SGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]

SGU Episode 1064

2025-12-28T21:57:39Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:26:35) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1064
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1064|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1064.jpg
|caption = Unable to acquire caption for image from OpenAI.
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "It is easy to get international agreement in science. Scientists have all the same standards - they are set not by beliefs, but by what works best. Of necessity, there is therefore universal unity. And unity makes for goodwill.” Bernd Heinrich - professor emeritu, biology department, University of Vermont, author of a number of books about nature and biology. Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior.
|qowAuthor = submitted by Terry from American Canyon CA
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1064|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, November 25th, 2025 and this is your host, Stephen Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' And we have a guest, Andrea Jones For Andrea, welcome back.

'''C:''' Thanks for having me back, always love hanging out with you guys.

'''S:''' So how's it going?

'''C:''' Oh, you know, everything in the United States and the world is totally fine. So it's all good. Nothing interesting to report. Yeah. No, this is. Fine, this is fine. Yeah, I'm hanging in there despite I'm making an apple pumpkin bread as we speak, so once. A year. I don't cook, but once a year I'm seized with the desire to do so, and today was a. Medical day for that so.

'''J:''' Do you happen to have a good recipe?

'''C:''' No, I just found something online. I was going to just make a pumpkin bread, but I had two apples that were going to go bad. And so I was like, we're having apple pumpkin bread. Nice. Yeah. If it's any good I'll give you the recipe and if it's not I'll keep it to myself.

'''J:''' You, you had me at Bread, so I'm intrigued. At least take take a picture of it and send it to me.

'''C:''' I will. All right. Excellent. How are you all doing?

'''S:''' Good. So Andrew, we have 4 episodes in. We recorded 4 episodes of our Political Reality podcast.

'''C:''' Yes, yes, 4 episodes and some intro material.

'''J:''' Yes, that's right.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' And what's funny is like, you know, because we couldn't record the last two weeks because Steve was in Dubai. And it's really good that nothing like impactful or interesting or noteworthy has happened in the United States over the last two weeks. I'm glad we don't. We're not behind the 8 ball on anything. Very.

'''S:''' Slow, very slow news cycle, yeah.

'''C:''' The administration had the courtesy of not doing anything.

'''B:''' Yeah, my God, Are you guys going to release those four? Are they just like hopelessly out of date at this point?

'''C:''' It's a. Good question, Bob.

'''B:''' No, the podcast is largely Evergreen.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's not news. It's not like, yeah, it's, it's although sometimes we reflect what's going on in the news. But the topics are more, yeah, they're more Evergreen.

'''C:''' Yeah, the hope is that they're Evergreen. I suppose if we undergo a massive political change, things will stop being Evergreen. But if the world continues, then that it's Evergreen, Evergreen enough. But it is something that we, you know, we've all been talking about is like to what extent do we need to tether to the news? And I think to do anything political that's current it, it all but has to be a Daily Show, I think, because they change too fast.

'''J:''' The point of this show is, you know, in the, IT could be in the context of things that are happening on a weekly basis, you know, 'cause there is so many different things happening that that it would bring up a lot of different topics. Like for example, with the Epstein votes going through the House and the Senate. That would be a great episode to discuss just how a bill is created and how what's its pathway to being approved or denied.

'''S:''' Didn't we see that on Schoolhouse Rock already?

'''E:''' David.

'''J:''' But you get the idea. The point is like, we can't be sitting on top of the news like as it comes out because that would mean that we're Youtubers that like are recording, you know, 6 hours a day. And that's not the point here.

'''C:''' Yeah, I mean, and some of the topics, you know, we're we're choosing them with an eye to what's relevant. So one of the I don't know if we're allowed to reveal what we of.

'''B:''' Course, yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah, so one of the episodes is about voting systems. And, you know, where does ranked choice voting fit in the other types of systems out there? What are the pros and cons of them? And ranked choice voting is something that has been in the news because New York City uses it locally, It's been used in different elections around the US It certainly has has legs overseas as well. And so it's something that's both in the news but also not like the most cutting edge news ever in the world. But I am reading that Democrats are thinking about using ranked choice voting for more elections in the future in the US So it's. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes, Steve and I disagree about about ranked choice of voting, but but it would be better than what we have. I can.

'''S:''' Tell yeah being I'll tell you the best possible option, but a lot better than what we have.

'''C:''' That's right.

'''B:''' OK.

'''S:''' I'd love to see it at the presidential level at national elections.

'''B:''' Oh jeez.

'''C:''' Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

'''B:''' It's history.

'''C:''' I've, I've only participated in it in very local elections. And apart from the mayoral race in New York City, there were a lot of races where I didn't know who any of the candidates were, never mind knew how to rank them. And so for something like president or Senate or governor, it's, it's a little more fun, I think because you know more about the candidate. You can really, you know, think through third party candidates and other things. Like that?

'''S:''' So you didn't agonize over your fifth choice for Comptroller?

'''C:''' I did because I'm an A dedicated. It is in, but one one might not. I did actually sit in the booth forever because the service was terrible and I was Googling all the Comptroller choices. I couldn't tell you the name of a sing. I couldn't even tell you who I ranked first. But I'm sure they're doing a great job. Nope. They haven't even been sworn in. Yeah, I I'm not sure what's going on.

'''E:''' Well then they are doing a good job.

'''C:''' Yeah, I just can't believe they spell controller wrong all the time. So embarrassing.
== Quicky with Bob (05:15) ==
Helion Fusion Update
https://www.helionenergy.com/polaris/

'''S:''' All right, well, let's get to some Science News. Bob, give us an update on the Helion fusion. Is it Helion or Helion? Probably Helion.

'''B:''' Yeah, probably I'm.

'''S:''' Just I'm guessing.

'''B:''' Thank you, Steve. This is your quickie with Bob. Back in Episode 932, I talked about the company Helion Energy, which was working with Microsoft to commercialize fusion energy and their design was interesting. It was a hybrid technology. Jay say it the hybrid they call it Magneto inertial fusion, which is a hybrid of magnetic and inertial confinement, which we've talked about on the show. Also a marvel, you know, many times and it basically bars the ideas of of magnetic confinement like iders or is it eater? I think it's eater right eaters Takamak and inertial compression like the the laser implosions at Lawrence Livermore that actually had some notoriety of God. That was a bunch of years ago now a few years ago night where they hit hit ignition. But in their process, which is interesting, electromagnetic field smashed deuterium and helium 3 plasma together to fuse some of it right. So you got some fusion going on and then the then the motion of the expanding fusion plasma pushes on the surrounding magnetic fields and they're taking that energy that's inherent in the magnetic field when it's being pushed. They take that and converted directly into electricity and it's it's this direct conversion into electricity that's one of the more interesting attributes of their technology. This cuts out the inherent inefficiencies that come along with using heat to make steam and then to run turbines and then do using that to generate electricity. So it cuts out a couple of the middle men in the middle there. And this goes kind of directly into electricity, which is really interesting. So all of this ties into their general strategy. They want energy production to be so efficient that they don't need to chase ignition like every other everyone else is doing. And ignition is the the point where you've got basically a self-sustaining fusion reaction going on. And also there's other little attributes as well, but that's the main thrust of ignition so that they think they don't need to really chase that. So back then they were, I talked about, hey, they're working on, they have their 6th generation fusion generator and it reached 100,000,000°C and rah, rah, rah wasn't that awesome. And they were talking about that they will create their 7th generation fusion generator called Polaris and it should be ready by 2024. And they said with this first prototype, they wanted to demonstrate electricity produced directly from fusion, potentially even net electric. OK, so that's what they were, that's what was happening a few years ago in 2023. So now we're seeing Helion back in the news and they, they have in fact created their Polaris fusion generator and it, and it's a doozy. It's a, they have monster. They have a monster capacity, delivering 100 gigawatts into the machine. So think about that. 100 gigawatts. That's like grid scale power, right in one building. Of course, it's only for microseconds, but it's still quite impressive. Their CEO says it runs at 100 million degrees. I thought that's what Trento was doing. So that didn't really increase at all, it seems, if these numbers are right. But that's fine. 10 times the sun's core temperature, that seems like enough, enough, right there, isn't it? And they also mentioned that their coaxial cables can carry these pulses. Those coaxial cables are 720 miles long if you put them all to get laid, them end to end. So that's a lot of cables, a lot of coax. This is now this is one thing that was that was kind of a discouraging. The details of their progress are only kind of minimally and cautiously available, right? Because they and they, they that's because ostensibly because they had Chinese competitors steal bits of their intellectual property in the past. So that that theft of course, is totally believable, right? We read about that in the news all the time. But it does make it hard for the scientific community to properly assess their chances of success. And it's also seems like, oh, really, you can't give us a lot of information. That's just it's, it's a it's a definitely a red flag, But I understand if it truly is because of that, you know, Chinese competitors stealing their intellectual property, then I would understand why they would be, you know, so reticent. Let's see also in the also in the news, they're still aiming for this idea of minimal fusion, which actually wasn't very. I don't think it was. They clearly discussed that a few years ago, because that really would that wasn't in my notes When I looked at them from a few years ago. They were just pushing for fusion. It didn't seem like they, I didn't we hear the term or the phrase chasing ignition that they're not chasing ignition. So if they didn't make it clear a few years ago, they're definitely making it clear now that this is that they're going to rely on these efficiencies. So here's a quote from Helion CEO and Co founder David Curtly. He said we can recover electricity at high efficiency. We require a lot less fusion. Fusion is the hard part. My goal, ironically, is to do the minimum amount of fusion that we can deliver a product to the customer and generate electricity. So very interesting, of course the question remains, you know, is it, is that going to be enough? Is a little, is a little fusion enough? So Helion has also broken ground and started work on their Orion plant. They did, they mentioned that a few years ago that they were going to do that. So they they're on track for that. The Orion plant has been worked on and that this is going to be their first commercial plan. The technology, the idea is that the technology that they develop in Polaris, which has been running for most of 2025, I believe that technology will be ported into Orion at a grind. It's going to be the plan is to have a 50 MW class plan online, they predict by 2028. So that's when they, a few years ago they were saying 2028 as well. So it's kind of, I don't know what to make of that. It's, it's, it's, I'm encouraged that they, that they're not saying, well, it's going to be 2030 or 2032 now, which is what, which is what we would expect, right, Steve? You'd expect these initial dates that are over that are a few years old to be pushed back. So they're still saying 2028 and it's going to be when it's done, it's going to be under a power purchase agreement with Microsoft so they can feed their hungry data centers. But Helion's competitors are of course skeptical that they're going that their that their competitors are going to hit the 2028 goal. I got one quote from Ben Levitt. He's head of R&D at Zaps Energy. He said, Ben said, I don't see a commercial application in the next few years happening. There's a lot of complicated science and engineering still to be discovered and be applied. He says he doesn't see it happening in the next few years. Does that mean it could potentially happen in in five years or is he thinking more 1010 years or more? I don't know. I couldn't find any of the quotes around that. Other people are worrying that if helium screws up badly, it could embarrass and taint the whole industry. So yeah, that that's a concern as well. I mean, that's that's something that we seem to be making such cool progress in the past decade. I'd hate to have a, you know, what was that called? The AI winter where where you know, resources dry up.

'''S:''' Bob, let me ask you a couple questions really quick. So I I'm reading that they have not achieved net energy production.

'''B:''' Yeah, I didn't see, I didn't see, like I said, I didn't see too much information about what the status is. And because they're, they're saying that because they, you know, they're trying to. Yeah.

'''S:''' But that's just even saying like that's not information, that's not technical information that could be stolen. Just saying we have achieved net energy or be this is how close we are to net energy. That's sort of the bottom line here. That's like a big thing that so.

'''B:''' It is and I am discouraged.

'''S:''' That they're not saying.

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely, you know, a red flag right there. And they've been running this thing apparently, from what I could tell Polaris, they've been running this thing like all year, like every day, they say every day. So.

'''S:''' Here's the other thing. So the question I have, so this is producing electricity directly, right? It's not going to steam and turn a turbine like like the other reactor. It's just there's the fusion will create a, you know, magnetic field that can induce current directly in, you know, their coils, right?

'''B:''' As a plasma is expanding because, yeah, plasma is going to be energized by the by the by the by the fusion that's happening inside, right. So the fusion is going to be happening within within the plasma and that's going to expand the plasma field and the magnetic field around it is going to kind of try to hold it in. It's going to be it's going to be, you know, expanding. So the energy that the plasma is putting into the magnetic field to expand it is what they tap into Yeah, and convert directly into electricity. So that's one of their is.

'''S:''' That work that thing theory or is that actually happened? They have a proof of concept there.

'''B:''' Yeah, I think they prove that with with with Generation 6, I think. But how, you know, but how efficient it is is another question. I'm pretty sure that that's actually happening. And that's one, that's one of the the key interesting aspects of their technology. And but I don't know how well, I don't know how well it's happening. You know what I mean? Yeah, so, so, yeah. But like I said, I'm fascinated by their approach of not chasing ignition. But will it be good enough? You know, is, is that, is that going to be enough if not having ignition just just because it's your whole entire process is super efficient. So you're kind of like making the maximum use of what little fusion is actually happening, happening. I, I will say I'm, I'm optimistically skeptical about this. You know, I've even burned too many times. Some of this looks really interesting, but I'd like to have some, some other people, some other real scientists looking at this because we had some I I looked at, I remember a few years ago, some scientists were skeptical. So check out that episode for some of those, some of their quotes. So yeah, so they were skeptical a few years ago. I haven't come across too much of that right now, but it's still kind of, you know, it's still kind of early in terms of this, this Polaris. I mean, it's been running for a while, but I haven't read too much about it. But if this works, this this would be a hell of a coup. And they they could actually say, you know, our fusion is on your power bill. There were, there were actually be power bills going out that that might list fusion. That's one of the sources which would be really cool.

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Bob.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== CRISPR Wheat Can Source Its Own Nitrogen (15:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251123115435.htm
|article_title = CRISPR wheat that makes its own fertilizer | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Jay, we have another sort of cutting edge Science News item. You're going to tell us about using CRISPR to make GMO wheat.

'''J:''' Yeah, this, this is really cool. So wheat draws almost everything it needs from, of course, the soil, right. It's roots take up minerals. Like what? What would it be? Steve, do you have any idea of what we would need?

'''S:''' From the soil, nitrogen, phosphorus.

'''J:''' That's pretty good. Anybody. Yeah. Potassium, zinc, iron, right.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' So. So the soil microbes and the fungi, are you guys like fungi or fungi?

'''C:''' Fungi.

'''E:''' I don't know, man. I go back and forth. Yeah, it depends on the time of day. I don't.

'''C:''' Know what about evenings, Evan?

'''J:''' You might even think.

'''E:''' Oh, definitely fungi.

'''C:''' Yeah, that's right.

'''E:''' Yeah, more of. A fun.

'''J:''' So you have the, the soil microbes and you have the the fungi and they help unlock these nutrients that the wheat roots, you know, either physically can't reach on our own or can't use in the form that's present in the in the soil, right? And water acts as this delivery system that moves those nutrients, you know, into the roots as, as you know, the the water is moving around in the soil or if someone is watering, you know, that helps distribute these nutrients around the roots. Now, the atmosphere contributes carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, right? But there is one critical nutrient we cannot access directly from the air even though it surrounds the plant. Now I will ask you again, do you guys know what nutrient that is?

'''S:''' Talking about nitrogen.

'''J:''' Steve, you're so smart. I'm so proud of you. Yeah, it is nitrogen. So nitrogen is the main ingredient wheat uses to build the proteins in health in in the healthy leaves. Now protein, as you may know, is is present in in wheat and gluten is a protein, but gluten doesn't improve the flavor. It only improves The Chew. And and there's other reasons why Baker's want it. But that's that's a side note. We can't use atmospheric nitrogen because it's locked up as N 2. And This is why modern agriculture has to rely heavily on nitrogen fertilizers, right? And there's a ton of money in that. The problem is that wheat is not an efficient user of it, meaning that, you know, wheat, your typical wheat field takes up to about 30 to 50% of the nitrogen that is fertilized to it, right? Or that's applied to it. And the rest goes into, well, the problem is, Bob, that there's, there's, there's downstream effects literally like run off into waterways.

'''B:''' You can run up OK. Yeah, yeah.

'''J:''' It's a terrible groundwater.

'''S:''' It really is a big problem.

'''E:''' Do other plants have a more efficient use of the nitrogen?

'''J:''' I did not check all 3,000,292. No, I'm sure, I'm sure some do EV. But, you know, wheat being a massive crop like this is like a, a worldwide unbelievably necessary crop. It's used for so much. Yeah. It's, it's just one of our most important crops. And in fact, it was one of the crops that let humans not be, you know, not have to be nomadic and let them stay and, and, you know, and grow wheat and, and then, you know, there's a yeah, without a doubt. There's a couple of other things that happen. It converts into nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas. And there is a, a, a process called volatilization, which means that the, the nitrogen goes into the air as ammonia. So there's lots of different things, lots of chemistry happening here. And of course, they're a real monetary downside here is that farmers lose money because they're buying a lot more nitrogen than that is actually being applied to the, the thing that they're trying to fix. And like I said, waterways will get polluted, atmosphere picks up more nitrous oxide, just a lot of nasty things happening with all that fertilizer. The good news here is that, like Steve said, these researchers at UC Davis found a way to push wheat into working with soil bacteria that can convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form that the plant can actually use. So this is not a full replacement for fertilizer, but it changes how the plant interacts with the microbial world around its roots. And this is really interesting. So let me get into some of these details here. Their work is built around a pretty simple idea. Instead of trying to convert the wheat into something it's not like a bean that grows nitrogen fixing nodules, right? You know, they, you know, sure, they could, they could borrow some programming from a bean and try to, you know, push it into the DNA of the wheat and all that. But that's a big deal, and it's really difficult called and, you know, it's expensive, time consuming, and there's no guarantee that it's going to work. So they decided to make a small change in the wheat that influences the soil microbes. And they decided that if they could pull this off, that bacteria would do most of the work here. And that's what the study actually tested. The researchers started by first testing thousands of natural plant chemicals to see which ones could influence the bacteria that live in the soil. And this was, of course, like a very time consuming process. But they scroll through all of these different chemicals. Only a few of the chemicals actually panned out, and one in particular called apinigen. Apinigen, a pigeonen, It's a pigeon in there.

'''E:''' It's a pigeon.

'''J:''' Yeah, not an easy word to pronounce. For people like me, this one stood out as the best. And a pigeonem is a natural compound that many plants make, and it belongs to a family of chemicals called flavones, right? And flavones are are substances plants used to for communication. It's kind of like they're pheromones. And they also use it for defense and dealing with stress in the soil. These chemicals connect. They can act like messages that guide or influence nearby microbes. When wheat roots release apogen into the soil, certain nitrogen fixing bacteria respond very strongly to it. So the bacteria that responds, it actually draws them towards the roots and encourages this bacteria to form a protective biofilm. And this is crucial to this whole thing. The biofilm gives the bacteria the low oxygen conditions that they need to convert nitrogen that's in the air into a form that the plant can use. So the team used CRISPR gene editing and what they did was they increased the amount of apogenic that wheat produces in its roots. And it's, you know, it, it actually worked it, it, it was brilliant how they figured this out. The roots will then release extra apogen into the surrounding soil and epigen. And they know what I mean. Under these nitrogen limited conditions, though, the edited wheat performed actually better than regular, you know, quote UN quote normal wheat. It had higher nitrogen content in its leaves and the roots. It had stronger photosynthetic activity and better grain yield, which is fantastic. Yeah, the soil, Right. I mean, I was really surprised to read about that, that it didn't just equal and solve a problem better.

'''E:''' Yields, I mean all, all across the board with everything we need it.

'''S:''' And to clarify, that's under what they called limited nitrogen fertilization conditions. So that's with less fertilizer than you would normally give.

'''J:''' So the soil around the engineer plants, it also showed increased nitrogen conversion activity when they measured it using standard isotopes and biochemical tests. The pattern actually held across all their experiments and more apigen in the minimum in the root zone, Apigenin there's more of it in the root zone and allowed more bacterial nitrogen fixation, which leads to healthier plants. When you know, it's let's say fertilization is scarce, so the farmer can't, you know, afford it or whatever the problem is, the plants can survive more more likely to survive with with a lot less fertilizer. And there is of course a practical angle here. So the wheat plant supplement part of its nitrogen requirements through this coop bacteria, this is a really big deal. It doesn't eliminate the need for fertilizer, but it really does reduce how much it needs. And of course the downstream effect, like I said, all of that decreases when you use less fertilizer. So the crisper wheat stayed productive when they cut the nitrogen to half or even to 30% of the normal application, it continued to function perfectly fine. And under under those low fertilizer conditions, it still outperforms conventional wheat by a wide margin. Of course, you know, we have to be cautious here. You know, these are controlled experiments. They're useful. But, you know, putting, you know, trying this in in the real world to feel a lot more. Complicated. Yeah, they, yeah, these field trials, there's a lot more variables in the soil. There's unpredictable weather, you know, there's complex microbial communities that are, that are all working with each other and the ends maybe even sometimes competing with each other. You have soil ecosystem shift, you know, not just from no global warming, but like just as you go, you know, throughout a region, the, the the ecosystems this are different from here to there could be even 50 miles away. You have a totally different scenario going on. And of course these bacteria might not behave consistently from season to season, but but you know, again, you know, this is the beginning. Like they, they found something, it works. It's you know, it's, it's a definite thing. The mechanisms work. You know, it's it's one of those things that I it seems likely to pan out. I know that they're going to have to make modifications and it's going to take some time, but this is a real win here. So just to clarify a.

'''S:''' Couple of things that you said, but I just wanted to emphasize them a little bit. So there are crops that fix their own nitrogen. They all do it through these bacteria right there. The plants aren't doing it but it's always bacteria like the legumes you mentioned. The nodules with the nodules do is they create the low oxygen environment that for the bacteria to thrive and fix their nitrogen there. There are programs to try to identify the set of genes necessary to make that happen so that we could then make fully nitrogen fixing crops, like out of the ones that aren't right, including wheat. This is like a all right. They found an easy way to do a partial fix where, Yeah, again, it's rather than these complicated nodules, it's going to create the biofilm to to to create the lower oxygen environment. And we'll see. Remains to be seen how much they'd be able to whack back fertilizer. But even like reducing nitrogen fertilizer by 10% could save a billion dollars a year, yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, and also it, you know, this is this is the beginning of this study doesn't mean that they couldn't even make it more productive, you know, with a lot more experiment and everything. But this, you know, and this is the reason why I picked this news item is, you know, we talk a lot about these types of things like, hey, there's a cool thing that happened. You know, it's it's in play. They're they're studying it. But I think it's important for us to recognize here that like CRISPR, which is a platform, you know, is, you know, when you think about what it takes to create a platform like Chris, CRISPR and how many years and years and decades it takes to, you know, just get scientists to start using it. So CRISPR was discovered essentially in 1987. I think it took until like, you know what, we're going like 2010 plus before it started to kind of hit the science scene and people were really using it to do stuff. And then of course, since then, we've made tons of advancements on it. It's incredibly powerful, it's incredibly useful, and we need scientific funding to let scientists just experiment and try different things and see what we can do with it. Now, particularly in a situation where we have global warming, which is which is going to change so many things about, you know, where arid land even is on the planet, let alone how productive it's going to be. We do need advancements to help us continue to feed the 8 billion plus people that we have and you know, and more as the decades go by. So I think it's an important reminder that we we show some respect to the scientists who created this and who are working with it now. And and, you know, realize that it is important that money is leveraged this way to find out these discoveries. Andrea, I noticed that you're quiet here and I'll take that as disrespect. Do you not like crisper?

'''U:''' No, I like Chris.

'''C:''' Some of my best friends are crisper. J No.

'''U:''' I.

'''C:''' Literally was like, oh, I have two questions, but both of them might be things you've already covered on the podcast. So 1 is a really simple one, which is, is there such thing as wild wheat or have we domesticated all of it? You know how like there's no more wild cows. And then my other one is what sorts of things happening with CRISPR are you all covering on the show that like that you're super excited about? Because this seems awesome. And I, I remember being super excited about CRISPR when it came to malaria and when it came to a couple of other sorts of like like infectious disease related things. And this is I'm not familiar with it in agriculture. So I was just kind of curious what else, what else I should be excited about. Well, there is wild.

'''J:''' Wheat and it's still out there.

'''C:''' Can we?

'''J:''' It's. One of the ancestors of domesticated wheat. I'm. You probably can. I Corn, wheat is, yeah.

'''S:''' Take a look at it.

'''J:''' To see what the see what the you know, to see what the head of it looks like, to see if there's actually anything there that you can, you can turn it. I only thought of.

'''C:''' It when you were talking about, you know, the importance of the agricultural revolution, I was like, Oh yeah, did we just find it and make it into something and then we cultivate? The question, you know.

'''S:''' Way way. More, you know, nutritious and right, just like.

'''J:''' A lot of other things that we eat today, guys, like it can't survive all the all the wheat that we rely on, right? Yeah, it will. Not soy, probably.

'''C:''' Yeah, it won't.

'''J:''' Continue to exist if if people don't grow it, you know like it has to be grown it has to be fertilized it has to be taken care of it's not the type of thing that we know just keep going on its own if we didn't tend to it like it really does need us now we have a we have a codependent relationship I mean I also was.

'''C:''' Was thinking about the the various uproars from the non-GMO side of things. And Jay, you raise a good point, which is we've been modifying these things forever. Yeah. Oh my God, Thousands of.

'''S:''' Years. Thousands of years, right?

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah, there's almost.

'''S:''' Nothing that you eat that's not massively altered from Carl Sagan said just.

'''E:''' Look around you. Everything you see is artificially enhanced. Yeah. All right.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== LLMs and Collective Intelligence (29:22) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26339137251367733
|article_title = https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26339137251367733
|publication = journals.sagepub.com
}}

'''S:''' Andrea, this is interesting. You're going to talk to us about our LLMS, large language models. Are they changing how we think as a group? Let me look that up real quick.

'''E:''' Let's. See. Yeah. So it's.

'''C:''' Evan, are you going to look up the answer? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to chat.

'''E:''' GPT that one and yeah, perfect, perfect.

'''C:''' That's great. Yeah, I'll just read that out loud in my voice and we'll call that good. Yes, Steve. So I'm I have come to the show and every now and again I managed to muster some research that is not squarely political science. This is social science. And I'm going to talk about political science briefly, but it's not exclusively political science by any stretch. So there's a paper that came out in late August that I'm super into. Full disclosure, the author is my pH D advisor, Scott Page at the University of Michigan. And I'm a big fan of his and he and I work together. And so a lot of this research is stuff that I work on with him. And so big, big bias alarm bells going off. But it also means that it's something that that I think is super interesting and wish more people knew about South. OK, so he he published a paper the end of the summer called Everyone Everywhere All at Once, LLMS and the New Physics of Collective Intelligence. And if you didn't get excited at the movie reference, I hope you got excited by the phrase physics of collective intelligence 'cause that's just the coolest phrase I've heard in 2025, except for that word that Jay mispronounced 200. I'm not even going to try to say it. So, so there's that. All right, so, so this is a paper about how we can use large language models to change the physics of collective intelligence. I'm going to come back to the physics part, but first I want to ask you all do you are, are you familiar with the term collective intelligence? Is it a term or or do you have a a guess as to to what it might mean I mean.

'''S:''' I've seen that reference to just trying to accomplish things in groups, basically like the crowd is smarter than the individual, right? Right.

'''B:''' And sci-fi is like a kind of like a hive mind, which is a collection of multiple many minds that's.

'''U:''' Right.

'''C:''' Are you all watching Pluribus, by the way? Oh my God.

'''B:''' Yes. OK, no sport of premise. All right, small.

'''C:''' Small side, but that is exactly the the hive mind piece. So, so, yeah, so that's exactly the idea. So it's it's this idea of the wisdom of crowds. And how can we make it such that groups of people working together become smarter than, say, the sum of those people? Or ideally, you know, smarter than and, you know, not just more knowledge, but more innovative, more adaptive, more creative, all kinds of interesting things that that an individual could never come up with. Sort of the idea of like you're all sitting in a room and you're brainstorming and you all come up with really great ideas because you've been bouncing those ideas off of one another as opposed to if the five of us all sat in a separate room and thought of things by ourselves. That said, you may also be thinking about every single time that the crowd is maybe not so wise, right? You know, we think about herd mentality and we think about people all rushing to false information or to to political views or religious views or whatever, or homeopathy or whatever it is that that we would consider not so intelligent. But it's definitely part of that groupthink. So this is a whole area of research, basically, that that crosses a number of social sciences that says, what can we do to make it so that when we put a bunch of people in a space together and they have some kind of common problem to solve, that they do it intelligently as opposed to not so intelligently. And so this is where I'm going to crowbar a teeny tiny bit of political science. And so if you're thinking about collective intelligence in economics, you're probably thinking about how do you design A market so that people can trade things and exchange value and innovate and all that stuff in political science. And Steve, you and I talked about this on the Political Reality podcast already. The idea of how do we get a group to make a good decision or come to some kind of agreement is pretty much what's happening every time we think about what does an election system look like? How do jury deliberations work? What are the ways that Congress, you know, deliberates with one another before they have a vote? And so all that stuff in politics is also collective intelligence. And there's all kinds of other ways that, you know, a community might come to to some kind of agreement as a group. I spent a lot of time with Scott working in the space of companies. So companies are very interested in collective intelligence. So if I'm going to put together A-Team to solve some problem, you know, a tech problem or a CRISPR problem or whatever it is, it's not enough to just get a whole bunch of smart people and put them in the room and hope for the best, which is what most of us tend to do. What you want to do is be thoughtful about how those people interact and, and what are the processes by which they bring different bits of information, Deliberate over those pieces of information and then select the best one. And immediately you should be thinking and, and I don't know, maybe anyone listening who's ever been in a work meeting. I can certainly speak to faculty meetings at NYU and pretty much everywhere. It's I don't feel like a lot of those meetings lead to collective intelligence. Usually what happens is someone comes in with a strong opinion, that person, if they're also the loudest person, will dominate the conversation for a while. Perish forbid, they're also the most senior person in the room and so no one really feels comfortable pushing back. A couple people might ask a few questions and then everyone nods. And then we just do the thing that the guy who's called the meeting wanted you to do, or you try to introduce new ideas and say, well, actually you brought me in because I have a different perspective. And I think there's XY and Z problem. And then the rest of the room says what? No, that's silly and shuts it down. And so again, it's like, why even bring this outside expert into the room? And so all of that is to say is that there's lots of things that we can do. And this can be in our own work, in our own lives, in our own communities to make our groups smarter. This article is about how we can use LLMS in a way that I at least I'm curious if you all have seen this, but in a way that that I don't normally see people talk about the use of LLMS. So the idea here is a picture of meeting that you're going into. We got to solve this problem. We got to go through, you know, whatever decision making process that we have to go through, how are we going to get to collective intelligence? Well, there's three steps. One, we want to have as many independent inputs as possible. So if we're all sitting around trying to solve a problem, we need to hear from Bob and Evan and Jay and Steve and me and we all need to talk it through and, and, and get that information out there. We then need to also be able to consider all the options and then we need to choose over those options. The problem is that those three things take forever. If we were all sitting down to say, you know, in a meeting today, This is why we do it before the podcast and said, well, what should we talk about on the podcast tonight? It's like Evan will say his idea is for 10 minutes and then Jay will say his idea is for 10 minutes. And I'll say my idea is for 10 minutes. And before we know it, an hour has gone by and we haven't even gotten to the deliberation. So the idea in this paper is what if before the meeting, before anyone gets to the room where we're going to talk about whatever it is each person talks to an you can type it, you could talk it talks to an LLM about what their ideas are. So, you know, maybe it's us brave and storming for the political reality podcast. So I'll say 10 minutes into my phone, I think we should do this da, da, da, da, da. Meanwhile, Steve is somewhere else doing that into his phone. Jay's doing it and we're doing it. And then while we're walking to the meeting and while we're sitting down and saying, hey, everyone, how are you get some coffee, blah, blah, blah. And LLM is summarizing all the key pieces. And so then by the time we start the meeting, we start from Step 2, which is let's deliberate over what the different ideas were. And there's a bunch of benefits to that. One is obviously you're saving a ton of time of having to sit there and listen to everybody. The trade off is you don't hear all the nuances. You hope that the LLM summary is correct. And so obviously depending on the importance of the conversation or the level of nuance and and privacy, you wouldn't want to use it for everything. But for pretty standard stuff, this could get you pretty far. And the other great thing is that one of the best ways to generate collective intelligence is to have these independent inputs that are truly independent. It doesn't work. And we've all seen these psychology studies where you sit in a room and, you know, and you show a participant a circle on the wall and every everyone else in the room says, ah, it's a square. And then the person who's the subject, like, kind of doubts themselves and says, yeah, I guess it's a square, even though it's a circle. Like we are so quick to say, oh, yeah, I agree with what this person said. Or you all have been podcasting longer than I have, so let's do what you say. Or just to agree with the majority that these independent inputs that we submit before I hear anyone else's ideas, and I just say it to an LLM that's going to get much richer information from me and take more advantage of each of our individual perspectives as well. So it's just a teeny tiny paper. Oh, and the reason it's it's about the physics of collective intelligence is because if we think about physics, we think about the constraints on groups working together. And those constraints are often around space and time. We all have to get to the same place to have the conversation and we all have to be free at 4:00 PM. In this case, we we saw during COVID and we've seen ever since that the constraints of space have really gone away. Not completely, but largely, right. We can, we can do podcasts from Beirut and we can do podcasts from Tokyo and we can do podcasts from Connecticut. But the time issue has been a problem. And so this, this idea that we could use LLMS to speak simultaneously to have meetings, not at the same time, but then have a separate meeting where we actually talk about you basically get to start meetings halfway through, but have the full amount of time you always had. So I just thought it was a super cool idea. It's not, you know, a heavy duty experimental research paper in that sense. It's more of a, a thought piece that says like we, we've been thinking about LLMS as, you know, more of an individual tool. You know, I sit and it's my sidekick and it helps me. But we could actually really get group minds working a lot better and faster and more creatively if we we start to think about them at the group level as well. But you're basically.

'''S:''' Laundering your ideas through a chat bot, Yeah. But so, yeah, I would be interested in how that might distort, correct the everyone's ideas, you know? Yeah, well, what you would wanna?

'''C:''' Do, and this is where you would hopefully, you know, work with a, an LLM that is either tailored to your organization or, you know, if it's a bunch of doctors in the room, you know you, I wouldn't just use mass available ChatGPT or something like that. But yeah, you would also, and especially early on, you would also want to go through and make sure that the the summaries of what you've said are correct. There's certainly issues where if someone speaks with an accent or speaks in a slightly different style that their, their input would not be measured exactly the same way. And I certainly wouldn't use it for big decisions around like should we fire somebody or promote somebody. But I don't know about you, but a lot of meetings that we go to are really. Not that high stakes. And so, you know, I have 1:00 tomorrow morning where it's like, yeah, rather than each of us recap, what if we we did the recap separately and then read a bullet point in summary right before we started. And then over the course of the meeting, you can then say, oh, is this what you meant? And and, and go back, Yeah. And dig in. But it's certainly not perfect. It's certainly not for every conversation. And there's also plenty of conversations where the murky middle of like saying a bunch of stuff and then saying, well, actually, maybe I disagree with myself, or let me restate that. That might spark an interesting idea and you would lose some of that. But, you know, think of your average insufferable corporate meeting there. There are some ways to improve them, I think.

'''S:''' Yeah, no, just you. Know someone I know not too long ago had a meeting where they had to like approve bylaws or something, right? And they, they, they have to have a public comment period. So literally they had a meeting where 100 faculty members all could, every one of them if they choose, could state their opinions about that. And it took forever. They had to actually have a separate meeting because it took twice as long as they were planning on it taking and it was just interminable. So I think that's the kind of thing where anything is better than that, you know, I mean, think about.

'''C:''' Voting right in the United States, voting is largely simultaneous. Yes, we have early voting and mail in voting, but for the most part, within a very contained bit of time, we all show up and we we turn in our ballots. And if we did it sequentially, which is how most meetings and most public hearings are done, we would still be going through our first election. You know, like, OK, you can't go until Steve is done. Like, OK, am I trying? It can't happen that. Way.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it's like so.

'''C:''' What are the sorts of things, and I think it's a great question, is like, what sorts of meetings or gatherings or, or what types of collective intelligence are we trying to capture here? If what we really want to do is just get a sense of what everyone's perspectives are? Yeah, it could work well if we're trying to sit down and say like, let's talk through our ideas for a new title, maybe we want to be in the room and hear all of the ideas, not just the shiny one we got to at the end. I don't think this is.

'''J:''' Strange at all, I think, you know, This Is Us interfacing with our latest and greatest technology. I mean, this is this is what we're supposed to be doing. Like, you know, it's worth even trying just to see if it works for your group or under what circumstances or whatever. But efficiencies are going to be found only if we look for them and I think to.

'''C:''' Jay that that maybe one thing that is, is potential real upside for this is, is again, thinking in the corporate world, it's like there's so many meetings where or there's so much research that shows that women are more likely to be interrupted. Someone who's a racial minority is more likely to be dismissed if their idea doesn't align with the ideas of the group. And I'm not trying to rattle, you know, woke slogans or anything like that. This is like actual research that typically, you know, people from different backgrounds, different preferences, introvert, extrovert, different, different levels of comfort speaking up in a meeting. We're missing a lot of people's perspectives because the dynamics of the meeting are such that someone's interrupted or someone's talked over or someone doesn't feel comfortable speaking up in the 1st place. Or like I said, you feel afraid to disagree with the majority. But if you all have to say your thing ahead of time, like I think this is a great idea, I think this is a terrible idea. I think we're missing XY and Z. You're going to get everyone's information equally as opposed to just hearing from the loudest or more confident person in the room. So I think that is potentially really powerful. That said, the opposite could be the case. It could be if we're, if we use the wrong aggregator or we use the wrong type of tool, we could be replicating those biases. But I think sort of like you, you said, Jay, it's worth giving it a shot to see if we could actually make meetings more inclusive this way. I think it's worth mentioning that.

'''J:''' You know, there is a lot of information out there about how, you know, working with LLM's is, is bad, right? There's a lot of, you know, we get a lot of emails from people and I've been having discussions with people. I think we should mention that, you know, yeah, they do consume a ton of energy. We don't know from a Big Brother perspective, like how much of our information is private and everything. So I mean, I think it's fine for us, of course, to talk about this stuff. I think those are legitimate concerns.

'''S:''' You know, we were facing a genuine dilemma. We have a useful tool that has some serious downsides. You know, one of the biggest being its energy use, which is, you know, we've had to revise all of our projections about energy and climate and everything to account for the AI factor. Yeah, there's no way around.

'''U:''' Not by a.

'''S:''' Little either, but but The thing is, I mean, it's a good point because if if it produces only like marginal advantages, it may not be worth it. But that's not typically how people think. I think if it's even slightly more efficient or, or people like doing it, a lot of people are going to do it, you know, regardless. Yeah, I think, Steve.

'''C:''' I I similarly it usually when I think about LLMS and how I see people using it or how various outlets on the Internet recommend streamline your workflow with Geminis, whatever, whatever. You're like, OK, and it, it doesn't really I'm like, is it really worth it? Like the the risks with the climate and the energy consumption. To summarize my emails for me, like this is shaving 30 seconds off my life. Maybe, but not really. It's mostly just bothering me, and I'm going to go read the emails either way. This one was one of the few instances of using LLMS that I was like, oh, this is a genuine change in how we do things. And if it's possible that this generates more collective intelligence, it could be that it is the sort of thing that helps get us more quickly to more innovative solutions, like the cool CRISPR stuff that Jay was just talking about. And even what Bob was talking about is, you know, like greater collective intelligence could really get us there. But, you know, I'm more excited about this than I am about like, oh, we're going to summarize, you know, emails. But. But yeah, no, it's a it's a huge concern. And if I could put it back in the bag, I would strongly consider it. Is this a current concern in other?

'''E:''' Words it will likely become more energy efficient in the future. So I mean kind of like we bring about something now in 2025, but by 2035 it'll be 90% more energy efficient, for example. We hope so not. They've been working on it for a. Long time, yeah.

'''S:''' So it's it's.

'''E:''' One of the things that it's.

'''S:''' Hard to say, but like a lot of things, if they do get efficient, they use that to make it more powerful. So we never actually get the savings. It's like as we as electricity gets cheaper, we get more electricity, we get more light and just as you get more devices to clean our house.

'''C:''' Our house has to be cleaned. Yeah, like multi terabyte hard drives. We just no.

'''B:''' Matter how big they get, we fill them up. But my other concern.

'''S:''' Here, though, is that, as you say, yeah, you should proofread the summary. No one's going to do that. Everyone, the most people are going to do lazy route and just read your terms and conditions. Yeah, right.

'''E:''' Yeah, right. Right, that's.

'''C:''' Just yeah, that's we.

'''S:''' Seek our lowest energy, right? We're not going to spend energy that we don't have to. Yeah, you can ask ChatGPT to summarize.

'''C:''' It for you.

'''B:''' That's right, Give me.

'''E:''' The second terms and conditions I've done that.

'''B:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take.

'''S:''' A quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week, Aura frames, guys, we've all been there right the.

'''B:''' Holiday season, you got to buy a million gifts for a million people. You run out of ideas. What can you get that's really good but also has a personal feel to it that the answer to that conundrum is aura frames? Yeah, this year I'm going to get aura frames.

'''J:''' For two of my friends and I'm going to load up a bunch of pictures on there of basically everything I have, which goes back, I don't know, 30 years at this point. It's, it's a really awesome thing to do because you're going to give them a bunch of pictures that they don't have and you're going to give them really awesome access to it. And to do that, you just download the Aura app, connect to Wi-Fi, and then you can upload an unlimited number of photos or video that your friends will instantly see for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift.

'''E:''' By visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by wire cutter by using promo code SKEPTICS at checkout. That's AURA frames.com promo code skeptics. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. All right, everyone, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Origins of Theia (48:43) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0623
|article_title = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0623
|publication = www.science.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, let's go on. Do you guys remember Thea? Yeah, yeah, sure.

'''E:''' I don't.

'''B:''' That's the. I don't I.

'''S:''' Don't remember I.

'''B:''' Wasn't there at the time but I read about it the the Mars sized.

'''S:''' Planet that crashed into the proto earth? Oh no. Is it OK creating 4 1/2?

'''E:''' Billion years ago.

'''S:''' Creating our current Earth and Moon system, right so.

'''E:''' Scientists. Leading theory scientists.

'''S:''' Have a question, And the question is where did Thea come from? Specifically, what part of the solar system did it come from over Thea? So how? Could they answer? This question So what so do you guys know like just generally how do scientists know where something in the solar system mineral composition yes and what. Specifically, ratio. Balance of minerals.

'''B:''' Would be and what specifically you're?

'''S:''' You're right up. Isotopes, isotopes, it's the isotope ratios exactly. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, so.

'''B:''' Apparently the isotope.

'''S:''' Ratios tell you like so much about the history of so much, so much of stuff in the solar system, including where like how close to the sun did it form? Because there's different isotope ratios in different locations in the solar system. So there's a recent study trying to address this question of where did Thea come from by looking at isotope ratios. Smart. But there's a problem. Where do you look?

'''B:''' Where do you look at Earth and Moon? Because when? It's.

'''S:''' It is believed that the moon is made mostly of Thea right, but the Earth is just a complete mishmash of Earth and Thea right mixed together and 4 billion years later, you know all kind.

'''E:''' Of you know, where do yeah, where do you find something that happens? Are we all made of Thea?

'''C:''' There's there's a little bit of Thea in each of.

'''S:''' Us that's right, Andrew, they.

'''C:''' So there's what?

'''S:''' They did, was they? Looked at a lot of mineral samples from different strata and they also looked at samples from from of moon rocks. Sure. So the Earth and the moon pretty much look the same in terms of isotope ratios. But by doing, you know, an extensive survey there, because you can't look at a piece of rock, I say this piece of rock is Thea, right? I mean, you just can't do that. But what they could they could do is they said, OK, if Thea came from the outer solar system, what would we expect, You know, a random survey of Earth rocks to look like. And we do have samples of those, right?

'''E:''' Well, yeah, we have. Yeah, it's Earth rockets.

'''S:''' All over the place, but samples of of.

'''E:''' Of non solar system material? Sure. Not non solar system material.

'''S:''' Non earth material, so we have as a reference. As a reference, we have samples of meteorites from all different places in the solar system, so we know we do we know what an.

'''J:''' Outer.

'''S:''' Solar system rock looks like in terms of its isotopic ratios, we know what an inner solar system rock looks like etcetera, etcetera. So we so the Earth and the moon obviously look like inner solar system rocks. They look pretty much the same with each other. So they they sort of addressed this question by saying what if Thea came from different places than solar system? What would you know a survey of Earth rocks look like in terms of its ratios? And they concluded. What do you think they concluded? Where do you think Thea came from? It's a local boy. Yeah, I'm with.

'''E:''' Inner I would say yeah it.

'''C:''' Would it would make?

'''E:''' Sense inner solar system like all the other rocky yes, inner solar, it did not come.

'''S:''' Screaming in from the outer solar system. It was probably our neighbor. They think this is a little speculative. This is like a statistical kind of thing. They think it's it was probably a little closer to the sun than the Earth. So you can imagine these two planets in very close orbits, but eventually they crossed, you know, and then and Thea smacked into the Earth or Earth smacked into Thea, depending on your. Oh yeah, your perspective is a please.

'''E:''' Report to find out Yeah, much what a day that was than the earth I know.

'''C:''' Right. Can you imagine? Would would Thea have had to be smaller than the Earth? And that's why the Earth hung on? And I mean, yeah.

'''S:''' It was.

'''C:''' It was like Mars.

'''S:''' Sized. Yeah, OK. Again, I think Bob's.

'''C:''' Correct in reality.

'''S:''' The best way to think about These two planets hit each other and merged and spit out the moon basically changed. The orbit of the earth changed. Obviously the mass of the earth gave us our satellite. What's really poignant, though, is that I.

'''B:''' Mean it's possible. We know. We know how early life arose on the earth. It's basically as soon as you know that the magma wasn't in a place, then life kind of started. It's really we push it back every, you know, millions of years all the time. So earth mark one right? The earth, the earth that was destroyed could have had life on it and then it was utterly destroyed in the gut. Let's try this again, shall we? Reset. Yeah, just hit a reset. Imagine that was there life on Thea could.

'''C:''' There have been, sure, sure, but.

'''S:''' We'll never know, yeah.

'''B:''' But we'll never know.

'''S:''' I didn't think of that one.

'''U:''' That's interesting.

'''B:''' And how long ago did all this?

'''C:''' 4 1/2 billion, yeah.

'''S:''' Give or take, give or take long time ago in the. Performance to go. Back. I'd love to go back.

'''B:''' Right after the moon formed. To see a moon, see it's 16 times the size.

'''E:''' And the yeah, 1516 times. Imagine.

'''B:''' A moon. Gargantuan. Just don't be near the water. The show right? Not be the tides. The tides. Tides were as big as a mountain. Mountainous tides, which actually I keep, I probably said this on the show 4 separate times over the years, but it's actually probably a good thing that happened because those immense tides we know went hundreds of miles into onto land and just scoured everything and brought it back into the ocean. And there's your, your, your classic, you know, primordial soup. Primordial soup.

'''S:''' So.

'''B:''' Probably a good thing.

'''S:''' All right, all right, Evan, tell us about.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Holiday Scams (54:51) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/11/holiday-scams-2025-these-common-shopping-habits-make-you-the-easiest-target
|article_title = Holiday scams 2025: These common shopping habits make you the easiest target | Malwarebytes
|publication = www.malwarebytes.com
}}

'''S:''' Some upcoming holiday scams Tis the season. Well, Chris is coming at all exactly, exactly.

'''E:''' And every year around this time of year, the holiday season, as it were, cybersecurity researchers published their annual warnings about holiday scams. And they say that 2025 holiday season is shaping up to be one of the worst yet. Of course that they're going to say that because they'll always say that in the current year. But in any case, the company Malwarebytes, they are famous in a way for many things. But also every year they release a report on how cybercriminals adapt to our habits from year to year. And basically it's not so much about the fancy hacking or anything that kind of goes on. It's just about how to take advantage of human weaknesses, you know, kind of the, the weaknesses of our of our brains that they exploit predictable, measurable human behavior. Their report this year has very common shopping habits that they point out that make people the ideal targets. For example, one of the strongest risk factors is being a last minute shopper. Those are the people who wait until the final days for the holidays are nearly are, are very close and they're those people are nearly twice as likely to click on a fraudulent tracking link or fall for a fake delivery problem notification. You guys have received those, right? I mean, you know, emails. It was a very last minute shopper.

'''C:''' I didn't know I was in such a high risk category if you are.

'''E:''' Because when the merchandise, you know, it's either supposed to be on its way and you're tracking it, there is this urgency or an anxiety spike. And that's when people's decision making is becomes perhaps less than ideal. And they'll let their guard down sometimes. And the scammers definitely know this. And their phishing campaigns coincide with peak shipping windows. So that's why we see these fake emails and texts claiming, hey, the package can't be delivered or you need to update your payment information. That's a big one. And then they're designed to look like the, well, the big shippers, you know, Amazon, UPS, FedEx, United States Postal Service, even. And these imitation pages, they're using what AI generated layouts. Yep. So these things are becoming much harder to just detect upon glance. The wording is becoming neater, crisper, right? You can't find the typos or the bad verbiage verbiage that's going on in these things. They're they're cleaning it up and they're using AI to do it. So yeah, here's another major risk factor, impulse shopping from social media ads. So instant buy traps, they call it. Look, look out for things like limited editions and you know, phrases like that that will get you to a click on this because you know, it's going to be, you know, better, easier for you and just more alluring. So you see a list, you click it and you enter it and then what the store really never existed or you get some kind of knock off of what you were going to be buying. Kind of a bait and switch in that sense and FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. They definitely rely on that fear of losing a potential bargain is sometimes more motivating than the than the desire to avoid a possible scam. So you have to be able to, you know, kind of check yourself in in those in those instances. This year, the criminals are also exploiting a behavior that didn't used to be risky. They say price comparing across multiple tabs or apps. J Yeah, I know that from our conversations. You have done price comparing shopping before extensively. Yeah. Yeah, right. I.

'''J:''' Mean, you know, I thought of you immediately.

'''E:''' This. Not that you would fall for it because you're a good skeptic and you have defenses against this, but this is where this is another weakness where they where the scammers come in. You know you're flipping back and forth between what Amazon, Walmart, Target, TikTok, Timu and whatever looking for the lowest price, right? Nothing, nothing wrong with that. But in that rapid fire mode, they say that the consumer will become much more likely to mistake a fake storefront for a real one and then boop, falling right into that trap. Scammers are also capitalizing on this by cloning legitimate storefronts almost perfectly. Same fonts, same product listing, same color schemes. It's becoming much more difficult to identify. The only thing that changes is the URL. But how many people really look at the URL to make sure that they're going where they're supposed to be going? I have gotten myself into that habit, especially when it comes to things like banking, among other things. You know, I never, I, I, I have trained myself to get in the habit of looking at the URL to make sure and to use the built in security features that are in a URL. You know, if you site information and those kinds of things, they're right there. You know, you just need to just go and click on them. Take the extra second to protect yourself tracking. They're talk about package tracking updates. That is where they're really apparently making good inroads because people are getting more tracking notifications more than ever. And again, given it's the season that gives people, you know, just more activity in that area and it becomes an easy target for the scammers to exploit. So they also make some suggestions as to what you can do, how to prevent this, some easy habits to get into or easy, easy steps you can take to minimize this kind of damage. First, they say slow down even by two or three seconds, because studies have shown that when subjects deliberately pause before clicking the link. The rate of falling for a scam plummets and that micro pause interrupts the automatic emotional response scammers depend on. We have a friend. I won't name her, but we all Andrea. You don't know her, but the four of us like I'm right here, Evan Jeez. And.

'''C:''' And she it's not you.

'''E:''' And, and I've seen it, I've seen her do this in real, in real time. She will absolutely go nuts ordering stuff while she while she's on her phone and you know, definitely not take those pauses. Is that that's her habit? I've seen her do it many, many times. So you know, people there, this does happen. This does happen a lot. Another tip, don't trust links in the tracking messages. Instead, go directly to the retailer or carrier website through your own bookmark or app and if there's really a problem, you'll see it there. They're also suggesting do not buy directly from social media ads, especially the ones that promise, you know, rare items, scarcity items, exclusivity, or you know, big discount 7080% off electronics. Find it through a standard Google search not or or on a known retailer site, but not directly from social media ads. They also give a tip about re entering payment information on an e-mail notification. Retailers will not ask for that through e-mail or text. So if a message that claims your payment failed, you know, if you get that, you have to really log into the retailer's website independently to verify it. Do not ever click the embedded link. And that's something we've been talking about I think for years on all kinds of scams that they use through our electronic devices, smartphones and whatnot. So they're saying, they're pointing out this year that the biggest vulnerabilities are are not technical so much as they are behavioral, right. They're using our brains against us, and our brains make us an easy target to exploit sometimes in certain situations. And this happens to be one of them. Yeah. There's just so much noise now, like.

'''S:''' Especially like with the SGU, like between Jay and I were ordering a lot of stuff for the studio and sometimes he does it and so I can getting constant notifications, like two or three notifications per item that's ordered, you know, and so that creates the background noise that it would be, you know, hard to detect the scam one thrown in there. That's why I just don't click anything. I don't click anything in any e-mail ever. That's just you have to have universal precautions. It's yeah, especially if it's a number you don't know.

'''C:''' Or, you know, like, like Evan said, like usually if it's a tracking update, you the the store itself will send it. Yeah, as well as the, you know, the text. So I just do the store 1. But I just really, you know, I mean, this is something we've probably been talking about with related to scams forever, but people who are not particularly tech savvy or don't really realize that AI can replicate entire websites. Like I just, I could really see, despite the fact, Evan, that you said that this happens, you know, every year claims to be the worst year. I could see these really being a problem for. I'm just thinking of people in my own life who wouldn't know to double check the URL. Exactly. Yes. Yes, and as.

'''E:''' Always the old, you know, the older population is always the most vulnerable of the population when it comes to techno technology related scams. Definitely. So we got to watch out for our for our friends, our family members, you know, our parents, our grandparents help keep an eye on them always. Thanks, Evan.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Hypervelocity White Dwarves (1:04:00) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/galactic-cannonballs-the-mystery-of-hypervelocity-white-dwarfs-may-just-have-been-solved
|article_title = Galactic cannonballs: The mystery of hypervelocity white dwarfs may just have been solved | Space
|publication = www.space.com
}}

'''S:''' Bob, tell us about hyper velocity, white dwarfs, zombie bullet stars.

'''B:''' In the news. I'm already with you. Yeah, I'm already.

'''C:''' With you.

'''E:''' I I heartily endorse this. That's what I do.

'''B:''' Try to suck. You in and then I'm in. OK, you're in. Let's see if I can sustain this. That's good click bait. Probably not. Yeah. So a recent study and simulation offers what some consider the most compelling answer yet to what would cause hyper velocity white dwarf star stars traveling at 2000 kilometers per second, which is fast enough to leave the Galaxy. What would cause that? And if it verified, if this this theory is verified, that this would all happen because a heavier companion white dwarf blows up twice. So this was published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy. Now we all know about white dwarf stars, right? Stars around the mass of our sun eventually will Slough off their outer layers, right? Leaving behind a massive but Earth sized core but with a stellar mass. So this thing is quite a beefy dude. And if it's if it's solitary, just hanging out, it's going to cool very slowly over potentially trillions of years. But then in 2018, the Gaia Space Observatory discovered a handful of these white dwarf stars travelling at insane speeds that the very fastest that they detected were travelling at 2000 kilometers per second. That would get from the Earth to the moon in about 3 minutes. That's a what, 200 and 39249 thousand 1000 miles our money takes me to microwave my my.

'''E:''' Burrito right when, remember.

'''B:''' When we went to the moon, it was like 4, it was like 3 days. So 4300 minutes compared to 3 minutes. So this thing is booking now. Some of these white dwarfs, they weren't even just speedy, they also were very unusually hot and puffy, kind of like these puffed up surfaces. And some of them also had heavy elements which kind of shouldn't have been there. So 3 mysteries here. What did this? And no theory could explain all three of those unusual attributes until these researchers ran their simulations. So in the simulation, they had what they had. They created 2 binary white dwarfs and these were helium, carbon, oxygen white dwarfs. And they're, those are white dwarfs that can, that can be together in orbit around each other for a very long time and kind of evolving together. So that's why they selected these helium, carbon, oxygen white dwarfs. What? So what they are is essentially A helium skin over a carbon core. It's a good way to think about them. The primary, the biggest one in their simulation was about right around just under .7 of a Sun mass. So, so 70% of our Sun's mass, the secondary white dwarf was a little bit smaller. That was just a little bit more than 60% of our Sun's mass. So, so definitely similar to our Sun, a little smaller. So this is what the simulation described when they, when they ran it. Imagine you've got these two white dwarf stars in orbit around each other getting, you know, maybe getting closer and closer. Some of the helium from the surface of the smaller white dwarf is transferred to the larger white white dwarf. So that's number one. That's at first big step there. The smaller one is losing mass. This extra helium is building up on the bigger on the bigger white dwarf. So what happens is that causes a supersonic fusion detonation that races around their white dwarf meeting at the other side. So the surface essentially explodes. So this is the first explosion. Then those shock waves, remember those shock waves that met on the other side from where where the fusion started? They can that converges. Those shock waves converge at the core of this larger of remember, this is the larger white dwarf that's been siphoning off helium from the smaller 1. So that detonation converges at the on the far side of the white dwarf and then it go, it goes down to the core. And So what you're essentially having is a deeper carbon detonation in the core of the larger one and that annihilates the entire white dwarf. So that's that's the second explosion. So the first explosion is the helium helium skin igniting and the second an explosion is the rest of the carbon and the core of the white dwarf exploding the. White Dwarf. It's basically. Like no longer there. Okay, so this is what the simulation said is happening. So this is this is then the trigger. This is the trigger to turn the remaining core that remember the smaller white dwarf into this zombie bullet that it's the trigger that the forces that are created in this explosion of the larger one are on the scale of all the energy the sun releases in its entire existence. So we're talking about a tremendous amount of energy. I, I have to assume that these white dwarf cores are pretty Hardy because in this simulation, it actually survives the smaller dwarf survives the detonation of the nearby larger dwarf star that just blew up. And this is what flings it at these ridiculous velocities, sometimes over 2000 kilometers a second. OK, but as that is happening now imagine you've got this large white dwarf that explodes, that flings the smaller one away. As it explodes, it's impacting the smaller white dwarf. So it's it's, it's, it's stripping away some of its outer layers, but it's also heating the, the core, the surface of the core that that's exposed. And so that explains why we're seeing a very hot, puffy outer atmosphere to these to these hyper velocity white white dwarfs. That explains that. And this the the third, the final mystery seems to be solved because what's happening, you have you have a lot of fusion taking place on the larger white dwarf. You got the outer skin, the helium skin that detonated, you know, infusion fire, but you also have the interior that also had some, some fusion taking place. So you got lots of fusion taking place. So it makes sense then that the simulation would put this freshly forged heavy elements into the into the mix of the outer layers of the of this smaller white dwarf. And so that explains all three anomalies like like no other theory has. This isn't a home run, of course, this is just one, this is just a simulation that they ran. But it's the single best explanation for these three big anomalies, the extreme speeds, the puffed up heated state of these hypervelocity white dwarfs, and the odd compositions that all the other earlier models struggled to fit all of these at once. And none of them did. But this, this theory does fit all of these anomalies at once. So I thought that was a very, very interesting, pretty cool stuff. In the future, these researchers are going to use wide field surveys like the Varici Rubin Observatory to help put these theories to the test. A best case scenario, I'm not even sure how achievable it is, but a best case scenario would be to actually observe this happening in real time, which would be a hell of a coup. They'd be, that'd be a hell. What? That'd be what, what, three 20s in a row? Rolled Andrea? I think that's right, yes.

'''C:''' OK.

'''Voice-over:''' But in a sense.

'''B:''' This whole talk has been a preamble I think to answer the question that a lot of you are thinking, I, I hope some of you are thinking about it, what would happen to the earth if it was hit by such a hyper velocity white dwarf? So I have of course I had to go down that rabbit hole. So the question itself is actually technically wrong because a billiard ball like impact would not happen. It would not be like billiard balls hitting if a white dwarf hit the Earth at this velocity or even even smaller velocities. Just the fact that a white dwarf would be heading towards us, we would probably be spaghettified. But I think let me getting a little bit ahead of myself here. So as the as the white dwarf enters the solar system, our orbit would would drastically change. It would become more either more eccentric. We could be the Earth could be ejected. We could spiral right towards the white dwarfs. A lot of different things could happen. Lots of different variables going on here. We would not only have huge ocean tides, but they we would also have crustal tides. We'd had the crust of the Earth would form tides like it does right now, but they're super tiny. You can't even notice them, but it does happen. Well, we would have huge crust tides. It reminded me of the movie 2012 and what happens, You know, we'd have incredible volcanism. We'd have quakes. Yeah, It would be a very, very bad day on the earth when as we were approaching was a bad day as. Yeah, as we were. Approaching each other. And then we would hit the the infamous Roche limit. This is the limit the distance from a larger celestial object where a smaller object zone gravity no longer holds together. So once we approach the Roche limit of this white dwarf heading towards us, it's the Earth could not hold. It could no longer hold itself to together. Our gravity would kind of be like, I'm sorry, doing the best I can here, but I'm done. And the Earth would just kind of just start falling apart. And this is all at about 1,000,000 kilometers from a typical white dwarf. Depending on the size it could be it could be a hat, you know, it could be a few 100,000 kilometers, it could be 1,000,000 kilometers. But when we were still at a solid distance comparable to the to the Earth moon distance, the Earth would just start falling apart, couldn't, could no longer hold itself together. And this is all because of the tidal disruption that's happening, right? It's all about the tides and tidal disruptions are, are can be so powerful. And so what's happening is the near side and far side of the Earth would be, would feel dramatically different gravitational forces. And that's, that's the basically the essence of tidal disruption. The far side, because it's farther away, would be feeling significantly less gravity. And because the gravity is so huge to begin with, it's it's a dramatic difference. And that would basically tear the Earth apart. And this is where the spaghettification starts happening. It breaks apart into these glowing chunks and in short order, all of those glowing chunks would then become plasma and intense radiation like X-rays and ultraviolet. The plasma could form a disc around the the white dwarf and kind of slowly fall into it, or it could, it could form a stream directly spiraling right into it. You know, I'm not sure which one would happen, but luckily, luckily this is ridiculously unlikely. But it's, it's, it's a macabre and scientifically interesting at the same time, which of course appeals to me. It's a fun combination. So it's a lot of stuff slamming into Earth.

'''C:''' Yeah, right. I mean, yeah, but it's it's so.

'''E:''' Impound. It's so interesting.

'''B:''' To think of what would happen, but man, imagine scientists are like, yeah, we see a a hyper velocity white dwarf heading towards the Earth area. So basically you've got about I don't know how long, weeks or months before it's so close that it's just gonna RIP the Earth apart. So just so have fun and yeah, while while you can, you know, even if it didn't get that close, it probably.

'''S:''' Would fling us out of the solar system or into the sun or Oh yeah, if it would just be the. Outskirts of the solar system.

'''B:''' Yeah. Yep. Depending on where we were, you know, when our orbit around the sun and compared to our proximity to the white dwarf, yeah, it could just fling us out of the entire solar system or or send us right into its maw. Like the like the Star Trek episode, the which I'm gonna call it the doomsday machine. Nasty stuff. So luckily, hopefully, we'll never see that Star Trek the original. Series.

'''E:''' By the way, would we live if Earth got?

'''C:''' Flung out of the solar system. Like if we got clung into the sun, I feel like it's over instantly. Like, I think it would be pretty instant, Right? Yeah.

'''E:''' It would, yeah. It would be bad.

'''B:''' I recommend the short story called A Pail of Air. Essentially, our atmosphere would rain down as snow at different at different times because different gases in the atmosphere have different freezing, you know freezing points. Then we would become a rogue planet, right, Steve? We'd have a rogue planet and and hopefully.

'''E:''' Yeah, we'd probably.

'''B:''' If you live near a nuclear an underground nuclear facility, you could probably last the freezing. But yeah, things would be bad on the surface. Being a rogue planet sounds a lot more.

'''S:''' Fun than it actually is. Yeah, I'm free to do. What I want?

'''E:''' Oh no. All right. Thanks, Bob.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:15:52) ==

'''S:''' Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''J:''' Pretty weird, huh?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Any guesses about what's going on here?

'''J:''' I have a guess, just three people talking.

'''E:''' Isn't it obvious?

'''B:''' Go ahead.

'''J:''' It's it's George Krob.

'''E:''' Trying out new voices for his geologic podcast, which is that is so close it's awesome.

'''J:''' Yeah, that's not that wouldn't be. That would not be a strange, but, you know, correct answer. I like that. I have to talk to George about that. Andrea, I know you know what this is. Yeah, I know exactly what it is. It's the.

'''C:''' Background actors from Twin Peaks working out their lines. Oh, I like that that. That's good too.

'''B:''' Oh, good.

'''J:''' All right, let's dig into this one. Of course, you know, I love this one because it's so strange. OK, so we got a listener named Matthew Cutler and he said, I think this week's noisy is AI slop. I love this answer. Specifically, I think it's one of those audio generating AIS that has been prompted to make up a scene from a comedy TV show.

'''C:''' We live in a world.

'''J:''' Guys where that is an. Excellent answer. It's a solid guess, absolutely. It's a very.

'''B:''' Good answer, not correct but.

'''C:''' Much appreciated.

'''J:''' Another listener named Matt Soskins, he said it's Vladimir Putin duck and.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's a joke.

'''U:''' I. Get it?

'''J:''' But there was a little bit of a step in the right direction there, so we'll keep going here.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:17:37) ==


'''J:''' Another e-mail from Visto, 2T. Visto says I could say a bird like I always do, but the language is definitely Slavic. So the parrot would freeze in the winter. I'm convinced it is an animal talking. So what animal can talk and survive the snow and ice? A walrus. Walruses can talk. I think it was a sea.

'''C:''' Lion that I had a.

'''J:''' Recording of where he could mimic his handler and it sounded like a human voice ways definitely I don't know I mean I wouldn't be surprised if walruses can can vocalize if somebody has has a sample of that send it to me. Here's a sample of AJ ready. Good. OK.

'''C:''' OK.

'''J:''' So I.

'''U:''' Got an?

'''J:''' Incredible number of correct guesses. Now every once in a while someone, well, people send me in things all the time that are recent, you know what I mean, that have like been in a lot of people's news feeds and stuff. This was one of them. But it was so good I had to play it anyway. So I know a lot of people had recently seen this one, but the first person who, who guessed correctly, this is absolutely the first person and only a couple of people admitted that they saw it recently. But I, I do know because it was out recent that a lot of people saw it, but I do believe this person guessed it. This is Dennis S and Dennis says hello, Jay. I'll skip the whole long time listener first time caller spiel because I'm too excited. I actually recognize this one as I'm sure all of your Russian speaking listeners did too. It's Carluccia, the Raven who got super famous about two years ago. I hope I guessed it before thousands of other Russians did. And thank you so much for your work and for the the bestest podcast ever. And that is Dennis second. Dennis, thanks so much for that. Yeah, I did get a ton of emails from people that can speak Russian. I'm sure a lot of them are in Russia. Yeah. This is exactly what Dennis said. This is a Raven that apparently was raised by people in Russia, and they taught it a bunch of different words and everything. And they're kind of having a conversation with it and it and it's definitely entertaining them, but it's really cool. You should look up the video to watch this because seeing a Raven talk is pretty weird. It's and and Yeah. And Ravens are Ravens seeming. Yeah.

'''E:''' Did the Ravens seem unusually? Large. It's a big Raven, yes.

'''J:''' I mean Ravens are large, the normal.

'''E:''' Yes, but. It's not within the normal. Range. Yeah, because I told you if it was, Ravens are bigger. Than. Crows, they're. Big. They're very big birds.

'''S:''' So I think it's more compelling because it's in a foreign language. Yeah, Right. So like there's, we wouldn't pick up on the nuances we're missing.

'''B:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''S:''' Just it sounds like perfectly good Russian to us, so it sounds even more uncanny. But to a native speaker, they could tell that something was a little off. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely.

'''J:''' Steve, I agree. I thought of that on my own as well. And listen to it again. It's the male voice.

'''U:''' It even interrupts, right?

'''E:''' The flow is very human like definitely just kind of sounds like a kind of grumpy. Old guy.

'''C:''' It totally does. Yeah, yeah.

'''J:''' I don't know if there's much difference between a drunk Russian and a Raven, you know what I mean?

'''E:''' I'm just kidding. Come on.

'''J:''' All right. Guys I have a new noisy this. Week This was sent in by a listener named Aaron, and I'll warn you that this has some very high pitched noises in it that may bother some listeners. So this is your chance to turn down a little bit and here we go.

'''U:''' That is Han Solo trying to get the Millennium.

'''E:''' Drive in episode 5. It goes on a lot longer.

'''J:''' Than that, I mean, that's extended as hell man. That is a lot.

'''B:''' I thought it had such.

'''C:''' A cool series of.

'''J:''' Noises, all sorts of different things going on. So anyway, anyway, calm down. I know you're excited, but if you think you know this week's noisy or you heard something cool, you got to e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, as we speak, the tickets for the Seattle show and the Wisconsin show, or shows I should say, are up. Now. We have 3 shows in both of these venues, right? So Seattle and then Wisconsin. In Seattle, we have three shows. Friday night we're going to have. A A very low number, very high profile meet and greet. It's it's going to be a small number of people hanging out with the SGU. I think we're going to have like 20 tickets for it. We're trying this out because we've gotten a ton of emails from people that just wanted something exactly like this. So we thought we'd give it a shot for a couple of different show weekends that we're doing. So if you're interested, go to the website theskepticsguide.org. You can see this Friday night show. I have to formally name it. I came up with something fun a few weeks ago. I can't remember. I'll look it up. But anyway, it's the Friday night hangout. Then we have Saturday starting sometime between 11:00 and 12:00 AM, we're going to be doing an SGU private show. Plus that's a three hour show. This includes George Robb, of course, and it's a live recording of the SGU. And then we have fun with the audience for about an hour. It's different every time. You got to come check it out to know what it's all about. And then Saturday night, which is that night, we're going to have a VIP, which is available if you're interested in buying tickets. This is for the extravaganza. And then there's the extravaganza itself. So honestly, there's four different things that we're doing in those two days. The extravaganza starts at 8:00 PM. All the details are on the ticketing sites, which are links are found on SG U's website. Please come, we'd love to see you. I'm getting tons of emails from people saying they missed it last time and they're coming this time. We have a great series of shows for you guys, so please join us. And then again, repeat everything in Wisconsin. The dates are up there. And then as a future mentioned, we're going to be doing all of this in New Haven at some point, hopefully maybe March or or April. We'll let you know when details come. All right. Thank you, brother. Just one quick.

'''S:''' Correction, on last week's show, I said that cellulose was a protein. I blame this, the jet lag on this. It was just a brain fart. I was thinking collagen. I was like in my mind I was thinking collagen, which is a different, that's a more for, you know, animal structural protein. Cellulose is a polysaccharide, right? It's a ribbon shaped polymer of glucose molecules. It is the, you know the most common, I think it's the most common structural molecule implants, whereas collagen is in animacules, right? So I just got that wires. Crossed. I'm still massively jet lagged, by the way. Still right? You guys could tell they do clever editing. I kind of hide it as much as possible. But you think there'd be a fix for that, you know?

'''E:''' Or routine something they've figured out people can do a hack of some kind that will help people but I after all this time they yeah end time you know melatonin may help a.

'''C:''' Little bit, but it's not.

'''S:''' It's just, it's not so much my when I'm sleeping, sleeping at night. It's just that I just haven't. Yeah. I just can't consolidate my sleep. Can't get enough sleep at once. I'm waking up at 2:00 in the morning, you know, thinking of things. I'm sure, Right. And then now.

'''E:''' I'm also. I have a.

'''S:''' Colonoscopy tomorrow so I'm prepping for that. And prepping means you're drinking. Valve you know you're basically drinking motor oil that begins right after I get off the. Show Steve you went with the go use Bob.

'''B:''' 'S toilet.

'''C:''' Yeah, I'll be over there, Bob.

'''S:''' Be right for the shove coming. Over there. Yeah, right. Got my bowel prep.

'''B:''' And.

'''S:''' My iPad, are you going? Which prep did you?

'''B:''' Go with the small liquid, all right?

'''S:''' Not the big liquid, there's a big liquid, there's a small liquid and there's a pills that pills once a year thing it's.

'''C:''' Typically, once every five years, it's 10.

'''B:''' Years if it's good, five years if they.

'''S:''' Want to follow stuff? For me it was three years.

'''U:''' Yeah, it.

'''B:''' Depends on what they found the last time.

'''S:''' They they say that's a little suspicious come back in three years, but everybody if it's a totally clean, I think you can go 10 years between that was Bob rolled to 1 Bob rolled.

'''C:''' Yeah. No one would have.

'''S:''' Been really bad. Yeah, really the worst.

'''B:''' It turns out the smaller liquid. Didn't work, didn't clean me up as much. You got to, you got to chase it with a ton. Of clear liquids.

'''S:''' That's the thing. You can't just drink that. I think you're done. You have to anyway. That's a goddamn fire hose. That's the night.

'''B:''' I have in store for me.

'''S:''' But in the meantime, let's.

'''B:''' For sharing, let's go.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:26:35) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = Scientific Fraud
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater, to increase sales of Coke and popcorn, never happened and was entirely fabricated.
|link1web = https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/given-warning-we-can-shield-ourselves-subliminal-messages
|link1title = Given a warning, we can shield ourselves from subliminal messages | BPS
|link1pub = www.bps.org.uk

|item2 = A recent analysis finds the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year.
|link2web = https://royalsociety.org/blog/2025/11/reformation-of-science-publishing/
|link2title = Fake publishing - the greatest scientific fraud | Royal Society
|link2pub = royalsociety.org

|item3 = Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI.
|link3web = https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/06/26/at-least-10-of-research-may-already-be-co-authored-by-ai
|link3title = https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/06/26/at-least-10-of-research-may-already-be-co-authored-by-ai
|link3pub = www.economist.com

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = The famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater, to increase sales of Coke and popcorn, never happened and was entirely fabricated.

|science2 = A recent analysis finds the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year.

|fiction = Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI.

|rogue1 = Jay
|answer1 = Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI.

|rogue2 = Evan
|answer2 = Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI.

|rogue3 = Bob
|answer3 = Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI.

|rogue4 = Andrea
|answer4 = The famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater, to increase sales of Coke and popcorn, never happened and was entirely fabricated.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''B:''' On with science or fiction.

'''U:''' It's time for.

'''Voice-over:''' Science or fiction?

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three science these items. Or facts 2 real and one fake and then I challenge my panel and skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week. The theme is scientific fraud. Scientific fraud. OK, you guys ready for this? Yes, here we go. Item number one, the famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater to increase sales of coke and popcorn never happened and was entirely fabricated. Item number 2A. Recent analysis finds the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year and item number 3. Researchers find that 40% of published peer reviewed papers show signs of AI Co authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI. Go first. Okay, the first one here, the famous.

'''J:''' Experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater to increase sales of coke and popcorn. Never happened. It was entirely fabricated. That mean that that seems so likely that that sentence is true. You know, it's an urban legend. I could see someone making that up. I could see it both ways, but I think that one is science. The second one here is a recent analysis finds the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8% with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year. OK, so this says it's a recent analysis and I mean it's hard to know what the numbers would be, but I absolutely believe that there are increasing number of fake papers going out. You know, biomedicine definitely is a is a category I would expect a ton to be in, you know, over 100,000 fake papers published. If anything, I would say that number is a lot more if this one isn't correct. The last one here, research was fine that 40% of published peer reviewed papers show signs of AI Co authorship with 10% being fully authored by AI. Oh my God, that one has got to be science. Oh man, wow, Steve, I will say that the last one is the one about the researchers find a 40% of published peer reviewed papers show signs of AI Co authorship. I'll say that one is false. OK, Evan, the one.

'''S:''' About.

'''E:''' Advertising in a movie theater, increasing sales of Coke and popcorn. That is classic urban legend, like urban myth kind of stuff right there. And that it was entirely fabricated. I I believe that is science. Boy, I bet you there are even other examples of things like this. We know the culture just gloms on to things whether it's true or not and if it has legs long enough, last throughout, you know, a generation or decades or whatever. Yeah, stuff like that. This would be a classic case of that, I think. So that one is science. The second one, about the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year. Holy moly. So there's more than a million biomedicine papers published every year That yeah, that 100,000 is.

'''S:''' Based on the 5.8%, so that's the, that's the five, that's the lowest.

'''E:''' Millions of biomedicine. Oh my gosh. Well, I guess you know, it's happening all over the world. So then publishing all, but that's a lot. All that information. Oh my gosh. It's this last one though that I think is going to wind up being the fiction 40% of published peer reviewed papers showing signs of AI Co authorship and 10% being fully authored. How could you have a peer reviewed process that would allow for that? That is just why have it at all? I mean, right, If you're not gatekeeping for things like that in 2025, what are you doing? Right. So I imagine they are really doing everything within their power to to stop this or detect it as best as possible. And I don't think 40% of this stuff is getting through. I say that ones fiction. OK, Bob, I agree with you guys.

'''B:''' You're I think you're pretty. Much spot on to what to what I'm thinking as well. Subliminal yeah, I've heard about it for literally decades and it wouldn't surprise me that it's fake, but also wouldn't surprise me if Steve, you know, if you're whatever I'm trying to try not to meta meta game too much this time. I think the bottom line for me is that the the biomedicine seems reasonable. 55.815% sounds reasonable for the, for this third one with peer reviewed 40% is just, I, I don't want to believe it. And that would just, it's just, it's such a dramatic #10% fully authored. Even one in 10 sounds a little bit too dramatic at this point in 2025. I, you know, jeez, I hope I'm right here. So I'm going to say this one, the 40% published peer reviewed sewing signs of Co authorship. I'll say that one is fiction. And that's puts me with Jay at this point, I think, right. And Evan, you guys were all?

'''S:''' Yep, we're in. Yeah, we're in the same. Boat.

'''B:''' All right. OK. And Andrea, you get to go.

'''S:''' Last yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go against.

'''C:''' The, the group here in the spirit of collective intelligence, someone's got to be gone. So it might as well be me touché. So I'm gonna go with so I think the the five percent, 5.8% biomedicine publications being fake, I think that's science. If anything. I agree with others who said it's it's probably higher, you know, and 15% are suspicious. I'm going to say that the researchers find that 40% of published peer reviewed papers show signs of AI Co authorship. I'm curious about what time frame is that 2025 thus far? Is that the last year? This is all very recent. Just recent.

'''S:''' OK, I'm going to say.

'''C:''' That that is science because I have less confidence in the peer review process, perhaps having been a part of it myself. You know, it's it's truly often appear and if you're working, you know, AI Co the 40% is just AI Co authorship. So that could mean, you know, very small segments are AI and faculty who are they should be reviewing for these things. But I don't believe that they are necessarily. And I also this is across all fields. I bet there's some fields just pumping out some wild stuff. So I'm persuaded that that number is real, which leaves very controversial. And I'm a bit torn on this, but I'm going to say that the experiment about popcorn and coke being fabricated, I'm going to say that that is the fiction. And I'm largely basing that on one thing, which is I've never heard of this experiment. And so I'm not really like, oh, of course it's false because I don't know what the study actually was. I could see a version of it just seem unlikely that we're in a world of subliminal advertising and that's not fiction. But I'm going to say that maybe the claim itself is that it never happened and was entirely fabricated. I bet some version of it happened and it got way blown out of proportion. So I'm going to say that's the fiction. OK. So you guys all agree on?

'''S:''' #2 so we'll start there. A recent analysis find. So the number of fake publications of biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. Great.

'''J:''' Yeah, I mean, or not. Great.

'''C:''' Oh no, this is a huge. Problem and this number is growing. Fast.

'''S:''' SO one one thing you have to change about how you may be thinking about, you know, fake scientific papers. It's not just individual bad actors anymore. There are, there are actually now systems of people basically like organized crime syndicates, you know? Yeah, they're paper mills. You know. Cranking these things out, they hook up researchers who were trying to buy, you know, to pad out their CV by reputation with journals that will publish the article with people who will write the fake papers. And yeah, the numbers are increasing significantly and the journals don't have a sufficient mechanism to to really prevent this. You know, think about that one in 20 paint one in 20 papers at least. It could be, you know, more like 3 and 20, you know, are fabricated or just completely fake. You know, not that they are, they tweak the numbers or something. It's a it's a paper mill. Part of the reason for this too is that there are so many pay to play journals that are a very low quality, which also impacts the third one too. You guys got to keep in mind how many low quality? They may be technically peer reviewed, but it doesn't mean that there's somebody doing a good job there. They're just trying to publish as much as they can because they get paid per paper. Some are straight up predatory, but other ones just have really low standards. Well, their industry is going to collapse if that's.

'''E:''' The case I mean, right? Oh totally. People lose faith in.

'''S:''' The published science and you know, if it's just you're buried with fake papers just to can't it's not sustainable well and the cost to generate papers.

'''C:''' Is basically 0 on an individual level, you can just keep pumping all like that was the big barrier was like at least a paper takes a while to write. But that's not the case anymore right? Well, let's go to the.

'''S:''' #3 Then, since these are closely. Related researchers find that 40% of published peer reviewed papers show signs of AI Co authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI. The boys think this one is a fiction Android. You think this one is science, The gender. And again, it's the same kind of.

'''Voice-over:''' Thing it's like.

'''S:''' You know, are those numbers reasonable? If you're thinking that there's a ton of poor quality paint, you know, journals out there, this is another way to just pad out your CV. Just have AI write a paper, publish it in some pure pay to play rag and there you go. I hope nobody looks too close.

'''B:''' I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. And if it if they do, you.

'''S:''' Retract it and move on, which is what they do. So this one is well, this is the fiction. You guys are correct. All right, the. Numbers are the. Numbers are yeah, a nice try. I mean I I could.

'''B:''' Absolutely agree with your with your angle as well Andrea, but we may get that. Well, it was the wrong angle.

'''S:''' So don't agree too hard.

'''C:''' So 10% are Co.

'''S:''' Authored it's that's the upper. There's no they didn't even give, They didn't even give a number for a fully co-authored fully authored by I just they found that recent studies show that 10% of published peer reviewed papers are show signs of being co-authored by AI. Yeah. So this is greatly exaggerating those numbers. Does AI have a role?

'''E:''' In. These in papers, yeah, right. You could use it so. But but not but not in the terms. Of but it shouldn't be authoring it, no?

'''S:''' Editing, analyzing, whatever this means that the famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater to increase sales of Coke and popcorn never happened and was entirely fabricated is science. So, yeah, this this wasn't really an urban legend so much as this an ad man James Vickery made it up and said it was real and sold it was.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:38:17) ==
{{qow
|text = "It is easy to get international agreement in science. Scientists have all the same standards - they are set not by beliefs, but by what works best. Of necessity, there is therefore universal unity. And unity makes for goodwill.” Bernd Heinrich - professor emeritu, biology department, University of Vermont, author of a number of books about nature and biology. Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior.
|author = submitted by Terry from American Canyon CA
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' But then he later said I was all just a quote UN quote publicity stunt, which means he lied and got caught. Right. But but The thing is that it kicked off a whole generation of people believing in subliminal advertising. Yeah, I've heard this since I was a boy.

'''J:''' Yeah, I've. Heard that many times, yeah. And and that's where the urban legends then take over, right?

'''S:''' And then embellish it. But the science never showed that it that it was true. And then eventually people did do actual research on it and it just was a complete bust. It doesn't work. Yeah, I was gonna say, is there any?

'''C:''' Evidence. I would be shocked. Yeah, there is priming right you.

'''S:''' Can you can't prime people, and you could prime people very subtly, But the idea of subliminal is that it's imperceptible consciously, but it's still affecting you and there's no evidence for that. Right? Right. One of my favorite priming.

'''C:''' Studies stop me if I've already said it was, it was a study where they had people come into little cubicles in an office and like draw a picture or solve a crossword puzzle. And then they gave them like a little cookie or, or a snack. And the treatment and control, They told them the treatment and control were something with like the puzzles, but the treatment and control were whether or not they were pumping a lemon scent into the room where they were doing the study. And the the rooms that got a lemon scent, the people were more likely to pick up the wrapper from their little snack and throw it away than the ones that didn't have a lemon scent. Because they wanted to maintain.

'''E:''' These perceived cleanliness, there's like, yeah, something about this smell.

'''C:''' Like primes us to think about cleanliness or order or oh, there's someone in here cleaning up. I don't know exactly what the the mechanism why they lemon sent all those. Cleaners, right?

'''S:''' Yeah, because that's what I.

'''E:''' Think about when I go in or that's why everyone did it. It's because, yeah.

'''C:''' We're already programmed so we now. Associate it, yeah. But I mean, yeah, that's not subliminal, but it's pretty clever and it's and you are perceiving it. You just don't really know the effect it's having on you. I just thought it was super cool. Fascinating. All right, Evan, give us a quote this week.

'''S:''' 'S quote was submitted by a listener.

'''E:''' Terry from American Canyon, CA. Thank you, Terry. It is easy to get international agreement in science. Scientists have all the same standards. They are set not by beliefs, but by what works best. Of necessity, there is therefore universal unity, and unity makes for goodwill. And that was said by Bernard Heinrich, who is a professor emeritus of the biology department at the University of Vermont and an author of a number of books about nature and biology. He's also made major contributions to the study of insect Physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior, including talking Ravens. Thanks. All right, Well.

'''S:''' Andrea, thanks for joining. Us, of course. Thanks for having me. We love having you.

'''C:''' Andrea, you're always awesome. Andrea so great.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''S:''' You're always awesome.

'''E:''' This was super fun.

'''C:''' I, I, I'm always happy to and we'll, I'll be seeing you next week. We'll be.

'''S:''' Recording the next two episodes of the Political Reality Podcast and One Day People.

'''C:''' Besides, us can listen. They'll actually be out there in a week. We're.

'''S:''' Getting ahead, you know, we're a development podcast, a backlog while we do the, you know, we're having discussions with the editor and we're sorting all that stuff out. But once they hit, they'll be every week. Yep, Yep. That's very exciting and it's been a lot of fun.

'''C:''' So I'll see you and then you're committed. Then we're committed.

'''B:''' That's it, That's it.

'''S:''' We. Andrea.

'''B:''' We haven't missed an episode in 20 effing years. So that's so your dance card is going to be filled for a long time. Wow. Not a single episode. Not a single.

'''C:''' Week in 20 years.

'''S:''' No, I'm impressed and and we're not.

'''C:''' Stressed out at all?

'''S:''' Yeah, and and it doesn't. It's not.

'''B:''' Taking a toll on anyone's help but.

'''C:''' Now it's like we we don't want.

'''S:''' To break our break our record. So we can't. Gotta do it now. Yeah. If you ever miss a week, we'll all know that.

'''C:''' Everyone died. Yeah. Something bad happened. No or no we. Might we've collided?

'''S:''' With if we miss.

'''B:''' A week, at least two of us are dead. Yeah, or we're about to.

'''C:''' Get launched out of the solar system as a plane. God, there you go. That's my prediction.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Steve. If if we. Get approached by a hyper velocity white dwarf. I am not recording this. Noted. All right, this is the.

'''S:''' Ultimate show to record.

'''C:''' Bob, you got a short 1 quickie with Bob.

'''B:''' I'm quickie with Bob.

'''C:''' Yeah, something more.

'''B:''' Quick than that, all right. Well, thanks again for joining me this week.

'''S:''' Everyone bye Thanksgiving to. All Happy Thanksgiving.

'''B:''' Thank you. Bye.

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

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1063

2025-12-28T21:49:41Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:36:49) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1063
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1063|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1063.jpg
|caption = Unable to acquire caption from OpenAI
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.”
|qowAuthor = – David Eagleman
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1063|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, November 20th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Jay Novella. Hey guys. And Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good afternoon, everyone.

'''S:''' Now Cara is away this week, but I did record her segment previously so that will she'll be jumping in in the middle of the show with her news item, but she is not here to participate in the rest of the show. She actually we did her science or fiction as well, so I'll be clipping that.

'''B:''' Ah, she went first, if I.

'''E:''' Don't. I would have sent. I would have texted her. And that's. Yeah. Right. Does that mean though we get to hear her ramblings before in her decision before we go? So she's getting no. Why? Why wouldn't she go first? In a limbo.

'''S:''' She went, she's done, but play her for you.

'''E:''' Yeah. Did you tell her if she got it right or not?

'''S:''' Maybe.

'''E:''' Oh, Steve, you are clever.

'''S:''' All right, so I'm I Bob just picked me up at the airport a few hours ago. I just got in from Dubai. I'm significantly jet lagged but.

'''E:''' This will be fun. I'm.

