwhelmed by it. What the frack? Just totally surprised me, I really didn't see that coming. It just seems like a no-brainer to me that when you up the frame rate for movies it would just make it better, you know how could that not make movies look even better than they do now? I was really surprised that it was actually getting negative reviews. But this type of news is especially exciting for me even if it doesn't pan out because considering the revolution we've seen in movie theatre, well actually what we haven't seen is any real revolutions in movie theatre technology especially when you compare it to home movie technology for the past 20 years. Steve, Jay I don't know if you remember growing up we had, I remember we were so excited, we got a 28 inch CRT, and a new TV, and it looked really huge to us. But now most TVs dwarf that and they use all sorts of new technology like flat screen, HD, LED, LCD, OLED...

S: OMG.

B: ...3D. All these advances in movies and it just seems like it's just what's going on, what's happened with movie technology I mean since I've been around, I mean the big advances that I grew up with, you guys remember [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround Sensurround], right, the movie theatre would actually shake, I mean that didn't last too long, it was just like a gimmick. But what are some of the big revolutions in movie theatre technology?

S: Sound systems have, you know.

B: Yeah, they have, they have um...

E: Sound, 3D technology.

R: Seats that move.

B: (laughs) Yeah, right? Better seats.

J: The projectors are...

B: How about CG? But I'm talking mainly what you're seeing on screen though, like CG. CG's been big, I mean that hasn't been around for that long in movie theatres and to me that's a really big advance and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imax IMAX], to me IMAX was like a godsend because it's such an amazing movie experience.

J: Well Bob, what do they shoot IMAX in?

B: Well I was kind of surprised, I just assumed well IMAX is so amazing, isn't that 48 frames a second?

E: Nope.

B: Or even more? But actually it's not. IMAX is 24 frames per second as well, although the film, I think it's like a 66mm film, I mean the film itself is huge.

S: Yeah.

E: It's a wider film, yeah.

B: IMAX actually tried to go to 48 frames per second in '92, it was called IMAX HD which is a little bit of a misnomer it seems, but actually it was too expensive and it was too damaging to the film and the projector so they abandoned it, so even IMAX itself is not, as awesome as it is, is not 48 frames a second. What really, what started this whole, this whole news item I think was a recent viewing at the cinemacon 2012 in Las Vegas, which is an annual gathering of theatre owners, and they, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_jackson Peter Jackson] who filmed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282012_film%29 The Hobbit] which is, I can't wait to see, and he filmed it using this technology, he had a 10 minute broadcast of some unfinished footage and a lot of the criticisms were really interesting. Now a lot of people were saying that the big epic fight scenes that they saw were really amazing and that the depth of field and the clarity was amazing but a lot of the like, the personal scenes, like between some of the actors, they seemed oddly cold or it said that some people said that it was too much like digital footage you see from live sports channels or on daytime television.

R: Yeah, that's, it's... sorry... we talked about this exact problem.

B: We did?

R: Yeah, just... it was maybe a year or two ago. We were talking about frame rate and how the higher frame rates look like soap operas and it's very difficult for audiences to get over that idea. I don't remember what spurred us to talking about it, it wasn't, The Hobbit stuff wasn't on the scene yet.

B: Right.

R: Bigger fans than Bob can probably find the episode and let us know what we were talking about. But yeah, that was the exact complaint, that it looked artificial despite the fact that it's actually closer to what our eyes are really seeing in everyday life. It's kind of interesting.

B: Yeah, that's really it. Another good quote was, somebody said that it looked much more like visiting the set of a film rather than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie and I think that that really is the crux of the problem. But there are lots of benefits to this new technology and the big proponent of this is Peter Jackson of course, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy The Lord of the Rings] fame and now making The Hobbit. The name of the movie is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But there are a lot of benefits, it definitely is more lifelike and Jackson wrote in a Facebook post recently that there's often quite a lot of blur in each conventional movie frame during fast movements and if the camera's moving around quickly the image can judder or strobe. So when you have a higher frame rate it can greatly reduce or even totally eliminate a lot of these problems. And the other benefit for HFR is for 3D movies, it removes the eye strain, Peter Jackson was looking, he said he was watching his film of course because he's making it, he would watch it for hour of a day, you know hours during the day, to look and the dailies and stuff that, and he said that the eye strain is pretty much not even there any more, he described it as being much more gentle on the eyes without the strobing or as much flicker and much less eye strain, so and he was really funny he had a really great response to a lot of this criticism. He just said three words: deal with it. I mean that's what he said, just deal with it. I could see how this guy's emotionally invested in this, despite his protestations, I'm sure he was taken aback a bit by this negative reaction and sometimes I think that he may not have released this footage if he knew the extent of the criticism. And then of course on the other hand he's getting millions of dollars worth of free publicity about this even if some of it was negative, so maybe it is kind of working out for him. But the big question here I think is will people want to deal with it?

J: I would be curious to know what people would have thought if he didn't say it was shot at 48 frames.

E: They would have said something doesn't look right. They'd be left guessing.

B: Yeah. They definitely, they still would have complained Jay. And I found a fantastic [http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/04/24/cinemacon-2012-dim-reaction-to-high-def-look-of-peter-jacksons-the-hobbit/ quote] from [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20500308,00.html Anthony Bresnician] from Inside Movies. He said that, referring to Jackson, he said "he may be underestimating how much those so-called flaws have become part of the language of visual storytelling." and I think that's an excellent point because even the so-called flaws in the medium can become part of peoples' expectations to such a degree that it seems like something's missing when it's gone even though the objective quality really has improved. What I want to end with though is that I think there's a few reasons why I think that people will still broadly accept HFR technology. And I think they are fairly compelling reasons. I think it may really be just a matter of getting used to it like Jackson said, after watching it, you know 10 minutes wasn't enough if you watch it for a while you get used to this technology and he's seen hours upon hours of this footage. And also there's another interesting take on this. It may make the flaws of 24 frames per second noticeable to an annoying degree. He said that when he watches conventional movies now, it's much less satisfying to him because he notices all of the stuff that he didn't notice before. It's kind of like a good analogy, I can still watch non-HD TV and I do quite often but at times it feels like something's missing since I'm so used to HD now sometimes I think damn, you know, this picture really sucks.

S: Yeah, I think a lot of it is us getting used to it, but I think it's also that just the film making needs to adapt to it as well. The lighting and the feel and everything and it's just like when we went from regular definition to high definition you had to upgrade sets and props and whatnot so I think it's the same thing. Have you ever watched like when you do behind the scenes movie making and they show you some raw footage?

B: Yes.

S: Of the movie?

E: Yeah. It's all video.

S: And then you watch the actual film, it's very different.

B: Do you know why, Steve?

E: Lots of reasons why.

B: And this is my last point right here. This actually, I'm so glad I found this, I found this at the 11th hour, not many websites had this very key point I think, in that the footage Jackson released had not gone through post-production. And that is so important.

S: Yeah.

B: And it's not, this type of post production isn't simply a matter of adding special effects, they do things like digital colour grading, they add texture, they take out highlights and to me that changes this whole thing because it hasn't gone through that...