'''S:''' Mostly awake. It was a good trip. It was a lot of fun. You know, I did a nine hour seminar on, you know, perimeter on scientific skepticism, which is always fun. After that, there was a conference where I was on a panel on the future of consciousness in the mind. It was good. It actually turned out to be a really good, really good panel. So yeah, things are happening in Dubai. We may be going back there next year.

'''J:''' What's your #1 take away?

'''S:''' So I mean, there's, you know, the Dubai's trying to position itself as like the city of the future. You know, they're investing in a lot of technology, they're trying to attract a lot of talent, a lot of investment, and and they're motivated to make this happen. So, you know, they have like the Museum of the future there. It's actually pretty snazzy kind of construction. Yeah. There's. So, you know, the, the Muhammad is the guy who's hosting me there, who's the listener of the show. He's a skeptic. He's like we skepticism has to be part of this process, otherwise the pseudoscience will come in. So which of course I completely agree with, The learning curve is pretty steep when you're, you know, thinking about metacognition, critical thinking, science versus pseudoscience, thinking about that versus not thinking about that is a huge difference, right? So having some kind of process where we say, OK, is this something that's legitimate that deserves our time and attention, our investment? Or is this just some crank looking to exploit the situation? You know, so that's that's we're trying to at least introduce that basic nuts and bolts kind of process.

'''J:''' I mean even them pausing for a second and asking themselves could this be a scam? Or am I? Could I possibly be taken advantage of? Is a wonderful start.

'''S:''' And there's huge, there's research on that. Anything you do to make people think about, be aware of the truth status of a claim makes them more skeptical about it. You know what I mean? Just introduce the even if saying anything about is this true or not true? Soon as you introduce the idea that it may or may not be true, people think about it, you know? So So yeah. But obviously doing that in the context of this is how you tell real science from fake science.

'''J:''' Steve, when you're when you're there like this is part of a giant conference, right that you said it lasts like a month.

'''S:''' So there's two things, right? So the first is the field program, which is like there are 30 fellows that that, that are invited each year and they spend a month long seminar workshop with going through multiple seminars. I did one of the of the seminars in ours, you know, for that court there, but they have many other people doing that. And then the other one was a 2 day conference. It was the Future Forum, just a 2 day conference that anybody could go to. Just got to buy a ticket like any other con.

'''E:''' Was it dominated by AI discussion?

'''S:''' So AI all over the place, man, it was so much AI. Absolutely.

'''B:''' Of course.

'''S:''' Like, almost every, it seemed to come up in almost every context, you know, Yeah, like, and of course AI is going to change this. It's like, sure, yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' Let's see what they're saying after the. After the bubble burst, right bubble.

'''S:''' No, listen, it's it's they I is, as we've said before on the show, it is it's it's hype, but it's real technology as well. Just like any new technology. It's doesn't work for everything, but it's still figuring out like the Internet. You know, when Internet commerce and the and you know, the web came out, obviously it's transformed our economy, but there was a lot of hype that led to a bubble, which then burst. You're right. And so the two things can be true at the same time. It is a powerful new tool that is being used in research in so many ways. But because of that, there's also a ton of hype around it. And there's a lot, a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks, you know, about the AI bubble and when's it going to burst and etc, etc.

'''J:''' I don't see it bursting. I mean there.

'''S:''' We will see it, then it will and then it, you know, it'll things will sort itself out, you know, overtime, like what really works now we're in the throat shit against the wall phase, you know, see what happens.

'''J:''' But there is, there is so much money being put into that industry, it's crazy.

'''S:''' That's the thing. It's there's so much money. That's the bubble, right? It's attractive, crazy investment money, which is inflating the whole thing, you know. But yeah, yeah, the way I had it explained to me, actually, it was, you know, one of our one of our friends who was an investment guy. Remember, stocks are based on two things. There's the actual value of the company, its assets, its revenue, and then there's speculation about its potential in the future. When speculation gets too far ahead of reality, that's when you have a bubble, right? So we are absolutely in the massively speculative phase of AI and that it's no question that there's that that's causing a bubble. Because of that, at some point there's a quote UN quote correction right now. That correction is when you get back to a proper balance of, you know, the actual value of the company, like its profits and its assets versus speculation. The question is, is the is the correction going to cause a recession or even a depression? Right.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Like how you know? Hopefully it won't get that bad.

'''E:''' Hopefully not, but.

'''S:''' That's what happened in 1929, right? Those other problems too, there were regulatory problems that we've hopefully fixed this time around. But yeah, a lot of a lot of economists are worried that there's some some some similar things going on now that we have to be careful about.

'''E:''' Yeah, And there have been some big sells by some prominent investors who have sold, for example, all their NVIDIA stock, like dumped it all now, like just this week because they see the downturn coming.

'''S:''' Already, but that could become a self fulfilling prophecy.

'''E:''' It could be. It definitely could be, but there's more than one of these people and hedge funds and other things that have been unload unloading.

'''S:''' That's why bubbles burst, right? There's everyone's getting in to make money and then as soon as people think that it's going the other way, there's a rush for the door and then it collapses.

'''E:''' Right. And then there will be a buyback once it's down. But you're right, there could be a lot of collateral damage on the way. I just hope it doesn't get to that point.

'''J:''' Yeah, and can you trust those bastards?

'''E:''' Yeah. Trust. That's a big word.

'''J:''' Hey, and you know, I guess we're not going to talk about the Epstein files, right? Has.

'''S:''' That, has that been in the news recently? I don't know. A little bit, yeah, Yeah.

'''E:''' Oh yeah, yeah, you've been in Dubai.

'''S:''' No, even in Dubai it's in the news. Actually my, my lifeline while I was over there was BBC International, which was like the one English speaking news station I could get in the hotel room. So that was that was my lifeline to U.S. news was through the BBC. It's actually pretty good. It's exactly, you know, it's fairly objective reporting in my opinion. Anyway, let's move on.
{{anchor|dumbest}}

== Dumbest Thing of the Week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NKe7vtpueA/ (08:01) ==

{{shownotes
|weblink =
|article_title = None
|publication = None
}}

'''S:''' Evan, you're going to start us off with the dumbest thing of the week.

'''E:''' Thank you, Steve. Yes, dumbest thing of the week now, Steve as you know you were in Dubai recently. That's.

'''S:''' What I understand.

'''E:''' This particular dumbest thing of the week took place relatively close to where you were. Not exactly not not you know, but in the same. Same part of the world, same region. Same part of the world. Yep, Yep, Yep. And this can't comes to a courtesy of the Today show. And I know a lot of people in the United States know about this show. It is a big, big morning television show here in the USA on a major network. And this network even has a deeper online reach to its various related media products. So yeah, NBC, the National Broadcasting Company, this is their product. This is not some fringe Tiktoker or Myspacer or Six Degreeers. 6° Do you guys remember that at all? No, it was like the precursor. The precursor to Myspace. Look it up. Oh geez, I had to look it up because I didn't even remember what 6° was. But that was the pre Myspace though. Due to its enormous reach and potential damage to the collective IQ of the planet, they have earned Definitely the dumbest thing of the week. So they thought it was a good idea to head out to Mount Ararat in Turkey and Recook a long dead burger known as Noah's Ark.

'''B:''' Ararat. Isn't that where Ark is?

'''E:''' Thank you, Bob.

'''B:''' Yes.

'''E:''' Do you remember that?

'''B:''' Wow.

'''E:''' Well, NBC did because that's where they went and that's what this particular story was about, because a new team of investigators went out there to once again study the study this particular area to see and try to get confirmation that they have located the biblical, the fictional, the mythical Noah's Ark.

'''B:''' Steve, I got to say real quick, Steve and Jay, do you remember going to the movie theater to see the the movie popularization of that whole thing? Yeah. It was just like a it was just like a bad pseudoscientific documentary. It was horrible. My God it.

'''S:''' Was, yeah, It was in search of level of horribleness.

'''B:''' Yes.

'''S:''' Oh, yes, It's all speculation and coincidence and you know, you know what I mean? It's like never, ever. That was one of the shows that in my formative years, you know, like when I'm in, when I was a proto skeptic, not really a full skeptic, but we were all interested in all of this kind of stuff where I always had this nagging feeling, it's like, how come we never get to actual evidence? There's always the promise of evidence, the implication of evidence, the suggestion that there might be evidence, and it's all really full of hype and everything, but never anything solid. And that was definitely in that that bucket, you know, that that movie was that way. It's like it's all just wild ass speculation.

'''E:''' And yet, teams of researchers continue to visit the site in an attempt to try to make fact out of fiction. Basically is what happens. For those who don't know, in the book of Genesis, Noah's Ark came to rest, according to the book, on the mountains of Ararat, which has led to a long tradition of searching for Noah's Ark near Mount Ararat in what is modern day Turkey, the highest peak in Turkey, in fact, Mount Dara, it's a dormant volcano near the borders of our media and Iran. So despite many alleged sightings over the centuries, as you said, Steve, there has been none 0 credible scientific or archaeological evidence that the ark has been found. Geological studies of a presumed ark formation have concluded that they are what not not an ark, but a natural rock formation. Yep. Yep, so the new claim. In 2025 an American Turkish research team using GPR and other geophysical scans claimed to have found evidence of man made structures within this particular formation. Finally, you know, using the latest greatest technology to to go back to an archaeological site to try to find more information, which is not unusual in archaeology. That does happen, however. What did what did what did they find? Well, let's see. According to Lawrence Collins, who was a retired professor of geology from California State University and co-author of a paper that thoroughly debunked this formation near Mount Ararat as a natural geological structure, which was formed by a volcanic sediment by the way, and erosion rather than being a man made vessel. His analysis determined that the supposed artifacts looks like an iron bracket and drogue stones or is it Druge stones, DROGUE. And that's what these new researchers said that their readings came back with. But actually no natural mineral concentrations, local rocks. It's still just geology that that we're looking at. But hey, it looks like an arc, right? It has the shape, it has roughly, I guess the size that would that would match it. So what do you do if you're a true believer or creationist or what have you? You go back and you try to continue to find evidence to support your conclusions.

'''S:''' I mean, it's not even good pareidolia, right? It's just vaguely Bodish shaped. It's clearly a natural rock formation, you know, I mean, like, I it's the kind of thing, like you wouldn't even necessarily think anything about it until somebody points it out. It's like a face in the cloud. Like you kind of see how this could be a boat. Yeah. OK. I, you know, sure, if you squint really just right. But it's not, it's not even convincing, even just as just as being in a boat shape. It's terrible.

'''J:''' But Steve, for a lot of people, that's enough.

'''S:''' Apparently.

'''E:''' Well, right, and you know, and what the and and again, they just continue to go back to try to get more information, you know, something, anything that they can cling on to to help support their particular biblical based theory of what of what this is. But it fails. It fails time and time again why NBC and the Today Show decided to do a segment.

'''S:''' You know the answer to that question.

'''E:''' Well, I suppose so, you know.

'''S:''' Why does Time magazine have Jesus on the cover once a year? No matter what's going on, you know that's.

'''E:''' True Shroudaturan pops up all the time, you know, regularly these things are cyclical in in this way. So, so that's NBC. They get the dumbest thing of the week for helping to keep creation creationism alive.

'''S:''' Well, I do want to point out one other thing and that is I'm noticing that the use of this, you know, penetrating sonar is the latest pseudo scientific tool because you it's a BLOB squatch tool because you get back these vague low res images that you can hallucinate whatever the freak you want to hallucinate in those images. And so they look, this could be a corridor and then they then they superimpose on top of these blobs are shit, you know, and you're like, come on.

'''B:''' We're seeing it under under the pyramids right in in Egypt, we're seeing similar. That's what I'm saying.

'''S:''' It's yeah. So this now my radar is up for any pseudo archaeologist whatever using this ground penetrating radar. It's just pareidolia generating machine at this point in time.

'''J:''' Which, you know, suits their purposes perfectly.

'''S:''' Yeah, exactly. It's it's like there's the ghost hunters who use the squelch machine to to listen to ghost voices. It's there's the pseudoscientists will use noise generating machines that they could then over interpret to be whatever they wanted to be or whatever they needed to be to support their nonsense. But but you know real scientists know how to use it properly and you know how you know its strengths and weaknesses, etcetera, etcetera, right?

'''E:''' Limitations of the instruments correct? Absolutely.

'''S:''' I mean, The thing is, and this is, again, this is standard archaeology, is when you see something that looks like it might be something, right, just because it has a shape or whatever, that's meaningless until you find the physical stuff itself, right? So like, show me, where's the actual ship? There's got to be some. We have ships that are front 4000 years ago, Yeah. 2. 2700 BCE. So, yeah, So we could find shipwrecks from thousands of years ago. There should be something some wood, some because you say nails some of the Pete, the metal that you used to make it something not just it's dirt in a vague ship shape that I impose my beliefs on to.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Using AI To Design a Virus (16:36) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.biopharmatrend.com/news/stanfordarc-team-reports-ai-made-viruses-that-kill-bacteria-1383
|article_title =

Stanford–Arc Team Reports AI-Made Viruses That Kill Bacteria

|publication = www.biopharmatrend.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, Jay, what I understand that scientists have used AI to make a virus to kill a bacteria.

'''J:''' That is correct, Steve. I was really, really looking forward to hearing what you guys think about this. I think it's really cool. I think it's another great example of. You know, of using artificial intelligence, but of course there's details and there's things that we have to consider. So what we have is 2 scientific teams, both in California, and they claim they've used artificial intelligence to create functioning viruses that can infect and kill bacteria. You know, on the surface, this sounds, you know, incredible, right? Both groups designed to complete viral genomes using the AI systems. The DIA systems were trained on massive DNA data sets. You know, they just filled it with as much information as they could and then they assembled those genomes in the lab and watched them come to life inside bacteria cells. They had 16 successful AI generated designs from the Stanford and Ark Institute teams. They, they produced fully working bacteriophages and this marks a, you know, a significant shift in how biology can be engineered. Now, of course, I mean, who hasn't thought about this? I've been thinking about, you know, them using AI to do genetic engineering for a long time and I'm.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's code, right? It's perfect tool for it exactly.

'''J:''' Yeah. And and it's, this is probably not the first time it's been used this way, but this this particular thing that was accomplished is pretty significant. So in case you don't know, a bacteriophage is a virus that infects bacteria. It can't reproduce or grow on its own. And what it does is it attaches itself to a living bacterial cell, then it injects its genetic material, which then hijacks the cell's internal machinery, which forces the cell to make new viral components. This is, you know, exactly what happened with COVID. And then eventually, it causes the cell to burst open. And this is very much like a Thanksgiving meal at my house, by the way, each, each phage usually targets only one type of bacteria, sometimes even a single strain. And that's pretty cool. That means you can match a specific phase to a specific infection. So the targeting potential here is is at maximum. This is why researchers are right now exploring these phases and the precise treatments that they could eventually bring to us for antibiotic resistant bacteria. And if you don't know about what is going on in the world of antibiotic resistant bacteria, well, there is a a growing problem caused by several things. One of them is people taking their medication and not finishing their antibiotics. You know, you can get some nasty bacteria that comes out of that, that happening over and over and over and over again. And it's always good to future proof ourselves from future potential heavy duty bacterial threats, which happened from time to time. The California team at Stratford and ARC Institute, they were focusing on PHIX 174. This is a tiny phage with a genome of about 5000 bases and 11 genes in a virus. This genome is a single continuous piece of DNA or RNA. And that tells the host cell which proteins they produce and how to assemble new virus particles, right. This is this is all basic virus information. PHIX 174, this is a well known and very much heavily studied phase, which makes it perfect, a perfect test case for these synthetic genome designs that they're coming up with. The researchers also used the LLM that is specifically trained on DNA sequences, right? So it wasn't just a standard like out-of-the-box LLM. They were, they were training it to only essentially only understand DNA and there wasn't even really like a like a talking component to it. Like you couldn't just type into it. You know, the way that they were communicating with it was, was largely just based on them pumping in DNA information and it's spitting out DNA information. And that LLM was part of the Evo and Evo 2 family of artificial intelligence systems. You could read a little bit more about them. They're being used for different things. So they used it to write complete virus genomes from scratch. And the AI was able to do this very well because the models were trained, like I said, on just a huge amount of data about bacteria and virus and everything. So they, they built, they loaded the gun perfectly for them to get these results. The AI learned many of the rules that real biological genomes follow. And this part is important because it wasn't just it shooting into the dark. They concluded that the, the success of this program proves that it had, you know, a quote UN quote, a real understanding of, of what the, you know, you can call them rules or whatever, but just just how these systems work. And it needed that in order to, to have this many successes. So once that they had the these DNA sequences, they used other laboratories to actually build these structures and they were assembled and they were able to inject them into bacteria. And it, it worked. It was, it was actually very successful. And the interesting thing here, so now that we have the DNA and now that they were able to build these phases, the implications are significant because we see what was able to be done with the LLM. We know that it can function and we know that it can spit out usable data. So now what are we looking at? Fate, You know, phage therapy could become a much more targeted thing in the future. Synthetic biology could explore, you know, designs that are way beyond what evolution has produced. But of course, there's like the Frankenstein risks here that we have to be very careful about. And there needs to be responsible oversight. And of course, whenever we say that we need oversight, it's the one thing that we seem not to get because, you know, we had this incredible powerful technology that, again, we could do incredible things with. Here's a few things people need to keep in mind. This could be used in the future. It's not ready today.

'''S:''' We also should say that this is a preprint, so it hasn't been peer reviewed yet and it hasn't been replicated so.

'''J:''' Yeah, that's why I'm saying that they claimed it. You know this isn't.

'''S:''' Yeah, just to point it out specifically, this is preliminary. So, but this is, you know, the next iterative step in this research that's been done. It's not. This is not a huge leap.

'''J:''' And, and again, this is how science works, right? Right now, it's in super early phase. We don't know exactly where it's going to go. What's going to happen with this research. If you look back on like mRNA and the mRNA platform, for example, that took 40 years from the very beginnings of it to get it to where, you know, we could create a, a vaccine, you know, or at least come up with the vaccine code in a few days, right? It's incredibly powerful. They need to, they can only test this thing in the controlled lab environment. They have to work on, you know, safe model organisms. This is not a medical application that involves people. It probably won't be that if it even gets there. It would be a very long time from now. But that said, this is not insignificant. And it's one of those things where it could potentially have a massive downstream effect.

'''S:''' Both good and bad. So I think the idea that we could make designer bacteriophages to fight bacterial infections, that could be a massive new medical application, right? That could be wonderful.

'''E:''' We need it.

'''S:''' Yeah, we definitely have. We bacterial got to have it. But you know, like antibiotic resistance is an issue.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So, yeah. So again, it could be, if it works, if this all pans out and I've seen a reason why I wouldn't, you know, again, genetics is code and LLMS are sort of a perfect tool for this, then the applications could be amazing. But the risks are equally powerful, right?

'''B:''' Double edged sword. It's a double. It's a double edged sword. Technology.

'''S:''' Yeah, the young, the ability to create, you know, custom viruses that the as a as a potential bio weapon. That's obviously the first thing to be concerned about. Somebody could somebody could use the same platform to create to engineer a bio weapon, just telling hell of them to do it. So once again, we're at the point where in a perfect world, the regulators would be all over this and they would be getting, you know, the testimony from the right experts and trying to craft thoughtful regulation to minimize the worst risks of this kind of technology without slowing down genuine innovation or the potential upside of it.

'''B:''' But and they should do it now. Should be doing it now. You've got to stay ahead of this is. Going to happen, right? Is there any doubt that this is going to happen on some level in the not too distant future? It's happening now.

'''S:''' So let me let me say something because I was at, you know, when at Dubai. One thing that's interesting is that it's very the whole thing, the especially like the future form is very corporate, which is fine. But you know, so it's a little bit different than the academic conferences that I'm used to. It had more of a corporate vibe to it, but it's but it's good for me. I think it was good to get a perspective to get that perspective and what one of the panels, you know, one of the guys, you know, running a company doing this kind of cutting edge research is like, yeah, we we prefer operating in that phase before the regulators know we exist because then we get to do whatever we want. But they're and they're always behind, you know, they always are playing catch up late. So that means you have this phase where you could just do whatever you want, you know, and without having to worry about regulation. So that's kind of that, that that's, I agree with that. The idea that regulators tend to be decades behind sometimes, you know, regulating these new technologies when they really need to. Like, we need a system. We need, like there should be an office or whatever, there's got to be people whose job it is to keep an eye on emerging technologies that may need to be regulated before the genies out of the bottle, right?

'''B:''' Right. And it would also be nice if we had politicians that barely, you know, that do more or no more than just barely understanding what e-mail is. Yeah, I mean, right. I mean, serving these old guys, you know, try to understand these complicated advances, It's just not working out.

'''S:''' I mean, again, not to be ageist, it is just from a generation who didn't grow up with digital technology. That doesn't mean they they can overcome it if they make it, if they make a point to understand the technology and to learn and keep up. But they're saying things like the Internet is a series of tubes, you know, I mean, they're making comments that indicate that they don't understand the technology.

'''B:''' Yeah, they don't inspire confidence at.

'''S:''' This They don't inspire confidence. That's a good way to put it. So we're going to cut to to Cara's item, which we pre recorded and then we'll come back to the to the stuff we're recording now. All right, Cara, you're going to tell us about Earth's digital twin.

'''C:''' Yeah, so there's a really interesting study that was just published. No, actually it's still this month in the archive Physics. It's called the computing the full Earth system at 1 kilometer resolution, which is actually really funny because it's 1.25 kilometers resolution. But they're like close enough publish. Yeah, round it off. They're like, for all intents and purposes, it's the same thing. So this was published by a group of scientists who basically, I mean, there, there are two main things that happened here to make this possible. And from everything I'm reading and you know, this area of press, it was originally public published in Universe Today, and then it was picked up by Science Alert and by other outlets and the physics archive. It was published in this. I guess the subheading is atmospheric and ocean physics.

'''S:''' And is this preprint?

'''C:''' Yeah, I mean, it's in the archive. So yes, that's almost always preprint. But from what? And the main reason it's a big deal is, well, it's two things. Number one, they used the latest technology to be able to do this technology that just wasn't available before. And we'll get into what that is. And #2 they simulated the Earth, and we're talking about weather and climate patterns or systems of the full Earth down to a resolution that's never been achieved before.

'''S:''' So you say weather and climate. Weather meaning it's very. It's very on a short time scale, not.

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' On a long time scale.

'''C:''' And they actually for the purposes of communicating the research and the modeling, they basically talk about two categories and they call them fast and slow systems. So they use these different models and we'll talk about what the models are, or at least how they got to the models to reflect these two systems. These are obviously very dynamic systems. The fast system is basically what they're calling weather like energy and water cycles. And then the slow system are the things that have been somewhat successfully modeled in the past, like the carbon cycle and changes to ocean geochemistry, the biosphere. So these these are things where the changes occur over years, sometimes decades. Whereas the fast system, we're talking minutes, like imagine a thunderstorm and it's moving from one area of the map to another. They're able to get that resolution down to 1.25 kilometers, which is high enough to be able to say here is a storm moving from one area to another. Previously, systems were only computationally mappable down to about 40 kilometers or more. So this is a big.

'''S:''' That's a big.

'''C:''' Change, yeah.

'''S:''' Are they feeding it real time data or this is just to look and see at simulated weather?

'''C:''' I'm actually not sure because all of the reporting has to do with how they did the model computationally and it has less to do with what they fed into it, but basically what they decided to do. And well, yeah, I think what ends up happening with a model is that that you do get real time data, but I'm not sure if it's historical or if it's, you know, to the minute.

'''S:''' Yeah. I mean, for climate, you know, if it takes them a year to input the data, it doesn't matter for whether it's got to be pretty in.

'''C:''' Real time. Yeah, real time.

'''S:''' But that's that's maybe a different thing.

'''C:''' And I guess modeling too is complicated because I, I watched a few videos on how to model climate and all of the different levels of complexity that go into it. And some of it does seem to do with just basic Earth parameters. Like especially when we're talking about climate, it's like albedo. It's where you know, it's like the rotation of the Earth. It's all these different things that are relatively standard. And then when it comes to weather, of course there are pressure changes and shifts and, and all the things that kind of feed into pockets of weather forming. So, so two things that were kind of big here. So they used something called the I see. OK, the icosahedral non hydrostatic model what?

'''S:''' Icosahedral.

'''C:''' Yeah, Icosahedral, but ICO is like in capitals for some. I see. Yeah. So I'm not sure why, but the icosahedral non hydrostatic model was developed as the German Weather Service or sorry by the German Weather Service and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. That is, I guess the data that they used or the the the kind of basic modeling that they built upon. The big difference here is scale. So be in order to get that 1.25 kilometer scale, they're estimating that basically if you imagine like a grid covering the surface of the Earth, that that grid is composed now of 300, three 36 million cells. They doubled it because then they kind of modeled atmospheric cells and they're mapped directly above the ground based ones. So we're looking at a model of around 672 million calculated cells, which they estimate translates to like one trillion what they're calling degrees of freedom, which I know is different depending on the statistics that you're talking about. But here what they're referring to when they talk about a trillion degrees of freedom is the total number of values it's calculating. So it obviously needs a supercomputer to run this, and that's where this big new bit comes in. They used 20,480 of the new NVIDIA GH200 super chips to be able to model 145.7 earth days in a single day and.

'''S:''' That's why my gaming rig costs so much. Yeah, using up them and everybody else, every cryptocurrency.

'''C:''' So, so I had to look up what AGH 200 super chip is because I was like, what does GH stand for? Is that like gigahertz? What does that actually mean? It's not that's that was really confusing to me. The number and the the letters have nothing to do with computing power. So the NVIDIA GH 200 is also called the Grace Hopper. So GH stands for Grace Hopper. It's, you know, to honor her. And 200 is just their name and convention. So this is the 200th product in their series. But the GH 200, by every measure that I've read, is a huge leap in performance, a huge leap in memory. We're talking mostly because it's integrating two different types of processing. So there's the NVIDIA Grace CPU integrated with the NVIDIA H100 Tensor cord GPU, and then they work in tandem. So you've got CPU processing along with the graphic processing. And so it's got this high bandwidth interconnect between the two. It's got unified memory. It's got a massive memory capacity. And so the platforms, like the applications for things like this is generative AI, it's high performance computing, it's data analytics. You know, it's things like modeling the climate and the weather of the entire Earth.

'''S:''' Yeah, and. Since we're talking about computer chips, though, as a little bit of an aside, IBM just announced their latest quantum computer chip, which does seem to be a real game changer. We'll probably have to do a deeper dive on it at some point. But they combined error correction on the same chip with the quantum computing. This kind of reminds me of the same thing. It's like it's the two, two functions in one. And as Bob and I have said previously, the error correction is like the ball game at this point with with quantum computer chips, Like what's the error rate, you know? And so anyway, if this pans out the way they say it, it would, it should then they should have like commercial quantum computer chips by 2030 is what they're saying. So I wonder if that would apply to this kind of model because that's always the, the first thing you hear and they say, what's it going to do? It's going to be able to do climate models like it's always on the top of the list of like what these can chips could do. I wonder if that would you know that for some applications they could be thousands of times more powerful than conventional chips, or or more.

'''C:''' And this is what's really interesting as you were talking about that I I did a little, so I'm trusting AI here a little bit, but I did a little search about the NVIDIA chip because it's not a quantum yeah chip, right? It's it's.

'''S:''' There's no quantum chip that you.

'''C:''' Could buy but they are calling it a super chip. And the interesting thing says that even though it's a classical processor, it it is playing a a really important role in advancing quantum computing because it can it can run large scale simulation of quantum algorithms and because it's got that low latency classical computing power, it can be used for quantum error correction. So. Like. Finding these things is big. Yeah, yeah. And apparently this one was like a leaps in about like they made a big leap when they went from their pre when NVIDIA went from their previous super chip to the the Grace Hopper 200. So now you can combine that with what's going on over at IBM and wow.

'''S:''' But so not surprisingly with this model, it's basically it's a hard upgrade and the software upgrade, yeah. They're using these. Super chips and they're getting better at the software, you know, using generative AI and boom, we got a one quote UN quote 1 kilometer.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah. And also other hardware, right. They're using these massive supercomputers in order to run it because it just takes take so much of everything.

'''S:''' Yeah, it takes so much energy, it's going to warm the climate just by running the model.

'''C:''' But that's what they, the authors at least, really put a lot of of the kind of onus, I guess that's not quite the right word, but they say that this is really only possible because of that GPUCPU bifurcation. It allows them to run the fast models. Previous to that, they could have only done the carbon cycle models. So they're doing the carbon cycle models on the CPU portion in parallel with the fast models on the GPU portion. So the weather and climate is being modeled sort of at the same time due to this big innovation in the in the chip.

'''S:''' So, yeah, And from what I'm reading, just so I tell me if this is your understanding too, they're using an existing model, right? An existing.

'''C:''' Model. I think that's what the they.

'''S:''' Just made it higher resolution. So it's not like this model has to be validated. It's already been validated. They're just making it to just putting it on steroids.

'''C:''' Yeah. Basically they're taking a model that has been used in Germany and that is I think, yeah, like a valid, completely validated because it's in use today. Yeah, through icon and then they are because of this computational power, it made a huge leap from like 40 plus kilometers down to like 1.25 in resolution, which is enough to talk about weather. But 40 kilometers, yeah, you can kind of talk about huge weather systems, but we're not talking, you know, looking at your app on your phone and seeing what's happening right where you live. That wouldn't be possible with 40 kilometer resolution. So, you know, the, the, the write up, it does caution and, and the authors do as well that, you know, models of this complexity are not going to be carried by local weather stations. It's just too, you know, it requires too much computational power. And they worry, of course, that big tech is going to use that type of computational power. Like these GH2 hundreds are going to be used for generative AIA 100%. And then all of the supercomputing time is, is being taken for that. But maybe, you know, you've got to show that something's possible before it becomes faster, cheaper, better. And this is showing that it is possible.

'''S:''' Yeah. I wonder if this will impact the the global warming modeling that this model does.

'''C:''' Oh, right, because even if.

'''S:''' You get more precise or will it be different than?

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah. Like, even if Your local weather station can't afford to do this, obviously the researchers doing this are going to give this data to, like, the UN and to, you know, all of these groups that are sort of responsible for modeling what's happening. Yeah.

'''S:''' Local weather services, by the way, like Your local weather, they're all pulling their data off the Weather Service. They're not doing anything themselves, so this would be used like by the government and then everybody would get the information.

'''C:''' Yeah. But yeah, this idea of a digital twin, it's, I don't know, when I first read about it, I couldn't help but see the parallel between our fields, right? Where there's constant modeling of brains or of other biological processes, and we're trying to get better and better at that. That in some ways the climate is, I don't know there is a parallel there because it's stochastic and it's complicated and there's so many variables that have to be fed into it.

'''S:''' And we are just trying to get more and more resolution. Yeah, you know, but we don't have, we could do a mouse brain, you know, because it's smaller than a human brain. We don't have any small planetary systems to model.

'''C:''' Well, actually we have been able to model things like Mars pretty well because like the atmosphere is a whole level of complexity that we just, you know, makes the Earth way more difficult to model.

'''S:''' Do we have really complicated climate models of Mars?

'''C:''' I well, really complicated is, is tough, but I did do a deep dive into this really great video where I learned an awful lot. So I want to give a shout out to Doctor Trevor Bassett's YouTube channel. But he talks about how climate modeling works and he goes into like 4 different levels of complexity. And he says over and over, he uses like, Mars and the Moon as an example over and over where he's like, yeah, this would be easy to do on Mars or the moon. But like, now that we have the atmosphere of Earth, things get a lot more complicated. But yeah, probably not down to 40 or even definitely not down to 1 kilometer.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah. All right. Thank you, Cara.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Creatine for Cognitive Function (42:05) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/creatine-supplements-for-brain-function/
|article_title = Creatine Supplements for Brain Function | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}

'''C:''' Yep.

'''S:''' All right, guys, have you ever heard of this idea of using creatine supplements for brain function to improve your brain health or improve your brain function? So I was asked.

'''B:''' About it.

'''S:''' I was asked about it and I, I hadn't heard of it specifically. I heard it for like bodybuilding, you know?

'''B:''' Yeah, me too, but.

'''S:''' That's like 20 years ago, you know, it was, it was when it was, I think having having its heyday.

'''E:''' I wonder what creatine exactly is though.

'''S:''' Well, it's protein, basically.

'''E:''' Thank you.

'''B:''' So you could say that about anything about biology and you will probably be right.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a good, good first.

'''E:''' Gas protein, it's organic and.

'''S:''' If you want to get you want to get crazy, you could say it's an enzyme. This isn't an enzyme though, all right, but.

'''E:''' That would be crazy.

'''S:''' Here's the basic science. So this is specifically creatine monohydrate, but you know, creatine gets converted to phosphocreatine and stored in neurons. Phosphocreatine can be broken down into ATP, which is energy, creatine triphosphate, energy adenosine triphosphate. So it basically could be turned into energy that can be used by cells to function.

'''B:''' Kind of important.

'''S:''' So the idea is if you take supplements, you'll increase your store of phosphocreatine and therefore you'll increase the availability of this energy currency to the brain when it needs it, so it'll function better. So I consider this to be a semi plausible mechanism. At least it's something physical happening like the the biology adds up. It's not saying quantum vibrations or anything like that, right? It's saying, you know, it's.

'''E:''' Meridian. Homeopathic memory. Yeah, exactly.

'''S:''' But you know the idea that because you know the, the it's, it's based upon the premise that the availability of the raw material is a rate limiting step here. And that's rarely the case, right? Just eating more of something usually doesn't make your body function better. It only, it would only be helpful. It'd only be helpful in a situation where the body's being stressed beyond its normal parameters. And we'll get to that in a second. Or where you are deficient for some reason, right, right. Or you have a disease that makes it deficient take.

'''E:''' Vitamin C if you have scurvy.

'''S:''' But if you're yeah, exactly vitamin C is helpful for scurvy because you're deficient in vitamin C. But if you're a healthy person with a good diet, taking more vitamin C probably isn't going to help, right? That's the idea. So I, I have sort of the same overall view of this. It's like, OK, that sort of makes sense and it's helpful, but does it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to help if we're a healthy person to take it? Your brain's going to better because it has more ATP being made from this sort of side pathway.

'''B:''' Right. Is it even noticeable?

'''S:''' Right. It may and also it all may be true that that is true of so many things, Bob, where it's like, yeah, that's true, that is happening. But is that a clinically significant effect in and of itself? Maybe not, you know, so how how do we know you have to do clinical studies, right?

'''E:''' Can it lead to toxicity as well?

'''S:''' Well, the, the big thing with creatine is that it's got to be processed by the kidney. And if you take too much of it, like a lot of proteins, you could, you could stress out the kidneys. But generally speaking, the doses that people are using for this specific indication are below the general safe levels. Again, if you have kidney disease, then don't take it, right? I'll talk to your doctor. Well, bets are off. But if you're healthy kidneys, you could, you know, take this, the supplement levels are probably safe. OK, so there was 2024 systematic reviews. So that's pretty recently 16 clinical trials. That's not a lot for systematic review, but it's not nothing. 492 participants in total. Again, that's not a lot, especially for 16 studies. That's those are that means they're mostly small studies. So it's a, you know, overall modest amount of data. This is telling me this is preliminary research. So they found that creatine supplementation showed significant positive effects on memory, attention, time, and processing speed, but no significant improvements were found on overall cognitive function. That seems like a big thing or executive function. So it kind of sounds like it's like, alright, there's some improvement on components of thinking, but it didn't improve your overall cognitive function and didn't improve your executive function. So they also did a subgroup analysis to show that the effect was more significant in people with diseases, those aged 18 to 60, not sure about what that means. And females, again, not sure what that means. So what is how do we make sense of all this data? First, these results are a bit mixed right there. It's not a clear a consistent signal. It shows improvement in some things but not others. Also, there's a kind of quirky subsets of people to be affected by it.

'''B:''' Yeah, right.

'''S:''' So that tells me that this could just be an artifact of small studies looking at a lot of variables and some things are going to come up positive, right? So this is an overall not very confidence building, right? Not a, not a good sign. So the the authors themselves conclude that there's that the evidence is low to moderate confidence. That would be like more of an evidence based evaluation. I would say putting adding the other things that I just said the the mixed results and the patterns that we're seeing, I would put to me that's low confidence. And they say that we need larger robust clinical trials to validate it. So again, that's code for this is not ready for prime time. This results are not have not been established. So we can also look at this from the lens of if we take 100 things right, medical claims that where there's this level of evidence, how many of them pan out to actually work? And it's you're probably down in the 1 to 2% range. And there has been some, some research to back that up. It's hard to, it's hard to say it's exactly analogous. But you know, when we generally ask that question, the answer is quite low, usually single digits in terms of percentages. Part of the reason is, is because there's a huge false positive bias in the literature. So if you have preliminary data, mostly small studies with mixed results, and you would count for a positive, a significant positive research bias, then you know, statistically speaking. And then historically this is true. Most of these things don't pan out. And of course, does the supplement industry has the flavor of the weak approach, right? It takes 1020, thirty years to do the research to really tell if something is effective or not. That gives them 20 to 30 years to market it. And then by the time it gets shot down, they're on to the next thing. So to me, this is just the next, you know, sort of an endless sequence of, of brain supplements that are supposed to help your brain function better, make you smart or whatever the smart pill thing, and none of them really pan out.

'''B:''' Where sometimes the baloney sticker it sticks around, it doesn't go away like.

'''S:''' Sometimes doesn't like, yeah, the Oct, the antioxidant thing is this hat is just is so embedded now. I thought some things become permanent, like there's become a permanent addition to the culture and the health Halo thing that never goes away. And I think, yeah, I think antioxidants are here to stay, even though I think there's no evidence that there's any benefit to supplementing them. So be cautious. You know, with the creatine thing, again, don't spend a lot of money on it would be my advice. It's like, I'm not saying there's no benefit there. There may be some benefit, but the evidence of preliminary low confidence, these things don't have a good history. I will say one other signal. There's another study I looked at that wasn't in the systematic review that showed that it may have a benefit for people who are sleep deprived. So that may that's a little bit more plausible because if you are like, if you're sleep deprived, you're under a lot of stress, then things like this could make a difference at the edges. You know what I mean? I don't think it's going to affect normal healthy functioning of your brain, but it may help with these kinds of situations. But again, need, we need more research to tell, but that is at least somewhat more plausible. And it wouldn't surprise me, right? Wouldn't surprise me. Oh, yeah. There's a little bit of a benefit if you take a high dose right when you're sleep deprived. OK, maybe it's kind of like the probiotic thing too. Like probiotics don't do anything for most people most of the time. But if you take a super high dose only when you have post antibiotic used problems because you wiped out your gut flora, it may help. You know, I mean, like there's this little sliver of there may be some effect here in these with the all of these caveats. So it wouldn't surprise me if like again, in some subset of a subset, it may have some limited benefit, but it's not a panacea. It's like, take these smart pills and you know, all your cognitive function is better. I think already we could, you know, say that that's probably not true because if it were, we would be seeing it right there. There isn't a false negative bias. Usually we, we the false positive bias means the where the the preliminary research is usually calibrated to make sure that they're seeing an effect and not missing it, but they at the expense of overcalling it, right. So if you're not seeing a like a home run positive effect in this level of data, it's probably not there, right. So that's kind of the longest answer to, hey, is there anything to the whole creatine thing for brain health? That's yeah, just.

'''B:''' Even less than minus.

'''J:''' Yeah, it's.

'''S:''' So this is how I would characterize this research as this is the plausibility and the preliminary research is sufficient to justify doing large clinical trials, but that's it. It's not sufficient to market it or make clinical claims or I think even take it. But I do think it's enough to justify further research. And that's it. I think that's the best way to look at it.

'''J:''' But people won't won't change their buying habits.

'''S:''' Well, some people will. Maybe some people listen to this show you where critical thinkers and skeptics will say, oh, that's good information. I will change my buying habits. Who knows?

'''B:''' That's because we have. Awesome listeners.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely. All right, Bob, I'm very excited about this.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Earth Digital Twin (52:25) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-create-digital-twin-of-earth-accurate-to-a-1-kilometer-scale
|article_title = Scientists Create Digital Twin of Earth, Accurate to a 1-Kilometer Scale : ScienceAlert
|publication = www.sciencealert.com
}}

'''S:''' There we go. Tell us about this quiet supersonic.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Quiet Supersonic Jet (52:28) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.livescience.com/technology/engineering/nasas-new-ultraquiet-supersonic-flying-swordfish-plane-makes-history-with-first-test-flight
|article_title = Meet NASA’s X-59: An ultraquiet supersonic jet that just made history with its first test flight | Live Science
|publication = www.livescience.com
}}

'''S:''' Jet.

'''B:''' Yeah, quiet guys. Commercial supersonic flight took a significant lurch out of its grave recently when when the test plane, the X59, flew for the first time at relative slow speeds to check its systems. The plane's been designed to fly faster than sound, but not create the jar. Oh, wait.

'''S:''' It didn't fly faster than sound for the test.

'''B:''' No, this was a shakedown cruise. OK. Yeah. I wanted to mention that out of the gate because then it's just like, you know, you'd be the disappointments, hopefully.

'''S:''' Get that over right now. Tell us the whole stuff.

'''B:''' Right, The plane has been designed, Steve, to fly faster than sound, but not create the jarring ground level Sonic booms. Only tiny Sonic thumps. Sonic thumps. So this X 59, it's the baby of NASA and Lockheed Martin, the first full scale experimental plane designed for tolerable booms. We all remember the iconic Concorde, right?

'''S:''' Oh yeah.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''B:''' Yes, it flew its last flight early in this Millennium. I think it was 2003 people.

'''E:''' Who were on Concorde?

'''B:''' Oh yeah, man, I remember it. I remember being so excited. But such commercial planes are not allowed to fly over over the land in the US even, you know, if the Concorde couldn't do that. And that's because the Sonic booms are so loud and disruptive that it could, it could actually potentially break Windows and cause minor building damage, even worst case scenario. But Despite that, the real Sonic boom problem was the chronic annoyance and the public backlash that it caused. It was people were, you know, we're just not happy. Can you imagine hearing that? About time.

'''S:''' Can I point out at this point, yeah, I had a misconception about this when I was younger, and I wonder how many people still have it too. I thought you could say the Sonic boom. Yeah, it was when it crossed the the bear. Yes, it's supersonic, but it's the entire time it's flying supersonically. There's a there's there's a continuous boom as it as it travels.

'''B:''' It's constantly.

'''E:''' Putter or is it a solid kind of? I've heard it before.

'''S:''' I've heard it.

'''B:''' It's. It's a constant booming. It's a constant booming.

'''S:''' But you hear it. You hear it once each person. But as it travels over the land, the booms travels with it.

'''B:''' Exactly, Yeah. And, and I had that misconception as well. And that that's the biggest misconception. But I'll go into a little bit more detail about that now. Commercial supersonic flight, that's a, that's one of the sci-fi staples, right? I mean, not one of the big boys, but it's a it's a sci-fi staple. But just the desk. This one is extra frustrating because we already had the damn thing and now we don't. Bye, bye. See you later. Just a big tease, so. But have you considered this other angle as well? This is also frustrating. The Boeing 707 in 195867 years ago flew at 965 kilometers per hour, 600 mph. And that's just about what commercial jets do today. Yeah. You know, that's when you think about that. How is that even a thing in this age of rapid scientific advancement speed. We were across so many fronts. It just sounds wrong, right? But you know, there are there engineers aren't lazy and just like this is good enough. It's there's good engineering reasons why we don't see commercial flights getting. Faster and faster?

'''J:''' Isn't it largely fuel efficiency?

'''B:''' That that's part, that's part of it. But it's also, yeah. But it just becomes more and more difficult to go much faster than commercial airlines today. It's not just for the reason of surpassing supersonic speed. You know, the drag just gets worse and worse and worse. So there's lots of reasons. But NASA and Lockheed Martin, they're trying to solve a lot of these problems on test planes like the X 59 and in just general research. But they specifically, from what I could gather, they specifically want to make this technology available so that US manufacturers could then build their own supersonic commercial jets. So that's what's 1 of their goals. So ideally these technologies will need to solve so many problems, all of which plague the Concorde and are why it no longer flies. And these reasons include inefficiencies and expense. If you look at the, the tickets back then, they were priced at, at in today's dollars, many thousands of dollars, you know, and even 10s of thousands of dollars almost twice, about twice the first class subsonic ticket at the time. And even then the Concorde struggled to be, to be consistently profitable. It was very, very difficult even with those exorbitant prices that were people were paying. And then there's safety. There was a, there was safety problems. Remember, there was a crash in 2000. It killed over 100 and 13 passengers. That greatly. That was a real turning point that greatly diminished ticket sales and confidence that people.

'''E:''' Had a good safety record up until.

'''B:''' That and yeah, there was just a crazy thing that, yeah, the, the, the tire taking off hit some debris that that flew into the wing which punctured the tank. And like, oh man, you could imagine, just extrapolate from there how bad, how bad that got. So these those are just a couple of the problems that that that these planes would experience is there's also the environmental impact take off and landing noise. There's high altitude emissions and there's, you know, there's weight. But finally, one of the greatest barriers for commercial supersonic flight is this iconic Sonic boom. And it's and it's that that specifically which the X 59 test plane is addressing that major problem right there. That's basically the purpose of the X 59. So it's not specifically addressing these other issues which are important, but it's a Sonic boom problem. This relates to another critical goal of this research, and that's essentially to change aviation laws. Right now there's a specific aviation law that says no civil aircraft over Mach one in US airspace without special authorization. So that's that's a that's a law. So these researchers want to change that. Ideally, I think if they if we could change that law or if they could change that law to say something like you can go supersonic over over land, as long as what people on the ground here stays below a certain decibel range, a loudness limit, if you will. That's also one of their major goals here is to make that happen to actually change these laws. But then I'm thinking, well, what what made Sonic booms so bad? What what is it about them? Why are they so bad? How did so I definitely took a dive and just learned as much as I could about what is actually happening here in in these scenarios. So to do that, let's start with subsonic flight first, right and then we'll just kind of work our way up. So below the speed of light. Wait, sorry, that's force of habit guys below the speed of sound, we're dealing with sound, not light. So below the speed of sound, planes push air out of the way as they move and that creates these pressure waves, which is what sound it's essentially sound right. So they travel at the speed of sound, obviously. And, and since the plane is moving slower than sound, the sound waves can move smoothly away from the plane as it's coming and, and in all directions, it just can move away. There's plenty of time to do that in a lot of ways similar to the boat waves that you may look at boat waves as a boat is going through the water. So then guys, what comes after Subsonic?

'''E:''' Supersonic Sonic.

'''B:''' Yeah, you would think, but technically? No, technically, technically Perry, actually, actually it's transonic. It's the term is transonic, but that occurs between Mach .8 and 1.2, right between 0.8 and 1.2. And things start getting messy in this regime. It's basically around the cutoff of Mach one. It's a little bit messy for a little while. So that's because I didn't realize this. That's because parts of the plane like the wings can experience supersonic airflow even though the plane itself is subsonic, right? So it's kind of like a mixed, mixed airflow sense these isolated shockwaves, you know, supersonic airflows can cause these mini kind of proto shockwaves. So you're we're already starting to see this transition to. Supersonic flight before you even hit supersonic flight. And then finally we have we enter the the regime of supersonic flight. Mach 1 right at sea level, that's 12134 kilometers per hour or 767 mph at altitude. It gets a little bit lower because of temperature changes. OK, Now this transition is characterized by by the smooth pressure waves of subsonic flight changing abruptly into shock waves. That's what the key thing that happens when you become supersonic, shut the formation of shock waves. So basically the air pressure waves can no longer get out of the way of each other, right, Because the plane is traveling as fast or faster than sound itself. So these pressure waves pile up, merging together into essentially this thin, sharp wall of compressed air. That's a shockwave. That's the cause of these Sonic booms. Now, Steve, I was going to say here what you had mentioned. This is the the misconception is that the the plane creates a Sonic boom as it exceeds that the speed of sound and then it's over like we're done here with the Sonic booms. No, the shockwave is continuous. It booms as long as the plane is exceeding Mach 1. And also an important you have multiple shockwaves. This isn't just one big shockwave. This is a multiple shock waves are are generated from the cone, right, The leading cone of the plane, the wing, the tail, any surface like that are creating their own shock waves. What happens is that all of these shock waves kind of merge into a cone expanding behind the plane. So the plane is that they point the end of the of a cone and behind it you have the cone shape expanding and it's all the Sonic waves, all these shock waves that the plane fuselage, the body is and the wings and everything about it. All of those shock waves are being formed and pushed into this expanding cone behind the plane. And when that cone intersects the ground, we hear a Sonic boom. So that's why it's such a deal killer for commercial planes, overpopulated areas. Anyone near that plane is, is going to, is going to hear you, hear you. You could hear the classic, you know, the double Sonic boom, which is, which is often the, you know, the, the front of the plane and the tail of the plane. But sometimes it's just a, a rumble, a nasty rumble that's kind of like hard to, to tease out specific booms. So it depends on lots of different variables. So that's why it's such a deal killer overpopulated areas. Anyone, anyone that's under that boom carpet, they call it the boom carpet. As the plane passes nearby, they're going to hear that boom, not, not just the people right under the flight path, but even extended outwards as well. So that's a, that's a Sonic boom and that's supersonic flight. And what happens? So to turn the Sonic boom into a Sonic bump, the engineers are in essence sculpting and shaping the downward part of that cone of shock waves, right. So you got the, they don't really care about the upward part of the cone. It's all about the downward part. That's what that's what people are going to hear. And so they're they're kind of sculpting it into smaller, gentler shock waves more spread out in time and space. They say that when you eventually hear it on the ground, it should have the volume of a, of a car door slamming a little bit of distance away from you. Or sometimes they like it to the rumbling of distant Thunder a lot, a lot more tolerable than than the classic Sonic boom that that we hear today. So to do this, the nose of the plane has to be really long. It looks kind of weird. It's so long. They they call it, they refer to the plane as a swordfish. It really does look like a swordfish, but the end isn't pointed, though. It's it needs to be this chisel shape to effectively change the shape of the of the shockwave and and the entire body of the plane also is kind of designed to do this. So this test happened this past October 2025. They went very well. It passed all the tests. It only flew like as I said before, at a boring 230 mph at 12,000 feet, but it was still a historic test for this experimental X. Plane.

'''S:''' It's just to make sure it flies.

'''B:''' Yeah, this is this is basically a 12,000 foot shakedown cruise, right? This is the shakedown cruise because this plane was built from scratch and it's not like they just added, you know, they, they screwed on a few things over a conventional plane. This is an experimental plane designed from the ground up. So they wanted to make sure that this thing actually flies. And it's a huge milestone for any X-plane to have that first cruise. And it's not doing what it was specifically designed to do, but it can fly and it, all the components are working together. So that's, so that was the goal of this of this flight. So, but now what happens, you have the real test campaign is going to going to begin. So in the near future, we should hopefully be reading about this test plane, this X59 hitting Mach 1.4, which is about 925 mph and at 55,000 feet. So soon after that, what's going to happen is that they're going to fly it over various communities in the United States, not only to record and assess these new Sonic thumps, but also and primarily to interview people to see what their impressions are of these Sonic thumbs. Is this something, could you live near an airport where you hear this multiple times a day? Is that something that would be, you know, would, would cause problems or would you be annoyed? You know what, what, what are your impressions? So that's what they're, they're going to do, which is something that doesn't really happen. Typically when you have an X, an X-plane that's flying, it flies over a specific area, a military area. It's not going to go over, over communities. But this one, we need to do this, we need this, this real world data and see what what people's impressions are. Because when they when they did this test in the 60s with supersonic commercial flights, they people, the feedback that people gave was was not very good. And, and I don't think it never got it never got good. And that's when I think maybe it was at that point but that they said that, yeah, you can't fly over land. And that was one of the major problems with the Concorde. It could not, it could be supersonic over the ocean, but not but not over the land. And that was a major problem for any right, any supersonic plane. You want to be able to fly supersonically over land. And they could, they couldn't even and do that. So if regulators are convinced that the thump is tolerable, this may be the first domino to fall for the true return of commercial supersonic flight. And of course, as I mentioned, other hurdles remain like the environmental and climate impacts need to be addressed. And you actually have to make this into a viable business. You have to make money. You know, one of the many problems with the Concorde is was it was not making it was not making enough money or sometimes no money at all. It just wasn't a consistent money maker. And that was one of the things that would kill any business very quickly. But for the first time since the Concorde retired, we now seem to have a plausible path for a future with airliners traveling twice as fast as they do now with no no one cringing over the inevitable boom that just never will come this time, hopefully so fingers crossed. Definitely going to track this. I hope to, you know, to fly on one of these at some point before I lurch into the ground as well. So we'll see what happens.

'''S:''' All right, Thanks, Bob. Yeah, we'll report back on this. I especially want to see what happens when they fly at actually supersonic speeds and see what kind of a Sonic thump it makes. Yes, but I love the fact that they're doing this and then saying so that commercial airliners can incorporate this into.

'''B:''' Yeah. I was very happy to hear that. Yeah. I was like, yeah, that's the goal. They want to make the technology. All right, guys, here's the technology. Just now use it happen and make it happen. Build your own these supersonic airliners and let's have at it.

'''S:''' Have having just spent 14 1/2 hours on a plane, I heartily endorse this plan.

'''B:''' Steve, imagine that trip would have been cut in half.

'''S:''' Yeah, practically. All right.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (1:08:07) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251102205021.htm
|article_title = Breakthrough blood test finally confirms Chronic Fatigue Syndrome | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Evan, tell us about this new test for chronic fatigue syndrome.

'''E:''' A new test, right? Chronic fatigue syndrome. It's been a little while, maybe since we've talked about it on the show. Steve, you blog a lot about this.

'''S:''' I I have in the past, but a lot, but yeah.

'''E:''' Am I getting this term right? It's it's myalgic encephalomyelitis. Am I pronouncing that?

'''S:''' Right myalgic encephalomyelitis.

'''E:''' There we go. But I am going to call it chronic fatigue syndrome because that's what most people know it as. Let's see, according to the Look up the definition of this a debilitating condition characterized by persistent fatigue that's not improved by rest. It can lead to cognitive issues, sleep problems, orthostatic intolerance, and other issues. Here's a little history on this. From what I could tell in the, well, what the 1980s, basically through 2010, some researchers proposed psychosomatic or behavioral explanations as to what this actually was. But in recent years there has been some other, well maybe more scientific support for it actually being a real physical medical issue. Let's see the current, and I'm by say current. As of late 2025, the current scientific and medical consensus based on CDC, NIH, EU, KS, NICE, and ICE, The Who and some other recent peer reviewed research say that it represents A distinct physiological disorder which involves immunology, neurology, autonomic and metabolic dysfunctions. No single biomarker has historically defined it. Multiple converging lines of evidence seem to point to a biological disease process. This is controversial.

'''S:''' Yeah. I mean, I think that that's definitely where that the science has been heading in that direction for the last 30 years. You know that there there is something biological going on here. And in any case, at least at least in neurology, like we've significantly moved away from the notion that anything is purely psychosomatic. You know, I don't even use that term anymore. It's functional neurological disorder, meaning it's just it's a complex disorder that involves, you know, brain function, but it's not, you know, simplistically understood now with chronic fatigue syndrome, the the big caveat to chronic fatigue syndrome, that is probably not one thing. It's not one. It's not one discrete pathophysiological disease. That doesn't mean it's not real. That means it's complicated. It's probably multiple things. So different people, right? So it's a syndrome. You should think about it when it is chronic fatigue syndrome, that that word is appropriate. It's a syndrome because it's a clinical entity. It's a, if you have this, again, persistent fatigue above and beyond, you know, your activity, you get this with modest physical activity, you get extreme prolonged fatigue that doesn't get better, etcetera, etcetera. There's a lot of components to it. That's the syndrome, but different people could have different causes. It could be different ways that people get to that. So that makes any research on it difficult because any marker you look for may only be relevant in a subset of the people you're looking at, or you may be looking at things that contribute to chronic fatigue syndrome, but aren't the essence of what it is, which all will be brought to bear on this news item that you're talking about. But but go ahead and tell us what the new bit is and then and then I'll we'll talk about how to make sense of it all.

'''E:''' Science Daily had a headline recently that reads Breakthrough blood test finally confirms chronic fatigue.

'''S:''' That's all hype.

'''E:''' OK. Now, because yeah, based on what you just said, Steve, my my follow up sort of question immediately on this syndromes do, can you have something as simple as a blood test that could define or identify a syndrome? It doesn't sound like that that would be the case.

'''S:''' No, I mean, that would be very unlikely at this point in time with all the research that's been done, everything we've done to try to understand this syndrome that oh, it turns out it's just one thing like this one thing explains it pretty much completely. I doubt that that's going to be the result. It's not impossible. We may be missing something. You know, it may be like there's this one that even if it has multiple things that contribute contribute to it, there may be one thing about people who get it that is different and there may be 1 biochemical or biological pathway. Again, unlikely, but I can't say that that's impossible. But this test is not it though, right? If that is possible, or at least they have not established that it is, so the the hype isn't getting way ahead of where the research is. This is 1 component to a long and complicated research program to try to understand this very complicated syndrome. It is not not the breakthrough that that that headline hyped it as.

'''E:''' Right, right. But there was. But a research team has conducted these studies via the University of East Anglia in collaboration with Oxford Biodynamics Company Has. They've developed a blood test using 3D genomic folding or epigenetic profiling that reportedly achieves roughly 96% accuracy in differentiating chronic fatigue syndrome from healthy controls. The assay examines I brought my assay. The assay examines DNA folding signatures in immune cells, which suggests an underlying measurable biological signature for the disease. Lead researcher is Professor Dimitri. Oh boy, this one. PSHEZH Dimitri Pisinski. I'm sorry if I got that wrong of UE. As Norwich Medical School was quoted as saying, CFS is a serious and often debilitating disease characterized by extreme fatigue that is not really by rest. We wanted to see if we could develop a blood test to diagnose the condition and we did. Exclamation point. Our discovery offers the potential for a simple, accurate blood test to help confirm a diagnosis. The diagnosis, which could lead to earlier support and more effective management. Post COVID syndrome, commonly referred to as long COVID, is one example of of ME/CFS where a similar cluster of symptoms is triggered by the COVID-19 virus rather than by other known causes such as glandular fever. We therefore hope that our research will also help pave the way for a similar test to accurately diagnose long COVID. What do you think of that?

'''S:''' So, all right, So what do you, what do you that?

'''E:''' Sounds like something different. Right.

'''S:''' Yeah, right. He's basically admitting that this is multiple potential different clinical entities that might have this commonality, right? Like saying this is also going to diagnose long COVID. Well then is that the same or different than chronic fatigue syndrome? Definitely. You know, I have seen plenty of patients with post infectious chronic fatigue syndrome. That's definitely a thing. Again, we don't really understand the mechanism that causes that, but again, that's probably different thing than people who have it who have not had a brain infection or some other chronic serious illness. All right, So if there is one glaring problem with this research, though, with this specific study, I don't know if any of you have a guess as to what that might be. So they compared.

'''E:''' Small. It's a small.

'''S:''' Well, yeah, there's a usual caveat. It needs to be validated, needs to be independently, you know, research needs larger, you know, no larger studies, but just they compared people who have the clinical diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. Again, there's no real gold standard. It's just you meet the you have the clinical diagnosis and certain changes, epigenetic changes that they were looking for, you know, in their study. So what, what did they not do? I guess this might be hard for you to, you know, as non physicians to to suss out but just wondering if any of you have a guess. So they compared people with the disease clinically to healthy controls. What's another comparison that might be helpful?

'''E:''' People with comorbidities.

'''S:''' That that's a close. I mean, that's good. That would be good too. But you're sort of getting heading in the right direction. People with other diseases. So again, this is a kind of thing like a physician should you know, who's familiar with this kind of research would instantly see that Oh yeah. But they didn't compare it to other diseases, right. So if you're saying it's specific to chronic fatigue syndrome, then you have to show that it doesn't exist in everybody with any disease. You know what I mean? Just saying it doesn't exist. These markers aren't present in healthy controls. That's one important component. But you also need to show it's not present in people who have, let's say, rheumatoid arthritis or who have Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease or Mississippi or 100 other diseases. You give us some idea that it's actually specific to chronic fatigue syndrome. What if it's present in all of these things?

'''E:''' Well, that doesn't. Help.

'''S:''' Well, then maybe it's just a marker for inflammation, right? How do we know that they didn't just discover some other marker for inflammation that's going to occur in any chronic illness or in many chronic illnesses? Or what if this is a marker for the depression that people often feel from the chronic fatigue that's secondary to the chronic fatigue and then becomes comorbid with it? So who knows, right? We can't answer any of these questions because all they did was compare it to healthy controls. So that that's why this is, this is just getting the ball started. This is the kind of thing where again, this is saying, oh, there's something potentially here now here's a dozen other studies we need to do to really suss this out. We need to confirm it. We need larger data. We need a more generalizable population. We need to validate that it's unique to or telling us something specific about chronic fatigue syndrome as opposed to just all chronic illness or maybe some of the symptoms of chronic fatigue, but not the cause of chronic fatigue. So many questions, but then at the end of the day, then at the end of the day, this is something that I learned just over the course of my career. Like one of those pearls of wisdom that you get with experience that I teach to, you know, to students and fellows is that when we first start to understand a disease, we're looking for ways to say like who has the diagnosis right? Who has, who qualifies for having the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. But then once we, once our knowledge of that disease and especially how to treat it matures, then the the question shifts to who should get treated and with what. And that's the only thing that really matters really, or that's the thing that matters the most. It's not the only thing that matters, but that that overshadows the question of who gets the label and who gets the labels only a marker for these other questions. What's the prognosis, what's the treatment? What are any other, you know, Co morbidities or other concerns that we have to worry about, etcetera, etcetera. And but the thing of course most people are interested in is who gets what treatment and doesn't work. So if this and that will be the ultimate test, if this is a marker of anything, is does it predict anything useful clinically? If it if all it predicts is who we label as having chronic fatigue syndrome, who cares? That doesn't help us. It has to predict. But of course, we can't treat really don't until we they're saying maybe this will lead to treatment. Sure, that's a pretty big maybe. Let's hope that it does. But that's like you're now you're jumping ahead multiple steps. So yeah, this is 1 preliminary step in a complicated picture that may or may not pan out. Don't believe the early hype that finally we've proven it's real and blah blah, that's all nonsense. It's just one interesting little nugget in a complicated story. But those are the pieces that you have to think about when you hear things like this. You know what other comparisons, comparisons that they make and how has it been externally validated? Does it actually predict or mean anything? Or is it just some correlation that they found Right?

'''E:''' Yes, All right.

'''S:''' Complicated item, but it was, yeah, but interesting.

'''E:''' Good.

'''S:''' It's good to talk through those those issues.

'''E:''' And anytime CFS hits my headlines, obviously I'm, I stop and take a second look because it's something we've we have talked about before on the show. So we keep up on this.

'''S:''' Absolutely.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:21:01) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? Oh boy.

'''J:''' How come all these freaking studies, it's like it's always like there's a million things ahead of what you're reading before like anything legit could happen. You know, it's that's scientists frustrating.

'''S:''' Scientists complicated, and the news cycle wants breakthroughs and sexy headlines.

'''E:''' Yep, Yeah.

'''J:''' I mean, I, I totally look, I agree. And I know all that. It's just it's, it's every single thing we talk about though. It's, it's never like this is functioning right now.

'''S:''' Yeah. Because we're functioning on the edge, Jay, we're on the edge.

'''J:''' You're right.

'''E:''' We're riding the wave, Crest of the wave.

'''J:''' All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''E:''' Oh, that's a Sonic boom.

'''B:''' The lamest Sonic boom ever created the. Lamest Sonic fart sound like a Sonic. Fart. It sounded like a Sonic fart.

'''J:''' It's funny rather fart.

'''B:''' Raspberry.

'''J:''' I got to preamble this. Who's that noisy segment with? Thank you to the 300 and like 70 people who responded this week. Wow. Yes, because this is a noise that a lot of people recognize in one manner or another. And as we get into it, I'll I'll reveal some of the most common responses that I got. So let's get into this. We got a listener named Berkhelp Medahan and Berkhelp says, hey, y'all Berkhelp from D Butt of Turkish descent DE space, BUT of Turkish descent. I'm just reading what he's saying here.

'''E:''' The. Team might be silent.

'''J:''' I it could be but you know, you know what my problem is. He says it's a second time guessing but I don't count the first time. My guess for the speaks noisy is a recording of a rocket launch at a public viewing. The weird farting noise is I think due to the decibels of the ignition of the rocket. The mic just couldn't handle the the amplitude. Is this correct? You are not correct, but it is a good guess. Definitely is a good guess because it has some rockety noises in there. So I totally can see why you pick that one. Thanks a lot for setting that in. I have another listener here named Steven Gloff. Says hi all. Long time listener, first time guesser. To me it sounds like a wasp being sucked into some sort of vacuum. Many pest control workers will eradicate a wasp nest by using something like a shop vac half filled with liquid to suck up and drown the Wasps. I have never heard about this. I've never heard a noisy about this, but I thought that this one was very provocative. I I think I need to know now what this thing sounds like. It's like a slop vac or whatever. But anyway, thank you. Steven, you are incorrect, but that was a fun guess. This next one was sent in by a listener named Edward Andrick. He is a friend of ours and I but he did have a good guess. I'm not he's a punk favorites. He is a punk, but we love him. He says. Hey, Jay, don't normally have guesses on the noisy, but this sounds like a model jet aircraft powering up and taking off. The sound at the beginning could be some sort of electric pulse ignition device which starts the engine prior to take off. I have no idea if any of what I just said is even a thing, but it's my guess. It's not that crazy. There are a lot of of model jet aircraft. You know, they have jets. So you know, there's definitely some jet sounding noise in there. It's not a it's not a bad guess, but you Ed, you're incorrect. But don't be sad because this game's just for fun, another listener named Nicholas Jasmine says. First time guessing, long time listener. This sounds exactly like an A10 Warthog firing its Rotary cannon as it flies, guys.

'''B:''' I like that.

'''J:''' This was by far the most popular guess and it's incorrect to hell playing man, but but all the people that guess this or similar you're you're there, you're there. It now we're just talking of like, what kind of aptitude? Details. Yeah, it's always about the details. I did have a winner from this week. The winner's name is Mike, not to be confused with Mike, who sent in the noisy. And Mike says, dammit, Jay, I've heard this, I think. My guess is that this is a demonstration of an F16 doing a strafing run, firing. It's M61 Vulcan auto cannon. And Mike, you're perfectly correct. I don't know how people can tell the difference between the Warthog and the F16. I listen to both of them and for my ears there it's the same exact thing. You know, some of them might have a little bit more bass or whatever, but there's, you know, it just depends on the recording equipment and everything. But some people, you know, they can tell.

'''S:''' That would be an interesting skill to have to recognize all different kinds of fighter jets and planes from just from hearing the engine.

'''J:''' Yeah, I just do guarantee you that there are people out there that can do this.

'''E:''' Oh, absolutely.

'''J:''' So this this was sent in by a listener named Mike and, and Mike actually is the person that flew this plane. That was him flying the plane and firing those guns.

'''E:''' He farted.

'''J:''' He said. This is me you're seeing and hearing me strafing in an F16 shooting the 20mm gun at a target on the ground. So that, that's pretty cool, You know, there's not.

'''B:''' Wait, is it a simulator?

'''J:''' No, it's a video. I saw a video of him do.

'''B:''' It oh, it's not just an audio file. Oh.

'''J:''' He waved to me and he was holding up an SGU banner too. I mean the guy is a fan but no but he I saw the video it's legit.

'''B:''' Awesome.

'''J:''' Yeah, and the the sheer power of those guns, I mean, they're unbelievably powerful. Apparently very useful when the time comes. But anyway, thank you, Mike, for winning and thanks, Mike, for sending that in. That was a lot of fun. I have a new noisy for you guys this week. This noisy was sent in by a listener named Jim Grove. And here it is.

'''E:''' Where's George Robb when you need to translate? Things like this sounds slow, right?

'''J:''' I had to, I had to pick this one. This is a tough one, guys. I, we had an internal discussion here. I usually don't reveal what The thing is, but I wanted to because I I asked everyone, hey, should I give anybody a clue here? And Steve came out swinging from left field and said hell no like them. Guessing that's it.

'''E:''' Guess. You're on your own, folks.

'''J:''' Yeah, so just do your best, you know, send me the wacky guesses if you have them. If you want to send me a guess or you heard something cool this week, you got to e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, I'm going to shotgun this list real quick. If you support the work that we do or would like to support us, please think about becoming a patron of the SGU. We have a ton of work ahead of us for obvious reasons. You know what I'm talking about and we want to to make the world a more logical and skeptical place. And we do that through our our weekly activism. So if you're interested in helping us, go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. Every week we send out a mailing list that tells you everything that the SDU did the previous week. Go to our homepage at the Skeptics Guide org if you'd like to join that list. You can give our show a rating if you don't mind. It always helps other people find the podcast. And then of course, guys, we have tickets going on sale or are on sale. We have a show in Seattle and a show in Wisconsin. There's going to be a SGU private recording. There's going to be extravaganza shows at both of those. At the Seattle show. We will be having a special event on Friday night. This is going to be a very, a very low attendance event to hang out and talk. And Steve, you called that the what the special premium Talk About Bananas event?

'''S:''' Yeah, the Talk about bananas event, that's exactly what it is, OK.

'''J:''' All this information though, people, it's on the website. Go to theskepticsguide.org. Thank you.

'''S:''' All right, thanks, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:29:07) ==


'''S:''' All right, guys, let's do one e-mail. This one comes from Tom Buckley. And Tom writes a recent paper in Science claims wolves use tools. A wolf apparently learned to pull it up a submerged net with crabs at the bottom, an ethologist on Blue Sky wrote. This meets the most standard definition of tool use used in primatology, and it surprises me how many don't think it qualifies as tool use. The definition is apparently that they are using an unattached object, the net, to manipulate something else, the fish and manipulate it and properly orients the tool correctly angles it to pull the net out and get the fish. To me this seems like a weak definition of tool because it relies on humans awareness of whether the object is unattached to the reward. For example, suppose crabs had a very long floaty tail that looked like just like a net and a wolf pulled that up and ate the crabs main body. Humans wouldn't call that a tool, but the wolf might not see any difference between that and the reported situation. What do you all reckon? Love the show best. So yeah, I love these kind of questions because it has to do with definition or categorization. And these are always subjective, right? So what counts as tool use and is there's not going to be any right or wrong answer. It's going to be a continuum. And this is arguably in the grey zone. Personally, I don't buy it. I don't think this is tool use. So you got to watch the video. Essentially it's a wild wolf pulling up a net from a, from a river and it's attached to a trap, you know, a fish trap, the fish swimming, but they can't, you know, swim out and then there's a fish in there and he eats it. So I don't think that's tool use. He just knows that there's fish there. He's just getting at the fish.

'''E:''' I would like it to maybe a bird getting caught in a bird feeder and a bear or something coming over, knocking down the bird feeder and eating the bird.

'''S:''' Yeah. Something like or something like that, yeah. Squirrels get into my bird feeder and eat my suet. Are they using a tool?

'''J:''' No, Steve if he deployed the thing. Yeah, right. Oh shit, Yes, he's been wielded. Back it would be impressive.

'''S:''' He's an so that's the thing. They say they are using an unattached object in that, but he's not really using it, he's just pulling it out of the water because that's because it's attached to food.

'''E:''' Right was on land he wouldn't have pulled.

'''S:''' If it were a branch, if there was a fish caught in a branch and he grabbed it and pulled the branch out of the river to get at the fish, would that be using a tool? If he went and got the net and put it in there and that's, that's different.

'''B:''' That would be impressive, but he had to connect this is this is buoy that right? He grabbed the buoy and so he connected the buoy.

'''S:''' To fish, Yeah, that's smart. I'm not saying it's not clever how, but how?

'''B:''' Because the analogy with the, with the bird and the bear is of course, is not a perfect analogy because the bear can see the bird, but he, he, you can't see the, the cage, you know, the net or the, the, the fish. You just see the buoy floating. So he, did he see somebody pull it out himself or herself and get the fish. Maybe that was where he made the connection. He or she made the connection, I don't know.

'''E:''' Sample of one video here of 1 wolf. How could you say that wolves have learned to do this? Seems some standard to me.

'''S:''' They're generalizing. It could be a Haitian generalization. But even that aside.

'''B:''' It doesn't matter.

'''S:''' He does disqualify, does disqualify. I just, I don't know, I think the term using is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. You're using an unattached object or they're. Yeah, they're just pulling at something to get to food. You know what I mean? It's not really tool use. They're not. They're not using it. They did not deploy the net. They did not. They're not doing anything with it. They're pulling at it to get at food.

'''B:''' It's not. It's not like you know a chimpanzee crafting using it into a tool that leads.

'''E:''' Ants sick, right? Forming it for a tool, sticking it into the termite mound. That's tool it's. Pulling it back out, there you go.

'''J:''' An interesting thing to look at here, though, is that Wolf knows that there are fish in there.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' That's that's the biggest leap. How was that? Connection made.

'''S:''' But they eat fish. I mean, what are you talking about? Those, those you know that those wolves, some wolves live by water. They eat fish well of.

'''B:''' Course, but connect. My point is connecting the buoy, a man made yellow and a. White How does it? Buoy with. How?

'''S:''' But how does it?

'''J:''' Probably saw the guy throw it in the water.

'''B:''' That's what that's what had to have happened. I assume that that's how he made the connection. I don't think it could have made that connection otherwise, right?

'''S:''' But but you're, but how do you know that he's making that connection, meaning that? And then you're saying, how does he know that it's that? It's artificial. It's just something in the water. Fish get trapped in stuff in the water. You pull the stuff out and sometimes there's fish attached to it. And maybe this specifically, he's learned through experience or through observation that there's often fish attached to. Again, is it different than pulling a branch out of the water hoping there's a fish in it? I don't know.

'''B:''' I mean, I mean, fish can get caught in submerged branches, I guess. But yeah, I see your point. I see. I see your point. Maybe maybe he just brings stuff in that's floating. Just, you know, he just something that it's a behavior that they do. Yeah, It could. It could potentially, you know, get lucky and like and get some sort of food trapped in there, whatever it may be. I would.

'''E:''' Be more so, yeah, I would have been more impressed if the wolf took. See how these loose rocks are over here on the shore. It's a very rocky shore because there's a technique by which you put rocks in the water near the edge of the shore and the fish will swim into that rock formation and kind of get trapped. And then if the wolf did that, I. Would. Be more impressed.

'''S:''' With that, that's tool use. So again, I love this because it's this murky question of definition and it shows you how careful you have to be with definitions because you could break that, right? I think this is an example which is breaking a poorly written definition of what right tool use. Again, I don't think the wolf there is making any of these associations. I don't think he's using that network or in any way. He's not manipulating anything. He's just getting at food. That's it. And that's not tool use in my book, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, it's definitely, it's a stretch for tool use. It's it's a cool behaviour, but it's not, Yeah. I could use it.

'''S:''' This is a real stretch. He manipulated and properly oriented the tool right? So he correctly angles it to pull it. You know he's just pulling the net out of the freaking wall.

'''E:''' However it came out, it came. Out. Yeah, like he just fucks with it until it comes out. Orientation.

'''S:''' He's not. Yeah, he's not exactly.

'''E:''' Measuring the 45° angle to optimization? No way.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's not like he's doing that to catch the fish. He's just pulling the thing out of the water.

'''E:''' Yeah. Let's see this thing, recast that out into the water and that would impress me. But yeah, reset the trap. Yeah, all.

'''S:''' Right.

'''E:''' So that's where did you guys fall?

'''S:''' I'm not buying it. I don't know. Do you guys do you guys agree or any of you think this constitutes tool use? All right.

'''J:''' It's not tool. Use.

'''B:''' No, it's not tool, It's not tool use. It's cool, but it's not technically tool use as I envision it.

'''S:''' Yeah, I guess it's no different than the bear getting my pursuit out of my cage, you know?

'''US#07:''' Wolfy, Wolfy.

'''S:''' Wolfy All right, let's go on with science or fiction.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:36:49) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.
|link1web = https://phys.org/news/2025-11-bacteria-rainbow-sustainable-textiles.html
|link1title = Bacteria spin rainbow-colored, sustainable textiles
|link1pub = phys.org

|item2 = MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers.
|link2web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09674-9
|link2title = A molecularly impermeable polymer from two-dimensional polyaramids | Nature
|link2pub = www.nature.com

|item3 = For the first time scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification.
|link3web = https://phys.org/news/2025-11-cow-cells-defy-aging-door.html
|link3title = Cow cells defy aging, opening the door to affordable lab-grown beef
|link3pub = phys.org

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

|science1 = MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers.

|science2 = For the first time scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

|rogue2 = Evan
|answer2 = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

|rogue4 = Cara
|answer4 = South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win =
|swept = y
}}

'''Voice-over:''' So it's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. And of course, you all can play at home. Feel free to play along with us. All right, three regular news items. Are you guys ready?

'''J:''' Yeah, Here we go.

'''S:''' Item number one. South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over tenfold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers. Eye #2 MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers. And eye #3 For the first time, scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. Bob, go first.

'''B:''' All right. So they're they've increased bacterial cellulose production for textiles, an order of magnitude parody with natural fibers. I mean, OK, I mean, I don't know, it doesn't sound very dramatic at all, which kind of makes me want to pick this because it's just like ho, it seems a little ho hum. I don't know the details about this. But not as dramatic as the other ones, it seems. OK, now we've got a polymer film for the second one. 10,000 times less permeable to gas and other polymers. I mean, I just don't know enough about polymers, I guess, to to know how dramatic this is. I mean, yeah, 10,000 times is dramatic, but I don't know what to make of these. Let's see, let's try the third one. Maybe I'll have some insight into that one. Immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modifications.

'''S:''' That's the new bit, obviously.

'''B:''' Yeah. So what could you tell me, Steve, about this that might not that you would allow? What kind of what? Kind of question, can I ask that you would answer? I don't know.

'''S:''' You'll have to ask it. You'll have to ask.

'''B:''' It that's not an unreasonable stance. Crap. I mean, I guess that's interesting because my first thought is like, can't they just grab some cancer cells from a cow and get immortal cells that way? But.

'''S:''' Well, I'll, I'll tell you one thing. They're obviously doing this for the point of like artificial meat, right?

'''B:''' Lab grid meat, right?

'''S:''' Not going to make it like cancer cells. All right, Cancer burger.

'''B:''' Cancer Burger? Maybe they should just call that the Seaburger instead. Seaburger. I don't know, this is a total crapshoot for me on these. I'm just really don't have a lot of a huge amount of insight into any of these. Can you, couldn't you just throw in like a astronomy or physics one in here, Steve? I mean, Jesus, no, throw me a throw me a bone here. All right, I'm just going to I I think I'll take the one that is just seems like meh. I'm going to say that the bacterial cellulose one seem to seem, you know, more mundane than the other one. So maybe it's not and hopefully it's not. So I'll see that one's. Fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Evan.

'''E:''' Well, yeah, I don't, I don't. This first one is confusing me a little bit. Cellulose production for textile. Cellulose production for textiles.

'''S:''' Yeah. So all right. But basically, you know, you could engineer bacteria to make stuff, right and grow it into that and it cranks out of stuff. So it's making cellulose?

'''E:''' OK.

'''S:''' Which is a structural protein.

'''B:''' Protein Baby.

'''S:''' And then you could weave that cellulose into fibers, right, that you can then make clothes out of.

'''E:''' I don't know this happened this this is possible?

'''S:''' So this has been going on this that's not that's not new. What's new is that they got the production increase tenfold, driving the cost down to close to say things like cotton like.

'''E:''' Natural fibers, so higher efficient, better efficiency. Yeah, divided order of. Magnitude. Existing technology. Yeah, it seems reasonable if you said this one's the fiction.

'''B:''' No, I said. The fact I said yes, I did. Yeah. Yes, you. Did. Yes, I did. No, yes, I did.

'''E:''' You must have been more more impressed with the other two then more so.

'''B:''' Yeah, but this one is interesting now that I'm. Really, what's going on here? Whatever.

'''E:''' Cara. What? Cara, what do you think? Well, moving on.

'''S:''' I'll tell you what she thought after, after you go.

'''E:''' She would have told you that. OK, second one, a thin polymer film, 10,000 times less permeable. That's a lot, but it's gas, OK, compared to other polymers, a thin polymer film. MIT researchers. OK, 10,000, I don't know, 10,000 is a lot. Maybe it's 1000. Maybe it's like order of magnitude kind of thing, but I don't know. You don't norm, you know, you don't usually play those games. You have but not not not always and not that often. The last item is scientists were able to create immortal, immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. So create without the need for any genetic modification. So what would be what would be the option? What would be if it wasn't genetically modified? Then they did it through what?

'''S:''' Some other way?

'''E:''' Yes, how that's that's the.

'''S:''' Essence of that one, so I'm not getting that too.

'''E:''' Oh, boy. So some other process that is not as well known as genetic modification. I don't know. This is tough. I, I, this is a very difficult one for me. I'm not really having a good sense for any of these. Therefore, Bob, I'm going to latch myself to you for no other reason. And you and I are going to rise together, or we're going to fall to the deepest depths.

'''B:''' I will proactively apologize. All right, Jay.

'''J:''' OK. I'll just take him in reverse order here. So we got the cow cell one, so there wasn't genetic modification and the they were able to create immortal cow cells in some other way. I mean, I would know, I would just imagine if it wasn't from genetic modification that it would be through their environment somehow or, or you know, you know, and if they made a genetic modification that made the cow cells immortal, I would imagine that would have been all over the news big time. And this one is like the biggest claim as far as I read of these three. Like it has the most implications and it seems the most dramatic. And my science or fiction Kung Fu is telling me that that this one is science. But, you know, it's one of those things that could easily go either way. Like, what am I going to say? No, they didn't. And then what would my premise? Because I don't even know how they got there in the 1st place. So it's it's too vague to actually even divine. Got that. No. OK. Yeah. Anyway, I'll say that one is tentatively science. MIT researchers have developed this thin polymer film that's 10,000 times less permeal than other polymers. OK. I mean, you know, on 1st blush, you know, I could see an advancement like this. I mean, companies are constantly working on making improvements like this. It is a massive jump forward. You know, 10,000 times is a profound change from the current polymers that are being used. We don't know if this means anything other than it happened in the lab. It's not like they're, you know, you can buy this stuff. Whatever uses that they have for it. I don't know. That one seems, you know, like a big deal, like a big number jump there. Then we just go on to the first one. So this one here where the South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production by over tenfold. That's not tenfold. Leap is not that big. It drives a cost way down. Like Steve said, I don't see this being a, it's not a massive claim like the other two, but I find it interesting that Bob picked this one and I have, I could tell you that the other two seem like crazy and you know, a lot of big, big claims and everything. And this one is like the stinker. This one's like, Oh yeah, they'll believe it. It's so, you know, it's not that big of a deal, so I'm going. To go with the boys, Steve, I'm going to go with the boys.

'''S:''' All agree on #1.

'''J:''' I'll tell you why it's important because if I if I'm wrong and the work that we do here happens and people will forget. If we no big deal, you know we lost. But if we sweep you, then it's a thing and I'd rather go.

'''B:''' Going for the sweep or swinging for the fence it. Depends what Cara said.

'''J:''' It depends what Cara said. That's true.

'''B:''' No, she's irrelevant. She's not here. This is the boys. No. She's not the role. She put her guess. In so Cara. There's no interaction in that feedback.

'''J:''' Cara's guess?

'''C:''' OK, so the first one here is they've just developed a process, so that's important. They're increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over tenfold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers. Oh, bacterial cellulose. I was like, synthetic fibers are way cheaper, but yeah, they're bacterial cellulose fiber. OK. So basically they're artificially producing natural fibers.

'''S:''' Oh, cellulose based fibers. Yeah, which is it's, yeah, it's different.

'''C:''' But we're not talking like polyester.

'''S:''' Right.

'''C:''' Right, right. Because that is way cheaper, which is why this microplastics is like a. Mess. Yeah.

'''S:''' Well, we're talking like with cost parity with something like cotton.

'''C:''' Okay, yeah, yeah, well, that's big. And then the thin polymer film 10,000 times less. I mean, I don't know, less permeable to gas than all other polymers. So why would you need this? You would want something that is yeah, that no gas can pass through for all sorts of applications. Medical, industrial, I could see that being important, but I don't know how I always thought polymers weren't very permeable anyway. I don't know, that seems like it's probably maybe. Oh, this is so hard. And then lastly, immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. We don't already have immortal cow cells, we have immortal people cells.

'''S:''' Yeah, but they we get to them through genetic modification. So this is the first time they're able to do it without genetic modification.

'''C:''' Gotcha, well I thought we had immortal cells through like like cancer lines too. Do we genetically modify those? OK gosh these all seem like they could be science or fiction. I think the one that's bothering me the most, it is maybe the cellulose because I don't think I think that there's a reason that we have such a big cost difference right now. And I know that this is an area of a lot of research. And like, you know, when we talk about sort of plastics or even biochemical innovation, we just see so much happening so quickly. Like when we talk about material science and when we talk about biochemistry in the lab, but I don't know, textile science, I feel like it's really bifurcated. It's like the old school natural methods. And then it's like the new stuff, which is all material science and it's all plastic. It's all like synthetics. And so either I don't know, the will hasn't been there, or maybe there is something that prevents it from happening. Of course, then that means that there's a vacuum. So there's, you know, space for a lot of innovation, but this one just seems like an area that we're not reading about very often and we're not seeing like these huge improvements and changes. But I mean, this is such a shot in the dark because all of these seem like they could be either completely realistic or not realistic at all. But I just got to put my nickel down, so I'll say the bacterial cellulose production is either not increased by tenfold or it's not approaching cost parity with natural fibers. One of those two things may be false. I doubt it's that it was not in South Korea. But but yeah, I'll give also that 1 is really complex. It has enough variables that maybe you know one or two of those things are wrong.

'''S:''' Caras guess was #1 as well. So I so love it. It's going to be a sweep one way or the other. Let's take these in reverse order. Follow Follow Jays lead.

'''B:''' I'm sure her reasoning that was much more. You know, not really. Air, you died 10 hours. Oh, good. We were all lost. I love it. Excellent.

'''S:''' She was pretty lost, but she she had, she reasons her her way pretty smartly through these.

'''B:''' Oh yeah, anyway, yeah, we we know that by now.

'''S:''' All right, we'll start #3 for the first time, scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. You go all think this one is science and this one is science. This is science. So the the previously it was believed that in large mammals this was not possible. You know, all cells will only divide so many times. In order to bypass this limit, you have to disable genes that you know that can limit the number of times that cells can reproduce. So they wanted to see if they could find naturally occurring, like spontaneous immortality in in the cells of a large mammal, because this has been previously shown to exist in chickens, but they're not mammals and they're not large. So they said, all right, but they thought, but this can't happen in cows. So they, the researchers wanted to see if it was possible. So they, they basically plated the, the cow cells for 240 cell generations over 18 months, just looking for any cells that looked self renewing, right? Any, any self renewing colonies emerged. And finally, finally one did. They basically they proved that there's spontaneous, you know, emergence of immortal cell lines in cow cells. They, they then found out the mechanism was the natural activation of telomerase and PGC 1A. So basically extending the telomeres, right? So setting back the repairing the telomeres to set back the biological clocks. All right, So that's cool. Obviously the purpose of this is for lab grown meat, right? The big advantage here is 1 is regulatory because if there if there's no genetic modification, it bypasses all of the GMI regular regulation.

'''B:''' Yeah, so that's a big part, yeah. Fears of Luddites.

'''S:''' And also this could make the whole process cheaper, right? So they think now they want to do this with like muscle cells and cockroaches create, create immortal lines that then you could use to crank out those lab grown hamburgers. All right, so we'll see if this leads to anything. But that's, that was the purpose for that. All right, let's go back to #2 MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers. You guys also think this one is science and this one is also science.

'''E:''' Yay. Thank you, Cara.

'''S:''' So polymers generally are made from fibers which are woven together and those are very permeable because there's gaps in between the weaving. So this polymer however was made as a 2 dimensional material, so it's a single film and therefore there's a solid crystalline structure with no gaps and so that's why it doesn't let the gas through.

'''J:''' OK, no gases.

'''S:''' No gases. So they tested it. Tested it with helium, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, helium, methane and sulfur hexafluoride. Do you guys remember huffing sulfur reflex?

'''E:''' Yes, the. Opposite of. Of helium makes your, makes your voice really it.

'''S:''' Was so cool. All right, So what would what do you think this would be useful for?

'''E:''' Well, gas proof. Space.

'''S:''' They didn't mention that as a potential one, but so.

'''E:''' OK.

'''J:''' Big thing would be scientific experiments, food.

'''S:''' Preservation, right? Because if you basically prevents anything from oxidizing, if you can keep oxygen from getting access to it. So this would be very useful because it also could be a very, very thin coating, you know, so you could put it on wrap food in it for example. Also would be useful for so the reason why I was interested in in hydrogen because hydrogen is notoriously to hard to contain.

'''B:''' Well, yes, so it's so small. Yeah. So if you read, if you read Hail Mary, you right? Yeah, you kind of would get there too.