S: Yeah. That invalidates it in fact, you can't make any judgement.

B: Absolutely I think it's completely unfair to criticise something that has not gone through post-production.

R: Well he's been pretty clear that he plans for The Hobbit to be the movie that completely remakes...

E: Redefines the medium.

R: ...how movies are made, that forces cinemas to upgrade because, and he's absolutely right. The Hobbit is going to be huge regardless, like he could have shot it in poop vision and it would still be great.

(laughter)

R: People would still be buying the tickets and theatres would be upgrading their equipment to handle it. So yeah, if you're going to...

E: Do you need special glasses for that? I hope so.

R: If you're going to force a revolution then this is how to do it. I mean how many theatres installed the tingler before they realised that that wasn't really going to work out, I don't know.

E: The tingler?

R: The tingler, you know, the electric shock seats.

B: Oh god.

J: Oh yeah, because they were so loved, yeah.

R: No but you know it is...

E: In Soviet Russia maybe.

R: ...it is possible for people to be really excited about a new innovation and have it not catch on. It took 3D two tries to get big.

S: No, more like three.

J: Yeah, most people don't know.

E: 3D is from the 40's, 50's?

J: Most people don't know how much things have changed in the film world, the film-making world in just the last 10 years.

B: Oh absolutely, oh my god yeah.

J: I mean the equipment has travelled from basically most people were shooting on film or tape and now the industry is phenomenally evolved, and it's so much better, it's so much easier to work, so many more people can do it it's like writing a blog versus you know printing a newspaper, it's that easy. It's not easy but it's that much more accessible, the software, prices have come down, the power of the software has sky-rocketed, I mean you could literally shoot on your digital camera, put it on your computer five seconds later and start editing it immediately.

B: And Rebecca you mentioned 3D. I think that movie theatres' owners are going to be motivated to upgrade because first off, it's not very expensive I mean it was like thousands of dollars it's not something like you know, 100,000 dollars to upgrade, it's not going to be that expensive. And secondly, 3D is just so huge now and you know people pay more, you know they're paying 12, 15, 18 dollars to watch a 3D movie, more than just a regular movie and apparently supposed to reduce this eye-strain and make it a much more pleasant experience, I think they're going to be motivated to do this.

R: Yeah, I guess my point with bringing up 3D is just that it took a number of tries for 3D to not be considered a total joke and it's ''still'' considered a total joke by most cinephiles I think.

E: Yeah.

B: Yeah.

R: The general public has I think, I mean I was a little too young to really appreciate it before but it's my understanding that even the general public saw it as kind of a goofy fad before.

S: Because it was gimmicky.

R: Yeah, yeah.

S: The quality wasn't very good, it was gimmicky...

E: It was hokey, yeah.

S: ...now they're making these CG movies where like you really appreciate, like with The Avengers you're flying through the city, I mean it really adds, you know. So it I think a while for the art to catch up to the science, how to use this technology in a way to really enhance the cinematic experience, not just as a techno-gimmick, and that's why I think 3D's taking off.

R: Yeah.

S: Plus I think that the technology got to the point where you can enjoy the experience and it wasn't distracting or detracting because it was, the eye strain etc. We're not quite there yet, but...

B: And yet it's still gimmicky, it's still gimmicky in a lot of ways, I'm constantly rolling my eyes when I see these movies that come out as 3D because you know they tacked on the whole idea of 3D for this movie just to cash in, and you know to really take advantage of 3D you've got to design it from the ground up and really be thinking 3D from day one, like Avatar was.

=== Baby Powder (36:00)===
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/9250438/Pills-filled-with-powdered-human-baby-flesh-found-by-customs-officials.html

S: All right, well let's move on. Jay, you're going to talk about baby powder?

J: OK, this one is by far the worst thing I have ever reported on.

B: Oh, come on.

E: We'll always have Tom Cruise.

J: If you're weak in the stomach, don't listen to this news item because it's absolutely disgusting. There's a new kind of baby powder on the streets of South Korea, but this one is made from real babies. The Korean Customs Service have seized thousands of pills that are filled with powdered flesh from dead babies.

E: All right so, we're not talking like skin that has naturally sort of shed from live babies, right? And they've collected those flakes of skin and crushed them into a powder, right?

J: No, from what I've read they think that they're getting the skin from aborted babies or babies that have died in hospitals in China.

R: All right, I don't buy it. I don't buy it for a second, and there are several reasons why. Here's what I do think is true. I think that South Korean authorities did find, take into possession, traditional Chinese medicine that was, that were capsules that were said to contain human flesh. But what we're talking about are capsules that are filled with a ground up substance and there's really nothing in any of the news reports I read to suggest how, like what kind of tests were done to figure out that these are the flesh of dead babies, like call me a skeptic, but I don't think that our CSI is to the point where you can examine ground up bits of granules and tell whether or not it's a...

S: Sure you can, absolutely. You could tell if there are human proteins in there, absolutely.

R: No, you didn't let me finish.

J: She's talking about baby proteins.

R: And tell whether it's baby or adult. That's one issue I have with this. The second being that I don't think that there's a test in which you could tell whether or not these are the ground up remains of a dead baby or a placenta.

S: Mmmhmm.

R: And when we look at traditional Chinese medicine and the remedies that are often sold as traditional Chinese medicine, we don't find baby on the list pretty much anywhere at all. Baby is not a traditional Chinese remedy. Placenta is a traditional Chinese remedy. It's very, very, very popular and I think that ground up placenta could very easily, due to a translation issue, could get out into the press as dead, ground up baby.

B: I hope you're right.

R: So I don't buy that these are ground up babies.

J: Yeah I think it's possible that you're right, Rebecca. When I read this stuff I felt like there just wasn't enough information, enough stuff that made me feel that this was 100%. You know, they are making claims, I mean these news articles are stating a lot of different things here about you know, they knew exactly how many pills, they knew that the pills were disguised as stamina boosters.

R: And which you know, placenta is sold as a stamina booster.

J: Sure, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, I mean I think, we get news items like this all the time, where we question how accurate is it, I mean look at, we just talked earlier in the show about reporters that can't even report, you know they read something and they don't even know what they read and they're misreporting the information whether deliberately or not so yeah, there's a very strong potential here that there's something not accurate about this. But it is something that's come up in the community, a lot of people are concerned about it or wanting more information about it, it is one of those big eye-catchy headlines. Strangely, I don't usually watch any of the major news stations because I just don't trust any of them, but I did do a quick look online and I found this in very few places. How about you guys?

R: Well we've gotten it from a million different people.

S: Yeah, unfortunately, I did try to dig deeper into this myself, because I agree with Rebecca, you hear this and it's so easy for this to be sensationalised. Unfortunately just about everything, the internet essentially is filled now with links to this story and it's overwhelming anything else about it. I couldn't find any smoking gun reports that show yes, this is absolutely confirmed, what I did find is that there were reports that the powder was DNA tested and found to be human DNA, that South Korea is claiming that's what the pills contain, human remains, and it's not just that they've confiscated the pills with powder, that they have reason to believe this is part of a smuggling ring that is doing this, that this is not, this is one piece of the puzzle, but that there's... but again this is all second, third hand reports of overseas journalists and I don't know, you know you would need an investigative journalist in Korea, in China, digging behind this to see what's really going on. China denies it, they say that, the Chinese government, they say that they strictly oversee the disposal of infants and foetal remains so that this sort of thing wouldn't happen but you know, I don't that really tells us anything, that the Chinese government is denying it.