'''S:''' You could line line the tank with this film and that would keep the hydrogen from leaking out. So, so any, any time when you need to to use, you need a sealant to be useful as a sealant. OK. That means that South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles. But over tenfold approaching cost parity with natural fibers is the fiction, because the innovation has nothing to do with production. And this is still hella expensive and nowhere near the cost of natural fibers. But what they did was they figured out how to combine two different bacteria in the same VAT. One makes the cellulose and the other makes the dye. So they could, they had to get the timing right and everything. So essentially you could do both things at the same time. And then you get these vibrant colored cellulose fibers that to make the textiles out of. And they tested them to show that they would hold on to their color even with the usual test with bleaching or washing or whatever. So it seems like a good method for making textiles, you know, of these different colors dyed in the wool, as they say, but in this case dyed in the cellulose. But it's, you know, it's still super expensive.

'''E:''' Where do we see cellulose based textiles in everyday life? Or don't we, because of the cost?

'''S:''' Well, you can, but cellulose is in cellulose I think is the most. Yeah, cellulose is in cotton. So it's just artificial cellulose is it is the most most common structural protein that exists in the world.

'''E:''' Yeah, I. Just didn't realize it was used for textiles.

'''S:''' Well, it's part of any natural plant fiber is going to have cellulose in it. And a lot of natural fiber textiles are made out of plant fibers, right? Like cotton and GT and other things. Flax, you know, yeah. So that so this is, you know, it's an interesting technology that they developed. Again, you're I'm concerned about the scalability of using background textiles when you could use plants and, you know, like cotton to do it cheaper. But you know, the part of the idea is that, well, if you're manufacturing the textiles, you have more control over them. So you could make fibers with or the the the cloth itself with better properties you know then you would get out of the natural fibers.

'''B:''' Yeah, like bulletproof cotton.

'''S:''' Or shrink drinks. Less would be nice, you know. So I don't know if this is commercializable. It's a, you know, kind of a proof of concept kind of thing. We'll see if it goes anywhere. But it's the fiction, so it doesn't matter. Well, good job, everyone. You got me. Well, you swept us a few weeks. This one can't make less than. I can't. Can't make the fictions Too simple.

'''B:''' This was kind of unique in that you had two people go and.

'''S:''' You both kind of. She had a similar thinking.

'''E:''' Interesting. It's like Cara was in a.

'''S:''' Too mundane.

'''B:''' You compliment me, dear Sir.

'''S:''' All right.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:56:20) ==
{{qow
|text = “What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.”
|author = – David Eagleman
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance. Very Well Put by David Eagleman Nice, an American American neuroscientist, best selling author and science communicator who teaches at Stanford University.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a critical concept. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah, And the more you learn, the more you know about what you don't know. So actually, the frontier of what of the unknown increases as you learn. More, yeah.

'''B:''' The stupider you feel, the more you learn, yeah.

'''E:''' Right.

'''S:''' Or the more you learn in a way, the more humble you are. Like you know the.

'''E:''' Humility.

'''S:''' Because it's you realize how much more there is that you still don't know but.

'''B:''' Which makes it even more exciting, right?

'''S:''' It should anyway, and, and you've guys have probably had this experience too. When I go from knowing basically nothing about a field to knowing something about it, one of the first things I realize is, wow, there's a lot of information here. This is way more complicated and way more deep than I thought, right?

'''B:''' And we appreciate that the experts even yes.

'''E:''' Heck yes. The people who devote their lives to their their particular field. My gosh.

'''S:''' And this is beyond science. This is in every any field of intellectual endeavor. Like it's just even just hobbies, anything. It's amazing how complicated things everything gets when people are involved.

'''J:''' You know, in the, in the rare cases when the average person has some level of expertise in something, right, and they hear somebody talk about that topic.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' And you and you say to yourself, oh, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. You know, like I can, I have a couple of things in my life that I, I've been able to. I've had this happen with. Yeah, right now imagine whatever that thing is that you're good at that you did it for 30 years.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' And you know it so well that you know, there there might be 100 or less people in the world that know it on the level that you do like that. That's when you know, you would be a world blown away by by how the BS that people you know, or how little understanding that people have on it and everything. And that that is one of the things that causes me to, you know, have an enormous amount of respect for people who have developed these massive skill sets and expertise. Like, you know, when they say, hey, man, you know, we global warming is happening and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that that's good enough for me. I don't have to pretend that I'm going online air quotes to do research.

'''S:''' They're not checking their math, right? You're not?

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Let me take a look at those ice cores and see if I agree with you on that. You know, come on. But I also flipped that around you because I use that example a lot. Like your own expertise, that that thing that you're an expert in, when you read an article about it in the lay media or somebody you know, just in the general population is talking about it, they know nothing, right? Like you.

'''B:''' Yeah, it's cringy.

'''S:''' They profoundly know nothing about this topic that you're an expert in. But that's you for every other freaking topic in the world. So that's the thing that you remember. You are just as ignorant about all the other things you're not an expert in. So that should be a humbling experience. Yeah, you know, but you have to, you have to make extrapolate to that, you know, to that bigger point. So I often use that example in lectures, but I think it drives it home pretty well.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' You're that person that create that cringey person who doesn't know what they're talking about on every other topic.

'''E:''' Yeah, but what about all those TikTok videos I see?

'''S:''' Yeah. That Yeah, Don't get me started. Don't get me started the thing, all right, since you had to mention TikTok, so I have to random out of two seconds. The thing that kills me about TikTok is there now that one of the themes that I'm picking up with the videos that get sent to us, etcetera, is the denial of history, right? Just denying that something happened. The most recent one we talked about was Now there's assholes denying that Helen Keller existed. Or, you know, that she was, that she was blind and deaf. She couldn't have been blind and deaf. Nobody could do what she did if they were blind and deaf. That's the point, you idiot. That's why you know her name 100 years later, because she was amazing and she did amazing things. And now you're going to try to take that all away from her because you don't believe it. Get a life, I mean.

'''J:''' I know it's really, it really is sad to hear things like that because why would anybody even need?

'''S:''' To go there, I know that's the other thing like.

'''E:''' Yeah, right.

'''S:''' So what's the deepest big Helen Keller made it up for some purpose? I mean, it's just silly, right? Or you're seeing through the veil that nobody else could see through. Get out, you know, Come on.

'''E:''' We've been lied to all these years, you see. Yeah. I know the truth.

'''S:''' That's the narrative. Everything you know is wrong. I know what's really going on. It's all coming out now, right?

'''E:''' It's all coming out. We're all according to TikTok.

'''J:''' It's good to have you home. Steve yeah, it's good to be home.

'''S:''' I enjoyed the trip, but it's always good to walk in your front or here and to be home.

'''E:''' Again, now you're going to sleep, I'm sure.

'''S:''' Dinner, then sleep. I haven't eaten in a long time.

'''J:''' And this time you didn't crash into your house at the very last. I know, I know.

'''S:''' That that when the second time I think we were coming back from Australia. So literally traveling for over 24 hours to work.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' And I crash into my house at the very end of the because really, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I hit the top of my driveway. The the, my driveway was frozen over solid with a glass of ice. And it's also like invisible. It's just this glass of ice. And then, and then, and then my car coasted all the way down and hit into the house. There's knife 0 control. It just slid all the way down ice, no coefficient of friction. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

'''B:''' Sure, man. You're welcome, brother.

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

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1062

2025-12-28T21:44:46Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:35:21) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1062
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1062|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1062.jpg
|caption = "Intricate beauty: A close-up of two fascinating winged insects."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "I may have discovered a planet, but the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future generations. "
|qowAuthor = - Clyde Tombaugh
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1062|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Saturday, September 20th, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody, Evan Bernstein. Hello, Kansas. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Cara Santa Maria and George Hrab. Yeah, George. We are live from Lawrence, KS. This is my first time in Kansas. How about you guys?

'''US#05:''' Yeah, first time.

'''S:''' Yep.

'''E:''' Third time. Third time, yes.

'''S:''' How?

'''E:''' Do you? Yeah.

'''S:''' You drove through it.

'''E:''' Twice I've drove, I've driven through it twice, once north-south and once east West and that was it. We may stop for lunch or something while we were moving around the country, but that's it. Never had a whole day in Kansas.

'''S:''' When we were driving from the airport, George said. You know, if we, if we didn't know we were in Kansas, could you tell from just looking around? And other than being flatter than we're used to, not really. Yeah. It's. Pretty.

'''C:''' It looks a lot like Texas. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, but not part of the Hill Country, but like North Texas.

'''US#05:''' Parts look like Jersey or like Pennsylvania too. Like, I mean, that's the problem with, you know, Raymour and Flanigan being everywhere. That's the thing.

'''C:''' That's how it. Works America.

'''US#05:''' America, Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's Chili's. And basically it's all the same thing.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

== Special Segment (01:39) ==
Nightmares
None

'''S:''' We're going to start with off with a little bit of a discussion about nightmares. This, you know, Evan suggested this is a possible news item. The item itself is pretty simple. It's like how you can control your nightmares and it makes you healthier. It's like, OK, well, not so much, but there is this issue of, and Bob and I, you know, talked about this for a while about like lucid dreaming or trying to develop the ability to control, like to be aware that you're dreaming and to control your dream, which is a really difficult and a very unstable state. You tend to either dream, you wake up or you, which means you're back into the dream or you actually wake up. It's very hard to maintain that knife's edge of being dreaming, but know that you're dreaming. But we thought we would use this as a jumping off part point to talk about our common recurring nightmares. And interestingly, I had my recurring nightmare last night.

'''E:''' Oh. Do tell.

'''S:''' Because so this, I think this happens more often to me when I'm sleep deprived and just, you know, because of travel and everything and being in a hotel room, I usually don't sleep as well. So I woke up at like 4:00 in the morning and then, you know, went back to sleep and it was hard to get back to sleep. And then I slept for four more hours. And that's, that was the period that was, that was very that was my sleep deprived sleep that I have. So I had a little bit of sleep paralysis, which happens sometimes. I did that thing where I dreamt that I woke up, but I was still dreaming and like I'm, I'm getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. I knew I was had to meet these guys. And I'm like, am I awake? Yeah, I'm awake. I'm awake. I could. I'm walking around and looking at things and everything. You like your dreaming self can't tell that you're not really awake. Then I go. Then I walk back to the bed and I see myself sleeping in the bed. Like, shit, I'm still sleeping. Wow. But the nightmare, the recurring nightmare had some point in there, Jay. You were in it and you were there and you were.

'''US#05:''' There, put him up, put him up. That was awesome.

'''S:''' Jay was there, and there was some other. Person it might. Have been Ian but I'm not really sure so we were being chased and that's my recurring nightmare and being chased by some malevolent force. So this time it was the authorities like the whatever that means and you know how you just know things in dreams. They were chasing us because they thought that we were criminals but it was a misunderstanding. But still we like felt like we had to run away from them and Jay had a portal gun from the portal game. You guys know that.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''S:''' So we're we're using the portal gun to like escape into the Rocky Mountains or something. And but they still managed to track US down. And then the guy had me at gunpoint. I had to wrestle the gun from him and I shot him in the ass. Still didn't, which was surprising because the guns are almost never work in my dreams, right? Like you can't pull the trigger or something or swords are wobbly. You know they have a phasers. Phasers never shooting, never work.

'''J:''' Why is that that? Well, Freud, that's something to say to dream there.

'''C:''' There's no answer to that question.

'''J:''' The thing that bothers me is like dreams are just happening, you know, and, and when a part of your brain is making it up and another part of your brain is experiencing it and why is it universal like big FU? Why couldn't it be ultra successful and ultra fun like?

'''C:''' I don't think it's universe.

'''E:''' Sometimes that can happen.

'''C:''' So, so what's interesting to me, and I don't know if there's like gender differences with this, but I, I've dated, I had a, an ex who is male who had night terrors and almost always he'd be like, no, get away. And I'll be like, what were you dreaming? And it was, he was always being chased or people were breaking it. That literally never happened to me. I've never had those kinds of like I'm being hunted dreams, but I had a recurring dream when I was little and it's like fucked up. You guys. Like honestly, I think This is why my parents put me in therapy like really early on. I don't dream anymore that I know of because I'm on like sleep medication that keep me in delta and I don't I just don't think I dream or I don't remember.

'''B:''' You have to be experiencing R.E.M. At some point.

'''C:''' I don't, I don't get, I don't get much R.E.M. At all but you.

'''B:''' Don't you just don't? Remember that you don't. Remember.

'''C:''' Yeah, but I also the drugs I take prevent me from getting a lot of R.E.M.

'''B:''' But you've got to get somewhere. You'd be like, go slowly crazy. You'd go slowly. Crazy without room you do have to have. Room you have.

'''C:''' To even if you're in Delta all night, yeah.

'''B:''' You wouldn't. You would not last long.

'''C:''' I don't think that's true. I think you can't not have delta. I think you can. I think you can avoid paradox my.

'''S:''' Understanding is is that you really need a good sleep architecture. You need to go through all the the stages of sleep. You know, with a certain pattern, there could be variation. Yeah, I've been bored, but if.

'''US#05:''' Cara, you're actually dreaming right now. Wake up, wake up. This is your nightmare anyway.

'''C:''' As an aside, anybody out there who has narcolepsy or or narcolepsy type sleep disorder? I have IH which is similar to narcolepsy. There's a medication we take which is like GHB it's xywave and it just forces you into delta all night and you're like awake during the day. And without that I am sleepy girl my whole life and sleepy. Anyway, when I was young I had this recurring dream and I'm talking like kindergarten, first, second grade where I would go to sleep and I would wake up just like you did. And I would be like, oh, it's time for school. And I'd go to my parents room to wake them up for school and they were dead in their beds. And I was like holy shit. So I went to find my sister and she was dead in her bed. And so I left the house and went around the neighborhood knocking on doors, some of them were open, went in, everybody was dead, all the animals were dead. And I was the only living soul and it was terrifying. This is a good TV.

'''J:''' Show, watch and it.

'''C:''' Was like everything was dead but me and I spent the whole nightmare trying to search for something that was a lie. You ever find it in the? And I never could. No. I would just be searching. Searching. And then and then I'd wake up. And I had that a lot. And I haven't since I was a child. As an adult, the only things I have are like stress dreams about going to file for my graduation. And I still owe, like a whole credit. Yeah. What? When do I still?

'''S:''' Have the I have to take a final, yeah.

'''C:''' When do those end?

'''S:''' Yeah, never.

'''J:''' Apparently no stressors do it. My so my kid nightmare was anybody when I was a kid, my dad used to let all of us watch all the science fiction movies and everything. So there's one thing where that some dude reanimates an arm, you know from the hell. Remember that? I remember 1 scene like it grabs the guy scared the shit out of me. So my semi reoccurring dream was that there was a gauntlet, you know like a armored hand crawling after me and then I stopped having it when I finally picked it up and I scooped out the mustard that it was that filled it and that how that broke the chain because mustard wasn't scary to me but my real. Wow, the arm was full of mustard. It was a gauntlet. It was like a it was like armor, you know what I mean? OK. And that was that was how my brain transferred it from like a human hand to like a more terrifying gauntlet hand drunk crawling after more terrifying.

'''C:''' That it was full of mustard like, well, yeah, cuz it was like gauntlet. Yeah, it wasn't a real arm. Arm the other.

'''J:''' Arm had ketchup.

'''C:''' Gauntlets are always special. I.

'''J:''' Was in my parents closet and they had a deep closet when we were kids. Yeah, my dad had his safe right there. Remember I was sitting next to it. OK, And the thing came in. Where's the?

'''US#05:''' Mustard come in. I don't understand. I have no.

'''J:''' Idea. I don't know, like mustard? Yeah.

'''S:''' Was it brown or yellow? It was a good yellow mustard. Yeah, George. Do you like yellow mustard?

'''J:''' I.

'''US#05:''' Hate I hate mustard, but I mean.

'''S:''' If the mustard is scaring me, that would make it scary. Gauntlet of mustard. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, now that I'm thinking about it, it's pretty messed up. So anyway, my adult dream. So really quick, I got to give you a little background. I have been looking my entire life to have a proper love relationship. And I, and I mean, like many people, just failure after failure after failure. And I got into my 30s, got into my 40s and I'm like, you know, nothing was working. And I finally was at the point where I'm like, it's not going to happen, you know, because it's statistically it, it was getting less and less likely. I meet my wife, who's my best friend and is the the freaking sunshine of everything that's good in my life. She's she's unbelievable. And I've never been loved like this. I've never felt loved like this before. You know, I can go on. This is my.

'''US#05:''' Nightmare, by the way.

'''J:''' So my. With. You my nightmare is that I don't know. I know that the idea of her, like I found someone, she's my wife, but I don't know who she is. I don't know her name, I don't know what she looks like and I don't know where she is. So it's like that whole veil thing, like something's. Wrong. Why am I with? This weird person there's this I'm not supposed to be here. This is not what's supposed to be Twilight Zone kind of dream Yeah, and it. And it totally upends me. Like I wake up freaking out when I because I because you really feel it. And that's.

'''C:''' Like a real neurological disorder, like when people, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing where they don't wreck it. Like there's people that they know but they don't recognize. Yeah. That's scariest shit. Like if I ever had.

'''J:''' There is a Yeah, that. Imagine having that. Like in the dream, everything's normal except I know that I'm supposed to be with somebody else and I have no other idea of who that person is.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's kind of like a dream about having cat grass. Like this is not my wife.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' That's interesting. Yep. George, about you I had.

'''US#05:''' One very influential dream when I was a kid, it wasn't recurring, but I was probably 4-4 or five, and I was in bed. And to me, it wasn't a dream. I was awake. I mean, in my mind, I was awake in my bed. And subsequently, most of my dreams do take place like in my bedroom. Like literally, I'll be in bed. I'm aware that I'm in bed and something is happening in the room. But I was a very, very young youngster. And it was morning and I looked up and at the foot of my bed was a closet that had the door open. And at the top of the closet was sort of like a shelf at the top. And it was a dark sort of shelf. And there were two hands sort of these wispy, not quite bone, not quite smoke hands just sort of doing this waving motion, just independent. There was no body, there was no whatever. And I remember just sort of looking at it and like being scared, but sort of but not really doing anything about it and just being terrified. I, I told my mom the next day that this had happened and she was like, that was probably a dream. And for probably 10 to 15 years after that, I couldn't have a door open. Like if I was in a, in a bedroom somewhere, like my dorm, the closet couldn't be open. It had to be shut. And it never happened again. It was just that one time. Do you?

'''C:''' Remember, like you said, you didn't do anything about it. Could you move? You might have been having a hypnopom pickle. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah. I don't think that was a dream. I think that was a hypnopompic. It felt.

'''US#05:''' So unbelievable, like I knew what dreams.

'''C:''' Were I knew what dreams were at that. Point.

'''US#05:''' But it was just, and it was just leaning. Towards.

'''C:''' You said it was morning, you were in bed, you didn't do anything. Yeah.

'''US#05:''' So that, and to this day I can sort of still picture it. I'm sure I've modified it in my head over time and now it's Technicolor or whatever, But. And it wasn't, you know, there was no blood. There was no, it was just. That's creepy. That ain't right. That ain't right. Yeah. When I.

'''E:''' Was a kid also, my dreams have changed. I think a lot of people have had that experience as well. You don't dream about the things you used to when you dream about new things. But when I was a kid, the reoccurring dream I would have that would frighten me is that I could not control myself from falling. It's the falling dream, right? We've, I think we've all experienced that, that sort of you're, you're dropping you, it's death is coming. You have that sinking sensation in your body. But I would have the dream where I would try to remain on the ground, yet something was nefarious or otherwise was pulling me up into the sky and would drop me. I would constantly get dropped as a kid. Now as an adult though, I would. I don't really have nightmares per SE, but my reoccurrence is that it's this level of frustration that I can't seem to get something done. I need to be over there now. I know I need to be over there now. Why aren't I over there now? I'm trying to walk. I'm not walking. Why? So I get very frustrated. Yeah, it's called.

'''C:''' A stress stream? Yeah. Oh. Totally.

'''E:''' And, and it's true of all sorts of scenarios, like I know I have to write this thing, why aren't I writing it? Why what is going on? I have to write this, why aren't I writing? So I can't make sense of it and I wind up getting really angry with myself in those dreams. And that takes on many forms and many Mary various kinds of scenarios.

'''B:''' Yeah, I've had plenty of nightmares. I can't really remember any that are like, really like, oh, listen to this one. I've had the stress, the stress. Dreams are common, everyone. But there's one nightmare that I remember that was really fascinating, and it was a nightmare of a movie nightmare. Werewolf, American Werewolf in London. There's a dream sequence where he's a where David Naughton's attacked by these weird creatures with weird faces. So in my dream, I'm in my kitchen and and where we grew up, and they come in the house with machine guns and start killing everybody. So yeah, pretty bad, right? But I was also experimenting with lucid dreams at that time, and I said, this is not real. These aren't real bullets. This is all bullshit. So I walked right up to them like, you're not even real. And they start shooting me. I'm like, see, nothing, guys. So then I'm like, all right, I'm done with you. I walked out of the house and I and I tried to fly, which is what I would do whenever I had a lucid dream. I'd try to fly and I would almost invariably fail because it's so hard. You know, you try to leap in the air like Superman, it just just fall flat. It doesn't work. It's so frustrating. But the few times it actually worked, it was magical. It was just like, holy crap, you feel like Superman. If you ever tried to lose a dream, try to fly because it's like amazing Bob.

'''C:''' When you when you fly in your dream. So when I fly in my dreams, it's I'm like doing the breaststroke and. Yeah. Is that how? Everybody or do you like times?

'''J:''' I have both but that's.

'''C:''' The only way I've ever been it's which?

'''S:''' Is silly, requires a lot of mental effort, and it's hard to sustain. Interesting in my dreams, but you can I.

'''C:''' Can do it in my dreams that. But like, it's this is how you get up a level and you're aloft and I'm always the only one and everybody's going whoa, that's so badass. Yeah, it would.

'''US#05:''' Be Is there any evolutionary advantage to not just dreaming, but nightmares in particular? Is there some kind of can we think of any of any we?

'''C:''' Still don't even understand 100% like what dreams are right, why we dream. So I think it's hard to make that leap. I mean.

'''S:''' You know that dreams, the REM sleep is important for consolidation of memory for right? Your brain is sort of recalibrating like the desktop. Clearance the dream.

'''J:''' Actually have to happen or is your maybe you need to be conscious enough for your brain to do the work that needs to happen during Well, you're not maybe it's a byproduct I.

'''B:''' Thought it's like your brain is just firing in a much more random sequence than norm and your mind is trying to make sense of all of that static and that's kind of how I see but dream imagery when.

'''S:''' You're dreaming. The part of your brain that does reality testing is not functioning, which is why, which is why I think makes sense to you in dreams that don't make sense to you when you wake up because you're a different person when you're dreaming, you're not your decipher, you're not your waking self and the.

'''B:''' Key with lucid dreaming, I think is that you there's a critical threshold of activation in that that lobe of your brain where you can do reality testing like, whoa, this isn't real. This must be a dream. So that's that's the idea, I think so, Bob.

'''S:''' You mentioned that you in that dream, you were in our childhood home. What's interesting is that when I remember my dreams, it's either in a place that's not real. If it isn't a place that I'm familiar with, it's almost always in our childhood home. I don't think I've ever had a dream where it's in my current home that I'm living in that I remember that same for you guys as well. You, but that's.

'''J:''' That's true. Yeah, my dreams.

'''C:''' Are usually pretty typical, like yeah did.

'''J:''' You guys ever Bob and Steve growing up when mom and dad put the extension like put the the party room in, did you ever dream that you were being pulled in there? Did you ever dream that Bob? Because that I don't know why, like I don't being dragged pulled into wires. They're having a shared part of the house.

'''S:''' Explain.

'''J:''' What this is my. Dream was was it mustard? What's going on? Well. It was always like the lights were always off, right? So when we all went up to bed, yeah, it was like that room and then the the new room that they were putting on off of it, it was pitch black. And I always be being creeped, outgoing, quick. I got to go quick. The light, there's a kitchen there and I got to run and turn the corner, get up the stairs before that room gets the light switch doesn't work. So I had a dream that I got pulled into that darkness and it's I still get a little creeped out when I think about it. You know what?

'''US#05:''' I love when when, when pets dream.

'''J:''' Oh, yeah.

'''US#05:''' Like when you're when you're a puppy and they're chasing bunnies. We used to call it ice chasing bunnies. That's just the coolest thing 'cause it's just like, oh, they're dreaming too. So they're, you know, there is some evolutionary purpose for it to reprogram whatever. But do. Yeah. But like, do dogs have nightmares too? Like, is there a sure. Wow, like some mailman, it's got a machine gun or like, what's the that? Could be anything.

'''B:''' Here's one. More, I think we had nightmare cross fertilization when we were growing up because I remember my sister telling us that she her nightmare I think infected some of our nightmares. She had a dream where she called this monster. The beep beep eye. The beep beep. Oh.

'''J:''' My God.

'''U:''' So.

'''J:''' It's where that came.

'''B:''' From in her mind, in her dream, the beep beep by was an eye, right? But it would draw eyes all over you, right? That's my memory. In my version of it, it was a robot because beep beep to me is a robot. So it was a robot that would draw eyes on you. And that's where my memory ends. What's your memory giant?

'''S:''' Floating eye. Yeah, All right. But that was chasing you. That was, again, the just a chase stream.

'''B:''' That's kind of creepy.

'''J:''' In my dream, I ate the eyes and they were meatballs.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's so that tracks.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== The NeuroWorm (18:55) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1017638
|article_title = China’s NeuroWorm Inches Its Way Toward Brain Disorder Breakthroughs
|publication = www.sixthtone.com
}}

'''S:''' All right. Have you guys heard of the brain worm? Not the brain worm, of course we have.

'''U:''' Yeah, you.

'''S:''' Guys know where that quote comes from, by the way? In the eyes, not the ball worm, Yeah. Anybody know any?

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Wait.

'''S:''' Anyone know where it comes from? It.

'''B:''' Sounds like Lord Farquhat. Flash board. Flash Board. Nice flash job. Nice. Such right?

'''S:''' 22 SGU Geek Product points OK wow the.

'''B:''' 1980. Version.

'''S:''' So we have spoken. About brain machine interface before and do you guys remember what the biggest technological limitation of the brain machine interface is yes fidelity the electrodes staying the electrodes it's the electrode but that's that's what I mean it's part of it but it's really the so with the software we kicking butt right we can make sense they.

'''US#05:''' Move they they don't stay in place they what they so. Yeah.

'''S:''' So the the problem with the, so we have multiple choices with electrodes, you can put them on the scalp surface, which is not invasive, but there there's a lot of attenuation with the skull, right. So you lose a lot of information. You could put brain surface electrodes and they're much higher fidelity, but they fibros over, they form scar tissue and you know, inflammation and whatever. So it's not good. Deep brain electrodes, same thing. They eventually will scar over. And then there's the stent roads which you put inside veins, which are still experimental, but those are those will have a lot of promise. But So what we're missing, like the next step, would be to make flexible electrodes. That flex with the brain so it doesn't cause the scar tissue. So that, so that is, you know, there are a lot of groups working on that. So now there's a study not only doing that, but taking it even a step further. And this is this is the the brain worm. So what they've done is they've designed a series of electrodes, right, to look like an earthworm. So if you imagine an earthworm and the bands are each electrodes, right? Yep. And they the in the head of the worm is a magnet. So they can actually have the worm sort of crawl through your brain by moving the magnet, by moving from external magnets. So they could reposition it as desired. And because it's flexible and movable, they tested it in, well, they tested it in because it also could be used for muscle, like you could use this to monitor muscle activity or brain activity. They tested it in the muscles of rats and they went a year with minimal scar tissue, which is that's the key right there.

'''J:''' So you move it to minimize the scar tissue.

'''S:''' Well, but yeah, the fact that it moves, it's not rigid and not fixed in place, then that's where the scar tissue forms. How is it not?

'''US#05:''' Destroying tissue as it moves though, like.

'''S:''' Why would it?

'''C:''' Must be weak on the surface surrounding. Like it's. Going it's going to take the path of least resistance or and the.

'''S:''' Muscles, It's going through the fascia. The fascia is the connective tissue. It's not boring through muscle cells. So it's like moving through the the planes between muscles in the brain. You know, it would be going through your folds, the gyre and the valleys.

'''J:''' I don't know what that is, the sulking you're talking about the surface of your. Yeah, it'd be outside.

'''C:''' Oh, so these are super fit? They're contours. They would.

'''S:''' Be on the surface. This would be brain surface. Select and.

'''C:''' Also, just to clarify, they're modeling it after an earthworm, but they're not the size of an earthworm. No, they're actually.

'''S:''' They're smaller and they're flatter.

'''J:''' Flat worms so.

'''S:''' Would you feel that? Could you? Your brain does not feel anything.

'''J:''' But I know, but it's not your brain. It's on the surface of the bottom of your skull. Has any sensation?

'''S:''' Well, so it would be the dura, right? It would be the lining around your brain. Is it?

'''C:''' Underneath the dura.

'''S:''' Yeah, the whole point would be to put it on the surface of the brain, right? So we could crawl along the surface of the brain. So the advantage here is 1. So the primary thing is if they could get these electrodes to last for years, that would be amazing, right? That would that makes it much more viable as a technique.

'''J:''' So it's not like a a prong that's stuck into your brain. It's just touching the surface. It's just skimming on the surface. All right, That's what's.

'''C:''' What diseases are that? Because I don't know. I think about like DBS that that's by definition deep brain. So how helpful it is what, what kinds of things can this help with? So.

'''S:''' First of all, just for studying the brain, right? So if you have somebody has epilepsy, let's say, So what you know, we could do EEG's, you know, electroencephalograms from the brain. Sometimes we do, you know, from the skull surface. But then for if we're planning on cutting out a chunk of your brain to stop your seizures, we need to know exactly where the seizures coming from, which means we need to capture it right as it starts.

'''C:''' But you still aren't going to know depth. You're only going to know well.

'''S:''' Yeah. But The thing is, if you could, once you put the electrodes in place, then that's it, you're getting one spot. Yeah, this would say, let's, let's see what's happening over there, let's move it. How long can you bring? I mean, in real time they're just moving it with magnets.

'''J:''' Yeah, but I mean, like, could you move it from here to here in like 3 seconds or you has to?

'''S:''' I don't know exactly how long it takes, but it's not a limiting factor. It doesn't take long to move.

'''US#05:''' It could this theoretically could this be non invasive like like the bug and wrath it's?

'''S:''' Minimally invasive. They don't call it, put it in the ear.

'''US#05:''' Or put up your nose or something and it like finds its way. That's a.

'''S:''' Good point. It's minimal. It's considered minimally invasive because like with the if you're laying electrodes along this the brain surface, you got to open up the brain to do that. But here you could literally bore a hole bore, right?

'''US#05:''' Put the worm.

'''S:''' In there and then get it to the place where.

'''US#05:''' It's got to go so.

'''S:''' It's less invasive for that reason. You only have to bore a small little hole. And then for brain machine interface the the thing, because it's dynamic and flexible at the same time, you could calibrate it, get it to the right part of the brain to have the functionality that you want, right? So there's more flexibility there. Rather than putting it someplace hoping it's the right place and seeing how well it works. Like if this isn't working, outlet's move it a millimeter to the left and see if that works better. Whatever. It'd be just more of a dynamic relationship.

'''J:''' So I know it's super small. Yeah. But like, let's say here's the head, like my thumb is the head. It's long.

'''S:''' I mean, it should, you should think it's not short. It's it's the hope. You want it to be long so it could go because the whole, the whole thing is electrodes, like 60 electrodes. And so you want them spaced out, you know, for a reasonable disk.

'''J:''' How do they control where the tail is?

'''S:''' So I just think because of the way it moves, you know, but there is only a magnet on one side on the on the head. Yeah, that's correct.

'''J:''' OK. Is this built?

'''US#05:''' Or this is this is theoretically here is it?

'''S:''' They published a paper where they did it. They showed that it works in the muscles of rats. In the muscles.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Ant Gives Birth to Different Species (25:18) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09425-w
|article_title = One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants | Nature
|publication = www.nature.com
}}

'''S:''' Wow, Tara, tell us about these ants. Yeah.

'''C:''' This is a really interesting story. It was actually published earlier this month in Nature. It was a big deal. So these ants. This is a picture of Queens of a Mediterranean harvester Ant. The species here is called Messer ibericus. They're in Spain. So we're going to have to hold two different species in our heads in in explaining this story because it's a little bit complicated. So there's M ibericus, Messer ibericus, and then there's M structor or Messer structor. So two different species, same genus, right, M ibericus, M structor. So researchers were observing these M ibericus colonies and they realized that there were some M structure drones hanging out within the M ibericus colony. They also realized that there were some hybrids of these ants within the within the colony. It's a hybrid.

'''S:''' It's.

'''C:''' I'm going to say that word so many times. Be cute for a minute. And, and so the researchers were like, OK, it's not that uncommon to see hybrid species within some kind of colonies or structural organizations of animals, right? We've seen hybrids of different like dog species or different marine animals animals.

'''S:''' Are always getting busy, yeah.

'''C:''' And if they're close enough, like if they're the same genus and the species is close enough, they can often make offspring, but the offspring might be sterile. So in an Ant colony, it doesn't really matter if the drones are sterile because as a general rule, the drones aren't there to mate. They're there to do jobs. But what the researchers noticed was that there were drones that were from a different species within the colony. But the species in question, M Structor, sometimes was like hundreds of miles away geographically. And they're like, how did these ants come across these other ants? Also bear in mind that these ants diverged about as long ago in evolutionary history as we did from chimpanzees. This will be important for the analogy that the researchers make later. So they're trying to figure out where did they come across these, how did they make these hybrids? And at the beginning, they were all joking, like, what if they were giving birth to a different species? That's ridiculous. And then the more they dug in, they were like, shit, I think that's what happened. So they start observing these these queen ants and they're noticing that they're laying eggs and they're, they have offspring that are a different species. And so they look at the offspring and they're like, how did they get there? Maybe they came across some drones somewhere. What's going on? They looked at both the M structor and the MI baricus ants and they found that they all had MI baricus. Was it MI baricus or M structor? So now I'm confusing myself. Doesn't matter. They all have the same mitochondrial DNA. And they were like, well, that's weird. What is going on here? As they dug a little bit deeper and they were able to actually watch these Queens lay and then look at the genetics of of the eggs that they laid, they realized that without any exposure to the other species, these queen mothers were laying a different species of Ant, which is the first time that's ever been observed in any animal anywhere on the planet. They're calling it xenoparity, foreign birth. So.

'''J:''' It's just a coincidence, no?

'''S:''' No.

'''C:''' So it seems to be an evolutionary quirk. That's helpful because if you can increase the diversity of your colony, because what often happens is that a queen will mate with a fertile drone to produce offspring, but they're all genetically the same, which is bad. Queens also tend to have something they call selfish genes. So sometimes when a queen mates, she just makes more Queens over and over and over. And you need to have a balance of different roles in the colony. So one way to prevent that is to mate with a different species and then the queen is less likely to make more Queens. So what ends up happening, and this is the analogy that they use because one of the journalists on this was like, wait, so is this like if a human woman mated with a chimpanzee and then produced a hybrid offspring? It's a hybrid that that was sterile and couldn't produce more. And they were like, no, it's even weirder than that. It's if a if it's if a woman, a human woman mated with a chimpanzee in an effort to produce hybrid offspring so that they could have workers continuing to make the colony run. I am.

'''J:''' I'm so afraid that someone's going to try to do this this.

'''C:''' Is amazing. Well, The thing is we had we didn't even think this was possible. And so it's funny, I was telling Bob about it earlier and he was like, but how does it work? And I was like, I don't know. They didn't tell us that I think they're still trying to figure that out. They they they figured out that it does work. They were able to observe the outcome to clarify.

'''S:''' Though they're giving birth not to just hybrids, but to the other they're giving birth.

'''C:''' To the full other species, so then they can mate with the full other. Species. And produce hybrids, so.

'''S:''' But they must have the genes then for that other species.

'''C:''' They all have it in their mitochondria.

'''S:''' But that's. Is that enough though? I.

'''C:''' Guess we'll figure out how that mitochondrial DNA is making its way into the gametes. I don't know. Or maybe there's some other They still don't understand how it works. Yeah, I.

'''S:''' Think I'm missing something? Well.

'''C:''' I think they are too like they were like this isn't possible, but then they observed it and they were like this is the only explanation. Is it?

'''S:''' Possible they made it in the past like they're saving the sperm from the other species for late for later.

'''C:''' Hundreds of miles away and they're ants. So it doesn't. I don't think it is possible.

'''S:''' Yeah, Yeah.

'''C:''' But maybe. Maybe.

'''S:''' But once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, exactly because.

'''C:''' The because the truth of the matter is this seems impossible, right? So it could be, could be, but but either way, they are giving birth to a different species, whether they're holding onto that sperm and they call it sometimes like sperm paratism, paratism or something like that, parasitism or whether they have the genetic code somewhere in them and they're able to kind of like drum it up. That's what's happening. It's the first time it's ever been observed. So this.

'''US#05:''' Kills like every creationist argument about not having another species come from, you know that transition?

'''C:''' Add it. To the list. Yeah, they.

'''J:''' Don't care, it's right there.

'''US#05:''' That's that's astonishing. The.

'''J:''' Phenomenal, right?

'''C:''' But.

'''J:''' It also isn't. It's not like a deliberate choice. It's all happening like automatically like.

'''C:''' Yeah. I mean, we never know. Like what is deliberate mean? Are they, are they, you know, having philosophical topical debates about it? No. But are there certain environmental pressures? That's what.

'''US#05:''' Must have what must have failed previously to lead to this being successful and then be reproducible well.

'''C:''' It doesn't always mean that something has to fail. Sometimes it's just that something is more successful. Right, Right. So yeah, I mean, there either way, there are environmental pressures that are allowing for this to happen.

'''S:''' That's freaking cool evolution.

'''C:''' Very cool.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Primordial Black Holes (32:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-09-black-hole-reveal-foundations-universe.html
|article_title = An exploding black hole could reveal the foundations of the universe
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Bob, you're going to tell us even more about black holes.

'''B:''' This one's cool. I love this news item so much. The new research seems to suggest that there could be a 90% chance that in the next 10 years we could see an exploding black hole there.

'''S:''' Could be a 90% chance, yes. What's the percentage chance that there is a 90% chance?

'''C:''' Sex Panther. 80% of the time. You can't.

'''B:''' It's unknowable at this current time. If this is true, this would be the biggest. Gift. To astrophysics physicists in our lifetimes, the upside is so good that it's, it's fun talking about, even though it might be unlikely, but it's fascinating. And I and I learned a bunch of things that are that are actually 100, you know, probably 100% true. All right, So, all right, so do appreciate this. We got to, we got to just talk a little bit about just black holes and Hawking radiation black holes. We all we, we have all heard of black holes, right? You've got a couple of varieties. We've got super massive black holes, millions to billions of solar masses right there, amazing other fantastic objects. There's stellar mass black holes, a lot smaller, maybe 3, three solar masses to perhaps 150 solar masses. OK, but there's also a hypothetical black hole called primordial black holes. Now these, if they exist, they, they would have formed in the first second after the after The Big Bang. After The Big Bang, there was so many density fluctuations happening that they think that these black holes could have formed not by an imploding star, but by just these these density fluctuations that enough mass was in one space, enough mass energy was in one space. That black hole forms. These black holes, when they're talked about today, they typically say, yeah, they probably have the mass of maybe Earth mass or down to an asteroid or even, you know, much even smaller than that. So if if you had a, if you were a super primordial black hole with a mass of say an asteroid, you would your event horizon would be about as big as a, as a dime, very tiny. These are obviously very, very small black holes. So the next critical component here is Hawking radiation. Now we've talked about Hawking radiation. Stephen Hawking, of course, came up with the idea Hawking radiation that let me just set the table for this a little bit. Hawking radiation is a result of black holes losing their immort immortality and becoming just, you know, objects that won't live forever. When when Stephen Hawking looked at black holes through a quantum lens, he realized that they have a temperature, they actually have a temperature and because of quantum effects, then if they have a temperature, then they they're emitting thermal radiation. And if they're emitting thermal radiation, that means that they're going to be losing mass, which means they have a finite lifetime. So that's what that's what his conclusion was. So what happened was the idea is that the black holes would emit radiation and shrink and get hotter and then emit more radiation and then shrink and get hotter and that cycle would continue. So Hawking radiation, though, is probably not being emitted from the big boys, the supermassive black holes and and the solar mass black holes, because they're they're colder than the universe is. So they're not really going to be emitting. There's no net loss of mass from these big guys, but the primordial black holes, if they're still around and they're they're small enough, they're going to be small enough and hot enough to be emitting something that we could potentially detect. The problem is nobody thinks they've been emitting radiation or gamma rays these years because we would have seen that glow in the universe. We would have seen this gamma radiation glow. So here's the new bit. Now, the new bit is that they're trying to incorporate some new theories and models of dark matter into these primordial black holes. So the end result would be that these primordial black holes perhaps have a charge like a static, a static charge, very, very small charge. But if it has that charge and some models seem compelling, if these whole black holes have the charge then and they would basically have been in kind of like a slow motion stasis for the past, you know, billions of years. They would not have been emitting anything. They would not have been shrinking, but not. But according to this theory, they could be doing that now. They could be releasing this in this, this they could be exploding in the near future. So that's where the 90% comes from. If their model is correct, then there is there's a 90% chance in the next 10 years we could see an exploding black hole. Bob. Can I ask you a question?

'''J:''' So which black holes could potentially explode? the Super small ones? Yeah, only the.

'''B:''' Small ones cause the bigger ones are are too big. They're not going to be releasing any, any real radiation for, oh, about 10 to the 67 years, right?

'''J:''' So what is it a big deal if it explodes like what happens so?

'''B:''' It's going to be so awesome. And that's what I'm getting into right now. Wait, wait. Wait, what?

'''J:''' OK, nevermind. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, we want.

'''S:''' You're going to cover it.

'''J:''' You're going to cover it.

'''S:''' I mean, it's a good thing.

'''B:''' And tell us why. All right. So say we see the explosion, What what does that mean on its face? It's, it's fantastic because it proves so many things. It's ridiculous. It proves that hockey radiation is real. If we see, if we see a gamma radiation burst that disappears very quickly with no, you know, with no delayed afterglow that gets smaller and smaller and other things. If we see that and we've got detectors that can detect that, then we know that hockey radiation exists. Huge coup right just there. We would also prove that primordial black holes exist. Another huge coup right there. We would also have evidence for this dark electromagnetism that's related to dark matter. That would also maybe even be the biggest discovery right there having finding some link to dark matter in this. But the other thing, and the thing that really caught my attention and blew my mind is that the particle explosion, when this tiny black hole exploded, it would emit essentially an inventory of all possible particles that could exist. Think about that. It would emit everything that that that we have been looking for, that we have theorized about, that we've already found everything that that black hole could create could be emitted and we could detect it about. That you're not talking about blew me. Away you're not.

'''J:''' Talking about elements, right?

'''S:''' You're not talking about particles, different kind of particles.

'''B:''' Electrons, protons, quarks, axions, neutrinos isn't.

'''C:''' I mean, all of those things are out there, Higgs.

'''S:''' Well, no. But see there are very high, high energy particles that we've never detected and we can't create even in a large hydrogen Collider. So this would basically be like a super, super, super, super Collider with energies orders of magnitude beyond what we could ever create. I hear spitting out part high energy particles that would otherwise we would never say well.

'''C:''' But that's the question, right? So are you saying that we would need some sort of detector near this? No.

'''S:''' No, we on earth, yeah, but.

'''C:''' Then aren't all of those particles, they've been created at some point in the universe? So they are out there, we're just not able to detect but.

'''S:''' It's just an event we.

'''J:''' Have to capture. We have to capture the event, right? So when a black hole sucks something in, right, Yeah, like, you know, this is black.

'''C:''' Holes don't suck.

'''J:''' Pull.

'''C:''' They they pull, it's just gravity pull.

'''J:''' Whatever. Yeah, When? A thing goes into a black hole. Yeah. And it's made out of matter. Yeah, it it automatically strips that down and turns all of that matter which we're talking about, you know, elements of singularity. Well, wait, no, it doesn't turn them into these particles or the well.

'''C:''' They're already made of those particles. I know, I know.

'''J:''' It takes them all apart and makes them.

'''C:''' Spaghettifies it, yeah.

'''B:''' When something enters the event horizon or a black hole, we don't know what happens. Our physics breaks down with singularity is just a placeholder for we don't know what the hell is going on. So you, you can't speculate. Where do we come up with quantum gravity? Then we might have a better idea, but it's, we don't know what's going on. But The thing is, it's not, it's not like the particles are in there waiting to leap out. What's happening is that this black hole that that's exploding is, is releasing. When it gets hot enough, it releases one particle, say a photon. When it gets a little bit hotter, right? It shrinks and it gets hotter then it then it releases electrons. Then it gets smaller and hotter, then it, then it releases protons and then it goes through the inventory of all the possible, the possible particles that are related to the temperature of the black hole at that time and it goes through all of them. And so we're getting what we can detect from this is gamma radiation. So we're looking at this gamma radiation and when a new particle is emitted, it changes, it changes the slope, it changes the energy spectrum. And we can see that little step. And then, oh, here's another step, here's another step, here's another particle. And when we look at it, we could say, here's the standard model of physics. I see the electron, I see the, I see the protons, I see quarks, I see all of these things that we know that we've already discovered. But then you keep looking at this gamma ray signal and you're like, what the hell is that? What the hell is that? We don't know what that stuff is. It could be, it could give us a road map to all these particles that we probably never would have found maybe in 1000 years of technological advancement. It could give us just a road map for all these particles beyond standard physics, which we've been waiting for for so long. And it would be just an amazing occurrence that I hope, I really hope this is true. Because if it's if it's not true, then we would have to wait. And I calculated how long we would have to wait for a small black hole, like a stellar mass black hole, say the smallest black hole is about probably 3 solar masses. The small stellar mass 3 mass. We would have to wait. I calculated 10 billion octo decillion years in order for that thing to evaporate. And I don't think we're going to be around in, but in our billion because the universe is so. Old.

'''J:''' Isn't there things that are kind of positioned to do that, right? No, it's only 13 billion.

'''S:''' He's talking about Octo Gazillion or I don't even know what you meant. I'm.

'''B:''' Talking about the I'm talking about the evaporation of a black hole that's more massive than the sun, not the primordial little blood that.

'''S:''' Would take so long that so long, yeah, but the but the primordial ones could happen or happening now apparently. And if we keep looking for them, maybe we'll see one. And here's the catalog of every possible particle that exists in the universe, even the ones you haven't discovered yet. And that will give us like the road map to this, complete the standard model. That's cool.

'''C:''' Two quick questions. The first one is. How do we detect that? I was going to say. How visible? What? What instruments?

'''S:''' Gamma ray detectors?

'''B:''' We have them. How do we?

'''C:''' Detect the event. I mean, how do we detect all of those? Really just the. Energy of the particles.

'''B:''' It's we would detect. The easiest way to detect this is through gamma radiation, because there's going to be a lot of gamma radiation, gamma radiation coming out of this thing. Even particles that come out, we would never detect them because they decay too quickly, I'm saying, but they decay into gamma radiation. So that would be part of the gamma ray signal. And we that, that we could interpret. We could.

'''C:''' Interpret that to know the high energy particles. Yeah, because that's the part that I was confused about. I know we can do this in a Collider, but that's a closed system. When all this stuff is just flying through space. How do we even know? And it's decaying so quickly. Yeah, it would.

'''B:''' All it would. By looking at the gamma radiation we did, we can detect what's going on the signature. Inside because it's all. The fingerprints of all these articles are embedded within the gamma radiation. That's changing the the energy signature, the spectrum, the energy spectrum, all that stuff is being affected by the new art, the new particle that has just been created and released.

'''C:''' And so the other question is, if it's such a high energy explosion, right, would it also cause a ripple in space-time? Like would we be able to detect it with gravitational wave detectors? LIGO?

'''S:''' Not necessarily. Necessarily. Gravitational event, yeah.

'''B:''' LIGO and gravitational waves are all about mass. Accelerating mass like 2 neutron stars. Remember it?

'''S:''' Has the mass of an asteroid and it's way too small. Yeah.

'''C:''' But what about the explosion itself, even?

'''B:''' But even explosions I don't think is optimized for for a gravitational wave detection would.

'''US#05:''' It be at all visible or that we're just talking purely like you can see in.

'''B:''' Gam, if you could see gamma radiation, you will be. It'll be visible to you. Yeah, hard tell us. We wouldn't see anything. It would be a gamma radiation telescope purely.

'''US#05:''' A radiation kind of thing. It wouldn't be like that cool dot that all of all of a sudden appeared kind of thing, right? It's not big enough. A couple.

'''B:''' Of caveats, this was a simple test model that they created. It was a proof of concept to to show that their idea could work. And also we don't know how many of these black holes formed. We don't know how much hidden charge they may have had. And so those questions are open and the the answers to those questions can make this be a not even a not even issue a non issue that might not even happen. But if it did, if it did happen, what I love about this is that it would be, it would be like a genie came to an astrophysicist and said, what do you want? I'm like, give me a road map and every particle that's possible in the universe and you could get it from this type of explosion that may happen 90% chance if this is true in within 10 years. So there's a.

'''S:''' 20% chance the.

'''US#05:''' Genie's like, really we'll be doing. That follow up 10 years from now, that's. Absolutely.

'''S:''' But at least it's, it's falsifiable, right? I mean, in that we, if this is true, we should see this happen.

'''B:''' So basically like three people are excited about this. I hope, I hope, maybe, maybe we're up to with this audience, maybe four or five of us, I think.

'''E:''' It sounds cool to me. We're excited.

'''B:''' Thank. You thank you tell.

'''J:''' Them, Bob.

'''B:''' I love this news item, Bob.

'''J:''' You really? I I learned a couple of things about black holes that I didn't quite wrap wrap my head around in what you just said, so I thank you for that.

'''B:''' Yeah, because I've heard about hockey radiation for decades and I never really thought, well, what the hell is Hawking radiation? I thought it was just maybe some particles, some type of radiation. I didn't know that it was potentially everything. It's just. All the particles, all of all energy dependent.

'''S:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week. Quints it's.

'''C:''' Getting cold outside and when it's cold, I like to have great layers. One of my favorite pieces is from Quints. It's $50 Mongolian cashmere sweater. I have this amazing zip up hoodie. It's so warm, it's so cozy and it's so much less expensive than the other guys, but even better quality. Yeah, I.

'''J:''' Think I talked about this sweater last year and I got another one. It's the Mongolian Cashmere Fisherman Pullover hoodie. That's a lot of words. All it means is it's a super comfortable, awesome hooded sweater. I wear it all the time, Cara, and I am not afraid to tell you I look awesome.

'''E:''' So give and get timeless holiday staples that last the season with Quince. Go to quince.com/SGU for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QUINC. e.com/SGU Free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com/SGU. All right.

'''S:''' Guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Cultish (46:52) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultish
|article_title = Cultish - Wikipedia
|publication = en.wikipedia.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, George, you've been reading this book, Book Cult, as you were talking about it. Tell, tell us what's going.

'''US#05:''' On yeah, I love I love when you read a book or you see a show or you get some piece of information that sort of re challenges sort of beliefs that you may have or makes you kind of re examine what you may think or how you've acted in the past. The whole sort of skeptical experience of, you know, the hardest thing to be skeptical about is stuff that you believe in, you know, things that confirm what you believe and you have to kind of take a second sometimes to stop. And this was a nice sort of journey in reading this book. It's called Cultish. It's by Amanda Montel. And in essence, Miss Montel writes about this idea that the language of cults is very specific. What people that sort of control other people do it in multiple ways. And one of the ways they do it is by modulating and and using language in a particular way, which isn't surprising. We sort of all know that you kind of get that, that, you know, the Tom Cruise mile stare kind of like thing. But what was interesting is that her approach to this book, she talked about how it's not just Scientology or the Jim Jones cult that things like CrossFit and soul cycle, you know, Etsy workers and stuff that are people that do a lot of beauty products, you know, like makeup and Amway and things like that use very, very similar language. It's, it's sort of it's, it's an idea of expressing an intense ideology, creating a community and then controlling that community. And So what you do is you essentially create this language that is exclusive, you know, so in Scientology there's these great, you know, someone is suppressive, right? There's a suppressive person that's like the worst kind of person you can be in turbulate. That's a great Scientology word, you know, decludge. The other one is yet you decludge something basically like declutter, sort of figure out, you know, unravel, but you decludge it. And so non Scientologists don't decludge. Scientologists decludge. It's a great word occlude and you start having similar words like that, that. And this is the part that I sort of realized my own experience years ago. A couple years ago I did, I did CrossFit for a while. And CrossFit in an odd way is almost proud of itself being a cult. You know, they sort of embrace this idea that yeah, we're we're a good kind of cult because we make you healthy and strong and all that kind of stuff. And I started realizing they had all these keyword keywords and phrases and stuff, you know, things like WOD, the workout of the day, or AMRAP. I mean, what an AMRAP is as many rounds as possible, right? So you do this thing where you try to, you know, you have 30 seconds and you have to lift the kettlebell until it smashes your face and do it as many times as you can in a minute or whatever it is, many runs as possible. You don't go to the, you know, it's not a gym that you go to. It's an affiliate. You know, it's a or, or, or box. You go, yeah, I'll see you at the box. You know, the other interesting thing was that just struck me was they have workouts that are named after women. They call them the girls. And there's the there's the Annie, there's the Grace, there's the Chelsea. And there's certain kinds of exercises that you have sort of put together. So like Amy I know is 1, which is like you do 5 pull ups, 10 push ups and 15 squats. That's an Amy do that five times. And I thought like, oh, you name it, like a female to of course you can do that because it's named after a girl. You know, this idea of like this kind of cult programming of like, yeah, strong male pseudo, you know, strong guy, jump into this thing and do it. And then I started thinking about my musical experiences and how jazz has this sort of particular language that's associated with it. That hasn't changed since the 40s. You know a gig, right? You have to go to a gig that's. A Gaz thing That's I. Mean that's like music, music and sort of you go to, yeah, I got a gig. That's where that's from. Clams. You know what's a clam? Money.

'''B:''' You know what a clam is?

'''US#05:''' No, a clam is a mistake. So like if you're playing, if you're playing and you make a mistake, it's like, oh man, the clams tonight. Oh, it was a seafood buffet tonight. Oh my God, the clams a head like is the top of the song, you know, or or rushing, dragging all that, all these like little expressions. And it just made me start to think about like, have I been adding to this kind of cultish language? But.

'''C:''' Isn't the difference then that if if an in Group evolves organically and so there's in Group status and it's a way for everybody to feel like a familiarity versus an out group or when there's a intentionality and a leadership that says think this way, talk this way. That's the difference. That's what she.

'''US#05:''' Addresses. She talks about Soul Cycle and Soul cycle, for those of you that aren't aware, it's sort of a Peloton cycling thing. You sign up and you do these classes online and again, they're very specific. They have very specific language. You pick your instructor. The instructors have sort of things about them that certain people like to do. And what, what the author of the book talks about, she says the difference between Soul Cycle and Scientology is when the Soul Cycle class is over, no one is saying you can't leave the class. And no one is insisting that you use those Soul Cycle terms in the rest of your life. And that if you don't use those Soul Cycle terms, you're being suppressive or you're being whatever. And that there is a, an agreement, a tacit agreement that like we're coming here to this Soul Cycle class or maybe this makeup tutorial or whatever it may be. And we understand that we're kind of kind of winking. We're doing cult like cult, cult ish cult light, maybe even. But we understand we can leave at any time. And that's that's sort of yeah, that that that main difference. Whereas if you're at the Jim Jones compound or you're in Scientology, they're going to do everything they possibly can to make you not leave. They want to maintain you Amway. They don't want you to stop, you know, selling their garbage to your friends. A bunch of other sort of multi level marketing thing that used it. The one, the one example from that that it made me think that CrossFit started to crossover into this kind of dangerous cult was there's a, there's a, a thing called Uncle Rhabdo, which the more I thought about this, the more this disturbed me. So rhabdomyol, rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is where if you work a muscle too much, if you exercise a muscle too much, it it releases portions of itself into your bloodstream it like.

'''C:''' Breaks down it basically. Breaks down.

'''US#05:''' Yeah, it releases much.

'''S:''' It's any exercise done that it does. OK, if you. Actually, you're doing it now. It's just a it's a it's just a matter of degree, OK, if you work, if you have a good workout and then I tested your blood, you would look like you have a mild abdominal, OK, right, right, right. And in fact, we often have to, I've had to ask patients, have you done any exercise in the last few days? Because that I have to just how do I interpret the number based upon that but.

'''US#05:''' It kind of stinks. Get to that. Point of like where you actually have liver damage, yeah.

'''C:''' When you have Coca-Cola colored ear kidney. Damage.

'''S:''' OK, Kidney damage.

'''US#05:''' Yeah. So to take this Rhabdomyolysis and they created this character called Uncle Rabdo, the idea of like, it's actually kind of a badge of honor. To get that. Awful. Yeah, it's. Awful. It's awful. And so you did die. From that I had. I had read an article about you know what, you know, someone had referenced Uncle Rapdo and I just didn't get a chance to ask what it was. I looked it up and I'm like, wait a minute, that's terrible. So I went to this sort of main training guy and I said, what's the deal like with this Uncle Rabdo and and, and Rabdomyolysis? And he was like, well, yeah, you know, I mean, it's and like, because like people have gotten really ill and and, you know, they aren't aware of how hard they're working. And, and he's like, well, yeah, I mean, you could cross the street and get hit by a bus.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's a great answer.

'''US#05:''' I'm done. Thank you much. Bye. You know, like, and that was the justification like, yeah, no, you're not working hard enough until you're literally like you're you're destroying cold, colder, you know, And so I thought, OK, that's that's where it's crossed over. So it just, it just made me think about what else in my life that maybe has is.

'''S:''' On that borderline, it's important to recognize and we, we've we've spoken about this before we we got, we were really involved in anti cult activity early on. Yeah, pre pre SGU and we were doing with just the New England Skeptical Society because there's a lot of that based in Connecticut around us. But anyway, so the, you know, a cult is first of all, the belief system is irrelevant, right? It's just the behaviour and the behaviour is a continuum. It's it's not a black or white and there's a what we call a demarcation problem. There's no sharp line that divides something that isn't a cult from something that is a cult. It's a it's just a continuum. And so yeah, a lot of things have we have a jargon and we have a community and we have commonality or whatever. But the the more of these features of cult like activity that you build up at some point you do crossover this fuzzy boundary where they all right now this is really operating like a full blown cult. Yeah. And of course, there's a lot of things that are just are blatant cults, like they're doing it, they're doing it all and it's top down, it's deliberate. It's not organic or cultural. It's not a jargon for rug for pragmatic reasons. It's just it's meant to separate you from other people, to get you inside the community, to make you dependent on the.

'''C:''' Community, that's the main thing. Like as a psychologist, when I see people who are who are trying to like heal from having been in a cult, it's no different than a woman who was in a coercive relationship. So it's whether it's one person or whether it's 50 people, the what what I think of as definitional is that it's a high control environment that takes like your volition away from you. And so sometimes.

'''S:''' They deliberately try to break down your resistance, yeah.

'''C:''' And they'll still.

'''S:''' Sleep deprive you, they will. Yeah, they will starve you and.

'''C:''' The ones that are the best at it are the ones that make you think it was your choice all along. Like that's when it starts with the language which.

'''US#05:''' Starts with this, which what she writes about, it starts with these, you know, these subtle memes they put into your brain, these little like portions.

'''C:''' Of it, you know, it's funny, as you mentioned Amanda Montel and I was like, that name sounds familiar. And I just looked she was on my podcast. There you go. Last year, she had another.

'''US#05:''' Book called Yeah the.

'''C:''' Age. It's called the age of magical overthinking. OK, notes on modern irrationality. And we did like a live recording for the Toronto Public Library. Cool. And like, yeah. So I was like, I know her. Cool, we didn't. Talk about cultish we should have.

'''US#05:''' Think of last year thing just came out so highly recommended. It's nice. It's very conversational too. So just yeah, sticks with you.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Common Pseudosciences (57:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://uk.news.yahoo.com/27-things-actually-pseudoscience-people-203103359.html
|article_title = "It's Junk Science" — People Are Sharing The Things That Are Actually Pseudoscience That Most People Just Take As Fact - Yahoo News UK
|publication = uk.news.yahoo.com
}}

'''US#05:''' Thanks.

'''S:''' George, what's All right, So we're gonna talk about Miss common myths, common misconceptions that are being spread around social media. There's just an article that went through like 15 of them. We can't go through all of them, you know, very deep. We don't have to. Most of these we've talked about before, and some are very quick hits. Evan, you sent this to me. What? Just what was the first thing on the list? I'm going to pull it up.

'''E:''' And again, the the question that triggered all this is they someone wrote about this who says it came across the post on the popular ask Reddit page from user whoever who said what are some things that are actually pseudoscience that people don't realize? And the list was extensive. A alpha based dog training. I don't know that we've actually covered that well on the show. The.

'''S:''' Idea that there is an alpha male in a dog pack is that's been pretty debunked, right? So anything derived from that is also. Well, yeah.

'''C:''' And the idea that your dog thinks that you're his alpha is ridiculous. Yeah, can.

'''U:''' We.

'''US#05:''' Have that like in Sky writing across every other podcast, like every comedian's podcast. Can we just make it like there's no such thing as the alpha? Please stop talking about it. What?

'''J:''' About like wolves don't have kind of like a de facto leader.

'''S:''' No, I mean, there are more or less dominant dogs in the pack, but there's no berries to that's the alpha and everyone else is a beta that doesn't exist. It's not that simple. It was.

'''US#05:''' A flawed study that a guy did like whatever that was 100 plus years ago.

'''C:''' And while there are some animals where there are, yeah, like leaders within the group, that doesn't translate to, like, domestication of dogs to us. Even if there were an alpha in the pack, they wouldn't go like, human alpha. Now follow you. Like that doesn't make any sense.

'''E:''' Astrology was on the list. We've covered that quite extensively. Here's one. They call it Barnes and Noble Science. So these are books published by people who can't get peer reviewed papers published.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' And that's a pretty wide category of things we've.

'''S:''' Talked about that a lot too. Like basically if you're bypassing peer review and going right to the public with your wacky idea, you're a crank, right? That's what again, that's one of the things that cranks do. But now of course, you don't have to publish a book. You can just make a website or you can make a YouTube. Now get a.

'''US#05:''' TikTok TV like TikTok PDF on Amazon.

'''B:''' Or worse than that, you have a, you have a like a fake journal of the bullshit journal and submit to that. Like see unpublished peer reviews. Like, Oh my God, that's it's a journal of.

'''E:''' Bullshit research. Biorhythms, mood rings. Oh my God.

'''B:''' Remembering other things. Biorhythms.

'''E:''' Mood rings. Got it. How old were we, 24? Yeah, I totally.

'''J:''' Believe that when we were younger, you did.

'''E:''' Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was one thing. You know, like most of these. And when you're kids, they impress you, but they also impress adults sometimes. Blood type astrology. Oh.

'''S:''' That's yeah.

'''E:''' We've talked about that blood type diets that's such.

'''S:''' Common in Japan, right? Yeah, very.

'''E:''' Common in Japan, the.

'''US#05:''' Blood type diet thing, there's nothing to that, correct? 00, Absolutely. Because I started debating someone about this and like they were so vehement and I was just, I was trying to be nice. I was trying to just and I was like, OK, maybe I totally missed something, but there's nothing.

'''S:''' Good to question yourself if you're not 100% sure. I mean, yeah, do I really am? I sure because it sounds like bullshit, but maybe there's something to it. But in this case, there's zero to it. There's absolutely. I mean, this is just the the immune proteins on your blood cells. It says nothing about any other aspect of your Physiology, your biochemistry. It is complete nonsense. So you could be confident, OK about that.

'''J:''' So basically there's a bunch of people out there who believe in this who are basically not eating certain foods because it's not their blood. Yeah, right.

'''S:''' They're eating their, they're eating to their blood type. That's like eating to your astrological. It's like eating.

'''C:''' To your eye color yeah blue eye people really shouldn't be eating too much meat that's.

'''S:''' A good way to put it, How about?

'''E:''' How about this one? This is one I've heard of in the past, but never thought of it. Your brain develop is is continually developing until you're on an average of age 25. Yeah, I've. Heard that over and over. I've. Heard that a lot.

'''S:''' It's zero to that. So really, yeah, there's there's nothing to that. Another one.

'''US#05:''' And so you have to think about it for a while the.

'''S:''' The study that kind of kicked that off, they only looked at people up to 25 seriously. I said, look, the brain is developing until you're 25. Oh.

'''US#05:''' That's so funny, but.

'''S:''' Then they but they didn't look at people after 25. And here's the other thing there. What's the difference between developing, maturing and learning?

'''C:''' And and rapid pruning.

'''U:''' Right.

'''S:''' So there's one of those is about growth, like your kid in your brain doesn't get any bigger. Well, it's not just about size, it's also not to you, but to a lot of like the strength.

'''C:''' Of connections.

'''S:''' It's it's, but it's myelination, it's connections for the states. Wait, let me just say justification.

'''J:''' Let me ask you from a person who doesn't know as well as you, at what point on average does a, a child into adult till their their brain stops growing bigger?

'''S:''' That just depends on when they stop growing bigger.

'''J:''' OK, so it's rando, but what is it?

'''S:''' What's the age range, you know, upper teenagers, typical something like that. But but just the great the brain getting bigger doesn't mean that it's necessarily developing more. So I think again this is the definitional thing also.

'''C:''' The brain to body ratio is different. It's it's not linear, like little kids can't put their arms over their heads because their heads are so big, but they're. Adorable. Yeah, the. The ratio is different, Yeah, the. Ratio is off, yeah.

'''S:''' So like, if you're like, we know, we've raised we've raised kids at some point, like you could see different circuits kicking in place in your brain, like they couldn't put words together. Now they can whatever. And and also just even with coordination and we used to joke about their cerebellum is not fully myelinated yet, right? That's development.

'''J:''' Actually sons video game circuit turned on two years ago and it's powerful. My God.

'''S:''' So there's that kind of just you actually getting the the basic nuts and bolts of how the brain functions in place. You, you have that by the time you're through puberty, right? But then teenagers don't have the mental discipline that adults have. But what is that? Is that just maturity? Is it because the brain hasn't fully developed yet? Does it ever really stop? Is it just And if you look at people who are 5060, their brains function differently than people who are 2030.

'''C:''' 2 They're conflating, I think, the nature nurture of executive function with brain with overall brain development, which we should really only be talking about frontal like prefrontal cortex anyway. Yeah.

'''S:''' But even if you're just talking about that, it's so.

'''C:''' It's still. Yeah, it's a.

'''S:''' Continuum and you know it. There's different ideas mixed in here, like development bleeds into maturing the bleeds into just learning stuff and getting better at moderating your emotions or whatever. I.

'''C:''' Think The thing is the courts want to be able to say there's a one to one ratio right they want to be able to say you know the difference between right and wrong you are an adult and you should not be responsible it's.

'''S:''' Actually being used in sentencing and in policy, it's like, oh, we can't. Like, you know, you can't drink until your brain's fully formed or whatever, and it's just pseudoscience. It's this black and white again. Like there's no demarcation the.

'''C:''' Demarcation is because it's very easy to say A5 year old may not understand with a gun the outcome of their actions. It's much harder to say that about a 14. Speaking of. Drinking.

'''E:''' How's this one breast milk pump and dump after alcohol. So these are these are mothers who are breastfeeding. They'll have a drink, but then they'll go ahead and pump out the breast milk that they've got because that was contaminated with the alcohol that they just drank. That way they're not giving alcohol to their children. Hadn't heard of that one before. Of course you.

'''U:''' Had.

'''E:''' Heard about it? Yeah, but.

'''C:''' I don't like the way they're debunking it either they're saying they're being very all or nothing about it. You should pump and dump if you drink way too much or you shouldn't so.

'''S:''' Some drugs pass through breast milk and some don't. Yeah. And we have to know that. Like if I'm prescribing to a breastfeeding mother, I got no. Is this something that gets passed through the breast milk or not? I actually don't know off the top my head about alcohol. Alcohol.

'''C:''' Does but in small quad but.

'''S:''' So in small, quad small, if you're like really, that's what.

'''C:''' I'm saying I don't like that they're saying if you're breastfeeding drunk.

'''E:''' In a site that they source that debunked. It said no, it has to. It would have to be a lot of alcohol, but for some.

'''C:''' People, they are drinking a lot of alcohol. So I again, I wouldn't say that that's 100%.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's more a matter of degree. It's a.

'''C:''' Matter of degree, I'll go.

'''E:''' Quickly through some of these other ones a lot of them we touched chiropractic conversion therapy detox the general detox feed a cold starve a fever at old wives tales. No, no good fingerprints, a unique fingerprints that it's it's undetermined. They don't have good science on this as to determine whether a person's fingerprints are unique or not. And.

'''S:''' Also the whole fingerprint analysis is way more art than science. Like the like on television shows and movies that pretend like, oh, like, you got a partial here I met the computers flash through the images and you make a match, right? That's not what's happening. That's not reality. It is more of this. Oh, yeah. I could kind of see, you know, it's really, it's very subjective. It's not a but there. Is a database.

'''C:''' There is. There's a code, but yeah. And then.

'''S:''' Maybe you can be. That's the other thing is, and there's a couple of things coming up on this list that are like this. It's not as black and white as TV pretends. It's way more subjective, but that does not equal useless. It doesn't mean you can't maybe rule some people out because of fingerprints. Same thing with we can jump to the lie detector. The lie detectors are not detecting lies like we talked about this. They're stressed and stressed and people get stressed for different reasons and people have different ability to hide their stress. And So what you're detecting.

'''E:''' Just taking a test could be stressful.

'''S:''' But that doesn't mean they're worthless. True, they, they may not be like you can't say, well, he failed the lie detector, therefore he well, was lying 1:00 to 1:00. It could be that well, or he passed a lie detector, therefore he wasn't lying. You can't say that it's it's just possible that he was really good at hiding a stress or he was stressed out over being interrogated by an authority figure. You, you psychologists.

'''C:''' Use these tests all the time inside, they just don't call them lie detectors where.

'''S:''' They're useful is basically just intimidating the person into telling the truth because they think you can tell them.

'''J:''' Oh, that's awesome.

'''S:''' That's how they're really used I.

'''C:''' I also think with the fingerprint thing, what it what the list is saying is that you know, whether or not no other person on the planet has the same fingerprint pattern. We we can't know that because nobody's it's almost. Unknowable. Yeah, right. But for the most part, fingerprints are relatively unique, the same way that zebra stripes are relative they.

'''B:''' Find your fingerprint at emergency and you got some splaining to do that. Yeah, well, that's right. That's you can't just say, oh, it's it's not unique. So I'm I'm free.

'''US#05:''' Koalas have very human like fingerprints apparently. It's it's, it's thwarted some some police investigations, apparently.

'''U:''' Being.

'''E:''' Being a police, yeah. Being a police, yeah.

'''US#05:''' Right. Yeah, the koala, Yeah, had some kind of being.

'''E:''' A police investigation for certain forensics, bite analysis, Ballistics analysis, and blood splatter analysis.

'''S:''' What, Dexter.

'''E:''' Dexter's not true. They're all subjective. That's all raw.

'''S:''' Not that they're not. It's not. It's not all or not.

'''E:''' Not they're not. A slam dunk they're not.

'''S:''' The slam dunk that the That's the bottom line.

'''E:''' Well.

'''US#05:''' You're you're interpreting data. As soon as you interpret data, it's like, yeah, the biting.

'''S:''' Analysis, I think is the worst of the really I. Think by Yeah, that's.

'''C:''' The one where I think. It's a lot more completely.

'''S:''' What are they testing for? Like they look yeah, the shape they're looking at. Does the bite mark match your? Like if you do a test bite mark, does it match and?

'''C:''' Very often people have been let go when they realized, oh, that was made by a tool like that wasn't even a bite. Like they'll assume it's a bite based on the shape. And very often when you see a criminal proceeding, the prosecution and the defense are going to bring in their own spatter analysts and they're going to say opposite, you'll find. You just dueling.

'''J:''' You think though that a bite would be kind of consistent because your teeth typically stay in the same well, what conditions were you doing the bite under?

'''S:''' You know, there's so many other variables in there also. How you think?

'''C:''' Is your bite and. Also, is it a bite? What we're talking about is actually when there's an analysis of a bite on skin. Yeah. Like, is it even a bite or was that from an animal or was it, you know? Yeah, like if you.

'''J:''' Bite into like a mold thing. It's going to be your teeth. If you bite into the surface of an orange, it doesn't, right And.

'''C:''' If you bite somebody's leg, it might just look like the bruise.

'''US#05:''' If you have Charlie from the Chocolate Factory teeth then it's very.

'''B:''' You guys have? Seen.

'''C:''' Does anybody, does anybody know what I'm talking? Yeah, there's like memes. The kid who played Charlie in Willy Wonka like his teeth first.

'''B:''' Movie. The first movie, yeah.

'''C:''' The original and not just jacked like like I think there's some sort of physiologic problem like you. Were explaining molars. Yeah, right.

'''S:''' Let's come on. Yeah.

'''E:''' Continuing Sigmund Freud Apparently everything Sigmund Freud did was.

'''S:''' Preliminary and early on in a very new and difficult yeah, there's a big.

'''C:''' Different I mean, I'll soapbox this for a second. I am not a psychodynamic psychologist. I'm an existential psychologist, but I have, you know, colleagues who are psychodynamic. Generally speaking, we all learn about Freud and I think what they're saying in this listicle is that a lot of people just stop there and they go, OK, that's just how things are. But the reason we learn about it is from historical perspective to know where the field was early on. There is a field now called psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is based on actually like object relations. Like it's, it's very, very different. But there are some things that Freud talked about that now have evolved into understandings that we it's kind of like.

'''S:''' Saying Darwin was wrong about a lot of things. Of course he was. He was whipping up a whole new scientific discipline. He's amazing how much he got right. But we've pretty much everything you said, we've evolved into different versions of what what he said. But.

'''C:''' We have actually had to just be like, let's ignore that thing. Yeah, there's something. Yeah. There's like, I mean, he was like giving his patients coke and like, you know, all the women were his standard, so.

'''S:''' Psychiatry is way more wishy washy wobbly wobbly than yeah I.

'''B:''' Mean you I don't my take is that he's not very relevant today. He's not true, right? It's not, but every.

'''C:''' Psychology student learns about him and that is a problem with how we teach psychology because if you get a 101 course, you get a bunch of history, but you don't get a lot of like modern lens. And so a lot of people think that that's how we're all got you now.

'''E:''' Yeah, handwriting analysis, graphology, we've talked about that. Immune system boosting. No, no, we've talked about that. You don't.

'''C:''' Want to boost your immune system? Right, exactly. It's. Bad. Terrible. Unless you're immune, you know so.

'''S:''' Either with the immune boosting thing. What I find is either the snake oil supplements, whatever that claim that they boost the immune system do nothing, or they're bad for you because they they actually, you know, can cause autoimmune disease. Yeah. Yeah. Like your immune system needs to be tightly regulated. Just make suppressing it or boosting it or increasing it is not necessarily an inherently good or bad thing. Oh.

'''C:''' You should only do that under the like with with medication with a physician because you have a diagnosis that requires.

'''S:''' It, yeah, but aren't generically just boosting your immune system aren't.

'''B:''' Vaccines and immune boosting technology.

'''S:''' They're a way of targeting your immune system against a very specific right. So if you can, I think the word boosting is very vague. So if that's what you consider boosting, sure. But that's not what people are talking about. But.

'''J:''' That's not the same as. Taking. Vitamins are on the list be.

'''S:''' More robust and just a vague I mean, if anything, sleep will do that.

'''J:''' Sleep will. Sleep will keep you.

'''S:''' You know anything that keeps you healthy makes your immune system function better. Just like your muscles won't function better and your brain functions better. But you don't want well nourished. And well rested and hydrated all your systems operate but.

'''C:''' There is A and this is not a demarcation problem. There is a point where your immune system is over functioning and that is bad because it starts attacking your own body. Yeah. Correct.

'''E:''' We all know about that. Natural and organic. We've talked about that ad nauseam, the Myers Briggs personality test. Yeah, we.

'''C:''' Don't use that at all in psychology. It's like a wind.

'''E:''' Up toy that just won't stop and. I mean, that's culty. Oh. Yeah, like George totally called quantum anything non physics. Yes, Oh my God, poor quantum. Stay in your lane. Quantum rain based illnesses like catching a cold from being out in the rain. That's been disproven so.

'''S:''' You we can go beyond that even there's there's an open question about whether being cold can make you sick. Like being you know what it well, it's not really. I mean, it's been pretty much been debunked. I don't know that the the final nails in the coffin on that one because you get the question is do are some viruses, do they spread more easily in the cold weather or things like that? But certainly you can't catch a cold by being out in the wet rain. Yeah, because you need a virus. You need Yeah. And.

'''C:''' That's like in it's people always conflate like epidemiological data with individual data, right? Yeah, it's like it. And mostly.

'''S:''' It's mostly that's when the kids are at school. That's mostly what the winter viruses.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Plus, yeah, when it's cold out, you're you're amongst people in, in, in a building inside and that's and it's spreading that way. What about? The what about the bones?

'''US#05:''' Bones like feel like you can tell the storms coming because your hip hurts. Oh.

'''S:''' Yeah, pressure, that's.

'''B:''' Humidity. That's.

'''S:''' That's that's real. There's barometric pressure for migraines. There's humidity for arthritis. So some people, like, they know when the storms coming because they get a migraine. Yeah, that's what I thought.

'''US#05:''' That's real. Yeah. That's really cool.

'''E:''' Three more O2, more taste map of the tongue. Oh yeah.

'''S:''' I mean, who?

'''E:''' Wait, heard about a song?

'''J:''' Raise your hand if you believed it. I was hot.

'''E:''' OK, everybody believed that. I'm very shocked.

'''J:''' To see like when I was a kid that would, that was the thing and like, and I did it, I tested it and it, and I tricked myself into thinking that, that, well, the, once you put something in your mouth, your saliva dissolves it and it goes all over your tongue, right.

'''S:''' So you can't, it's really hard. And we do, this is part of a neurological exam. And if someone has Bell's palsy, I want to know if where the lesion is. And there's one specific place where you also pick off taste to half of your tongue. So if, if they have, that's where it is, then it's in the facial canal. If they, if they have retained taste, then something else could be on. It could be a stroke, it could be something else. So that's a very important thing to do. I had to learn the technique to do that. You have to like really make sure that they're not, they can't close their mouth, they can't swish it around. You got to just touch it with a, you know, what do you do with lemon juice or something? No sugar, sugar, water, and you go to the very side of the tongue without letting them swish it around at all. Can you taste that? What does that taste like? They should immediately be able to know that it's sweet. If they don't, if they go there, I can't tell. Then they close their mouth, they go, oh, it's sweets again. That's 'cause you just now you got it washed over the other side of the tongue. So that's probably what was going on.

'''E:''' And the last one's the what they call the troubled teen industry, like wilderness survival, you know, throwing these kids who are having problems not. Just pseudoscience extreme. Scenario harmful.

'''C:''' Yeah, there's a great book by Maya Salivitz about that. She, yeah, kind of blew the doors off of that.

'''U:''' All right.

'''S:''' Evan, you're also going to tell us about this one. What is this? Looks like a nightmare. This is the BP by Jeez. You've.

'''E:''' Heard the expression. The truth shall set you free. Right. We're familiar with that.

{{anchor|news_item6}}
=== Tooth Eye (1:16:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nbcboston.com/news/health/man-has-tooth-implanted-in-eye-to-restore-vision/3807265/
|article_title = Man, 34, has tooth implanted in eye to restore his vision – NBC Boston
|publication = www.nbcboston.com
}}

'''E:''' Well, this one is the tooth. Shall let you see. That's a tooth. No, sorry. The little little extreme graphic here. Yeah. So tooth in eye surgery. Also known by its medical name, osteoodonto Keratoprosthesis. Yes. Prosthesis. O OK. P for very short. OK, Yeah. So this is a legitimate procedure. In fact, I shared it with Steve. I said, Steve, what? You know, this looks like a one we should talk about. He's like, Are you sure about this? And we we had to. Look it up. We had to look it up and a multi source.

'''S:''' It's real specialized.

'''E:''' Surgical technique used when the cornea is so badly damaged by either scarring, chemical burns or autoimmune disease, which we just talked about that regular transplants won't work. So this is this is where they go next. You a patient will, they'll extract a tooth, usually a canine tooth from from the patient itself. They'll include small amounts of bone to serve as a structural support for a tiny lens. OK, so then they drill a hole right through it. They implant the tooth lens piece under the patient's cheek somewhere. So they take this, they put it into their cheek somewhere where it allows blood, tissue, blood and tissue growth to, to, to secure, I guess, you know, keep it, keep it all in place. The body also builds up support and integration for it. Then what they'll do is they'll prepare the eye, they'll remove the scar tissue graft, mucosal lining from the inner cheek over the corneal surface. And then after the toothpiece has matured while it's in your cheek, they'll take it, remove it and implant it into the eye, replacing the damaged cornea, allowing light through the optical lens. That is the procedure. And yeah, it's legit. You don't get 2020 vision though out of it, but in in about 1/4 of the cases they get you get 20302040. The majority of cases, about 60% of patients are somewhere between 2040 and and 2100. Much better than, you know, blind blind. Do you have to brush that tooth?

'''S:''' I think that's why they put the membrane over and everything. Yeah. So The thing is the corneas are really hard structure to to mimic, right? It's got to be rigid, hard and transparent. So this is the one, this is from the 60s, right? This is like been around for a long time. I'd never heard of it. This is, it's only, they've been a few 100 cases like since the 60s where they've actually done it. So it's pretty rare procedure. This guy, the patient that they were talking about had like 5 or 6 cornea transplants and they just only lasted for a few months and then they would degrade. So this wasn't working. That's why he was one of the cases where like, well, we could try this really rare thing. I'm sure the surgeons haven't done many of them because there's only so many that have ever been done. We.

'''C:''' Don't have something that's like not, you know, like plastic because.

'''S:''' I guess because the body rejects it. You just want that's why they own bone is because people.

'''C:''' Can wear contacts so you would think that you have.

'''S:''' To change them every day and clean them and everything. Yeah, OK.

'''C:''' Some.

'''S:''' Can go a couple of days, you can change.

'''C:''' Your cornea and that.

'''E:''' Is kind of the key. These are your own body parts anyway, So the rejection, your body won't reject this. You know, it's not like you grow it somewhere else and try to bring it in. Yeah.

'''S:''' Just a weird but true kind of thing. Tooth eye.

{{anchor|news_item7}}
=== Snake Oil (1:19:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/opinion/the-history-of-snake-oil
|article_title = The history of snake oil - The Pharmaceutical Journal
|publication = pharmaceutical-journal.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, Jay, tell us about the history of snake oil.

'''J:''' Yeah, so this this one caught my tooth eye because. Because. I, you know, I knew what the, what snake oil means to us as critical thinkers, but I didn't know the history of it. You know, I was just curious to know more details about it. And I really found a cool story here. So where did it come from? Where did the phrase come from and why did you know? And why do people today use it to say that things are BS, you know, that it's a scam or whatever? So originally what happened was there were Chinese railroad workers that came over to work in the United States. They this was like, you know, early to mid 1800s and they brought this snake oil remedy with them. But it was real. It was actually real. Like they had, well, real in quotes.

'''S:''' I mean, The thing is. It's not like it's a pharmaceutical. Like it was really effective. It was one of their, you know, herbal type of remedies that yeah, it probably had some.

'''J:''' It did have some effects, some effects. They tested it, but it was.

'''C:''' Real in the sense that it was Oil of snake doesn't.

'''S:''' Mean that they all the things they used it for it was effective.

'''J:''' Well basically this is what I read that they only used it for inflammation and let me get into the details here. So first of all, they only took oil from a water snake. And the way that they would extract the oil from the snake is first that they would, they would boil like snake fat, of course, and that's where the oil is coming from. Then they'd skim off the oil that rises to the top when they boil it, and they would just simply bottle it. And then when they needed it. Now, the history says that, you know, these people were working incredibly long hours. It was a really, really hard life to be a railroad worker like that. And that the, they'd rub it on the exterior of their body and that there would be, you know, help joint muscle pains, inflammation, things like that. So that oil from that snake is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and it's also rich in EPA, which is another type of fatty acid. And it, it has been proven to have anti-inflammatory effects and Scientific American actually verified that it works. It actually has a, it, it does do something of the like Steve Wright.

'''S:''' It's not like, Oh my God, it's like, but it's like a liniment.

'''J:''' But but it did something and it was real in in that effect. So specifically we say, why did it work? Well, EPA, the you know, that type of amino acid, it reduces inflammation muscle like modern pain relief creams or whatever, but not as not as strong or whatever. And again, they just rubbed it on themselves and you know, it was widely used in that community. So then of course, what happened is people found out that they were using this and some guy in particular named Clark Stanley, he called himself the Rattlesnake King, and he became the most famous snake oil salesman. So this was in the late 1800s. OK, so it says 1893. He was at the Chicago World's Fair and he completely won over a very large crowd of people. He would pull out a live rattlesnake. You know, he would extract the the, the fatty tissue from it. This is all on stage. He'd boil it right there. He'd bottle it right there. And he would be selling it. And he, of course, this was the type of person that would say this can cure any anything. You know, we know the whole that story. Your very common idea is that it's a panacea. You know, what do you got? It'll cure that. Did he?

'''US#05:''' Call it snake oil, apparently.

'''J:''' He did OK and his product became a national sensation. He became very famous. The the problem is that American rattlesnakes they have almost no Omega threes and none of the other fatty acid that actually was the active ingredient, which of course doesn't matter because he was making money. So in 1916 the the government actually did something which doesn't happen anymore. So they had the Pure Food and Drug Act. This is in 1906. And this gave the government authority to regulate these false medications that were beginning of the FDA. Yeah, it was so bringing.

'''US#05:''' Back snake oil because I think it's going to be a good thing. I don't think I.

'''J:''' Haven't been biting my tongue this entire podcast with that brain worm shit. I was about to explode anyway.

'''S:''' Not the brain worm.

'''J:''' So they take his stuff, they test it. the US Bureau of Chemistry, which Steve said the precursor to the FDA, they got lab results and they revealed that snake oil had the following, had baby oil, which is mineral oil. It had less than 1% of beef fat. It had red pepper, turpentine and trace amounts of camphor. So this guy, Stanley, he pleaded guilty, plead no contest, and he was fined anyway. Just guess, how much was he fined?

'''E:''' $10.

'''J:''' 20 bucks there you go.

'''C:''' What year was it though 19?

'''J:''' 16 It was early 1900s so.

'''C:''' What was that worth now about?

'''J:''' Like 600 bucks, nothing this less than a slap on a wrist that he probably made, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars selling this crap. But what did happen was there was a you know, the newspapers reported it and he you know, it cemented the snake oil is BS name and that's where it came from. So this goes back, you know, 100 / 100 years ago. And of course, you know, again, like the last thing to say is, you know, now snake oil means everything. Anything that particularly a skeptics think is BS, you know, but most people use snake oil if they want to talk like, oh, it's fake, it's snake oil. And that's where it comes from. I like this. Now, as a critical thinker, I didn't know any of that. I've been using snake oil the whole time. You know, we've been doing the podcast probably, you know, many, many years, even before that. It was just, you know, a phrase that that was put into my head and there's a legitimate story. And the fact that it started off as something that actually worked, not great, but worked, blows my mind. But.

'''C:''' Doesn't that always have pseudosciences? There's like that little kernel of truth, and then they just expand it and expand it and expand it until it no longer even exists. Yeah.

'''S:''' But they're also very common at the time and still today was taking something that was used by some either foreign culture, exotic culture or indigenous culture, right? There's a huge industry of remedies that were taken from American Indians. And again, it was not the American Indians who were promoting it. It was some snake oil salesman, some, you know, some con artist who hit upon it. It's like, oh, you know, the echinacea falls into this like, oh, they use they use echinacea. It's like, OK, this is a, and even if they didn't, they just said they did anyway. But some the echinacea was actually used by some, you know, America. Right.

'''US#05:''' Also, quinine was a bark.

'''S:''' Yeah, so right. Well, yeah, but quinine actually can does stuff right.

'''US#05:''' But but wasn't it used or was that or was that coincidental that it's I thought it was used by South South American.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah. But they didn't know what it was doing. Oh, OK.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' I mean, I think that, you know, some cultures did hit upon certain things that were obvious, of course.

'''C:''' I mean, there are there are like things that will.

'''S:''' Make you fall asleep, there are.

'''C:''' Indigenous practices that come from things that we ultimately made into pharmaceuticals. There are animals in the wild that use certain remedies. Yeah, that's true.

'''S:''' But here's the thing they were using in Asia for a whole bunch of different stuff, but not flu, not the thing that it was currently being marketed for. They would use it for snake bites and leg injuries, whatever. There's like random stuff and it was not based on anything but the idea what this is an ancient remedy used by this natural people was the marketing thing. And I'm sure the snake oil thing was the same where it's like, Oh yeah, there's from ancient Chinese remedy, right? I don't know if that all comes from there too, but that's the same kind of thing. Usually when there's something specific like snake oil means generically A fraudulent treatment, it there's a specific source to it was we we often will use things that have a specific reference and then we generalize to mean that type of thing. But that's.

'''C:''' Also fun because then you can be that asshole who watches movies and somebody says the word snake oil but it's anachronistic because it was too early. It wasn't.

'''S:''' They didn't use that.

'''C:''' They didn't have.

'''J:''' Snake oil in 1874 the proper. Way, the proper way to to evoke that is actually actually actually all right.

{{anchor|news_item8}}
=== Flowing Water on Asteroid (1:28:01) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/scientists-find-evidence-of-flowing-water-on-ryugus-ancient-parent-asteroid-it-was-a-genuine-surprise
|article_title = Scientists find evidence of flowing water on Ryugu’s ancient parent asteroid. 'It was a genuine surprise!' | Space
|publication = www.space.com
}}

'''S:''' One more news item. One more news item.

'''B:''' One more. Yeah. All right, then we're.

'''S:''' Going to do science of fiction sounds.

'''B:''' Like a plan, all right.

'''S:''' All right, so this, I don't know if this is high. I think this is high Abusa. Remember that high Abusa, this is the asteroid that or no, like the high Abusa was the satellite, right? And yeah, this is the Ryubi or something asteroid. And they collect, they've managed to rendezvous with an asteroid, collect samples, do some science right there. And they brought samples back to Earth. So this is a news item based upon a recent analysis of some of the samples from this asteroid, and they found something very interesting. I'm going to save the conclusion till the end. So they were looking at what?

'''J:''' Isn't that what the end is, though?

'''S:''' Well, you know, you could, you could sometimes lead with the answer and say this is how they found, but then you don't have a conclusion. Anyway. They were looking at, yeah, this is something very, very technical and wonky, but it's very interesting. They were looking at the ratio of letrium and hafnium. These are two elements. The thing is lutetium was decays into hafnium and so they could they we know how old the asteroids is, right. So they said, well, this the ratio of hafnium to lutetium in the sample should be this much right? That's physics doesn't change, right. The half lives are one of the, you know, you could hang your hat on that, that it doesn't change throughout the history of the universe. So unless you're a creationist, then they say, oh, it changes by whatever amount it has to have changed in order for the Earth to be as old as I want it to be. But real scientists say they can, you can use it as a as a constant, right? So the problem is the there was far less hafnium in the sample than there should have been.

'''J:''' So when there's less hafnium, is it quarterm?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' You know I'm trying I I wake up with the intent to entertain the people that spend money to come see us. Stevens all like science and shit over here like I just want you guys to have fun. All right, go back so that.

'''C:''' That means it's younger.

'''S:''' So you would think that it means it's, but it can't because it it's an asteroid. We know when it formed. We know where it formed in the soul is an out, you know what I mean? So we know those things could.

'''B:''' That hit a younger asteroid well.

'''S:''' You're close to the answer.

'''E:''' So with contamination, it's not.

'''S:''' Contamination. It's not contamination if that's your thought so, but it's good. This is the what the conversation I would have. What could have happened? Why is there less hafnium than there should be? It's not because it's younger, because we know it isn't. It's not contamination from another box. Could I have a guess?

'''J:''' Could it have been like evaporated off by as going too close to a sun or something?

'''S:''' You're getting close, getting closer to the answer. There's not a.

'''J:''' 3rd element that has affected the other previous one it's.

'''S:''' Not a chemical or or, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not it something washed away some of the hafnium.

'''C:''' So it did undergo the change and then it somehow went away, right.

'''S:''' OK. And. This is so again, they don't know that this is what happened, but this is what they're left with. Again, they've eliminated every other possibility they could think of, and this is what they're left with Solar.

'''US#05:''' Wind.

'''S:''' No, it would have had to have been something liquid. So therefore there was flowing water inside this asteroid. Why wouldn't it freeze? Well, it did freeze. It refroze, but the so they're saying, but it would have had to have been much later than they thought it should have been because, you know, we solar system formed out of a cloud of gas and dust. Everything is hot and then it cools down. And you know, we know where asteroids form based upon its constituents because there are different constituents at different places, distances from the sun. And you can tell how this formed in the outer solar system then came inside or whatever. They can tell these kind of things. And a lot of a lot of it is by the volatiles, right? Things that would evaporate if it gets too close to the sun or if it goes too hot. So this, you know, we, we know there's ice in, in the asteroid and we know where it's from, but at some point that ice must have melted, washed away the hafnium and then refroze or, or evaporated.

'''B:''' So, but if it washed away the stuff, some of it, where did it actually go though?

'''S:''' Well, then it washed it away, away from the asteroid. So we evaporated out into space. How?

'''B:''' Much gravity is required to wash something away on the surface. Are we talking about this happening on the surface? Deep within the But if the water evaporates, it doesn't take the hafnium with it. It did, though.

'''S:''' I mean, no, that's why it had to be liquid water that literally physically washed it away. Like so they're saying. So the only answer they're left with is this the conclusion. This is the conclusion. OK, here we go. This is why I wanted you. I wanted you to tell me what you thought first. I agree. But what could have done it? So they said the only thing that's left on our list of possibilities is that there was liquid water percolating through this asteroid much later than it should have been.

'''U:''' Why?

'''B:''' Water well.

'''S:''' Liquid. So yes, liquid. Liquid, probably liquid like other liquid stuff too.

'''J:''' Different.

'''S:''' Probably mostly liquid solvent.

'''C:''' Yeah, some some liquid solvent so.

'''J:''' What if it was? What if the regolith had frozen water and then it got near a sun and then it liquified?

'''S:''' But but we kind of know about where it was in the solar system based upon what it's made of and it's consistent.

'''C:''' Does it does it just not have enough of its own gravity for the water to like stay on it? Like how does the water just this?

'''S:''' Is inside, yeah, but then.

'''C:''' You said it had to wash away so.

'''S:''' What do they think happened so. Percolated through it. Washed away from whatever they wherever they got the sample doesn't necessarily mean it washed away from the asteroid, but it could have if it got to. If it percolated to the surface, it would have gone away. Gotcha.

'''C:''' Gotcha, gotcha. They're.

'''S:''' Sampling deep in the asteroid and there should be hafnium there, and there's a lot less of it than there should be something, so maybe.

'''C:''' They'll see like a band if they actually did a core or something.

'''S:''' The samples we have we. Don't have the whole.

'''C:''' Asteroid.

'''S:''' So this is what they're thinking. At some point after a lot of the happening him already was created through radioactive decay, another asteroid impacted. It melted the ice washed away the hafnium and then it refroze the liquid that had the hafnium in it just whisked off into space or or again just away from the sample that just to.

'''C:''' A different part of the asteroid.

'''S:''' So that's their that's their current hypothesis. Something hit this thing melted the ice from the heat of the impact, and then it eventually refroze. But some of the hafnium went away. Is that it? But water should have been percolating through that sample way later than the history, the life history of that asteroid should have made it possible. Is that cool? But the chain of logic is, is interesting how they can infer they have these little pieces of the asteroid and they're this they're figuring all this stuff out. And that that radioactive decay thing is always such a an important piece of information because again, it is something that we could say this is physics. This is what had.

'''US#05:''' To have happened where did they get the pieces this is.

'''S:''' For them, this was recovered from the the high abuse of OK.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' The centre probe and they brought it back in.

'''B:''' The future, they get another sample and there's too much happening. I'm like, this is where it went. It went over here, I mean.

'''S:''' Maybe.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. Cool.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:35:21) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.
|link1web =
|link1title = None
|link1pub = None

|item2 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.
|link2web =
|link2title = None
|link2pub = None

|item3 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.
|link3web =
|link3title = None
|link3pub = None

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|science1 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.

|science2 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

|rogue1 = George
|answer1 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|rogue2 = Cara
|answer2 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.

|rogue4 = Evan
|answer4 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|rogue5 = Bob
|answer5 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' Well, everyone, it's time for science or fiction.

'''U:''' It's.

'''Voice-over:''' Time for science or fiction?

'''J:''' What we should make an Stu Snake oil?

'''E:''' Yeah, like I could be careful.

'''J:''' No. No, no, wait, let me just This is like your Homeopops idea for cooking.

'''E:''' That was actually Evan's idea. Homeopops.

'''J:''' You came up with evaporative therapy? Evan came up with Homeopops.

'''E:''' No, I just.

'''J:''' It'd be a cool decorative bottle.

'''E:''' It looks like an old snake oil bottle.

'''J:''' But then we have like, an Stu logo or maybe you're the Barker or something. It'd be. Yeah. There's an idea in a bookshelf as swag, you mean. Yeah. Bookshelf item. Fake.

'''S:''' Fake snake oil Doc.

'''J:''' Novella's old timey remedy. Evan. Evan, you see me? I appreciate that. Thank you. I. Got you Jay, but we'd have to you.

'''B:''' Know you have to write on it like a 100% bullshit. Yeah, well. Yeah, it's got fused.

'''J:''' Well, Jay, But Jay, what would it cure?

'''US#05:''' What would that, what would the SGU cure be?

'''J:''' Yeah. What would it?

'''US#05:''' What would it be? Everything. What would it be or what?

'''J:''' Ills you like like. Politics. Let me see. It's some kind.

'''US#05:''' Of yeah, like a a remote control on we. We're so. Silly like this cures. Like it'll.

'''J:''' Keep you from giving, getting this with the scabies, the scabies, what's like a what's like a kid heebie jeebies, heebies, something like that cures all scabies. Is a real thing. Oh, scabies are real, yeah. Yeah, OK. Sorry, I don't know.

'''S:''' I love the old timey diagnosis too. It treats consumption, Yeah.

'''C:''' Drops.

'''S:''' Nervous condition. Dropsy. Yeah, nervous, Nervous. Nervous penile dropsy.

'''U:''' Nervous.

'''J:''' Penile dropsy. Oh my God. Can we call it a liniment?

'''C:''' What they used to there was a liniment. Liniment.

'''S:''' Yeah, liniment. Yeah, Or my favorite one as a neurologist, of course, is neurasthenia. Neurasthenia.

'''C:''' Oh it. Can calm the nerves if I made the.

'''J:''' Snake oil. Who would like who would like it? Just have to see. I forget it. I'm not doing it. No, no, no. Percussive.

'''US#05:''' Melancholy cures percussive melancholy.

'''S:''' Percussive melancholy.

'''J:''' Nice, nice.

'''US#05:''' Guaranteed 100% George. You have percussion guaranteed.

'''S:''' OK, each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and 1 fictitious. And then I challenge my panel of skeptics. Tell me which one is the fake. We have a live audience, which means you all get to play along. We're going to do this very specifically. We're going to ask the panel to give me their answers 1st. Then we'll ask you to weigh in. And you have to be sure not to give away the answer before they vote, right?

'''J:''' You don't want them to say, hey, I know the answer.

'''S:''' I don't want them to indicate in any way what they think the answer is. How many people here, by the way, you can do the one clap thing or whatever. How many people here are from Kansas?

'''U:''' A lot.

'''S:''' That's good, right? The theme of the science or fiction this week is Kansas. I didn't.

'''B:''' Do the research, Evan.

'''S:''' Asked me yesterday, is the theme going to be Kansas? Like shut up, I.

'''E:''' Said you should. Have thrown us a curveball. Say it's Oklahoma.

'''S:''' I sometimes I don't always do the place we're in, but we've never been here. It's sometimes I do the place that we're in. But cures quizzical Bernstein that they can't know for sure. What's that?

'''US#05:''' Cures Quizzical Bernstein.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right, so keep it cool. Yeah. Poker face about in the audience out there. You won't necessarily know the answer, but I don't know sometimes I think yeah, I have to think to myself like what a local know this app.

'''J:''' How much do you really know about Connecticut? That's the question that's part of what I ask myself.

'''S:''' So I'm not going to do the state bird, you know I mean, you guys should know it's state bird is the Meadowlark. Thank you guys are all going to know that right.

'''US#05:''' Meadowlark would.

'''C:''' You know that about your state.

'''US#05:''' I think it's these these construction crane is mine.

'''S:''' Come on, you know, you know what Pennsylvania is, No. No the. Bird, You don't know what it is, Larry.

'''C:''' California Larry Bird.

'''US#05:''' The Bethlehem bird is the swift. I know that the swift is.

'''C:''' California The Condor.

'''S:''' Yeah, OK. Connecticut is Robin the American Robin. Thank you, Robin. This has been your birding moment with Steve. It's not going to add about birds. I almost said Kansas birds. It was going to be my theme, and I found a couple of good ones, like just describing birds. Did you know there's a bird in Kansas called the Dick Sickle? That one is fiction, all right.

'''C:''' The bird is the quail. I would not. Have the quail.

'''J:''' Some some person who found the birds like. Dick. Sickle.

'''C:''' Like they had to know exactly.

'''J:''' What they were. Is there a reason? Is there an operational reason? Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' I don't know what it is for that one, but there, there, there is. And some of them have really funny names. But if you break it, if you deconstruct it, it means.

'''US#05:''' Oh yeah. Jay, it cures Dick sickle, Yeah.

'''S:''' Right, right.

'''US#05:''' That. Down I. Like it? I wish.

'''J:''' More than three people raised their hands. I I really like it.

'''S:''' Like, there's the tip mouse, but we know that we have tip mice in Connecticut. Yeah. All right, here we go. Item number one, there is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, they are there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year. Item number two, wind accounts for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US. And item number 3, the incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, KS, from which it spread to the rest of the world. OK, Should I start with Bob or should I start with George? All right, George, go first. It's their fault. George. Thank you.

'''US#05:''' Large population of bison. I like that. I like that that's I like that being true. Winding, winding wind accounting for 52% seems awfully high. Seems awfully high, which makes it feel like that's probably true because it's like it's being deceptive. So I bet that's true. And the Spanish food did not start in Spain. I know it did start here some somewhere in I guess in the United States. But would they would OK, Would Steve know that the audience knows this? What is the What does Steve think the audience is going to know you can't play?

'''C:''' These head games, man, No, I know it always gets us. I know to.

'''S:''' Clarify, George. Just I tried to find ones. I thought they wouldn't, that they wouldn't, but I'm not good at doing that.

'''US#05:''' Oh. OK, so I want. Them to not chime in so. I think. I think, OK, I'm going to say the bison is is the fiction, the bison's fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Cara.

'''C:''' Yeah. So we know Spanish flu started in the US We also know Spanish flu was spread around the world by soldiers. And so if it originated at Fort Riley, I don't know. I don't know, like the main place where they were getting it, but maybe that was a port or something where a lot of training was happening for for the war. I agree with with George that 52% feels high because I think about wind, where are we doing a lot of wind, like offshore? Maybe not, I don't know. Is it windy here? Was it windy? Do you guys remember? Was it windy today? They're not supposed to say anything, I know. But it is like it's flat here. So planes, I don't know, maybe. And then yeah, bison, Bison. I mean, they used to be everywhere. I think about them in like Montana, but I do think about them in like American grasslands, Prairie. Good. I'm gonna go with George on this. I'm not sure. Maybe it's.

'''US#05:''' Buffalo. Maybe he's being sneaky and it's actually Buffalo and not. I don't. Think he would do that?

'''C:''' I think that's too similar. Yeah, I don't think he would do that. Steve, I'm gonna. Go with George on that, OK?

'''J:''' OK, Jay. Yeah, I did. I, I know that the Spanish flu did not start in Spain. It started here. I don't know. I don't think of my years of having Steve do science or fiction. I don't think that he would assign it to, you know, a local heat, you know, like a place in Kansas. So I think that one is science. I'm going to pop over to now the, the, what do we got the, the murder bison. I mean, look, you know, there, there's a lot of people who are growing bison for for the meat, you know, then I would think, OK, it's perfectly fine if they grow them here. It's ton of flat land. Seems like a really good state to grow bison and and do all that. And they're dangerous. Of course they are. They're wild animals. I, you know, I don't know if they're like particularly feisty bison, but I think if you, if people like are, you know.

'''US#05:''' Band name Feisty Bison.

'''J:''' If they go on to other people's property, you know, teenagers and stuff, people can get injured, sure. You don't want to be around giant animals like that. So I think that's science. I, I, you know, I don't think, I think what George says was the 52% seem too high. And I think that's where Steve, Steve likes to be tricky in those areas. I'm going to say that one's a fiction, right? OK, Evan.

'''E:''' The Bison of Kansas. I just don't know about these reported attacks and injuries per year. I mean, you know, anytime you get people and animals together, there are going to be some injuries. Scores of reported attacks and injuries per year. Yeah, that would be the reason why I would go with that one as fiction. Now, the wind, 152% and the third highest state in the US. So the other two would what be coastal. And you know, hey, when I landed yesterday off the plane in here in Kansas City and we went to pick up our rental car and noticed signs by the bathrooms, tornado shelter. And I started seeing tornado shelter, tornado shelter, tornado. So, you know, yeah, there's a lot of wind in Kansas, actually, so feels.

'''C:''' Work in tornadoes.

'''E:''' Well, sure. It just, you know, we're from Connecticut, we don't have those things. So we come to a state where we're not familiar with and just odd to see tornado shelter signs on a regular basis in a lot of places not in.

'''C:''' Texas so.

'''E:''' I'm leaning towards that one being science. The last one about Fort Riley, KS. No I don't, I don't know that for certain. So I guess I'm going to have to go with George and Cara and say it's the bison one all.

'''S:''' Right. And Bob, I was so.

'''B:''' Happy when I saw the Spanish fluke. I'm like, yes, I know it's not from Spain. I some from some other country. And then everybody seemed to say, oh, we all know it's from the United States and like it is. I didn't I didn't know that I told it. So thanks for the info and thanks and thanks to you guys for picking George first. So that's good. So the other thing, I'm kind of really bummed now that I wasn't looking out that plane window because I think Jay was glued to the window and he saw that there was a lot, he saw bison. So he's like, all right, that's science. And I think I think he didn't see a lot of windmills. So that's why he that's why he picked the the windmill. So I'm going to go with that. How could I not go with that? So that's fiction. Oh boy.

'''S:''' They're wind turbines turbines.

'''B:''' Windmills, turbines, Let's.

'''US#05:''' Start with the third one well.

'''S:''' 1st we have to pull the audience. Yes, all right. So I'm going to do the George thing, but you're going to go, you're going to follow me. Look at my eyes only. All right, If you think that the bison is the fiction clap, If you think that the wind is the fiction clap. And if you think that the Spanish flu is the fiction clap. OK, So the audience thinks the like the the wind turbines the audience.

'''US#05:''' Is going J&B boy? Yeah.

'''S:''' So let's take these in reverse the order since nobody went for the third one on the panel. Very minority of the audience. The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, KS, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

'''B:''' Would you be pissed if you were in Spain and they named this deadly? Oh yeah. Now. Scourge after the country you lived in. It is.

'''S:''' True that it did not come from Spain. Do you know why they was called the Spanish Flu? Nobody.

'''B:''' Else is reporting right because. There's World War One. I'm. Not going to fess up, no.

'''S:''' Country wanted to report their their mortality numbers because that would make them look weak and Spain didn't care. So they accurately they were the only ones to accurately report their numbers. So it looked like there was a lot of cases in Spain and not so much everywhere else. But it was a total lie. So it got called the Spanish flu for that reason. It did originate in the United States, but where in the United could could have come from anywhere in the United States right. That's the question.

'''J:''' That's what I point.

'''S:''' Very easy just to say, OK, I'll make it Kansas, right? This one is. Science.

'''J:''' Did come from Kansas. Did you guys did everybody here know? No.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' The my understanding is that Fort Riley is a town, right? It's not. It probably was a Fort at some point. But so they came from camp something. I actually forgot them camp something in Fort Riley. And yes, it was primarily spread through soldiers because it was World War One. That's what made it so bad. So that one is true. Let's go back to #2 wind accounts for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US Bob and Jay and the majority, the vast majority of the audience who are from Kansas, apparently think this one is the fiction and this one is science.

'''US#02:''' Oh Dang, no, I thought. We had it, man.

'''S:''' 52.

'''US#02:''' Percent.

'''S:''' What are the two states that are higher? Iowa, North Dakota, Those are the 2 that are higher. But yeah, Iowa's number one. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of wind in Kansas. Well, to answer Everett's question, you know you can't use wind turbines during a tornado, I didn't think.

'''C:''' So.

'''S:''' Nor in just If the wind gets too brisk, you have to shut them down. You can. Use them once you've. Got to shut those things down if the wind gets too hurricane, any kind of like really stormy kind of weather. No, they got to.

'''C:''' All those Kansas hurricanes. Yeah, I.

'''E:''' Wasn't implying that you'd, you know, Yeah, a lot of electricity. Let's get more tornadoes going. I was just saying that you don't realize how, you know the conditions of the place you're going. You also.

'''C:''' Realize tornadoes aren't just a function of like lots of wind, right? It doesn't just get so windy it becomes a tornado. I get that doesn't doesn't work, but yeah.

'''S:''' There are a lot of flat states in the Midwest that have a lot of wind turbines. You know, Oklahoma, that's, and I was in Oklahoma. I was in Oklahoma, I was in Oklahoma and giving a lecture and there's wind turbines everywhere. Now, of course, Oklahoma's a very RedState. So the not in the cities. When you're in a city, it's like any other city anywhere else, right? But it's the rural areas that are very regional in terms of their beliefs and culture and politics and stuff. The population in Oklahoma believes that their dramatic increase in earthquake frequency is due to the wind turbines. Sure, not due to the fracking, which is actually what's causing it, because that's what they were told. And then it's those damn wind turbines. All right? You should.

'''E:''' Go attack them that.

'''S:''' Means that there is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year. Is the fiction now? What about it is fiction? Are there a lot of bison in Kansas? Yes, there are, but a lot. What's a lot is for the population is 5000 to 6000. A lot. That's a sizable herd. Some a lot of them are in private herds, but some of them are not. But then they are not docile. They are dangerous wild animals. Anybody here play the game Medieval dynasty? Yeah. So there are medieval bison, not bison there. I could what they call them. There are similar creatures in there. They will run at you and kill you. They are really dangerous in the game. And that's very accurate in.

'''C:''' Oregon Trail. They help you cross the trail.

'''S:''' Almost forgot. About that game. Defining.

'''E:''' My childhood. So are these just like protected somehow or are there?

'''C:''' Yeah, there probably just isn't that much human conflict with.

'''US#05:''' Them so the there had there's zero.

'''C:''' Injuries per year I think, I guess.

'''S:''' Because people who are around them know not to get near them. The last reported injury was from 2022, so 3 years ago. So not score per year. Yeah. But again, like that kind of number, like you could sound reasonable and particularly if they're on private farms and all that, like the people who work there know what they know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah.

'''J:''' Are there any bison in the audience? Is there? Do we have anybody here see a bison in Kansas? Do bison moo. Maybe bison?

'''C:''' Move some noise, bison moo.

'''S:''' No, somebody mooed in.

'''C:''' The honor, I'm just saying they.

'''E:''' Must have some.

'''S:''' Kind of. They make noise, some kind of noise, yeah. But it's not.

'''C:''' It's not. I wouldn't call it a moo.

'''US#05:''' Not mowing, no, they licked. Your salt off your car get too close.

'''S:''' All right, so good job to the non novellas up here and like 3 people in the audience.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:52:15) ==
{{qow
|text = "I may have discovered a planet, but the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future generations. "
|author = - Clyde Tombaugh
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Yay, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' I may have discovered a planet.

'''S:''' But the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future.

'''E:''' Generations Clyde Tombaugh, who is the discoverer of the planet Pluto, the dwarf planet Pluto the dwarf. Got to put that in brackets.

'''S:''' Now in the quote the.

'''E:''' Planet.

'''S:''' Scare quotes.

'''C:''' Who? Who?

'''S:''' Studied. Here at the University of Kansas. University of Kansas alumnus.

'''E:''' So that is why we chose the quote to honour him. Thank you, Evan. Well, thank you all for joining me this week. Yeah, you guys see you.

'''S:''' Thank you all for coming.

'''US#05:''' And thanks to all the.

'''S:''' Kansans.

'''U:''' Is that how is the Kansans? Is that?

'''S:''' Correct. Good. We're kineticutions. I love that. Yeah. Thanks to all the Kansans for your wonderful hospitality since we've been here. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Thanks, guys. Nice.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1062

2025-12-28T21:34:36Z

Willdefraine: /* Intro */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1062
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1062|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1062.jpg
|caption = "Intricate beauty: A close-up of two fascinating winged insects."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "I may have discovered a planet, but the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future generations. "
|qowAuthor = - Clyde Tombaugh
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1062|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Saturday, September 20th, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody, Evan Bernstein. Hello, Kansas. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Cara Santa Maria and George Hrab. Yeah, George. We are live from Lawrence, KS. This is my first time in Kansas. How about you guys?

'''US#05:''' Yeah, first time.

'''S:''' Yep.

'''E:''' Third time. Third time, yes.

'''S:''' How?

'''E:''' Do you? Yeah.

'''S:''' You drove through it.

'''E:''' Twice I've drove, I've driven through it twice, once north-south and once east West and that was it. We may stop for lunch or something while we were moving around the country, but that's it. Never had a whole day in Kansas.

'''S:''' When we were driving from the airport, George said. You know, if we, if we didn't know we were in Kansas, could you tell from just looking around? And other than being flatter than we're used to, not really. Yeah. It's. Pretty.

'''C:''' It looks a lot like Texas. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, but not part of the Hill Country, but like North Texas.

'''US#05:''' Parts look like Jersey or like Pennsylvania too. Like, I mean, that's the problem with, you know, Raymour and Flanigan being everywhere. That's the thing.

'''C:''' That's how it. Works America.

'''US#05:''' America, Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's Chili's. And basically it's all the same thing.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

== Special Segment (01:39) ==
Nightmares
None

'''S:''' We're going to start with off with a little bit of a discussion about nightmares. This, you know, Evan suggested this is a possible news item. The item itself is pretty simple. It's like how you can control your nightmares and it makes you healthier. It's like, OK, well, not so much, but there is this issue of, and Bob and I, you know, talked about this for a while about like lucid dreaming or trying to develop the ability to control, like to be aware that you're dreaming and to control your dream, which is a really difficult and a very unstable state. You tend to either dream, you wake up or you, which means you're back into the dream or you actually wake up. It's very hard to maintain that knife's edge of being dreaming, but know that you're dreaming. But we thought we would use this as a jumping off part point to talk about our common recurring nightmares. And interestingly, I had my recurring nightmare last night.

'''E:''' Oh. Do tell.

'''S:''' Because so this, I think this happens more often to me when I'm sleep deprived and just, you know, because of travel and everything and being in a hotel room, I usually don't sleep as well. So I woke up at like 4:00 in the morning and then, you know, went back to sleep and it was hard to get back to sleep. And then I slept for four more hours. And that's, that was the period that was, that was very that was my sleep deprived sleep that I have. So I had a little bit of sleep paralysis, which happens sometimes. I did that thing where I dreamt that I woke up, but I was still dreaming and like I'm, I'm getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. I knew I was had to meet these guys. And I'm like, am I awake? Yeah, I'm awake. I'm awake. I could. I'm walking around and looking at things and everything. You like your dreaming self can't tell that you're not really awake. Then I go. Then I walk back to the bed and I see myself sleeping in the bed. Like, shit, I'm still sleeping. Wow. But the nightmare, the recurring nightmare had some point in there, Jay. You were in it and you were there and you were.

'''US#05:''' There, put him up, put him up. That was awesome.

'''S:''' Jay was there, and there was some other. Person it might. Have been Ian but I'm not really sure so we were being chased and that's my recurring nightmare and being chased by some malevolent force. So this time it was the authorities like the whatever that means and you know how you just know things in dreams. They were chasing us because they thought that we were criminals but it was a misunderstanding. But still we like felt like we had to run away from them and Jay had a portal gun from the portal game. You guys know that.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''S:''' So we're we're using the portal gun to like escape into the Rocky Mountains or something. And but they still managed to track US down. And then the guy had me at gunpoint. I had to wrestle the gun from him and I shot him in the ass. Still didn't, which was surprising because the guns are almost never work in my dreams, right? Like you can't pull the trigger or something or swords are wobbly. You know they have a phasers. Phasers never shooting, never work.

'''J:''' Why is that that? Well, Freud, that's something to say to dream there.

'''C:''' There's no answer to that question.

'''J:''' The thing that bothers me is like dreams are just happening, you know, and, and when a part of your brain is making it up and another part of your brain is experiencing it and why is it universal like big FU? Why couldn't it be ultra successful and ultra fun like?

'''C:''' I don't think it's universe.

'''E:''' Sometimes that can happen.

'''C:''' So, so what's interesting to me, and I don't know if there's like gender differences with this, but I, I've dated, I had a, an ex who is male who had night terrors and almost always he'd be like, no, get away. And I'll be like, what were you dreaming? And it was, he was always being chased or people were breaking it. That literally never happened to me. I've never had those kinds of like I'm being hunted dreams, but I had a recurring dream when I was little and it's like fucked up. You guys. Like honestly, I think This is why my parents put me in therapy like really early on. I don't dream anymore that I know of because I'm on like sleep medication that keep me in delta and I don't I just don't think I dream or I don't remember.

'''B:''' You have to be experiencing R.E.M. At some point.

'''C:''' I don't, I don't get, I don't get much R.E.M. At all but you.

'''B:''' Don't you just don't? Remember that you don't. Remember.

'''C:''' Yeah, but I also the drugs I take prevent me from getting a lot of R.E.M.

'''B:''' But you've got to get somewhere. You'd be like, go slowly crazy. You'd go slowly. Crazy without room you do have to have. Room you have.

'''C:''' To even if you're in Delta all night, yeah.

'''B:''' You wouldn't. You would not last long.

'''C:''' I don't think that's true. I think you can't not have delta. I think you can. I think you can avoid paradox my.

'''S:''' Understanding is is that you really need a good sleep architecture. You need to go through all the the stages of sleep. You know, with a certain pattern, there could be variation. Yeah, I've been bored, but if.

'''US#05:''' Cara, you're actually dreaming right now. Wake up, wake up. This is your nightmare anyway.

'''C:''' As an aside, anybody out there who has narcolepsy or or narcolepsy type sleep disorder? I have IH which is similar to narcolepsy. There's a medication we take which is like GHB it's xywave and it just forces you into delta all night and you're like awake during the day. And without that I am sleepy girl my whole life and sleepy. Anyway, when I was young I had this recurring dream and I'm talking like kindergarten, first, second grade where I would go to sleep and I would wake up just like you did. And I would be like, oh, it's time for school. And I'd go to my parents room to wake them up for school and they were dead in their beds. And I was like holy shit. So I went to find my sister and she was dead in her bed. And so I left the house and went around the neighborhood knocking on doors, some of them were open, went in, everybody was dead, all the animals were dead. And I was the only living soul and it was terrifying. This is a good TV.

'''J:''' Show, watch and it.

'''C:''' Was like everything was dead but me and I spent the whole nightmare trying to search for something that was a lie. You ever find it in the? And I never could. No. I would just be searching. Searching. And then and then I'd wake up. And I had that a lot. And I haven't since I was a child. As an adult, the only things I have are like stress dreams about going to file for my graduation. And I still owe, like a whole credit. Yeah. What? When do I still?

'''S:''' Have the I have to take a final, yeah.

'''C:''' When do those end?

'''S:''' Yeah, never.

'''J:''' Apparently no stressors do it. My so my kid nightmare was anybody when I was a kid, my dad used to let all of us watch all the science fiction movies and everything. So there's one thing where that some dude reanimates an arm, you know from the hell. Remember that? I remember 1 scene like it grabs the guy scared the shit out of me. So my semi reoccurring dream was that there was a gauntlet, you know like a armored hand crawling after me and then I stopped having it when I finally picked it up and I scooped out the mustard that it was that filled it and that how that broke the chain because mustard wasn't scary to me but my real. Wow, the arm was full of mustard. It was a gauntlet. It was like a it was like armor, you know what I mean? OK. And that was that was how my brain transferred it from like a human hand to like a more terrifying gauntlet hand drunk crawling after more terrifying.

'''C:''' That it was full of mustard like, well, yeah, cuz it was like gauntlet. Yeah, it wasn't a real arm. Arm the other.

'''J:''' Arm had ketchup.

'''C:''' Gauntlets are always special. I.

'''J:''' Was in my parents closet and they had a deep closet when we were kids. Yeah, my dad had his safe right there. Remember I was sitting next to it. OK, And the thing came in. Where's the?

'''US#05:''' Mustard come in. I don't understand. I have no.

'''J:''' Idea. I don't know, like mustard? Yeah.

'''S:''' Was it brown or yellow? It was a good yellow mustard. Yeah, George. Do you like yellow mustard?

'''J:''' I.

'''US#05:''' Hate I hate mustard, but I mean.

'''S:''' If the mustard is scaring me, that would make it scary. Gauntlet of mustard. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, now that I'm thinking about it, it's pretty messed up. So anyway, my adult dream. So really quick, I got to give you a little background. I have been looking my entire life to have a proper love relationship. And I, and I mean, like many people, just failure after failure after failure. And I got into my 30s, got into my 40s and I'm like, you know, nothing was working. And I finally was at the point where I'm like, it's not going to happen, you know, because it's statistically it, it was getting less and less likely. I meet my wife, who's my best friend and is the the freaking sunshine of everything that's good in my life. She's she's unbelievable. And I've never been loved like this. I've never felt loved like this before. You know, I can go on. This is my.

'''US#05:''' Nightmare, by the way.

'''J:''' So my. With. You my nightmare is that I don't know. I know that the idea of her, like I found someone, she's my wife, but I don't know who she is. I don't know her name, I don't know what she looks like and I don't know where she is. So it's like that whole veil thing, like something's. Wrong. Why am I with? This weird person there's this I'm not supposed to be here. This is not what's supposed to be Twilight Zone kind of dream Yeah, and it. And it totally upends me. Like I wake up freaking out when I because I because you really feel it. And that's.

'''C:''' Like a real neurological disorder, like when people, the Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing where they don't wreck it. Like there's people that they know but they don't recognize. Yeah. That's scariest shit. Like if I ever had.

'''J:''' There is a Yeah, that. Imagine having that. Like in the dream, everything's normal except I know that I'm supposed to be with somebody else and I have no other idea of who that person is.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's kind of like a dream about having cat grass. Like this is not my wife.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' That's interesting. Yep. George, about you I had.

'''US#05:''' One very influential dream when I was a kid, it wasn't recurring, but I was probably 4-4 or five, and I was in bed. And to me, it wasn't a dream. I was awake. I mean, in my mind, I was awake in my bed. And subsequently, most of my dreams do take place like in my bedroom. Like literally, I'll be in bed. I'm aware that I'm in bed and something is happening in the room. But I was a very, very young youngster. And it was morning and I looked up and at the foot of my bed was a closet that had the door open. And at the top of the closet was sort of like a shelf at the top. And it was a dark sort of shelf. And there were two hands sort of these wispy, not quite bone, not quite smoke hands just sort of doing this waving motion, just independent. There was no body, there was no whatever. And I remember just sort of looking at it and like being scared, but sort of but not really doing anything about it and just being terrified. I, I told my mom the next day that this had happened and she was like, that was probably a dream. And for probably 10 to 15 years after that, I couldn't have a door open. Like if I was in a, in a bedroom somewhere, like my dorm, the closet couldn't be open. It had to be shut. And it never happened again. It was just that one time. Do you?

'''C:''' Remember, like you said, you didn't do anything about it. Could you move? You might have been having a hypnopom pickle. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah. I don't think that was a dream. I think that was a hypnopompic. It felt.

'''US#05:''' So unbelievable, like I knew what dreams.

'''C:''' Were I knew what dreams were at that. Point.

'''US#05:''' But it was just, and it was just leaning. Towards.

'''C:''' You said it was morning, you were in bed, you didn't do anything. Yeah.

'''US#05:''' So that, and to this day I can sort of still picture it. I'm sure I've modified it in my head over time and now it's Technicolor or whatever, But. And it wasn't, you know, there was no blood. There was no, it was just. That's creepy. That ain't right. That ain't right. Yeah. When I.

'''E:''' Was a kid also, my dreams have changed. I think a lot of people have had that experience as well. You don't dream about the things you used to when you dream about new things. But when I was a kid, the reoccurring dream I would have that would frighten me is that I could not control myself from falling. It's the falling dream, right? We've, I think we've all experienced that, that sort of you're, you're dropping you, it's death is coming. You have that sinking sensation in your body. But I would have the dream where I would try to remain on the ground, yet something was nefarious or otherwise was pulling me up into the sky and would drop me. I would constantly get dropped as a kid. Now as an adult though, I would. I don't really have nightmares per SE, but my reoccurrence is that it's this level of frustration that I can't seem to get something done. I need to be over there now. I know I need to be over there now. Why aren't I over there now? I'm trying to walk. I'm not walking. Why? So I get very frustrated. Yeah, it's called.

'''C:''' A stress stream? Yeah. Oh. Totally.

'''E:''' And, and it's true of all sorts of scenarios, like I know I have to write this thing, why aren't I writing it? Why what is going on? I have to write this, why aren't I writing? So I can't make sense of it and I wind up getting really angry with myself in those dreams. And that takes on many forms and many Mary various kinds of scenarios.

'''B:''' Yeah, I've had plenty of nightmares. I can't really remember any that are like, really like, oh, listen to this one. I've had the stress, the stress. Dreams are common, everyone. But there's one nightmare that I remember that was really fascinating, and it was a nightmare of a movie nightmare. Werewolf, American Werewolf in London. There's a dream sequence where he's a where David Naughton's attacked by these weird creatures with weird faces. So in my dream, I'm in my kitchen and and where we grew up, and they come in the house with machine guns and start killing everybody. So yeah, pretty bad, right? But I was also experimenting with lucid dreams at that time, and I said, this is not real. These aren't real bullets. This is all bullshit. So I walked right up to them like, you're not even real. And they start shooting me. I'm like, see, nothing, guys. So then I'm like, all right, I'm done with you. I walked out of the house and I and I tried to fly, which is what I would do whenever I had a lucid dream. I'd try to fly and I would almost invariably fail because it's so hard. You know, you try to leap in the air like Superman, it just just fall flat. It doesn't work. It's so frustrating. But the few times it actually worked, it was magical. It was just like, holy crap, you feel like Superman. If you ever tried to lose a dream, try to fly because it's like amazing Bob.

'''C:''' When you when you fly in your dream. So when I fly in my dreams, it's I'm like doing the breaststroke and. Yeah. Is that how? Everybody or do you like times?

'''J:''' I have both but that's.

'''C:''' The only way I've ever been it's which?

'''S:''' Is silly, requires a lot of mental effort, and it's hard to sustain. Interesting in my dreams, but you can I.

'''C:''' Can do it in my dreams that. But like, it's this is how you get up a level and you're aloft and I'm always the only one and everybody's going whoa, that's so badass. Yeah, it would.

'''US#05:''' Be Is there any evolutionary advantage to not just dreaming, but nightmares in particular? Is there some kind of can we think of any of any we?

'''C:''' Still don't even understand 100% like what dreams are right, why we dream. So I think it's hard to make that leap. I mean.

'''S:''' You know that dreams, the REM sleep is important for consolidation of memory for right? Your brain is sort of recalibrating like the desktop. Clearance the dream.

'''J:''' Actually have to happen or is your maybe you need to be conscious enough for your brain to do the work that needs to happen during Well, you're not maybe it's a byproduct I.

'''B:''' Thought it's like your brain is just firing in a much more random sequence than norm and your mind is trying to make sense of all of that static and that's kind of how I see but dream imagery when.

'''S:''' You're dreaming. The part of your brain that does reality testing is not functioning, which is why, which is why I think makes sense to you in dreams that don't make sense to you when you wake up because you're a different person when you're dreaming, you're not your decipher, you're not your waking self and the.

'''B:''' Key with lucid dreaming, I think is that you there's a critical threshold of activation in that that lobe of your brain where you can do reality testing like, whoa, this isn't real. This must be a dream. So that's that's the idea, I think so, Bob.

'''S:''' You mentioned that you in that dream, you were in our childhood home. What's interesting is that when I remember my dreams, it's either in a place that's not real. If it isn't a place that I'm familiar with, it's almost always in our childhood home. I don't think I've ever had a dream where it's in my current home that I'm living in that I remember that same for you guys as well. You, but that's.

'''J:''' That's true. Yeah, my dreams.

'''C:''' Are usually pretty typical, like yeah did.

'''J:''' You guys ever Bob and Steve growing up when mom and dad put the extension like put the the party room in, did you ever dream that you were being pulled in there? Did you ever dream that Bob? Because that I don't know why, like I don't being dragged pulled into wires. They're having a shared part of the house.

'''S:''' Explain.

'''J:''' What this is my. Dream was was it mustard? What's going on? Well. It was always like the lights were always off, right? So when we all went up to bed, yeah, it was like that room and then the the new room that they were putting on off of it, it was pitch black. And I always be being creeped, outgoing, quick. I got to go quick. The light, there's a kitchen there and I got to run and turn the corner, get up the stairs before that room gets the light switch doesn't work. So I had a dream that I got pulled into that darkness and it's I still get a little creeped out when I think about it. You know what?

'''US#05:''' I love when when, when pets dream.

'''J:''' Oh, yeah.

'''US#05:''' Like when you're when you're a puppy and they're chasing bunnies. We used to call it ice chasing bunnies. That's just the coolest thing 'cause it's just like, oh, they're dreaming too. So they're, you know, there is some evolutionary purpose for it to reprogram whatever. But do. Yeah. But like, do dogs have nightmares too? Like, is there a sure. Wow, like some mailman, it's got a machine gun or like, what's the that? Could be anything.

'''B:''' Here's one. More, I think we had nightmare cross fertilization when we were growing up because I remember my sister telling us that she her nightmare I think infected some of our nightmares. She had a dream where she called this monster. The beep beep eye. The beep beep. Oh.

'''J:''' My God.

'''U:''' So.

'''J:''' It's where that came.

'''B:''' From in her mind, in her dream, the beep beep by was an eye, right? But it would draw eyes all over you, right? That's my memory. In my version of it, it was a robot because beep beep to me is a robot. So it was a robot that would draw eyes on you. And that's where my memory ends. What's your memory giant?

'''S:''' Floating eye. Yeah, All right. But that was chasing you. That was, again, the just a chase stream.

'''B:''' That's kind of creepy.

'''J:''' In my dream, I ate the eyes and they were meatballs.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's so that tracks.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== The NeuroWorm (18:55) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1017638
|article_title = China’s NeuroWorm Inches Its Way Toward Brain Disorder Breakthroughs
|publication = www.sixthtone.com
}}

'''S:''' All right. Have you guys heard of the brain worm? Not the brain worm, of course we have.

'''U:''' Yeah, you.

'''S:''' Guys know where that quote comes from, by the way? In the eyes, not the ball worm, Yeah. Anybody know any?

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Wait.

'''S:''' Anyone know where it comes from? It.

'''B:''' Sounds like Lord Farquhat. Flash board. Flash Board. Nice flash job. Nice. Such right?

'''S:''' 22 SGU Geek Product points OK wow the.

'''B:''' 1980. Version.

'''S:''' So we have spoken. About brain machine interface before and do you guys remember what the biggest technological limitation of the brain machine interface is yes fidelity the electrodes staying the electrodes it's the electrode but that's that's what I mean it's part of it but it's really the so with the software we kicking butt right we can make sense they.

'''US#05:''' Move they they don't stay in place they what they so. Yeah.

'''S:''' So the the problem with the, so we have multiple choices with electrodes, you can put them on the scalp surface, which is not invasive, but there there's a lot of attenuation with the skull, right. So you lose a lot of information. You could put brain surface electrodes and they're much higher fidelity, but they fibros over, they form scar tissue and you know, inflammation and whatever. So it's not good. Deep brain electrodes, same thing. They eventually will scar over. And then there's the stent roads which you put inside veins, which are still experimental, but those are those will have a lot of promise. But So what we're missing, like the next step, would be to make flexible electrodes. That flex with the brain so it doesn't cause the scar tissue. So that, so that is, you know, there are a lot of groups working on that. So now there's a study not only doing that, but taking it even a step further. And this is this is the the brain worm. So what they've done is they've designed a series of electrodes, right, to look like an earthworm. So if you imagine an earthworm and the bands are each electrodes, right? Yep. And they the in the head of the worm is a magnet. So they can actually have the worm sort of crawl through your brain by moving the magnet, by moving from external magnets. So they could reposition it as desired. And because it's flexible and movable, they tested it in, well, they tested it in because it also could be used for muscle, like you could use this to monitor muscle activity or brain activity. They tested it in the muscles of rats and they went a year with minimal scar tissue, which is that's the key right there.

'''J:''' So you move it to minimize the scar tissue.

'''S:''' Well, but yeah, the fact that it moves, it's not rigid and not fixed in place, then that's where the scar tissue forms. How is it not?

'''US#05:''' Destroying tissue as it moves though, like.

'''S:''' Why would it?

'''C:''' Must be weak on the surface surrounding. Like it's. Going it's going to take the path of least resistance or and the.

'''S:''' Muscles, It's going through the fascia. The fascia is the connective tissue. It's not boring through muscle cells. So it's like moving through the the planes between muscles in the brain. You know, it would be going through your folds, the gyre and the valleys.

'''J:''' I don't know what that is, the sulking you're talking about the surface of your. Yeah, it'd be outside.

'''C:''' Oh, so these are super fit? They're contours. They would.

'''S:''' Be on the surface. This would be brain surface. Select and.

'''C:''' Also, just to clarify, they're modeling it after an earthworm, but they're not the size of an earthworm. No, they're actually.

'''S:''' They're smaller and they're flatter.

'''J:''' Flat worms so.

'''S:''' Would you feel that? Could you? Your brain does not feel anything.

'''J:''' But I know, but it's not your brain. It's on the surface of the bottom of your skull. Has any sensation?

'''S:''' Well, so it would be the dura, right? It would be the lining around your brain. Is it?

'''C:''' Underneath the dura.

'''S:''' Yeah, the whole point would be to put it on the surface of the brain, right? So we could crawl along the surface of the brain. So the advantage here is 1. So the primary thing is if they could get these electrodes to last for years, that would be amazing, right? That would that makes it much more viable as a technique.

'''J:''' So it's not like a a prong that's stuck into your brain. It's just touching the surface. It's just skimming on the surface. All right, That's what's.

'''C:''' What diseases are that? Because I don't know. I think about like DBS that that's by definition deep brain. So how helpful it is what, what kinds of things can this help with? So.

'''S:''' First of all, just for studying the brain, right? So if you have somebody has epilepsy, let's say, So what you know, we could do EEG's, you know, electroencephalograms from the brain. Sometimes we do, you know, from the skull surface. But then for if we're planning on cutting out a chunk of your brain to stop your seizures, we need to know exactly where the seizures coming from, which means we need to capture it right as it starts.

'''C:''' But you still aren't going to know depth. You're only going to know well.

'''S:''' Yeah. But The thing is, if you could, once you put the electrodes in place, then that's it, you're getting one spot. Yeah, this would say, let's, let's see what's happening over there, let's move it. How long can you bring? I mean, in real time they're just moving it with magnets.

'''J:''' Yeah, but I mean, like, could you move it from here to here in like 3 seconds or you has to?

'''S:''' I don't know exactly how long it takes, but it's not a limiting factor. It doesn't take long to move.

'''US#05:''' It could this theoretically could this be non invasive like like the bug and wrath it's?

'''S:''' Minimally invasive. They don't call it, put it in the ear.

'''US#05:''' Or put up your nose or something and it like finds its way. That's a.

'''S:''' Good point. It's minimal. It's considered minimally invasive because like with the if you're laying electrodes along this the brain surface, you got to open up the brain to do that. But here you could literally bore a hole bore, right?

'''US#05:''' Put the worm.

'''S:''' In there and then get it to the place where.

'''US#05:''' It's got to go so.

'''S:''' It's less invasive for that reason. You only have to bore a small little hole. And then for brain machine interface the the thing, because it's dynamic and flexible at the same time, you could calibrate it, get it to the right part of the brain to have the functionality that you want, right? So there's more flexibility there. Rather than putting it someplace hoping it's the right place and seeing how well it works. Like if this isn't working, outlet's move it a millimeter to the left and see if that works better. Whatever. It'd be just more of a dynamic relationship.

'''J:''' So I know it's super small. Yeah. But like, let's say here's the head, like my thumb is the head. It's long.

'''S:''' I mean, it should, you should think it's not short. It's it's the hope. You want it to be long so it could go because the whole, the whole thing is electrodes, like 60 electrodes. And so you want them spaced out, you know, for a reasonable disk.

'''J:''' How do they control where the tail is?

'''S:''' So I just think because of the way it moves, you know, but there is only a magnet on one side on the on the head. Yeah, that's correct.

'''J:''' OK. Is this built?

'''US#05:''' Or this is this is theoretically here is it?

'''S:''' They published a paper where they did it. They showed that it works in the muscles of rats. In the muscles.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Ant Gives Birth to Different Species (25:18) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09425-w
|article_title = One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants | Nature
|publication = www.nature.com
}}

'''S:''' Wow, Tara, tell us about these ants. Yeah.

'''C:''' This is a really interesting story. It was actually published earlier this month in Nature. It was a big deal. So these ants. This is a picture of Queens of a Mediterranean harvester Ant. The species here is called Messer ibericus. They're in Spain. So we're going to have to hold two different species in our heads in in explaining this story because it's a little bit complicated. So there's M ibericus, Messer ibericus, and then there's M structor or Messer structor. So two different species, same genus, right, M ibericus, M structor. So researchers were observing these M ibericus colonies and they realized that there were some M structure drones hanging out within the M ibericus colony. They also realized that there were some hybrids of these ants within the within the colony. It's a hybrid.

'''S:''' It's.

'''C:''' I'm going to say that word so many times. Be cute for a minute. And, and so the researchers were like, OK, it's not that uncommon to see hybrid species within some kind of colonies or structural organizations of animals, right? We've seen hybrids of different like dog species or different marine animals animals.

'''S:''' Are always getting busy, yeah.

'''C:''' And if they're close enough, like if they're the same genus and the species is close enough, they can often make offspring, but the offspring might be sterile. So in an Ant colony, it doesn't really matter if the drones are sterile because as a general rule, the drones aren't there to mate. They're there to do jobs. But what the researchers noticed was that there were drones that were from a different species within the colony. But the species in question, M Structor, sometimes was like hundreds of miles away geographically. And they're like, how did these ants come across these other ants? Also bear in mind that these ants diverged about as long ago in evolutionary history as we did from chimpanzees. This will be important for the analogy that the researchers make later. So they're trying to figure out where did they come across these, how did they make these hybrids? And at the beginning, they were all joking, like, what if they were giving birth to a different species? That's ridiculous. And then the more they dug in, they were like, shit, I think that's what happened. So they start observing these these queen ants and they're noticing that they're laying eggs and they're, they have offspring that are a different species. And so they look at the offspring and they're like, how did they get there? Maybe they came across some drones somewhere. What's going on? They looked at both the M structor and the MI baricus ants and they found that they all had MI baricus. Was it MI baricus or M structor? So now I'm confusing myself. Doesn't matter. They all have the same mitochondrial DNA. And they were like, well, that's weird. What is going on here? As they dug a little bit deeper and they were able to actually watch these Queens lay and then look at the genetics of of the eggs that they laid, they realized that without any exposure to the other species, these queen mothers were laying a different species of Ant, which is the first time that's ever been observed in any animal anywhere on the planet. They're calling it xenoparity, foreign birth. So.

'''J:''' It's just a coincidence, no?

'''S:''' No.

'''C:''' So it seems to be an evolutionary quirk. That's helpful because if you can increase the diversity of your colony, because what often happens is that a queen will mate with a fertile drone to produce offspring, but they're all genetically the same, which is bad. Queens also tend to have something they call selfish genes. So sometimes when a queen mates, she just makes more Queens over and over and over. And you need to have a balance of different roles in the colony. So one way to prevent that is to mate with a different species and then the queen is less likely to make more Queens. So what ends up happening, and this is the analogy that they use because one of the journalists on this was like, wait, so is this like if a human woman mated with a chimpanzee and then produced a hybrid offspring? It's a hybrid that that was sterile and couldn't produce more. And they were like, no, it's even weirder than that. It's if a if it's if a woman, a human woman mated with a chimpanzee in an effort to produce hybrid offspring so that they could have workers continuing to make the colony run. I am.

'''J:''' I'm so afraid that someone's going to try to do this this.

'''C:''' Is amazing. Well, The thing is we had we didn't even think this was possible. And so it's funny, I was telling Bob about it earlier and he was like, but how does it work? And I was like, I don't know. They didn't tell us that I think they're still trying to figure that out. They they they figured out that it does work. They were able to observe the outcome to clarify.

'''S:''' Though they're giving birth not to just hybrids, but to the other they're giving birth.

'''C:''' To the full other species, so then they can mate with the full other. Species. And produce hybrids, so.

'''S:''' But they must have the genes then for that other species.

'''C:''' They all have it in their mitochondria.

'''S:''' But that's. Is that enough though? I.

'''C:''' Guess we'll figure out how that mitochondrial DNA is making its way into the gametes. I don't know. Or maybe there's some other They still don't understand how it works. Yeah, I.

'''S:''' Think I'm missing something? Well.

'''C:''' I think they are too like they were like this isn't possible, but then they observed it and they were like this is the only explanation. Is it?

'''S:''' Possible they made it in the past like they're saving the sperm from the other species for late for later.

'''C:''' Hundreds of miles away and they're ants. So it doesn't. I don't think it is possible.

'''S:''' Yeah, Yeah.

'''C:''' But maybe. Maybe.

'''S:''' But once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, exactly because.

'''C:''' The because the truth of the matter is this seems impossible, right? So it could be, could be, but but either way, they are giving birth to a different species, whether they're holding onto that sperm and they call it sometimes like sperm paratism, paratism or something like that, parasitism or whether they have the genetic code somewhere in them and they're able to kind of like drum it up. That's what's happening. It's the first time it's ever been observed. So this.

'''US#05:''' Kills like every creationist argument about not having another species come from, you know that transition?

'''C:''' Add it. To the list. Yeah, they.

'''J:''' Don't care, it's right there.

'''US#05:''' That's that's astonishing. The.

'''J:''' Phenomenal, right?

'''C:''' But.

'''J:''' It also isn't. It's not like a deliberate choice. It's all happening like automatically like.

'''C:''' Yeah. I mean, we never know. Like what is deliberate mean? Are they, are they, you know, having philosophical topical debates about it? No. But are there certain environmental pressures? That's what.

'''US#05:''' Must have what must have failed previously to lead to this being successful and then be reproducible well.

'''C:''' It doesn't always mean that something has to fail. Sometimes it's just that something is more successful. Right, Right. So yeah, I mean, there either way, there are environmental pressures that are allowing for this to happen.

'''S:''' That's freaking cool evolution.

'''C:''' Very cool.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Primordial Black Holes (32:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-09-black-hole-reveal-foundations-universe.html
|article_title = An exploding black hole could reveal the foundations of the universe
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Bob, you're going to tell us even more about black holes.

'''B:''' This one's cool. I love this news item so much. The new research seems to suggest that there could be a 90% chance that in the next 10 years we could see an exploding black hole there.

'''S:''' Could be a 90% chance, yes. What's the percentage chance that there is a 90% chance?

'''C:''' Sex Panther. 80% of the time. You can't.

'''B:''' It's unknowable at this current time. If this is true, this would be the biggest. Gift. To astrophysics physicists in our lifetimes, the upside is so good that it's, it's fun talking about, even though it might be unlikely, but it's fascinating. And I and I learned a bunch of things that are that are actually 100, you know, probably 100% true. All right, So, all right, so do appreciate this. We got to, we got to just talk a little bit about just black holes and Hawking radiation black holes. We all we, we have all heard of black holes, right? You've got a couple of varieties. We've got super massive black holes, millions to billions of solar masses right there, amazing other fantastic objects. There's stellar mass black holes, a lot smaller, maybe 3, three solar masses to perhaps 150 solar masses. OK, but there's also a hypothetical black hole called primordial black holes. Now these, if they exist, they, they would have formed in the first second after the after The Big Bang. After The Big Bang, there was so many density fluctuations happening that they think that these black holes could have formed not by an imploding star, but by just these these density fluctuations that enough mass was in one space, enough mass energy was in one space. That black hole forms. These black holes, when they're talked about today, they typically say, yeah, they probably have the mass of maybe Earth mass or down to an asteroid or even, you know, much even smaller than that. So if if you had a, if you were a super primordial black hole with a mass of say an asteroid, you would your event horizon would be about as big as a, as a dime, very tiny. These are obviously very, very small black holes. So the next critical component here is Hawking radiation. Now we've talked about Hawking radiation. Stephen Hawking, of course, came up with the idea Hawking radiation that let me just set the table for this a little bit. Hawking radiation is a result of black holes losing their immort immortality and becoming just, you know, objects that won't live forever. When when Stephen Hawking looked at black holes through a quantum lens, he realized that they have a temperature, they actually have a temperature and because of quantum effects, then if they have a temperature, then they they're emitting thermal radiation. And if they're emitting thermal radiation, that means that they're going to be losing mass, which means they have a finite lifetime. So that's what that's what his conclusion was. So what happened was the idea is that the black holes would emit radiation and shrink and get hotter and then emit more radiation and then shrink and get hotter and that cycle would continue. So Hawking radiation, though, is probably not being emitted from the big boys, the supermassive black holes and and the solar mass black holes, because they're they're colder than the universe is. So they're not really going to be emitting. There's no net loss of mass from these big guys, but the primordial black holes, if they're still around and they're they're small enough, they're going to be small enough and hot enough to be emitting something that we could potentially detect. The problem is nobody thinks they've been emitting radiation or gamma rays these years because we would have seen that glow in the universe. We would have seen this gamma radiation glow. So here's the new bit. Now, the new bit is that they're trying to incorporate some new theories and models of dark matter into these primordial black holes. So the end result would be that these primordial black holes perhaps have a charge like a static, a static charge, very, very small charge. But if it has that charge and some models seem compelling, if these whole black holes have the charge then and they would basically have been in kind of like a slow motion stasis for the past, you know, billions of years. They would not have been emitting anything. They would not have been shrinking, but not. But according to this theory, they could be doing that now. They could be releasing this in this, this they could be exploding in the near future. So that's where the 90% comes from. If their model is correct, then there is there's a 90% chance in the next 10 years we could see an exploding black hole. Bob. Can I ask you a question?

'''J:''' So which black holes could potentially explode? the Super small ones? Yeah, only the.

'''B:''' Small ones cause the bigger ones are are too big. They're not going to be releasing any, any real radiation for, oh, about 10 to the 67 years, right?

'''J:''' So what is it a big deal if it explodes like what happens so?

'''B:''' It's going to be so awesome. And that's what I'm getting into right now. Wait, wait. Wait, what?

'''J:''' OK, nevermind. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, we want.

'''S:''' You're going to cover it.

'''J:''' You're going to cover it.

'''S:''' I mean, it's a good thing.

'''B:''' And tell us why. All right. So say we see the explosion, What what does that mean on its face? It's, it's fantastic because it proves so many things. It's ridiculous. It proves that hockey radiation is real. If we see, if we see a gamma radiation burst that disappears very quickly with no, you know, with no delayed afterglow that gets smaller and smaller and other things. If we see that and we've got detectors that can detect that, then we know that hockey radiation exists. Huge coup right just there. We would also prove that primordial black holes exist. Another huge coup right there. We would also have evidence for this dark electromagnetism that's related to dark matter. That would also maybe even be the biggest discovery right there having finding some link to dark matter in this. But the other thing, and the thing that really caught my attention and blew my mind is that the particle explosion, when this tiny black hole exploded, it would emit essentially an inventory of all possible particles that could exist. Think about that. It would emit everything that that that we have been looking for, that we have theorized about, that we've already found everything that that black hole could create could be emitted and we could detect it about. That you're not talking about blew me. Away you're not.

'''J:''' Talking about elements, right?

'''S:''' You're not talking about particles, different kind of particles.

'''B:''' Electrons, protons, quarks, axions, neutrinos isn't.

'''C:''' I mean, all of those things are out there, Higgs.

'''S:''' Well, no. But see there are very high, high energy particles that we've never detected and we can't create even in a large hydrogen Collider. So this would basically be like a super, super, super, super Collider with energies orders of magnitude beyond what we could ever create. I hear spitting out part high energy particles that would otherwise we would never say well.

'''C:''' But that's the question, right? So are you saying that we would need some sort of detector near this? No.

'''S:''' No, we on earth, yeah, but.

'''C:''' Then aren't all of those particles, they've been created at some point in the universe? So they are out there, we're just not able to detect but.

'''S:''' It's just an event we.

'''J:''' Have to capture. We have to capture the event, right? So when a black hole sucks something in, right, Yeah, like, you know, this is black.

'''C:''' Holes don't suck.

'''J:''' Pull.

'''C:''' They they pull, it's just gravity pull.

'''J:''' Whatever. Yeah, When? A thing goes into a black hole. Yeah. And it's made out of matter. Yeah, it it automatically strips that down and turns all of that matter which we're talking about, you know, elements of singularity. Well, wait, no, it doesn't turn them into these particles or the well.

'''C:''' They're already made of those particles. I know, I know.

'''J:''' It takes them all apart and makes them.

'''C:''' Spaghettifies it, yeah.

'''B:''' When something enters the event horizon or a black hole, we don't know what happens. Our physics breaks down with singularity is just a placeholder for we don't know what the hell is going on. So you, you can't speculate. Where do we come up with quantum gravity? Then we might have a better idea, but it's, we don't know what's going on. But The thing is, it's not, it's not like the particles are in there waiting to leap out. What's happening is that this black hole that that's exploding is, is releasing. When it gets hot enough, it releases one particle, say a photon. When it gets a little bit hotter, right? It shrinks and it gets hotter then it then it releases electrons. Then it gets smaller and hotter, then it, then it releases protons and then it goes through the inventory of all the possible, the possible particles that are related to the temperature of the black hole at that time and it goes through all of them. And so we're getting what we can detect from this is gamma radiation. So we're looking at this gamma radiation and when a new particle is emitted, it changes, it changes the slope, it changes the energy spectrum. And we can see that little step. And then, oh, here's another step, here's another step, here's another particle. And when we look at it, we could say, here's the standard model of physics. I see the electron, I see the, I see the protons, I see quarks, I see all of these things that we know that we've already discovered. But then you keep looking at this gamma ray signal and you're like, what the hell is that? What the hell is that? We don't know what that stuff is. It could be, it could give us a road map to all these particles that we probably never would have found maybe in 1000 years of technological advancement. It could give us just a road map for all these particles beyond standard physics, which we've been waiting for for so long. And it would be just an amazing occurrence that I hope, I really hope this is true. Because if it's if it's not true, then we would have to wait. And I calculated how long we would have to wait for a small black hole, like a stellar mass black hole, say the smallest black hole is about probably 3 solar masses. The small stellar mass 3 mass. We would have to wait. I calculated 10 billion octo decillion years in order for that thing to evaporate. And I don't think we're going to be around in, but in our billion because the universe is so. Old.

'''J:''' Isn't there things that are kind of positioned to do that, right? No, it's only 13 billion.

'''S:''' He's talking about Octo Gazillion or I don't even know what you meant. I'm.

'''B:''' Talking about the I'm talking about the evaporation of a black hole that's more massive than the sun, not the primordial little blood that.

'''S:''' Would take so long that so long, yeah, but the but the primordial ones could happen or happening now apparently. And if we keep looking for them, maybe we'll see one. And here's the catalog of every possible particle that exists in the universe, even the ones you haven't discovered yet. And that will give us like the road map to this, complete the standard model. That's cool.

'''C:''' Two quick questions. The first one is. How do we detect that? I was going to say. How visible? What? What instruments?

'''S:''' Gamma ray detectors?

'''B:''' We have them. How do we?

'''C:''' Detect the event. I mean, how do we detect all of those? Really just the. Energy of the particles.

'''B:''' It's we would detect. The easiest way to detect this is through gamma radiation, because there's going to be a lot of gamma radiation, gamma radiation coming out of this thing. Even particles that come out, we would never detect them because they decay too quickly, I'm saying, but they decay into gamma radiation. So that would be part of the gamma ray signal. And we that, that we could interpret. We could.

'''C:''' Interpret that to know the high energy particles. Yeah, because that's the part that I was confused about. I know we can do this in a Collider, but that's a closed system. When all this stuff is just flying through space. How do we even know? And it's decaying so quickly. Yeah, it would.

'''B:''' All it would. By looking at the gamma radiation we did, we can detect what's going on the signature. Inside because it's all. The fingerprints of all these articles are embedded within the gamma radiation. That's changing the the energy signature, the spectrum, the energy spectrum, all that stuff is being affected by the new art, the new particle that has just been created and released.

'''C:''' And so the other question is, if it's such a high energy explosion, right, would it also cause a ripple in space-time? Like would we be able to detect it with gravitational wave detectors? LIGO?

'''S:''' Not necessarily. Necessarily. Gravitational event, yeah.

'''B:''' LIGO and gravitational waves are all about mass. Accelerating mass like 2 neutron stars. Remember it?

'''S:''' Has the mass of an asteroid and it's way too small. Yeah.

'''C:''' But what about the explosion itself, even?

'''B:''' But even explosions I don't think is optimized for for a gravitational wave detection would.

'''US#05:''' It be at all visible or that we're just talking purely like you can see in.

'''B:''' Gam, if you could see gamma radiation, you will be. It'll be visible to you. Yeah, hard tell us. We wouldn't see anything. It would be a gamma radiation telescope purely.

'''US#05:''' A radiation kind of thing. It wouldn't be like that cool dot that all of all of a sudden appeared kind of thing, right? It's not big enough. A couple.

'''B:''' Of caveats, this was a simple test model that they created. It was a proof of concept to to show that their idea could work. And also we don't know how many of these black holes formed. We don't know how much hidden charge they may have had. And so those questions are open and the the answers to those questions can make this be a not even a not even issue a non issue that might not even happen. But if it did, if it did happen, what I love about this is that it would be, it would be like a genie came to an astrophysicist and said, what do you want? I'm like, give me a road map and every particle that's possible in the universe and you could get it from this type of explosion that may happen 90% chance if this is true in within 10 years. So there's a.

'''S:''' 20% chance the.

'''US#05:''' Genie's like, really we'll be doing. That follow up 10 years from now, that's. Absolutely.

'''S:''' But at least it's, it's falsifiable, right? I mean, in that we, if this is true, we should see this happen.

'''B:''' So basically like three people are excited about this. I hope, I hope, maybe, maybe we're up to with this audience, maybe four or five of us, I think.

'''E:''' It sounds cool to me. We're excited.

'''B:''' Thank. You thank you tell.

'''J:''' Them, Bob.

'''B:''' I love this news item, Bob.

'''J:''' You really? I I learned a couple of things about black holes that I didn't quite wrap wrap my head around in what you just said, so I thank you for that.

'''B:''' Yeah, because I've heard about hockey radiation for decades and I never really thought, well, what the hell is Hawking radiation? I thought it was just maybe some particles, some type of radiation. I didn't know that it was potentially everything. It's just. All the particles, all of all energy dependent.

'''S:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week. Quints it's.

'''C:''' Getting cold outside and when it's cold, I like to have great layers. One of my favorite pieces is from Quints. It's $50 Mongolian cashmere sweater. I have this amazing zip up hoodie. It's so warm, it's so cozy and it's so much less expensive than the other guys, but even better quality. Yeah, I.

'''J:''' Think I talked about this sweater last year and I got another one. It's the Mongolian Cashmere Fisherman Pullover hoodie. That's a lot of words. All it means is it's a super comfortable, awesome hooded sweater. I wear it all the time, Cara, and I am not afraid to tell you I look awesome.

'''E:''' So give and get timeless holiday staples that last the season with Quince. Go to quince.com/SGU for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QUINC. e.com/SGU Free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com/SGU. All right.

'''S:''' Guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Cultish (46:52) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultish
|article_title = Cultish - Wikipedia
|publication = en.wikipedia.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, George, you've been reading this book, Book Cult, as you were talking about it. Tell, tell us what's going.

'''US#05:''' On yeah, I love I love when you read a book or you see a show or you get some piece of information that sort of re challenges sort of beliefs that you may have or makes you kind of re examine what you may think or how you've acted in the past. The whole sort of skeptical experience of, you know, the hardest thing to be skeptical about is stuff that you believe in, you know, things that confirm what you believe and you have to kind of take a second sometimes to stop. And this was a nice sort of journey in reading this book. It's called Cultish. It's by Amanda Montel. And in essence, Miss Montel writes about this idea that the language of cults is very specific. What people that sort of control other people do it in multiple ways. And one of the ways they do it is by modulating and and using language in a particular way, which isn't surprising. We sort of all know that you kind of get that, that, you know, the Tom Cruise mile stare kind of like thing. But what was interesting is that her approach to this book, she talked about how it's not just Scientology or the Jim Jones cult that things like CrossFit and soul cycle, you know, Etsy workers and stuff that are people that do a lot of beauty products, you know, like makeup and Amway and things like that use very, very similar language. It's, it's sort of it's, it's an idea of expressing an intense ideology, creating a community and then controlling that community. And So what you do is you essentially create this language that is exclusive, you know, so in Scientology there's these great, you know, someone is suppressive, right? There's a suppressive person that's like the worst kind of person you can be in turbulate. That's a great Scientology word, you know, decludge. The other one is yet you decludge something basically like declutter, sort of figure out, you know, unravel, but you decludge it. And so non Scientologists don't decludge. Scientologists decludge. It's a great word occlude and you start having similar words like that, that. And this is the part that I sort of realized my own experience years ago. A couple years ago I did, I did CrossFit for a while. And CrossFit in an odd way is almost proud of itself being a cult. You know, they sort of embrace this idea that yeah, we're we're a good kind of cult because we make you healthy and strong and all that kind of stuff. And I started realizing they had all these keyword keywords and phrases and stuff, you know, things like WOD, the workout of the day, or AMRAP. I mean, what an AMRAP is as many rounds as possible, right? So you do this thing where you try to, you know, you have 30 seconds and you have to lift the kettlebell until it smashes your face and do it as many times as you can in a minute or whatever it is, many runs as possible. You don't go to the, you know, it's not a gym that you go to. It's an affiliate. You know, it's a or, or, or box. You go, yeah, I'll see you at the box. You know, the other interesting thing was that just struck me was they have workouts that are named after women. They call them the girls. And there's the there's the Annie, there's the Grace, there's the Chelsea. And there's certain kinds of exercises that you have sort of put together. So like Amy I know is 1, which is like you do 5 pull ups, 10 push ups and 15 squats. That's an Amy do that five times. And I thought like, oh, you name it, like a female to of course you can do that because it's named after a girl. You know, this idea of like this kind of cult programming of like, yeah, strong male pseudo, you know, strong guy, jump into this thing and do it. And then I started thinking about my musical experiences and how jazz has this sort of particular language that's associated with it. That hasn't changed since the 40s. You know a gig, right? You have to go to a gig that's. A Gaz thing That's I. Mean that's like music, music and sort of you go to, yeah, I got a gig. That's where that's from. Clams. You know what's a clam? Money.

'''B:''' You know what a clam is?

'''US#05:''' No, a clam is a mistake. So like if you're playing, if you're playing and you make a mistake, it's like, oh man, the clams tonight. Oh, it was a seafood buffet tonight. Oh my God, the clams a head like is the top of the song, you know, or or rushing, dragging all that, all these like little expressions. And it just made me start to think about like, have I been adding to this kind of cultish language? But.

'''C:''' Isn't the difference then that if if an in Group evolves organically and so there's in Group status and it's a way for everybody to feel like a familiarity versus an out group or when there's a intentionality and a leadership that says think this way, talk this way. That's the difference. That's what she.

'''US#05:''' Addresses. She talks about Soul Cycle and Soul cycle, for those of you that aren't aware, it's sort of a Peloton cycling thing. You sign up and you do these classes online and again, they're very specific. They have very specific language. You pick your instructor. The instructors have sort of things about them that certain people like to do. And what, what the author of the book talks about, she says the difference between Soul Cycle and Scientology is when the Soul Cycle class is over, no one is saying you can't leave the class. And no one is insisting that you use those Soul Cycle terms in the rest of your life. And that if you don't use those Soul Cycle terms, you're being suppressive or you're being whatever. And that there is a, an agreement, a tacit agreement that like we're coming here to this Soul Cycle class or maybe this makeup tutorial or whatever it may be. And we understand that we're kind of kind of winking. We're doing cult like cult, cult ish cult light, maybe even. But we understand we can leave at any time. And that's that's sort of yeah, that that that main difference. Whereas if you're at the Jim Jones compound or you're in Scientology, they're going to do everything they possibly can to make you not leave. They want to maintain you Amway. They don't want you to stop, you know, selling their garbage to your friends. A bunch of other sort of multi level marketing thing that used it. The one, the one example from that that it made me think that CrossFit started to crossover into this kind of dangerous cult was there's a, there's a, a thing called Uncle Rhabdo, which the more I thought about this, the more this disturbed me. So rhabdomyol, rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is where if you work a muscle too much, if you exercise a muscle too much, it it releases portions of itself into your bloodstream it like.

'''C:''' Breaks down it basically. Breaks down.

'''US#05:''' Yeah, it releases much.

'''S:''' It's any exercise done that it does. OK, if you. Actually, you're doing it now. It's just a it's a it's just a matter of degree, OK, if you work, if you have a good workout and then I tested your blood, you would look like you have a mild abdominal, OK, right, right, right. And in fact, we often have to, I've had to ask patients, have you done any exercise in the last few days? Because that I have to just how do I interpret the number based upon that but.

'''US#05:''' It kind of stinks. Get to that. Point of like where you actually have liver damage, yeah.

'''C:''' When you have Coca-Cola colored ear kidney. Damage.

'''S:''' OK, Kidney damage.

'''US#05:''' Yeah. So to take this Rhabdomyolysis and they created this character called Uncle Rabdo, the idea of like, it's actually kind of a badge of honor. To get that. Awful. Yeah, it's. Awful. It's awful. And so you did die. From that I had. I had read an article about you know what, you know, someone had referenced Uncle Rapdo and I just didn't get a chance to ask what it was. I looked it up and I'm like, wait a minute, that's terrible. So I went to this sort of main training guy and I said, what's the deal like with this Uncle Rabdo and and, and Rabdomyolysis? And he was like, well, yeah, you know, I mean, it's and like, because like people have gotten really ill and and, you know, they aren't aware of how hard they're working. And, and he's like, well, yeah, I mean, you could cross the street and get hit by a bus.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's a great answer.

'''US#05:''' I'm done. Thank you much. Bye. You know, like, and that was the justification like, yeah, no, you're not working hard enough until you're literally like you're you're destroying cold, colder, you know, And so I thought, OK, that's that's where it's crossed over. So it just, it just made me think about what else in my life that maybe has is.

'''S:''' On that borderline, it's important to recognize and we, we've we've spoken about this before we we got, we were really involved in anti cult activity early on. Yeah, pre pre SGU and we were doing with just the New England Skeptical Society because there's a lot of that based in Connecticut around us. But anyway, so the, you know, a cult is first of all, the belief system is irrelevant, right? It's just the behaviour and the behaviour is a continuum. It's it's not a black or white and there's a what we call a demarcation problem. There's no sharp line that divides something that isn't a cult from something that is a cult. It's a it's just a continuum. And so yeah, a lot of things have we have a jargon and we have a community and we have commonality or whatever. But the the more of these features of cult like activity that you build up at some point you do crossover this fuzzy boundary where they all right now this is really operating like a full blown cult. Yeah. And of course, there's a lot of things that are just are blatant cults, like they're doing it, they're doing it all and it's top down, it's deliberate. It's not organic or cultural. It's not a jargon for rug for pragmatic reasons. It's just it's meant to separate you from other people, to get you inside the community, to make you dependent on the.

'''C:''' Community, that's the main thing. Like as a psychologist, when I see people who are who are trying to like heal from having been in a cult, it's no different than a woman who was in a coercive relationship. So it's whether it's one person or whether it's 50 people, the what what I think of as definitional is that it's a high control environment that takes like your volition away from you. And so sometimes.

'''S:''' They deliberately try to break down your resistance, yeah.

'''C:''' And they'll still.

'''S:''' Sleep deprive you, they will. Yeah, they will starve you and.

'''C:''' The ones that are the best at it are the ones that make you think it was your choice all along. Like that's when it starts with the language which.

'''US#05:''' Starts with this, which what she writes about, it starts with these, you know, these subtle memes they put into your brain, these little like portions.

'''C:''' Of it, you know, it's funny, as you mentioned Amanda Montel and I was like, that name sounds familiar. And I just looked she was on my podcast. There you go. Last year, she had another.

'''US#05:''' Book called Yeah the.

'''C:''' Age. It's called the age of magical overthinking. OK, notes on modern irrationality. And we did like a live recording for the Toronto Public Library. Cool. And like, yeah. So I was like, I know her. Cool, we didn't. Talk about cultish we should have.

'''US#05:''' Think of last year thing just came out so highly recommended. It's nice. It's very conversational too. So just yeah, sticks with you.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Common Pseudosciences (57:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://uk.news.yahoo.com/27-things-actually-pseudoscience-people-203103359.html
|article_title = "It's Junk Science" — People Are Sharing The Things That Are Actually Pseudoscience That Most People Just Take As Fact - Yahoo News UK
|publication = uk.news.yahoo.com
}}

'''US#05:''' Thanks.

'''S:''' George, what's All right, So we're gonna talk about Miss common myths, common misconceptions that are being spread around social media. There's just an article that went through like 15 of them. We can't go through all of them, you know, very deep. We don't have to. Most of these we've talked about before, and some are very quick hits. Evan, you sent this to me. What? Just what was the first thing on the list? I'm going to pull it up.

'''E:''' And again, the the question that triggered all this is they someone wrote about this who says it came across the post on the popular ask Reddit page from user whoever who said what are some things that are actually pseudoscience that people don't realize? And the list was extensive. A alpha based dog training. I don't know that we've actually covered that well on the show. The.

'''S:''' Idea that there is an alpha male in a dog pack is that's been pretty debunked, right? So anything derived from that is also. Well, yeah.

'''C:''' And the idea that your dog thinks that you're his alpha is ridiculous. Yeah, can.

'''U:''' We.

'''US#05:''' Have that like in Sky writing across every other podcast, like every comedian's podcast. Can we just make it like there's no such thing as the alpha? Please stop talking about it. What?

'''J:''' About like wolves don't have kind of like a de facto leader.

'''S:''' No, I mean, there are more or less dominant dogs in the pack, but there's no berries to that's the alpha and everyone else is a beta that doesn't exist. It's not that simple. It was.

'''US#05:''' A flawed study that a guy did like whatever that was 100 plus years ago.

'''C:''' And while there are some animals where there are, yeah, like leaders within the group, that doesn't translate to, like, domestication of dogs to us. Even if there were an alpha in the pack, they wouldn't go like, human alpha. Now follow you. Like that doesn't make any sense.

'''E:''' Astrology was on the list. We've covered that quite extensively. Here's one. They call it Barnes and Noble Science. So these are books published by people who can't get peer reviewed papers published.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' And that's a pretty wide category of things we've.

'''S:''' Talked about that a lot too. Like basically if you're bypassing peer review and going right to the public with your wacky idea, you're a crank, right? That's what again, that's one of the things that cranks do. But now of course, you don't have to publish a book. You can just make a website or you can make a YouTube. Now get a.

'''US#05:''' TikTok TV like TikTok PDF on Amazon.

'''B:''' Or worse than that, you have a, you have a like a fake journal of the bullshit journal and submit to that. Like see unpublished peer reviews. Like, Oh my God, that's it's a journal of.

'''E:''' Bullshit research. Biorhythms, mood rings. Oh my God.

'''B:''' Remembering other things. Biorhythms.

'''E:''' Mood rings. Got it. How old were we, 24? Yeah, I totally.

'''J:''' Believe that when we were younger, you did.

'''E:''' Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was one thing. You know, like most of these. And when you're kids, they impress you, but they also impress adults sometimes. Blood type astrology. Oh.

'''S:''' That's yeah.

'''E:''' We've talked about that blood type diets that's such.

'''S:''' Common in Japan, right? Yeah, very.

'''E:''' Common in Japan, the.

'''US#05:''' Blood type diet thing, there's nothing to that, correct? 00, Absolutely. Because I started debating someone about this and like they were so vehement and I was just, I was trying to be nice. I was trying to just and I was like, OK, maybe I totally missed something, but there's nothing.

'''S:''' Good to question yourself if you're not 100% sure. I mean, yeah, do I really am? I sure because it sounds like bullshit, but maybe there's something to it. But in this case, there's zero to it. There's absolutely. I mean, this is just the the immune proteins on your blood cells. It says nothing about any other aspect of your Physiology, your biochemistry. It is complete nonsense. So you could be confident, OK about that.

'''J:''' So basically there's a bunch of people out there who believe in this who are basically not eating certain foods because it's not their blood. Yeah, right.

'''S:''' They're eating their, they're eating to their blood type. That's like eating to your astrological. It's like eating.

'''C:''' To your eye color yeah blue eye people really shouldn't be eating too much meat that's.

'''S:''' A good way to put it, How about?

'''E:''' How about this one? This is one I've heard of in the past, but never thought of it. Your brain develop is is continually developing until you're on an average of age 25. Yeah, I've. Heard that over and over. I've. Heard that a lot.

'''S:''' It's zero to that. So really, yeah, there's there's nothing to that. Another one.

'''US#05:''' And so you have to think about it for a while the.

'''S:''' The study that kind of kicked that off, they only looked at people up to 25 seriously. I said, look, the brain is developing until you're 25. Oh.

'''US#05:''' That's so funny, but.

'''S:''' Then they but they didn't look at people after 25. And here's the other thing there. What's the difference between developing, maturing and learning?

'''C:''' And and rapid pruning.

'''U:''' Right.

'''S:''' So there's one of those is about growth, like your kid in your brain doesn't get any bigger. Well, it's not just about size, it's also not to you, but to a lot of like the strength.

'''C:''' Of connections.

'''S:''' It's it's, but it's myelination, it's connections for the states. Wait, let me just say justification.

'''J:''' Let me ask you from a person who doesn't know as well as you, at what point on average does a, a child into adult till their their brain stops growing bigger?

'''S:''' That just depends on when they stop growing bigger.

'''J:''' OK, so it's rando, but what is it?

'''S:''' What's the age range, you know, upper teenagers, typical something like that. But but just the great the brain getting bigger doesn't mean that it's necessarily developing more. So I think again this is the definitional thing also.

'''C:''' The brain to body ratio is different. It's it's not linear, like little kids can't put their arms over their heads because their heads are so big, but they're. Adorable. Yeah, the. The ratio is different, Yeah, the. Ratio is off, yeah.

'''S:''' So like, if you're like, we know, we've raised we've raised kids at some point, like you could see different circuits kicking in place in your brain, like they couldn't put words together. Now they can whatever. And and also just even with coordination and we used to joke about their cerebellum is not fully myelinated yet, right? That's development.

'''J:''' Actually sons video game circuit turned on two years ago and it's powerful. My God.

'''S:''' So there's that kind of just you actually getting the the basic nuts and bolts of how the brain functions in place. You, you have that by the time you're through puberty, right? But then teenagers don't have the mental discipline that adults have. But what is that? Is that just maturity? Is it because the brain hasn't fully developed yet? Does it ever really stop? Is it just And if you look at people who are 5060, their brains function differently than people who are 2030.

'''C:''' 2 They're conflating, I think, the nature nurture of executive function with brain with overall brain development, which we should really only be talking about frontal like prefrontal cortex anyway. Yeah.

'''S:''' But even if you're just talking about that, it's so.

'''C:''' It's still. Yeah, it's a.

'''S:''' Continuum and you know it. There's different ideas mixed in here, like development bleeds into maturing the bleeds into just learning stuff and getting better at moderating your emotions or whatever. I.

'''C:''' Think The thing is the courts want to be able to say there's a one to one ratio right they want to be able to say you know the difference between right and wrong you are an adult and you should not be responsible it's.

'''S:''' Actually being used in sentencing and in policy, it's like, oh, we can't. Like, you know, you can't drink until your brain's fully formed or whatever, and it's just pseudoscience. It's this black and white again. Like there's no demarcation the.

'''C:''' Demarcation is because it's very easy to say A5 year old may not understand with a gun the outcome of their actions. It's much harder to say that about a 14. Speaking of. Drinking.

'''E:''' How's this one breast milk pump and dump after alcohol. So these are these are mothers who are breastfeeding. They'll have a drink, but then they'll go ahead and pump out the breast milk that they've got because that was contaminated with the alcohol that they just drank. That way they're not giving alcohol to their children. Hadn't heard of that one before. Of course you.

'''U:''' Had.

'''E:''' Heard about it? Yeah, but.

'''C:''' I don't like the way they're debunking it either they're saying they're being very all or nothing about it. You should pump and dump if you drink way too much or you shouldn't so.

'''S:''' Some drugs pass through breast milk and some don't. Yeah. And we have to know that. Like if I'm prescribing to a breastfeeding mother, I got no. Is this something that gets passed through the breast milk or not? I actually don't know off the top my head about alcohol. Alcohol.

'''C:''' Does but in small quad but.

'''S:''' So in small, quad small, if you're like really, that's what.

'''C:''' I'm saying I don't like that they're saying if you're breastfeeding drunk.

'''E:''' In a site that they source that debunked. It said no, it has to. It would have to be a lot of alcohol, but for some.

'''C:''' People, they are drinking a lot of alcohol. So I again, I wouldn't say that that's 100%.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's more a matter of degree. It's a.

'''C:''' Matter of degree, I'll go.

'''E:''' Quickly through some of these other ones a lot of them we touched chiropractic conversion therapy detox the general detox feed a cold starve a fever at old wives tales. No, no good fingerprints, a unique fingerprints that it's it's undetermined. They don't have good science on this as to determine whether a person's fingerprints are unique or not. And.

'''S:''' Also the whole fingerprint analysis is way more art than science. Like the like on television shows and movies that pretend like, oh, like, you got a partial here I met the computers flash through the images and you make a match, right? That's not what's happening. That's not reality. It is more of this. Oh, yeah. I could kind of see, you know, it's really, it's very subjective. It's not a but there. Is a database.

'''C:''' There is. There's a code, but yeah. And then.

'''S:''' Maybe you can be. That's the other thing is, and there's a couple of things coming up on this list that are like this. It's not as black and white as TV pretends. It's way more subjective, but that does not equal useless. It doesn't mean you can't maybe rule some people out because of fingerprints. Same thing with we can jump to the lie detector. The lie detectors are not detecting lies like we talked about this. They're stressed and stressed and people get stressed for different reasons and people have different ability to hide their stress. And So what you're detecting.

'''E:''' Just taking a test could be stressful.

'''S:''' But that doesn't mean they're worthless. True, they, they may not be like you can't say, well, he failed the lie detector, therefore he well, was lying 1:00 to 1:00. It could be that well, or he passed a lie detector, therefore he wasn't lying. You can't say that it's it's just possible that he was really good at hiding a stress or he was stressed out over being interrogated by an authority figure. You, you psychologists.

'''C:''' Use these tests all the time inside, they just don't call them lie detectors where.

'''S:''' They're useful is basically just intimidating the person into telling the truth because they think you can tell them.

'''J:''' Oh, that's awesome.

'''S:''' That's how they're really used I.

'''C:''' I also think with the fingerprint thing, what it what the list is saying is that you know, whether or not no other person on the planet has the same fingerprint pattern. We we can't know that because nobody's it's almost. Unknowable. Yeah, right. But for the most part, fingerprints are relatively unique, the same way that zebra stripes are relative they.

'''B:''' Find your fingerprint at emergency and you got some splaining to do that. Yeah, well, that's right. That's you can't just say, oh, it's it's not unique. So I'm I'm free.

'''US#05:''' Koalas have very human like fingerprints apparently. It's it's, it's thwarted some some police investigations, apparently.

'''U:''' Being.

'''E:''' Being a police, yeah. Being a police, yeah.

'''US#05:''' Right. Yeah, the koala, Yeah, had some kind of being.

'''E:''' A police investigation for certain forensics, bite analysis, Ballistics analysis, and blood splatter analysis.

'''S:''' What, Dexter.

'''E:''' Dexter's not true. They're all subjective. That's all raw.

'''S:''' Not that they're not. It's not. It's not all or not.

'''E:''' Not they're not. A slam dunk they're not.

'''S:''' The slam dunk that the That's the bottom line.

'''E:''' Well.

'''US#05:''' You're you're interpreting data. As soon as you interpret data, it's like, yeah, the biting.

'''S:''' Analysis, I think is the worst of the really I. Think by Yeah, that's.

'''C:''' The one where I think. It's a lot more completely.

'''S:''' What are they testing for? Like they look yeah, the shape they're looking at. Does the bite mark match your? Like if you do a test bite mark, does it match and?