R: Yeah, and all of the facts that you mentioned fit with the idea of it being placenta. I mean placenta is human remains.

E: Yeah, proteins and all.

S: Yeah. That's a legitimate point, Rebecca but also I would easily believe that people also believe that taking essentially ground up either aborted foetuses or babies would also be a stamina booster or have powers.

R: Yeah the thing is I've been searching and I haven't been able to find a single instance of anyone claiming to believe that ground up infants increase stamina. I can't find that at all. And that's one of the main reasons that I'm suspicious of it. If ground-up infant was something that's been 100 years ago or 50 years ago, even 10 years ago...

S: Oh I don't know that it's that old.

R: ...was spoken of as something, you know.

S: Yeah I did read one report that said that this is something that is specific to ethnic Koreans living in China. But again, this is all second-hand reports.

E: Right.

R: I don't know.

S: And this has been going on since last year, so there has been some time to investigate this. The South Koreans, it's not like this is...

R: Right, this is actually an old story.

S: Yeah.

E: Yeah.

R: And yeah, the thing is I understand the child, the one-child policy in China would probably make a lot of Westerners think well cool, that's where the foetuses are coming from, but you'd have to have a lot of foetuses in order, like these are really inexpensive pills that are being smuggled, like tons and tons of them.

S: But anyway this is all second-hand information. I agree with Rebecca's skepticism however I don't think it's impossible and I think we don't know. The news reporting is all sensational, it is second-hand and it would be nice to actually have a real journalist dig to the bottom of the story and see what's going on.

E: They may not like what they find though.

S: Yeah... it's people!

E: I mean right, right? This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Soylent Green] story, this is it. If there ever was one.

J: The thing that bothers me is I absolutely believe that there are people out there that would pay for pills like this.

B: Oh yeah.

E: Oh yeah, people are F'ed up.

B: Absolutely.

R: Yeah, and I also, one of the other reasons why I was immediately skeptical of it is because it plays on our idea of that and particularly our interest in other cultures doing weird, disgusting, immoral things.

S: It's a perfect urban legend.

R: Yeah, exactly.

E: Yes, that's the other thing.

S: But it doesn't mean it's not true, right.

R: Also true, yeah.

E: When will we ever find out the truth, I don't know.

B: You can't handle the truth.

E: I may not want to handle this truth.

S: Well we really, we do need to follow this story because this is the kind of thing where, like say six months from now, there may be some obscure reports like oh remember that whole baby powder thing was all fake, and of course no one is going to care, but the meme is out there and everyone is going to remember oh yeah, the Chinese were selling ground up babies in pills and nobody will notice if it ever gets debunked. So we'll try to keep on top of it, and hey also any of our listeners from Korea, from China, if you have the inside scoop on this story please tell us because we are utterly dependent on the crappy press that we have and I was utterly unable to find any sources that I felt were credible enough that I could really rely upon what they were saying.

E: And if it turns out to be wrong, let us know because I have a great joke in queue ready to fly...

S: If it's wrong, OK.

E: ...in case it is wrong, if it's wrong.

B: Awesome.

E: But only if it's wrong!

S: Poor taste?

E: It's a problem, yeah.

=== Killing Bigfoot (45:12)===
http://io9.com/5907846/its-officially-legal-to-kill-bigfoot-in-texas

S: All right, well Evan, you're going to tell us quickly what bigfoot hunters are doing in Texas.

E: Yeah, well Steve you know this is the one question. It is the question alone that has been plaguing the human mind for as long as the human mind became aware of itself. Or at least since the 1967 Patterson Gimly film.

S: Gimly...

E: Of course... Gimly... you know. Especially the one with the made-up Chewbakka strap around, I love that, that's the best one. And that question is: is it legal to hunt and kill a bigfoot in Texas? Well, there may be large areas of the rest of this country that might be under the impression that Texas has this general shoot first ask questions later statute in place. Well, it turns out that there are no statutes specifically preventing the hunting of a bigfoot in Texas, right? So why do we know this, and why is it news this week? Why does anybody care? Well, we have our online cryptophiles to thank for that. And for those of you who don't know, a cryptophile is someone who loves the notion that live creatures can exist, or had once existed with no supporting evidence. And one particular cryptophile recently wrote to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asking that very question, about the legality of hunting and killing bigfoot. And he received a response, an official response which read in part as follows. I quote.

<blockquote>If the commission does not specifically list an indigenous non-game species, then the species is considered non-protected, non-game wildlife. A non-protected, non-game animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.</blockquote>

E: And they went even a little further than that. They said in case it were deemed to be an exotic animal, but they have coverage for that. And I quote:

<blockquote>An exotic animal is an animal that is non-indigenous to Texas. Unless the exotic is an endangered species, then exotics may be hunted on private property with landowner consent, and a hunting license is required.</blockquote>

E: So there you have it. Texas is saying go get those bigfoot, there's nothing stopping you in case they're out there.

S: Yeah, but that is kind of a non-event, they're just interpreting the law. Because bigfoot don't exist, they're not endangered and they're not game animals, and therefore, but default, the rules for everything else applies, which means that you can't hunt them except on private property.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: So if a bigfoot stumbles into your back yard you can shoot it.

R: The yeti corn is still protected, right? The noble yeti corn at least has a safe space.

E: Don't worry Maw, that corn's protected.

J: Yeah I agree with Steve, this isn't a news item, this is just an interpretation of the law that...

S: Yeah, they didn't pass a law saying you can kill bigfoot, they just said well I guess, because they don't exist, they're not covered by these other laws, so they default to everything else.

R: It's like having a domestic violence issue with a ghost.

S: Right.

E: Right, no more so than any laws governing what can be done to say leprechauns or morlocks...

B: Unicorns.

S: Or Eskimos.

E: Or Ferengi for that matter, right?

S: Ferengi, yeah.

E: Yeah, it's pretty unreasonable to expect governing bodies...

S: Trying to apply existing laws to non-existing creatures, you could run into all kinds of dilemmas.

E: Right? Human imagination can conjure up so much, could you imagine having to come up with laws for every stupid thought that comes out of a collection of peoples' heads?

S: Right.

E: It's insane and unreasonable. However, as we're talking about examples of unreasonableness, I'll give you two examples from the state of Washington, where there are counties, the counties of Skamania and Whatcom, they have actual statues specifically mentioning bigfoot in terms of protecting these particular figments.

R: Well, the Pacific North West is... (inaudible)

S: Bigfoot is protected in Washington?

E: Yes, the actual statute ordinance, the actual ordinance, creatures generally... this is the one about, this creature is generally and commonly known as sasquatch, yeti, bigfoot or giant, hairy ape.