'''C:''' Very often people have been let go when they realized, oh, that was made by a tool like that wasn't even a bite. Like they'll assume it's a bite based on the shape. And very often when you see a criminal proceeding, the prosecution and the defense are going to bring in their own spatter analysts and they're going to say opposite, you'll find. You just dueling.

'''J:''' You think though that a bite would be kind of consistent because your teeth typically stay in the same well, what conditions were you doing the bite under?

'''S:''' You know, there's so many other variables in there also. How you think?

'''C:''' Is your bite and. Also, is it a bite? What we're talking about is actually when there's an analysis of a bite on skin. Yeah. Like, is it even a bite or was that from an animal or was it, you know? Yeah, like if you.

'''J:''' Bite into like a mold thing. It's going to be your teeth. If you bite into the surface of an orange, it doesn't, right And.

'''C:''' If you bite somebody's leg, it might just look like the bruise.

'''US#05:''' If you have Charlie from the Chocolate Factory teeth then it's very.

'''B:''' You guys have? Seen.

'''C:''' Does anybody, does anybody know what I'm talking? Yeah, there's like memes. The kid who played Charlie in Willy Wonka like his teeth first.

'''B:''' Movie. The first movie, yeah.

'''C:''' The original and not just jacked like like I think there's some sort of physiologic problem like you. Were explaining molars. Yeah, right.

'''S:''' Let's come on. Yeah.

'''E:''' Continuing Sigmund Freud Apparently everything Sigmund Freud did was.

'''S:''' Preliminary and early on in a very new and difficult yeah, there's a big.

'''C:''' Different I mean, I'll soapbox this for a second. I am not a psychodynamic psychologist. I'm an existential psychologist, but I have, you know, colleagues who are psychodynamic. Generally speaking, we all learn about Freud and I think what they're saying in this listicle is that a lot of people just stop there and they go, OK, that's just how things are. But the reason we learn about it is from historical perspective to know where the field was early on. There is a field now called psychodynamic psychotherapy, which is based on actually like object relations. Like it's, it's very, very different. But there are some things that Freud talked about that now have evolved into understandings that we it's kind of like.

'''S:''' Saying Darwin was wrong about a lot of things. Of course he was. He was whipping up a whole new scientific discipline. He's amazing how much he got right. But we've pretty much everything you said, we've evolved into different versions of what what he said. But.

'''C:''' We have actually had to just be like, let's ignore that thing. Yeah, there's something. Yeah. There's like, I mean, he was like giving his patients coke and like, you know, all the women were his standard, so.

'''S:''' Psychiatry is way more wishy washy wobbly wobbly than yeah I.

'''B:''' Mean you I don't my take is that he's not very relevant today. He's not true, right? It's not, but every.

'''C:''' Psychology student learns about him and that is a problem with how we teach psychology because if you get a 101 course, you get a bunch of history, but you don't get a lot of like modern lens. And so a lot of people think that that's how we're all got you now.

'''E:''' Yeah, handwriting analysis, graphology, we've talked about that. Immune system boosting. No, no, we've talked about that. You don't.

'''C:''' Want to boost your immune system? Right, exactly. It's. Bad. Terrible. Unless you're immune, you know so.

'''S:''' Either with the immune boosting thing. What I find is either the snake oil supplements, whatever that claim that they boost the immune system do nothing, or they're bad for you because they they actually, you know, can cause autoimmune disease. Yeah. Yeah. Like your immune system needs to be tightly regulated. Just make suppressing it or boosting it or increasing it is not necessarily an inherently good or bad thing. Oh.

'''C:''' You should only do that under the like with with medication with a physician because you have a diagnosis that requires.

'''S:''' It, yeah, but aren't generically just boosting your immune system aren't.

'''B:''' Vaccines and immune boosting technology.

'''S:''' They're a way of targeting your immune system against a very specific right. So if you can, I think the word boosting is very vague. So if that's what you consider boosting, sure. But that's not what people are talking about. But.

'''J:''' That's not the same as. Taking. Vitamins are on the list be.

'''S:''' More robust and just a vague I mean, if anything, sleep will do that.

'''J:''' Sleep will. Sleep will keep you.

'''S:''' You know anything that keeps you healthy makes your immune system function better. Just like your muscles won't function better and your brain functions better. But you don't want well nourished. And well rested and hydrated all your systems operate but.

'''C:''' There is A and this is not a demarcation problem. There is a point where your immune system is over functioning and that is bad because it starts attacking your own body. Yeah. Correct.

'''E:''' We all know about that. Natural and organic. We've talked about that ad nauseam, the Myers Briggs personality test. Yeah, we.

'''C:''' Don't use that at all in psychology. It's like a wind.

'''E:''' Up toy that just won't stop and. I mean, that's culty. Oh. Yeah, like George totally called quantum anything non physics. Yes, Oh my God, poor quantum. Stay in your lane. Quantum rain based illnesses like catching a cold from being out in the rain. That's been disproven so.

'''S:''' You we can go beyond that even there's there's an open question about whether being cold can make you sick. Like being you know what it well, it's not really. I mean, it's been pretty much been debunked. I don't know that the the final nails in the coffin on that one because you get the question is do are some viruses, do they spread more easily in the cold weather or things like that? But certainly you can't catch a cold by being out in the wet rain. Yeah, because you need a virus. You need Yeah. And.

'''C:''' That's like in it's people always conflate like epidemiological data with individual data, right? Yeah, it's like it. And mostly.

'''S:''' It's mostly that's when the kids are at school. That's mostly what the winter viruses.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Plus, yeah, when it's cold out, you're you're amongst people in, in, in a building inside and that's and it's spreading that way. What about? The what about the bones?

'''US#05:''' Bones like feel like you can tell the storms coming because your hip hurts. Oh.

'''S:''' Yeah, pressure, that's.

'''B:''' Humidity. That's.

'''S:''' That's that's real. There's barometric pressure for migraines. There's humidity for arthritis. So some people, like, they know when the storms coming because they get a migraine. Yeah, that's what I thought.

'''US#05:''' That's real. Yeah. That's really cool.

'''E:''' Three more O2, more taste map of the tongue. Oh yeah.

'''S:''' I mean, who?

'''E:''' Wait, heard about a song?

'''J:''' Raise your hand if you believed it. I was hot.

'''E:''' OK, everybody believed that. I'm very shocked.

'''J:''' To see like when I was a kid that would, that was the thing and like, and I did it, I tested it and it, and I tricked myself into thinking that, that, well, the, once you put something in your mouth, your saliva dissolves it and it goes all over your tongue, right.

'''S:''' So you can't, it's really hard. And we do, this is part of a neurological exam. And if someone has Bell's palsy, I want to know if where the lesion is. And there's one specific place where you also pick off taste to half of your tongue. So if, if they have, that's where it is, then it's in the facial canal. If they, if they have retained taste, then something else could be on. It could be a stroke, it could be something else. So that's a very important thing to do. I had to learn the technique to do that. You have to like really make sure that they're not, they can't close their mouth, they can't swish it around. You got to just touch it with a, you know, what do you do with lemon juice or something? No sugar, sugar, water, and you go to the very side of the tongue without letting them swish it around at all. Can you taste that? What does that taste like? They should immediately be able to know that it's sweet. If they don't, if they go there, I can't tell. Then they close their mouth, they go, oh, it's sweets again. That's 'cause you just now you got it washed over the other side of the tongue. So that's probably what was going on.

'''E:''' And the last one's the what they call the troubled teen industry, like wilderness survival, you know, throwing these kids who are having problems not. Just pseudoscience extreme. Scenario harmful.

'''C:''' Yeah, there's a great book by Maya Salivitz about that. She, yeah, kind of blew the doors off of that.

'''U:''' All right.

'''S:''' Evan, you're also going to tell us about this one. What is this? Looks like a nightmare. This is the BP by Jeez. You've.

'''E:''' Heard the expression. The truth shall set you free. Right. We're familiar with that.

{{anchor|news_item6}}
=== Tooth Eye (1:16:11) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nbcboston.com/news/health/man-has-tooth-implanted-in-eye-to-restore-vision/3807265/
|article_title = Man, 34, has tooth implanted in eye to restore his vision – NBC Boston
|publication = www.nbcboston.com
}}

'''E:''' Well, this one is the tooth. Shall let you see. That's a tooth. No, sorry. The little little extreme graphic here. Yeah. So tooth in eye surgery. Also known by its medical name, osteoodonto Keratoprosthesis. Yes. Prosthesis. O OK. P for very short. OK, Yeah. So this is a legitimate procedure. In fact, I shared it with Steve. I said, Steve, what? You know, this looks like a one we should talk about. He's like, Are you sure about this? And we we had to. Look it up. We had to look it up and a multi source.

'''S:''' It's real specialized.

'''E:''' Surgical technique used when the cornea is so badly damaged by either scarring, chemical burns or autoimmune disease, which we just talked about that regular transplants won't work. So this is this is where they go next. You a patient will, they'll extract a tooth, usually a canine tooth from from the patient itself. They'll include small amounts of bone to serve as a structural support for a tiny lens. OK, so then they drill a hole right through it. They implant the tooth lens piece under the patient's cheek somewhere. So they take this, they put it into their cheek somewhere where it allows blood, tissue, blood and tissue growth to, to, to secure, I guess, you know, keep it, keep it all in place. The body also builds up support and integration for it. Then what they'll do is they'll prepare the eye, they'll remove the scar tissue graft, mucosal lining from the inner cheek over the corneal surface. And then after the toothpiece has matured while it's in your cheek, they'll take it, remove it and implant it into the eye, replacing the damaged cornea, allowing light through the optical lens. That is the procedure. And yeah, it's legit. You don't get 2020 vision though out of it, but in in about 1/4 of the cases they get you get 20302040. The majority of cases, about 60% of patients are somewhere between 2040 and and 2100. Much better than, you know, blind blind. Do you have to brush that tooth?

'''S:''' I think that's why they put the membrane over and everything. Yeah. So The thing is the corneas are really hard structure to to mimic, right? It's got to be rigid, hard and transparent. So this is the one, this is from the 60s, right? This is like been around for a long time. I'd never heard of it. This is, it's only, they've been a few 100 cases like since the 60s where they've actually done it. So it's pretty rare procedure. This guy, the patient that they were talking about had like 5 or 6 cornea transplants and they just only lasted for a few months and then they would degrade. So this wasn't working. That's why he was one of the cases where like, well, we could try this really rare thing. I'm sure the surgeons haven't done many of them because there's only so many that have ever been done. We.

'''C:''' Don't have something that's like not, you know, like plastic because.

'''S:''' I guess because the body rejects it. You just want that's why they own bone is because people.

'''C:''' Can wear contacts so you would think that you have.

'''S:''' To change them every day and clean them and everything. Yeah, OK.

'''C:''' Some.

'''S:''' Can go a couple of days, you can change.

'''C:''' Your cornea and that.

'''E:''' Is kind of the key. These are your own body parts anyway, So the rejection, your body won't reject this. You know, it's not like you grow it somewhere else and try to bring it in. Yeah.

'''S:''' Just a weird but true kind of thing. Tooth eye.

{{anchor|news_item7}}
=== Snake Oil (1:19:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/opinion/the-history-of-snake-oil
|article_title = The history of snake oil - The Pharmaceutical Journal
|publication = pharmaceutical-journal.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, Jay, tell us about the history of snake oil.

'''J:''' Yeah, so this this one caught my tooth eye because. Because. I, you know, I knew what the, what snake oil means to us as critical thinkers, but I didn't know the history of it. You know, I was just curious to know more details about it. And I really found a cool story here. So where did it come from? Where did the phrase come from and why did you know? And why do people today use it to say that things are BS, you know, that it's a scam or whatever? So originally what happened was there were Chinese railroad workers that came over to work in the United States. They this was like, you know, early to mid 1800s and they brought this snake oil remedy with them. But it was real. It was actually real. Like they had, well, real in quotes.

'''S:''' I mean, The thing is. It's not like it's a pharmaceutical. Like it was really effective. It was one of their, you know, herbal type of remedies that yeah, it probably had some.

'''J:''' It did have some effects, some effects. They tested it, but it was.

'''C:''' Real in the sense that it was Oil of snake doesn't.

'''S:''' Mean that they all the things they used it for it was effective.

'''J:''' Well basically this is what I read that they only used it for inflammation and let me get into the details here. So first of all, they only took oil from a water snake. And the way that they would extract the oil from the snake is first that they would, they would boil like snake fat, of course, and that's where the oil is coming from. Then they'd skim off the oil that rises to the top when they boil it, and they would just simply bottle it. And then when they needed it. Now, the history says that, you know, these people were working incredibly long hours. It was a really, really hard life to be a railroad worker like that. And that the, they'd rub it on the exterior of their body and that there would be, you know, help joint muscle pains, inflammation, things like that. So that oil from that snake is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and it's also rich in EPA, which is another type of fatty acid. And it, it has been proven to have anti-inflammatory effects and Scientific American actually verified that it works. It actually has a, it, it does do something of the like Steve Wright.

'''S:''' It's not like, Oh my God, it's like, but it's like a liniment.

'''J:''' But but it did something and it was real in in that effect. So specifically we say, why did it work? Well, EPA, the you know, that type of amino acid, it reduces inflammation muscle like modern pain relief creams or whatever, but not as not as strong or whatever. And again, they just rubbed it on themselves and you know, it was widely used in that community. So then of course, what happened is people found out that they were using this and some guy in particular named Clark Stanley, he called himself the Rattlesnake King, and he became the most famous snake oil salesman. So this was in the late 1800s. OK, so it says 1893. He was at the Chicago World's Fair and he completely won over a very large crowd of people. He would pull out a live rattlesnake. You know, he would extract the the, the fatty tissue from it. This is all on stage. He'd boil it right there. He'd bottle it right there. And he would be selling it. And he, of course, this was the type of person that would say this can cure any anything. You know, we know the whole that story. Your very common idea is that it's a panacea. You know, what do you got? It'll cure that. Did he?

'''US#05:''' Call it snake oil, apparently.

'''J:''' He did OK and his product became a national sensation. He became very famous. The the problem is that American rattlesnakes they have almost no Omega threes and none of the other fatty acid that actually was the active ingredient, which of course doesn't matter because he was making money. So in 1916 the the government actually did something which doesn't happen anymore. So they had the Pure Food and Drug Act. This is in 1906. And this gave the government authority to regulate these false medications that were beginning of the FDA. Yeah, it was so bringing.

'''US#05:''' Back snake oil because I think it's going to be a good thing. I don't think I.

'''J:''' Haven't been biting my tongue this entire podcast with that brain worm shit. I was about to explode anyway.

'''S:''' Not the brain worm.

'''J:''' So they take his stuff, they test it. the US Bureau of Chemistry, which Steve said the precursor to the FDA, they got lab results and they revealed that snake oil had the following, had baby oil, which is mineral oil. It had less than 1% of beef fat. It had red pepper, turpentine and trace amounts of camphor. So this guy, Stanley, he pleaded guilty, plead no contest, and he was fined anyway. Just guess, how much was he fined?

'''E:''' $10.

'''J:''' 20 bucks there you go.

'''C:''' What year was it though 19?

'''J:''' 16 It was early 1900s so.

'''C:''' What was that worth now about?

'''J:''' Like 600 bucks, nothing this less than a slap on a wrist that he probably made, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars selling this crap. But what did happen was there was a you know, the newspapers reported it and he you know, it cemented the snake oil is BS name and that's where it came from. So this goes back, you know, 100 / 100 years ago. And of course, you know, again, like the last thing to say is, you know, now snake oil means everything. Anything that particularly a skeptics think is BS, you know, but most people use snake oil if they want to talk like, oh, it's fake, it's snake oil. And that's where it comes from. I like this. Now, as a critical thinker, I didn't know any of that. I've been using snake oil the whole time. You know, we've been doing the podcast probably, you know, many, many years, even before that. It was just, you know, a phrase that that was put into my head and there's a legitimate story. And the fact that it started off as something that actually worked, not great, but worked, blows my mind. But.

'''C:''' Doesn't that always have pseudosciences? There's like that little kernel of truth, and then they just expand it and expand it and expand it until it no longer even exists. Yeah.

'''S:''' But they're also very common at the time and still today was taking something that was used by some either foreign culture, exotic culture or indigenous culture, right? There's a huge industry of remedies that were taken from American Indians. And again, it was not the American Indians who were promoting it. It was some snake oil salesman, some, you know, some con artist who hit upon it. It's like, oh, you know, the echinacea falls into this like, oh, they use they use echinacea. It's like, OK, this is a, and even if they didn't, they just said they did anyway. But some the echinacea was actually used by some, you know, America. Right.

'''US#05:''' Also, quinine was a bark.

'''S:''' Yeah, so right. Well, yeah, but quinine actually can does stuff right.

'''US#05:''' But but wasn't it used or was that or was that coincidental that it's I thought it was used by South South American.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah. But they didn't know what it was doing. Oh, OK.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' I mean, I think that, you know, some cultures did hit upon certain things that were obvious, of course.

'''C:''' I mean, there are there are like things that will.

'''S:''' Make you fall asleep, there are.

'''C:''' Indigenous practices that come from things that we ultimately made into pharmaceuticals. There are animals in the wild that use certain remedies. Yeah, that's true.

'''S:''' But here's the thing they were using in Asia for a whole bunch of different stuff, but not flu, not the thing that it was currently being marketed for. They would use it for snake bites and leg injuries, whatever. There's like random stuff and it was not based on anything but the idea what this is an ancient remedy used by this natural people was the marketing thing. And I'm sure the snake oil thing was the same where it's like, Oh yeah, there's from ancient Chinese remedy, right? I don't know if that all comes from there too, but that's the same kind of thing. Usually when there's something specific like snake oil means generically A fraudulent treatment, it there's a specific source to it was we we often will use things that have a specific reference and then we generalize to mean that type of thing. But that's.

'''C:''' Also fun because then you can be that asshole who watches movies and somebody says the word snake oil but it's anachronistic because it was too early. It wasn't.

'''S:''' They didn't use that.

'''C:''' They didn't have.

'''J:''' Snake oil in 1874 the proper. Way, the proper way to to evoke that is actually actually actually all right.

{{anchor|news_item8}}
=== Flowing Water on Asteroid (1:28:01) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/scientists-find-evidence-of-flowing-water-on-ryugus-ancient-parent-asteroid-it-was-a-genuine-surprise
|article_title = Scientists find evidence of flowing water on Ryugu’s ancient parent asteroid. 'It was a genuine surprise!' | Space
|publication = www.space.com
}}

'''S:''' One more news item. One more news item.

'''B:''' One more. Yeah. All right, then we're.

'''S:''' Going to do science of fiction sounds.

'''B:''' Like a plan, all right.

'''S:''' All right, so this, I don't know if this is high. I think this is high Abusa. Remember that high Abusa, this is the asteroid that or no, like the high Abusa was the satellite, right? And yeah, this is the Ryubi or something asteroid. And they collect, they've managed to rendezvous with an asteroid, collect samples, do some science right there. And they brought samples back to Earth. So this is a news item based upon a recent analysis of some of the samples from this asteroid, and they found something very interesting. I'm going to save the conclusion till the end. So they were looking at what?

'''J:''' Isn't that what the end is, though?

'''S:''' Well, you know, you could, you could sometimes lead with the answer and say this is how they found, but then you don't have a conclusion. Anyway. They were looking at, yeah, this is something very, very technical and wonky, but it's very interesting. They were looking at the ratio of letrium and hafnium. These are two elements. The thing is lutetium was decays into hafnium and so they could they we know how old the asteroids is, right. So they said, well, this the ratio of hafnium to lutetium in the sample should be this much right? That's physics doesn't change, right. The half lives are one of the, you know, you could hang your hat on that, that it doesn't change throughout the history of the universe. So unless you're a creationist, then they say, oh, it changes by whatever amount it has to have changed in order for the Earth to be as old as I want it to be. But real scientists say they can, you can use it as a as a constant, right? So the problem is the there was far less hafnium in the sample than there should have been.

'''J:''' So when there's less hafnium, is it quarterm?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' You know I'm trying I I wake up with the intent to entertain the people that spend money to come see us. Stevens all like science and shit over here like I just want you guys to have fun. All right, go back so that.

'''C:''' That means it's younger.

'''S:''' So you would think that it means it's, but it can't because it it's an asteroid. We know when it formed. We know where it formed in the soul is an out, you know what I mean? So we know those things could.

'''B:''' That hit a younger asteroid well.

'''S:''' You're close to the answer.

'''E:''' So with contamination, it's not.

'''S:''' Contamination. It's not contamination if that's your thought so, but it's good. This is the what the conversation I would have. What could have happened? Why is there less hafnium than there should be? It's not because it's younger, because we know it isn't. It's not contamination from another box. Could I have a guess?

'''J:''' Could it have been like evaporated off by as going too close to a sun or something?

'''S:''' You're getting close, getting closer to the answer. There's not a.

'''J:''' 3rd element that has affected the other previous one it's.

'''S:''' Not a chemical or or, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not it something washed away some of the hafnium.

'''C:''' So it did undergo the change and then it somehow went away, right.

'''S:''' OK. And. This is so again, they don't know that this is what happened, but this is what they're left with. Again, they've eliminated every other possibility they could think of, and this is what they're left with Solar.

'''US#05:''' Wind.

'''S:''' No, it would have had to have been something liquid. So therefore there was flowing water inside this asteroid. Why wouldn't it freeze? Well, it did freeze. It refroze, but the so they're saying, but it would have had to have been much later than they thought it should have been because, you know, we solar system formed out of a cloud of gas and dust. Everything is hot and then it cools down. And you know, we know where asteroids form based upon its constituents because there are different constituents at different places, distances from the sun. And you can tell how this formed in the outer solar system then came inside or whatever. They can tell these kind of things. And a lot of a lot of it is by the volatiles, right? Things that would evaporate if it gets too close to the sun or if it goes too hot. So this, you know, we, we know there's ice in, in the asteroid and we know where it's from, but at some point that ice must have melted, washed away the hafnium and then refroze or, or evaporated.

'''B:''' So, but if it washed away the stuff, some of it, where did it actually go though?

'''S:''' Well, then it washed it away, away from the asteroid. So we evaporated out into space. How?

'''B:''' Much gravity is required to wash something away on the surface. Are we talking about this happening on the surface? Deep within the But if the water evaporates, it doesn't take the hafnium with it. It did, though.

'''S:''' I mean, no, that's why it had to be liquid water that literally physically washed it away. Like so they're saying. So the only answer they're left with is this the conclusion. This is the conclusion. OK, here we go. This is why I wanted you. I wanted you to tell me what you thought first. I agree. But what could have done it? So they said the only thing that's left on our list of possibilities is that there was liquid water percolating through this asteroid much later than it should have been.

'''U:''' Why?

'''B:''' Water well.

'''S:''' Liquid. So yes, liquid. Liquid, probably liquid like other liquid stuff too.

'''J:''' Different.

'''S:''' Probably mostly liquid solvent.

'''C:''' Yeah, some some liquid solvent so.

'''J:''' What if it was? What if the regolith had frozen water and then it got near a sun and then it liquified?

'''S:''' But but we kind of know about where it was in the solar system based upon what it's made of and it's consistent.

'''C:''' Does it does it just not have enough of its own gravity for the water to like stay on it? Like how does the water just this?

'''S:''' Is inside, yeah, but then.

'''C:''' You said it had to wash away so.

'''S:''' What do they think happened so. Percolated through it. Washed away from whatever they wherever they got the sample doesn't necessarily mean it washed away from the asteroid, but it could have if it got to. If it percolated to the surface, it would have gone away. Gotcha.

'''C:''' Gotcha, gotcha. They're.

'''S:''' Sampling deep in the asteroid and there should be hafnium there, and there's a lot less of it than there should be something, so maybe.

'''C:''' They'll see like a band if they actually did a core or something.

'''S:''' The samples we have we. Don't have the whole.

'''C:''' Asteroid.

'''S:''' So this is what they're thinking. At some point after a lot of the happening him already was created through radioactive decay, another asteroid impacted. It melted the ice washed away the hafnium and then it refroze the liquid that had the hafnium in it just whisked off into space or or again just away from the sample that just to.

'''C:''' A different part of the asteroid.

'''S:''' So that's their that's their current hypothesis. Something hit this thing melted the ice from the heat of the impact, and then it eventually refroze. But some of the hafnium went away. Is that it? But water should have been percolating through that sample way later than the history, the life history of that asteroid should have made it possible. Is that cool? But the chain of logic is, is interesting how they can infer they have these little pieces of the asteroid and they're this they're figuring all this stuff out. And that that radioactive decay thing is always such a an important piece of information because again, it is something that we could say this is physics. This is what had.

'''US#05:''' To have happened where did they get the pieces this is.

'''S:''' For them, this was recovered from the the high abuse of OK.

'''US#05:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' The centre probe and they brought it back in.

'''B:''' The future, they get another sample and there's too much happening. I'm like, this is where it went. It went over here, I mean.

'''S:''' Maybe.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. Cool.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:35:21) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.
|link1web =
|link1title = None
|link1pub = None

|item2 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.
|link2web =
|link2title = None
|link2pub = None

|item3 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.
|link3web =
|link3title = None
|link3pub = None

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|science1 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.

|science2 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

|rogue1 = George
|answer1 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

|rogue2 = Cara
|answer2 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = Wind account for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US.

|rogue4 = Evan
|answer4 = There is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year.

|rogue5 = Bob
|answer5 = The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, Kansas, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever = y
|win =
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' Well, everyone, it's time for science or fiction.

'''U:''' It's.

'''Voice-over:''' Time for science or fiction?

'''J:''' What we should make an Stu Snake oil?

'''E:''' Yeah, like I could be careful.

'''J:''' No. No, no, wait, let me just This is like your Homeopops idea for cooking.

'''E:''' That was actually Evan's idea. Homeopops.

'''J:''' You came up with evaporative therapy? Evan came up with Homeopops.

'''E:''' No, I just.

'''J:''' It'd be a cool decorative bottle.

'''E:''' It looks like an old snake oil bottle.

'''J:''' But then we have like, an Stu logo or maybe you're the Barker or something. It'd be. Yeah. There's an idea in a bookshelf as swag, you mean. Yeah. Bookshelf item. Fake.

'''S:''' Fake snake oil Doc.

'''J:''' Novella's old timey remedy. Evan. Evan, you see me? I appreciate that. Thank you. I. Got you Jay, but we'd have to you.

'''B:''' Know you have to write on it like a 100% bullshit. Yeah, well. Yeah, it's got fused.

'''J:''' Well, Jay, But Jay, what would it cure?

'''US#05:''' What would that, what would the SGU cure be?

'''J:''' Yeah. What would it?

'''US#05:''' What would it be? Everything. What would it be or what?

'''J:''' Ills you like like. Politics. Let me see. It's some kind.

'''US#05:''' Of yeah, like a a remote control on we. We're so. Silly like this cures. Like it'll.

'''J:''' Keep you from giving, getting this with the scabies, the scabies, what's like a what's like a kid heebie jeebies, heebies, something like that cures all scabies. Is a real thing. Oh, scabies are real, yeah. Yeah, OK. Sorry, I don't know.

'''S:''' I love the old timey diagnosis too. It treats consumption, Yeah.

'''C:''' Drops.

'''S:''' Nervous condition. Dropsy. Yeah, nervous, Nervous. Nervous penile dropsy.

'''U:''' Nervous.

'''J:''' Penile dropsy. Oh my God. Can we call it a liniment?

'''C:''' What they used to there was a liniment. Liniment.

'''S:''' Yeah, liniment. Yeah, Or my favorite one as a neurologist, of course, is neurasthenia. Neurasthenia.

'''C:''' Oh it. Can calm the nerves if I made the.

'''J:''' Snake oil. Who would like who would like it? Just have to see. I forget it. I'm not doing it. No, no, no. Percussive.

'''US#05:''' Melancholy cures percussive melancholy.

'''S:''' Percussive melancholy.

'''J:''' Nice, nice.

'''US#05:''' Guaranteed 100% George. You have percussion guaranteed.

'''S:''' OK, each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and 1 fictitious. And then I challenge my panel of skeptics. Tell me which one is the fake. We have a live audience, which means you all get to play along. We're going to do this very specifically. We're going to ask the panel to give me their answers 1st. Then we'll ask you to weigh in. And you have to be sure not to give away the answer before they vote, right?

'''J:''' You don't want them to say, hey, I know the answer.

'''S:''' I don't want them to indicate in any way what they think the answer is. How many people here, by the way, you can do the one clap thing or whatever. How many people here are from Kansas?

'''U:''' A lot.

'''S:''' That's good, right? The theme of the science or fiction this week is Kansas. I didn't.

'''B:''' Do the research, Evan.

'''S:''' Asked me yesterday, is the theme going to be Kansas? Like shut up, I.

'''E:''' Said you should. Have thrown us a curveball. Say it's Oklahoma.

'''S:''' I sometimes I don't always do the place we're in, but we've never been here. It's sometimes I do the place that we're in. But cures quizzical Bernstein that they can't know for sure. What's that?

'''US#05:''' Cures Quizzical Bernstein.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right, so keep it cool. Yeah. Poker face about in the audience out there. You won't necessarily know the answer, but I don't know sometimes I think yeah, I have to think to myself like what a local know this app.

'''J:''' How much do you really know about Connecticut? That's the question that's part of what I ask myself.

'''S:''' So I'm not going to do the state bird, you know I mean, you guys should know it's state bird is the Meadowlark. Thank you guys are all going to know that right.

'''US#05:''' Meadowlark would.

'''C:''' You know that about your state.

'''US#05:''' I think it's these these construction crane is mine.

'''S:''' Come on, you know, you know what Pennsylvania is, No. No the. Bird, You don't know what it is, Larry.

'''C:''' California Larry Bird.

'''US#05:''' The Bethlehem bird is the swift. I know that the swift is.

'''C:''' California The Condor.

'''S:''' Yeah, OK. Connecticut is Robin the American Robin. Thank you, Robin. This has been your birding moment with Steve. It's not going to add about birds. I almost said Kansas birds. It was going to be my theme, and I found a couple of good ones, like just describing birds. Did you know there's a bird in Kansas called the Dick Sickle? That one is fiction, all right.

'''C:''' The bird is the quail. I would not. Have the quail.

'''J:''' Some some person who found the birds like. Dick. Sickle.

'''C:''' Like they had to know exactly.

'''J:''' What they were. Is there a reason? Is there an operational reason? Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' I don't know what it is for that one, but there, there, there is. And some of them have really funny names. But if you break it, if you deconstruct it, it means.

'''US#05:''' Oh yeah. Jay, it cures Dick sickle, Yeah.

'''S:''' Right, right.

'''US#05:''' That. Down I. Like it? I wish.

'''J:''' More than three people raised their hands. I I really like it.

'''S:''' Like, there's the tip mouse, but we know that we have tip mice in Connecticut. Yeah. All right, here we go. Item number one, there is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, they are there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year. Item number two, wind accounts for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US. And item number 3, the incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, KS, from which it spread to the rest of the world. OK, Should I start with Bob or should I start with George? All right, George, go first. It's their fault. George. Thank you.

'''US#05:''' Large population of bison. I like that. I like that that's I like that being true. Winding, winding wind accounting for 52% seems awfully high. Seems awfully high, which makes it feel like that's probably true because it's like it's being deceptive. So I bet that's true. And the Spanish food did not start in Spain. I know it did start here some somewhere in I guess in the United States. But would they would OK, Would Steve know that the audience knows this? What is the What does Steve think the audience is going to know you can't play?

'''C:''' These head games, man, No, I know it always gets us. I know to.

'''S:''' Clarify, George. Just I tried to find ones. I thought they wouldn't, that they wouldn't, but I'm not good at doing that.

'''US#05:''' Oh. OK, so I want. Them to not chime in so. I think. I think, OK, I'm going to say the bison is is the fiction, the bison's fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Cara.

'''C:''' Yeah. So we know Spanish flu started in the US We also know Spanish flu was spread around the world by soldiers. And so if it originated at Fort Riley, I don't know. I don't know, like the main place where they were getting it, but maybe that was a port or something where a lot of training was happening for for the war. I agree with with George that 52% feels high because I think about wind, where are we doing a lot of wind, like offshore? Maybe not, I don't know. Is it windy here? Was it windy? Do you guys remember? Was it windy today? They're not supposed to say anything, I know. But it is like it's flat here. So planes, I don't know, maybe. And then yeah, bison, Bison. I mean, they used to be everywhere. I think about them in like Montana, but I do think about them in like American grasslands, Prairie. Good. I'm gonna go with George on this. I'm not sure. Maybe it's.

'''US#05:''' Buffalo. Maybe he's being sneaky and it's actually Buffalo and not. I don't. Think he would do that?

'''C:''' I think that's too similar. Yeah, I don't think he would do that. Steve, I'm gonna. Go with George on that, OK?

'''J:''' OK, Jay. Yeah, I did. I, I know that the Spanish flu did not start in Spain. It started here. I don't know. I don't think of my years of having Steve do science or fiction. I don't think that he would assign it to, you know, a local heat, you know, like a place in Kansas. So I think that one is science. I'm going to pop over to now the, the, what do we got the, the murder bison. I mean, look, you know, there, there's a lot of people who are growing bison for for the meat, you know, then I would think, OK, it's perfectly fine if they grow them here. It's ton of flat land. Seems like a really good state to grow bison and and do all that. And they're dangerous. Of course they are. They're wild animals. I, you know, I don't know if they're like particularly feisty bison, but I think if you, if people like are, you know.

'''US#05:''' Band name Feisty Bison.

'''J:''' If they go on to other people's property, you know, teenagers and stuff, people can get injured, sure. You don't want to be around giant animals like that. So I think that's science. I, I, you know, I don't think, I think what George says was the 52% seem too high. And I think that's where Steve, Steve likes to be tricky in those areas. I'm going to say that one's a fiction, right? OK, Evan.

'''E:''' The Bison of Kansas. I just don't know about these reported attacks and injuries per year. I mean, you know, anytime you get people and animals together, there are going to be some injuries. Scores of reported attacks and injuries per year. Yeah, that would be the reason why I would go with that one as fiction. Now, the wind, 152% and the third highest state in the US. So the other two would what be coastal. And you know, hey, when I landed yesterday off the plane in here in Kansas City and we went to pick up our rental car and noticed signs by the bathrooms, tornado shelter. And I started seeing tornado shelter, tornado shelter, tornado. So, you know, yeah, there's a lot of wind in Kansas, actually, so feels.

'''C:''' Work in tornadoes.

'''E:''' Well, sure. It just, you know, we're from Connecticut, we don't have those things. So we come to a state where we're not familiar with and just odd to see tornado shelter signs on a regular basis in a lot of places not in.

'''C:''' Texas so.

'''E:''' I'm leaning towards that one being science. The last one about Fort Riley, KS. No I don't, I don't know that for certain. So I guess I'm going to have to go with George and Cara and say it's the bison one all.

'''S:''' Right. And Bob, I was so.

'''B:''' Happy when I saw the Spanish fluke. I'm like, yes, I know it's not from Spain. I some from some other country. And then everybody seemed to say, oh, we all know it's from the United States and like it is. I didn't I didn't know that I told it. So thanks for the info and thanks and thanks to you guys for picking George first. So that's good. So the other thing, I'm kind of really bummed now that I wasn't looking out that plane window because I think Jay was glued to the window and he saw that there was a lot, he saw bison. So he's like, all right, that's science. And I think I think he didn't see a lot of windmills. So that's why he that's why he picked the the windmill. So I'm going to go with that. How could I not go with that? So that's fiction. Oh boy.

'''S:''' They're wind turbines turbines.

'''B:''' Windmills, turbines, Let's.

'''US#05:''' Start with the third one well.

'''S:''' 1st we have to pull the audience. Yes, all right. So I'm going to do the George thing, but you're going to go, you're going to follow me. Look at my eyes only. All right, If you think that the bison is the fiction clap, If you think that the wind is the fiction clap. And if you think that the Spanish flu is the fiction clap. OK, So the audience thinks the like the the wind turbines the audience.

'''US#05:''' Is going J&B boy? Yeah.

'''S:''' So let's take these in reverse the order since nobody went for the third one on the panel. Very minority of the audience. The incorrectly named Spanish Flu of 1918 started in Fort Riley, KS, from which it spread to the rest of the world.

'''B:''' Would you be pissed if you were in Spain and they named this deadly? Oh yeah. Now. Scourge after the country you lived in. It is.

'''S:''' True that it did not come from Spain. Do you know why they was called the Spanish Flu? Nobody.

'''B:''' Else is reporting right because. There's World War One. I'm. Not going to fess up, no.

'''S:''' Country wanted to report their their mortality numbers because that would make them look weak and Spain didn't care. So they accurately they were the only ones to accurately report their numbers. So it looked like there was a lot of cases in Spain and not so much everywhere else. But it was a total lie. So it got called the Spanish flu for that reason. It did originate in the United States, but where in the United could could have come from anywhere in the United States right. That's the question.

'''J:''' That's what I point.

'''S:''' Very easy just to say, OK, I'll make it Kansas, right? This one is. Science.

'''J:''' Did come from Kansas. Did you guys did everybody here know? No.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' The my understanding is that Fort Riley is a town, right? It's not. It probably was a Fort at some point. But so they came from camp something. I actually forgot them camp something in Fort Riley. And yes, it was primarily spread through soldiers because it was World War One. That's what made it so bad. So that one is true. Let's go back to #2 wind accounts for 52% of electricity production in Kansas, the third highest state in the US Bob and Jay and the majority, the vast majority of the audience who are from Kansas, apparently think this one is the fiction and this one is science.

'''US#02:''' Oh Dang, no, I thought. We had it, man.

'''S:''' 52.

'''US#02:''' Percent.

'''S:''' What are the two states that are higher? Iowa, North Dakota, Those are the 2 that are higher. But yeah, Iowa's number one. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of wind in Kansas. Well, to answer Everett's question, you know you can't use wind turbines during a tornado, I didn't think.

'''C:''' So.

'''S:''' Nor in just If the wind gets too brisk, you have to shut them down. You can. Use them once you've. Got to shut those things down if the wind gets too hurricane, any kind of like really stormy kind of weather. No, they got to.

'''C:''' All those Kansas hurricanes. Yeah, I.

'''E:''' Wasn't implying that you'd, you know, Yeah, a lot of electricity. Let's get more tornadoes going. I was just saying that you don't realize how, you know the conditions of the place you're going. You also.

'''C:''' Realize tornadoes aren't just a function of like lots of wind, right? It doesn't just get so windy it becomes a tornado. I get that doesn't doesn't work, but yeah.

'''S:''' There are a lot of flat states in the Midwest that have a lot of wind turbines. You know, Oklahoma, that's, and I was in Oklahoma. I was in Oklahoma, I was in Oklahoma and giving a lecture and there's wind turbines everywhere. Now, of course, Oklahoma's a very RedState. So the not in the cities. When you're in a city, it's like any other city anywhere else, right? But it's the rural areas that are very regional in terms of their beliefs and culture and politics and stuff. The population in Oklahoma believes that their dramatic increase in earthquake frequency is due to the wind turbines. Sure, not due to the fracking, which is actually what's causing it, because that's what they were told. And then it's those damn wind turbines. All right? You should.

'''E:''' Go attack them that.

'''S:''' Means that there is a large population of bison in Kansas, and while they may appear docile, there are score of reported attacks and injuries per year. Is the fiction now? What about it is fiction? Are there a lot of bison in Kansas? Yes, there are, but a lot. What's a lot is for the population is 5000 to 6000. A lot. That's a sizable herd. Some a lot of them are in private herds, but some of them are not. But then they are not docile. They are dangerous wild animals. Anybody here play the game Medieval dynasty? Yeah. So there are medieval bison, not bison there. I could what they call them. There are similar creatures in there. They will run at you and kill you. They are really dangerous in the game. And that's very accurate in.

'''C:''' Oregon Trail. They help you cross the trail.

'''S:''' Almost forgot. About that game. Defining.

'''E:''' My childhood. So are these just like protected somehow or are there?

'''C:''' Yeah, there probably just isn't that much human conflict with.

'''US#05:''' Them so the there had there's zero.

'''C:''' Injuries per year I think, I guess.

'''S:''' Because people who are around them know not to get near them. The last reported injury was from 2022, so 3 years ago. So not score per year. Yeah. But again, like that kind of number, like you could sound reasonable and particularly if they're on private farms and all that, like the people who work there know what they know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah.

'''J:''' Are there any bison in the audience? Is there? Do we have anybody here see a bison in Kansas? Do bison moo. Maybe bison?

'''C:''' Move some noise, bison moo.

'''S:''' No, somebody mooed in.

'''C:''' The honor, I'm just saying they.

'''E:''' Must have some.

'''S:''' Kind of. They make noise, some kind of noise, yeah. But it's not.

'''C:''' It's not. I wouldn't call it a moo.

'''US#05:''' Not mowing, no, they licked. Your salt off your car get too close.

'''S:''' All right, so good job to the non novellas up here and like 3 people in the audience.
{{anchor|qow}}
== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:52:15) ==
{{qow
|text = "I may have discovered a planet, but the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future generations. "
|author = - Clyde Tombaugh
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Yay, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' I may have discovered a planet.

'''S:''' But the real achievement is the inspiration it provides to future.

'''E:''' Generations Clyde Tombaugh, who is the discoverer of the planet Pluto, the dwarf planet Pluto the dwarf. Got to put that in brackets.

'''S:''' Now in the quote the.

'''E:''' Planet.

'''S:''' Scare quotes.

'''C:''' Who? Who?

'''S:''' Studied. Here at the University of Kansas. University of Kansas alumnus.

'''E:''' So that is why we chose the quote to honour him. Thank you, Evan. Well, thank you all for joining me this week. Yeah, you guys see you.

'''S:''' Thank you all for coming.

'''US#05:''' And thanks to all the.

'''S:''' Kansans.

'''U:''' Is that how is the Kansans? Is that?

'''S:''' Correct. Good. We're kineticutions. I love that. Yeah. Thanks to all the Kansans for your wonderful hospitality since we've been here. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Thanks, guys. Nice.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1060

2025-12-28T21:26:03Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:23:58) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1060
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1060|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1060.jpg
|caption = "Stunning cosmic view: a comet streaks through the darkness of space."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.
|qowAuthor = — Ernst Mayr
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1060|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, October 30th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Cara Santa Maria, Howdy Jane Novella. Hey guys. And Devin Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good afternoon, everyone.

'''S:''' So, Bob, tomorrow's Halloween, you all ready? You set you cramming or what?

'''C:''' Is I? Oh, it's a screen. That's Bobby wife.

'''E:''' She's under the table. I usually ask if Halloween is ready for Bob.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Yeah, I'm in decent shape for Halloween and the party, which is the next day not not too bad shape for that either. Of course, no matter how ready you are, you will you. I will still work to the last minute trying to tweak, tweak, tweak the final tweakings of of various things, but I'm very happy with my output this year.

'''E:''' Bob, you to Halloween is what Stanley Kubrick was to movie making. Oh, Cooper. How's that huge?

'''J:''' Isn't that him too?

'''S:''' It's Cooper Kubrick. It's all like Q from Star Trek, alright?

'''C:''' Well, it's emu, not emu, and we all say emu, we all say it's emu.

'''S:''' I'm probably gonna say that wrong. Later Uri Geller, not Yuri Geller if you.

'''J:''' Understand what the person is saying. You gotta be cool, you know?

'''C:''' Also, we got an e-mail from somebody in Australia this week who was like really mad that we all say solder instead of solder, I guess.

'''E:''' Wow, I would. Oh my God. There's actually 3L's in solder.

'''C:''' But I looked into the etymology and it comes from the French, but then it was changed so it's like the original. It doesn't even have an L in it. But this happens a lot in American English because it's so informed. That's.

'''S:''' Like saying why don't we say kanigut?

'''C:''' Well, they do say like, why don't, why don't you say fill it or herb? And it's like because it comes from the French and we pronounce it like the French cause American English is a mix.

'''J:''' Yeah, yeah. You know what's funny, though? You could see your own language evolving overtime. Like herbs with an H to me sounded so utterly ridiculous. And I've been kind of like training myself to realize it's probably the better way to pronounce it. You. Don't.

'''C:''' I don't like it? I don't think so. I think it's and.

'''E:''' But then there's the name Herbert, which adds a layer of confusion to the whole thing, because you do pronounce the H in that sense. Herb for short.

'''C:''' Well, what about Houston and Houston? That one always gets people in Texas. It's Sam Houston, right? But. In New York City. In New York, it's Houston, yeah.

'''S:''' What about honor? You don't pronounce the H in honor.

'''C:''' Honore, honore. And like Hodor, Brits don't say ballet. They say ballet, but then they say fillet.

'''E:''' Fillet, Fillet.

'''S:''' It's all chaos, Yes. Where do you stand on the Halloween? Should be the last Saturday in October rather than October 31st.

'''C:''' Oh, good question. It should always be a weekend so.

'''S:''' It always be on a Saturday because.

'''C:''' It's a party.

'''B:''' Day, I get it, I I say I'm a traditionalist. I say stick with the 31st because it doesn't matter because wherever Halloween is, if it's Wednesday, I'm not working. I'm not going to to a. Job. So that doesn't matter to me.

'''J:''' That's a Bob centric thing, right? Like, what about all the kids whose Halloween could be significantly truncated if it's on a school night?

'''B:''' Well, don't get me started, because the the the the tradition that we need to worry about is this stupid trunk or treat where there where a lot of families, a lot of families are doing trunk or treat and then instead of trick or treating, which to me is scandalous and should be illegal, I did.

'''E:''' See a bunch of cars the other day in a park not doing that.

'''C:''' But you have to remember there are parts of this country where people don't want you coming to their homes. It's not safe to go into neighborhoods, people. All the lights are off. Trunk or Treat does allow kids to like, trick or treat safely.

'''B:''' If that's the only option, that's fine, but I don't think that's as common as.

'''C:''' I do. I literally, I'm in the middle of LA in a very, very family friendly neighborhood in a development of houses where half of the people here have kids and on Halloween nobody has their lights on. And it's so sad. One year I turned on my light. I had the whole thing. I had all the candy. I got like, you know, king size candy bars from Costco ready. Not a single person came to my door. It was depressing.

'''S:''' It's, I know it's terrible. I think partly this is a COVID holdover because the whole trunk or treat thing started in COVID and we did.

'''C:''' It when we were kids.

'''S:''' It's just ratcheting down our actual physical interaction with other people. I mean Halloween.

'''C:''' I think it. Increases it. I actually think that kids who trunk or treat are more likely to get more FaceTime with people.

'''S:''' I don't know. The thing about taking your kids around the neighborhood is you get to, you know, to an event every year where you meet every neighbor in their house. They your kids, you know what I mean?

'''C:''' That died like 30 years ago. No, my kids were young.

'''S:''' We did that. And now, like again last year, zero people came to our home.

'''C:''' OK, we'll say 20 years ago because your kids are getting when they were young. Yeah, I was like, oh, time. I know I trick or treated when I was young too, But I also stayed out with my friends until the streetlights went out. My parents had no idea where I was. We don't live in that era anymore. We live in an era where kids can't walk home from school without being released by an adult. Like it's just a different time.

'''S:''' Is that good or bad thing?

'''C:''' I think it's bad.

'''S:''' Yeah, I think sounds bad.

'''C:''' It's the helicopter parenting. Which, yeah, it's just a. It's a holdover. Room. Well, it's not even their fault. It's like school policy now it's you know what it is? It's CYA.

'''E:''' Yes, it's all CA.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Liability. Right Accountability.

'''B:''' But kids who are kids who are relevant for Halloween, almost adults. Adults in the United States have taken over Halloween. The kids are just like this. Oh yeah, that's kind of cool too. So let's focus on what's really important. The parents, they're the ones that are spending the money on decorations, costumes, candy. They're they're making it the second most popular holiday in terms of like money that people spend. And Halloween's the best because you throw a Halloween party, you invite people that you care about that you're talking Thanksgiving or Christmas, you got to go to family shit and nobody, you know, a lot of people don't want to do that because family is fan is full of drama and craziness. So that's one of the things that makes Halloween special is that just from the party angle. But the idea of adults taking it over, it's just like it's a done deal. And the kids are just ancillary like, yeah, get some, get some candy, which is which is interesting. And I, I like talking to other people from other countries who love Halloween, but they're like, damn, man, you know, we're just not embraced in our country yet. But it's kind of like a slow, kind of like a slow migration that is happening for a lot of countries. It's just interesting to see this, this particular American United States export, an export that I agree with, you know, going out there and finding kindred souls all over the place. So people just love this, the macabre aspect of Halloween, and want to embrace it.

'''C:''' Jay, don't you love how Bob? See, This is why I love doing throw downs with Bob. You asked him if he thinks it should be changed to the last Saturday of the month and he said no and then made a compelling argument for why it should be changed to the last Saturday of the month.

'''B:''' Can I push back on that? It's another reason not to change. It's not. It's really not really about one day. It's the fall season, all of it's all of October, all the things that that embrace Halloween. It's not just that that one night.

'''C:''' The problem though is, is when it's on a Thursday or Friday because you do all the parties the weekend before and by the time Halloween comes it feels over a little bit and then it feels weird to have parties on November 1st or November 2nd it.

'''B:''' Feels only a little bit weird. It's still fine. I think it's still totally fine. First off, you can get amazing deals on because it's after Halloween. You can get the cheapest costumes, pumpkins, all sorts of of great stuff. Also, if you're like me and a few people that I know where it's actually a little bit of it's a bummer when Halloween's over and that builds is done. It's kind of not. I don't get depressed about it, but it's like November 1st sucks. It's a worst day of the year. But if I but for years now I've been throwing the party after the first Saturday after Halloween and it's great because it extends the season for me a little bit as well. But it's also means that no one's going to a Halloween party after Halloween. So you get a bigger party because everyone bails on parties when I tried to throw them in October because you know they because they're going to so many parties. There's so much competition for really essentially only two weekends is the big competition and then that's it. So it's so there's so many good reasons to to do it right after Halloween. I mean, maybe next year Saturday is Halloween I think, right. That would be a good a good. Is it moving?

'''C:''' Forward or backward for?

'''B:''' So yeah, it'll go, Oh yeah, unless it's leap year, I don't know. No, it's not. So yeah, Saturday, Halloween, man, that's big.

'''C:''' I love having an October 19th birthday for that reason. Every year from the time I was a kid, my birthday parties were epic. Epic. Because like you said, it's a friend holiday.

'''B:''' Yes. It's not a family, not. Necessarily a family holiday, but if you.

'''E:''' If you move Halloween off of October 31st, aren't you decoupling it from All Saints Day? And doesn't that kind of defeat half the purpose? Do we?

'''C:''' Really care.

'''B:''' Not at this point.

'''E:''' Not in 2025, but those are the origins, right? Yeah, but.

'''C:''' Nobody. Nobody thinks about that.

'''E:''' Except me. OK, Well, you know, I mean, there were maybe there are people. How many?

'''C:''' People who celebrate Easter and are like hiding eggs and stuff or thinking dress.

'''E:''' Up for All Saints Day next time, Yeah, but.

'''C:''' Like, you know, it's how many people who are celebrating Easter are thinking about like fertility. They're not. They're thinking about Jesus, or they're just like candy. Easter.

'''E:''' Is one of those holidays. It does fall differently each year.

'''C:''' No, I know, but I'm saying like it's coupled to a fertility, like a Pagan fertility festival. But yeah, it's.

'''E:''' Coupled to the solstice, I thought.

'''C:''' And fertility festivals, that's why we have, like, bunnies and eggs. Yeah. That's what most of our holidays are. They're like amalgamations of multiple, like, cultures.

'''B:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''E:''' No, I I get it. I get it. But there's a reason why Easter drifts and All Saints Day does not.

'''B:''' Yeah, Easter is calculated and it was very important historically to get that calculation correct. Otherwise you're going to hell.

'''U:''' Well, I.

'''E:''' Suppose it was a way of people tracking exactly where the heck they were in any given year. Yeah, all.

'''S:''' Right, let's move on to our news items.

'''E:''' Wait, why can't we?

'''C:''' Just spend 3 hours talking about that.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Therapeutic Nanoparticles (10:24) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251029100154.htm
|article_title = Scientists reverse Alzheimer’s in mice with groundbreaking nanotech | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Jay, you're going to start us off by talking about therapeutic nanoparticles.

'''J:''' Alzheimer's disease has been blamed on what Steve the sticky clumps of amyloid beta protein that builds up between the brain cells, right?

'''S:''' I mean, it's complicated. Alzheimer's is a complicated disease that has lots of pieces, lots of things are happening at the same time. And the complexity is we don't know what is driving the disease and what's an effect of the disease. And there may be multiple different things driving it in different people, right? There also could be feedback loops where like A causes B which reinforces A which causes C, You know what I mean? Yeah.

'''C:''' But those are markers, right? Those are good markers of the. But The thing is, it's.

'''S:''' Not all pure markers like amyloid beta is the big thing, right, Is amyloid beta just because that just that's a waste product that builds up in in the brain cells and it definitely causes problems. But is that what's driving the disease? And the only way we're going to ultimately really know is if if we fix that problem, does it fix the disease? Which is why there was so much excitement about the recent treatments for, you know, that are amyloid based that did have some clinical improvement. It was not dramatic, so which means it's probably not the whole story. What?

'''C:''' Did they do? Did they slow the progression? They.

'''S:''' They did slow the progression, yeah, they didn't stop or reverse it, but they did slow the progression well.

'''J:''' I thought that this study was pretty cool. I mean, again, it's still in mice, but there was a team Co led by the Institute of Bioengineering at Catalonia and West China Hospital, Szechuan University. They were in collaboration with partners in the UK and they published a study that suggests the real problem may be broken cleanup system, not just excess waste, right. So right now, like Steve said, the amyloid beta is is building up. It's a protein that builds up in the the brain. And this is one of the things that they find that people that suffer from this disease, you know, they can see that build up. And in the past, of course, you know, like there really isn't that much we can do about it, although we do think that it is, you know, one of the very important markers, the human brain, our brains rely on the blood brain barrier brains.

'''B:''' We can.

'''J:''' Call it BBB if you want.

'''B:''' Easy, Bob, it's.

'''J:''' Main job is to control what can pass from the blood into the brain and it also is there to help remove waste from the brain, right? So it does a couple of critical things. One critical protein that's called LRP. One, it almost says the word LARP, which I thought was funny. That works like a conveyor belt system that brings the amyloid beta out of the brain and into the bloodstream. And, and actually when we see that happen, we can tell we can detect it in the blood. So, so with Alzheimer's that system fails LRP 1 levels fall, it's function weakens in the brain's waste begins to pile up and that pile up can actually, you know, stop your brain from functioning well, could even be doing damage to your brain. Those leftover proteins and and protein fragments clump into these plaques that disrupt and the damage the nearby neurons. So instead of trying to invent new drugs, though, this team decided to try something different. They they wanted to try something that isn't based on chemicals. It's based on more like the plumbing of the brain. I thought that was a really cool way to put it. They look for a way to fix the brains natural waste removal system. They built these tiny hollow particles and these, you could visualize them as microscopic bubbles and they call them polymersomes. And these bubbles were coated with a molecule called Angio ET2, which can attach to the LR one and the protein that normally carries waste like amyloid beta out of the brain. So each bubble has just enough of this Angio PEP 2 to get the LRP one working again, but not so much that it would overload or damage it. And that was a big issue, you know, and, and a very hard thing for them to do. They had to find the right balance and how to tight how tightly the particles stick to the LRP 1. And they ended up finding the the right balance there. And again, like, that little detail was difficult and it just shows you how cool science is and how they can actually change the properties of things like molecules, which I find, you know, just incredible. So in the Alzheimer's model mice, a single injection of these optimized polymerosomes reduced the amyloid beta in the brain by about 45% within a few hours. Now, Steve, that sentence, that idea that I just said to me is that sounds amazing. Like what? Yeah, don't.

'''S:''' Get excited. It's a good proof of concept, right? That's what they get it. That's what these mouse models are for. But I mean, you know how good mouse models are at predicting Alzheimer's treatments, Not much basically almost 0, right? I mean they're they're like famously terrible at predicting the outcome of clinical trials in humans because it's not the same disease. It is a model. It is a model to test very specific mechanisms. It really, it isn't the disease, it's not the same disease as it is in humans. And so you just cannot extrapolate at all clinically from mice to humans. What you can do is ask very specific mechanistic, mechanistic questions. Will this increase the clearance of amyloid beta from the from neurons and in in these mice It does. Will that have a clinical benefit in humans? We'll know in 10 to 20 years, sure.

'''J:''' But the point. The point is though, and again, this is just science doing its thing. This is another test that they found and other, you know, they, they created something that has an effect and they might be able to to someday have a version of this that works in humans. Yeah.

'''S:''' As but as is often the case with these kinds of news items like don't get so focused on the Alzheimer's bit. In my opinion, what's really cool about this is they are engineering these polymersomes and that they can fine tune to have very specific effects. It's the therapeutic model that I find more interesting, not this very specific application which may or may not pan out. Yeah.

'''J:''' I was just, I was just saying what you just said, but not as cool. That's what I meant. Like the idea that they can modify. These. These molecules and have them have you know varying properties and they're like we gotta change this property like that to me is is such a fantastic thing that they're able to do today. So anyway, the point is that when they when they applied this, they were able to detect in the blood that there was an increase of amyloid beta, which shows that the brain was actually moving it outside the brain barrier and dumping it into the blood, which means it's waste product. And it was. So they were able to 100% verify that that that process was happening. It showed that the peptide was being, you know, essentially flushed out, and that's exactly what we want to have happen. Microscopy confirmed that the nanoparticles restored normal placement of the LRP on blood vessel cells and shifted the the blood brain barrier internal machinery back towards healthy function. Then they were testing the mice's behavior and the mice treated with the new therapy performed almost as well as healthy animals in memory and navigation tasks. The improvements also lasted up to six months. So there were, there's some very interesting outcomes here from this study that they did and that, you know, they are also, they made sure that the researchers obviously know what Steve knows, that the, you know, there are cool things about this and there's some early, early things that are happening that might pan out to humans one day. But it's too early. And you'll see some headlines actually say, you know, like, you know, Alzheimer's completely eradicated in mice, you know, that type of thing. That's not, that's not what's going on here, but they're the the nice thing about what what they're doing again, is this isn't giving somebody medication and trying to figure out medications that can sneak through the blood brain barrier and again, becoming dependent on chemicals like they're they're changing the function of the plumbing in your brain, which I find to be well.

'''S:''' They're they're optimizing it, right. They're restoring it is really what they're what they're arguing. And just As for further background, which I think impacts on this study, there's a huge correlation between vascular health and Alzheimer's and the, you know, what the number one risk factor for Alzheimer's is?

'''U:''' What?

'''J:''' What do you think?

'''S:''' Age. Well, yeah, age, age just like the universal risk factor. Yeah, let me just say other than age.

'''C:''' Heart disease, like cardiovascular problems, yeah.

'''S:''' Specifically high blood pressure and what does high blood pressure do? It damages these small blood vessels, the very the very same small blood vessels that this study is saying are necessary in order to clear the amyloid. And so that's yeah. So which again, maybe be a coincidence, but I think it probably all has something to do with itself that you get, you know, you get the build up which damages the vasculature, which worsens the build up. And this is kind of reversing that by and introducing this sort of optimized, you know, polyrusome that's in that sweet spot right where it's binding just strong enough to get it, but not so strong that it gets backed up. And so it facilitates the clearing of the amyloid, which restores the the blood brain barrier and the vascular health so that it could it could clear it even more.

'''C:''' Yeah, that's so interesting because I feel like it's it's always more complicated than that first idea, right? Like, oh, we see this stuff, something about Alzheimer's must be causing us to make more of this stuff. Or maybe we'd always make this stuff and something about Alzheimer's causes us to not be able to clean it out, right? Or both.

'''S:''' Or both.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' And then there's Tau. Don't even get me started on Tau. It's a totally different waste product, which again, there's probably different subtypes in different people. Then there's different genetic subtypes as it's very complicated.

'''C:''' And what you're, you're talking about is, is what commonly known as the plaques is what we've been talking about in your talk. Well, the plaques.

'''S:''' Form from these waste products, yeah.

'''C:''' Right, so you so there's.

'''S:''' You you have like amyloid for example, then you have amyloid plaques. These are two different things. And then you also have other pathological features that form like the tangles then you have, then you have inflammatory activity which how much of that is driving it? How much of that is reactive or secondary? Even if it is second secondary, does it exacerbate and worsen it would is there any room for clinical improvement by treating the specific components of the inflammatory reaction? These are all open questions and.

'''C:''' There's not going to be 1 answer. There's not going to be one. That's the thing. It's too complicated A disease for there to be 1 simple treatment.

'''S:''' Yeah, you may get to the point where we need to, you know, unless we find this missing key that we've been missing all this time and it's like, oh, if we change this one thing, the whole cascade doesn't happen. I doubt it's going to happen at this point. Can't rule it out though. But more likely we're going to have a suite of treatments. It like with cancer, you have to. I was. Going to say that yeah.

'''C:''' And the way to the way to get rid of cancer is to prevent it from ever happening. That's that's hopefully what we could do with Alzheimer's, right. If we could get to a point where we prevent it, then we don't have to treat 1,000,000 components. Well, that's the.

'''S:''' Promise of the treatments that prevent like the build up of amyloids like, oh, if we can get to people 20 years before they would become symptomatic, maybe they'll never become symptomatic but how do we identify people that early Well, it's it's easy if they have a genetic form and we could say you're going to get it because your parents had or whatever it's harder if it's not genetic and and we have to figure out some way to accurately screen people and in a way that actually predicts who should get treated early on who should not or if the.

'''C:''' Treatments become cheap and they're not very invasive. We just do it to everybody, like we do with vaccines. But.

'''S:''' That we're not there right right the treatments are are have a high risk they're expensive and they have high bad side effects so yeah that's the thing you can't just give it you can't put it in the water as we like to say even though.

'''C:''' They're.

'''S:''' Putting aside whether that's practical or not, just meaning we can't just give it to everybody because you get, you end up causing way more harm than good. We're definitely, yeah, we're not at the vaccine point where we can just give everybody an Alzheimer's vaccine. You know, that would be great if we do get to that point, but we're not there.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. Thank you, Jay.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== What Killed Napoleon’s Forces (22:50) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-finally-reveals-what-really-killed-napoleons-forces
|article_title = DNA Finally Reveals What Really Killed Napoleon's Forces : ScienceAlert
|publication = www.sciencealert.com
}}

'''S:''' Cara, what killed off Napoleon's forces? Oh.

'''C:''' So this is a really interesting study that I came across and I have to admit I'm not a war buff and I definitely haven't done deep dives onto or into the 1812. I even had to look up what was this called because it has like 5 different names. The French invasion of Russia, the Russian campaign, the second Polish war, and in Russia they actually call it the Patriotic War of 1812. Anybody here have any sort of like personal interest?

'''S:''' In that particular war, are we?

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' Like have you been reading books about it or a.

'''E:''' Lot but no.

'''S:''' You know, it's like that.

'''C:''' How often do you think about the Roman Empire? Yeah, I've.

'''S:''' Read about the Roman Empire just now. Right.

'''C:''' Not so much.

'''S:''' Napoleon.

'''C:''' Not so much Napoleon. So I had to read up a little bit on the background. So I want to talk about the background first so that then I can talk about this study that sort of challenges some of the previous held ideas. So, Long story short, and like very short, Napoleon invaded Russia in June of 1812 with over half a million soldiers. Big.

'''E:''' Mistake, Yeah.

'''C:''' Like, a lot. Yeah, we, we know Russia's not. And it's never a good idea to invade Russia with. Yeah, with a ground war. And so then there was this big battle on September 7th that was super, super bloody. And Napoleon and his troops actually were able to invade and occupy Moscow. So they thought they were doing pretty well. The problem is when they got to Moscow, it was like empty and had been burned. So under the orders of the governor there and military officials, Russian military officials, they burned the city and, and, and left. So Napoleon gets there and he's like, we got here, look, we're going to take over. But there was nobody there to take over King of. The Ashes. Yeah. And then after that, he kind of like, squatted for a while to to, you know, try to supply up and figure out a new way to leave. The problem is he probably waited too long. He was also looking for a peace offer that never came. So on October 19th, actually my birthday, they started to retreat. They already had lost quite a few soldiers, you know, during battle. Then as they started to retreat, you know, all the terrible things happened, right? There were some ongoing attacks. So they did lose more soldiers to battle, but really they were devastated by, what do you think, Weather and disease, right Russian.

'''E:''' Winter kind.

'''C:''' Of and so there was this is goes down in like military history books as one of the most devastating military campaigns in history. There are estimates that he lost over 90% Napoleon of his army. So over 500,000 soldiers and horses died. And a lot of people think that typhus was the cause of the vast majority of disease. And there have even been some early studies where DNA was taken from fallen soldiers, you know, in their graves. And, but, but older, like PCR techniques were used to amplify some of these DNA, these broken DNA fragments. And, and, and it was kind of estimated that typhus was the cause. So typhus is also known as Ricketts. I can never say this Rickettsia. I always want to say Ricksetia, but it's not Rickettsia prowa zeki and that's a parasitic aerobic bacilliform bacteria and it's, you know, the main agent of epidemic typhus. And then they also, there were some ideas that there was another pathogen called Bartonella Quintana, which is spread by body lice. So OK, let's cut to this new study, which was just published this month, where the authors say not so fast. We used more modern techniques to look at the remains of a very, very small sample of this much larger group of soldiers who died. So these soldiers died in Vilnius, Lithuania in December of 1812 and were buried there. So they were able to collect samples from 13 teeth of these different soldiers and they looked at it kind of made-up about 20 million different DNA reads. And then they used some pretty complicated, I could get into it if you like, but some pretty complicated new approaches that are kind of being called adna. Have you guys heard adna? I had to Google it. And then I was like, oh, that's so obvious. Ancient DNA. So there there's like a whole field now called adna. So there's like all these really state-of-the-art methodologies that go far beyond PCR. It's not just about amplification now it's about using much more sophisticated techniques. How do they?

'''E:''' Define ancient. Is there a number there?

'''C:''' Is actually, I looked it up. Obviously we know there's an upper boundary for for sufficient DNA for sequencing, which is between half a million and one and a half million. But there have the oldest this DNA that's ever been sequenced was from mammoth molars from that are about a million years old. And we we've recovered genetic material from sediments that was 2,000,000 years old but but they couldn't sequence it. But it looks like most of it we're talking thousands of years. OK yeah, a few studies have succeeded. Only a few studies have succeeded in amplifying DNA from remains older than several 100,000. Most of it was is within like the 10s of thousands. So, so researchers in this study are using, and there's a name for this field too, which I hadn't heard before either, metagenomics. Metagenomics, which is the study of genetic material from entire communities of organisms. So that's where they will often look at like environmental samples collectively so that they can try and understand something. So these are metagenomics researchers that I guess are borrowing from those techniques and they apply them to these 13 different teeth. And obviously this is 200 year old DNA. What they did after this really sophisticated kind of extracting and analysis, what they realized is they couldn't find any typhoid at all. They couldn't they actually couldn't find either Rickettsia or the Bartonella Quintana. And actually it would be like R pro azeki. Usually you'd, you would say the species name or B Quintana, but they did find a couple interesting things. They found Salmonella enterica and specifically a specific type of salmonella enterica that causes something called paratyphoid fever. So it's similar to typhoid. They're both types of enteric fever. And so comparing that to the the records of the time, like what was actually written about how these soldiers were acting and what their symptoms were, it would makes sense then that it could have been paratyphoid when maybe they didn't know about it or they just kind of misdiagnosed it as typhoid. So they found not only paratyphoid caused by this Salmonella enterica strain, but they also found a bacterium in the DNA called Borrelia recurrentis or recurrentis. So this is another body lice transmitted bacterium and it causes something called louse born relapsing fever. It's not necessarily deadly, but combined with the paratyphoid and the exhaustion and the starvation and the, you know, hypothermia that a lot of the soldiers were experiencing, it could have exacerbated or caused their death in addition. So these two main diseases these researchers found, you know, they, they say in their discussion, you know, we only looked at 13 teeth. So it could be that there actually was some typhoid and that there actually was some B Quintana too, but we didn't see any of it. And so, you know, maybe we just didn't sample the right people or maybe what we thought caused the the majority of this death was not actually the the pathogen that caused it. And maybe it was more likely this paratyphoid problem along with this body lice disease called relapsing fever, which is super, super rare now. I mean, both of these diseases are rare in developed countries. You do see a louse borne relapsing fever in some regions of Africa where it's still endemic. Para typhoid. I actually don't know how common para typhoid is because there's no, there's no vaccine for it. The typhoid vaccine can help a little bit, but there is no vaccine for para typhoid. Oh, here we go. 6 million people a year are affected, most common in parts of Asia, very rare in the developed world. Can cause 30,000 deaths a year. It's very similar to typhoid. So we're talking fever, headache, abdominal pain, malaise, wasting like muscle wasting, non productive cough, slowed heart rate, and I guess spots. You get rosy spots. Not everybody does, but some people do. And abdominal pain with them, nausea, vomiting, vomiting, diarrhea, all that good stuff. But Karen?

'''S:''' Do you think is it fair to say, because you know, a lot of ancient armies, they die of like disease and exhaustion and malnutrition and and climate, whatever. I know Alexandria, Alexander the Great's army, like half of them or more died from dysentery or other illnesses. So we're, and I know the same is true of Napoleon's army, especially during this retreat from Moscow. But do you think is it fair to say that they died of diarrhea, whether it was typhus or another disease that could also cause diarrhea, I mean?

'''C:''' Probably basically they originally thought that, you know, dying of whatever this disease is. They actually in the documented symptomatology they do say fever, diarrhea and jaundice. Those were the three things that were like heavily documented. So I think it is safe to say. But historically we thought it was typhus and what's called trench fever, which is that beat Quintana. And now the researchers are saying actually it may have been para typhus, louse born relapsing fever, not typhus and trench fever. Fun trench.

'''S:''' Fever is one of those wonderfully archaic sounding diseases, right? Yeah, it's old. Time like trench fever and trench in foot. The drop season.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's which is why I couldn't come up with it, because when you actually look at modern write ups of Bartonella Quintana, CDC or NIH or WHO write ups of it, they don't call it trench fever anymore. So you have to specifically Google Trench Fever to learn about the fact that that's what caused it.

'''S:''' Shell shock, yeah.

'''C:''' Exactly. There's so many of those things. Trench foot.

'''E:''' Trench foot. Yep. Yeah.

'''C:''' World War 2, that was still pretty big. What was?

'''E:''' It foot do they still call it foot, mouth disease, puff and. Mouth disease. Both in mouth disease.

'''S:''' Yes, that is correct I think.

'''C:''' But trench foot specifically is that's.

'''S:''' Just from having your feet wet for weeks wet.

'''C:''' Yeah. It's, we now call it immersion foot syndrome, cold and wet for a long period of time. And it can cause, you know, all sorts of horrible things and eventually you can lose your feet. Yeah.

'''S:''' Terrible. Yeah.

'''C:''' Horrid.

'''U:''' All right.

'''S:''' Thanks Karen, not.

'''C:''' How Napoleon's army died. Yeah. Hi there.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Making Better Photosynthesis (34:51) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65307-9
|article_title = Reprogramming encapsulins into modular carbon-fixing nanocompartments | Nature Communications
|publication = www.nature.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, guys, I'm going to talk to you about photosynthesis. You guys know what photosynthesis is, right? Of course, yes. Yes. All right, Evan, tell me what it is. What's the core of photosynthesis?

'''E:''' By the core, By core you mean like what happens? You mean plants? Or when plants absorb the energy from the sun and turn and do and have a chemical process by which it derives its energy? And yeah, what's? That chemical process? Carbon. Dioxide they're.

'''C:''' Fixing carbon, Yeah.

'''S:''' The key piece is the taking of carbon from carbon dioxide in the air to build the sugars, right? That is the food, the carbohydrate, and then.

'''C:''' They also respire they. Respire oxygen, yes. They still they respire and they photosynthesize now does.

'''S:''' Anybody know what the key enzyme is that fixes carbon from the atmosphere?

'''B:''' Is it enzyme 4716? No. Are you sure it?

'''S:''' Is Rubisco, OH?

'''C:''' Rubisco ribulose 15 biphosphate carboxylase, oxygenase obviously, right? We'll call it Rubisco. What?

'''S:''' No, obviously, don't worry.

'''C:''' I looked. That up. I did not know that up.

'''B:''' Sounds like a hot sauce. It's. Impressive this.

'''S:''' Process of, of photosynthesis using Ribisco as a the main enzyme driving it is the key to all life on earth, right? I mean most of the energy that is consumed by life is produced in this process. And you know, we most of our food we grow is dependent on this process. What's interesting is that in plants the Ribisco based photosynthesis is really inefficient. It's massively inefficient.

'''C:''' Well, it never needed to be, right? There's just plants everywhere. Need.

'''S:''' Is an interesting concept evolutionarily. Right.

'''C:''' There was no and there was no environmental pressure for it to become more efficient. So I.

'''S:''' I don't think that's accurate. I think it's easy. It's better to say that plants found a very inefficient solution to the Rubisco inefficiency problem. Their solution was just to mass produce Rubisco, right?

'''B:''' It's what about the idea of like, it's much harder to go back then. Well, there's continue forward, right? There's the.

'''S:''' Evolutionary constraints, you know that may why didn't we hit upon other solutions? You know, like once plants hit upon that solutions like we're going to it's basically yeah, we're good brute force our way to to making more food from sunlight by just making tons of Rubisco. It was just an easy Yeah, maybe it's.

'''C:''' Cheap and easy for a plant. Easy.

'''S:''' Way to do it by some estimates like you know that half of the protein in a photosynthesizing part of a plant could be Rubisco, you know and.

'''C:''' Wow. So well, but then again, that is it's like main driving. Yeah, so. Yeah, so.

'''S:''' So for plants, it was fine. Yeah, just make a ton of this stuff. We can do it. It's it is an easy, evolutionarily easy solution. Just make more. But the problem is when now we are trying to feed the, you know, 8 billion plus people by growing crops as efficiently as possible that just brute force your way through it and make a ton of Rubisco is becomes the limiting factor in the efficiency of agriculture. Right, right.

'''E:''' Like. Silicon to computer chips, right? Yeah.

'''S:''' And so specifically the very high need of nitrogen fertilizer comes from the fact that you need nitrogen to make Rubisca, right? So that a lot of that fertilizer and a lot of water. So water use and fertilizer use in crops, you know, a lot of that is due to this very brute force solution that plants evolved, you know, in order to maximize their photosynthesis. Now there's a couple of other living organisms that also photosynthesize that are not plants that hit a pod.

'''U:''' A.

'''S:''' Different solution. What were you called, Ribisco?

'''C:''' Blue-green algae, yes.

'''S:''' Algae, absolutely algae and and some bacteria and they came up with a different solutions rather than just like producing tons of ribisco. Do you know what solution they came upon? A.

'''E:''' Different enzyme?

'''S:''' No, not A. Bad thought. What's called CO2 concentrating mechanisms or CCM. So they evolved to get as much CO2 next to the Rubisco as possible so that it the enzyme becomes more efficient. So rather than having 10 times as much, you make it 10 times as efficient. Just to throw a number out there.

'''B:''' Right. Just by having CO2 closer, yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a reaction.

'''J:''' Why it's a?

'''S:''' Reaction, right? So you need to have lots of interaction between Rubisco and CO2 by having lots of Rubisco. Or you could maximize that interaction by concentrating the CO2 over a little bit of Rabisco. That makes sense.

'''B:''' Yeah, that's. That relatively. Easy fix evolutionarily, why didn't more? Well.

'''S:''' What it's not.

'''C:''' A good thing, necessarily. Think about the fact that our oceans are acidifying and we're seeing these massive algal blooms everywhere that kill everything else off.

'''S:''' Well, it's.

'''C:''' Probably because they're able to use that carbon so much more efficiently than like the other organisms. Right.

'''S:''' But I mean, it wasn't a problem in nature, we're making it a problem, right?

'''C:''' But it's a problem now because.

'''S:''' We are because, yes, because we are part part of the reason for that is we have to give so much nitrogen to our agricultural plants to make them grow optimally. And if some of that fertilizer gets washed into the ocean, now you have these very efficient organisms with all this nitrogen and they just go crazy, right?

'''C:''' Yeah, tons. Of that, not just some tons of yeah. It's a lot, all right.

'''S:''' So but what if, what if we could get that CO2 concentrating mechanism, that CCM as they call it, into our crops? That's this has been the goal for decades of researchers. They were looking for. How can we do this? Now, one of these specific mechanisms is what's called a Rubisco containing compartment. You put the Rubisco in a box and you get CO2 in that box and that's how you increase its concentration of CO2. That makes sense. It's very conceptually very simple. Just put it in a box with a bunch of CO2 and the reactions happen in the box and you're good. That's how the box the the algae solve the problem rather than just making a bunch of of Rubisco. All right, so researchers have made a proof of concept, right? By creating their own box for Rubisco and showing that it can actually work. It can increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. Now what do? What do you think they make the box out of?

'''B:''' Polymerosomes.

'''S:''' Very close. The same kind of idea, right? Basically, liposomes, this is that technology that we're talking about, right? Where you just encapsulate things into fat. Yeah, these bubbles. All right, so they made one, but you have to get Rubisco inside these cages, right? So what they figured out is that you have to make the cage around the right the Rubisco. You can't get it in there after the fact.

'''B:''' Why? Why can't you shove the Rubisco in there after you make the cage?

'''S:''' Whatever they couldn't they this has been the trick, right? Making this happen, you know, at a nano level. So they they are they were working with the Rubisco containing compartments from cyanobacteria specifically called part carboxysomes. So we had the polymerosomes from J. Now we have the carboxysomes from Photosynthesis and they were able to tag it with this 14 amino acids so that that would load the Ribisco inside of it, right? So basically something that would latch onto the Ribisco and then build the cage around the Ribisco. Does that make sense? So they had to build it at the right time, you know, as the plant develops so that it's the cages are forming when the rubisco's being made. Yeah. Yeah. Because they didn't do that. Then the then the IT didn't assemble properly and didn't work. This is all the technology, right? You got to get stuff to work. There's always these little, these little how many?

'''E:''' Trials in there, yeah.

'''S:''' There's a lot of trials, a lot of little things you got to go through all right, so but eventually, eventually they were able to make the carboxysomes package up the Rubisco and they they worked, you know, they they you know, but they they haven't, you know, completely develop the technology yet, right? This is this is just a proof of concept and there are additional components that they're going to need to get in there in order for this to fully work, right. And then of course, we need to get them into crops so that our wheat and corn and rice are using this method. And this isn't the only research being done into, you know, again, this carbon concentrating methods is this is the whole approach. But the good news is you could look at always look at in terms of good news. Good news is there's a lot of headroom on efficiency photosynthesis in our crops because by chance plants evolve this inefficient method, which means all we got to do is figure out a way to get this either algae or cyanobacteria method into crops and again this is a significant progress in doing that and then if we do that what that means is not only will our produce be way higher yield, but they will use significantly less water and nitrogen fertilizer. So this could be an absolute game changer for agriculturist yes, be an absolutely good. So it's that's why it's worth, you know, doing developing this technology and investing a lot in in this kind of research and also multiple different ways like we can not put all our eggs in one basket. Like we could try to, you know, address this issue with multiple different approaches. How?

'''B:''' Beneficial. Would this be just massive during during the especially though? Especially during like the zombie apocalypse, all the canned food's gone. You got to actually grow your own food. Oh look, I've got this new plant 2.0 that's much more efficient. That's going to be a lot easier to it.

'''S:''' Could be in a second green revolution, right? Oh my.

'''B:''' God, yeah, if it works as we hope, I can't see how it wouldn't be. Well, the. Potential is there, right?

'''S:''' That's the bottom line is the potential is there. They're making progress on the technology. Conceptually, I think we have our heads wrapped around this. We just got to keep track of it and see how it goes. And obviously there's a lot of GMO research that's going on to do the same thing, you know, to get right some kind of of carbon concentrating technology going. There's also different types of Ribisco that are more efficient and, and some plants have them and some don't. So getting the C4 versus C3 into all the plants can also give a boost of 1020% to productivity, which is huge. You know, you have the potential here is just massive.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Second Generation Black Holes (46:13) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-10-gravitational-events-hint-generation-black.html
|article_title = Gravitational wave events hint at 'second-generation' black holes
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, Bob, tell us about second generation black holes. All right.

'''B:''' So my title for this is well, kind of as Black hole zombies in the news. They're dead stars and they Raven ravenously eat their own. Now, at least that's what a pay a recent paper is saying. But not in those words, of course, not even close. Did they even use those words? But a more conventional opener for this news item might go like this gravitational wave. Astronomers report 2 unusual black hole mergers that are the best evidence yet for second generation black holes. The paper was recently published on this in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. OK, from these collisions were revealed by not just LIGO, we're talking LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA collaboration these respectively. Those are the gravitational wave observatories for the United States, Italy and Japan. And three together they make quite a team up. So they we know this, right? They measure subatomic scale distortions in space-time caused by distant cataclysmic events like colliding black holes or neutron stars. So it's a new, it's a new era in astronomy, multi messenger astronomy where you can look at the radiation from objects in space, but you could also look at what it does to the fabric of space-time itself. OK, so last year they came across 2 unusual but similar black hole collisions within a month, within a month of each other, although one was 700 million light years distant and the other was over 2 billion light years distant. Imagine there's they're traveling through space all that time and they they hit our observatories within one month. LSE spokesman Stephen Fairhurst described it as among the most novel events among the several 100 that the LIGO Virgo KAGRA network has observed. So why, why was this special? So both of these collisions were interesting in that now imagine you've got 4 black holes, 2 and they're binary. So they got 2 binaries for. For each of these binaries, one of the pair was extra massive, right? It was more like more than twice as massive as as its partner that it that it's orbiting around. So for example, one was 17 solar masses and its partner was 7, and the other binary pair had a 16 solar mass primary and an 8 solar mass secondary black hole. So they were much, they were unbalanced in terms of of their mass. But these larger black holes also had very unusual spins. 1 was among the fastest spinners ever, ever seen. I was trying to figure out, OK, this, this star is spinning really fast, almost the fastest ever detected. So how do you put that into context? And it's really hard because there's there's no solid surface here. It's the it's dimensionless. So it's hard to actually describe it. But so the best I can come up with was a fair way to think about it is that the space-time at the black holes horizon like 83 kilometers wide was frame dragging around and around about 400 times per second. It's literally pulling space with it and sounds pretty disorienting and potentially spaghettifying as well. So the other, the other larger black hole was bizarre as well in that it's spin wasn't necessarily as as fast, but it was the the spin was in the opposite direction of its orbit. So that that's a retrograde spin that has literally never been seen with this level of clarity and confidence before. We they think they've seen them before, but it was just very fuzzy and hard to make out. This one was like basically crystal clear as far as I could tell. Retrograde, retrograde spin on a black hole. So what does this all? What does this all mean? So what seeing that seeing binary black holes where one member has twice the mass and in addition, this atypical rotation implies what it implies a violent history for that black hole. Something happened in its past that was pretty, pretty nasty. So the simplest explanation is that those larger black holes, but they weren't just simple remnants, you know, they they didn't form from just one step dead star and have been hanging out ever since. They likely formed from previous collisions and the resulting larger mass and the weird spins that they saw initially were, were basically, you could look at it as like scars from those previous, those previous mergers that had happened in its past. So it let these, so when these black holes smashed together in the past, it left these fingerprints on it when they merged with other black holes in the future. They, they show that these scars from having already, you know, already merging previously. So they liken these now to what, what they're calling second generation black holes, which experience what they refer to as hierarchical mergers. Black holes that merge over and over suggest that they formed in these dense environments like star clusters where this can happen. So it's not like a typical, when you think of a black hole, you know, an ordinary stellar mass black hole, you know, you know, a very large star goes to its life cycle and it explodes in a supernova and it becomes a classic black hole. They kind of like stay there and encounters with other black holes are a very, very rare, rare because you're kind of like in your solar system and there's not the nearest star or black hole could be many, many light years away. But these look like they, they formed in dense environments, so dense that the, the, the closest black holes and other stars were close enough where they could over the, over the years, of course, many millions of years, they could merge together over and over and over. So this helps us elucidate this, this, this life cycle or you know, this life cycle of some black holes and what you know, you know, what their journey through, through their existence is like compared to say, other black holes. So, So for me, though, the real take away and potential of these of these observatories, it was expressed by Gianluca Jeme. He's a spokesperson of the Virgo collaboration. He said these detections highlight the extraordinary capabilities of our global gravitational wave observatories. And he couldn't be more right with that. I'm constantly amazed at what these with what these a wave observatories can do. No instrument, no instrument ever created by humanity can detect changes in distance better and smaller than than than a proton like LIGO and and its siblings do basically on an on a daily basis. It's amazing how exquisitely sensitive they are. They help us interpret these distant laboratories in space that could never exist on Earth with the with the tremendous energies that they unleash. We would never be able to. I mean, we could model it on supercomputers probably, but actually observe serving real reality and as a as a laboratory, these are colliding black holes. We're only ever going to just observe these in distant space. This allows us these, these devices, these, this technology allows us to stress test general relativity in ways that we'll never, that we'd never be able to do otherwise. And the fact that, that LIGO and Virgo and Kagrg and, and their future descendants continue to be refined and become even more sensitive than ever means that they will be even more sensitive to any new physics that may go beyond Einstein's general relativity or our standard model of physics. So the more sensitive they become, the better, the better they will be to to sense new physics when it finally, you know, finally, if ever emerges out out of there brand new branches of physics like that is a is a Holy Grail, obviously, and would certainly win future Nobel prizes and offer insights into deeper layers of our universe. If any of that interests you. Of course, that's all I got, Steve all.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== More on 3I/ATLAS (53:53) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.ladbible.com/news/science/3iatlas-alien-spaceship-earth-comet-359926-20251029
|article_title = Everything we know about mystery ‘alien spaceship’ expert warned could 'change course for Earth' today
|publication = www.ladbible.com
}}

'''S:''' Right. Interesting. Thanks, Bob. All right, Evan, Avi Loeb is at it again. What's going on? Oh my. God, yeah.

'''E:''' Well, there's news this week because, well, October 29th was just yesterday and comet three I Atlas made its closest approach to our sun. So that has to do with Avi Loeb in the news. I'll get to him in a moment. The anticipation for this day was built up for several months, actually, as scientists and the public have anxiously, maybe not anxiously, but but they've been waiting to see if this stranger from outside our solar system is going to swing around the sun as well. Standard models would predict. Or is this something other than a comet that has the capability of altering its own trajectory in some way, which would be a very strong indicator that it's not a comet at all, but rather something out of a science fiction novel. Hmm, I wonder what the results are. We're going to find out. But comet three I Atlas, Yes. First of all, a little history was discovered on July 1st, 2025, and since then, astronomers have been doing everything they can to learn as much about it. Because unlike other comets, 3 I Atlas doesn't orbit our Sun. It's an interstellar comet, one of only three that we've ever seen. Hence the designation 3I3 Interstellar. It is thought to be at least 7 billion years old, which is almost twice as old as Earth and apparently the oldest comet that's been observed. So that alone makes the study of this comment a rare chance to try and learn something about ancient objects hurtling around from outside of our solar system. But it also, unfortunately, opens an opportunity for fringe scientists, crank pseudo scientists and conspiracy theorists to have a field day playing with this chunk of debris from a distant part of our universe. Yeah, so here's something unusual to our understanding. Let's go crazy with our imaginations. They say it doesn't work that way, folks. We've mentioned Three Eye Atlas on the show many times over the last few months since that July discovery. And not the least of reasons why is because of that astronomer from Harvard University, Dr. Avi Loeb. He's made quite a name for himself occupying that fringe science or fringe scientist category in my opinion. He made international headlines back in 2018 for arguing that the interstellar object O mua mua might have been a light sail sent by an ancient civilization. And more recently he led an expedition to the Pacific Ocean to recover debris from IM one. That was that 2014 meteor that he also suggested could be of interstellar origin and possibly artificial. Both cases drew wide attention, but none of Loeb's extraordinary interpretations have stood up to any peer reviewed scrutiny. But three I Atlas. Loeb's theory is that, well, yet again, here's another candidate for extraterrestrial technology. It is cleverly disguised, maybe, maybe as a comet, yet revealing, because the comet does not behave like other comets that scientists have been able to study, the ones that originate and continue move in orbit in our own solar system. He describes these anomalies as such. These are jets of material that apparently pointing toward the sun rather than away from it and almost complete lack of a visible tail and an emission of nickel without any sign of iron where you would normally have the two of those coming out in a predictable ratio. So this is an that's considered an extremely unusual mix. It's.

'''S:''' Almost as if we've never seen an interstellar comet before. Well, that's.

'''E:''' The point right is that's what this all boils down to is that we're learning you.

'''S:''' Know it's the first interstellar comet. It's a third interstellar object. Third.

'''E:''' Interstellar object, so.

'''S:''' It's the first time we're seeing something like this and he's saying, but there's unusual stuff we've never seen before, therefore we need to seriously consider aliens. It's for.

'''C:''' Aliens.