S: (laughing) giant hairy ape.

E: All of which makes...

B: Like Jay.

E: All of which are used interchangeably. Whereas, say it says the absence of specific national and state laws restricting the taking of specimens has created a dangerous state of affairs within this county with regards to firearms and other deadly devices and so on and so forth. So here we go. In 1969 they deemed that the slaying of such a creature was a felony, that's interesting, punishable by five years in prison and may have exceeded the jurisdictional authority of that port of county commissioners. However, that was changed, they updated that in 1984 and in 1984 they reduced it to more of a misdemeanour. And they've deemed the entire county a preserve...

S: A bigfoot preserve?

E: Yeah, a protection refuge area.

S: So let me play devil's advocate for a little bit. I think it's ridiculous in that there's no reason to think that bigfoot exists, so having a specific law about a mythological creature is kind of silly. But I do think that it's not a bad idea to have a law that says that it's illegal to kill an animal unknown to science. Let's say it was framed that way. If you think that you have an animal that is not known to science in the sights of your gun, don't frigging shoot it. That's kind of a win-win. If the creature does exist, you don't want to kill it and if it doesn't exist, then what are you shooting? Think about this, if you think you're shooting a bigfoot you probably have a human in your cross-hairs.

E: Human in a costume, yep.

S: Yeah. So that, it's actually, I don't think it's a good idea for it to be legal to kill bigfoot because that is just dangerous.

R: I mentioned this last year, actually. Back in July there was a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra chupacabra] in Texas that was spotted by a Texas teenager and he said it looked like nothing I had ever seen before, and then he shot it.

(laughter)

R: And then I compared that to another story coming out of China wherein a woman found a possible alien and she said my neighbours agreed that it was like nothing we'd seen before. So they fed it cucumbers and peaches and nurtured it and it turned out to be a mangy monkey I think.

B: Monkey.

(laughter)

R: But the differences between these two stories was I think really telling in terms of our two cultures and also imagine if those were two difference species that scientists could learn something interesting from. Even if it's not a new species, if it's a known species with a new disease, particularly a disease that might spread rapidly through a population, there's a lot that researchers can learn, don't just, don't just kill it.

=== SGU Dinner at TAM 2012 (52:36)===
http://www.amazingmeeting.com/TAM2012/program

S: One last news item, it's time once again for the lead-up to The Amazing Meeting, TAM 2012, July 12th-15th in Las Vegas, and of course the entire SGU is going to be there, as usual we're going to be putting on two one hour live recordings. And we're also doing once again, the SGU dinner. I know you guys are looking forward to it.

B: Yay, yeah!

R: Yeah, good food, good company, mmhmm.

E: Awesome time.

S: Yep, so this even sells out every year that we've done it, we have a, I think there's a 300 person limit on the room that we have, of course the entire SGU will be there, we will make our way around to every table, we are going to do some kind of entertainment but in addition to that we're also going to do an auction, a very popular event ever year. We auction off all sorts of things, including a guest rogue spot on the show, among other things. The JREF is going to be doing, auctioning some items at the same time as well. And we expanded the dinner to three hours, so it's a full three hours with the SGU. A lot of our skeptical colleagues show up as well.

R: You're going to be so sick of us by the end of this dinner.

S: (laughs)

E: Oh yeah.

R: Let me tell ya.

E: You'll be heading for the bathrooms.

R: You'll be like, get out of my face, Steve, Jesus leave me alone.

E: I just ate, god.

S: I love, these dinners have been a lot of fun, we really enjoy it.

R: Yeah.

J: TAM is awesome, I recommend anyone who hasn't gone yet, you definitely should go check it out, it really is, it's the single biggest gathering of skeptics and...

S: Yeah there were 1600 people there last year.

J: Yeah, you're going to meet a lot of famous skeptics, and you know people who write blogs and podcasters and lecturers and authors and everything, and then you get to just hang out with other skeptics and there's a lot of time to socialise and everything, and you know TAM is just the event that you have to make at least once or twice in your life.

R: And if you're a woman, and you would like to go to TAM but you're not sure you can afford it, Skeptchick and Surly Amy are once again running the Surly Women Grants for TAM. You can go to [http://skepchick.org/ Skeptchick] and you'll find a link for the application, if you would like to apply for a grant. And if you'd like to help us raise money to send women, you can purchase a "you can make a difference" necklace from Surly Amy at [http://surly.etsy.com surly.etsy.com] and all that money goes towards helping more women get to TAM.

S: Um, and there's other special stuff which we will be talking about in the coming weeks. That's enough of a teaser for now for TAM.

== Who's That Noisy? (55:11)==

S: Evan.

E: Steve.

S: We're moving on to Who's That Noisy? Taken a couple of weeks off from WTN.

E: Yeah, it happens around the time of our live shows, NECSS and whatnot. But we're back to it and I'll replay for you all the last Who's That Noisy from episode 353. Here we go.

<blockquote>25 years, General Mills has been iron fortifying cereal. It's really iron, it's called roughly sheared ingot iron, so you're eating nails for breakfast.

This guy has no idea.</blockquote>

S: Hmmm.

R: Eating nails for breakfast.

B: Yummy.

E: Who does that sound like?

R: Some jerk.

E: (laughs) A Jerk named [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Spangler Steve Spangler], perhaps? Author, professional speaker, Emmy Award winner, science teacher, founder of two companies, toy maker and trained magician. And he goes around and he has shows on the internet and on TV and he teaches people about science and fun in explosive sorts of ways. In fact he's most famous for the popular experiment of dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet coke and the result being the geyser effect.

R: Oh, yeah.

B: Oh, that's him.

R: OK, he's all right.

S: He's a good guy.

R: He's all right.

E: He's a good guy, he's a good guy. But he brings up an interesting point about the iron in cereal. Fortified iron, meaning added after the fact, not part of the natural ingredients. So are we really eating nails, Steve? That's the question.

S: Oh yeah. So...

(laughter)

E: And they're good for you.

J: I ate nails for breakfast as a kid, every day.

S: Yeah, it's fortified with iron, iron is iron. It's usually powdered. You think of iron filings, you think of something that you have, remember those toys where you could put beards and moustaches on people by moving the iron filings around with a magnet?

E: Still have one.

R: They also make a version with a penis.

S: Yeah, I'm sure, so...

E: Oooh.

(laughter)

S: That's what I think comes into people's mind, but it's very finely, tiny, tiny micron-big filings or like atomised, so-called atomised iron or powdered iron. There is no safety issue in terms of like negative effects from the iron itself. And it does get absorbed into the system, you do get iron from eating it. The only real question is the so-called bioavailability, how much of the iron do you absorb? And is it sufficient? Is it a good source of iron? There are a couple of published studies that I found that concluded that it really is not a very effective form of iron, so the bioavailability is low, and that therefore if you like really need to get your iron, it's probably not the best source of it, again not that there's anything bad about it, it's just that you're not going to absorb as much as you would other forms of iron which are like chemical iron, you know.

E: Well, just eat more of the food that have the iron, that regularly occurs in those foods. Beans, meats, other things like that.

S: Right, exactly you probably shouldn't be relying upon fortified cereals for your vitamins in any case. What was Calvin's favourite cereal, chocolate-covered sugar bombs?

B: Yeah.

E: Yeah, that's right.

S: You're probably just better off eating lots of fruits and vegetables and having a well-rounded diet, you'll get plenty of iron, but since we're talking about it, guys, you know men, don't really need to eat a lot of iron. When you're growing up you do, but if you're an adult male who does not have a disease or anaemia or something, you don't really need to, you shouldn't be in fact, taking vitamins, uh iron supplements or anything with a lot of iron because you...

E: But women need more iron.

S: ...because we recycle our red blood cells and we recapture all of that iron so not much of it is lost. But women who are menstruating lose some of their iron every month and they...

R: I've heard that that's actually a myth, I've heard that most women don't actually lose enough blood during menstruation to cause anaemia.

S: Yeah, most women don't. Most women are not anaemic. But believe me, iron-deficiency anaemia is much more common in menstruating women than it is in men.

R: Yeah.

S: Yeah, so yeah I'm not saying every woman gets this, but some women can get iron deficiency anaemia because of that, and it's usually because they have heavy flow, you know they bleed more than the average woman, so that's usually the cause. But women have a higher tolerance for taking iron supplements because they are losing a little bit of iron on a regular basis whereas men don't unless you have some reason why you frequently bleed.

E: And you can get iron toxicity right, by taking too much.

S: If you take too much, yep. Some people have to donate blood frequently because they have an iron deposition disorder, that's actually the treatment. Actually they don't make you...

R: That's the most helpful disease ever.

S: They actually just take it out, they do [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flebotomy flebotomy], they don't, if you, they're doing it therapeutically, they don't actually donate it.

R: That's the least helpful disease ever.

E: We had a winner, there were several winners, but the first person to guess correctly, mddawson from the message boards, so well done mddawson, Dr. Dawson. Let's move on to this week, brand new, fresh out of the cage. Recently released.

J: Right, we got it, play it.

<blockquote>(high pitched sound, perhaps whistling)</blockquote>

J: I know what it is.

E: Do say.

R: It's a whistle?

J: It's the noise, like when you're wearing a cowboy outfit and you're riding a horse in the dessert.

E: It's the Clint Eastwood noise?

J: Right, it's the noise that just happens to happens when you happen to have the outfit and the gun and if you're smoking a, like a really small cigar.

R: This sounds right, yeah.

S: And if you're bad-ass enough.

E: That's right, and you never miss when you shoot, never.

J: Wouldn't it be cool if people like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson] like they hit a certain level of awesomeness and they just have theme music that just naturally occurs because they're so cool?

(laughter)

S: Well, you could make that happen, I mean it doesn't take, we have the technology to play music and follow people around with it.

J: No, no no no no. I'm not talking about...

E: That'll become a fad someday.

R: People have the technology to get restraining orders which is what I'm saying.

J: It's woven into nature, that if you become cool enough, you get theme music that just plays like when you enter a room.

S: So coolness would have to be an inherent property of nature rather than a cultural construct, is that what you're saying?

E: It's not a boom box, it's an iPod. Please. Uh, sguforums.com are our forums, you can go ahead and post your guess there once the episode is up, and info@theskepticsguide.org is our email address send us your guesses there. Good luck to everyone!

J: And go to TAM.

== Science or Fiction (61:54) ==

S: Let's move on to Science or fiction.

Iszi Lawrence: It's time for Science or Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fictitious, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week too.

R: Daah.

B: Yay.

S: You know, my themes are usually opportunistic, it's like whatever's there.

R: I was hoping to disabuse you of the theme habit.

S: No. This one, the theme this week is planetary astronomy. Phil Plait is going to be on our show next week, so I'm getting all the astronomy Science or Fiction out this week while he's not on the show.

R: Mmm.

S: OK, here we go. [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/lightning-planets.html Item number one]. Astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of expolanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges. [http://news.ufl.edu/2012/05/07/hot-jupiters/ Item number two]. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. And [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/22 item number three]. Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Jay, you're sounding sleepy so we'll get yours out of the way first.

J: So the one about the astronomers being able to tell things about an exoplanet's atmosphere by viewing the lightning, that is really cool and it makes sense because the lightning is going to interact with the atmosphere. So that makes sense, and I think that that is a very cool technique if indeed that's happening. So the one about the solar systems with hot Jupiters not having any other detectable planets in their system. Steve, would you care to tell me what a hot Jupiter is?

S: Yeah, a hot Jupiter is a Jupiter-sized planet that is very close to its parent star.

B: Bizarrely close.

J: That's interesting, I would think from my information that this one is fake because it's very rare, or I've never even heard of a solar system only having one planet. I wonder if the hot Jupiter is the result of say, all the planets colliding with each other or something like that, I have no idea, so. And then the last one. The one about using the moon as a giant mirror. Now we know that the moon is made of cheese, and if they use it as a mirror it could melt that cheese, and that could be delicious. I clearly don't know anything about that as well, I didn't read that, using the moon as a mirror, that sounds like Steve throwing a curve ball at us. OK, so I think that using the moon as a mirror is ridiculous, and I know that one is not the fake, so I'm going to pick the Jupiter one as the fake.

S: OK. Evan.

E: Demonstrate the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightning discharges. Sure, I think they could actually do that. How the lightning discharges react to the elements in the atmospheres of those planets probably gives off specific readings. So I think that one's correct. Jay, you went with the hot Jupiters being the fictions. Don't have other detectable planets in their system. None? Seems extreme. So they ate up all the debris that would have otherwise turned into the planets? Boy I just don't know about that. It seems extreme. So I might be leaning with Jay in that regard. The last one, yeah I've heard about the upcoming transit of Venus, but they're going to point Hubble at it using the moon as a giant mirror. I think so. So I'm leaning towards that one being science as well. Oh, I might be leaning with Jay about the Jupiters, the hot Jupiters, but there's something about the giant mirror that I have no idea how they would really accurately do that. And why would they do that, wouldn't there be, don't they have other telescopes that they can do this with, do they have to really use Hubble specifically or is this just an exercise of some sort? Maybe they're going to use it as an exercise. Oh crud, I have to guess. I'll say Hubble telescope as a giant mirror. I'm going to guess that one's fiction.

S: OK, Rebecca.

R: Uh yeah, we've been talking about trying to film something about the transit of Venus, and not we you guys and I, but my partner and I. And we've been talking about the difficulty of doing that because you can't just point a camera at the sun. Um, which yeah I assume is the problem with Hubble, so using the Moon as a giant mirror sounds like a really cool way for them at least to get around that. We can't use it, but that makes sense to me, it seems like a really great idea. So I was torn between hot Jupiter and exoplanet atmospheres, and hot Jupiter thing makes sense like Evan mentioned, maybe it collects all the mass that would have otherwise formed planets, it could collect all the mass into the hot Jupiter and then any moons that planet might have, I don't know. Um, I like the idea of detecting the composition of an atmosphere by looking at the lightning discharges. My question is whether or not we would be able to get a clear view of those storms. You know, we can see the storms on our actual Jupiter, but can we see the storms on exoplanets? I'm not really sure about that. So I'm thinking maybe that one is that astronomers have suggested that that is a thing that they could do in the future but I don't know that they've actually managed to view storms yet. So, I was thinking that's the fiction. So I'm going to go with that one then at the very least Steve doesn't have a sweep this week.