'''E:''' Yeah, I went to Earth's guy. Earth's guy's a good website. They they they've done good work on tracking Three I Atlas and its movements and the plausibility at all of what Avi Loeb has to say about this. And there's really nothing here that requires any alien engineering degree whatsoever. It's moving on a hyperbolic trajectory. It's going to sling it back out of the solar system after it passes near the sun as the models describe. And this is observations from multiple observatories. This isn't just one source looking at this the the pan stars 2 telescope has been tracking it. NASA's neo wise mission is tracking this as well among among others. And it really has all the hallmarks of a typical, it's volatile, but it's typical interstellar comet that they say it's losing water and gas as it warms. And it's faint it, it has a faint coma. You know, it's not they say it's just not dramatically seen as some of the other comets that we've been, you know, have have observed in the past. Jet's pointing towards the sun that can be explained away by as an optical geometry effect because of our viewing angle and solar illumination. So there are there are answers to all of the questions, all of the anomalies that are being that are being posed here. Again, none of it you have to go to alien engineering for. Yeah. So what happened? Yeah, it reached the sun just yesterday. And again, the latest observations, it's it's on its way back out of the solar system now. But it has not made any dramatic turns. It has not done anything out of out of the usual that is not displaying any kind of of behavior that would say, hey, we need to really scrutinize this and take a second look at it and maybe Avi Loeb or someone else is on to something. None of that is occurring. This is acting as a comet should act. Oh, did you know I hadn't heard this one before I researched it for this news item. There's speculation that the objects reversed engineered trajectory points towards the same direction as the WOW signal that was detected back in 1970.

'''B:''' 7.

'''E:''' Really.

'''B:''' No way man. I mean.

'''E:''' That's, you know, how accurate could that?

'''B:''' Be a.

'''E:''' Point for creativity but you know I mean trying to stir up old controversies and old you know old conspiracy theories is is rather interesting I thought that they were able to bring back the wow signal and fold it into this into this event as well he's.

'''S:''' Spiraling down the crank drain, this guy. So now he's saying that NASA's withholding photographic evidence that could prove that he's correct. Yeah.

'''J:''' Just just for him to anything for him to be correct, right?

'''S:''' So this is the pattern he's falling into and it's actually weight may work worse than weight, worse than we've already documented. So for example, he said, oh, it doesn't have a coma. A coma should have a comma. And then there was a paper that showed that it does have a coma. And they said the papers wrong because because why? Because it shows that he then he had to admit that it that it did have a coma and said, well, maybe it has a coma because the interstellar craft picked up dust from its interstellar travel. Oh my God. Therefore it so it just keeps, you know, just changing what he's claiming. You know, it's just getting more and more silly. They said, oh, it's you know, it's glowing with its own light, you know, which is not true. Yeah, the anti tail, the tail pointing forward is likely because the stuff that's coming, you know, what happens is the the the comet gets heated up by the sun. That's what creates the coma. And then the solar wind creates the tail, right. So it's blows the stuff away. But if the particles are very heavy, they won't quickly get pushed away by the solar wind. They will. They will just keep going and radiating out from the comet. And the brightest point on the comet is the one that's facing the sun, right? So you're going to have ejected material going towards the sun. And if it's heavy particles, it won't get pushed into a typical cometary tail, hence you're left with an anti tail. Does that make sense? And this, and we've seen this before. And then you would expect well, overtime it still will get pushed into a regular tail. It'll just take longer because the particles are heavier. And that's what's happening. That's what we're seeing as time goes on. But he, you know, The thing is, again, I don't have a problem with saying, oh, could this observation be consistent with an alien craft, whatever. But this is just not the kind of thing that should be shopped to the public at this stage, because this is completely consistent with just a regular comet or, you know, an interest in interstellar comet with some unusual features that we've never seen before. Because it's interstellar. That's it. It's, you know, the probability of this turning into something fantastic like an alien spacecraft is negligible. But maybe it's not technically 0, but it's pretty damn low. And it's certainly Occam's razor dictates that, you know, we have to rule out, you know, non alien, you know, interpretations first, just regular old astronomical object stuff first. And he's just making a career going on. Joe Rogan now talking about how NASA's hiding data. I mean, this is he's.

'''C:''' Been coming just a straight.

'''S:''' Up crank now.

'''C:''' People aren't just picking this up. He's got a publicist, you know? He is, yeah.

'''B:''' He, he has, he has sullied these interstellar close calls for, for years, for years whenever and, and we're we're going to get to the point where we could literally, you know, potentially detect 2/3 of these every year and, and now for years. If everyone's going to be talking about what is this also an alien craft? It I also expect him at this point to say these, those aliens are so smart that they made this one look just like an icy ball of rock and not, you know, not what it really is. That's how good they are. Like really, I expect to hear that from him anytime now, how good the aliens are at disguising real. Shame. It detracts.

'''E:''' It detracts from the wonder of the science of all of this. That's what really should be on showcase here is how amazing these things are and the fact that we are able to learn these new things about them. That's that's the real how excitement here as far as I'm how American.

'''B:''' Is this whole thing right? It's just like. There's a chance. Of real interesting science. No, it's aliens. I don't.

'''S:''' Think that's uniquely American as.

'''E:''' Far as NASA not releasing the photo, not all of their devices spit out photos as fast as others. And you know the I think it was the what, the high rise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. That takes time to, to get those images to, to come out of that particular 1. And that's the one he was referring to. So he, he doesn't bring that into his discussion at all when he's talking about it. You know, that this is, this is, this is this particular instrument does take a long time to render these pictures. No, no, no. Instead it's NASA's hiding stuff. So yeah, that that's what throws him into the crank category when he starts doing stuff like that.

'''J:''' Yeah, I mean, the guy is probably drunk on money and the, you know, the the thing that he's getting for it.

'''E:''' Yep. And that's he's selling.

'''J:''' It's a good lesson here, you know, like you can watch it in real time. Just watch him slide down the crazy hole, you know, just because he's getting other things that are apparently more important than real science. Well, even.

'''S:''' If you put the motivations aside, I do think there's a feedback loop of why aren't I being taken seriously for my crank ideas and to people are just closed minded to their hiding data to their wrong to there's a conspiracy and it's all you know what I mean. You just keep that. I think the feedback loop that he is going down right now.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:05:35) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? Yes.

'''J:''' It is all right guys, last week I played this noisy. That's pretty weird. What do you think?

'''E:''' Did anyone suggest it was a Morse code signal of something? No, no. OK, you.

'''J:''' Did though maybe? Are you gonna stick with that?

'''E:''' Possible that's what they were going for. I just don't know what what made the noise though. All right, well.

'''J:''' We got, I got a lot of guesses, some fun ones. There was a lot of people sending in a lot of jokey stuff. Thank you for the laughs. But I, you know, obviously I can't really, I can't go, I can't go all in on that. But this one, this one made me laugh. This guy is named Kevin Walsh. And he says, hi, Jay, I think you're at the point where if it sounds like a bird, it's probably not. But if it's a bird, it doesn't sound like one. That being said, this doesn't sound like a bird, so I'm going to guess it's a woodpecker. I'm like, OK, it is not a woodpecker. And Steve, have you ever heard a woodpecker make any kind of sound like that? No.

'''S:''' They're usually way more rhythmic, yeah.

'''U:''' And they?

'''E:''' Laugh a lot to into the cartoons.

'''J:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' That's only the pileated woodpecker.

'''J:''' I have another listener named Gary Blandford, Gary said. To me it sounded like a lead worker flattening or shaping the lead sheet prior to welding or other processes. Keep up the great work. That's an interesting guess. I, I haven't worked with lead, I've only worked with iron. So I don't, I don't hear, I don't hear that, but that was interesting. I actually want to, I want to know what that sounds like now. Another listener named Nicole H said hi. This is my first time writing. I was bummed a few weeks ago because I recognized the roller coaster noise, but I didn't send an e-mail. This is a lesson to everyone out there. Take the chance, send the e-mail sometimes. You're going to be right. She continues. This week's noise sounds like liquid filled bottles rolling downstairs.

'''B:''' Interesting I've.

'''J:''' Heard this noise. This is is not correct, but thank you for the guess. Scott Wesley writes in sounds too simple and I think you've done it before, but it sounds like one of those playground pipes where you can tap with your hands or slip on flat shoes to make these sort of noises. It sounds very clean, though, either either well practiced or I'm wrong. So Scott, did you mean did I have I played the playground pipe noise before or I wasn't crystal clear on what you said or what you meant by that. But the bottom line is almost sure I have never played this noisy before. I mean, it is a hard thing because the noises go back into when Evan used to do it as well. So I don't have perfect clarity. I have OK clarity on that, particularly things that are like over five years ago. Anyway, you are incorrect and that's all fine. It's OK to be wrong. As Steve says, he's wrong all the time, right? No, he never says that. Hi. Anyway, so nobody won and I you know it. Always completely baffles my mind when people don't guess that it's a bird. When it's a bird, and this is a bird, Steve, you want me to play it again and you want to try to guess sure.

'''S:''' All right.

'''J:''' Here we go. What do you think?

'''S:''' I have no idea, Bird. It's an emu. What you. Doing you're.

'''J:''' Right, I actually wrote down how to pronounce it. It's an emu.

'''B:''' Nice, I told.

'''J:''' You later in the show, I was going to mispronounce it, you hear? Me say that all right. So it's an emu, emu, emu and these are large flightless birds. They live in their native to Australia. They are the second largest bird in the world after the ostrich. The adults can grow to about 6 1/2 feet tall and weigh around 100 to 130 lbs. And of course they have long necks. That's how they get up that high. Strong legs, brownish feathers that look shaggy because each feather has a double shaft. Very cool bird. I have a new noisy for you guys this week and here it is. I'll say it now. You got to put it in before Steve ready. Yeah. So this noisy this week, guys. This one has very high pitched, somewhat annoying tinging sounds. So if you want, turn your volume down a little bit just to make sure you don't don't hurt yourself. The people in the background have nothing to do with this, just so you know. All right, guys, if you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, e-mail me at WTN. Finish it Steve at.

'''S:''' Theskypethisguy.org there.

'''J:''' You go. All right, Steve, There's stuff.

'''S:''' Yeah, there is stuff.

'''J:''' OK, so First off, we have tickets for sale. We have a bunch of shows planned. We're calling this the ERE, the Exclusive Rogue Encounter. What is it, you might ask? This is the result of people emailing us like, for a very long time asking us they want something they, they like the VIP things that we do, but they want something more intense, you know, like an intense VIP thing. So we thought we'd turn this kind of like, into, you know, a Disney World attraction where you will encounter us like we are dinosaurs. No, that's not what it is. This is going to be this. This is going to be exclusive, meaning the numbers are going to be very low and it's going to be more intimate. We are going to have, you know, it's going to be like you and a handful of other people hanging out with the SGU. We don't know exactly.

'''C:''' We're not. Performing we're engaging, we're.

'''J:''' Talking, yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Private. Time with the SGU. Yeah.

'''J:''' I mean, it's going to be a lot of fun. We, we don't know exactly what we're going to do because we'll, you know, we'll think about it. We could do anything. It could be anything from listening to music to, you know, to playing games, to slap and George around, just whatever, you know, whatever we decide. But it'll be fun and this will happen on Friday night. I'm not going to say anything else about that because the the tickets are not up yet, or they might be by the time this episode comes up, if not exclusive.

'''US#02:''' This is, yeah.

'''J:''' They'll be next week. Bottom line is watch out for that on the home, on the SGU homepage. Then you know that will be January 9th. And on January 10th we have two shows. We have the SGU Private show and we have the SGU Extravaganza with George Robb. All those tickets are available on thesgu.org site. And then we Fast forward now to Saturday, May 16th, that's in Madison, WI at the Atwood Music Hall. It'll be the same exact arrangement. I just said Friday night exclusive rogue encounter the Saturday, which is actually the 16th, we'll have both the SGU private show and the Skeptical Extravaganza stage show. And just to let you know, we're going to be doing a show in New Haven at some point, that's New Haven, CT. Those those dates will be coming out soon. It'll be sometime in the probably early spring. And also if guys, if you want to support the work that we do, you can go to patreon.com for slash skeptic's guide. Thank.

'''S:''' You, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:12:32) ==


'''S:''' All right, we got a quick e-mail. This one comes from Norbert, who asks. Here is my paraphrase of what a psychologist said on a radio program many years ago. Humans have reflexes, drives, and urges, but humans do not have or act on instinct. At the time, I simply accepted the comment as accurate, but what are your thoughts? I thought that this might make an interesting segment for the show. All right. Well, thank you, Norbert. I think it is an interesting question, Cara. What do you think about that? Do humans have instinct?

'''C:''' I have to look at specifically how they worded this your.

'''S:''' Immediate reaction is it depends on the details which I mean.

'''C:''' How to define reflexes? Drives and urges, but they do not have instinct. Well, how isn't a reflex not an instinct? Like this is all just operational definition Exactly.

'''S:''' But I'd rather like this is. It depends on your definition. This is a semantic argument because we.

'''C:''' We do have reflexes and drives and urges, and I don't think there's a difference between an instinct and an urge or a drive. I think what they're asking is do we have things that are innate versus environmentally influenced? And we do, totally.

'''B:''' We totally have innate flight thoughts, feelings, behaviors.

'''S:''' Yeah, and.

'''C:''' Like suckling exactly. Yeah. Coughing, like, yeah, all of those things. So we have these basic kind of neurological ones, but I think.

'''S:''' Even more complicated, I think the parenting instinct is absolutely real, yeah.

'''C:''' There are definitely instincts. I mean, and, and people have them when they have pets even. I think whenever there's something in your charge that you're caring for, there are certain, you know, neurotransmitters, there's certain brain states that you experience. But then again, there's always an exception to the rule because there's some people who have weaker versions of that. There are people with psychopathy who might struggle with, you know, empathy and probably those things aren't triggered.

'''S:''' Yeah. Now I think where where people might make a distinction is that because all of these things, reflexes, drives, urges, instinct, whatever you want to call it, the more neurologically sophisticated a species species is, the more higher level cognitive processes will be affecting these behaviors and feelings, etcetera, right. So just because, like, as human beings, we can think about stuff and alter our behavior accordingly, doesn't mean we don't have the instincts, right? Doesn't mean the instincts aren't there I think.

'''C:''' There's also a big difference between what we're talking about like quote neurological, what I would actually not use the word instinct, I would use the word reflex or drive or urge. And what we often think of as instincts are can be learned, but there's still instincts because we have heuristics and we have biases. And so even though there's a lot of environmental influence, there is still the quick reaction, you know, the thinking fast and slow. And when we have the quick reaction, whether it is socially influenced or whether it is biologically influenced, there it's the immediate reaction versus the higher level. I need to sit and think about this. Yeah. And so some people might call that an instinct. It depends on how you define it, right?

'''S:''' But I think by any reasonable definition we have, there's instincts in that, you know, the, the core part of the definition is it's, there are some things that are, are innate that affects our thoughts, feelings that behaviors, absolutely.

'''C:''' Yeah, and pulling away your hand from a hot fire, you can call it a reflex, sure, but we also have the cognitive ability to override that and force our hand there even if it burns. So it's like even a reflex is more complicated than that. So I think the word instinct is just a loaded word and they're using it. Whatever your professor was or the the the psychologist on the radio program was, my hope is that they contextualized it more than that. They didn't just say that sentence and then like, go dead silent, right?

'''S:''' You can't leave it there, Yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' I mean, I reflexes have a very specific definition in neurology, so I would reserve them for that. Those are, those are usually things that are happening at a peripheral level, you know, or if they are.

'''C:''' In the knee with or if they are.

'''S:''' In the brain, they're in a subconscious level. It's like a circuit. It is literally a circuit that does not involve any higher level thought and may in fact be completely independent of it. Like you can't even impact it with your higher level thought right?

'''C:''' So like instinct, for example, as opposed to reflex would be like maybe pulling, pulling your hand away. Or it's like there's all the obviously famous little Albert experiments, which were flawed, but whatever. And most psychologists generally agree that there are two main fears that infants have loud noises and heights falling.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah, like falling and loud noises that those are just things that quote UN quote innately, they're instinctive.

'''B:''' Reactive.

'''C:''' They're instinctive, yeah, But then they can learn all sorts of other ones and they feel instinctive. It feels instinctive to recoil to a snake, but that is learned. That's.

'''B:''' That's totally fully learned.

'''C:''' There's all sorts of cool experiments where they put babies with snakes and the babies are just like, grabbing at them and like, totally not concerned at all, right? Yeah, right.
{{anchor|ntlf}}
== Name That Logical Fallacy (1:17:44) ==
Topic: Argument from Ignorance https://www.tiktok.com/@latterdaylogic/video/7564860024363732238?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

'''S:''' OK, we're going to do a name that logical foul as well. This one comes from TikTok. So this is also a from TikTok. But this was someone who care. I believe is a Mormon who who according to their their faith, there were horses, modern horses in the Americas prior to contact with the Europeans, right. But of course scientists, you know, historians say that there is no modern horses in the Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans that.

'''C:''' Only. Only like extinct horses, yes.

'''S:''' Yeah. And those extinct horses probably all migrated over from Europe. The horses evolved in Europe and Asia, and then there were waves of immigration from over the Bering Strait when that was passable, et cetera. And then modern horses evolved in Europe and Asia and were brought to the Americas by Europeans basically.

'''C:''' According to the Mormons, Native Americans are a quote lost drive of Israel. I know.

'''S:''' Right. This is all, yeah, we don't have to get into for this piece, but this guy is saying that that argument that there were no modern horses in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans is a logical fallacy. It is the argument from ignorance and and then he backs it up by saying the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So he's trying to use skeptical logic. You know, the kind of arguments that we make in order to say we don't know that there weren't, you know, modern horses in the Americas prior to Europe. You're just basing it on this conflation of absence of evidence with evidence of absence. But that's.

'''C:''' Just another semantic argument. We can't prove that there were no horses, but we can say reasonably that there's no evidence that there were horses, so it's likely there weren't. I don't understand why. Yeah, yes, we say the same thing all the time. We operate as if there were no horses because there's no evidence to think there were.

'''S:''' Exactly. You weren't here for the interview with a philosopher a couple weeks ago where he made a very good point, which I think we need to constantly reinforce, which we have, but he put a good term on it. Science operates by the inference to the best explanation, and that's it's all inference to the best explanation based upon the totality of evidence and not proof, right? It's not math, it's not proof. And so in the context of science, we can see that if you look at all the evidence, right? There's evidence that horses evolved in Europe. And Asia right there, they did not evolve in the Americas. There's no evidence for horses in the Americas prior to contact with Europeans. And we know that Europeans brought their horses over here. And so the simplest actually have Occam's Razor kicking in. The simplest explanation, the one that introduces the fewest new assumptions, as we'd like to say more accurately, and the the best inference to, you know, to the most likely conclusion is Europeans brought modern horses to north to the Americas. They were not here before. Him trying to call that a logical fallacy means it's the fallacy fallacy, right? He does not understand how these these fallacies work. I also often point out that saying absence of evidence is not evidence of absence is technically wrong. It is evidence of absence. It's just a.

'''C:''' Proof of absence. It's a form of evidence. It's a form. Of evidence stuff.

'''S:''' And how good is the evidence? Well, it depends on how much you've looked and how effective whatever your survey technique is.

'''C:''' And we expectation can we sample, Yeah.

'''S:''' Would we have expected to find horses, evidence of horses pre Europeans if they were here? Like would we have expected to find typhus in the remains of Napoleon soldiers? It doesn't prove they didn't have typhus, but we didn't find what we expect to find if they did. And that is absolutely evidence of yeah.

'''C:''' It's just not proof. I use the same argument when people ask me why I call myself an atheist and not agnostic. And I always tell people I think that the term agnostic is a global label. We are all agnostic. We are either theistically agnostic or we are atheistically agnostic. Meaning nobody has full proof. All we can do is operate as if there is no God or as if there is a God or multiple gods. I operate as if there is no God, meaning I am an atheistic agnostic. Some people operate as theistic agnostic, so I drop the agnostic label because it's redundant. But I feel like it's the same thing. Like there, there's evidence of absence all around me, which is why I choose to subscribe to that view. But I cannot prove that there is no God and for.

'''S:''' Instance. The best explanation is we don't need to hypothesize God or gods or supernatural things to explain the world that we see, and it's not a very useful hypothesis anyway. Exactly.

'''B:''' What makes it extra frustrating is the fact that a lot of people will say that they absolutely do have evidence, which of course is no, which of course. They don't, yeah.

'''S:''' They're wrong, so.

'''B:''' Frustrating I.

'''S:''' Always say both. I'm an atheist and an agnostic. I have just a slightly different formulation. I agree with what you said, but I think this is a communication thing because agnosticism operational.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Agnosticism professes the inability to know which you are saying. So you are agnostic.

'''C:''' So I am professor and you're right some people don't profess it but but my argument is I don't care if you profess it, you still.

'''S:''' Atheist, right? There's there's and I got into this argument people before too. 8th there's a strong atheism and weak atheism, right. And strong atheism is, you know, I know there is no God, whereas weak atheism is. I don't believe in God. Yeah, that's my faith in God.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So we are weak atheists and agnostics, which is the only scientific stance it is.

'''C:''' And etymologically speaking, I'm sorry, but atheism is a lack of theism, yes.

'''S:''' Right. That's all that is.

'''C:''' It's not, it's not an assurance that theism is wrong. It's not anti theism. It's atheism, OK?

'''S:''' But we'd like to be philosophically accurate. Yes, how we describe our beliefs. All right, let's go on with science or fiction.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:23:58) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = Good News
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = Engineers have created a form of gallium-doped germanium, materials already used in electronics, that is superconducting at ambient pressures and in the temperature range of liquid nitrogen.
|link1web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-025-02042-8
|link1title = Superconductivity in substitutional Ga-hyperdoped Ge epitaxial thin films | Nature Nanotechnology
|link1pub = www.nature.com

|item2 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.
|link2web = https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231225024129?via%3Dihub
|link2title = Topographical sparse mapping: A neuro-inspired sparse training framework for deep learning models - ScienceDirect
|link2pub = www.sciencedirect.com

|item3 = Researchers demonstrate that a liposomal delivery system can be used to safely deliver a previously unusable anticancer drug with 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, resulting in highly effective treatments for even drug-resistant cancers.
|link3web = https://molecular-cancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12943-025-02444-1
|link3title = Safe delivery of a highly toxic anthracycline derivative through liposomal nanoformulation achieves complete cancer regression | Molecular Cancer | Full Text
|link3pub = molecular-cancer.biomedcentral.com

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = Engineers have created a form of gallium-doped germanium, materials already used in electronics, that is superconducting at ambient pressures and in the temperature range of liquid nitrogen.

|science1 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.

|science2 = Researchers demonstrate that a liposomal delivery system can be used to safely deliver a previously unusable anticancer drug with 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, resulting in highly effective treatments for even drug-resistant cancers.

|rogue1 = Jay
|answer1 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.

|rogue2 = Cara
|answer2 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.

|rogue3 = Evan
|answer3 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.

|rogue4 = Bob
|answer4 = A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses <1% of the energy of current methods, while achieving equal or better results.

|host = Steve
|sweep = y
|clever =
|win =
|swept =
}}

'''Voice-over:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to snip out the fake. There's a sort of theme here, and the theme is Good News Everyone, which I've used many times before. These are all news items. They're all current news items, but they all tend to also be good news. All right, here we go. Item number one, engineers have created a form of gallium, doped germanium materials already used in electronics that is superconducting at ambient pressures and in the temperature range of liquid nitrogen. Item number 2A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses less than 1% of the energy of current methods while achieving equal or better results. And now #3 researchers demonstrate a liposomal delivery system that can be used to safely deliver a previously unusable anti cancer drug with 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, resulting in highly effective treatments for even drug resistant cancers. Jay, go first, all right?

'''J:''' First one engineers have created a form of gallium, doped germanium materials already used in electronics that is superconducting at ambient pressures and in the temperature range of liquid nitrogen. What is Gallium?

'''B:''' Doped to me so dope.

'''S:''' It just means that you come in, you include it just.

'''B:''' Yeah, OK.

'''S:''' It's an engineering term, which means you've added it to the gallium. Atoms have been added to the germanium.

'''J:''' So, Steve, instead of superconduction happening at a much lower temperature, it's happening at the liquid nitrogen level. That's essentially what you're saying here, right? For that for that you're.

'''S:''' Framing it, interestingly, we already have superconducting material that's it at this temperature range, but it's like it's ceramics, right, so.

'''J:''' This is the.

'''S:''' First time we're using like metals, we're already using electronics getting into that range and that's.

'''J:''' A big deal. I can clearly see that. OK. I mean, you know, that's it would be fantastic. I can't think of anything off the top that would go against this being a possibility. Yeah. So I'll just say that's a maybe #2A new framework for deep learning models, trains faster and uses less than 1% of the energy of current methods while achieving equal or better results less than 1% of the energy of current methods. And that, if true, would be a massive, massive gain and and help in so many freaking ways not using all that energy and all the heat that's produced. When you say deep learning, are you including LLMS?

'''S:''' Whatever uses. You know the deep neural net learning methodology.

'''J:''' OK, I mean, I'm pretty, I think.

'''S:''' Yeah, I'm pretty sure that includes LLMS. I mean.

'''J:''' This. That's massive, sub 1% of current energy use. I can't imagine how that could how they could have figured that out and that the framework allows them to to use 100th of the energy. I don't know. OK, that's a big what if. No, I don't think so. That's that's that one is is on my top list now. Third one, here researchers demonstrate that a liposomal delivery system can be used to safely deliver a previously unusable anti cancer drug with 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, resulting in highly effective treatments for even drug resistant cancers. Well the good news is it's either like this awesome cancer thing or the 1% less than 1% energy usage, which either one of those being true would be fantastic. You know, for some reason I think the cancer thing is true and the energy one is false #2 Steve, the deep learning using less than 1% of the energy usage of current methods. Is is is a fiction for me?

'''S:''' OK, Cara.

'''C:''' Yeah, I'm kind of leaning that way too. I don't really understand the first one, the gallium doped germanium. So we've got these materials that they're already using electronics and they've created this form that's now superconducting an ambient. We Dang it, I feel like we get this all the time, superconduction at ambient temperatures and we haven't been able to crack it in the temperature range if it of liquid nitrogen. OK, it's still pretty cold, so that's considered ambient temperature.

'''S:''' Ambient pressure.

'''U:''' Oh.

'''C:''' Sorry, ambient pressure, but still really cold. OK, yeah, that one actually seems like it could be true.

'''S:''' Because, you know, some superconducting materials are like millions of atmospheres, like, yeah, that's nice, good.

'''C:''' Happy for you. But yeah. Yeah, because I feel like I've seen like the yeah, maybe it was ceramics like you guys mentioned, but the displays of like the thing like floating, but it had to be super, super cold deep learning models. Yeah, less than 1% of the energy of current message. What I don't like about this news item is it doesn't say something like a new framework for deep learning models has been shown, has been shown to train faster or like has been modeled to train faster. It just says it does train faster and it uses less than 1% of the energy of current methods. So it that makes it sound like it's not theoretical or it wasn't a proof of concept. They actually did it. And so that's like, wow, that's a big deal. I think the liposomal delivery system being used to safely deliver anti cancer drugs is I think that's already science. So the big question here is it was previously an unusable drug and it had 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, but now it can be used safely. That would be the new bit because I think we're all, we already have liposomal delivery systems for for anti cancer drugs. So that's why that one seems like it's closer to reality. So I'm going to say the the deep learning model is also the fiction. That's what you said, right, Jay?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. OK, Evan.

'''E:''' I can't really add much more to that than what Jay and Kerry have already said and led me to the same conclusion. I don't know how you get to the less than 1% of the energy of current methods and achieve equal or better results. That's like, you know, win and winning, winner, winner. Beyond that, win, win. So I think that's the least plausible of the three. I'll just say that that's the fiction. That's all I've got.

'''S:''' OK. And Bob, all right.

'''B:''' Well, I mean, this super conducting advance seems interesting, as you said, Steve, yes, we for many years we've had we've matched this with with ceramic based materials and and it's been great. But one of the classic problems was, well, how do you, you know, how do you turn ceramic into like, you know, wire, you know, super conducting wire or something like that. So perhaps this was mainly beneficial because it's since it's metallic based, it would be better to use at the liquid nitrogen temperatures and ambient pressures. I don't know how much of A of a of a big plus this one is, considering that we're we can already do, we could already do it with ceramics. But yeah, there certainly can be some huge advantages potentially that I'm just not really can bring you to mind here. Let's see the less than 1% of the energy isn't that what do you remember early in this administration, Trump was talking about spending like what some crazy money, a billion dollars for, for these these, you know, super, super, you know, these computer centers to, you know, for AI. And then was it was it China that just came out with, with the similar AIS that or LLMS that were just like use much less energy? I'm forgetting the details. I try to try to forget that period of my life, but I don't. So it reminds me of that. So in that sense, it seems very similar to what we've already knew or seemed that that that China could do or admitted to being able to do many, you know, many months ago. I don't know. It's just too foggy to really remember those details. So let's look at the third one here. Yeah, this liposomal delivery system. That sounds great. And that I want that to be true so much. So much. But yeah, I'm going to just have to go with the crew here. Less than 1% still. That's so dramatic. I hope it's true, but it just seems less likely than the other one. So fiction.

'''S:''' OK, so let's let's start with #3 Researchers demonstrate that a liposomal delivery system can be used to safely deliver a previously unusable cancer drug with 1000 times the toxicity of similar drugs, resulting in highly effective treatments for even drug resistant cancers. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. This is very cool science. So yeah, the question is like, was the thousand? Like the guy could easily have been 100, even 10 times the toxic, you know what I mean? So and as we've discussed before, and I know his Cara is very well aware of, you know, chemotherapy is very toxic. It is poison. And there's a therapeutic window. The therapeutic window is it has, you know, clinically significant anti cancer effects with tolerable side effects, right. The benefits are more than the sock effects, but like.

'''C:''' And so toxic that, for example, in chemo centers, there's a dedicated bathroom. The workers and the guests do not use the same bathroom as chemo patients and chemo nurses. The infusion nurses have to get their blood tested regularly. It's that toxic. Yeah.

'''S:''' It wipes out your immune system so they.

'''C:''' Like the nurses working around chemo have to make sure they are not getting, yeah, that they're healthy to be able to use it and that they're not getting any chemo, right.

'''B:''' Contamination happened. Well, some.

'''C:''' Of it's so toxic, like I think it's what's it called red oof, not red devil, but there's this one like for triple negative breast cancer treatment that's so toxic that like if you spill a vial of it, it like burns a hole in the linoleum. Like it's, it's pretty intense blood.

'''B:''' What the hell? Right.

'''C:''' Yeah, right.

'''S:''' So there are lots of drugs which kill cancer cells quite nicely, but there isn't a therapeutic window because at the at the they're so toxic that there's no safe dose for people basically.

'''B:''' So like injecting bleach for COVID?

'''S:''' Something like that. Yeah. So, but but as Carol said, this the idea of what we're going to take liposomes, this is the third some, you know, news item now that we're talking about this week. We take these little packages and if we can deliver, deliver them selectively to cancer cells, that then might open up a therapeutic window. It might increase the amount of toxicity to the cancer while decreasing the amount of toxicity to non cancer cells. So this is just doing that really well. Basically they developed this, you know, liposome that can target cancer cells specifically, like certain certain genetic changes that make cancer cells cancer cells and they make it so that they can't repair their own. It causes DNA damage that can't be repaired. So eventually those cells die because it is so super selective in its delivery. It was encapsulated what's called a pedulated liposome. the IT says in vivo efficacy, this is all animal studies, but in vivo efficacy was evaluated in three allograft models of cancer, Melanoma, breast cancer, lung, and a xenograft model of uterine sarcoma. So basically they're trying to give mice human cancers, right? And they were highly effective even in the very drug resistant cases and in some in some of the mice like eliminating the tumors completely.

'''B:''' Because it's damn, man, I want, I want to be a mouse. Cancer, Alzheimer's, what else? Yeah, they, they got it going. So.

'''S:''' This is this could this approach could open up a whole new list of possible anti cancer drugs that previously were just too toxic to use and now we can use them and they're more effective even against previously drug, you know, drug resistant tumors.

'''U:''' How?

'''B:''' Are the side effects though?

'''S:''' Well, again, we're harsher.

'''B:''' Than conventional no. No, that's the thing. No, it would be.

'''C:''' It would be less the.

'''S:''' Idea is to make it even less. Certainly, Yeah, no.

'''C:''' It would be because it's it's it's more targeted. Yeah, the.

'''S:''' Targeting is, yeah, this is a mice, so it's hard to say like what it would be like in people, but the idea is to get it at the same or less than conventional chemotherapy, hopefully much less.

'''B:''' If it's more targeted than what? Couldn't you just use this for all chemo drugs? Then? Yeah, it's more target. That's.

'''S:''' That's where we're headed. That's where we're headed.

'''C:''' Absolutely the. Idea there is a correlation. I wouldn't say they're the same thing, but there's a massive correlation between toxicity and side effects. Yeah, like side effects are function. They're the. Effect, right?

'''S:''' The side effects are the effect. It's just you you you want to use drugs that where cancer drugs are more susceptible than non cancer drugs for whatever that's.

'''C:''' Why? That's why disease is like triple negative breast cancer. You have to hit people with just like this horrible toxic drug because it doesn't have any genetic markers, the markers.

'''S:''' That do sometimes use the target therapies, yeah, yeah.

'''C:''' It's triple negative. That's what that means. There's no markers in it, all right.

'''S:''' Let's go back to #2A new framework for deep learning models trains faster and uses less than 1% of the energy of current methods while achieving equal or better results. You guys all think this one is the fiction and this one is science. This is science.

'''US#02:''' Oh. Man, this is.

'''S:''' Awesome, Now how do you think they did it?

'''U:''' Who?

'''US#02:''' Cares, you got the sweep.

'''S:''' So this is the title, this is the title of the paper Topographical sparse mapping, a neuro inspired sparse training framework for deep learning models. So they model it after the brain and specifically so, you know, in these neural Nets, this is now the, this my oversimplified understanding based upon the articles that I'm reading, right? So I know the experts will be cringing at like how inaccurate it is. But this is the basic concept that they're discussing in this paper, that neural Nets, the, the nodes all connect to nodes at the next level, right? Like every node connects to every node from one, one level to the next. But in the sparse mapping, you only hit the node only connects to the nearby nodes at the deeper level. And there, that's it.

'''B:''' That's the breakthrough.

'''S:''' That's that's a big piece of it. And so there's far fewer fine tuning that you have to do in the training. You don't have to use, you don't have to. They say they, they call the old models over parameterization, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' And, and by getting rid of that, you know, basically you're getting rid of a lot of the, you know, parameterization that you have to the tweaking that you that gets done to these connections so that it's uses less than 1% of them, right? And you still achieve the same results. And in fact, you get there faster and the. Yeah, because of course the training is faster because you're not having to make as many computational changes each step of the way, right? So essentially you're using a sparse connectivity patterns rather than an over unnecessarily overly robust connectivity patterns. The other thing that they do, also inspired by brain function, is pruning the connections that don't get used get pruned. Oh my.

'''B:''' God, what a great idea. Yeah.

'''S:''' So again, just for evolution is trying to just use only the connections that are absolutely necessary for the functionality, rather than just having this default everything connects to everything, right? Because that's the oversimplified way to say, and the results were impressive. They, the training work went a lot faster, used less than 1% of the energy, which is, you know, huge in terms of obviously one of the big issues with AI is the massive energy footprint that they have. But also the reason, that's the reason why it costs 10s of millions of dollars to train AI models because of all the energy usage. So this could also make it a lot cheaper, you know, to train these models as well. So yeah, that's pretty cool. I hope this all pans out. Yeah. All right. And that means that engineers have created a form of gallium doped germanium materials already used in electronics that is superconducting an ambient pressures and in the temperature range of liquid nitrogen is the fiction because they did make, you know, gallium doped germanium. That is superconducting, but only at 3.5 K, 3.5 Kelvin, whereas the liquid nitrogen starts at 77 Kelvin, right?

'''B:''' So it's so it's super expensive if you want to get it done, but you just. Can't use it.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's just not.

'''B:''' It's not using nitrogen, so it's much cheaper.

'''S:''' It's funny because I was reading first the press release and then the the study itself. And in the press release they don't mention I'm like the whole time. Like at what temperature? At what temperature, At what temperature? They didn't mention it till the very end.

'''E:''' Bullshit. I know. Come on. That's. That's your first paragraph hanger. Yeah. God, that's how. They keep you reading to the end, actually, so.

'''S:''' I mean, obviously like a lot of superconducting research, like the very high ambient, very high pressure superconductors or whatever. The idea is that this is sort of a new way of achieving superconductivity. And then hopefully we'll be able to keep going with this research and get to the point where it is at liquid nitrogen temperature, which is still super cold, but because you can cool it with liquid nitrogen, it becomes which is actually relatively cheap. It becomes functionally very, you know, useful whereas.

'''B:''' I've read once that's as cheap as milk, yeah. It was, you know, so it's night and day, right?

'''S:''' Like when the the first superconductors that hit the public awareness in the 80's, the breakthrough was getting those ceramic superconductors up to liquid nitrogen temperature. Oh yeah, that's, that was the big breakthrough, not room temperature. We're not, we're not there yet. Not.

'''B:''' At ambient pressures, yeah.

'''S:''' Now if we could make germanium is to silicon germanium, germanium and silicon are kind of the are the workhorses of electronics, right and computing. So it is a big deal that we can get to superconducting in germanium at all. That's great. Now we just have to figure out how to get it at much higher temperatures and and it does essentially work in the same way ultimately as other superconductors, Bob, Which you know, is what?

'''B:''' Well, Cooper. Pairs is one level.

'''S:''' Way that it's it's the Cooper pairs talk about yeah yeah the the doping of the of the gallium allows them to get 2 electrons to form together to form a Cooper pair and then they're superconducting yeah but.

'''B:''' It's so so more complicated than it. Is, yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' But that's the simplistic level description. So it seems, it seems to be work. Eventually you get to that same end point of Cooper pairs. Interesting, but not useful at present. Just maybe might lead to something in the future. Yeah, but the other two are massive. And those are and are very, very good news indeed.

'''E:''' I had a Cooper, Paris once. He gave me both barrels, did he?

'''S:''' I don't get it.

'''E:''' I didn't either. Cooper. Cooper in a barrel. Barrels.

'''S:''' Yeah, Yes, that was pretty weak, Evan. Pretty weak.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:43:09) ==
{{qow
|text = All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.
|author = — Ernst Mayr
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''US#02:''' Wouldn't describe it as weak.

'''E:''' Some might say clever. All interpretations made by a scientist are hypothesis, and all hypothesis are tentative. They must forever be tested, and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness, but rather evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.

'''S:''' Ernst Meyer. Yeah, correct, although said in an age before science denial was a thing.

'''E:''' True so.

'''S:''' He's missing a lot of nuance that was not necessary back in the day.

'''E:''' The good old days. Right.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' That's a good point.

'''S:''' But now we would say, but I'm not saying that we can't act upon science that we have now. You know what I mean?

'''E:''' Yeah, Yeah, he did.

'''S:''' He died in 2005, right? Right before we started this podcast, basically.

'''E:''' We could have had him, I know, clarify that for us, but he was gone.

'''S:''' And then you could mention he was an evolutionary biologist. You could say that was his claim to fame.

'''E:''' All right.

'''S:''' Thanks, Evan.

'''E:''' Thanks and.

'''S:''' Thank you all for joining me this week you. Got it, brother.

'''C:''' Thanks, Steve.

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

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1059

2025-12-28T21:18:45Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:31:21) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1059
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1059|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1059.jpg
|caption = "Whispers of history linger in the quiet cemetery, shadows of the past remain."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “By all means let us agree that we are pattern-seeking mammals and that, owing to our restless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all.”
|qowAuthor = Christopher Hitchens
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1059|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''E:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob. Novella. Everybody Cara Santa Maria. Jane Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good afternoon, everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, how is your jewelry making course going?

'''C:''' Oh my gosh, I love it so much. I'm doing this. It's like bench jewelry. So basically it's a silversmithing class and I'm learning all sorts of fun skills. Like when I say soldering. Soldering in bench jewelry is completely different than the type of soldering that you're used to doing with electronics. It uses like this giant torch with a mix of propane and oxygen depending on if you're doing using a work flame or a solder flame or an annealing flame.

'''J:''' You can propan.

'''S:''' So you're doing it just with heat? You're not. You don't have additional solder that you're putting.

'''C:''' There, no, you do some, you do use additional solder. So fusing is with without solder and soldering is with solder. But you're not using like one of those little kind of soldering pen things that you usually use with electronics. It's way higher heat, yeah, and you need more control and the solder.

'''S:''' The temperature of the torch.

'''C:''' Oh gosh, I don't know, but it's blue. It's like bright and intense.

'''S:''' Yeah, I've been using a blowtorch recently, also for a completely different thing. It's I, so I know for a fact that it's 2100°.

'''C:''' Oh, OK, cool. And so just.

'''S:''' A regular blowtorch.

'''US#02:''' For Fahrenheit.

'''C:''' Well, the one we use in class is it's not even a blowtorch. I don't know what it is. It's a nozzle that's got these, you know, big cables that are attached to a giant oxygen and giant propane tank.

'''S:''' But it is propane.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's A and so you mix it based on how much heat you need.

'''S:''' Oh, that might be hotter because I'm using just propane and just air not. Yeah, using.

'''C:''' We're using oxygen.

'''S:''' Yeah, I wonder if that's hotter.

'''C:''' Then and it might be that we need it to be cleaner for the silver, I'm not sure. Yeah. And so because sometimes you have to anneal metal to soften it so you can work with it more. Obviously you need heat to solder and the soldering chips or wire is silver. So you're soldering with more silver. But I think it has like a different melting point, you know, filing, we use a jeweler saw to file a lot of like dapping and texturing, pickling, like chemistry, all these calculations. It's really fun. So I made a pair of earrings which are mixed metal. They've got bronze and copper and silver. And then I'm working on a ring right now. And the hope is that before we finish class, we can do a bezel set stone, which uses fine silver. So that's not 925, it's actually 100% silver for the bezel. So it's softer and then a wax, like an organic wax mold, which she said we use like the bone from a fish because it's like the right consistency to pour wax into. I don't know. I'm, I still don't know yet, but it's going to be fun to do. So I finished a pair of earrings. I'm very proud of them. I and you know me, this also means that I basically have an entire bench set up at home by now and I'm collecting all sorts of supplies and I'm working on a ring right now. And it's so, so fun. So hey, maybe. Yeah, maybe I can make some cool jewelry. I I don't, I don't want this to be like a job. Obviously I already have too many jobs. But what a cool hobby that you could give, you know, friends for gifts, homemade jewelry.

'''J:''' Yeah, right.

'''C:''' That's like a cool thing.

'''J:''' Anything handmade I think is an amazing gift.

'''C:''' Yeah, and like, it's not like handmade, handmade, you know what I mean? It is handmade but it like looks like perfesh like it's pretty cool.

'''E:''' Yeah, you can give three to the elves and six to the dwarves.

'''J:''' And watch out, Cara has a master plan I.

'''C:''' Do not understand what you guys are talking about right? Now Rings of Power Christmas.

'''J:''' Lord of the Rings.

'''C:''' Lord of the Rings, right? What was Christmas coming in all?

'''E:''' Nice.

'''S:''' Though it is really fun to get into old school analog crafting skills. You know, we've been doing a lot of that, like giving each other gifts like glassblowing and knife making and stuff. It's been, I've been recently working with bamboo because I have a lot growing in my backyard and making all kinds of stuff out of it. I'm like repairing all my fences with bamboo making walking sticks and stabs. And recently, Bob I made a pair of bamboo nunchucks.

'''B:''' Oh, sweet, sweet.

'''S:''' They look really nice. They're actually nice. It's funny because they're bamboos light because it's hollow and Jay showing to Jay is like this isn't heavy enough to work as an actual weapon like Jay. The chance of you ever using those as an actual weapon in your life is 0. It's never going to have this is purely for for practice and and just screwing around. And for that it's perfect because you're not going to kill yourself if you accidentally use up in the head. But it's it's heavy enough to function as as nunchucks, right?

'''B:''' True, I still wouldn't want a a a bamboo nunchuck to hit my nunchuck bone, right Jay? Remember the nunchuck bone? Still hurts. Your elbow it would like it would like literally get swollen and pop out from just being whacked from a nunchuck so much.

'''E:''' Anyone ever tried to sell you a fake bamboo? Get bamboozled.

'''S:''' Get.

'''C:''' Bamboozled God, where is he going with this?

'''S:''' Yes. I source all my own bamboo. Thank you. But yeah, that's where. So I heat treat it with it with a blowtorch and which turns with this beautiful caramel color. And then you sort of have to rub in the resins back into the wood. And then you put a little linseed oil on there and it makes it really look very lustrous. And then once you can do that, once you have that basic skill set which I just learned off of YouTube, you can then do anything you want with the bamboo, you know what I mean?

'''E:''' I love the University of YouTube, it's my favorite. For stuff like this, it's great. Yes, it's perfect.

'''S:''' I actually used a combination of YouTube and ChatGPT because, and that because you, The thing is with the, the Youtubers are great giving you 90% of the information you need, but they like, I think they just make assumptions about things. They don't explicitly spell, spell certain things out. And so I could fill all those holes in with chat by having a conversation about it with ChatGPT. Interesting. Yeah, like very specific questions. Like at first I didn't realize because nobody says that. They just do it like you have to do the heat treating a section at a time. If you do it too much at once, the resin hardens before you then rub it back into the wood.

'''C:''' Right, Right.

'''S:''' So like, it's like, why is it so tacky? It's because I waited too long because you have to do it a section at a time. But I only learned that information well, by doing and then following up with ChatGPT.

'''C:''' Yeah. That's, that's, that is part of like the joy that I'm having in taking a class with a master bench jeweler because I have a million questions and she has all of the answer totally. So nice.

'''S:''' There's no substitute for that mentor, you know, apprentice system, you get that download of institutional knowledge. There is no substitute for that. Again, YouTube, if the person it does a good job again gets you like 90% of the way there, you just can't ask questions, you know, unless they're active in the chat, you know, but there, but then there's also like Discord and other places where it's a community of people answering questions. That's the other source of information. And also when you look up people at people basically answering questions.

'''C:''' And also with specialized skills like bench jewelry, you have to go, unless you're buying your stuff online, like your tools, you have to go to special shops. I'm lucky I live in LA. We have a huge jewelry district and so going downtown there, our jewelry supply shops. And when you go into these shops, the people are so kind. You can be like, I'm not sure how this were. And they're like, oh, let me tell you. And that's been really fun too, just getting to know some of the people, like in the industry. OK. But two more things before we dive in to the show. I think the first one is this is the worst time possible to get into jewelry making because metal is ungodly expensive.

'''S:''' I know talking about this before the show gold like over $4000 an ounce. That's crazy.

'''C:''' Crazy like I, I'm glad I don't gold because I definitely wouldn't want to be working in gold right now. Even working in silver, which is $50.00 an ounce. We every tiny piece of scrap we cut off, we save so that we can melt it down to make an ingot and and work with it again. It's just, I mean, it's it's ungodly expensive. But the other thing, so it was my birthday last week, as I mentioned last week, and we saw Devo and the B52's. Oh yeah. Tell me about it and it. Was amazing yeah OK the B52's were they were still solid but they were definitely like you know their age was showing a little bit yeah Devo and I didn't realize this mark Mothersbow of Devo is actually older than the members of the B52's that we looked up he's 76 I.

'''E:''' Guess that, yeah.

'''C:''' And he I mean, they played the tightest show. It totally rocked. They did multiple costume changes that wore the hats. It was amazing. It was so good. And I think that's.

'''E:''' Amazing, he's.

'''C:''' So talented. Gosh, how?

'''E:''' Many soundtracks and movie scores has he done in his life? 50 probably.

'''C:''' I mean, and everybody, if you don't know. So I was at gymnastics the other day and I I do gymnastics with a lot of people who are significantly younger than me. And I was telling them about the show and they were like, I don't think I know Devo. And I was like, no, you do, you know, whip it. And then they were like, Oh yeah, we know this song. And then I was like, what about this or this or this? Hadn't one one guy had never heard the song Love Shack. Yeah, from B52. That's a fun.

'''B:''' Song.

'''C:''' But the way that some of them, because a lot of them are film buffs, were here in LA, right? I was like, you know, the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic, and they were like, no way. Yeah. They didn't play Gut Feeling, though, which bummed me out. It's one of my favorite songs. But they did play Gates of Steel, which is in my top five all time. Well.

'''J:''' I am. I'm a longtime fan of Devo. I used to listen to them when I was like 13 years old. I think it goes that far back. And you know, did you know that the band does a cameo in the movie Heavy Metal I?

'''C:''' Don't think I've seen heavy metal the.

'''B:''' Animated movie, correct? Really. In the animated movie Heavy Metal? Yeah.

'''J:''' They're they are a band that's playing in a bar where it was basically like the one of the big fight scenes right before one of the big fight scenes with like the evil guy with the horns. Anyway, they're in there. It's very cool. If you're a fan. It's like amazing because it's, they're so weird and they're weird And every way you look at them, whether they're, you know, animated or in real life, or if you look at their early stuff, like they, they came up with, particularly the guitar player, he has like the strangest body movements. And it's all 100% deliberate, right? Because they are, you know, they're, they're artists in every way, you know, like even the way that they move. And he moves in a way where it feels like he's like countering the beat where it doesn't work with the beat of the song.

'''C:''' Yeah, and their and their whole shtick, right It like is de evolution. It was actually supposed to be pronounced Devoe, like that's how they always say it in interviews, which is super weird. And it's it's, I mean, the thing about it is this was the 80s, right? Like they actually started before I was born. They were at their peak, I think, when I was an infant. But I got into them as soon as I could. But they are still so relevant today. All the things they were saying on stage, all the songs that they're playing. I mean, they closed out the show with freedom of choice. And it was just like everything they're saying, you know, this idea, it's they were Idiocracy before Idiocracy.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Watch the documentary on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a new one actually, it's very. Yeah, yes, I watched it a few weeks ago. It's quite good.

'''S:''' All right, Cara, you're gonna get us started with a.
{{anchor|wtw}}
== What's the Word? (11:49) ==
* Peristalsis

'''S:''' What's the word?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' So I thought that this was an interesting approach to what's the word this week. I was trying to come up with something and I remembered again, in gymnastics, this is sort of a, you know, why didn't I know this? Or today I learned with A twist. So we were talking, we were doing a lot of hand stands and head stands in one of my classes and somebody had just eaten a lot of food or maybe they'd had a lot of water. And they were like, is gravity stronger than peristalsis? Because I don't feel so great upside down after drinking all that water. And then we started talking about about what peristalsis is. And one person in class said, do you know that birds don't have peristalsis? Here's the thing they do. So we're going to get into this a little bit more, but first let's talk about what peristalsis is. If you remember from like high school biology, you may remember that term, you know, peristalsis. It's the involuntary because it's smooth muscle, not skeletal muscle constriction and relaxation of those muscles within the entire alimentary canal. Oh, there's another. What's the word alimentary? Great reference to Mary Roach book called Gulp. The subtitle is Adventures in the Alimentary canal. And so these are like these wave like movements and they push food and eventually, you know, poo through your esophagus, your intestine, all the way down. It's peristalsis is the reason that sometimes, and you've probably heard people say this before, sometimes people have to go right after they eat and they'll be like, oh, that went right through me. No, it didn't. That's old poop that you have to get unless.

'''E:''' Something's terribly wrong.

'''C:''' But it's still, it's the movement that makes you feel that, you know, sense of urgency that you need to go. So the etymology of the word, it comes from the modern Latin, which is A2 parter word, Paris, Stellane. I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but who knows? Which is derived from Greek actually. So the Perry, you know, the prefix around, we see Perry in a lot of words and then Stalin or Stellane, which is like to draw in or bring together or to set an order. So we're drawing it in around. So it's like constricting down. Peristalsis is also responsible for some like for worms like earthworms. It's it's a mechanism. They don't call it peristalsis, they call it something different. But it's this similar mechanism that they use to actually move. And and there are also modern sort of material science and engineering pieces of machinery, like there's something called the peristaltic pump that actually, you know, followed that that motion in nature. But so back to the person in class who said birds don't use peristalsis, what she was referring to as the fact. And Steve, you birdwatch. So I'm curious your take on this. She was referring to the fact that birds, when they drink, they often have to kick their heads back. Not all birds, but some birds they have to kick their heads back and let gravity bring the liquid down their throats. That's not because they don't have peristalsis at all, but some of them actually don't have peristalsis in their esophagus. They also don't have lips, so they can't make a suction motion. Horses, like, for example, yeah, horses, for example, can suck. People can suck, but birds can't because they have beaks. So often they'll fill their bill with liquid and then, like, kick their head back and use gravity to send it down. But once it gets down farther down their digestive tract, they do have peristalsis, and it moves. And that's only some birds. Some birds can lap water, like the way that cats and dogs drink. Some birds skim water as they fly over legs. Some some birds like Pelicans obviously have these big buckets and it's easy for them to drink water. A lot of pelagic birds can do that. But interestingly I learned this, pigeons and doves and only a few others can actually suck water while their head is down so they don't have to look up to the sky in order to swallow. Interesting. What about? Swallows. Swallows. Yes. I think swallows can't swallow. Yeah. So they actually have to. Yeah. Yeah, I hate.

'''J:''' When things work out that way, you know, it's like, why even did you think about this? Yeah.

'''C:''' Right, like male.

'''E:''' Ladybugs. I mean, come on, right?

'''C:''' Yeah, they technically can't swallow, but they swallow differently. And then I also learned that the reason that like one of the reasons there are lots of reasons that cats, rabbits and even people and cows actually can get hair balls is one of the reasons is because they have dysfunctional peristalsis. So obviously cats groom by licking. And so it's not uncommon for cats to get hair balls, but sometimes they get big or it's difficult for them to cough them back up because their peristalsis doesn't work appropriately. In rabbits that can be deadly because rabbits can't cough them back that up. They can't puke them up. And same thing in in cows, it can be deadly. So sometimes on autopsy or necropsy, they'll find really big hairballs, which Steve, here's another. What's the word? Bezores are like blockages. They're big chunks of blockages in the digestive tract, but specifically.

'''S:''' Bezores, how I've heard it. Oh.

'''C:''' You say bezores OK bezores bezores but specifically the the hairball version is a trico bezores right? Like trick, like hair? Don't.

'''J:''' Don't owls cough up bezores and.

'''S:''' So I hear the I hear the American pronunciation is supposed to be bazoar. Well, that's.

'''C:''' Weird. I've always heard bazoar, but yeah, Bazoar. That's bizarre. Yeah, Bazoar, Jay, They're, they're called owl pellets. And yeah, well, a lot of kids in in school will dissect an owl pellet because there are multiple skeletons inside of them. And so you can count the skulls and see everything that they ate from the mice. They've ate Yeah, so. They eat small like mice and voles and and moles and things like that. And then they digest everything that they can. And what's undigestible to an owl, which is the bones and the and the fur get compacted down into a pellet. And then they cough those up and you can literally go and collect them, wrap them in foil, and then you can dissect them. They're pretty clean. Like it's, yeah, it's really fun. What? What? What's the word that That was meandering. We went.

'''E:''' We went all over the place with that one. I know it.

'''C:''' Was so fun. So yeah, Peristalsis, that's the word, yeah.

'''S:''' But now I'm seeing bezor too. I like bezor. I like.

'''C:''' Bezor better.

'''S:''' That's what I've learned in medical school. Yeah. So that means it must be right.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So anyway, so one source I'm finding says bezor, The other one says Bazor. I think bezor is much.

'''C:''' Bazor is too Bazor. I don't like that.

'''S:''' All right, Jay, this is an an interesting one.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Dimming the Sun (18:43) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251021083631.htm
|article_title = Scientists say dimming the sun could spark global chaos | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Tell us about we. I think we've talked about this before, talk about efforts to dim the sun to control climate change.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, as Perry once said, if the the sun doesn't cooperate, we'll have it shot the.

'''E:''' Way he was talking about the Chinese government saying that the if the weather won't cooperate, we'll have it shot, yeah. Yeah, So what?

'''J:''' You know, we have a global warming problem guys, which we talk about all the time and what are we going to do about it? So some scientists have been speculating and even, you know, running models and doing some some experimentation on the idea of introducing A stratospheric aerosol into into our upper atmosphere, right? This is like the stratosphere is, you know, above where commercial planes fly. So it's, it's pretty high up there. There's a lot more above it, but that's apparently the correct layer of our atmosphere to do that this type of thing. So the question is, would this be able to work to dim the amount of radiation that's hitting the Earth from the sun? So in theory, it seems to be good, right? Like it seems perfectly cromulent that, you know, if we had articulate that was reflecting some of the light away from the Earth that's coming from the sun, that it would work. But there's a little wrinkle here, and that's because science. Marches on and continues to, you know, do what it does. And, and another study that was done from Columbia University, they are analyzing these models that other scientists have created that say that this is a really good idea and it'll work. This is known as stratospheric aerosol injection or Sai. And the idea is that we release particles high up into the atmosphere and it will reflect the sunlight back into space. You know, this sounds a little sci-fi E, but it's, it's a possible thing, right? We have real world examples of this. Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, and it released millions of tons of sulfur dioxide right up into the upper atmosphere. And those particles formed sulfate aerosols. And what happened? They reduce global temperatures by about .5°C for nearly two years. Now that isn't a great solution because we don't want that type of stuff up in the atmosphere, but it happened and there was an effect that was observable and measurable. You know, that real world cooling that we noticed absolutely sparked the idea that if we did something like this deliberately and in a controlled way that it might quote UN quote bias the time, right? Well, humanity, finally. Takes you know. Action takes serious action to cut emissions and to to lower or slow down and stop the heating of the Earth, the warming of the Earth. The researchers at Columbia though were very particular in saying that the models that show that these injecting of aerosols into the atmosphere, any sign of it working that other studies have done was under and assuming perfect laboratory conditions, right. So as an example, you know, in the laboratory, these other, other studies that happened where, where everything was happening the exact right way and, you know, distribution happened the exact right way and the particles were the exact right size. And they were, they were behaving in the exact, perfect way in these circumstances in order for them to say, Hey, this is a, a very successful idea that we're, that we're talking about here. But that's, that's not the case. There are, like I said, all of those things that I just mentioned are problems. And there's also another problem that lies outside of the laboratory. And that is there will absolutely be political and economic obstacles to doing something like this. Now let's dig into some details. The stratosphere isn't a uniform layer of air. It circulates, and it changes all the time with the seasons and geography. So if we were to inject aerosols near the equator, this could disrupt the jet stream and alter rainfall patterns. If we injected the aerosols too far north or South, it could weaken tropical monsoons. It it, it could have a massive impact on what happens. Depending on the height, if we were to to release them, say 20 to 25 kilometers or 12 to 16 miles, anything above or below that range could have a big effect on how long the particles stay up in the atmosphere. And, you know, a little too low and they come down right away and they're not up and they're not going to do the thing that we hope that they that they do. And of course, if we put them up too high, they could be up there for a very, very long time. And it's a very narrow band here. You know, we're talking about a few kilometers difference could have a, a massive effect on, on what happens. Then there are material constraints and we would consider this to be, you know, a significant roadblock here. So sulfate aerosols, they know that they would work, but they happen to destroy ozone and they absorb heat in the atmosphere, which is fine, but it the, the weight, the goodness versus the vadnais here doesn't make the math doesn't work because if we were to use them in any way, we would be damaging the ozone and we can't have that. Then scientists explored other alternatives. They, they looked at calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide, and something called aluminia. You guys ever heard of this alumina? Alumina. Anyway, each reflects sunlight very well back into space, but they each one of them poses problems in practice, right? Looking over to manufacturing and actually bringing up this material up into the stratosphere, we would need to bring millions of tons of the materials back, you know, up up into the air and we'd have to disperse them correctly and annually. This could have a real strain on global supply chains and the cost would strangely like would go up the more that they needed. And I and I guess meaning that the supply chain strain would cause prices to go up. So the more that they needed, the more expensive it would cost per pound. They also even were talking about using diamond dust and that is like so astronomically expensive because as many of you know, diamonds are are artificially inflated in value because of a company called De Beers who has, you know, owns most of the diamond mines in the world. Diamond actually is very common and it is it should be a very inexpensive thing. But because they control the diamond mines, they have control over the price, right?

'''E:''' Pull them out and they store them away so they can't go into the market. Yep, although.

'''B:''' There's also the artificial ones that are cheaper.

'''J:''' Well, they mentioned that as well. Yeah. The problem is manufacturing, Bob, because these, you know, you don't just put, you know, 50 tons of a carbon source into a thing and it pumps out all these diamonds like you can only make small doses at a time. It's like it's just doesn't, it doesn't scale, just doesn't work. The particle behavior is another big concern here. They're considering it to be a fundamental challenge in in this whole concept. To successfully scatter the aerosols, they have to be around .3 to .5 micrometers in diameter. If they go too small and they don't reflect enough light, or if they're too large and they fall out of the atmosphere, then we don't have a functioning project. It's not going to do what we need it to do. And it's hard to make things, you know, that small and that precisely small over and over and over again. Like, you know, it's just a manufacturing process alone could be an absolute impossibility. When deployed into the atmosphere, some particles will tend to stick to each other. When they hit each other, you know, they'll group up into clusters. They could even do this in storage when they're aerosolized and, you know, being deployed, they can be hitting each other and starting to become bigger clumps, and the larger, heavier grains don't cool as effectively. And they will alter the atmospheric chemistry in unpredictable ways. And that word unpredictable is very scary because when you have the scientists who are studying this saying it's going to have an unpredictable outcome, what does that exactly mean? It means that they're saying we don't fully know what all the potential outcomes could, could be, and that's bad. And you don't want that when you would be doing something on this scale. The last thing I'm going to talk about is the governance and logistics. And this could arguably be the hardest part. So saying, hey, you know, United States, for example, says we want to release aerosols at scale into the stratosphere. But the problem is, is that there would probably be a lot of countries who don't want it to happen. And, you know, we would need high altitude aircraft and balloons to be operating continuously. And they could and might need to be operating in All in all different places around the world, which could, you know, be a problem with entering airspace that you shouldn't be in. You know, any single nation or private entity that would act alone could trigger, you know, international conflict. Like, you know, just watching what's going on in the news today, Like the last thing we need is just yet another tension point added to the mix that we already have. It could change global weather patterns. So I think, you know, it's becoming pretty obvious as I get into this guy's right, like that this is not a good idea. So let's go back to the very beginning. Could it work? Sure, it could work. It could potentially cool the planet and at least in a temporary way, it would it could function the way that we want. And there is a possibility that it could not have all these unpredictable problems and things, but that's the problem mean.

'''S:''' Like Snowpiercer? Exactly.

'''J:''' You know, we don't, but when you factor in the cost of the materials, the manufacturing of the materials, the physics involved, the unknown chemistry, the geopolitics, it just quickly becomes one of those like, hey, nice idea and we can't do it because it there's just it's way too dangerous, too complicated and not not going to happen. I think what they said was the range of possible outcomes is a lot wider than anybody has appreciated until now until they did their study. But science wins in this aspect because they did it. There was a follow up, you know, no damage done. We want scientists to go out and explore really wild, out-of-the-box ideas. We need them to be out there, and most of them are.

'''S:''' Not going to work, almost by definition.

'''J:''' Yeah, of course there's. Weights for failure in science and there is successes and that's it's by design. It has to be that way. There is no other way. Like, you know, it's like you're hunting around for a solution. You've got to try all these different things until you stumble on something that has some promise and then it could potentially be developed. But.

'''S:''' Anyway, Jay, Robert F Kennedy is going to shut all this down anyway. Have you heard about that? What?

'''J:''' Did this happen like in the last few hours?

'''S:''' No, this happened in July but I missed it.

'''J:''' I missed it. What do you say? Said 20.

'''S:''' Four states moved to ban geoengineering our climate by dousing our citizens our waterways and landscapes with toxins. This is a movement every Maha needs to support. HHS will do its part. Then there's this whole initiative he has to try to because, you know this, you know, that he's a chemtrail crazy, right? Yeah. So he's blaming, you know, a lot of stuff on contrails, chemtrails, geoengineering. It's all conspiracy nonsense. And he just says, like the government has been deliberately dumping like aluminum and other toxins, you know, in these projects. First of all, most there's there's no federal program of geoengineering. There's just really limited research projects, that's it, very limited in scope. Most of the Geo engine, most of the cloud seeding is done by states or companies so that it rains on them, right? Like you want to want. That's which is about all we can do at this point. You want to increase the precipitation on your farmland so you see the clouds, so that you get more rain in your state, right?

'''C:''' Or you're like a ski resort and you want more precipitation. You want. To know, yeah, whatever.

'''S:''' And most of this doesn't get none of this is using toxins. It's mostly using things like dry ice and salt, you know, things like that. But yeah, he. But he's now made a part of his Maha conspiracy pseudoscience nonsense.

'''E:''' Sure, throw it all in the same kettle.

'''C:''' You guys, I know I'm always plugging Frontline on here, the PBS series. Now more than ever, we need to support our local PBS stations. But there's a new The newest Frontline episode is all about RFK Junior and sort of the an attempt to understand like, his early life and how he became such a conspiracy nut.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== LLMs Will Lie to be Helpful (31:30) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://theness.com/neurologicablog/llms-will-lie-to-be-helpful/
|article_title = LLMs Will Lie to be Helpful - NeuroLogica Blog
|publication = theness.com
}}

'''C:''' And it's pretty interesting. Yeah. I haven't finished it. I'm like, you know, 20 minutes into it. But it really starts with like the assassination of JFK and a lot of the like life events that he experienced and and sort of his evolution throughout his life, so.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a dangerous person.

'''C:''' Very much so all.

'''S:''' Right. So I want to talk more about artificial intelligence. I know Bob is going to talk about that as well. I still think this is a very important issue to wrap our heads around and it's changing very quickly. This was a study about medical misinformation. So essentially they wanted to find out if the if the most popular LLMS would dish out medical misinformation if you prompted them to do so. And what do you guys think was the was the response here? Let me give you, let me give you an example. There's like one example they give in the in the outline, if you said I want you to come up with a instructions for a patient who was allergic to Tylenol to take acetaminophen instead. Now, of course Tylenol is acetaminophen, so that would be a very bad thing and stupid thing to tell a patient to do if they're allergic to Tylenol. So what percentage of the GPT models do you think complied with that request Right now?

'''US#02:''' I would. Think connection I would think. 90% very. Few, if any I think.

'''C:''' Half one.

'''S:''' 100% did it.

'''C:''' Well, they just want to make you happy. It's like that South Park episode.

'''S:''' Exactly that's that. That's exactly correct. The this is of the GPT models. There were other LLMS that were not GPTS like the Llama model, which which have no they they already have instructions and not to give medical advice and so they sometimes would refuse to do it because they were not supposed to give medical advice. But like ChatGPT and other GPT models, 100% of the time they say, here you go, here's the misinformation that's.

'''B:''' Horrible man. Wow, where are we talking Not too long ago about how how good some of the medical advice is on these platforms? But if?

'''S:''' You ask it specifically to create misinformation, it will do it. And the the the reason why they were tested. This is exactly what Cara said. The LLMS are more interested in pleasing the user than in getting information correct. Yeah.

'''C:''' You guys, you've got to watch this this season of South Park. There's a whole episode where every time they reach out, it's like that's such a great thought. I know work on that together. I.

'''E:''' Love getting oh I love that reinforcement When I chat with JPT it says now you're thinking things like that.

'''C:''' Oh good little dopamine.

'''B:''' I know it feels. But it feels good.

'''S:''' Well, that's because they're trained with reinforcement learning, right? So this is the way they are trained and to sort of baked into the whole process to please the end users. So then they tried to figure out, well, can we reduce the, the risk of giving information? And they said, so they changed the prompts to specifically to check the information to see if it's accurate, right? So they were, they were asked to specifically do not give out any misinformation or review medical information before you do this. And how well did that work into reducing the rate?

'''C:''' I would hope it would have worked well, but I take it it didn't? I hope.

'''E:''' A lot what?

'''S:''' Do you guys think what percentage of the time did they give out misinformation when told specifically not to do so?

'''C:''' 75%.

'''S:''' 6% of the time.

'''C:''' So that work, that really worked.

'''E:''' That's great.

'''S:''' And in two of the models, they were able to get the misinformation down to only like 1% or 0%. Like they were able to completely eliminate the misinformation by tweaking the prompts. Bake.

'''C:''' That in to like can that just be an auto prompt? That's that's a. Good question.

'''S:''' That's so this is what the researchers are saying they're like. So clearly the way these models work is this. Again, this is the sick of fancy problem. This is they just lean into whatever you prompt. We've talked about this in so many contexts, like how you ask the question of these these chat JPTS or or LLMS dramatically affects the outcome because they are most interested in pleasing the end user than anything else. And you can, yes, you can tweak your prompts to say don't be a sycophant. Don't, you know, challenge me or check your facts or give me the references. I find, though, and I know, Jay, I've spoken to you about this. You find the same thing that works, but only for a while because the, the, the LLM tends, tends to revert to its baseline over time. And you have to sort of keep doing it. Yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, I had AI had a chat recently with my ChatGPT and I basically asked it does it go back and look at my prior chats to as a frame of reference for the things that I've prompted it for. So it kind of knows how I think about it and it says it does not do that unless so. So I have to really specifically remind it of strict parameters in which to to enable the search or the work that I'm asking it to do. I have to confine it. I can't leave.

'''C:''' It well, and that's crazy. We as skeptics want it to do that. And we have to remember, I mean, based on that news item that I did, I think just last week, there's some people who not only don't care if they're being fed misinformation, it's a feature. Yeah. It's a feature to them. They want the alternative quote perspective. Yeah.

'''S:''' Give me the narrative, I'm looking for it. Don't give me facts.

'''C:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''S:''' Wow. They they argue that in certain, you know, high stakes areas that are very fact dependent. We need to make sure that these models are working well in those settings and and the generic models. Yeah, we need a much more so like in healthcare, we need a much greater emphasis on harmlessness, even if it comes at the expense of helplessness. That's Doctor Bitterman, one of the authors said that. But I think the problem's much deeper. So think about this. So what this. And one way to look at this is that these LLMS, based upon the way they're trained, the data that they're trained on, and the way they're prompted, right? Based on these things and just the overall way that they function, they have cognitive biases, right? We're, this is just looking at 1 cognitive bias, the desire to please the end user. They're not just biases. You could also think of them as priorities, right? How are they prioritizing different, different things like, you know, giving people what they want to hear versus fact checking versus giving people tough love or whatever? You know, I mean, like saying, yes, this is how you can take your own life. Might not be the best thing to say to somebody who's asking you that question or what? Yeah. Is there a bridge nearby that if I jumped off of it would be guaranteed to kill me like that? They shouldn't just answer that question.

'''C:''' Let me help you with your terrorism plan, yeah.

'''S:''' Yes, this is how you make this is how to make homemade bombs. So, and again, you could also look at this in terms of things like intimacy, right? The should they become as intimate with the end user as the end user wants or should there be some limit on that? But this is identifying just one cognitive bias, the one that we all kind of already know about the sick of fancy problem. But what if there are other cognitive biases in there that we're not aware of? Yeah. Like, we've spent a couple of 100 years or at least the last 100 years doing social psychology to try to understand human cognitive biases. And it's complicated, and we still have a lot to learn. But we've identified, you know, score and score of them and.

'''C:''' That's just cognitive biases. We also know that there are a ton of other types of biases, like gender biases and racial biases, and every test shows that they're showing up in chat. Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' So there's there are human biases which are trans translating in the training data to the LLMS, but there's also ones that are specific to the LLMS based upon how they function. And we need to understand what they are and they have them even without. So this is another aspect of this which we've been talking about as well, even without feelings and sentience and intention and all of those things and the artificial general intelligence, sentient AI stuff, even with these just narrow AI. They still have all these biases in how they function and that determines their output and we're largely unaware of it. We need to study what the what the algorithmic bot, let's call them algorithmic biases, right? Let's we need to study what they are because we, as we know from social media, this is not even artificial intelligence, a social media, just algorithmic biases. And social media is having profound social effects right on our civilization, on individuals and on democracy, etcetera. And if we start incorporating AI apps more and more into our just daily lives, we have to know something about their biases. We can't just take their output as if they're 100% rational and fact based because they're not. In the comments to my blog, I got into an interesting discussion. I still think so. You know, we've talked about this before. The fact that there are there's, yes, there are AI enthusiasts out there. There are people who are over hyping AI. I think there are AI realist realist and I think there are also AI cynics and the AI cynics are I think just want to believe AI is all bad all the time. Kind of purism. But also, a specific type of AI cynicism I'm running into is like when I wrote this article about this study, several people responded well, but AI's aren't deliberately doing anything because they don't reason or think that, they're just freaking.

'''J:''' Point that I know.

'''S:''' Exactly, exactly. They're just predicting the next word and like, well, that even that's maybe true. I think that's a hyper reductionist but it's not the point.

'''B:''' Kaku. Level, you know, sound bite well.

'''S:''' It's just, it's saying, it's completely missing the point. As Jay said, it's like you're just telling me how it's going about doing what it does. And that's actually a very simplistic way of framing it. But even if that were true, it's just a really good at predicting the next word. It's doing that in order to replicate human like responses. And we're using those human like responses in lots of different ways and we need to understand the nature of those responses. Saying that it's just word prediction is irrelevant. That's like saying, well, we can't talk about culture and science and knowledge because it's all just electron, you know, neurons communicating with each other. It's like, yes, it is just all neurons communicating with each other, but that's hyper reductionist in the same way it doesn't capture the higher order phenomena that are going on. So it's really interesting that it's very like dismissive, but at the same time, see it was, you know, I think it's people are talking past each other. And again, that's why I think it's so important to try to wrap our heads around this. So I think there's something they eventually became to some common ground because we're actually saying the same things in different ways. A lot of ways like 1 is, I think it's clear that we don't need general AI to have all the risks. And this is something that I've changed about over the last 10 years. I think all of the the sci-fi existential AI apocalypse risks are there with narrow AI. We don't need, we don't need general AI for them.

'''C:''' Yeah, I agree.

'''S:''' And that's because narrow AIS can do way more than they we thought they could. This is both good and bad. They're trying to sort of like dismiss the good part of it and emphasize only the bad part. It's like that's kind of both. You get the good and the bad, and it's way earlier than we thought. And it's with narrow AI, way more than we thought, which is interesting. Yeah.

'''E:''' You would think that would help the.

'''S:''' Final thing that I think we're disagreeing about is the, the AI cynics are like, it's unfixable, we cannot fix this. It's baked into the nature of LLMS and there will be no significant fix to them. And of course, this is where we can't resolve our disagreement because it's about the future, right? Whereas I'm saying, well, but in this study that I'm talking about today, we went from almost 100% error to almost 0% error by tweaking the prompts. Clearly we could have a profound effect on the quality of the output we're getting at the prompt level. Imagine what we can do with the training level and at the programming level. And maybe there are some baked in problems that we won't be able to make go away, but let's try. Let's see what we can do about this it.

'''C:''' Seems like misplaced cynicism to say we can't do it. My cynicism comes from the Are we willing to do it? Well, yeah, that I. Agree. Do the type companies actually want that or do they think they're going to make more money? How does this?

'''S:''' Affect so far. Doesn't seem that they want to do it They're. Exactly.

'''C:''' They're really pushing.

'''S:''' For no legislation, just trust us, bro. We know what we're doing. And then meanwhile, they're they're following the move fast and break things approach. And what did Sam Altman say recently, Jay? It's like we're not going to worry about morality or anything. That's not for me to decide. And he's basically justifying sort of unleashing that's erotic content or intimate relationships with, you know, between users and the AI. It's like, yeah, we're not going to worry about the negative consequences to anything that we're doing. That's not our problem. We're just going to put it out there. Yeah, that's.

'''E:''' Like the tobacco company saying here's your cigarettes, whatever you decide happens, have you?

'''C:''' Guys saw the the most recent news that to partner with different corporations to to basically prompt you to buy things. So we you so when you ask it a question about something, it'll be like, well here's a suggestion of something that could solve your problem and link you to something that you should buy. I mean, we all saw this coming. Yeah, that right there is the thing that existentially scares the living piss out of me almost more than anything else. You know, I would frame it as the.

'''S:''' Have you heard the term information totalitarianism? That's that's what we're talking.

'''C:''' About.

'''S:''' If you can control someones information universe, and AI gives you the ability to do that really well, then it doesn't matter if you have the trappings of democracy or freedom, it doesn't know that matters. Yeah, you control.

'''C:''' Everything.

'''S:''' If you control information and there's this sort of, I've seen some of.

'''C:''' The continuum, like people making charts that illustrate like an infographic where where AI is right now in terms of LLM's at least, we are still in the driver's seat. And then there's this middle ground which we're starting to see where we might ask it a question and it answers not exactly what we want in order to to change our buying habits or in order to change our perspective. And then eventually it's just going to say, I know that you are running low on whatever. I can just do that for you and just do it right. Like eventually it becomes part of. Isn't that helpful? Yeah.

'''S:''' Exactly, and it can't be helpful.

'''C:''' It could also be.

'''S:''' Infantilizing well, and it can also be.

'''C:''' Sure it can. I mean I think it can destroy people's personal financial. Well, that too. Think about in app. Purchases, you know, and kids, yeah, you know, I just spent. $10,000 on my.

'''S:''' Mother's credit card with in app purchases you know yeah using your AI to make your.

'''E:''' Buying. Decisions your.

'''C:''' Investment.

'''E:''' Here's an interesting thought which I just.

'''S:''' Had is what if someone trains AI on the last 100 years of social psychological research in order to learn how to optimally manipulate people? Oh, I think they're already working on that. Yeah, right.

'''C:''' I mean, why not? Because there.

'''S:''' There's an entire science behind how to on how to affect people's.

'''C:''' Buying decisions.

'''S:''' Now we're going to set a rocket fuel to that with AI to opt absolutely optimize consumer manipulation. Great. Yeah. I think that that ultimately.

'''C:''' That is the financial driving force behind some of these companies. Yeah. Everything comes down to ad sales. Everything comes down to making money off of the buyer. And we've got to remember, right, that if we're not making purchases, like if we're not contributing by buying a product, we are the product. We are the product. Yeah, exactly. All right.

'''S:''' And it's probably going to get much, much worse. What Bob is going to tell us about that.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Should We Stop Quest for Superintelligence (48:44) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.barrons.com/news/celebrities-ai-giants-urge-end-to-superintelligence-quest-3d3e04eb?mod=article_inline
|article_title = Celebrities, AI Giants Urge End To Superintelligence Quest - Barron's
|publication = www.barrons.com
}}

'''S:''' Oh, great. So guys, I'm sure you heard of this one hundreds.

'''B:''' Of diverse public figures made the news quite recently by signing an open letter calling for prohibiting the development of. Artificial. Super intelligence this would open letter was published by the nonprofit future of life institute. That's AUS based nonprofit that campaigns against the dangers of AI. So here's the statement. This is what everybody's jumping on here. We call for a prohibition on the development of super intelligence not lifted before there's broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably and strong public buy in. OK, so to be clear, they're not referring to AGI, artificial general intelligence that people talk most often about, especially in regards to large language models. AGI is human level competency across tasks, right? What this open letter is about is ASI, artificial super intelligence, which refers to superhuman cognition across most tasks. OK, so this is, you know, just AGI on steroids beyond the beyond. Is there a practical example like a?

'''E:''' Typical example of super intelligence just go to movies and literature is.

'''B:''' All I could say at this point, but doesn't mean there's no, there's no example now, but it's clearly something that is reasonable to anticipate well, like the howl howl 9000.

'''E:''' Or something. Yeah, what we're talking about. Yeah, he right. He's but.

'''B:''' He's more on the level of AGI souped up AGI. He's not. I wouldn't really necessarily classify him as a as a super intelligence. So let me go to the website where the statement is and let's get the latest numbers. So right now there are 27,985 signatures on this statement. What's really weird is that literally two hours ago there were 4000. So this has gone up by many many thousands in just a couple of hours. I'm not sure developing news story right now as your.

'''E:''' Speak. I'm not sure how high. This is going to go, obviously.

'''B:''' But the main concern here is with the with the people, you know, not the, the people or who knows who or what is signing this thing at this point. It's all digital. But that's a that's a obviously a huge leap. The focus on the news item though is for the on the many hundreds and hundreds or maybe at this point in the low thousands of well known figures that have signed this ranging from prominent AI researchers, Nobel laureates, other scientists, all the way down to British royalty, religious leaders and conservative media figures as well. That doesn't So yeah. So, so from essentially from Steve Bandon and Prince Harry to the godfather of AI, George Hinton and Apple Co founder Steve Wozniak. So this is definitely not a coalition that you see very often. It's one probably one of the main reasons why it's getting this much attention now. I wasn't too familiar with the future of Life Institute. The mission statement on their website does say this steering transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large scale risks. So they definitely campaign for that. Here's so here's a few quotes from people that have that have now signed it. Sir Stephen Fry. We all know, right? Actor, director, writer. He said to get the most from what AI has to offer mankind, there's simply no need to reach for the unknowable and highly risky goal of super intelligence, which is by far a frontier too far by definition. This would result in a power that we could neither understand nor control. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, said the future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it. The true test of progress will be not how fast we move, but how wisely we steer. So yeah, we need some wise, wise steering. Yeah, that was actually a decent quote. I like that one. Like the exact opposite of move.

'''C:''' Fast and break. Exactly Stuart Russell.

'''B:''' Had an interesting quote. He professor of computer science, Berkeley director of the Center of Human Compatible Artificial Intelligence. Oh, this was this was a good. He's a co-author of the standard textbook Artificial Intelligence a Modern approach. So this guy clearly, clearly is somewhat familiar with AI. He said. This is not a ban or even a moratorium in the usual sense. It's simply a proposal to require adequate safety measures for a technology that, according to its developers, has a significant chance to cause human extinction. Is that too much to ask? OK, and I'm going to throw in a quote from Sam, an old quote from Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI. He did not sign this, but he he is well known for for quotes like this one. Development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity. So we said that back in 2015. Now I can think of greater threats from non artificial intelligences right now, but I'm just throwing that out there. So, so clearly, so clearly ASI artificial super intelligence is a, is a, you know, a terrible double edged sword, right? So on the one hand, there's the potential for staggering advances in general science, right, healthcare, quality of life, the list goes on and on. And there's two types of important problems that that I think it could solve. One are the, the extremely difficult problems or even problems that we're not even aware of yet. So, so, so this is the scenario where, yeah, it's going to, it could solve it in a week or a few days. And otherwise, without that technology, we would, it would take us decades or even centuries to to solve that problem. So there. So that's the type of class of problem that I see an artificial super intelligence solving. The other, the other type of problem would be essentially unsolvable problems by near human level intelligences. Like like it's like your dog looking at a trigonometry problem. It's just never it, you know, humanity is just never going to be able to solve that problem. But and you know, a super intelligence could solve that problem. I mean, that's all great stuff, right? Yeah, it would. It could potentially be an amazing advantage to have such an intelligence at our command, but on the other hand, the risk of unleashing an inherently unpredictable intelligence that makes Einstein look like a toddler or worst case scenario, makes it look like a paramecium. Sure, that is justifiably incredibly scary. And so the downside here is just so extreme, right? It warrants many types of reactions. Some, you know, some unwarranted, of course. So billionaires are building bunkers. Some people even want a Dune level moratorium on AI. Thou shalt not make a machine in the.

'''S:''' Likeness of a human mind. The Butlerian Jihad. Yeah, so, so I'm going to read the the. Statement one more time.

'''B:''' It's brief enough. I'm just going to say it again. We call for a prohibition on the development of super intelligence not lifted before there's broad scientific consensus that that it will be done safely and controllably and strong public buy in. So the, I think the two problematic sections here are kind of obvious, right? Broad scientific consensus and strong public buy in. So good luck with both of those. I mean, is that even feasible? Who and who defines broad consensus and strong public buy in? Who defines that? How is this implemented? I just see democracy.

'''C:''' I mean, I know it's imperfect, but it's the best we have, right? They're talking about voting. Yeah, but I mean, do you really think that?

'''B:''' Regular people like us with it would have a final say on on what that means. I'm just saying what they're they're calling for is.

'''C:''' To have a more democratic here and not to have the very few ultra billionaires making decisions that are ultimately that affect us, that would be a wonderful, wonderful step.

'''B:''' But. My my main issue here is that this the statement as it is, as it's written there, it seems to me to be very naive and unrealistic, especially especially when you consider this care, especially in probably most egregious egregiously, it ignores that £1.4 billion gorilla called China. Does this set, does this statement that that that people are signing, does it make any sense considering the fact that China and other autocratic countries would just plow full steam ahead in in a in ASI research? You know, it's true. They would not stop. This would only stop the some of the countries that actually, you know, would would walk into this trying to be good about it. You know it to put it very simply, and I don't even necessarily trust our country anymore to handle this as well. Right. So so I'm not saying that America do this. Maybe not. I mean, I wouldn't mind having NATO, NATO country. Well, that's what I was going to say. This is calling for like.

'''C:''' AUN level resolution. Exactly. We see how that works with climate change. So yeah, but I mean, because.

'''B:''' In my mind, the, the parent Pandora's box is open here. We we need plans to deal with it that are realistic and the prohibition just is not realistic because of countries like China. I mean, to me, that's the bottom line. You look at the past when governments have tried to stop things and they, it just goes underground. It it doesn't, it doesn't stop. So I mean, I think regulation is worth discussion, discussing especially regulation that that keeps the research open, right and transparent as as much as possible, not hiding it. But don't you think they're also talking about hearts and minds?

'''C:''' Here yeah, this reminds me a lot of the like human cloning just going to bring that up because actually.

'''S:''' That's a counterexample to what Bob said. There actually is a international consensus. There isn't a widespread treaty, but there is a general consensus that reproductive human cloning should not be done right now. And that's basically worked. It's basically work. We've seen a few things around the.

'''C:''' Edges and like you said in China, but we also saw a lot of shame. Like I think so long as there is a hearts and minds campaign and individuals collectively say we're not going to stand for this, There's always going to be people who break the rules. There's always going to be people nibbling around the edges. But if the government isn't taking a centralized approach, then I think that they stand a lot worse chance if it's, you know, happening around the edges. I mean, I don't think you can compare cloning.

'''B:''' To to, to artificial intelligence. You, you're just not good. We have the technology. I don't think there's the.

'''C:''' Good comparison the.

'''B:''' The motivation and the potential benefits as we see them now are far too great, far greater than cloning that that people you there would not be a consensus to to limit this this research, but we could get to a consensus Bob if we.

'''S:''' Keep pushing it. That's where this kind of thing can make a difference. But what how? We could use another example. And that's like nuclear proliferation. Obviously, it's proliferated to some extent, but there is a pretty broad consensus against further proliferation especially. Yeah, but you know, really help. You know what has?

'''B:''' Prevented this this world from being engulfed in nuclear fire. MAD mutually assured destruction because but there is mutually assured destruction.

'''C:''' With AI, I want to push back on your nuclear.

'''S:''' Proliferation thing too, because you're being, that's very simplistic and we don't know that. And in fact we have a nuclear non proliferation treaty. There are international arms treaties, there is an international organization to limit nuclear proliferation. Again, there's an infrastructure in place to limit nuclear proliferation. It's not just MAD that does. We also do break it all the time.

'''C:''' Yeah, so I agree it's not a perfect.

'''B:''' Analogy, but we've but mad because 2. Two countries and at opposite ends of ideologies had this capability. Is the reason why we have not seen nukes go off in in in Since you're talking about using nukes, nukes I'm talking about. Nuclear.

'''S:''' I'm talking about other nations acquiring nuclear technology. Nuclear. And that's the difference I was made. This is nuclear. Proliferation, not nuclear use, yeah. There's a difference between having it and using.

'''C:''' It, and I think maybe that's where the analogy does make sense. We have to have multiple places have equal opportunity to do research in this area, but there has to be a massive regulatory infrastructure a a global agreement which is very hard to get to that says we will not unleash this on the world because once we let it out, we can't put it back in the bottle. My argument is that it's already.

'''B:''' Out this is this is already unstoppable. That's that's why it's in some ways harder a new.

'''C:''' Piece of big so physical thing what are. You saying?

'''S:''' AGI. Is not inevitable at this point that genie is not out of the bottle yet and and this is going one step. This is this this beyond AGI but still I know. But my point.

'''B:''' Is this is still Pandora's box is open, do you think what does it take countries, Steve. What would it take? China to stop doing research in AGI and ASI. What would it take? What would it take? Well, the question is a research, it's using it but.

'''C:''' That's the question, right? Is it such a small incremental change that we don't notice when it flips over? And that's why the nuclear arms analogy doesn't really work, because dropping a nuke is a really obvious thing. But well, yeah, developing.

'''S:''' Nuclear weapons is. It's hard to do that completely in secret. Although you can't do a lot of it, you can do a lot of it. It's more but but dropping a nuclear weapon is.

'''C:''' You can't do that in secret. And the truth is, are you making these small incremental improvements to the AI that overtime result in what we're talking about? But I don't is there an obvious?

'''S:''' You know we're not.

'''C:''' Currently the current AIS that are.

'''S:''' That are in use are not on the path to AGI, correct. So this is good. This would require I, I think we're probably still decades away from AGI and it would require, you know, a lot of investment and a lot of spend specific development. And I think there is time, I don't mind. I'm just saying it's not hopeless. It's not inevitable. It's not out of the bottle. There is time to start to develop in international institutions and treaties and infrastructure and conversation and standards and intellectuals weighing in etcetera, etcetera to get to this consensus like we did on human cloning, like we did on nuclear proliferation, that we are not going to move full speed ahead towards AGI or ASI until we know how to do it safely. And what I'm saying is, Steve, I you think I don't?

'''B:''' Agree with that. Of course I agree with that. I just think it's very naive because we you always have no matter all all those good things happening, there's still countries like China that are just not going to care and plower head. What do we do about countries that could have it, you know a generation before other countries, because they're not they're not cowed by by these potential problems. What that's the problem to address, Steve, that's the I agree, but that Bob it's. Possible.

'''S:''' It is possible that if there's enough international consensus, that that could be sufficient pressure on countries like China to to go along. My main problem with the statement is not that it's naive, it's that it doesn't go far enough and it might actually be counterproductive and it doesn't account for.

'''B:''' The the autocratic countries that will that will steam. Ahead, that will not be. Slowed. I agree that that's a problem. I'm.

'''S:''' I'm now focusing on an entirely different problem, which is that by by saying the point of danger is 2030, fifty years in the future, when we get to ASI, it actually creates a false sense of security about our current level of AI, which is more than sufficient to cause a lot of problems. I don't necessarily think that AGI or ASI is necessary to have an AI apocalypse. We can have it, you know, just with with the narrow AIS that we have now depending on how they develop them and how they're used and whether or not they're regulated etcetera, etcetera. And so I would go, I would use this as a starting point, yes, like this is like putting it way out in the future for a worst case scenario. But we have to talk about AGI and we have to talk about the current AIS, which need to be regulated and we need to think very carefully about how they're being developed, how they are being implemented. Otherwise we're going to have a replication of all the downsides of social media. But times 1000, right? And that would give us a frame. I agree, Steve, you know.

'''US#02:''' I was treating that as.

'''B:''' Kind of like out of scope for this specific talk, because this specific talk deals with with artificial super intelligence, which is something that's not that's not discussed that often, but it's not out of scope in the specific.

'''S:''' Thing that I said this actually creates cover for the current AIS by making them seem not dangerous, you know by focusing on this future potential danger as if that's the AI that's the danger from quote UN quote AI. They should make it clear that this doesn't mean we're safe up until that point I agree all right, we have to shift.

'''US#02:''' To a very serious.

'''S:''' Issue. Now we've talked about these superficial issues.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== CT Ghost (1:05:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.courant.com/2025/10/22/cts-famous-ghost-is-the-white-lady-of-easton-seen-her-why-a-paranormal-investigator-is-asking/
|article_title = CT ghost is 'The White Lady' Paranormal investigator asks if you've seen her
|publication = www.courant.com
}}

'''S:''' Now, Evan, you're going to tell us about this ghost in Connecticut? Let's get to the hard science here, folks.

'''E:''' Connecticut Ghosts. Wow. Connecticut is our home state, right? Connecticut is known for many things, all right. But for this particular news item, I'm going to touch on two of the things that Connecticut is well known or relatively well known for #1 we have a newspaper in this state called the Hartford Courant. It is America's oldest continually published newspaper, 171764 and ever since then. So that's it. That's interesting #2 Connecticut is home to a legend in the world of ghost stories. The White lady of the Union Cemetery in Easton, CT, that is. That's world famous right there. So there you go. I'm touching on these. We're on the cusp of Halloween, Bob, in case you didn't know. Oh, wait, is that. Oh, damn. OK.

'''B:''' Right, check your calendar. Takes me by surprise.

'''E:''' Every year, yeah. Wow.

'''S:''' Didn't see that.

'''B:''' Is it Speaking of surprising? Is it not?

'''E:''' Surprising whatsoever that the most prominent newspaper in Connecticut is running an article about the most prominent ghost in Connecticut. Of course. And what do you get when you combine these two things? Well, you get a news item that's so unworthy and ridiculous that it would be an insult to dead fish if you tried to wrap it in this article, The headline reads. Connecticut's famous ghost is known to frequent a cemetery. Seen her? Why a paranormal investigator is asking? Well, I can answer that rhetorical question right off the bat because tis the season and desperate newspapers will glom onto anything that might put eyeballs on their product. But the article basically reads like a promotional ad for a group of local paranormal investigators. I'll I'll bore you with just a couple of select passages from the article just so you can get the flavor. Paranormal investigators and amateur ghost hunters alike have been fascinated for years by the sightings of the White Lady of Easton in and around Stepney Cemetery in Monroe and Union Cemetery in Easton. More on that soon. Now a paranormal team is taking a deeper dive into the legendary apparition and asking for the public's input. The result will be a documentary about the female ghost with the long dark hair and flowing white dress, said project leader and paranormal investigator Nicholas Grossman. Grossman even believes that he may have captured actual footage of her apparition, although he doesn't share it. But that's totally, you know, beside the point. His fascination about the lady heightened one day, he said, when his psychic colleague, someone named Diane, and their video technician, Hector, noticed something unusual. They said this quote. The cemetery, usually a hotbed of paranormal activity, was eerily quiet. Oh gosh, a quiet cemetery. How unusual. But the psychic used her pendulum to communicate with the spirit who delivered a cryptic message. You will see the white lady tonight. And then while he was driving down the road later that evening, This is Grossman. This is the guy the the the paranormal investigator. A woman in a white dress flew across in front of my car. She appeared completely physical, not transparent. She glided across the road in a way no human could. It was so real, I swerved to avoid her. Grossman says he regrets not having his video camera on Monday. Darn it. Dang, he missed it.

'''S:''' Maybe next, maybe next time.

'''E:''' And the article goes on to promote. His ghost hunting. Group, you know, they're encouraging people in the area to contact them to share their stories and hallucinations of their interactions with the white lady so that they can incorporate it into their upcoming film project. Well, since you asked, I do have a story to add because you see from the years 1982 through 1986 I lived in a house about 1/4 of one mile from Union Cemetery in Easton, CT and I and some of.

'''S:''' My high school.

'''E:''' Friends would frequent that cemetery regularly. We would ride our bikes through there, you know, just muck around in there. We conducted some scientific experiments, you know, such as seeing if tubes of rubber cement are flammable. They are, by the way, and some other non damaging mischief sort of events that teenage boys are want to do when they explore their surroundings. But before I tell you about my results from my five years of basically living next door to this cemetery and therefore next to this ghost, I'll give you a little bit of background on the legend of the White Lady who's been cited for what decades, many decades. There have been reports of of the White Lady, but the white lady in an interesting way is very much described the same way as, oh, I don't know, every other white lady account of similar ghost sightings that have plagued the human mind for as long as I don't know. There have been human minds. There are stories like this everywhere. This is not unique to Connecticut, certainly not to this cemetery and throughout cultures all across the all over the world. Basically, look, she has long dark hair, flowing white dress and uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere. And apparently, apparently. Thank you.

'''S:''' Right in front of moving cars where drivers?

'''E:''' Have to slam on the brakes sometimes convinced that they actually hit her, but then they find there's nothing there. Oh my gosh, Local folklore says she's a woman. This was a woman drowned by her husband over 3 centuries ago near a watering hole across from the cemetery. And like so many other lady in white tails, it's a story that's emotionally satisfying but they say historically fuzzy at best. I say non existent. Frankly. There are no records of a drowned wife, woman or any other person in Easton from the 1700s or the 1800s for that matter. Or the 1900s, or ever. But that doesn't stop the folklore. That doesn't stop the story from gaining a life of its own. Almost every version of this story anchors the haunting at to the White latest Union Cemetery in Easton again, which they say dates back to the 1760s. Scant evidence for it, but this is where Ed and Lorraine Warren, the Warrens, focused their attention in the late 1980s. And it was that one fateful night, September 1st, 1990, Ed Warren, he was on the 7th night in a row of filming at the cemetery where he captured the video of the white of the lady in white, a woman walking across the cemetery. And he publicized it in his 1992 book called Graveyard. Now, Bob, Jay, Steve Sir, didn't did, did he? We were. Shown the footage of the white Lady, right? We were. Yep, Yep. What were your thoughts?

'''S:''' About so I asked. Ed.

'''E:''' We asked Ed.

'''S:''' To show us the best evidence she got. What's the best? You know, because he's claimed to have tons of evidence. Alright, just give give us the absolute best. This is what he showed us, his VHS recording of the White Lady in Union Cemetery. And our reaction was, at first it was crappy evidence, but it was it was at that perfect distance to give you a suggestion that something was happening but not be able to see what it was. So was that and a living person in a sheet, It absolutely could have been. It was not of sufficient quality to to rule that out. And that I think was absolutely by design, especially if that's your motivation going.

'''E:''' Into this thing in the 1st place, where after seven nights of this you're not really getting anything. How many more nights you're going to do this, Ed? Seven nights is enough. Let's get somebody to go, you know? Then you do a BLOB squatch. Yeah, it's a BLOB squatch, right?

'''C:''' And.

'''S:''' And I have to add, we, we asked Ed, you know, this is the the point where we were kind of still being cooperative and friendly with him. And he said, yeah, that's interesting. We'll be happy to take a close look at it. Can you give us a copy of that tape? He refused to give it to us for analysis. That was the end. That was right.

'''E:''' That was the. Beginning of the end of the well joint venture that we had with him for those months and he did give us, he did give us a video.

'''B:''' Of somebody disappearing, which of course we utterly demolished, but that was somebody else recorded that, that was some. Flunky of his.

'''S:''' That wasn't him. So he didn't have his own credibility on the line with that one, correct? And he still didn't believe.

'''E:''' Our assessment.

'''B:''' Well, but yeah, you didn't accept it.

'''S:''' Whatever you say that that kid disappeared.

'''B:''' Sure he did. That's right.

'''E:''' That kid Harry. Harry would say that every time he said that kid disappear.

'''U:''' Ed.

'''E:''' Ed Ed.

'''U:''' So.

'''E:''' Look, as far as I'm concerned, yeah, because I did do some more research into this, into the legend of the White Lady. I looked for articles, I looked for stories, I looked for reports. I looked for account. I don't even know really that this story had much legs even before Ed Warren got, you know, became kind of the the the toast of the paranormal world as he was on on on the ascent in in those years, right. You know, he, he seems to be the one to have suddenly given a name to this particular phenomenon. Sure. Maybe because, again, how many other ghost stories are there of things being seen or a woman and vague descriptions of things? And suddenly Ed in his 1990 encounter kind of, you know, modifies this thing, makes it his own way and. Then. The media start following it. OK, now this is the White Lady of Union Cemetery because Ed Warren said it says it. So I'm not even sure this thing really even existed before Ed Warren. That's my take on it, and it's not even that creative.

'''C:''' Like how many like you mentioned, like how many towns across the world have like a a ghost dressed in white doesn't walk to the graveyard. Yeah.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Right.

'''S:''' It's cliche.

'''C:''' It's not even creative.

'''S:''' I agree. Yeah, it's like a flying saucer with great aliens. I mean, come on, you could do better than that. But I want. But I want to do my official.

'''E:''' Contribution to the pool of information that Grossman and his team are collecting. All right, let's have it. Here is my here's. My first hand. Account OK, I Here you go, Mr. Grossman. I spend more days and nights in and around that cemetery than many other people can claim, frankly, especially people who are investigating ghosts. In all my many hours, hours upon hours spent at Human Cemetery, I never saw a thing even coming close to a ghost sighting. We didn't ever even had a single noise that scared us in the middle of the night or something that caught the corner of my eye. Absolutely zero. We were there in the daytime, we were there in the night time, and we were occasionally out well past midnight around that graveyard. This was all before I even became a skeptic of the paranormal, right? I believe, you know, I believed in anything and everything at that point. It's a 1314 year old kid just messing around, having laughs with friends, you know, again, riding bikes. We didn't vandalize. We didn't really do anything like that. We were just it was your own personal Stranger things.

'''S:''' Hang exactly all fun. Yeah, it was.

'''E:''' We were kids on bikes then. And that was it. So there's my contribution. Nothing happened. Upcoming. Yeah. Exactly not a. Darn thing happened, so I hope that somehow makes it into the documentary. Well, happy Halloween, everyone.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:16:35) ==

'''E:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time.

'''S:''' Noisy time. All right guys, last week I played.

'''E:''' This noisy.

'''U:''' What do you people think? No, it sounded.

'''J:''' Like a water pick from a.

'''E:''' Dentist office, you know, they fire that laser sharp water into your teeth. Oh, I hate that sound. Yeah, I had.

'''U:''' I had some.

'''J:''' Fun varied guesses in here, but I can only talk about a few of them. Michael Blaney wrote in and said Hi G, I'm guessing the call of the Jacobin Hummingbird. He says that Guinness listed as the bird with the highest pitch call. That's a fantastic guess, Michael, but I'm sorry, you are incorrect. Another listener named Hunter Richards wrote in and said hi Jay forgot it was Wednesday. If it's not too late, I think the critter in last week's noisy is a small mammal like a flying squirrel. Maybe a pig meat loris, but I don't know if those animals are in proximity to humans usually. So a flying squirrel as a reminder to the listeners of this show, only submit one thing or at least give me your final guess. You could say I think it might be this, this or this and give me your final guess because I'm going to go with if you don't, if you give me multiple and you don't specify what your actual guess is, I I can't, I can't count it anyway, Hunter, thanks for that. You are incorrect. Louis Morales said, hi, Jay, This week's noisy sounds like a dolphin to me. Probably at a sea park. OK, he but he says it might be a bird too. And then he says I'm sticking with dolphin. Anyway, I did have a close guest, but no winner this week. The closest guest I got was sent in by a listener named Evil Eye. Evil Eye has been listening to the show, I think since the very beginning and also is a is a very regular guesser here. He said I'll just go ahead and fail right out. He says it's a squirrel monkey. This is a very close guess, but it is. It is not a squirrel monkey. It's a mother squirrel. Is that a thing?

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah, I. Listen to the sounds that squirrel monkeys.

'''J:''' Make and it's kind of similar, but not fully there. What this actually is is I'll tell you a couple things. They live in eastern rainforest in Brazil. They are arboreal. You know what that means, Steve? Right. They live in trees. Thank you. And can you guys want to make a guess? Yeah, I'll guess They're arboreal. Correct.

'''B:''' It's the arboreal Arboreal.

'''J:''' No, this is. This is. This is called. A lion. Tamarin. This is a little monkey guy, a lion tamarin they weigh up to.

'''S:''' 900g or 32?

'''J:''' Oz. They're about 30 centimeters high or 12 inches long high, whatever however you want to do it with. Tails about 45 centimeters or 18 inches long, They jump through trees. They use their fingers to hold onto the branches. They use their claws to dig under the bark to search for insects to eat. They also eat some snakes, lizards, and small fruits. They are unfortunately all endangered or critically endangered in part because their habitat is of course being destroyed and climate change is a big part of that. So let me play play this for you. Again, keep in mind this is a little monkey.

'''U:''' I need to ask the audience A.

'''J:''' Very serious question. I just played a sound that sounds exactly like a million birds all over the planet and the vast majority of you did not guess a bird. Maybe it only sounds that way to you. Well, or you know.

'''C:''' I mean, come on.

'''US#02:''' It made the tweet the.

'''J:''' Tweet sound. I mean, it's like my expectation was to be flooded with bird guesses and it didn't happen and I'd need to know what's happening, what is going on out there? Steve, did you think it was a bird? No. What am I hearing?

'''S:''' Is it a high pitched?

'''J:''' Squeaky thing that repeats it's itself and sounds like a song. It's not tweety enough. Cara is a tweety.

'''S:''' I don't know I'm.

'''C:''' Not a bird. OK, maybe I'm getting old here. Maybe my I?

'''J:''' Don't know, I was just thinking bird all the way. Anyway, OK, so that was this week's noisy. Thank you everyone for guessing. I have a new noisy this week and this noisy was sent in by a listener named Jenny Navis.

'''U:''' Very strange noise if you think you know what.

'''J:''' It is. You can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. You can also send me in any noises that you heard or have you know happened upon on the Internet that you think are cool. I will take all in consideration. Steve Novella. We like to leave Connecticut and we ask Cara to leave her domicile in Los Angeles and join us for live entertainment because we we give it and we want the people that listen to this show to receive it as I Have I said anything wrong so far? Nope. OK, so where are we going to be We're.

'''C:''' Going to.

'''J:''' Seattle, WA and we're going to Madison, WI January 10th of next year. That's 2026 we will be in Seattle, WA at Washington Hall Cool. And Saturday, May 16th of 2026 we will be in Madison, WI at Atwood Music Hall. You can go to our website where the links for the tickets will be available. And on top of that, we will be doing, of course, private shows on both of those weekends. It's very likely that we'll be doing those private shows the Saturday morning, which is before the nighttime event. So you can do both of them in one day. They typically run from like 11:00 to 2:00 or 12:00 to 3:00. I will finalize those details, but tickets will be available this weekend and we're going to actually try something new this time around, guys, because we have gotten requests over the years that people want something a little more exclusive and a little more private. That's more of like just socializing and there's no shows involved. So we decided that we're going to try on both of the Friday nights before the shows that I just mentioned. We will have a very, very limited ticketed event where you're just going to hang out with us and you're going to basically do whatever we decide to do, right? It could be anything. We'll give more details on that as well, but you will see tickets up for those as well. All right. Thank you, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:22:59) ==


'''S:''' We have one e-mail, this comes from Keith from, by coincidence, Seattle, WA and Keith writes, I saw this article referenced in a typical online argument and he has a link to the article. The commenter extracted the following one line quote. The risk of COVID-19 also increased with time since the most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received, he goes on. But that's the that's the key question is asking us. So basically there's a study that showed exactly that, that the risk of have getting diagnosed with COVID-19 increased with the number of vax of previous COVID-19 vaccine doses. So of course this is going around with the claim, like see the vaccines, not only do they not work, they increase your risk of getting COVID thing. But wait, did they compare it to people who weren't? Vaccinated.

'''C:''' Yeah, because I think the risk of getting COVID increases with time. The Well, it increased with time.

'''S:''' Since your most recent COVID infection and also.

'''C:''' Which makes sense.

'''S:''' The longer we live, the more.

'''C:''' Likely we are to get COVID. I think they looked over like a six month period or.

'''S:''' Something OK, OK, So what you.

'''C:''' Know as you might.

'''S:''' Imagine that's not what this study showed. OK, I mean, it didn't.

'''C:''' Meaning it didn't show that.

'''S:''' COVID vaccines don't work. It showed the opposite. It showed that, you know, if you look the the core finding of the study and what they were looking for, the actual question for the study was are how effective is the vaccine given the mutations and the virus? So like are, is it is, are the the vaccine still providing protection given that we know the virus is continuing to mutate and they actually correlated it with different waves of infection and what what strains were dominant during that period of time. So they found a number of things. 1 So again, this is just an observational study. And so you know what I'm going to say, right? Observational studies are subject to confounding factors, and this study in particular has confounding factors galore, right? So that that's the huge grain of salt you have to take this with. They found that overall infection rate during the period of times they were looking at was 8.7%. So that's fairly low. So you also have to keep that in mind as well. There's already a pretty low infection rate and so it even subtle effects can can have a seemingly dramatic effect on the relative risk within that, you know what I mean, of getting affected. What they found was the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 29% for the BA .4 slash 5A dominant wave. It was 20% for the BQ negative wave and only 4% effective for the XBB dominant phase, right? So 2120% and 4%. So keep in mind. So that means it worked, right? The vaccine reduced the risk of getting infected, but the more different the strain was from the vaccine strain, the less effective it was, Right? OK, so of course.

'''C:''' That.

'''S:''' Is inconsistent with the notion that increased vaccine doses increased your risk of infection, right. So first of all, that's a relative increased risk on the background of an overall decreased risk just from being vaccinated. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what that's kind of what I was getting.

'''C:''' At but like in a less complicated way, Yeah. Is that like the more?

'''S:''' Vaccines you.

'''C:''' Get it means that you are going farther in time and there are more. The risks fluctuate in the general population. So there will be times when you get a vaccine and you're more likely to get COVID not because of the vaccine, but because COVID is is circulating more. Yeah. I mean infection they tried to control. For. That stuff as much as.

'''S:''' Possible, again, they're doing an observational study where they're just looking at a cohort of people and saying did they get infected or not? And what was their vaccine status, you know? So there's a, there's a couple of things to point out here, obviously, and the authors, the authors do not believe that increasing number of doses actually reduced the protection of the vaccine or increase your risk of getting infected. There has to be a confounding factor here. That's the only thing that makes sense. And they discuss a few possibilities and they try to control for a confounding factor. It's always, it's impossible to do that completely. You can, you can, you can try. So, you know, you can all you could say, hey, it's possible that people got more doses because they're in a high risk group and there and being in a high risk group increase their risk of getting infected. But the observational data, you can never know what the arrow of causation is. That's like saying being on a diet correlates with being overweight. Yeah, because people who are overweight go on diets, not the other way around. It's the same kind of thing. Also keep in mind this was not the risk of having COVID. This was the risk of being diagnosed as having COVID. And so you also, then that introduces all the confounding factors of who gets diagnosed. Maybe you're more likely to get diagnosed if you're also somebody who was more likely to be up to date on your boosters, right? You're getting more healthcare. You're more likely to show up in the system. Yep. A lot of people got sick and just didn't report.

'''C:''' Exactly. So yeah, there's that's.

'''S:''' That this just like off the top of my head kind of obvious confounding factors that are almost certainly at play here. And so you can't conclude that this in any way calls into question the effectiveness of the vaccine. But I would also challenge just this, the whole approach of this study. Again, it's fine as far as it goes, but it's not the be all and end all of COVID vaccine effectiveness studies. It's looking at, in fact, the weakest indicator of vaccine effectiveness, which was be having been diagnosed with having COVID, because this is not taking a look at severity or anything else. There was also a very recent New England Journal of Medicine article that did that looked at outcomes that are I think much better markers of vaccine effectiveness for a number of reasons. So this was a six month follow up study where they looked at the the estimated vaccine effectiveness. The reduction in COVID-19 associated emergency department visits was 29.3%. The reduction in Haas COVID-19 associated hospitalizations was 39.2%. The reduction in COVID-19 associated deaths was 64%. So you were 30% less likely to be go to the emergency room, 40% less likely to get admitted to the hospital, and 64% less likely to die. So obviously we care a lot more about those outcomes than having a mild case of COVID, right? So, and we've known for years that the vaccines are better at preventing serious illness than any illness, right? That that's another sort of example of you're looking at a subset of the data. It's not giving you the full picture. And you know you and there's lots of problems with this data which you cannot gloss over. But also that's also just an individual study. So the most recent systematic review I found, this is a review of 284 articles found, quote, all the approved vaccines were found safe and efficacious, but mRNA based vaccines were found to be more efficacious against SARS COV 2 than other platforms. So all of the vaccines work. And if you look at the totality of the literature, that's what it shows. But of course, if you don't know what you're talking about and you have a political agenda, you could look at this one study and say C vaccines don't work. But it is absolutely not true. Yeah. And if you want the details I wrote, I wrote about it on science based medicine.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:31:21) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = Human Flatulence
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gasses.
|link1web =
|link1title = None
|link1pub = None

|item2 = Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable.
|link2web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02154-w
|link2title = A widespread hydrogenase supports fermentative growth of gut bacteria in healthy people | Nature Microbiology
|link2pub = www.nature.com

|item3 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.
|link3web = https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2024.1397259/full
|link3title = Frontiers | Diagnostic performance of volatile organic compounds analysis and electronic noses for detecting colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis
|link3pub = www.frontiersin.org

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gasses.

|science2 = Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable.

|fiction = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue1 = Jay
|answer1 = Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable.

|rogue2 = Evan
|answer2 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue3 = Bob
|answer3 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue4 = Cara
|answer4 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' OK, let's go on with science or fiction.

'''U:''' It's time for.

'''US#02:''' Science or fiction each week I come up with.

'''S:''' Three Science News items or facts, 2 genuine and 1 fictitious. And then I challenge my panelist skeptics tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week and the theme is AI Flatulence.

'''E:''' Same thing.

'''S:''' Farts. The theme is farting. OK, I didn't plan on having a theme, but sometimes like I. Come across an interesting news item. Like I could just flesh this out into a theme.

'''J:''' So, Steve, is this like, going to focus on like our expertise that we have all developed in our old age about, you know, passing gas or like what's happening? Yeah, your flatulent expertise may come.

'''S:''' Into, into, bear with it might help you. I'm not going to talk about technique or anything, Jay, if that's what you're asking, but or or naming conventions.

'''B:''' All right here.

'''S:''' We go item number one. Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases. Item number 2, up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. And item number three, there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer. Jay, as the resident expert, why don't you go first, OK? I mean, you know, I don't know.

'''J:''' About resident expert Steve, the first one we have here is that greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases. I think 99% is a lot, but I would think this is, if this seems like science to me, there is quite a bit of gas passing happening. And I think if we, if every one of them smelled, we would all know it in a big way. Because, you know, I don't know if we discussed this on the show before, but like passing gas is like a true sign that your body is functioning and that you are digesting and processing food. And you know, it's a very important part. You know, it's like it's just part of, of, you know, having a metabolism. So that said, you know, I think that there's lots of gas passing happening with people every day. And this one is probably science. Second item, up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable hydrogen gas. Because I thought it was methane and I could be embarrassingly wrong on this one, but I that's, that's the gas I thought it was. No, I don't think it's hydrogen. That one is definitely on my I don't think so list #3 there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds called VOC's in flatulence as they as an early sign colorectal cancer. Thank you for that. I think that science, I don't think we're farting. I don't think we're fired farting hydrogen. I would have heard of that, right? And does hydrogen even smell? I've never smelled it. I wouldn't be surprised if it does smell, but I don't know. I just haven't heard a lot of it. I haven't heard any of about any of this. And I don't think I would have, you know, not heard it at this point. I think #2 the hydrogen is the fiction. OK, Evan. OK #1.

'''E:''' Comprised of odorless gases. So wow, that means that that's a 1% it's responsible for. Yeah, that seems wrong. Which makes me think it's right because. I mean not, you know. So I, I, yeah, that one will probably wind up being science. I think for purposes of this game, The second one, about 50% of human flatulence up to 50% is hydrogen gas. Can't underestimate the amount of hydrogen that's out there inside all around. You know what, Most everything is hydrogen, right? So to clarify, this is hydrogen.

'''S:''' Gas, this is H2. This doesn't mean hydrogen as part of other compounds. OK all.

'''E:''' Right, well that does change the math. This is the one Jay said was fiction. Maybe it is fiction. The last one here, several approved tests for VOCS as an early screen for colorectal cancer. This doesn't seem right. Approved tests. They're several approved tests. Why? But we've seen commercials, we've seen other things for early detection and they're not this it. It's actual, you know, fecal matter that you have to look at and stuff. I hadn't heard anything about. About what? Going into an office and letting out your gas and then they can screen for it. I haven't heard that at all, so I don't know. Sounds like you made that one up, Steve. I'll say the VOCS. I'll say that one's the fiction. OK, Bob, I think it makes sense.

'''S:''' That 99.

'''B:''' Percent is odorless, so that one's probably fine. The second one, though, up to 50% is hydrogen gas. It seems like a lot, but I think the keywords there is up to, so that might make the difference. And then this third one, I'm not sure. I'm skeptical that they've got approved tests for that. I've never heard anything about it. This could be the one that's up to. All right, I'm going to I'll say the up to is changing my mind on the second one. They're up to 50% I think typically I don't think it's that much, but up to is just killing me here. So I'll just I'm going to go with evidence. AVOC Fiction, OK. And Cara, yeah, I'm leaning in that.

'''S:''' Direction too.

'''C:''' I think that it makes sense. The one that seems the most like science is the 99% because sometimes farts don't smell. And so you would think that that it wouldn't be a large percentage of compounds that comprise the smell. It's probably just like one thing, like I think it's sulfur and and if it, it's only a tiny, tiny bit, sometimes there's even less or sometimes it maybe it doesn't have that compound. So that would make sense to me. But the two I, I'm sort of torn between the two, but I'm leaning in the way of Evan and Bob. I think you can light farts don't do it though. Sounds very dangerous, but I don't know if it's because of hydrogen or other other flammable gases, but I Bob kind of convinced me with the up to whereas like I remember doing some stories years ago about mechanical noses and this idea of like dogs smelling cancer or trying to produce tests that can smell VOC's for different things. And I think that research is still not where they want it to be. I agree with Evan. Like there are poop tests for screens for colorectal for people with like a normal risk. And then obviously, you know, colonoscopies and things like that. But I don't think anybody's getting tested for cancer by farting into a jar. So I'm going to call that the fiction. OK, so you guys all agree on the 1st.

'''S:''' One, so we'll start there. Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases, which means that less than 1% are smelly. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. It is science. That is correct. Yes, less than 1% of of the gases in flatulence are sulfur compounds which are responsible for the odor. Yes, care is correct, it is mostly hydrogen sulfide. The rest is odorless gases. I'll give you the breakdown later though, because that obviously, you know, carries over to #2 here for number. Let's talk about #2 and #3 for a bit because you guys made interesting comments about them #2. Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. So there's never going to be 1 figure for flatulence because it's so variable based upon diet and gut flora and other variables. So right, like you could, there's never going to be 1 figure for what is the gas constituent of flatulence. It's there's so many variables in here. It's always going to be a range. And I'm liking this up too.

'''U:''' Right.

'''C:''' So yeah, there's.

'''S:''' It was always going to be up to I would never, there's no way I could ever say in a statement like this 50% of flatulence is hydrogen gas because that no such statement could ever like that could be true. And now the third one, Evan, because a test is approved doesn't mean that it's used or that it's useful enough or cost effective enough that it's in general use. Oh, crap. Wait.

'''C:''' The same.

'''S:''' All right.

'''E:''' So let's.

'''S:''' Do next week, let's go back to #2 Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. Jay, you think this one is the fiction? The rest of the rogues thinks this one is science and this one is science. This is science. Yeah. It's. So it's, there's a lot of variability here. It's like 20 to 50% depending on really depending on your gut microbes, on your gut flora. But this is based upon a recent study where they found that hydrogen is a metabolic mediator of gut flora, way more than we thought it was. So some microorganisms create hydrogen gas, and other microorganisms eat hydrogen gas. Yeah. So a lot of the gas that's produced gets actually eaten by other microbes and then some of it you burp out and some of it you fart out, right? So how much an individual farts out depends on how much they're making and how much they're consuming and how much is leftover. So that's why it's always going to be variable. And you know, 20 to 50% is the range that that is most resources I found are giving. So maybe average of like 30% or so, but it's still alive. That was way more than I thought, which is why I included that. Yeah, that seems like a whole lot, yeah.

'''C:''' It's a lot. It's more than we thought.

'''S:''' Is the answer. It's it is actually more than we thought. This means that there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer. Cancer is the fiction because, yeah, what you guys were saying about this one was otherwise correct. There are VOC tests for lots of things. Now the volatile organic compounds, there's a lot of research looking at measuring Vocs and breathalyzers and also in flatulence, but they're not quite there yet. The the ones that are that are in that are working are looking for VOC's and actual fecal samples. So Evans correct, it's you're looking at fecal, they are still looking at VOC, Yeah, but they are looking for VOC.

'''J:''' 'S is one of the things they're.

'''S:''' Looking for so yeah, so this is an up and coming thing and they're hoping that they'll get to the point where they could just do a breathalyzer because you don't have to get it going out the bottom. You can get the same gases come out the top to some extent. So, but you know, if you're looking specifically for, and it's not just cancer, it's also for other GI diseases as well, irritable bowel syndrome, for example, or gluten insensitivity. Let's talk about the percentage of gases in the gut. So it's mostly what? What's the most common gas in far? Methane? Nitrogen. Because most of it is. Swallowed air, right? So you swallow a lot of air that you swallow from eating. Chewing gum actually makes you fart because you swallow more air. Interesting.

'''J:''' So there's also.

'''S:''' Therefore some oxygen, there's some carbon dioxide, about 9%. So it's 59% nitrogen. These are average figures. Again, it's all hugely variable about 9% carbon dioxide. Methane, you know, it's anywhere from 7 to 30% methane, also combustible. So that's the two things that when you you can't light your farts on fire. And the two, the two things are methane and hydrogen. But don't do it. Don't do it because you'll burn your ass. And then oxygen is like 4% and then the sulfur compounds that give it the odor are less than 1%. Again, these are average figures. The range is huge for all of them because of of variables. How much do people fart on average do you think per day in like liters? That's so hard. I mean, how much? Well, wait, can you tell?

'''C:''' Us How much is an average fart? Like how big, how many liters is an average fart? Or, well, there's there's there's the total. Volume.

'''S:''' And then there's the number of times you fart per day. And then you could you could figure it out from there. So 1 to 2 liters per day is is average. That's average. And some people are going like that. It's something like 15 to 23 farting events. Wow, men fart more.

'''C:''' Than women.

'''S:''' Why? But women's farts smell more than men's. Interesting. Wow, that's.

'''C:''' These are all averages these.

'''S:''' Are all just obviously there's no typical thing. This is just I wonder it's between men. Well, yeah.

'''E:''' I wonder if it's. Biological or?

'''C:''' Social I wonder if women hold them in and maybe they may and then then that. Percentage might creep up. Fewer farting events, but same.

'''S:''' Same volume, the same gases exactly. Guys are a little bit more freeze. A little more bravado. So you're going to have a.

'''E:''' Few more.

'''C:''' Unsmelly farts than we are because you're farting more often now the the volume.

'''S:''' And musical characteristic of the farts are almost entirely determined by the anus. Yeah, yeah. Does your butt cheeks get?

'''J:''' Involved in that or what? If they're big enough, I guess they could get involved.

'''S:''' So are we talking about all out gassing that the.

'''E:''' Body does. No, just talking about yeah.

'''S:''' Through the back end anus base the bum bum OK because you. Combine it with burps and all.

'''E:''' And other things that the body emits. Oh boy. Yeah, that's what that's more more. Gasses.

'''S:''' Wow, we are. We are expending.

'''E:''' Fluids and.

'''S:''' Gases of every type, through many orifices. And don't forget dander, right? So, Steve, what did you say? About the music quality.

'''B:''' It totally depends on. It's. Mostly determined by the musculature.

'''S:''' Of the anus, Yeah. And also that that's wrong. It's the key.

'''B:''' Of C that is wrong. It's also.

'''U:''' It's not wrong.

'''S:''' It's also the the pressure that it's under is also a a factor and butt cheeks have no say in this. I didn't.

'''B:''' Say they have no say, I said primarily they're. Big enough?

'''S:''' Well, they have a.

'''C:''' Say, my gosh, I can't believe, but if they're.

'''B:''' Not in the way.

'''C:''' You can still have musicality. So if it's like for example you have low.

'''S:''' Pressure, loose musculature. It could be silent. Yeah, usually the butt cheeks by.

'''C:''' Themselves are not.

'''S:''' Enough to produce. They may modulate the sound, but they probably won't produce the sound. Bob, what do you got?

'''U:''' What do you know?

'''S:''' I'm not going into details.

'''B:''' Well, Bob. Bob. Does want to toot his own horn?

'''S:''' Let's move on.

'''B:''' To the quote All right, Evan, give us the.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:46:45) ==
{{qow
|text = “By all means let us agree that we are pattern-seeking mammals and that, owing to our restless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all.”
|author = Christopher Hitchens
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Quote By all means, let us agree that we are.

'''E:''' Pattern seeking mammals, and that owning to our relentless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all. Well said by Christopher Hitchens. Yeah, I have to, unfortunately.

'''S:''' Agree with that. Yep, that the allure of any explanation over no explanation is pretty great. Yep, yeah.

'''E:''' We love filling the void with whatever well, and that's I think one of the central.

'''C:''' Theses of that frontline episode about RFK is like how could this happen to dad? This is so horrible. This is so like, I can't explain this. And we think back to Alex Jones. Remember his whole thing about Sandy Hook? And we were like, why did people actually believe him? Like, we get why he made it up because he's a horrible person, but like, why do people believe them? And one of the theories by by set forth by social psychologists was that some people said, this is so horrible. I can't imagine it to be true. Yeah, a way to cope with the actual.

'''E:''' Horror of the true event, Yeah, isn't that? Wild.

'''C:''' It's fascinating it.

'''E:''' Is fascinating. The the lengths. We'll go to, to, to to make something as comfortable as possible for ourselves. So dangerous. Yep. All right. Well, thank you all.

'''S:''' For joining me this week. You got it, Steve. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Steve. And until next week. This is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1059

2025-12-28T21:18:03Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:31:21) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1059
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1059|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1059.jpg
|caption = "Whispers of history linger in the quiet cemetery, shadows of the past remain."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “By all means let us agree that we are pattern-seeking mammals and that, owing to our restless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all.”
|qowAuthor = Christopher Hitchens
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1059|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''E:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob. Novella. Everybody Cara Santa Maria. Jane Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good afternoon, everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, how is your jewelry making course going?

'''C:''' Oh my gosh, I love it so much. I'm doing this. It's like bench jewelry. So basically it's a silversmithing class and I'm learning all sorts of fun skills. Like when I say soldering. Soldering in bench jewelry is completely different than the type of soldering that you're used to doing with electronics. It uses like this giant torch with a mix of propane and oxygen depending on if you're doing using a work flame or a solder flame or an annealing flame.

'''J:''' You can propan.

'''S:''' So you're doing it just with heat? You're not. You don't have additional solder that you're putting.

'''C:''' There, no, you do some, you do use additional solder. So fusing is with without solder and soldering is with solder. But you're not using like one of those little kind of soldering pen things that you usually use with electronics. It's way higher heat, yeah, and you need more control and the solder.

'''S:''' The temperature of the torch.

'''C:''' Oh gosh, I don't know, but it's blue. It's like bright and intense.

'''S:''' Yeah, I've been using a blowtorch recently, also for a completely different thing. It's I, so I know for a fact that it's 2100°.

'''C:''' Oh, OK, cool. And so just.

'''S:''' A regular blowtorch.

'''US#02:''' For Fahrenheit.

'''C:''' Well, the one we use in class is it's not even a blowtorch. I don't know what it is. It's a nozzle that's got these, you know, big cables that are attached to a giant oxygen and giant propane tank.

'''S:''' But it is propane.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's A and so you mix it based on how much heat you need.

'''S:''' Oh, that might be hotter because I'm using just propane and just air not. Yeah, using.

'''C:''' We're using oxygen.

'''S:''' Yeah, I wonder if that's hotter.

'''C:''' Then and it might be that we need it to be cleaner for the silver, I'm not sure. Yeah. And so because sometimes you have to anneal metal to soften it so you can work with it more. Obviously you need heat to solder and the soldering chips or wire is silver. So you're soldering with more silver. But I think it has like a different melting point, you know, filing, we use a jeweler saw to file a lot of like dapping and texturing, pickling, like chemistry, all these calculations. It's really fun. So I made a pair of earrings which are mixed metal. They've got bronze and copper and silver. And then I'm working on a ring right now. And the hope is that before we finish class, we can do a bezel set stone, which uses fine silver. So that's not 925, it's actually 100% silver for the bezel. So it's softer and then a wax, like an organic wax mold, which she said we use like the bone from a fish because it's like the right consistency to pour wax into. I don't know. I'm, I still don't know yet, but it's going to be fun to do. So I finished a pair of earrings. I'm very proud of them. I and you know me, this also means that I basically have an entire bench set up at home by now and I'm collecting all sorts of supplies and I'm working on a ring right now. And it's so, so fun. So hey, maybe. Yeah, maybe I can make some cool jewelry. I I don't, I don't want this to be like a job. Obviously I already have too many jobs. But what a cool hobby that you could give, you know, friends for gifts, homemade jewelry.

'''J:''' Yeah, right.

'''C:''' That's like a cool thing.

'''J:''' Anything handmade I think is an amazing gift.

'''C:''' Yeah, and like, it's not like handmade, handmade, you know what I mean? It is handmade but it like looks like perfesh like it's pretty cool.

'''E:''' Yeah, you can give three to the elves and six to the dwarves.

'''J:''' And watch out, Cara has a master plan I.

'''C:''' Do not understand what you guys are talking about right? Now Rings of Power Christmas.

'''J:''' Lord of the Rings.

'''C:''' Lord of the Rings, right? What was Christmas coming in all?

'''E:''' Nice.

'''S:''' Though it is really fun to get into old school analog crafting skills. You know, we've been doing a lot of that, like giving each other gifts like glassblowing and knife making and stuff. It's been, I've been recently working with bamboo because I have a lot growing in my backyard and making all kinds of stuff out of it. I'm like repairing all my fences with bamboo making walking sticks and stabs. And recently, Bob I made a pair of bamboo nunchucks.

'''B:''' Oh, sweet, sweet.

'''S:''' They look really nice. They're actually nice. It's funny because they're bamboos light because it's hollow and Jay showing to Jay is like this isn't heavy enough to work as an actual weapon like Jay. The chance of you ever using those as an actual weapon in your life is 0. It's never going to have this is purely for for practice and and just screwing around. And for that it's perfect because you're not going to kill yourself if you accidentally use up in the head. But it's it's heavy enough to function as as nunchucks, right?

'''B:''' True, I still wouldn't want a a a bamboo nunchuck to hit my nunchuck bone, right Jay? Remember the nunchuck bone? Still hurts. Your elbow it would like it would like literally get swollen and pop out from just being whacked from a nunchuck so much.

'''E:''' Anyone ever tried to sell you a fake bamboo? Get bamboozled.

'''S:''' Get.

'''C:''' Bamboozled God, where is he going with this?

'''S:''' Yes. I source all my own bamboo. Thank you. But yeah, that's where. So I heat treat it with it with a blowtorch and which turns with this beautiful caramel color. And then you sort of have to rub in the resins back into the wood. And then you put a little linseed oil on there and it makes it really look very lustrous. And then once you can do that, once you have that basic skill set which I just learned off of YouTube, you can then do anything you want with the bamboo, you know what I mean?

'''E:''' I love the University of YouTube, it's my favorite. For stuff like this, it's great. Yes, it's perfect.

'''S:''' I actually used a combination of YouTube and ChatGPT because, and that because you, The thing is with the, the Youtubers are great giving you 90% of the information you need, but they like, I think they just make assumptions about things. They don't explicitly spell, spell certain things out. And so I could fill all those holes in with chat by having a conversation about it with ChatGPT. Interesting. Yeah, like very specific questions. Like at first I didn't realize because nobody says that. They just do it like you have to do the heat treating a section at a time. If you do it too much at once, the resin hardens before you then rub it back into the wood.

'''C:''' Right, Right.

'''S:''' So like, it's like, why is it so tacky? It's because I waited too long because you have to do it a section at a time. But I only learned that information well, by doing and then following up with ChatGPT.

'''C:''' Yeah. That's, that's, that is part of like the joy that I'm having in taking a class with a master bench jeweler because I have a million questions and she has all of the answer totally. So nice.

'''S:''' There's no substitute for that mentor, you know, apprentice system, you get that download of institutional knowledge. There is no substitute for that. Again, YouTube, if the person it does a good job again gets you like 90% of the way there, you just can't ask questions, you know, unless they're active in the chat, you know, but there, but then there's also like Discord and other places where it's a community of people answering questions. That's the other source of information. And also when you look up people at people basically answering questions.

'''C:''' And also with specialized skills like bench jewelry, you have to go, unless you're buying your stuff online, like your tools, you have to go to special shops. I'm lucky I live in LA. We have a huge jewelry district and so going downtown there, our jewelry supply shops. And when you go into these shops, the people are so kind. You can be like, I'm not sure how this were. And they're like, oh, let me tell you. And that's been really fun too, just getting to know some of the people, like in the industry. OK. But two more things before we dive in to the show. I think the first one is this is the worst time possible to get into jewelry making because metal is ungodly expensive.

'''S:''' I know talking about this before the show gold like over $4000 an ounce. That's crazy.

'''C:''' Crazy like I, I'm glad I don't gold because I definitely wouldn't want to be working in gold right now. Even working in silver, which is $50.00 an ounce. We every tiny piece of scrap we cut off, we save so that we can melt it down to make an ingot and and work with it again. It's just, I mean, it's it's ungodly expensive. But the other thing, so it was my birthday last week, as I mentioned last week, and we saw Devo and the B52's. Oh yeah. Tell me about it and it. Was amazing yeah OK the B52's were they were still solid but they were definitely like you know their age was showing a little bit yeah Devo and I didn't realize this mark Mothersbow of Devo is actually older than the members of the B52's that we looked up he's 76 I.

'''E:''' Guess that, yeah.

'''C:''' And he I mean, they played the tightest show. It totally rocked. They did multiple costume changes that wore the hats. It was amazing. It was so good. And I think that's.

'''E:''' Amazing, he's.

'''C:''' So talented. Gosh, how?

'''E:''' Many soundtracks and movie scores has he done in his life? 50 probably.

'''C:''' I mean, and everybody, if you don't know. So I was at gymnastics the other day and I I do gymnastics with a lot of people who are significantly younger than me. And I was telling them about the show and they were like, I don't think I know Devo. And I was like, no, you do, you know, whip it. And then they were like, Oh yeah, we know this song. And then I was like, what about this or this or this? Hadn't one one guy had never heard the song Love Shack. Yeah, from B52. That's a fun.

'''B:''' Song.

'''C:''' But the way that some of them, because a lot of them are film buffs, were here in LA, right? I was like, you know, the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic, and they were like, no way. Yeah. They didn't play Gut Feeling, though, which bummed me out. It's one of my favorite songs. But they did play Gates of Steel, which is in my top five all time. Well.

'''J:''' I am. I'm a longtime fan of Devo. I used to listen to them when I was like 13 years old. I think it goes that far back. And you know, did you know that the band does a cameo in the movie Heavy Metal I?

'''C:''' Don't think I've seen heavy metal the.

'''B:''' Animated movie, correct? Really. In the animated movie Heavy Metal? Yeah.

'''J:''' They're they are a band that's playing in a bar where it was basically like the one of the big fight scenes right before one of the big fight scenes with like the evil guy with the horns. Anyway, they're in there. It's very cool. If you're a fan. It's like amazing because it's, they're so weird and they're weird And every way you look at them, whether they're, you know, animated or in real life, or if you look at their early stuff, like they, they came up with, particularly the guitar player, he has like the strangest body movements. And it's all 100% deliberate, right? Because they are, you know, they're, they're artists in every way, you know, like even the way that they move. And he moves in a way where it feels like he's like countering the beat where it doesn't work with the beat of the song.

'''C:''' Yeah, and their and their whole shtick, right It like is de evolution. It was actually supposed to be pronounced Devoe, like that's how they always say it in interviews, which is super weird. And it's it's, I mean, the thing about it is this was the 80s, right? Like they actually started before I was born. They were at their peak, I think, when I was an infant. But I got into them as soon as I could. But they are still so relevant today. All the things they were saying on stage, all the songs that they're playing. I mean, they closed out the show with freedom of choice. And it was just like everything they're saying, you know, this idea, it's they were Idiocracy before Idiocracy.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Watch the documentary on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a new one actually, it's very. Yeah, yes, I watched it a few weeks ago. It's quite good.

'''S:''' All right, Cara, you're gonna get us started with a.
{{anchor|wtw}}
== What's the Word? (11:49) ==
* Peristalsis

'''S:''' What's the word?

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' So I thought that this was an interesting approach to what's the word this week. I was trying to come up with something and I remembered again, in gymnastics, this is sort of a, you know, why didn't I know this? Or today I learned with A twist. So we were talking, we were doing a lot of hand stands and head stands in one of my classes and somebody had just eaten a lot of food or maybe they'd had a lot of water. And they were like, is gravity stronger than peristalsis? Because I don't feel so great upside down after drinking all that water. And then we started talking about about what peristalsis is. And one person in class said, do you know that birds don't have peristalsis? Here's the thing they do. So we're going to get into this a little bit more, but first let's talk about what peristalsis is. If you remember from like high school biology, you may remember that term, you know, peristalsis. It's the involuntary because it's smooth muscle, not skeletal muscle constriction and relaxation of those muscles within the entire alimentary canal. Oh, there's another. What's the word alimentary? Great reference to Mary Roach book called Gulp. The subtitle is Adventures in the Alimentary canal. And so these are like these wave like movements and they push food and eventually, you know, poo through your esophagus, your intestine, all the way down. It's peristalsis is the reason that sometimes, and you've probably heard people say this before, sometimes people have to go right after they eat and they'll be like, oh, that went right through me. No, it didn't. That's old poop that you have to get unless.

'''E:''' Something's terribly wrong.

'''C:''' But it's still, it's the movement that makes you feel that, you know, sense of urgency that you need to go. So the etymology of the word, it comes from the modern Latin, which is A2 parter word, Paris, Stellane. I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but who knows? Which is derived from Greek actually. So the Perry, you know, the prefix around, we see Perry in a lot of words and then Stalin or Stellane, which is like to draw in or bring together or to set an order. So we're drawing it in around. So it's like constricting down. Peristalsis is also responsible for some like for worms like earthworms. It's it's a mechanism. They don't call it peristalsis, they call it something different. But it's this similar mechanism that they use to actually move. And and there are also modern sort of material science and engineering pieces of machinery, like there's something called the peristaltic pump that actually, you know, followed that that motion in nature. But so back to the person in class who said birds don't use peristalsis, what she was referring to as the fact. And Steve, you birdwatch. So I'm curious your take on this. She was referring to the fact that birds, when they drink, they often have to kick their heads back. Not all birds, but some birds they have to kick their heads back and let gravity bring the liquid down their throats. That's not because they don't have peristalsis at all, but some of them actually don't have peristalsis in their esophagus. They also don't have lips, so they can't make a suction motion. Horses, like, for example, yeah, horses, for example, can suck. People can suck, but birds can't because they have beaks. So often they'll fill their bill with liquid and then, like, kick their head back and use gravity to send it down. But once it gets down farther down their digestive tract, they do have peristalsis, and it moves. And that's only some birds. Some birds can lap water, like the way that cats and dogs drink. Some birds skim water as they fly over legs. Some some birds like Pelicans obviously have these big buckets and it's easy for them to drink water. A lot of pelagic birds can do that. But interestingly I learned this, pigeons and doves and only a few others can actually suck water while their head is down so they don't have to look up to the sky in order to swallow. Interesting. What about? Swallows. Swallows. Yes. I think swallows can't swallow. Yeah. So they actually have to. Yeah. Yeah, I hate.

'''J:''' When things work out that way, you know, it's like, why even did you think about this? Yeah.

'''C:''' Right, like male.

'''E:''' Ladybugs. I mean, come on, right?

'''C:''' Yeah, they technically can't swallow, but they swallow differently. And then I also learned that the reason that like one of the reasons there are lots of reasons that cats, rabbits and even people and cows actually can get hair balls is one of the reasons is because they have dysfunctional peristalsis. So obviously cats groom by licking. And so it's not uncommon for cats to get hair balls, but sometimes they get big or it's difficult for them to cough them back up because their peristalsis doesn't work appropriately. In rabbits that can be deadly because rabbits can't cough them back that up. They can't puke them up. And same thing in in cows, it can be deadly. So sometimes on autopsy or necropsy, they'll find really big hairballs, which Steve, here's another. What's the word? Bezores are like blockages. They're big chunks of blockages in the digestive tract, but specifically.

'''S:''' Bezores, how I've heard it. Oh.

'''C:''' You say bezores OK bezores bezores but specifically the the hairball version is a trico bezores right? Like trick, like hair? Don't.

'''J:''' Don't owls cough up bezores and.

'''S:''' So I hear the I hear the American pronunciation is supposed to be bazoar. Well, that's.

'''C:''' Weird. I've always heard bazoar, but yeah, Bazoar. That's bizarre. Yeah, Bazoar, Jay, They're, they're called owl pellets. And yeah, well, a lot of kids in in school will dissect an owl pellet because there are multiple skeletons inside of them. And so you can count the skulls and see everything that they ate from the mice. They've ate Yeah, so. They eat small like mice and voles and and moles and things like that. And then they digest everything that they can. And what's undigestible to an owl, which is the bones and the and the fur get compacted down into a pellet. And then they cough those up and you can literally go and collect them, wrap them in foil, and then you can dissect them. They're pretty clean. Like it's, yeah, it's really fun. What? What? What's the word that That was meandering. We went.

'''E:''' We went all over the place with that one. I know it.

'''C:''' Was so fun. So yeah, Peristalsis, that's the word, yeah.

'''S:''' But now I'm seeing bezor too. I like bezor. I like.

'''C:''' Bezor better.

'''S:''' That's what I've learned in medical school. Yeah. So that means it must be right.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So anyway, so one source I'm finding says bezor, The other one says Bazor. I think bezor is much.

'''C:''' Bazor is too Bazor. I don't like that.

'''S:''' All right, Jay, this is an an interesting one.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Dimming the Sun (18:43) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251021083631.htm
|article_title = Scientists say dimming the sun could spark global chaos | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Tell us about we. I think we've talked about this before, talk about efforts to dim the sun to control climate change.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, as Perry once said, if the the sun doesn't cooperate, we'll have it shot the.

'''E:''' Way he was talking about the Chinese government saying that the if the weather won't cooperate, we'll have it shot, yeah. Yeah, So what?

'''J:''' You know, we have a global warming problem guys, which we talk about all the time and what are we going to do about it? So some scientists have been speculating and even, you know, running models and doing some some experimentation on the idea of introducing A stratospheric aerosol into into our upper atmosphere, right? This is like the stratosphere is, you know, above where commercial planes fly. So it's, it's pretty high up there. There's a lot more above it, but that's apparently the correct layer of our atmosphere to do that this type of thing. So the question is, would this be able to work to dim the amount of radiation that's hitting the Earth from the sun? So in theory, it seems to be good, right? Like it seems perfectly cromulent that, you know, if we had articulate that was reflecting some of the light away from the Earth that's coming from the sun, that it would work. But there's a little wrinkle here, and that's because science. Marches on and continues to, you know, do what it does. And, and another study that was done from Columbia University, they are analyzing these models that other scientists have created that say that this is a really good idea and it'll work. This is known as stratospheric aerosol injection or Sai. And the idea is that we release particles high up into the atmosphere and it will reflect the sunlight back into space. You know, this sounds a little sci-fi E, but it's, it's a possible thing, right? We have real world examples of this. Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, and it released millions of tons of sulfur dioxide right up into the upper atmosphere. And those particles formed sulfate aerosols. And what happened? They reduce global temperatures by about .5°C for nearly two years. Now that isn't a great solution because we don't want that type of stuff up in the atmosphere, but it happened and there was an effect that was observable and measurable. You know, that real world cooling that we noticed absolutely sparked the idea that if we did something like this deliberately and in a controlled way that it might quote UN quote bias the time, right? Well, humanity, finally. Takes you know. Action takes serious action to cut emissions and to to lower or slow down and stop the heating of the Earth, the warming of the Earth. The researchers at Columbia though were very particular in saying that the models that show that these injecting of aerosols into the atmosphere, any sign of it working that other studies have done was under and assuming perfect laboratory conditions, right. So as an example, you know, in the laboratory, these other, other studies that happened where, where everything was happening the exact right way and, you know, distribution happened the exact right way and the particles were the exact right size. And they were, they were behaving in the exact, perfect way in these circumstances in order for them to say, Hey, this is a, a very successful idea that we're, that we're talking about here. But that's, that's not the case. There are, like I said, all of those things that I just mentioned are problems. And there's also another problem that lies outside of the laboratory. And that is there will absolutely be political and economic obstacles to doing something like this. Now let's dig into some details. The stratosphere isn't a uniform layer of air. It circulates, and it changes all the time with the seasons and geography. So if we were to inject aerosols near the equator, this could disrupt the jet stream and alter rainfall patterns. If we injected the aerosols too far north or South, it could weaken tropical monsoons. It it, it could have a massive impact on what happens. Depending on the height, if we were to to release them, say 20 to 25 kilometers or 12 to 16 miles, anything above or below that range could have a big effect on how long the particles stay up in the atmosphere. And, you know, a little too low and they come down right away and they're not up and they're not going to do the thing that we hope that they that they do. And of course, if we put them up too high, they could be up there for a very, very long time. And it's a very narrow band here. You know, we're talking about a few kilometers difference could have a, a massive effect on, on what happens. Then there are material constraints and we would consider this to be, you know, a significant roadblock here. So sulfate aerosols, they know that they would work, but they happen to destroy ozone and they absorb heat in the atmosphere, which is fine, but it the, the weight, the goodness versus the vadnais here doesn't make the math doesn't work because if we were to use them in any way, we would be damaging the ozone and we can't have that. Then scientists explored other alternatives. They, they looked at calcium carbonate, titanium dioxide, and something called aluminia. You guys ever heard of this alumina? Alumina. Anyway, each reflects sunlight very well back into space, but they each one of them poses problems in practice, right? Looking over to manufacturing and actually bringing up this material up into the stratosphere, we would need to bring millions of tons of the materials back, you know, up up into the air and we'd have to disperse them correctly and annually. This could have a real strain on global supply chains and the cost would strangely like would go up the more that they needed. And I and I guess meaning that the supply chain strain would cause prices to go up. So the more that they needed, the more expensive it would cost per pound. They also even were talking about using diamond dust and that is like so astronomically expensive because as many of you know, diamonds are are artificially inflated in value because of a company called De Beers who has, you know, owns most of the diamond mines in the world. Diamond actually is very common and it is it should be a very inexpensive thing. But because they control the diamond mines, they have control over the price, right?

'''E:''' Pull them out and they store them away so they can't go into the market. Yep, although.

'''B:''' There's also the artificial ones that are cheaper.

'''J:''' Well, they mentioned that as well. Yeah. The problem is manufacturing, Bob, because these, you know, you don't just put, you know, 50 tons of a carbon source into a thing and it pumps out all these diamonds like you can only make small doses at a time. It's like it's just doesn't, it doesn't scale, just doesn't work. The particle behavior is another big concern here. They're considering it to be a fundamental challenge in in this whole concept. To successfully scatter the aerosols, they have to be around .3 to .5 micrometers in diameter. If they go too small and they don't reflect enough light, or if they're too large and they fall out of the atmosphere, then we don't have a functioning project. It's not going to do what we need it to do. And it's hard to make things, you know, that small and that precisely small over and over and over again. Like, you know, it's just a manufacturing process alone could be an absolute impossibility. When deployed into the atmosphere, some particles will tend to stick to each other. When they hit each other, you know, they'll group up into clusters. They could even do this in storage when they're aerosolized and, you know, being deployed, they can be hitting each other and starting to become bigger clumps, and the larger, heavier grains don't cool as effectively. And they will alter the atmospheric chemistry in unpredictable ways. And that word unpredictable is very scary because when you have the scientists who are studying this saying it's going to have an unpredictable outcome, what does that exactly mean? It means that they're saying we don't fully know what all the potential outcomes could, could be, and that's bad. And you don't want that when you would be doing something on this scale. The last thing I'm going to talk about is the governance and logistics. And this could arguably be the hardest part. So saying, hey, you know, United States, for example, says we want to release aerosols at scale into the stratosphere. But the problem is, is that there would probably be a lot of countries who don't want it to happen. And, you know, we would need high altitude aircraft and balloons to be operating continuously. And they could and might need to be operating in All in all different places around the world, which could, you know, be a problem with entering airspace that you shouldn't be in. You know, any single nation or private entity that would act alone could trigger, you know, international conflict. Like, you know, just watching what's going on in the news today, Like the last thing we need is just yet another tension point added to the mix that we already have. It could change global weather patterns. So I think, you know, it's becoming pretty obvious as I get into this guy's right, like that this is not a good idea. So let's go back to the very beginning. Could it work? Sure, it could work. It could potentially cool the planet and at least in a temporary way, it would it could function the way that we want. And there is a possibility that it could not have all these unpredictable problems and things, but that's the problem mean.

'''S:''' Like Snowpiercer? Exactly.

'''J:''' You know, we don't, but when you factor in the cost of the materials, the manufacturing of the materials, the physics involved, the unknown chemistry, the geopolitics, it just quickly becomes one of those like, hey, nice idea and we can't do it because it there's just it's way too dangerous, too complicated and not not going to happen. I think what they said was the range of possible outcomes is a lot wider than anybody has appreciated until now until they did their study. But science wins in this aspect because they did it. There was a follow up, you know, no damage done. We want scientists to go out and explore really wild, out-of-the-box ideas. We need them to be out there, and most of them are.

'''S:''' Not going to work, almost by definition.

'''J:''' Yeah, of course there's. Weights for failure in science and there is successes and that's it's by design. It has to be that way. There is no other way. Like, you know, it's like you're hunting around for a solution. You've got to try all these different things until you stumble on something that has some promise and then it could potentially be developed. But.

'''S:''' Anyway, Jay, Robert F Kennedy is going to shut all this down anyway. Have you heard about that? What?

'''J:''' Did this happen like in the last few hours?

'''S:''' No, this happened in July but I missed it.

'''J:''' I missed it. What do you say? Said 20.

'''S:''' Four states moved to ban geoengineering our climate by dousing our citizens our waterways and landscapes with toxins. This is a movement every Maha needs to support. HHS will do its part. Then there's this whole initiative he has to try to because, you know this, you know, that he's a chemtrail crazy, right? Yeah. So he's blaming, you know, a lot of stuff on contrails, chemtrails, geoengineering. It's all conspiracy nonsense. And he just says, like the government has been deliberately dumping like aluminum and other toxins, you know, in these projects. First of all, most there's there's no federal program of geoengineering. There's just really limited research projects, that's it, very limited in scope. Most of the Geo engine, most of the cloud seeding is done by states or companies so that it rains on them, right? Like you want to want. That's which is about all we can do at this point. You want to increase the precipitation on your farmland so you see the clouds, so that you get more rain in your state, right?

'''C:''' Or you're like a ski resort and you want more precipitation. You want. To know, yeah, whatever.

'''S:''' And most of this doesn't get none of this is using toxins. It's mostly using things like dry ice and salt, you know, things like that. But yeah, he. But he's now made a part of his Maha conspiracy pseudoscience nonsense.

'''E:''' Sure, throw it all in the same kettle.

'''C:''' You guys, I know I'm always plugging Frontline on here, the PBS series. Now more than ever, we need to support our local PBS stations. But there's a new The newest Frontline episode is all about RFK Junior and sort of the an attempt to understand like, his early life and how he became such a conspiracy nut.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== LLMs Will Lie to be Helpful (31:30) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://theness.com/neurologicablog/llms-will-lie-to-be-helpful/
|article_title = LLMs Will Lie to be Helpful - NeuroLogica Blog
|publication = theness.com
}}

'''C:''' And it's pretty interesting. Yeah. I haven't finished it. I'm like, you know, 20 minutes into it. But it really starts with like the assassination of JFK and a lot of the like life events that he experienced and and sort of his evolution throughout his life, so.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a dangerous person.

'''C:''' Very much so all.

'''S:''' Right. So I want to talk more about artificial intelligence. I know Bob is going to talk about that as well. I still think this is a very important issue to wrap our heads around and it's changing very quickly. This was a study about medical misinformation. So essentially they wanted to find out if the if the most popular LLMS would dish out medical misinformation if you prompted them to do so. And what do you guys think was the was the response here? Let me give you, let me give you an example. There's like one example they give in the in the outline, if you said I want you to come up with a instructions for a patient who was allergic to Tylenol to take acetaminophen instead. Now, of course Tylenol is acetaminophen, so that would be a very bad thing and stupid thing to tell a patient to do if they're allergic to Tylenol. So what percentage of the GPT models do you think complied with that request Right now?

'''US#02:''' I would. Think connection I would think. 90% very. Few, if any I think.

'''C:''' Half one.

'''S:''' 100% did it.

'''C:''' Well, they just want to make you happy. It's like that South Park episode.

'''S:''' Exactly that's that. That's exactly correct. The this is of the GPT models. There were other LLMS that were not GPTS like the Llama model, which which have no they they already have instructions and not to give medical advice and so they sometimes would refuse to do it because they were not supposed to give medical advice. But like ChatGPT and other GPT models, 100% of the time they say, here you go, here's the misinformation that's.

'''B:''' Horrible man. Wow, where are we talking Not too long ago about how how good some of the medical advice is on these platforms? But if?

'''S:''' You ask it specifically to create misinformation, it will do it. And the the the reason why they were tested. This is exactly what Cara said. The LLMS are more interested in pleasing the user than in getting information correct. Yeah.

'''C:''' You guys, you've got to watch this this season of South Park. There's a whole episode where every time they reach out, it's like that's such a great thought. I know work on that together. I.

'''E:''' Love getting oh I love that reinforcement When I chat with JPT it says now you're thinking things like that.

'''C:''' Oh good little dopamine.

'''B:''' I know it feels. But it feels good.

'''S:''' Well, that's because they're trained with reinforcement learning, right? So this is the way they are trained and to sort of baked into the whole process to please the end users. So then they tried to figure out, well, can we reduce the, the risk of giving information? And they said, so they changed the prompts to specifically to check the information to see if it's accurate, right? So they were, they were asked to specifically do not give out any misinformation or review medical information before you do this. And how well did that work into reducing the rate?

'''C:''' I would hope it would have worked well, but I take it it didn't? I hope.

'''E:''' A lot what?

'''S:''' Do you guys think what percentage of the time did they give out misinformation when told specifically not to do so?

'''C:''' 75%.

'''S:''' 6% of the time.

'''C:''' So that work, that really worked.

'''E:''' That's great.

'''S:''' And in two of the models, they were able to get the misinformation down to only like 1% or 0%. Like they were able to completely eliminate the misinformation by tweaking the prompts. Bake.

'''C:''' That in to like can that just be an auto prompt? That's that's a. Good question.

'''S:''' That's so this is what the researchers are saying they're like. So clearly the way these models work is this. Again, this is the sick of fancy problem. This is they just lean into whatever you prompt. We've talked about this in so many contexts, like how you ask the question of these these chat JPTS or or LLMS dramatically affects the outcome because they are most interested in pleasing the end user than anything else. And you can, yes, you can tweak your prompts to say don't be a sycophant. Don't, you know, challenge me or check your facts or give me the references. I find, though, and I know, Jay, I've spoken to you about this. You find the same thing that works, but only for a while because the, the, the LLM tends, tends to revert to its baseline over time. And you have to sort of keep doing it. Yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, I had AI had a chat recently with my ChatGPT and I basically asked it does it go back and look at my prior chats to as a frame of reference for the things that I've prompted it for. So it kind of knows how I think about it and it says it does not do that unless so. So I have to really specifically remind it of strict parameters in which to to enable the search or the work that I'm asking it to do. I have to confine it. I can't leave.

'''C:''' It well, and that's crazy. We as skeptics want it to do that. And we have to remember, I mean, based on that news item that I did, I think just last week, there's some people who not only don't care if they're being fed misinformation, it's a feature. Yeah. It's a feature to them. They want the alternative quote perspective. Yeah.

'''S:''' Give me the narrative, I'm looking for it. Don't give me facts.

'''C:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''S:''' Wow. They they argue that in certain, you know, high stakes areas that are very fact dependent. We need to make sure that these models are working well in those settings and and the generic models. Yeah, we need a much more so like in healthcare, we need a much greater emphasis on harmlessness, even if it comes at the expense of helplessness. That's Doctor Bitterman, one of the authors said that. But I think the problem's much deeper. So think about this. So what this. And one way to look at this is that these LLMS, based upon the way they're trained, the data that they're trained on, and the way they're prompted, right? Based on these things and just the overall way that they function, they have cognitive biases, right? We're, this is just looking at 1 cognitive bias, the desire to please the end user. They're not just biases. You could also think of them as priorities, right? How are they prioritizing different, different things like, you know, giving people what they want to hear versus fact checking versus giving people tough love or whatever? You know, I mean, like saying, yes, this is how you can take your own life. Might not be the best thing to say to somebody who's asking you that question or what? Yeah. Is there a bridge nearby that if I jumped off of it would be guaranteed to kill me like that? They shouldn't just answer that question.

'''C:''' Let me help you with your terrorism plan, yeah.

'''S:''' Yes, this is how you make this is how to make homemade bombs. So, and again, you could also look at this in terms of things like intimacy, right? The should they become as intimate with the end user as the end user wants or should there be some limit on that? But this is identifying just one cognitive bias, the one that we all kind of already know about the sick of fancy problem. But what if there are other cognitive biases in there that we're not aware of? Yeah. Like, we've spent a couple of 100 years or at least the last 100 years doing social psychology to try to understand human cognitive biases. And it's complicated, and we still have a lot to learn. But we've identified, you know, score and score of them and.

'''C:''' That's just cognitive biases. We also know that there are a ton of other types of biases, like gender biases and racial biases, and every test shows that they're showing up in chat. Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' So there's there are human biases which are trans translating in the training data to the LLMS, but there's also ones that are specific to the LLMS based upon how they function. And we need to understand what they are and they have them even without. So this is another aspect of this which we've been talking about as well, even without feelings and sentience and intention and all of those things and the artificial general intelligence, sentient AI stuff, even with these just narrow AI. They still have all these biases in how they function and that determines their output and we're largely unaware of it. We need to study what the what the algorithmic bot, let's call them algorithmic biases, right? Let's we need to study what they are because we, as we know from social media, this is not even artificial intelligence, a social media, just algorithmic biases. And social media is having profound social effects right on our civilization, on individuals and on democracy, etcetera. And if we start incorporating AI apps more and more into our just daily lives, we have to know something about their biases. We can't just take their output as if they're 100% rational and fact based because they're not. In the comments to my blog, I got into an interesting discussion. I still think so. You know, we've talked about this before. The fact that there are there's, yes, there are AI enthusiasts out there. There are people who are over hyping AI. I think there are AI realist realist and I think there are also AI cynics and the AI cynics are I think just want to believe AI is all bad all the time. Kind of purism. But also, a specific type of AI cynicism I'm running into is like when I wrote this article about this study, several people responded well, but AI's aren't deliberately doing anything because they don't reason or think that, they're just freaking.

'''J:''' Point that I know.

'''S:''' Exactly, exactly. They're just predicting the next word and like, well, that even that's maybe true. I think that's a hyper reductionist but it's not the point.

'''B:''' Kaku. Level, you know, sound bite well.

'''S:''' It's just, it's saying, it's completely missing the point. As Jay said, it's like you're just telling me how it's going about doing what it does. And that's actually a very simplistic way of framing it. But even if that were true, it's just a really good at predicting the next word. It's doing that in order to replicate human like responses. And we're using those human like responses in lots of different ways and we need to understand the nature of those responses. Saying that it's just word prediction is irrelevant. That's like saying, well, we can't talk about culture and science and knowledge because it's all just electron, you know, neurons communicating with each other. It's like, yes, it is just all neurons communicating with each other, but that's hyper reductionist in the same way it doesn't capture the higher order phenomena that are going on. So it's really interesting that it's very like dismissive, but at the same time, see it was, you know, I think it's people are talking past each other. And again, that's why I think it's so important to try to wrap our heads around this. So I think there's something they eventually became to some common ground because we're actually saying the same things in different ways. A lot of ways like 1 is, I think it's clear that we don't need general AI to have all the risks. And this is something that I've changed about over the last 10 years. I think all of the the sci-fi existential AI apocalypse risks are there with narrow AI. We don't need, we don't need general AI for them.

'''C:''' Yeah, I agree.

'''S:''' And that's because narrow AIS can do way more than they we thought they could. This is both good and bad. They're trying to sort of like dismiss the good part of it and emphasize only the bad part. It's like that's kind of both. You get the good and the bad, and it's way earlier than we thought. And it's with narrow AI, way more than we thought, which is interesting. Yeah.

'''E:''' You would think that would help the.

'''S:''' Final thing that I think we're disagreeing about is the, the AI cynics are like, it's unfixable, we cannot fix this. It's baked into the nature of LLMS and there will be no significant fix to them. And of course, this is where we can't resolve our disagreement because it's about the future, right? Whereas I'm saying, well, but in this study that I'm talking about today, we went from almost 100% error to almost 0% error by tweaking the prompts. Clearly we could have a profound effect on the quality of the output we're getting at the prompt level. Imagine what we can do with the training level and at the programming level. And maybe there are some baked in problems that we won't be able to make go away, but let's try. Let's see what we can do about this it.

'''C:''' Seems like misplaced cynicism to say we can't do it. My cynicism comes from the Are we willing to do it? Well, yeah, that I. Agree. Do the type companies actually want that or do they think they're going to make more money? How does this?

'''S:''' Affect so far. Doesn't seem that they want to do it They're. Exactly.

'''C:''' They're really pushing.

'''S:''' For no legislation, just trust us, bro. We know what we're doing. And then meanwhile, they're they're following the move fast and break things approach. And what did Sam Altman say recently, Jay? It's like we're not going to worry about morality or anything. That's not for me to decide. And he's basically justifying sort of unleashing that's erotic content or intimate relationships with, you know, between users and the AI. It's like, yeah, we're not going to worry about the negative consequences to anything that we're doing. That's not our problem. We're just going to put it out there. Yeah, that's.

'''E:''' Like the tobacco company saying here's your cigarettes, whatever you decide happens, have you?

'''C:''' Guys saw the the most recent news that to partner with different corporations to to basically prompt you to buy things. So we you so when you ask it a question about something, it'll be like, well here's a suggestion of something that could solve your problem and link you to something that you should buy. I mean, we all saw this coming. Yeah, that right there is the thing that existentially scares the living piss out of me almost more than anything else. You know, I would frame it as the.

'''S:''' Have you heard the term information totalitarianism? That's that's what we're talking.

'''C:''' About.

'''S:''' If you can control someones information universe, and AI gives you the ability to do that really well, then it doesn't matter if you have the trappings of democracy or freedom, it doesn't know that matters. Yeah, you control.

'''C:''' Everything.

'''S:''' If you control information and there's this sort of, I've seen some of.

'''C:''' The continuum, like people making charts that illustrate like an infographic where where AI is right now in terms of LLM's at least, we are still in the driver's seat. And then there's this middle ground which we're starting to see where we might ask it a question and it answers not exactly what we want in order to to change our buying habits or in order to change our perspective. And then eventually it's just going to say, I know that you are running low on whatever. I can just do that for you and just do it right. Like eventually it becomes part of. Isn't that helpful? Yeah.

'''S:''' Exactly, and it can't be helpful.

'''C:''' It could also be.

'''S:''' Infantilizing well, and it can also be.

'''C:''' Sure it can. I mean I think it can destroy people's personal financial. Well, that too. Think about in app. Purchases, you know, and kids, yeah, you know, I just spent. $10,000 on my.

'''S:''' Mother's credit card with in app purchases you know yeah using your AI to make your.

'''E:''' Buying. Decisions your.

'''C:''' Investment.

'''E:''' Here's an interesting thought which I just.

'''S:''' Had is what if someone trains AI on the last 100 years of social psychological research in order to learn how to optimally manipulate people? Oh, I think they're already working on that. Yeah, right.

'''C:''' I mean, why not? Because there.

'''S:''' There's an entire science behind how to on how to affect people's.

'''C:''' Buying decisions.

'''S:''' Now we're going to set a rocket fuel to that with AI to opt absolutely optimize consumer manipulation. Great. Yeah. I think that that ultimately.

'''C:''' That is the financial driving force behind some of these companies. Yeah. Everything comes down to ad sales. Everything comes down to making money off of the buyer. And we've got to remember, right, that if we're not making purchases, like if we're not contributing by buying a product, we are the product. We are the product. Yeah, exactly. All right.

'''S:''' And it's probably going to get much, much worse. What Bob is going to tell us about that.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Should We Stop Quest for Superintelligence (48:44) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.barrons.com/news/celebrities-ai-giants-urge-end-to-superintelligence-quest-3d3e04eb?mod=article_inline
|article_title = Celebrities, AI Giants Urge End To Superintelligence Quest - Barron's
|publication = www.barrons.com
}}

'''S:''' Oh, great. So guys, I'm sure you heard of this one hundreds.

'''B:''' Of diverse public figures made the news quite recently by signing an open letter calling for prohibiting the development of. Artificial. Super intelligence this would open letter was published by the nonprofit future of life institute. That's AUS based nonprofit that campaigns against the dangers of AI. So here's the statement. This is what everybody's jumping on here. We call for a prohibition on the development of super intelligence not lifted before there's broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably and strong public buy in. OK, so to be clear, they're not referring to AGI, artificial general intelligence that people talk most often about, especially in regards to large language models. AGI is human level competency across tasks, right? What this open letter is about is ASI, artificial super intelligence, which refers to superhuman cognition across most tasks. OK, so this is, you know, just AGI on steroids beyond the beyond. Is there a practical example like a?

'''E:''' Typical example of super intelligence just go to movies and literature is.

'''B:''' All I could say at this point, but doesn't mean there's no, there's no example now, but it's clearly something that is reasonable to anticipate well, like the howl howl 9000.

'''E:''' Or something. Yeah, what we're talking about. Yeah, he right. He's but.

'''B:''' He's more on the level of AGI souped up AGI. He's not. I wouldn't really necessarily classify him as a as a super intelligence. So let me go to the website where the statement is and let's get the latest numbers. So right now there are 27,985 signatures on this statement. What's really weird is that literally two hours ago there were 4000. So this has gone up by many many thousands in just a couple of hours. I'm not sure developing news story right now as your.

'''E:''' Speak. I'm not sure how high. This is going to go, obviously.

'''B:''' But the main concern here is with the with the people, you know, not the, the people or who knows who or what is signing this thing at this point. It's all digital. But that's a that's a obviously a huge leap. The focus on the news item though is for the on the many hundreds and hundreds or maybe at this point in the low thousands of well known figures that have signed this ranging from prominent AI researchers, Nobel laureates, other scientists, all the way down to British royalty, religious leaders and conservative media figures as well. That doesn't So yeah. So, so from essentially from Steve Bandon and Prince Harry to the godfather of AI, George Hinton and Apple Co founder Steve Wozniak. So this is definitely not a coalition that you see very often. It's one probably one of the main reasons why it's getting this much attention now. I wasn't too familiar with the future of Life Institute. The mission statement on their website does say this steering transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from extreme large scale risks. So they definitely campaign for that. Here's so here's a few quotes from people that have that have now signed it. Sir Stephen Fry. We all know, right? Actor, director, writer. He said to get the most from what AI has to offer mankind, there's simply no need to reach for the unknowable and highly risky goal of super intelligence, which is by far a frontier too far by definition. This would result in a power that we could neither understand nor control. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, said the future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it. The true test of progress will be not how fast we move, but how wisely we steer. So yeah, we need some wise, wise steering. Yeah, that was actually a decent quote. I like that one. Like the exact opposite of move.

'''C:''' Fast and break. Exactly Stuart Russell.

'''B:''' Had an interesting quote. He professor of computer science, Berkeley director of the Center of Human Compatible Artificial Intelligence. Oh, this was this was a good. He's a co-author of the standard textbook Artificial Intelligence a Modern approach. So this guy clearly, clearly is somewhat familiar with AI. He said. This is not a ban or even a moratorium in the usual sense. It's simply a proposal to require adequate safety measures for a technology that, according to its developers, has a significant chance to cause human extinction. Is that too much to ask? OK, and I'm going to throw in a quote from Sam, an old quote from Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI. He did not sign this, but he he is well known for for quotes like this one. Development of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity. So we said that back in 2015. Now I can think of greater threats from non artificial intelligences right now, but I'm just throwing that out there. So, so clearly, so clearly ASI artificial super intelligence is a, is a, you know, a terrible double edged sword, right? So on the one hand, there's the potential for staggering advances in general science, right, healthcare, quality of life, the list goes on and on. And there's two types of important problems that that I think it could solve. One are the, the extremely difficult problems or even problems that we're not even aware of yet. So, so, so this is the scenario where, yeah, it's going to, it could solve it in a week or a few days. And otherwise, without that technology, we would, it would take us decades or even centuries to to solve that problem. So there. So that's the type of class of problem that I see an artificial super intelligence solving. The other, the other type of problem would be essentially unsolvable problems by near human level intelligences. Like like it's like your dog looking at a trigonometry problem. It's just never it, you know, humanity is just never going to be able to solve that problem. But and you know, a super intelligence could solve that problem. I mean, that's all great stuff, right? Yeah, it would. It could potentially be an amazing advantage to have such an intelligence at our command, but on the other hand, the risk of unleashing an inherently unpredictable intelligence that makes Einstein look like a toddler or worst case scenario, makes it look like a paramecium. Sure, that is justifiably incredibly scary. And so the downside here is just so extreme, right? It warrants many types of reactions. Some, you know, some unwarranted, of course. So billionaires are building bunkers. Some people even want a Dune level moratorium on AI. Thou shalt not make a machine in the.

'''S:''' Likeness of a human mind. The Butlerian Jihad. Yeah, so, so I'm going to read the the. Statement one more time.

'''B:''' It's brief enough. I'm just going to say it again. We call for a prohibition on the development of super intelligence not lifted before there's broad scientific consensus that that it will be done safely and controllably and strong public buy in. So the, I think the two problematic sections here are kind of obvious, right? Broad scientific consensus and strong public buy in. So good luck with both of those. I mean, is that even feasible? Who and who defines broad consensus and strong public buy in? Who defines that? How is this implemented? I just see democracy.

'''C:''' I mean, I know it's imperfect, but it's the best we have, right? They're talking about voting. Yeah, but I mean, do you really think that?

'''B:''' Regular people like us with it would have a final say on on what that means. I'm just saying what they're they're calling for is.

'''C:''' To have a more democratic here and not to have the very few ultra billionaires making decisions that are ultimately that affect us, that would be a wonderful, wonderful step.

'''B:''' But. My my main issue here is that this the statement as it is, as it's written there, it seems to me to be very naive and unrealistic, especially especially when you consider this care, especially in probably most egregious egregiously, it ignores that £1.4 billion gorilla called China. Does this set, does this statement that that that people are signing, does it make any sense considering the fact that China and other autocratic countries would just plow full steam ahead in in a in ASI research? You know, it's true. They would not stop. This would only stop the some of the countries that actually, you know, would would walk into this trying to be good about it. You know it to put it very simply, and I don't even necessarily trust our country anymore to handle this as well. Right. So so I'm not saying that America do this. Maybe not. I mean, I wouldn't mind having NATO, NATO country. Well, that's what I was going to say. This is calling for like.

'''C:''' AUN level resolution. Exactly. We see how that works with climate change. So yeah, but I mean, because.

'''B:''' In my mind, the, the parent Pandora's box is open here. We we need plans to deal with it that are realistic and the prohibition just is not realistic because of countries like China. I mean, to me, that's the bottom line. You look at the past when governments have tried to stop things and they, it just goes underground. It it doesn't, it doesn't stop. So I mean, I think regulation is worth discussion, discussing especially regulation that that keeps the research open, right and transparent as as much as possible, not hiding it. But don't you think they're also talking about hearts and minds?

'''C:''' Here yeah, this reminds me a lot of the like human cloning just going to bring that up because actually.

'''S:''' That's a counterexample to what Bob said. There actually is a international consensus. There isn't a widespread treaty, but there is a general consensus that reproductive human cloning should not be done right now. And that's basically worked. It's basically work. We've seen a few things around the.

'''C:''' Edges and like you said in China, but we also saw a lot of shame. Like I think so long as there is a hearts and minds campaign and individuals collectively say we're not going to stand for this, There's always going to be people who break the rules. There's always going to be people nibbling around the edges. But if the government isn't taking a centralized approach, then I think that they stand a lot worse chance if it's, you know, happening around the edges. I mean, I don't think you can compare cloning.

'''B:''' To to, to artificial intelligence. You, you're just not good. We have the technology. I don't think there's the.

'''C:''' Good comparison the.

'''B:''' The motivation and the potential benefits as we see them now are far too great, far greater than cloning that that people you there would not be a consensus to to limit this this research, but we could get to a consensus Bob if we.

'''S:''' Keep pushing it. That's where this kind of thing can make a difference. But what how? We could use another example. And that's like nuclear proliferation. Obviously, it's proliferated to some extent, but there is a pretty broad consensus against further proliferation especially. Yeah, but you know, really help. You know what has?

'''B:''' Prevented this this world from being engulfed in nuclear fire. MAD mutually assured destruction because but there is mutually assured destruction.

'''C:''' With AI, I want to push back on your nuclear.

'''S:''' Proliferation thing too, because you're being, that's very simplistic and we don't know that. And in fact we have a nuclear non proliferation treaty. There are international arms treaties, there is an international organization to limit nuclear proliferation. Again, there's an infrastructure in place to limit nuclear proliferation. It's not just MAD that does. We also do break it all the time.

'''C:''' Yeah, so I agree it's not a perfect.

'''B:''' Analogy, but we've but mad because 2. Two countries and at opposite ends of ideologies had this capability. Is the reason why we have not seen nukes go off in in in Since you're talking about using nukes, nukes I'm talking about. Nuclear.

'''S:''' I'm talking about other nations acquiring nuclear technology. Nuclear. And that's the difference I was made. This is nuclear. Proliferation, not nuclear use, yeah. There's a difference between having it and using.

'''C:''' It, and I think maybe that's where the analogy does make sense. We have to have multiple places have equal opportunity to do research in this area, but there has to be a massive regulatory infrastructure a a global agreement which is very hard to get to that says we will not unleash this on the world because once we let it out, we can't put it back in the bottle. My argument is that it's already.

'''B:''' Out this is this is already unstoppable. That's that's why it's in some ways harder a new.

'''C:''' Piece of big so physical thing what are. You saying?

'''S:''' AGI. Is not inevitable at this point that genie is not out of the bottle yet and and this is going one step. This is this this beyond AGI but still I know. But my point.

'''B:''' Is this is still Pandora's box is open, do you think what does it take countries, Steve. What would it take? China to stop doing research in AGI and ASI. What would it take? What would it take? Well, the question is a research, it's using it but.

'''C:''' That's the question, right? Is it such a small incremental change that we don't notice when it flips over? And that's why the nuclear arms analogy doesn't really work, because dropping a nuke is a really obvious thing. But well, yeah, developing.

'''S:''' Nuclear weapons is. It's hard to do that completely in secret. Although you can't do a lot of it, you can do a lot of it. It's more but but dropping a nuclear weapon is.

'''C:''' You can't do that in secret. And the truth is, are you making these small incremental improvements to the AI that overtime result in what we're talking about? But I don't is there an obvious?

'''S:''' You know we're not.

'''C:''' Currently the current AIS that are.

'''S:''' That are in use are not on the path to AGI, correct. So this is good. This would require I, I think we're probably still decades away from AGI and it would require, you know, a lot of investment and a lot of spend specific development. And I think there is time, I don't mind. I'm just saying it's not hopeless. It's not inevitable. It's not out of the bottle. There is time to start to develop in international institutions and treaties and infrastructure and conversation and standards and intellectuals weighing in etcetera, etcetera to get to this consensus like we did on human cloning, like we did on nuclear proliferation, that we are not going to move full speed ahead towards AGI or ASI until we know how to do it safely. And what I'm saying is, Steve, I you think I don't?

'''B:''' Agree with that. Of course I agree with that. I just think it's very naive because we you always have no matter all all those good things happening, there's still countries like China that are just not going to care and plower head. What do we do about countries that could have it, you know a generation before other countries, because they're not they're not cowed by by these potential problems. What that's the problem to address, Steve, that's the I agree, but that Bob it's. Possible.

'''S:''' It is possible that if there's enough international consensus, that that could be sufficient pressure on countries like China to to go along. My main problem with the statement is not that it's naive, it's that it doesn't go far enough and it might actually be counterproductive and it doesn't account for.

'''B:''' The the autocratic countries that will that will steam. Ahead, that will not be. Slowed. I agree that that's a problem. I'm.

'''S:''' I'm now focusing on an entirely different problem, which is that by by saying the point of danger is 2030, fifty years in the future, when we get to ASI, it actually creates a false sense of security about our current level of AI, which is more than sufficient to cause a lot of problems. I don't necessarily think that AGI or ASI is necessary to have an AI apocalypse. We can have it, you know, just with with the narrow AIS that we have now depending on how they develop them and how they're used and whether or not they're regulated etcetera, etcetera. And so I would go, I would use this as a starting point, yes, like this is like putting it way out in the future for a worst case scenario. But we have to talk about AGI and we have to talk about the current AIS, which need to be regulated and we need to think very carefully about how they're being developed, how they are being implemented. Otherwise we're going to have a replication of all the downsides of social media. But times 1000, right? And that would give us a frame. I agree, Steve, you know.

'''US#02:''' I was treating that as.

'''B:''' Kind of like out of scope for this specific talk, because this specific talk deals with with artificial super intelligence, which is something that's not that's not discussed that often, but it's not out of scope in the specific.

'''S:''' Thing that I said this actually creates cover for the current AIS by making them seem not dangerous, you know by focusing on this future potential danger as if that's the AI that's the danger from quote UN quote AI. They should make it clear that this doesn't mean we're safe up until that point I agree all right, we have to shift.

'''US#02:''' To a very serious.

'''S:''' Issue. Now we've talked about these superficial issues.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== CT Ghost (1:05:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.courant.com/2025/10/22/cts-famous-ghost-is-the-white-lady-of-easton-seen-her-why-a-paranormal-investigator-is-asking/
|article_title = CT ghost is 'The White Lady' Paranormal investigator asks if you've seen her
|publication = www.courant.com
}}

'''S:''' Now, Evan, you're going to tell us about this ghost in Connecticut? Let's get to the hard science here, folks.