S: Nice.

R: And that's what really matters.

E: All right, Bob give us the reveal.

S: I prefer the even spreads, means I did a good job. Yep, three-way tie bob, you're the tie-breaker.

B: The transit of Venus across the moon. Yeah, I can kind of see that. I would think that you would need a very very accurate mapping of the moon so that you could predict the paths of the reflected light so that you could then reconstruct the image. I don't know what resolution you would need in order to do that, but it seems feasible. The second one, the hot Jupiters, this one makes sense to me as well because I believe the theory is that for these hot Jupiters to get so close to the sun it's going to have to traverse through the solar system to get down there somehow and I would think it would kind of make sense that, if I'm remembering correctly, that if it did do that then I could see how it would potentially disrupt other planetary orbits, possibly eject them or merge with them, so that kid of makes sense. Plus they're saying detectable planets. There could be small planets that we can't detect yet. So that can kind of make that work out in my mind too. The first one, I just totally agree with Rebecca on that, yeah we could determine if exoplanets have atmospheres, what temperature possibly the planet is, but detecting lightning discharges on an exoplanet? I don't think we could do that yet, I mean it's just so far away. For that reason, I'm going to say that that is fiction.

R: Woop!

S: OK.

R: GWR, that's right.

S: Got two people on number one, we'll take them in reverse order.

B: You went with me in my mind.

R: So awkward.

S: Astronomers plan to view the upcoming transit of Venus across the sun with the Hubble telescope by using the moon as a giant mirror. Evan, you think that one is the fiction.

E: Not any more.

S: And that one is... science.

R: Aw. Yay!

E: See, I got it right.

S: This one is science.

J: Oh, awesome.

S: Yeah, they recently pointed the Hubble at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_(crater) Tycho crater], not because they were interested in Tycho, even though it's cool.

B: Oh, just using a crater, sweet.

S: Yeah, but using it as a mirror to look at the transit of Venus which is coming up on June 5th or 6th and Bob and Rebecca made a lot of interesting points that are correct, that you know obviously you can't point the Hubble at the sun, it will fry it. You have to look at it indirectly. Do you guys know why they're doing this?

E: To see if they cab.

B: Uuum.

S: Yeah, pretty much. But they want...

R: Probably to learn more about Venus I assume.

S: No. It's not to learn more about Venus, really.

B: How about the test, to test transit method technologies, for detecting exoplanets.

S: Exactly, exactly.

R: Aaah.

S: They're doing this to test methods for looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets as they transit, so they're essentially using Venus as an example of an exoplanet transiting its sun, its star. And they want to see if they can tell, they want to see what the chemical make-up is of Venus', we know what the chemical make-up is of Venus' atmosphere.

B: Confirm it.

S: But what they specifically want to see, if they look at Venus with this technique, will it show signs of life? Now we know there are no signs of life on Venus so if it shows features that we would otherwise attribute to life that would make us more cautious about that interpretation if we get the same, similar results from exoplanets. So this is just informing us, it's like a control, so we know how to interpret using a similar technique, we could look at the starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet as it transits, as it passes in front of its star and then because of spectroscopy we could see the chemical make-up of the atmosphere and but you know, it's just refining that technique so that we know how to interpret it when we do it on exoplanets.

B: Great idea.

S: Yeah, is that cool?

R: Yeah, very cool.

S: Let's go back to number two. Astronomers find that solar systems with so-called hot Jupiters do not have any other detectable planets in their system. Jay, you think this one is the fiction and this one is also science.

J: Hey!

R: Woo Bob, high five.

(clap)

R: A little off, but that's all right.

B: Yay.

S: Yeah, this one's also interesting, I had to track down the original article again because I wanted to see exactly what did they determine here and how did they determine it? But what astronomers did was very interesting. This hypothesis has been out for a while, in fact I remember when I first heard it. This is like in the early days of detecting all of the exoplanets that we've been detecting. Some of the first worlds that we discovered were these hot Jupiters, you know Jovian-sized planets very close to their star. And even at the time astronomers were hypothesizing that, well probably what's happening is they're forming farther out from the star like where our own Jupiter is and then because of interactions among the planets, they're spiralling in to this very, very close orbit and on their way they'd kick out all the other planets. And so, if most systems, if this were typical, it might be that most systems out there would consist of just Jovian planets close to their suns and no other planets. And I was like, oh if that's true that would suck, that would really tank the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation Drake Equation] in terms of the probability of there being life out there. But it turns out this is a rare situation. Something like one percent of stars that we've investigated so far have this configuration, just this one solitary hot Jupiter very close to the sun. So that's good.

B: Luckily our Jupiter didn't do it.

R: Yeah, suck it Jupiter.

S: Exactly. So what the astronomers think is that the hot Jupiters started out in a very elliptical orbit and then the tidal forces as they pass close to their star dragged them into a more and more circular and very close orbit and over the millions of years where that happens they interact with the other planets that would be in the inner solar system, especially Earth-like worlds in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_zone Goldilocks zone], and they kick them out. But this isn't just theoretical, and that's the thing I was interested in. They actually looked over data of exoplanets and they found that in all of the systems that we have discovered so far with a hot Jupiter, they found no evidence of any other planets in the system. Then as controls they looked at systems that had warm Jupiters, Jupiters that are farther out from the sun and about 10% of them had evidence for other planets, and they looked at hot Neptunes, so smaller planets, still gas giants but much smaller than Jupiter, close to the sun, and 30% of them had signs of planets, other planets in the system. So they think that their techniques are working, that they would detect planets if they were there, but the systems with hot Jupiters just don't have them. Now of course, this doesn't tell us anything about planets beyond the orbit of the Jovian worlds, so there could still be Plutos out there whether they are planets or dwarf planets. But it does mean in a system with a hot Jupiter, there is no Earth in the Goldilocks zone, probably. That's what that means. Sounds interesting, it's observational not just theoretical. All of this means that astronomers have demonstrated the ability to detect the composition of exoplanet atmospheres by viewing massive lightening discharges is fiction. And everybody in fact was correct, just Jay and Evan, you focussed on the wrong thing. Yes, this technique should work, the lightning is interacting with the atmosphere and we can tell what chemicals are in the atmosphere like oxygen or methane or carbon dioxide by examining the interaction with the lightning. But astronomers are talking about looking at lightning in the atmosphere of planets in our own solar system from probes in orbit around those planets, so very close. Doing this sort of analysis in planets, in exoplanets you know, around other stars is hopeless, I mean they're so far away that they're not even talking about that. They're talking about close-up images of worlds in our own solar system. So good work Bob and Rebecca.

R: Thank you.

B: Thank you.

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (76:21) ==

S: So Jay, do you have a quote this week?

J: I have a quote sent in by a listener named Ulrich Fisher from Surrey, B.C. Canada.

E: From the Northern Realms.

J: The quote is:
<blockquote>Skepticism is the highest duty and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.</blockquote>
J: Who was that written by, Steve?

S: I believe that's a quote from T. H. Huxley, my fave...

J: Thomas Henry Huxley!

(laughter)

E: That's what the T. H. stands for.

S: My favourite philosopher. Darwin's bulldog.

B: Yeah.

J: T. H. Huxley is going to be at TAM this year.

S: (laughing) I wish. All right, well thanks Jay, that's a good one this week, and thank you guys for joining me this week.

B: Yeah, it's a good episode.

J: Thanks, Steve.

R: Thank you, Steve.

E: Hey, it's good to be back at the computer.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

{{Outro1}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 356

2012-05-18T19:35:31Z

Thejmii: /* Introduction */

Main Page

2012-05-18T18:52:05Z

Thejmii: /* 2008 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

5X5 Episode 3

2012-05-18T18:47:24Z

Thejmii: forgot the 5x5 navigation template (._.)

{{Template:5X5 infobox
|episodeID = 5X5 Episode 3
|Contents = Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
|episodeDate = 21st January 2008
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52008-01-20.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=7884.0
|}}

{{5x5intro}}

0:00:21.2 S: Hello, this is the SGU 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics. Today is Sunday, January 20th 2008. Our topic for this week is multilevel marketing or pyramid schemes. Now, Rebecca, I know that you're a long time critic of multilevel marketing...

0:00:37.2 R: I am indeed and to give those of you who might not know an idea: a pyramid scheme is basically on the outisde it looks like a company that sells a product but in fact nobody's making money off of selling the overpriced product. What they make money off of is by convincing people to pay for the opportunity to sell that product. For instance, you've got a big batch of, oh, I don't know, diet bars and to get them to be sold the company convinces you to buy a bunch of boxes from them which you then have to sell to your friends and family. You quickly realise that nobody actually wants to buy these overpriced things so in order for you to make money that means you have to convince your friends and family to do the same thing that the company did to you. In other words, buy the bars from you which they then sell to their friends and family. Very quickly it becomes obvious that nobody's going to make any money off of this except for the people at the top of the peak of the pyramid.

0:01:42.5 S: Right, and that's called a pyramid scheme when it gets to that level which is illegal. Such a scheme should be reported to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission FTC], in fact, the Federal Trade Commision in this country. But there's a fine sometimes between multilevel marketing, which is not illegal (although I think they're dubious in my opinion though they're not strictly illegal), and a pyramid scheme. The government actually gives some guidelines if you're considering becoming a multilevel marketer and Rebecca named a few of them: Does the product have a market? Is it overpriced? Do you have to recruit sellers or other distributors in order to make money or are you going to make money by selling a legitimate product at a fair price? That's the basic thing you need to consider.

0:02:29.9 J: Some of these companies though, sure like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay Mary Kay's] is a good example, in order for you to move up in the organisation you not only have to sell product but you have to have more recruits underneath you. So every level, and I think they have about 15 levels that you can go through, every time you want to take a step to the next level you need three or more recruits underneath you that add to your network. So there is a grey line and I think Mary Kay's are just below the waterline of being a pyramid scheme even though, you know, they sound fairly inocuous and everybody knows of the company and knows who they are.

0:03:03.8 S: Yeah, you also have to ask yourself, "why is the company choosing to sell their product with this model?" They say it's because they want their sales people to also be users so they'll be believers but it's because they want their sales people to also be buyers and I know a lot of snake oil schemes operate this way and essentially with some of these companies the distributors are often barely making enough money from selling products to support their own habbit, if you will, just to keep themselves in the overpriced supplement or snake oil that their buying.

0:03:33.7 J: Yeah, the goal is, and most people if you've talked to anyone or know anyone who's done this and if they're going to be honest with you, the real goal here is to get people underneath you. Because you won't get money until you get, it depends obviously on the particular company, but you won't make any real money until you have a large network underneath you generating sales for the company.

0:03:52.7 E: Yeah, a good website for our listeners to go and take a look at if they want to learn more about this [http://www.pyramidschemealert.org www.pyramidschemealert.org], seems like a pretty good resource. They're good at making the public aware of the pitfalls and what the red flags are for companies that are pyramid schemes and illegal multivel marketers.

0:04:11.3 B: I'll throw one statistic out there, pyramid schemes are losing propositions for at least 90% of the people that get involved.

0:04:18.0 R: Yeah, basically...

0:04:19.2 S: That's pretty bad odds

0:04:20.0 R: ...one thing to look out for is if it seems like a deal that's too good to be true it probably is.

0:04:24.3 S: So I guess the bottom line of this whole thing is: when it comes to multilevel marketing be skeptical.

0:04:29.1 E: Well said.

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

Talk:5X5 Episode 3

2012-05-18T18:44:52Z

Thejmii: added notes

==a few notes==
Just thought I'd add a few notes regarding the transcript. I kept in Rebecca's "oh, I don't know" as this is an intentional device that Rebecca uses (usually when referring to something specific when they have to speak in more general terms). Some of Jay's parts on the other hand could probably be tidied up a little bit to make them easier to read (of course it's a matter of readability vs. accuracy). I thought there was something else to add but now I've forgotten - I'll come back later if I remember. [[User:Thejmii|Thejmii]] ([[User talk:Thejmii|talk]]) 18:44, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

5X5 Episode 3

2012-05-18T18:33:13Z

Thejmii: first draft

{{Template:5X5 infobox
|episodeID = 5X5 Episode 3
|Contents = Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes
|episodeDate = 21st January 2008
|rebecca = y
|bob = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52008-01-20.mp3
|notesLink = http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=2&pid=3
|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=7884.0
|}}

{{5x5intro}}

0:00:21.2 S: Hello, this is the SGU 5x5, five minutes with five skeptics. Today is Sunday, January 20th 2008. Our topic for this week is multilevel marketing or pyramid schemes. Now, Rebecca, I know that you're a long time critic of multilevel marketing...

0:00:37.2 R: I am indeed and to give those of you who might not know an idea: a pyramid scheme is basically on the outisde it looks like a company that sells a product but in fact nobody's making money off of selling the overpriced product. What they make money off of is by convincing people to pay for the opportunity to sell that product. For instance, you've got a big batch of, oh, I don't know, diet bars and to get them to be sold the company convinces you to buy a bunch of boxes from them which you then have to sell to your friends and family. You quickly realise that nobody actually wants to buy these overpriced things so in order for you to make money that means you have to convince your friends and family to do the same thing that the company did to you. In other words, buy the bars from you which they then sell to their friends and family. Very quickly it becomes obvious that nobody's going to make any money off of this except for the people at the top of the peak of the pyramid.

0:01:42.5 S: Right, and that's called a pyramid scheme when it gets to that level which is illegal. Such a scheme should be reported to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission FTC], in fact, the Federal Trade Commision in this country. But there's a fine sometimes between multilevel marketing, which is not illegal (although I think they're dubious in my opinion though they're not strictly illegal), and a pyramid scheme. The government actually gives some guidelines if you're considering becoming a multilevel marketer and Rebecca named a few of them: Does the product have a market? Is it overpriced? Do you have to recruit sellers or other distributors in order to make money or are you going to make money by selling a legitimate product at a fair price? That's the basic thing you need to consider.

0:02:29.9 J: Some of these companies though, sure like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay Mary Kay's] is a good example, in order for you to move up in the organisation you not only have to sell product but you have to have more recruits underneath you. So every level, and I think they have about 15 levels that you can go through, every time you want to take a step to the next level you need three or more recruits underneath you that add to your network. So there is a grey line and I think Mary Kay's are just below the waterline of being a pyramid scheme even though, you know, they sound fairly inocuous and everybody knows of the company and knows who they are.

0:03:03.8 S: Yeah, you also have to ask yourself, "why is the company choosing to sell their product with this model?" They say it's because they want their sales people to also be users so they'll be believers but it's because they want their sales people to also be buyers and I know a lot of snake oil schemes operate this way and essentially with some of these companies the distributors are often barely making enough money from selling products to support their own habbit, if you will, just to keep themselves in the overpriced supplement or snake oil that their buying.

0:03:33.7 J: Yeah, the goal is, and most people if you've talked to anyone or know anyone who's done this and if they're going to be honest with you, the real goal here is to get people underneath you. Because you won't get money until you get, it depends obviously on the particular company, but you won't make any real money until you have a large network underneath you generating sales for the company.

0:03:52.7 E: Yeah, a good website for our listeners to go and take a look at if they want to learn more about this [http://www.pyramidschemealert.org www.pyramidschemealert.org], seems like a pretty good resource. They're good at making the public aware of the pitfalls and what the red flags are for companies that are pyramid schemes and illegal multivel marketers.

0:04:11.3 B: I'll throw one statistic out there, pyramid schemes are losing propositions for at least 90% of the people that get involved.

0:04:18.0 R: Yeah, basically...

0:04:19.2 S: That's pretty bad odds

0:04:20.0 R: ...one thing to look out for is if it seems like a deal that's too good to be true it probably is.

0:04:24.3 S: So I guess the bottom line of this whole thing is: when it comes to multilevel marketing be skeptical.

0:04:29.1 E: Well said.

{{5x5outro}}

Main Page

2012-05-18T16:15:41Z

Thejmii: /* 2012 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Main Page

2012-05-18T16:15:09Z

Thejmii: /* 2011 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 {{i}}

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Main Page

2012-05-18T16:14:45Z

Thejmii: /* 2006 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 (incomplete)

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 {{i}}

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Main Page

2012-05-18T16:14:20Z

Thejmii: /* 2005 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 (incomplete)

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 (incomplete)

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 {{i}}
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Main Page

2012-05-18T15:41:55Z

Thejmii: /* 2008 */

__NOTOC__
==Welcome to the SGU Transcripts==

We aim to provide transcripts of the [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ Skeptics' Guide to the Universe] podcast. We're just getting started, please help!

If you'd like to transcribe a podcast, just sign up and add a note below to say which episode you're working on. That way we can avoid duplicating work. If you'd like to just try your hand at transcribing, start with an SGU 5x5 as these are much shorter.

For help with creating and editing pages, and other useful information for putting together a transcription page, go to the [[Help:Getting Started|Getting Started]] page.

== The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Transcripts ==
[[File:LogoSGU.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx SGU podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]
* [[Skeptical Quote Collection]]

=== 2012 ===

* [[SGU Episode 356]], May 12 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 355]], May 5 2012
* [[SGU Episode 354]], Apr 28 2012
* [[SGU Episode 353]], Apr 21 2012
* [[SGU Episode 352]], Apr 14 2012
* [[SGU Episode 351]], Apr 7 2012
* [[SGU Episode 350]], Mar 31 2012
* [[SGU Episode 349]], Mar 24 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 348]], Mar 17 2012
* [[SGU Episode 347]], Mar 10 2012
* [[SGU Episode 346]], Mar 3 2012
* [[SGU Episode 339]], Jan 14 2012 (incomplete)
* [[SGU Episode 338]], Jan 7 2012

=== 2011 ===

* [[SGU Episode 328]], Oct 29 2011
* [[SGU Episode 308]], Jun 08 2011 (incomplete)

=== 2008 ===

* [[SGU Episode 165]], Sep 17 2008
* [[SGU Episode 156]], Jul 16 2008
* [[SGU Episode 144]], Apr 23 2008

=== 2007 ===

* [[SGU Episode 109]], August 24, 2007

=== 2006 ===

* [[SGU Episode 31]], Feb 22 2006 (incomplete)

=== 2005 ===

* [[SGU Episode 5]], Jun 29 2005 ''(incomplete)''
* [[SGU Episode 2]], Jun 1 2005
* [[SGU Episode 1]], May 4 2005

== The Skeptics' Guide 5x5 Transcripts ==
[[File:Logo5x5.png|right]]
* [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcast.aspx?mid=2 SGU 5x5 podcast archive]
* [http://sguforums.com/index.php/board,1.0.html Forum]

=== 2012 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 110]], Apr 11 2012, Naturalistic Fallacy
* [[5X5 Episode 109]], Apr 4 2012, Celebrity Pseudoscience
* [[5X5 Episode 108]], Mar 28 2012, Cancer Cure
* [[5X5 Episode 107]], Mar 21 2012, Chilean UFO
* [[5X5 Episode 106]], Mar 19 2012, Availability Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 105]], Mar 7 2012, Representativeness Heuristic
* [[5X5 Episode 104]], Feb 22 2012, WiFi

=== 2009 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 55]], Jan 28 2009, Skepticism 101 - Poisoning the Well
* [[5X5 Episode 54]], Jan 21 2009, Skepticism 101 - False Dichotomy
* [[5X5 Episode 53]], Jan 13 2009, Anecdotal Evidence
* [[5X5 Episode 52]], Jan 6 2009, Atlantis

=== 2008 ===

* [[5X5 Episode 45]], Nov 11 2008, Chi and other forms of vitalism
* [[5X5 Episode 13]], Mar 30 2008, Man convicted of molestation claims he was raped by Bigfoot. {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 3]], Jan 21 2008, Multilevel Marketing and Pyramid Schemes {{i}}
* [[5X5 Episode 2]], Jan 13 2008, Ghost Photographs
* [[5X5 Episode 1]], Jan 06 2008, The National Health Service of the UK plans to regulate alternative medicine

== Getting started ==
* Consult the [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [//www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce MediaWiki release mailing list]

Template:I

2012-05-18T15:41:47Z

Thejmii: added this for incomplete transcriptions for the main page

[[File:Emblem-pen.png|10px|link=]]

5X5 Episode 3

2012-05-18T15:38:19Z

Thejmii: will try and transcribe this tonight