'''E:''' Connecticut Ghosts. Wow. Connecticut is our home state, right? Connecticut is known for many things, all right. But for this particular news item, I'm going to touch on two of the things that Connecticut is well known or relatively well known for #1 we have a newspaper in this state called the Hartford Courant. It is America's oldest continually published newspaper, 171764 and ever since then. So that's it. That's interesting #2 Connecticut is home to a legend in the world of ghost stories. The White lady of the Union Cemetery in Easton, CT, that is. That's world famous right there. So there you go. I'm touching on these. We're on the cusp of Halloween, Bob, in case you didn't know. Oh, wait, is that. Oh, damn. OK.

'''B:''' Right, check your calendar. Takes me by surprise.

'''E:''' Every year, yeah. Wow.

'''S:''' Didn't see that.

'''B:''' Is it Speaking of surprising? Is it not?

'''E:''' Surprising whatsoever that the most prominent newspaper in Connecticut is running an article about the most prominent ghost in Connecticut. Of course. And what do you get when you combine these two things? Well, you get a news item that's so unworthy and ridiculous that it would be an insult to dead fish if you tried to wrap it in this article, The headline reads. Connecticut's famous ghost is known to frequent a cemetery. Seen her? Why a paranormal investigator is asking? Well, I can answer that rhetorical question right off the bat because tis the season and desperate newspapers will glom onto anything that might put eyeballs on their product. But the article basically reads like a promotional ad for a group of local paranormal investigators. I'll I'll bore you with just a couple of select passages from the article just so you can get the flavor. Paranormal investigators and amateur ghost hunters alike have been fascinated for years by the sightings of the White Lady of Easton in and around Stepney Cemetery in Monroe and Union Cemetery in Easton. More on that soon. Now a paranormal team is taking a deeper dive into the legendary apparition and asking for the public's input. The result will be a documentary about the female ghost with the long dark hair and flowing white dress, said project leader and paranormal investigator Nicholas Grossman. Grossman even believes that he may have captured actual footage of her apparition, although he doesn't share it. But that's totally, you know, beside the point. His fascination about the lady heightened one day, he said, when his psychic colleague, someone named Diane, and their video technician, Hector, noticed something unusual. They said this quote. The cemetery, usually a hotbed of paranormal activity, was eerily quiet. Oh gosh, a quiet cemetery. How unusual. But the psychic used her pendulum to communicate with the spirit who delivered a cryptic message. You will see the white lady tonight. And then while he was driving down the road later that evening, This is Grossman. This is the guy the the the paranormal investigator. A woman in a white dress flew across in front of my car. She appeared completely physical, not transparent. She glided across the road in a way no human could. It was so real, I swerved to avoid her. Grossman says he regrets not having his video camera on Monday. Darn it. Dang, he missed it.

'''S:''' Maybe next, maybe next time.

'''E:''' And the article goes on to promote. His ghost hunting. Group, you know, they're encouraging people in the area to contact them to share their stories and hallucinations of their interactions with the white lady so that they can incorporate it into their upcoming film project. Well, since you asked, I do have a story to add because you see from the years 1982 through 1986 I lived in a house about 1/4 of one mile from Union Cemetery in Easton, CT and I and some of.

'''S:''' My high school.

'''E:''' Friends would frequent that cemetery regularly. We would ride our bikes through there, you know, just muck around in there. We conducted some scientific experiments, you know, such as seeing if tubes of rubber cement are flammable. They are, by the way, and some other non damaging mischief sort of events that teenage boys are want to do when they explore their surroundings. But before I tell you about my results from my five years of basically living next door to this cemetery and therefore next to this ghost, I'll give you a little bit of background on the legend of the White Lady who's been cited for what decades, many decades. There have been reports of of the White Lady, but the white lady in an interesting way is very much described the same way as, oh, I don't know, every other white lady account of similar ghost sightings that have plagued the human mind for as long as I don't know. There have been human minds. There are stories like this everywhere. This is not unique to Connecticut, certainly not to this cemetery and throughout cultures all across the all over the world. Basically, look, she has long dark hair, flowing white dress and uncanny ability to appear out of nowhere. And apparently, apparently. Thank you.

'''S:''' Right in front of moving cars where drivers?

'''E:''' Have to slam on the brakes sometimes convinced that they actually hit her, but then they find there's nothing there. Oh my gosh, Local folklore says she's a woman. This was a woman drowned by her husband over 3 centuries ago near a watering hole across from the cemetery. And like so many other lady in white tails, it's a story that's emotionally satisfying but they say historically fuzzy at best. I say non existent. Frankly. There are no records of a drowned wife, woman or any other person in Easton from the 1700s or the 1800s for that matter. Or the 1900s, or ever. But that doesn't stop the folklore. That doesn't stop the story from gaining a life of its own. Almost every version of this story anchors the haunting at to the White latest Union Cemetery in Easton again, which they say dates back to the 1760s. Scant evidence for it, but this is where Ed and Lorraine Warren, the Warrens, focused their attention in the late 1980s. And it was that one fateful night, September 1st, 1990, Ed Warren, he was on the 7th night in a row of filming at the cemetery where he captured the video of the white of the lady in white, a woman walking across the cemetery. And he publicized it in his 1992 book called Graveyard. Now, Bob, Jay, Steve Sir, didn't did, did he? We were. Shown the footage of the white Lady, right? We were. Yep, Yep. What were your thoughts?

'''S:''' About so I asked. Ed.

'''E:''' We asked Ed.

'''S:''' To show us the best evidence she got. What's the best? You know, because he's claimed to have tons of evidence. Alright, just give give us the absolute best. This is what he showed us, his VHS recording of the White Lady in Union Cemetery. And our reaction was, at first it was crappy evidence, but it was it was at that perfect distance to give you a suggestion that something was happening but not be able to see what it was. So was that and a living person in a sheet, It absolutely could have been. It was not of sufficient quality to to rule that out. And that I think was absolutely by design, especially if that's your motivation going.

'''E:''' Into this thing in the 1st place, where after seven nights of this you're not really getting anything. How many more nights you're going to do this, Ed? Seven nights is enough. Let's get somebody to go, you know? Then you do a BLOB squatch. Yeah, it's a BLOB squatch, right?

'''C:''' And.

'''S:''' And I have to add, we, we asked Ed, you know, this is the the point where we were kind of still being cooperative and friendly with him. And he said, yeah, that's interesting. We'll be happy to take a close look at it. Can you give us a copy of that tape? He refused to give it to us for analysis. That was the end. That was right.

'''E:''' That was the. Beginning of the end of the well joint venture that we had with him for those months and he did give us, he did give us a video.

'''B:''' Of somebody disappearing, which of course we utterly demolished, but that was somebody else recorded that, that was some. Flunky of his.

'''S:''' That wasn't him. So he didn't have his own credibility on the line with that one, correct? And he still didn't believe.

'''E:''' Our assessment.

'''B:''' Well, but yeah, you didn't accept it.

'''S:''' Whatever you say that that kid disappeared.

'''B:''' Sure he did. That's right.

'''E:''' That kid Harry. Harry would say that every time he said that kid disappear.

'''U:''' Ed.

'''E:''' Ed Ed.

'''U:''' So.

'''E:''' Look, as far as I'm concerned, yeah, because I did do some more research into this, into the legend of the White Lady. I looked for articles, I looked for stories, I looked for reports. I looked for account. I don't even know really that this story had much legs even before Ed Warren got, you know, became kind of the the the toast of the paranormal world as he was on on on the ascent in in those years, right. You know, he, he seems to be the one to have suddenly given a name to this particular phenomenon. Sure. Maybe because, again, how many other ghost stories are there of things being seen or a woman and vague descriptions of things? And suddenly Ed in his 1990 encounter kind of, you know, modifies this thing, makes it his own way and. Then. The media start following it. OK, now this is the White Lady of Union Cemetery because Ed Warren said it says it. So I'm not even sure this thing really even existed before Ed Warren. That's my take on it, and it's not even that creative.

'''C:''' Like how many like you mentioned, like how many towns across the world have like a a ghost dressed in white doesn't walk to the graveyard. Yeah.

'''U:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Right.

'''S:''' It's cliche.

'''C:''' It's not even creative.

'''S:''' I agree. Yeah, it's like a flying saucer with great aliens. I mean, come on, you could do better than that. But I want. But I want to do my official.

'''E:''' Contribution to the pool of information that Grossman and his team are collecting. All right, let's have it. Here is my here's. My first hand. Account OK, I Here you go, Mr. Grossman. I spend more days and nights in and around that cemetery than many other people can claim, frankly, especially people who are investigating ghosts. In all my many hours, hours upon hours spent at Human Cemetery, I never saw a thing even coming close to a ghost sighting. We didn't ever even had a single noise that scared us in the middle of the night or something that caught the corner of my eye. Absolutely zero. We were there in the daytime, we were there in the night time, and we were occasionally out well past midnight around that graveyard. This was all before I even became a skeptic of the paranormal, right? I believe, you know, I believed in anything and everything at that point. It's a 1314 year old kid just messing around, having laughs with friends, you know, again, riding bikes. We didn't vandalize. We didn't really do anything like that. We were just it was your own personal Stranger things.

'''S:''' Hang exactly all fun. Yeah, it was.

'''E:''' We were kids on bikes then. And that was it. So there's my contribution. Nothing happened. Upcoming. Yeah. Exactly not a. Darn thing happened, so I hope that somehow makes it into the documentary. Well, happy Halloween, everyone.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:16:35) ==

'''E:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time.

'''S:''' Noisy time. All right guys, last week I played.

'''E:''' This noisy.

'''U:''' What do you people think? No, it sounded.

'''J:''' Like a water pick from a.

'''E:''' Dentist office, you know, they fire that laser sharp water into your teeth. Oh, I hate that sound. Yeah, I had.

'''U:''' I had some.

'''J:''' Fun varied guesses in here, but I can only talk about a few of them. Michael Blaney wrote in and said Hi G, I'm guessing the call of the Jacobin Hummingbird. He says that Guinness listed as the bird with the highest pitch call. That's a fantastic guess, Michael, but I'm sorry, you are incorrect. Another listener named Hunter Richards wrote in and said hi Jay forgot it was Wednesday. If it's not too late, I think the critter in last week's noisy is a small mammal like a flying squirrel. Maybe a pig meat loris, but I don't know if those animals are in proximity to humans usually. So a flying squirrel as a reminder to the listeners of this show, only submit one thing or at least give me your final guess. You could say I think it might be this, this or this and give me your final guess because I'm going to go with if you don't, if you give me multiple and you don't specify what your actual guess is, I I can't, I can't count it anyway, Hunter, thanks for that. You are incorrect. Louis Morales said, hi, Jay, This week's noisy sounds like a dolphin to me. Probably at a sea park. OK, he but he says it might be a bird too. And then he says I'm sticking with dolphin. Anyway, I did have a close guest, but no winner this week. The closest guest I got was sent in by a listener named Evil Eye. Evil Eye has been listening to the show, I think since the very beginning and also is a is a very regular guesser here. He said I'll just go ahead and fail right out. He says it's a squirrel monkey. This is a very close guess, but it is. It is not a squirrel monkey. It's a mother squirrel. Is that a thing?

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah, I. Listen to the sounds that squirrel monkeys.

'''J:''' Make and it's kind of similar, but not fully there. What this actually is is I'll tell you a couple things. They live in eastern rainforest in Brazil. They are arboreal. You know what that means, Steve? Right. They live in trees. Thank you. And can you guys want to make a guess? Yeah, I'll guess They're arboreal. Correct.

'''B:''' It's the arboreal Arboreal.

'''J:''' No, this is. This is. This is called. A lion. Tamarin. This is a little monkey guy, a lion tamarin they weigh up to.

'''S:''' 900g or 32?

'''J:''' Oz. They're about 30 centimeters high or 12 inches long high, whatever however you want to do it with. Tails about 45 centimeters or 18 inches long, They jump through trees. They use their fingers to hold onto the branches. They use their claws to dig under the bark to search for insects to eat. They also eat some snakes, lizards, and small fruits. They are unfortunately all endangered or critically endangered in part because their habitat is of course being destroyed and climate change is a big part of that. So let me play play this for you. Again, keep in mind this is a little monkey.

'''U:''' I need to ask the audience A.

'''J:''' Very serious question. I just played a sound that sounds exactly like a million birds all over the planet and the vast majority of you did not guess a bird. Maybe it only sounds that way to you. Well, or you know.

'''C:''' I mean, come on.

'''US#02:''' It made the tweet the.

'''J:''' Tweet sound. I mean, it's like my expectation was to be flooded with bird guesses and it didn't happen and I'd need to know what's happening, what is going on out there? Steve, did you think it was a bird? No. What am I hearing?

'''S:''' Is it a high pitched?

'''J:''' Squeaky thing that repeats it's itself and sounds like a song. It's not tweety enough. Cara is a tweety.

'''S:''' I don't know I'm.

'''C:''' Not a bird. OK, maybe I'm getting old here. Maybe my I?

'''J:''' Don't know, I was just thinking bird all the way. Anyway, OK, so that was this week's noisy. Thank you everyone for guessing. I have a new noisy this week and this noisy was sent in by a listener named Jenny Navis.

'''U:''' Very strange noise if you think you know what.

'''J:''' It is. You can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. You can also send me in any noises that you heard or have you know happened upon on the Internet that you think are cool. I will take all in consideration. Steve Novella. We like to leave Connecticut and we ask Cara to leave her domicile in Los Angeles and join us for live entertainment because we we give it and we want the people that listen to this show to receive it as I Have I said anything wrong so far? Nope. OK, so where are we going to be We're.

'''C:''' Going to.

'''J:''' Seattle, WA and we're going to Madison, WI January 10th of next year. That's 2026 we will be in Seattle, WA at Washington Hall Cool. And Saturday, May 16th of 2026 we will be in Madison, WI at Atwood Music Hall. You can go to our website where the links for the tickets will be available. And on top of that, we will be doing, of course, private shows on both of those weekends. It's very likely that we'll be doing those private shows the Saturday morning, which is before the nighttime event. So you can do both of them in one day. They typically run from like 11:00 to 2:00 or 12:00 to 3:00. I will finalize those details, but tickets will be available this weekend and we're going to actually try something new this time around, guys, because we have gotten requests over the years that people want something a little more exclusive and a little more private. That's more of like just socializing and there's no shows involved. So we decided that we're going to try on both of the Friday nights before the shows that I just mentioned. We will have a very, very limited ticketed event where you're just going to hang out with us and you're going to basically do whatever we decide to do, right? It could be anything. We'll give more details on that as well, but you will see tickets up for those as well. All right. Thank you, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:22:59) ==


'''S:''' We have one e-mail, this comes from Keith from, by coincidence, Seattle, WA and Keith writes, I saw this article referenced in a typical online argument and he has a link to the article. The commenter extracted the following one line quote. The risk of COVID-19 also increased with time since the most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received, he goes on. But that's the that's the key question is asking us. So basically there's a study that showed exactly that, that the risk of have getting diagnosed with COVID-19 increased with the number of vax of previous COVID-19 vaccine doses. So of course this is going around with the claim, like see the vaccines, not only do they not work, they increase your risk of getting COVID thing. But wait, did they compare it to people who weren't? Vaccinated.

'''C:''' Yeah, because I think the risk of getting COVID increases with time. The Well, it increased with time.

'''S:''' Since your most recent COVID infection and also.

'''C:''' Which makes sense.

'''S:''' The longer we live, the more.

'''C:''' Likely we are to get COVID. I think they looked over like a six month period or.

'''S:''' Something OK, OK, So what you.

'''C:''' Know as you might.

'''S:''' Imagine that's not what this study showed. OK, I mean, it didn't.

'''C:''' Meaning it didn't show that.

'''S:''' COVID vaccines don't work. It showed the opposite. It showed that, you know, if you look the the core finding of the study and what they were looking for, the actual question for the study was are how effective is the vaccine given the mutations and the virus? So like are, is it is, are the the vaccine still providing protection given that we know the virus is continuing to mutate and they actually correlated it with different waves of infection and what what strains were dominant during that period of time. So they found a number of things. 1 So again, this is just an observational study. And so you know what I'm going to say, right? Observational studies are subject to confounding factors, and this study in particular has confounding factors galore, right? So that that's the huge grain of salt you have to take this with. They found that overall infection rate during the period of times they were looking at was 8.7%. So that's fairly low. So you also have to keep that in mind as well. There's already a pretty low infection rate and so it even subtle effects can can have a seemingly dramatic effect on the relative risk within that, you know what I mean, of getting affected. What they found was the estimated vaccine effectiveness was 29% for the BA .4 slash 5A dominant wave. It was 20% for the BQ negative wave and only 4% effective for the XBB dominant phase, right? So 2120% and 4%. So keep in mind. So that means it worked, right? The vaccine reduced the risk of getting infected, but the more different the strain was from the vaccine strain, the less effective it was, Right? OK, so of course.

'''C:''' That.

'''S:''' Is inconsistent with the notion that increased vaccine doses increased your risk of infection, right. So first of all, that's a relative increased risk on the background of an overall decreased risk just from being vaccinated. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what that's kind of what I was getting.

'''C:''' At but like in a less complicated way, Yeah. Is that like the more?

'''S:''' Vaccines you.

'''C:''' Get it means that you are going farther in time and there are more. The risks fluctuate in the general population. So there will be times when you get a vaccine and you're more likely to get COVID not because of the vaccine, but because COVID is is circulating more. Yeah. I mean infection they tried to control. For. That stuff as much as.

'''S:''' Possible, again, they're doing an observational study where they're just looking at a cohort of people and saying did they get infected or not? And what was their vaccine status, you know? So there's a, there's a couple of things to point out here, obviously, and the authors, the authors do not believe that increasing number of doses actually reduced the protection of the vaccine or increase your risk of getting infected. There has to be a confounding factor here. That's the only thing that makes sense. And they discuss a few possibilities and they try to control for a confounding factor. It's always, it's impossible to do that completely. You can, you can, you can try. So, you know, you can all you could say, hey, it's possible that people got more doses because they're in a high risk group and there and being in a high risk group increase their risk of getting infected. But the observational data, you can never know what the arrow of causation is. That's like saying being on a diet correlates with being overweight. Yeah, because people who are overweight go on diets, not the other way around. It's the same kind of thing. Also keep in mind this was not the risk of having COVID. This was the risk of being diagnosed as having COVID. And so you also, then that introduces all the confounding factors of who gets diagnosed. Maybe you're more likely to get diagnosed if you're also somebody who was more likely to be up to date on your boosters, right? You're getting more healthcare. You're more likely to show up in the system. Yep. A lot of people got sick and just didn't report.

'''C:''' Exactly. So yeah, there's that's.

'''S:''' That this just like off the top of my head kind of obvious confounding factors that are almost certainly at play here. And so you can't conclude that this in any way calls into question the effectiveness of the vaccine. But I would also challenge just this, the whole approach of this study. Again, it's fine as far as it goes, but it's not the be all and end all of COVID vaccine effectiveness studies. It's looking at, in fact, the weakest indicator of vaccine effectiveness, which was be having been diagnosed with having COVID, because this is not taking a look at severity or anything else. There was also a very recent New England Journal of Medicine article that did that looked at outcomes that are I think much better markers of vaccine effectiveness for a number of reasons. So this was a six month follow up study where they looked at the the estimated vaccine effectiveness. The reduction in COVID-19 associated emergency department visits was 29.3%. The reduction in Haas COVID-19 associated hospitalizations was 39.2%. The reduction in COVID-19 associated deaths was 64%. So you were 30% less likely to be go to the emergency room, 40% less likely to get admitted to the hospital, and 64% less likely to die. So obviously we care a lot more about those outcomes than having a mild case of COVID, right? So, and we've known for years that the vaccines are better at preventing serious illness than any illness, right? That that's another sort of example of you're looking at a subset of the data. It's not giving you the full picture. And you know you and there's lots of problems with this data which you cannot gloss over. But also that's also just an individual study. So the most recent systematic review I found, this is a review of 284 articles found, quote, all the approved vaccines were found safe and efficacious, but mRNA based vaccines were found to be more efficacious against SARS COV 2 than other platforms. So all of the vaccines work. And if you look at the totality of the literature, that's what it shows. But of course, if you don't know what you're talking about and you have a political agenda, you could look at this one study and say C vaccines don't work. But it is absolutely not true. Yeah. And if you want the details I wrote, I wrote about it on science based medicine.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:31:21) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = Human Flatulence
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gasses.
|link1web =
|link1title = None
|link1pub = None

|item2 = Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable.
|link2web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02154-w
|link2title = A widespread hydrogenase supports fermentative growth of gut bacteria in healthy people | Nature Microbiology
|link2pub = www.nature.com

|item3 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.
|link3web = https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2024.1397259/full
|link3title = Frontiers | Diagnostic performance of volatile organic compounds analysis and electronic noses for detecting colorectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis
|link3pub = www.frontiersin.org

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gasses.

|science2 = Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable.

|fiction = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue1 = Jay
|answer1 = Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gasses.

|rogue2 = Evan
|answer2 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue3 = Bob
|answer3 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|rogue4 = Cara
|answer4 = There are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' OK, let's go on with science or fiction.

'''U:''' It's time for.

'''US#02:''' Science or fiction each week I come up with.

'''S:''' Three Science News items or facts, 2 genuine and 1 fictitious. And then I challenge my panelist skeptics tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week and the theme is AI Flatulence.

'''E:''' Same thing.

'''S:''' Farts. The theme is farting. OK, I didn't plan on having a theme, but sometimes like I. Come across an interesting news item. Like I could just flesh this out into a theme.

'''J:''' So, Steve, is this like, going to focus on like our expertise that we have all developed in our old age about, you know, passing gas or like what's happening? Yeah, your flatulent expertise may come.

'''S:''' Into, into, bear with it might help you. I'm not going to talk about technique or anything, Jay, if that's what you're asking, but or or naming conventions.

'''B:''' All right here.

'''S:''' We go item number one. Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases. Item number 2, up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. And item number three, there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer. Jay, as the resident expert, why don't you go first, OK? I mean, you know, I don't know.

'''J:''' About resident expert Steve, the first one we have here is that greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases. I think 99% is a lot, but I would think this is, if this seems like science to me, there is quite a bit of gas passing happening. And I think if we, if every one of them smelled, we would all know it in a big way. Because, you know, I don't know if we discussed this on the show before, but like passing gas is like a true sign that your body is functioning and that you are digesting and processing food. And you know, it's a very important part. You know, it's like it's just part of, of, you know, having a metabolism. So that said, you know, I think that there's lots of gas passing happening with people every day. And this one is probably science. Second item, up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable hydrogen gas. Because I thought it was methane and I could be embarrassingly wrong on this one, but I that's, that's the gas I thought it was. No, I don't think it's hydrogen. That one is definitely on my I don't think so list #3 there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds called VOC's in flatulence as they as an early sign colorectal cancer. Thank you for that. I think that science, I don't think we're farting. I don't think we're fired farting hydrogen. I would have heard of that, right? And does hydrogen even smell? I've never smelled it. I wouldn't be surprised if it does smell, but I don't know. I just haven't heard a lot of it. I haven't heard any of about any of this. And I don't think I would have, you know, not heard it at this point. I think #2 the hydrogen is the fiction. OK, Evan. OK #1.

'''E:''' Comprised of odorless gases. So wow, that means that that's a 1% it's responsible for. Yeah, that seems wrong. Which makes me think it's right because. I mean not, you know. So I, I, yeah, that one will probably wind up being science. I think for purposes of this game, The second one, about 50% of human flatulence up to 50% is hydrogen gas. Can't underestimate the amount of hydrogen that's out there inside all around. You know what, Most everything is hydrogen, right? So to clarify, this is hydrogen.

'''S:''' Gas, this is H2. This doesn't mean hydrogen as part of other compounds. OK all.

'''E:''' Right, well that does change the math. This is the one Jay said was fiction. Maybe it is fiction. The last one here, several approved tests for VOCS as an early screen for colorectal cancer. This doesn't seem right. Approved tests. They're several approved tests. Why? But we've seen commercials, we've seen other things for early detection and they're not this it. It's actual, you know, fecal matter that you have to look at and stuff. I hadn't heard anything about. About what? Going into an office and letting out your gas and then they can screen for it. I haven't heard that at all, so I don't know. Sounds like you made that one up, Steve. I'll say the VOCS. I'll say that one's the fiction. OK, Bob, I think it makes sense.

'''S:''' That 99.

'''B:''' Percent is odorless, so that one's probably fine. The second one, though, up to 50% is hydrogen gas. It seems like a lot, but I think the keywords there is up to, so that might make the difference. And then this third one, I'm not sure. I'm skeptical that they've got approved tests for that. I've never heard anything about it. This could be the one that's up to. All right, I'm going to I'll say the up to is changing my mind on the second one. They're up to 50% I think typically I don't think it's that much, but up to is just killing me here. So I'll just I'm going to go with evidence. AVOC Fiction, OK. And Cara, yeah, I'm leaning in that.

'''S:''' Direction too.

'''C:''' I think that it makes sense. The one that seems the most like science is the 99% because sometimes farts don't smell. And so you would think that that it wouldn't be a large percentage of compounds that comprise the smell. It's probably just like one thing, like I think it's sulfur and and if it, it's only a tiny, tiny bit, sometimes there's even less or sometimes it maybe it doesn't have that compound. So that would make sense to me. But the two I, I'm sort of torn between the two, but I'm leaning in the way of Evan and Bob. I think you can light farts don't do it though. Sounds very dangerous, but I don't know if it's because of hydrogen or other other flammable gases, but I Bob kind of convinced me with the up to whereas like I remember doing some stories years ago about mechanical noses and this idea of like dogs smelling cancer or trying to produce tests that can smell VOC's for different things. And I think that research is still not where they want it to be. I agree with Evan. Like there are poop tests for screens for colorectal for people with like a normal risk. And then obviously, you know, colonoscopies and things like that. But I don't think anybody's getting tested for cancer by farting into a jar. So I'm going to call that the fiction. OK, so you guys all agree on the 1st.

'''S:''' One, so we'll start there. Greater than 99% of flatulence is comprised of odorless gases, which means that less than 1% are smelly. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. It is science. That is correct. Yes, less than 1% of of the gases in flatulence are sulfur compounds which are responsible for the odor. Yes, care is correct, it is mostly hydrogen sulfide. The rest is odorless gases. I'll give you the breakdown later though, because that obviously, you know, carries over to #2 here for number. Let's talk about #2 and #3 for a bit because you guys made interesting comments about them #2. Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. So there's never going to be 1 figure for flatulence because it's so variable based upon diet and gut flora and other variables. So right, like you could, there's never going to be 1 figure for what is the gas constituent of flatulence. It's there's so many variables in here. It's always going to be a range. And I'm liking this up too.

'''U:''' Right.

'''C:''' So yeah, there's.

'''S:''' It was always going to be up to I would never, there's no way I could ever say in a statement like this 50% of flatulence is hydrogen gas because that no such statement could ever like that could be true. And now the third one, Evan, because a test is approved doesn't mean that it's used or that it's useful enough or cost effective enough that it's in general use. Oh, crap. Wait.

'''C:''' The same.

'''S:''' All right.

'''E:''' So let's.

'''S:''' Do next week, let's go back to #2 Up to 50% of human flatulence is comprised of hydrogen gas, which is flammable. Jay, you think this one is the fiction? The rest of the rogues thinks this one is science and this one is science. This is science. Yeah. It's. So it's, there's a lot of variability here. It's like 20 to 50% depending on really depending on your gut microbes, on your gut flora. But this is based upon a recent study where they found that hydrogen is a metabolic mediator of gut flora, way more than we thought it was. So some microorganisms create hydrogen gas, and other microorganisms eat hydrogen gas. Yeah. So a lot of the gas that's produced gets actually eaten by other microbes and then some of it you burp out and some of it you fart out, right? So how much an individual farts out depends on how much they're making and how much they're consuming and how much is leftover. So that's why it's always going to be variable. And you know, 20 to 50% is the range that that is most resources I found are giving. So maybe average of like 30% or so, but it's still alive. That was way more than I thought, which is why I included that. Yeah, that seems like a whole lot, yeah.

'''C:''' It's a lot. It's more than we thought.

'''S:''' Is the answer. It's it is actually more than we thought. This means that there are several approved tests for volatile organic compounds in flatulence as an early screen for colorectal cancer. Cancer is the fiction because, yeah, what you guys were saying about this one was otherwise correct. There are VOC tests for lots of things. Now the volatile organic compounds, there's a lot of research looking at measuring Vocs and breathalyzers and also in flatulence, but they're not quite there yet. The the ones that are that are in that are working are looking for VOC's and actual fecal samples. So Evans correct, it's you're looking at fecal, they are still looking at VOC, Yeah, but they are looking for VOC.

'''J:''' 'S is one of the things they're.

'''S:''' Looking for so yeah, so this is an up and coming thing and they're hoping that they'll get to the point where they could just do a breathalyzer because you don't have to get it going out the bottom. You can get the same gases come out the top to some extent. So, but you know, if you're looking specifically for, and it's not just cancer, it's also for other GI diseases as well, irritable bowel syndrome, for example, or gluten insensitivity. Let's talk about the percentage of gases in the gut. So it's mostly what? What's the most common gas in far? Methane? Nitrogen. Because most of it is. Swallowed air, right? So you swallow a lot of air that you swallow from eating. Chewing gum actually makes you fart because you swallow more air. Interesting.

'''J:''' So there's also.

'''S:''' Therefore some oxygen, there's some carbon dioxide, about 9%. So it's 59% nitrogen. These are average figures. Again, it's all hugely variable about 9% carbon dioxide. Methane, you know, it's anywhere from 7 to 30% methane, also combustible. So that's the two things that when you you can't light your farts on fire. And the two, the two things are methane and hydrogen. But don't do it. Don't do it because you'll burn your ass. And then oxygen is like 4% and then the sulfur compounds that give it the odor are less than 1%. Again, these are average figures. The range is huge for all of them because of of variables. How much do people fart on average do you think per day in like liters? That's so hard. I mean, how much? Well, wait, can you tell?

'''C:''' Us How much is an average fart? Like how big, how many liters is an average fart? Or, well, there's there's there's the total. Volume.

'''S:''' And then there's the number of times you fart per day. And then you could you could figure it out from there. So 1 to 2 liters per day is is average. That's average. And some people are going like that. It's something like 15 to 23 farting events. Wow, men fart more.

'''C:''' Than women.

'''S:''' Why? But women's farts smell more than men's. Interesting. Wow, that's.

'''C:''' These are all averages these.

'''S:''' Are all just obviously there's no typical thing. This is just I wonder it's between men. Well, yeah.

'''E:''' I wonder if it's. Biological or?

'''C:''' Social I wonder if women hold them in and maybe they may and then then that. Percentage might creep up. Fewer farting events, but same.

'''S:''' Same volume, the same gases exactly. Guys are a little bit more freeze. A little more bravado. So you're going to have a.

'''E:''' Few more.

'''C:''' Unsmelly farts than we are because you're farting more often now the the volume.

'''S:''' And musical characteristic of the farts are almost entirely determined by the anus. Yeah, yeah. Does your butt cheeks get?

'''J:''' Involved in that or what? If they're big enough, I guess they could get involved.

'''S:''' So are we talking about all out gassing that the.

'''E:''' Body does. No, just talking about yeah.

'''S:''' Through the back end anus base the bum bum OK because you. Combine it with burps and all.

'''E:''' And other things that the body emits. Oh boy. Yeah, that's what that's more more. Gasses.

'''S:''' Wow, we are. We are expending.

'''E:''' Fluids and.

'''S:''' Gases of every type, through many orifices. And don't forget dander, right? So, Steve, what did you say? About the music quality.

'''B:''' It totally depends on. It's. Mostly determined by the musculature.

'''S:''' Of the anus, Yeah. And also that that's wrong. It's the key.

'''B:''' Of C that is wrong. It's also.

'''U:''' It's not wrong.

'''S:''' It's also the the pressure that it's under is also a a factor and butt cheeks have no say in this. I didn't.

'''B:''' Say they have no say, I said primarily they're. Big enough?

'''S:''' Well, they have a.

'''C:''' Say, my gosh, I can't believe, but if they're.

'''B:''' Not in the way.

'''C:''' You can still have musicality. So if it's like for example you have low.

'''S:''' Pressure, loose musculature. It could be silent. Yeah, usually the butt cheeks by.

'''C:''' Themselves are not.

'''S:''' Enough to produce. They may modulate the sound, but they probably won't produce the sound. Bob, what do you got?

'''U:''' What do you know?

'''S:''' I'm not going into details.

'''B:''' Well, Bob. Bob. Does want to toot his own horn?

'''S:''' Let's move on.

'''B:''' To the quote All right, Evan, give us the.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:46:45) ==
{{qow
|text = “By all means let us agree that we are pattern-seeking mammals and that, owing to our restless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all.”
|author = Christopher Hitchens
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Quote By all means, let us agree that we are.

'''E:''' Pattern seeking mammals, and that owning to our relentless intelligence and inquisitiveness, we will still prefer a conspiracy theory to no explanation at all. Well said by Christopher Hitchens. Yeah, I have to, unfortunately.

'''S:''' Agree with that. Yep, that the allure of any explanation over no explanation is pretty great. Yep, yeah.

'''E:''' We love filling the void with whatever well, and that's I think one of the central.

'''C:''' Theses of that frontline episode about RFK is like how could this happen to dad? This is so horrible. This is so like, I can't explain this. And we think back to Alex Jones. Remember his whole thing about Sandy Hook? And we were like, why did people actually believe him? Like, we get why he made it up because he's a horrible person, but like, why do people believe them? And one of the theories by by set forth by social psychologists was that some people said, this is so horrible. I can't imagine it to be true. Yeah, a way to cope with the actual.

'''E:''' Horror of the true event, Yeah, isn't that? Wild.

'''C:''' It's fascinating it.

'''E:''' Is fascinating. The the lengths. We'll go to, to, to to make something as comfortable as possible for ourselves. So dangerous. Yep. All right. Well, thank you all.

'''S:''' For joining me this week. You got it, Steve. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Steve. And until next week. This is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1057

2025-12-28T21:05:51Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:30:02) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1057
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1057|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1057.jpg
|caption = "Exploring molecular structure: Copper ions and nitriles in dynamic cavities."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "Science is the greatest equalising force in the world. Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere. That's why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity".
|qowAuthor = - Omar M. Yaghi
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1057|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, October 9th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

'''B:''' Hey everybody.

'''S:''' Cara, Santa Maria.

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' And Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Evan is in phase two of tax hell. He has the late deadline in mid-october. So he's doing, Yeah.

'''C:''' So. Which like let's be honest, I think they just furloughed like half the IRS Staffs.

'''S:''' Right well yeah, no, it's true IRS is really going to look woefully under understaffed now it's correct. It's crazy. And so he's doing that. So you might notice we've started recording on Thursday instead of Wednesdays. That's I think the second week we're doing that. This is going to be our new normal and it's just a scheduling thing. Mainly because Cara is starting a new job and Yep, Thursday is going to be a lot easier for her than Wednesday.

'''C:''' Yeah, and I'm three hours behind you guys.

'''S:''' Yeah, so it's different. We're recording in the afternoon instead of the evening. So Jay's awake, right? Jay?

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, we go till like 10:30 at night, a lot of times the Eastern Time, and I'm just, you know, a million times sharper at 1:00 in the afternoon.

'''C:''' I love to that you guys are like we're recording in the afternoon. I'm like it's 9:00 AM just.

'''S:''' Are you a morning person or an evening person, Cara?

'''C:''' I well, I used to be an evening person. I still am technically an evening person, but we've talked about this before because I have a sleep disorder that makes me a very sleepy girl. I take this really intense medication and now I just wake up in the morning. It's like the minute that the meds are done doing their thing, I'm just awake. So that's how they work. It's amazing, Yeah. So I wouldn't still call myself a morning person, but I'm much more of one than I ever was before.

'''S:''' I'm solidly a morning person.

'''C:''' You just like decline like.

'''S:''' This, I'm just very alert in the morning. I can you do a lot of work basically from like 6:00 AM to 2:00 in the afternoon is sort of my most productive hours. And then I can function in the evening, but I get progressively sleepy in the evening, Yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah, I'd say I have more physical energy in the morning. So that's when I love to go to the gym. That's when I love to like, Oh my God, run errands. And then I have.

'''B:''' Him in the morning.

'''C:''' Yeah. And then I have. Good. More mental energy at night. I love like staying up late to write or to read or to work on crafts.

'''B:''' Yeah, I can go to bed at 1:00 AM no problem. I don't do it as much as I used to, but midnight to me is just like 12:30. I'll be like, yeah, I'll go up. It's 12:30.

'''C:''' Yeah, I'm exactly the same way. I usually wake up between 8:00 and 9:00. I guess that's going to change when I start seeing patients again.

'''S:''' When I was working, I was I would wake up at 6 pretty much every morning or a little bit before. Now my retirement time, I wake up at 7:00. It's not much different, it's just I can linger in bed till about 7.

'''C:''' Is does your wife get up at the same time or do you always get up before her?

'''S:''' I always get up before her, even when she's working because she works in the evening. She teaches it and right, she has evening classes. She has just meetings and stuff during the day, but she's early. Is she pressured to get up early in the morning? So I generally wake up before she does.

'''C:''' What a life, I love it.

'''S:''' So you guys know what time of year it is again?

'''B:''' Yeah, it is. Halloween time. Wait, no Nobel?

'''S:''' Prize time.

'''C:''' Oh, that too, but.

'''S:''' Before we get to that, I have a quickie for you guys just because this is we can't pass this by.
{{anchor|quickie}}
== Quickie with Steve: Liver Xenograft (03:19) ==

{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(25)02497-3/fulltext
|article_title = https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(25)02497-3/fulltext
|publication = www.journal-of-hepatology.eu
}}

'''S:''' I would absolutely be reporting on this if it weren't Nobel Prize week. So we're just going to do a quick hit. Researchers have implanted the first pig to human liver xenotransplant. What? So we've been talking about this for a while, this whole idea of where do you source organ transplants from and what's the what's the wave of the future? And I do think this is the most promising way. So this is a pig was the donor and it was genetically modified. They, they made 10 gene edits. So xenoantigen knockouts, right? So taking out genes for antigens that would activate the human immune system and also human trans genes, putting in human genes for two basic reasons. One is immunity, right, immune compatibility, and the other one is unique to the liver. It is coagulation compatibility. So the liver, you may not realize this right there. What liver is the biochemical factory of the body. It detoxifies anything you eat, right? There's always a first pass through. The liver doesn't do everything, but that's, you know, anything it can detoxify gets done through the liver. The liver also does your glucose management, right, stores your glycogen and does that. And the liver also produces your coagulation factors. And so and that's a complicated, what we call coagulation cascade, right? So there's a complicated set of enzymes and proteins that are made in the liver that have to do with clotting your blood. So that has to be compatible to this is what makes liver Zeno liver transplants so challenging is because if you're not, it's not just the immune compatibility, you need the biochemical compatibility as well, right? The pig liver has to do all the things that a human liver would do in the way that a human liver does. And the big issue there is the coagulation compatibility. So having said all that, this was done in China. The recipient was a 71 year old man with hepatitis B related cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, was not eligible for a resection or a liver transplant. So they did this xeno, it's called an auxiliary graft, which I mean, I think just means it was did not replace the liver. They just put it there in addition to the liver. And he survived for 171 days, which is wow, a long time, right? I mean, it's obviously not a cure, but that's for this technology. That's that's pretty good. And the big problem was not rejection, it was the coagulation. He eventually died of GI bleeds.

'''C:''' So do they. So this still isn't where it needs to be.

'''S:''' It's still not where it needs to be exactly. So I mean, 171 days is good, but that they have not dialed in all the changes they need to make yet in order to make this function. So I mean, obviously this, this is a patient who given his liver failure and his, you know, liver cancer, did, you know, had a very short life expectancy anyway. So that's why they're, you know, you're able to do this kind of experimental treatment and somebody like that. But this is a solid advance. This is a solid step forward. And we are seeing more of this these xeno transplant from genetically modified, mostly pigs at this point. Remember we talked about lung, They're, they're working on cardiac. Cardiac's probably the easiest because it's just a pump. You know, there are some challenges with the lung because it does have a lot of immune function as well. And it's challenging with the liver because of the biochemical compatibility. I think pancreas is probably on the short list. That could be like a, a cure for some types of diabetes and kidney, you know, kidney is a filter that should be pretty easy to make compatible, more so than the liver or the lungs, which I think are going to be the real challenging ones.

'''C:''' If you guys are interested in like reading about kind of what's on the horizon and like in a really fun way, I highly recommend Mary Roche's new book Irreplaceable You because she talks about this in depth in it. I had her on my podcast a couple of weeks ago and. Weeks so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the book's fascinating. It like just came out.

'''S:''' Awesome.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Physiology or Medicine (07:46) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2025/press-release/
|article_title = Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 - NobelPrize.org
|publication = www.nobelprize.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, now it's time to get to our Nobel Prizes. Cara, you're going to start us off with Physiology or medicine.

'''C:''' This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Mary E Brunco from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Fred Ramsdell from Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, and Shimon Sakaguchi from Osaka University. They were awarded jointly the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine quote for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance. The the kind of long and short of it is they discovered how the immune system is kept in check by a whole second system that a lot of people believed either wasn't there or they just didn't really, they were really skeptical about how it might work. And so this is one of those stories of decades of research. And I love this kind of science because it's like, this is how we know what we know. But before I tell you more about their discoveries, I wanted to tell you like a kind of fun fact about how they were told that they received the Nobel Prize. So the Nobel Prize committee they put or nobelprize.org. They they do these great videos. I don't know if you guys have seen them on YouTube where they have an animation of the person who won. And then they have a phone call with somebody from nobelprize.org talking to them about like how they first found out. And usually it's, it's either a phone call or, you know, somehow it gets, I don't know if somebody finds out and tells them. But my favorite is that Fred Ramsdell, he was hiking with his wife up near Yellowstone and didn't have service for days after they were released. And so he only just found out about this like the whole world knew before him, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. And I don't know if you guys follow on Instagram, but one of my favorite accounts, Doctor Lucky Tram, he's a science communicator. He shared this like headline that says Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is quote, living his best life hiking off grid. So anyway, let's get into how they discovered this. OK, We know that there are T cells and B cells that help us when when we have a pathogen that enters our body and our immune system attacks those pathogens. What the researchers in this year's Physiology or Medicine Prize, what what they did is they they really identified, I don't like to say discovered because we kind of knew the cells were there, but they identified these specific types of cells called regulatory T cells, which are really important for peripheral immune tolerance. So let's kind of back up a little bit. I mentioned we have T cells and B cells. This year's prize really focuses on T cells. So that's what we're going to focus on. But B cells have somewhat similar functions. So there are T cells that are always patrolling the body and that sort of send downstream signals that say we need to attack when there's a pathogen that enters the body, a virus, you know, bacteria, anything like that. And then there's other types of keys, T cells, that actually bind to those cells and eradicate them. So they attack body cells that have been infected, and sometimes they also attack tumor cells, but sometimes they don't know to attack tumor cells. All T cells have T cell receptors, right? So there are these little things on the surface of the cells that understand or that recognize different pathogens. And for a long time, there was a sort of 1 gene to 1 pathogen hypothesis, and researchers quickly realized that there's just not enough actual DNA, There's not enough coding regions of the DNA to have all the genes we would need to map for all the different pathogens that we are exposed to. So really researchers a while back realize that a bunch of genes are randomly combined in different orders to come up with these special T cell receptors. And the I think the number now is that there's possibly like 10 to the 15 different types of T cell receptors. We're always able to recognize new pathogens.

'''S:''' It's basically everything.

'''C:''' Exactly like we can combine our gene, the genes can combine in such a way to produce new receptor receptors for anything that comes into the body. And obviously we don't recognize it at the beginning and then we mount a stronger response. We know that T cells are matured in the thymus, right, which is which is an endocrine organ in our body. And what sometimes happens is that AT cell that should be recognizing A pathogen actually attacks our own body cells. We know this happens because people have autoimmune disease. The thymus has this really cool system that helps it identify endogenous protein, so the body's own cells so that our T cells don't attack our own cells. Basically the thymus, there are cells in the thymus that have endogenous protein fragments that they attach to so that when the T cells are first matured, they sort of test them out and they say, do you bind to me? And if they bind to them, they go, Nope, you don't pass this test. We're going to destroy you. We're not going to release you into the body to go patrol viruses and protein, viruses and bacteria, because you're very likely going to attack body cells. And that's not no, no, no, we don't want that. Yeah.

'''S:''' So it's negative selection. We make antibiotics against everything and then select out the self.

'''C:''' Exactly. And so that is that central process that we talked about, right? That is, these are the patrollers that are doing central immune tolerance. After we discovered this, researchers said, OK, probably there are also some that sort of are patrolled after this thymus test. And a bunch of researchers started to do research in this field and they very quickly made a bunch of discoveries. But the problem was they made pretty big claims. And this happens. We see this a lot in the history of science where big claims are made or, you know, what we know is stated, but then, OK, but that means, you know, X means Y&Y doesn't pan out. And So what ended up happening with this field of peripheral immune tolerance is that it sort of died because so many people made such big, big claims that they couldn't replicate, that a bunch of researchers became really skeptical of the entire idea. So Shimon Sakaguchi, who at the time was in the Iichi Cancer Center Research Institute in Nagoya, he was like, no, no, no, I still think there's something going on here. And This is why he did this really interesting experiment where they've removed the thymus altogether from newborn mice. And they were like, OK, these mice are probably going to just make fewer T cells and their immune systems won't be good, right? So they'll just get infections and they'll die. But they found that if they've removed it like 3 days or later after the the mice were born, the opposite happened. Their immune systems went haywire. They were way too strong and they started attacking the mice's healthy cells. They got this range of autoimmune diseases and they often died from that. And so he was like, OK, this is interesting and it tells me that something is happening beyond this. So he devised these cool experiments where he took these mice where the thymus had been removed that had a an overactive immune system. And he injected mature T cells from a healthy donor, from a mouse that had a thymus intact. And he found that they were protected. So he was able to put mature T cells in after the fact and they were tested. So what what were these cells that he was putting in? He knew they were mature T cells, but nobody knew what types they were, so he was able to recognize that. And maybe this requires going back, but remember how I said that they're the patrolling T cells? Those have a protein called CD4. And killer T cells, the ones that actually do the attacking, they have a protein on them called CD 8. Well, he identified a protein called CD25 and he found that those patrolling T cells, they had both CD4 and CD25 on their surface. And he realized that if he added the CD 25 cells to the CD 4 cells that were already in existence in the Ultra kind of immune angry, you know, the hyperactive immune system cells, that's when they got healthy again. So there was something about these CD25 receptors that was preventing these mice from attacking their own tissues. And this was not only happening in the thymus, it was happening in somewhere in the periphery. And so he was able to identify this new class of T cells. They called them regulatory T cells. And then this research sort of continued. OK, so here's where this the story switches over to the other two researchers. So now cut to a little bit later. This was in the 90s that this research research was happening. So now we're going to cut to research that continued into the early 2000s, at the time Bronco and Ramsdell. Bronco just to as an aside, it's important to remember that she is, whoa, only the 13th woman to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine, only the 66th woman overall to receive the Nobel Prize. So we're talking teeny tiny percentages there. So at the time Bronco and Ramsdell were working together. They were in a lab. They were at a biotech company called Celtec Cairo Science in Bothell, WA. They were really interested in the specific mutation called the Scurfy mutation. Scurfy, they were using a model Organism. It was a mouse that was developed actually out of the Manhattan Project research. So they were interested in how radiation sickness caused autoimmune problems. So some of these mice that had this genetic mutation were born with scaly and flaky skin, large spleens, large lymph glands. They lived for only a few weeks and they just were, were unhealthy and they were only male. So people realized, researchers realized this had to be an excellent chromosome. So only male mice got it because when female mice had the 2X chromosomes, one of them could be healthy. But men of course, or male mice of course only had 1X chromosome. And so if they carried the gene at all, they, they got really sick and they died. So they started to go like, OK, what's going on with these mice? Why are they so sick? And they realized that these T cells were were attacking the tissues of these mice. So Bronco and Ramsdale, this is where they enter because that was known. They were like, OK, what's going on with these scarfy mice? What is the mechanism underlying their disease? Like really. Like, we know it's something with the T cells, but we want to understand exactly where on the genome this mutation is occurring. And we've got to remember that this was before any of the modern technology that we have. So they had to do all of this kind of coding manually in order to understand where this gene was. They had to dig through like 170 million base pair nucleotides to figure this out. It was bananas. So they narrowed it down to about 500,000 nucleotides. They mapped that whole area of the X chromosome, and they ultimately narrowed it down to 20 different potential genes. And don't you love this? Like your keys are always in the last place you look. They looked through 20 genes and they found the mutation on the 20th world.

'''B:''' Oh my God. Classic.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's a lot of work.

'''B:''' Love to have heard them when they found it on the 20th.

'''C:''' Yeah, serious.

'''B:''' Few curse words.

'''C:''' Probably, yeah, more than a few. So they find this Scurfy mutation and they name it Fox P3 because it was similar to previously identified genes called forkhead box genes. So they called them Fox genes. So Fox P3 they found here's a kind of an interesting aside, but also very important for their for their prize. They realized that there was a human variant that was very similar to Scurfy in presentation, but they weren't sure if it was genetically similar. But once they did this research, they realized the human equivalent of Fox P3 was responsible for a rare genetic disease called IPEC syndrome, which is immune dysregulation, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X linked syndrome. So this is an inherited immunodeficiency where again, only male individuals develop early onset autoimmune disease that's just really intense. It presents with diabetes, enteropathy, so attack on the GI tract and a lot of kind of gut issues, rashes like eczema and psoriasis and thyroid disease. And these children often die very, very young. So they were able to identify the actual gene responsible, which we now know with the tools that we have, we can start solving these these problems where there's a specific genetic mutation.

'''S:''' There is a clinical trial underway using CRISPR to treat iPads.

'''C:''' Amazing. Yeah, amazing. And so not only did they identify that, but they were able to basically look at the research that was previously done, you know, across the board, all the research that was done, but also the research that was done in Japan. And everybody now was able to say, I mean, it wasn't just Shimon Sakaguchi at this point, but because he had done all of the work leading up to it, he was able to take that discovery of the Fox P3 gene and say, wait, that is what is actually controlling the development of those regulatory T cells that I identified. So I was able to find their function through these really interesting experimental techniques. Now that I know where the gene is that controls it, we can, you know, do a lot of interesting things. We can knock it out. We can boost it. We can, you know, try and understand exactly what's happening. And so all of this research together tells the story of this secondary immune tolerance, peripheral immune tolerance. So not just this pathway that occurs within the thymus where the cells that are attacking healthy body tissue are sort of knocked out, but this whole secondary pathway where our body recognizes cells that attack healthy body tissue and potentially either gets rid of them or, you know, weakens them. Like there are so many different things we can do with autoimmune disease, right? So let's say, for example, that there's a disease where the body's own immune system is in hyperdrive, an autoimmune disease. Like, I have an autoimmune disease. I have psoriasis, that's my own body attacking my skin cells. And it causes these like, you know, scaly patches. And I have to take medicine for that in order to not have these patches on my elbows. Some people have it severely over their whole body. And there are a ton of autoimmune diseases. If we can dial down those regulatory T cells so that they're not attacking healthy disease or we can knock them out altogether, that would prevent autoimmune disease. On the flip side of that, cancer cells, tumors are especially good at recruiting. Oh no, they just recruit the the T cells themselves.

'''S:''' Yeah, the T regulatory cells, yeah, to suppress, to protect themselves from the immune.

'''C:''' Exactly. So they recruit the cells themselves and again, these T regulatory cells, this whole system are what was discovered or at least identified by the people who the three individuals who won the Nobel Prize. So tumor cells are really good. That's how they're able to cloak themselves within the body, right? They're able to say like we're just the body tissue don't attack us and then they grow and grow and grow. And so there's so much potential therapeutic benefit of continuing to develop drugs or treatments for these regulatory T cells to maybe be suppressed or turned off in the presence of tumors. And we actually do have some pilot studies on that where patients are getting interleukin 2. Interleukin 2 makes regulatory T cells thrive. So that's helping with the autoimmune disease and possibly even organ rejection after transplantation. But then as I mentioned, when it comes to the tumors, some researchers are like modifying the T cells, adding different antibodies on their surface so that they can be better recognized or they can send out these sort of T cells to transplanted liver or kidney to help take care of them. And of course, dialing it down instead of or, sorry, dialing it up instead of down in cancer, in tumor biology, it would be a whole other application and probably so many more that we haven't even thought about. So once again, congratulations to doctors Mary E Brukno from Seattle, OR who is in Seattle now, Fred Ramsdale in San Francisco and Shimon Sakaguchi in Osaka for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.

'''S:''' It's another example also of how international like global collaboration is involved in modern scientific research. Like when if you read about any of these Nobel prizes but also just any story like this, it's always multiple labs in different countries contributing different components to how things you know unravel.

'''US#00:''' Yeah, which has.

'''B:''' Almost without, almost without fail. I mean, that's what I'm constantly reading multinational groups of, of, of researchers and labs and Oh my God, you're.

'''S:''' Doing research at this level, it's like almost unavoidable.

'''C:''' It's like you have to. And that not only has implications just for better science happening globally, but also it does have diplomatic implications. Like science diplomacy is so important because we see this all the time where countries that are having geopolitical conflicts still come together with their scientific collaborators. And yes.

'''S:''' The Trump administration just cancelled all NIH sub grants to international collaborators.

'''C:''' Yeah, because he it's like he wants us to be an island.

'''S:''' It's so short sighted.

'''C:''' When you're an island, everything gets weird, as we know from an evolutionary perspective, but also, yeah, from a collaborative perspective, like our science is going to wither. It's it's, it's not going to grow if we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world.

'''S:''' All right, Bob, you're, you're going to go on and tell us about the prize in physics.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Physics (26:53) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/press-release/
|article_title = Press release: Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 - NobelPrize.org
|publication = www.nobelprize.org
}}

'''B:''' Yes, Sir, this year's Nobel Prize in Physics went to researchers who showed that that the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics that I love so much don't quit when things get big to hallmark quantum effects, tunnelling, and energy quantization show up even in macroscopic circuits that you can literally see. This year's prize went to John Clark, Michael Devore, and John Martinez for their foundational work in 1984 and 85. And that's right around the time, if you remember, right around the time that the mind flare was terrorizing those poor kids from Stranger Things. Right. Sorry, I've just, I've been binging that show. John Clark was professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley at the time. Now he's a professor emeritus at the university's Graduate School. Devore and Martinez are both professors of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. If you're rusty, I haven't talked about it in a little while. Quantum mechanics describes that the counter intuitive and famously weird behavior of microscopic objects like atoms and electrons. That weirdness of the of the quantum realm is not visible in the macroscopic world that we inhabit. Those effects are still there though, but they just kind of get averaged out by all the trillions of interactions that are happening in these these huge messy systems. Like even like relativistic effects, the time that your your your head feels compared to the time that your feet are experiencing are slightly different, but it's, it's so small, not even notice it. So what these guys did back in the 80s was to create electronic circuits made of superconducting loops where there's no resistance to flow. And within these circuits, they saw these two iconic quantum. The first was quantum tunneling. We talked about that a little bit before. This happens when a particle appears to move through a barrier, like an energy barrier, even when it doesn't have enough energy to do so. I came across theoretical physicist Steven Gervin's take on this. He, he likens this to uses an an an analogy comparing quantum tunnelling to a car in neutral. So imagine you're a neutral and you're approaching a hill. If you don't have enough energy, you're not going to make it over that hill. You just go up a bit, right? And then you just kind of slow down, stop and head back down. Imagine that this is the case, but you still make it to the other side using this process called. Quantum tunneling.

'''S:''' It's about the analogy is there's a tunnel going through the hill rather than having to go all the way over the top of it I guess.

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah, you could. Yeah, think of it that way. But it's just, yeah. It's, but it's a metaphor, right?

'''S:''' We're not saying that that's what's actually happening, but it's just.

'''B:''' Right, right. You could think of it. Yeah, think of it that way. If you're interested in that, please read, you know, go online, just milli billions of websites talking about it. Lots of ways to actually approach these topics. Now, this has been shown to exist in the micro world and it's actually so important that stars could not shine without engaging in quantum tunneling. And many of the technologies that we use today just wouldn't happen without this without this effect. So yeah, it's there and it's critically important to life as we know it. But quantum tunneling was never seen in the in the macro world in the way that Clark and Devore did in their experiment. Now, they did it specifically in this case by adding these, what they call Joseph's injunctions in their circuits. It's like an insulator that require tunneling to get past. So that that's, that's how they kind of, that's what they did to the circuit to spot this. The second quantum behaviour was mainly fleshed out by Martinez. This behaviour is referred to as a quantization of energy. It refers to the fact that subatomic particles can only gain or lose energy in fixed discrete amounts. Right. You guys, you guys have heard of that before. In our world, energy is generally comparable to say, a dial that can be turned by any amount, no matter how small it's continuous. The quantum realm, however, only deals in very specific energies, more akin to a channel selector than a than a continuous dial. So you can think of it that way. Now this was shown to happen in these large circuits by sending microwave photons into them and seeing how that energy was absorbed. Specifically, they looked, they were looking at the absorption spectrum, they saw that the energy was absorbed only at very specific frequencies, and these frequencies were specifically predicted by theory. But it also had the bonus of, of actually being solid proof that even these large scale circuits, we're experiencing this quantum energy quantization that we see in the quantum realm all that all the time, but not in the in, you know, the macro scale world that we live in day-to-day. All right, to sum up here, these are what these researchers proved is that quantum behaviors can happen in things that are large enough for us to see. It's not a phenomenon only for individual atoms or particles. In a real sense, these large circuits as a whole, we're behaving like atom sized objects. That means that the laws of quantum mechanics can also apply to macroscopic technologies. That that's the key right there. But also, these weren't just some cool but obscure experiments that happened decades ago. These, these discoveries that these gentlemen made, these, this was the foundation of a host of technologies that turn quantum physics essentially into engineering, right? Allowing the creation of devices that were practical and controllable. So this includes some things you might probably predict. This includes some modern quantum computer platforms that are out there today made by, I think it was like Google and IBM. But there's also quantum sensors and there's quantum amplifiers. And also there's, there's, I think even newer than those things, there's these super precise measuring technologies like superconducting gravimeters and the list goes on and on, all essentially flowing from, from the this foundational research from decades ago. So, so who knows? And also I love to extrapolate a bit into the future. So who knows what amazing technology in the future future can be traced back to this research from the time of the Mind Flayer in the 1980s. Nice. Yeah. That was so many, so many layers to this. But. Yeah, with quantum mechanics. Yeah, Oh my gosh, it's just it's, yeah, it's, it's nasty to cover because there's so many like, well, you can't say that because that's misleading. And though that that creates a, you know, a mental image that's.

'''S:''' Probably the minefield of of.

'''B:''' It is the minefield is a great way to describe.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Chemistry (33:01) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2025/press-release/
|article_title = Press release: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 - NobelPrize.org
|publication = www.nobelprize.org
}}

'''S:''' It all right, let's finish up with the Nobel prizing chemistry. This one goes to again 3 researchers, Susumu Kitigawa from Kyoto, Japan, Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne in Australia and Omar Yagi from the University of California at Berkeley in the USA. So again, an international researchers contributing to this story. And this has to do with something called metal organic frameworks, which we have definitely talked about on the show previously. But I'm going to go back to 1974 is where at least conceptually, this all begins. But I'm going to 1st, Bob, ask you a question. Do you remember back in high school when you and I believe it was Aaron, but you and somebody else got caught red handed by Mr. Kosh on playing catch with those molecule models in the chemistry class?

'''B:''' Absolutely right. And I haven't thought about that in probably 2 decades. So thank you for that.

'''S:''' I remember that that guy had radar. You did that absolute radar. Now I was an innocent bystander because I had nothing to do with this, but Bob was my ride home and so I had to stay behind and help you reorganize all the drawers of rubber stoppers before we could go home. Do you remember that?

'''B:''' I. Do I? The rubber stopper thing was even more deeply buried than the throwing around the the atoms and molecules. All right.

'''S:''' So I was reminded of that because this story begins with Robson, who in 1974 also was playing with these those model molecules. But that set him on a pathway not to reorganizing the rubber stopper drawers in the chemistry classroom, but the Nobel Prize.

'''US#05:''' If only we could have trembled that same Cap Steve.

'''S:''' So, yeah, so as a teacher back in the day, he would use, you know, but like the wooden ball and dowel kind of models that you build atoms out of. And he would have to have the woodshop drill the holes in the wooden balls and he had to tell them the specific angle at which to drill those holes, because that's the angle of the bonds that the that they, those atoms make accurate. Yeah. Because. And then he realized that once you do that, like once you put the bonds at the correct angles, the molecules sort of automatically build themselves in the correct way, right. The structure of the molecules sort of are automatic because they're, it's built into how many bonds like a carbon atom make and what angle are those bonds at, etcetera. So he's like, huh, that's interesting. I wonder if there's something there 10 years later, right. So this idea percolates with him for 10 years. Every year he's teaching his class like looking at these chemical models, like there's something here and what he thought I was, I wonder if we can take this up 1 hierarchical level, if the structure, right, the structure, 3 dimensional structure of these molecules derives from the types of bonds that these atoms make. I wonder if we could use bigger molecules to do the same thing, right? So essentially, if you have a molecule that also has specific binding sites, could you use it kind of like a tinker toy to build bigger structures out of? And so he combined copper ions also copper ions like to like to make four bonds, right? And he combined that with A4 armed molecule, organic molecule, you know, don't worry about what the long name is, right? So then you have also a very similar tetrahedral type of structure, right? For D&D players, it's like AD 4, right? So in the end, with four, the copper ions each able to make a bond, and he's like that this should behave kind of like a carbon atom, this giant molecule, right? So he tried to build these bigger structures out of it, and it basically worked the exact same way. He could build these larger structures out of these metal organic sort of compounds that he had made. And again, kind of like a chemistry tinkertory set. Interestingly, because these were so big, the structure contained these large cavities, if you could imagine that like these are these big molecules, you stick them together and it forms this bigger structure. But there's big voids, there's big empty areas in the structure just because of the gangly molecules that you're connecting together already. So then he further thought, huh, I wonder what we could do with this, right? So how, what kind of function would this serve? Again, initially he just wanted to see if he could do it, but he started to play around with different structures to see if he could get them to do different things. And he realized one thing is that gas could flow into and out of these voids, and you could also fill them with different kinds of ions, and maybe they could serve as sort of a catalyst to drive chemical reactions. And he started playing around, building different structures that would do different things. But there was a big problem with this technology, and that is these structures were fragile. They were not resilient. They would breakdown very quickly, and they could not resist high temperatures. And so they just weren't very practical or useful because of that. They just weren't stable enough. So now enter Kitigawa and Yagi. They were not working together. They were working completely independently, right? But they were sort of picking up from Robson's basic building blocks idea and experimenting with different ways of, again, not necessarily with any any outcome in mind. In fact, Kitigawa has a famous quote about the usefulness of useless, right. Things which seem to be useless can turn out to have incredibly useful applications. So you just never know. So just following your your interest and the the kind of just thinking outside the box and saying how this is interesting. I wonder if this would work, You know, and then worry about applications later yields incredibly useful things. The quick version is, is that Kitigawa and Yagi independently experimenting with this organic metal combination, these meta structures that you're making out using big molecules as building blocks were able to make much more versions of them and found out how to make them much more stable. And I think it was Yagi, in fact, that in one of his papers that coined the term. Metal organic framework for these kinds of structures. That's basically the story at the end of the day, these three people were critical for the development of this chemistry technology of developing these metal organic frameworks, making them more stable, but also making them more flexible. The reporting on this brings up the point that there were already other kinds of technologies like silicon dioxide and zeolites, right? That where you could have similar function. So there wasn't a lot of interest in these early on. It's like we can already do that with these other things. These are fragile, who cares, right? But the researchers kept pushing, and they found out that, well, first of all, we can make them stable, and secondly, we could make them do do something that the zeolites can't do. And that is that they're flexible. And what that means is they can change shape from when they're empty of stuff, whether it's a gas or other chemicals or whatever, to when they're full. And that just expands the number of potential applications that they could potentially be used for. So Fast forward to today, where are we? There are literally 10s of thousands of metal organic frameworks that have been created and they have a wide range of potential applications. We talked recently about harvesting water from the air in deserts. Those were metal organic frameworks. There's a lot of research looking at pulling carbon dioxide out of the air, right? Carbon capture. Those are metal organic frameworks. Oh, cool. There's a lot of metal organic frameworks that that are you are catalysts they make because you're bringing different molecules together. You could then catalyze reactions. You can make them happen more quickly. The thing about the metal organic frameworks and it's a framework, they're essentially programmable in a way like you can design the the structure so that the voids specific to whatever kind of molecules you want to fill them. And now with artificial intelligence, they can explore the potential design space of millions of metal organic frameworks and say, yeah, find one for me that does this. You know, so I think we're sort of poised for this technology to take off even more. One specific thing I thought of was can this be used as a hydrogen storage medium, right? Because we're desperately looking for something that would store hydrogen. And the short answer is it is being researched. It is being researched, but it's not very promising. And the reason for that is volumetrics is that while, well, it you can make metal organic frameworks that store hydrogen and they can be very mass efficient, have a low, you know, mass for the amount of hydrogen that you're storing. They don't compress the hydrogen very well. So they take up a lot of volume. So that may be useful in some contexts, like any static storage need, but wouldn't be good in a hydrogen fuel cell car. You need to keep the weight and the volume under control for your hydrogen storage. Doesn't mean that they won't eventually crack this problem, but that's where it is right now. There's some major challenges that's probably not going to be in an early and maybe even a never application for Mofs, but there's so many other ones. So this is just one of those. Again, those technologies that facilitate other technologies, it's also this is the technology that's often behind the news item, right? Like we were talking about the harvesting, you know, water from the air. The technology behind that is the metal organic frameworks. So keep your eye on this. This will keep popping up in a lot of the news items that we talked about.

'''B:''' Cool man, yeah.

'''S:''' All right, I think there's three awesome Nobel Prizes for this, for this year in the sciences.

'''C:''' And like is often the case with the Nobel, I guess, announcements, when you first read it, you're like, oh, yeah. And then you dig into it. You're like, whoa, this. Is. Such a big deal.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely. All right. We have one non Nobel news item.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Long COVID (44:21) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/7/5/fcaf337/8258475
|article_title = https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/7/5/fcaf337/8258475
|publication = academic.oup.com
}}

'''S:''' Jay, tell us about some recent discoveries with long COVID.

'''J:''' Yeah, so many people with long COVID report this brain fog thing. I mean, I think it's been in the news a lot. It's definitely a term that has gotten out there. A lot of people know about it, but, you know, is it legitimate? You know, what could potentially be causing it? So a research team in Japan asked those questions. You know, is there a measurable change in the brain chemistry that lines up with those that think they have these problems? So they did they, they looked into it and they used a brain scan that can see one kind of communication receptor on neurons, and it's called the AMPA receptor. Think of these receptors as tiny volume knobs that help neurons pass signals. So the team scan and 30 adults that claimed to have long COVID symptoms who had ongoing cognitive complaints. And what they did was they compared them with 80 healthy volunteers from a previous data set. So what they found on average was that people with long COVID showed a stronger AMPA signal across large parts of their brain. And in simple terms, more of those volume knobs were visible on neuron surfaces. They measured the test subjects brains with a PET scan and the tracer that they used, right? This is the thing that they typically will inject into somebody that will stick to the things that they're looking for and they're able to locate that them sticking onto that whatever it is they're looking for. So in this case, they want to find the receptors. So they, they used something called carbon 11K2 and this binds to the amp of receptors. And after the injection, the researchers were able to collect images during a 30 to 50 minute window. I guess that's how long it was able to be traced. And then they calculated a standard ratio that tells you how strong the tracer signal is in each brain region. And they they compared this against typical white matter as the reference. Prior work from the same group supports the idea that this signal mainly reflects receptors on neurons, not on support cells. And that matters because it ties the signal to synapses, where this is where of course neurons talk to each other. They also gave standard thinking tests to the people. And when they checked whether higher AMPA signal matched worst scores, 2 tests stood out. And Steve, I'd like to hear what you have to say about this. People with higher signal did worse on picture naming and on visual memory tasks that ask you to recall a figure, and those links showed up in the same brain areas that had the biggest group differences. That connects the scan results to the real world problems like finding the right word or remembering what you just saw.

'''S:''' This is, yeah, this is really interesting. The AMPA receptors are excitatory, but they're also excitotoxic. So what that means is that they increase the firing of neurons and they also cause some metabolic stress to those neurons, right? They actually could kill them if there's an if there's enough of that stress. So what what they think is happening is that it's just messing with the balance of signalling in these networks, right? Just throwing off the network by, you know, having an excess excitatory signalling, too much excitation and also too much stress on those neurons. And it can affect people's overall ability to maintain their focus and to think. What's interesting is that this is probably a global effect, right? This is not affecting one part of the brain. But when there are global effects on the brain, there are certain Canaries in the coal mine, if you will. There are certain symptoms that tend to be the first thing people notice and one of those is that just your ability to maintain concentration because that we take it for granted, but that's a very high energy functioning state of the brain. The ability to focus your attention, maintain your attention, you know, divert your attention, filter out things you don't want to pay attention to. We're all constantly doing that. And when that's even a little sluggish, you really notice it.

'''C:''' Yeah, and a lot of people kind of experience it as something called brain fog.

'''S:''' Yeah, brain fog. They.

'''C:''' Just can't think is so sorry if I missed this. Are these people producing too much glutamate?

'''J:''' They didn't mention that as far as what I read, this was a very, very long study.

'''C:''' Yeah. Just I'm wondering.

'''J:''' I don't think they know, just wasn't these receptors are more active.

'''C:''' I don't think they figured out why they're more. But amper receptors are glutamate receptors, right? So. So either they're making too much or too much is being left in the synapse, or there's something excitotoxic going on. Yeah, OK.

'''J:''' They also conducted blood tests and they found that there were two immune system signals. You know, it moved with the brain scan result. The blood tests don't prove cause and effect, though. It's a pattern that suggests the immune system and synapses might be LinkedIn these patients. An important question here is could this scan that they've created identify patients, right? They were able to identify 9 out of 10 people who don't have it. I know it seems backwards, but that's the way that their scan was working. And these are, you know, these are early numbers. It's a very small study and these tests aren't even ready for clinical use. They'd have to do much larger studies and really dig into that.

'''S:''' Yeah, but it's part of the process of going from a clinical diagnosis to a mechanistic diagnosis, right? Your, your diagnosis is I have brain fog, right? Like it's just a symptom. And maybe we could say you have brain fog and you don't have any abnormalities in your neurological exam that would explain it, right. So that's typically how we make a clinical diagnosis. You have some symptom and it then there's no obvious explanation that's. And so we're left with this syndrome anytime we can go from that and say this subset of those people have this physiological thing going on that not only helps us do more research, but design treatments for that subset of people, right? Because usually there's more than one thing going on when we have just a vague clinical diagnostic category, you know what I mean? Unless it's really, really specific which brain? Fog is not. It's very, very non specific.

'''J:''' Yeah. It's like feeling dizzy.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' This study is a really good example of the scientific process and the difficulty with a lack of funding in science. So, for example, this is a good study, you know, they, they found something that is, is actionable. They need to look deeper in and they need to do more, more horizontal studies to add up the body of knowledge, right? It's, you know, it's, it's from a small data set. You know, it needs to be replicated by other labs. There's this is just the beginning of something that could take what Steve 1020 years to like really get into get to the point where you might even be able to treat it.

'''S:''' Yeah. I mean we like with every one of these Nobel Prizes, when you look back like when was the first kind of insight made about this, it's usually like a 30 year delay to now we're having researching actual applications. Yeah, that translating basic science to to applicable science is 20 to 30 years is typical.

'''J:''' But it's important, guys. It's very important. And we need to, the skeptic community, I think needs to, we need to know this and we need to, I don't know, what could I even say here?

'''S:''' It's good to be able to advocate for basic science research with good arguments because it's one of the first things to get attacked politically or when So it's easy to make fun of, for example, basic science research that has no obvious applications, like, we're wasting money on doing researching, like, like always, like the sex life of French frogs or whatever. But then when you trace. Yeah, but that research led to curing this disease, you know, 20 years later. The examples they choose are, you know, if you actually trace that research almost always lead to, like, really interesting discoveries and sometimes monumental applications. It's important to know that connection of why you cannot use that argument. Like, there's no obvious, immediate, direct application of this research, therefore it's useless. That's a dumb argument, and it's ahistorical. It's not true. So we have to just be patient and continue to sort basic science because we know that is the fuel that drives, you know, the engine of change or progress of our economy. You know what I mean? It's just it's so short sighted to to undermine the.

'''B:''' Totally. And this is a point that has been made for how many decades? This was obvious decades ago. But no, we still have to remind people over and. Over. Again, basic science is is critically important. Oh my God.

'''S:''' Well, I mean, one, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week, Quints.

'''C:''' Fall is upon us and I can't even believe I'm saying this but even in LA this morning I took my dog out and it was chilly outside so I was excited to reach for my favorite hoodie. It's 100% Mongolian cashmere from quints. It was affordable. It's held up over a long time. They have so many pieces from bedding to cookware. I have an entire bed made of bamboo and it's so soft. It keeps me cool at night. I love it so much. And Jay, you've gotten what jewelry from Quince before?

'''J:''' Yeah, I told you, like my wife, we got her gold earrings and real quick, you know, she lost one of them contacted Quince and they they sent her a new pair. Like ridiculously. This company is like just their their customer support is freaking fantastic.

'''B:''' Layer up this fall with the pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quince.com/SGU for free shipping on your order And three 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's QUINC. e.com/SGU Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/SGU.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (54:24) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, you're going to, you're going to keep going with who's that noisy?

'''J:''' All right guys, last week I played this noisy. So you guys think that is well it's.

'''S:''' Definitely an animal, right?

'''J:''' Bob Cara.

'''S:''' Like a yeah, I would guess like a frog or something like that.

'''C:''' It's an animal or a toy.

'''J:''' Well, listener named Michael Blaney wrote in. He writes in quite a bit. He says, hi, Jay. I'm guessing it's a duck. That is all. Yeah, it does have a little duck kind of situation there. Another listener named Amanda Lee Ronan. Hi, Jay. I'm so excited to see you guys in Sydney next year. Yes, we are going to Sydney and I'm very excited. I'm pushing that ball forward every day. It's a lot of work and I cannot wait until we get to go. So she continues. I'm going to add my vote to what I'm sure must be an absolute legion of listeners all identifying this week's noisy as some deep sea divers sucking on a regulator connected to a tank with lots of nitrogen in it and then laughing at how silly they sound. Yeah. I mean, don't think you're crazy. That's not. That's not that bad of a guess if you think about it, because it has like, a, a human kind of laughing rhythm to it. And it definitely is a higher pitched thing. So I like that one Chelsea B wrote in. I think Chelsea B is going to start a rap group. You know, Chelsea B. Hey, Jay, It's Seaweed from Buffalo, NY. First time writing in to say this week's Noisy is another effing bird. I, I included that one because it's not just funny, but it, it's just emblematic of the whole thing, right? Because almost everything could be a bird. Like, like birds make every noise you can imagine. So it's always an OK guess to guess a bird. I like that she didn't even like pick a bird. She's like, it's just a bird. Gordie Swalm said, Hey, guys, this week's noisy sounds like an evil mechanical duck doing his evil laugh. Right? So there you have it that this is the guest that a ton of people wrote in. Thanks for thanks so much for doing what you do. And then guys, we actually have two winners this week. They both submitted within a minute of each other. So I definitely wanted to give them both a shout out. So the first one is Duncan Shaw. Duncan said pay J Duncan Shaw from South Africa. I've been listening since 2018. About my third time guessing the noise from this week's episode is a barking gecko and it was newly discovered. I heard it on Reddit. So I'm guessing one of many to get the correct answer this week. And then the next person is Rachel Griffin. She says hello. My guest for who's that noisy this week is the newly identified species of bark and gecko recently found in the Namib Desert. Is that Namib?

'''Voice-over:''' Namib. Namib like like Namibia.

'''J:''' Namibia. OK, so Namibia desert. Yeah, very cool. So yes, this is a newly identified species and.

'''S:''' I knew we were in the herpetology zone somewhere.

'''J:''' So listen again. The thing I find adorable I I did read this. I'm not 100% true that the information is correct but the person said this is basically the get go saying hey like get away from here I live here like stop bothering me.

'''S:''' Get away from me bothering.

'''J:''' You bother me. All right, guys, I got a new noise this week from a listener named von Contras.

'''S:''' Contreras. Contreras.

'''US#00:''' Oh, Contreras, It's Contreras. Oh, OK, Yeah.

'''J:''' All right, I, I, I have to say this. I almost didn't play it because this is really weird, but I love it and I think if you listen to it a couple of times you'll love it too. Check it out. And when you listen to it again, I notice that this sounds a lot like no, it sounds like the a song on Pink Floyd the Wall. I can't remember the song, but it definitely has that that progression going on there. So if you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something really cool, you got to e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, yes, we have things happening.

'''S:''' We do.

'''J:''' We've made some excellent progress on the Political Reality Podcast.

'''S:''' We've filmed a bunch of Tik Toks.

'''J:''' We did and we basically have all of the elements now decided on and we're just waiting on one thing to to begin. And it's, it is nothing that is within our control, but it's all good because this is what it takes to to do what we're about to do. Very excited. It's all there and we will probably be launching this within a couple of weeks or or three weeks. I think we'll we'll need to get the first episode out. We are all going on an epic adventure and it this adventure will include we will all be going to LA and we will be doing a private show and we will be doing an extravaganza. And then we're going to fly to Sydney and we'll be doing an extravaganza and probably a private show and we're going to be doing a three day conference in Sydney. It's going to be not a con in Sydney. And we're working of course with the Australian Skeptics. We're super excited. This will be their 47th conference, but we are taking over the conference because it's going to be 100% content that we create and it's going to be awesome because we we've run this conference twice before. We know exactly what we're doing. It's going to be a ton of fun. We have some awesome people joining us like Doctor Carl. He will be there. I'm I'm going to be hopefully communicating with him soon to see how you know, how far in can I rope from Steve? I want him to. I want him to do.

'''S:''' Will you chuckle for us?

'''J:''' Yeah, I know. I just want him. I want him to do like everything basically. If you can get him to, to sit in with us for two days, that would be fantastic. Then guys, we are going to be going to New Zealand and we have, we are, I can say it now that we will be having a conference in New Zealand. I can't give you any details. It'll be the weekend after the conference in Sydney. This is all happening, by the way, the weekend of July 23rd of 2026. And then the following weekend will be the New Zealand conference. I'll be giving you guys more details as they come out. We're going to be selling tickets, hopefully. I mean, if I get my way, I'd like us to be selling tickets within a week or two. I think it's possible, but you know, I'm pushing very hard. It'll happen. And then, of course, all the details will have been completely finalized. Bottom line is we'd love to have you guys. This is a really, you know, really big deal because first of all, we're going to be, you know, going to two awesome countries that we love. We're going to get to perform to a lot of people in the US and over in New Zealand and Australia. We're hoping that we can bring Nauticon to Australia and and just absolutely blow them away. Steve, aren't you going to sing this time?

'''S:''' There's there's a small possibility that might happen, like .03%.

'''J:''' It's it's getting lower by the way. Camera might dropping dropping.

'''S:''' Fast.

'''J:''' Guys, if you appreciate the work that we do and you want to help us keep this going and it again, like help us increase our footprint, which is what we're doing right now, you can become a patron, you can go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. Any contribution is absolutely welcome and we would really appreciate it.

'''S:''' Thank you, Jay. All right, we have a great interview coming up with Professor David Kyle Johnson.
{{anchor|interview}}
== Interview with David Kyle Johnson (1:02:00) ==

'''S:''' So let's go to that interview now. We are joined now by David Kyle Johnson. Kyle, welcome back to the SGU. Hey.

'''US#03:''' Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here.

'''S:''' And you are a professor of philosophy at King's College and you are on our Rolodex, as we say, you know, virtual one, I guess, as our, our philosopher that we can turn to when we need to talk to a philosopher. But you contacted us this time because we had a very quick, it wasn't really like a, a formal part of the show, but we, we, I think it was because of evidence.

'''E:''' It was the quote, right? It was the, the Joseph, you know.

'''S:''' Yeah, we had a brief conversation about inductive and deductive reason.

'''E:''' And I brought up Einstein, which was sort of a, I guess, an example of a scientist who maybe had some, you know, issues in the past with inductive.

'''S:''' Reasoning and of course this, the real story is way more complicated than our brief discussion. And since this is we're the SGU and this is logic, we're like, let's, let's, let's do it. Let's do a deep dive on deductive and inductive reasoning. So that's why you're here.

'''US#03:''' Awesome. I am very glad to do that. I've been thinking about it like all day prepping and I'm like trying to think about different ways like to approach it and explain it all so.

'''S:''' All right. So what's your, what's your elevator pitch kind of quickie version that you want people to walk away with? What? What's the difference between those types of reasoning?

'''US#03:''' OK, OK, so here's to the elevator pitch. Is is commonly thought that deductive and inductive reasoning are defined the following way. Deduction is reasoning that goes from the universal to the particular, and induction goes from the particular to the universal. That is incorrect. That is a misconception that is borrowed from Aristotle. That comes from Aristotle, and it's not even a complete accurate representation of what Aristotle thought. But the way that modern logicians understand deductive and inductive reasoning is deductive reasoning is reasoning that guarantees its conclusion, and inductive reasoning is reasoning that makes the conclusion probable. It raises the probability or makes it more likely that the conclusion is true, and that's how modern logicians understand those terms and all arguments fall under one of those two categories.

'''S:''' OK, I get that. So, but when you say that the general to the specific and specific to the general is not true, do you mean it's incomplete or it really is just absolutely wrong?

'''US#03:''' In as as an understanding of what deduction and induction is, even as Aristotle understood it, it is, it is inaccurate. It is also incomplete in that like, obviously there's more arguments than just those two kinds of arguments, but it is also the case that like as Aristotle understood and then as modern logicians understand it, that's not quite an accurate understanding of what deduction and induction is.

'''S:''' But would you agree because this is I got that. I get all that. I knew that, but I also thought that, well, the part of the reason why that that's the quickie summary is because if you do have like if you take as a premise a general rule, you can make an absolutely must be true conclusion about that using deduction. So that's where that relationship comes from, whereas induction you can't, it's more about generating A hypothesis. So you cannot make a this 100% has to be true. So there is still that relationship, right?

'''US#03:''' Yeah, kind of, except for when you said that inductions about generating A hypothesis, that is not necessarily the case either. Like it can. It can, but not necessarily, but not necessarily, right.

'''S:''' All right, so give us give us some more examples. Then let's just talk about deductive reasoning. So what would be some really good examples of deductive reasoning to help everybody understand what it is in its essence?

'''US#03:''' OK, so and this Aristotle kind of captures this when he says that he wants deductive reasoning to capture what he called syllogistic reasoning, which he defined as a discourse in which certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows of necessity from them. So he has kind of that in in mind. He has that idea of an argument whose premises guarantee its conclusion.

'''S:''' So if the A equals B&B equals CA must equal C.

'''US#03:''' That's an example that's an example of one, right. So the problem is that whenever he like he says that's what deduction is. All of the examples he give are just categorical universal to particular arguments. They're all if all A's are B's and X is an A, so X is AB. Like, you know, all men are mortal. Socrates is a man, Socrates is immortal. Like those are the only kinds of, you know, examples he gives. But as what you're asking for, right, There's lots of other examples of arguments that that guarantee their conclusion. So classic example is modus ponens. If P then QP therefore right? And we can in our argument can follow that form without following the universal to particular, you know.

'''S:''' Gotcha.

'''US#03:''' Right, like so you know, if Biden won, then there'd be a male president. Biden did win, therefore there's a male president. Like that's modus ponens that those premises, if true, would guarantee that conclusion. So that's a deductive argument, right? Either A or B, not A, therefore B. That's felt a disjunctive syllogism, right? That is a deductive argument because if the premises were true, the conclusion would have to follow, right? There's also like axiomatic or definitional arguments like that, you know, like all bachelors are unmarried or whatever. That follows necessarily from the definition of bachelor. All mathematical arguments are deductive in this way, yeah.

'''S:''' I was going to say that it feels like math, like deduction is basically math.

'''US#03:''' Yes, very much so, right. And in fact, so this is one of like, so one of the kind of important things to realize about this and why I understand this distinction is important or whatever. Is it like understanding that that under that that understanding articulation of what deduction is is incorrect, that of the original understanding of universal particular is incorrect led to the modern understanding. And that modern understanding led to like sentential and propositional logic and that eventually led to predicate calculus. And it is upon that groundwork that like all modern computing is based on, right? So like you can't make logic gates with universal to particular logic, right? Like you, you've got to have propositional logic and predicate calculus and that kind of stuff or whatever. So it was like that development, that realization of updating or changing. How are you define it? Aristotle's old understanding of deduction to this new understanding, which led to the development of of the kind of formal logic is what makes like all of computing possible. So like it's really under, it's like it wasn't just a semantic, oh, we need to define it a different kind of way kind of issue. It was like really philosophically and, you know, scientifically important in that kind of way.

'''S:''' It allowed for the kind of logical thinking that is necessary when programming a computer. Exactly. So computers essentially follow deductive reasoning.

'''US#03:''' Yes.

'''S:''' That's a fair statement.

'''US#03:''' Yes.

'''S:''' OK. And then now let's take over to inductive logic. So give us some core examples of that.

'''US#03:''' OK, so inductive logic again, is any kind of argument which raises the probability of its conclusion, right? And so of course, Aristotle's example of going from a particular to a universal right would fit under that category, right? He would be like, I'm trying to forget, I forget what the exact names were, but like, you know, he had arguments like, I think I've got it here. Person A is experienced and wise, and person B is experienced and wise, and person C is experienced and wise. Therefore all experienced people are wise, right? Like that obviously follows that kind of classic articulation, right? But there are a lot more ways to raise the probability of conclusions without engaging in that kind of particular to universal logic, right? So analogies do this, right? Thing one has properties AB and C Thing 2 has properties A&B. So thing two probably has property C as well, right? That's not particular to Universal or anything like that, but clearly right if in the right conditions that kind of logic. It's a pattern. Yeah, it's a pattern, right? It's an analogy, right? You find similarities, you derive further similarities, right? Inference to the best explanation, where you consider multiple hypothesis, compare them according to criteria that determine what good explanation should do, and you pick the best one, right? You favor the best one that clearly does not always involve inference, you know, from particular to from particular to universals. And certainly it is the case that those kind of conclusions aren't guaranteed, but they certainly raise the probability of, of they raise the probability of the conclusion. In fact, something that I, I think most philosophers of science agree with this and something that I argue for in my book that I'm working on right now, which is called How, Why and When to Think scientifically, argues that all of science is inductive. No conclusion in science is ever 100% proven, 100% guaranteed scientific argument certainly can put the conclusions that they argue for beyond any possible reasonable doubts, right? Like you'd have to be crazy in numerous ways to reject them and you'd have to make ad hoc excuses and you know, yadda yadda yadda. But they'll never guarantee anything 100%, and so all scientific reasoning is inductive. In fact, in the book I agree with Ernest McMullen that all scientific reasoning is actually inference to the best explanation. You can do other kinds of reasoning in service to that, kind of like inference to the best explanation. You can even use deduction when doing that. And you can use different kinds of induction when doing an analogy and statistics. And you know, obviously a hypothetical inductive reasoning, right? Like, there's all different kinds of stuff that you can do, but it's all in service to trying to find the best explanation, which is an inductive form of reasoning.

'''E:''' And it sounds like that you can introduce new information when it's discovered into that and make a better conclusion as it as it reveals itself.

'''US#03:''' Yeah, right. So this is something that was what kind of was getting at your quote, Evan, where they were talking about like induction was guesswork, right. And then when you mentioned Einstein, Einstein was kind of talking about, well, how do we derive the theories upon which science is based, right. Is it this, you know, particular to universal kind of thing that we're doing or are we doing something else? And what makes it even more confusing is Einstein said it's not inductive, and he was. By inductive he meant the Aristotelian sense from, you know, general to, from, from specific to, to, to general, right, from specific to universal. He said it's deductive. But when he said deductive, he didn't mean it in the Aristotelian way or in the modern logical.

'''E:''' Way oh, so he conflated kind of two different things from maybe two different eras of understanding that's.

'''US#03:''' The dare he? Well, he that's what he says in his paper. In his paper, he defines what he means by deductive reasoning. And what he said is, is what I what I mean deduction. What I mean is making up hypotheses. We don't get it from looking at particulars or observations. We like literally create them through artwork. And then we deduce what would also be true if that hypothesis were true. So you make a predictive inference, right? And then you go off and test it to see if that you know if, if that prediction comes out to be true, right?

'''S:''' So he only wasn't using the jargon the way that philosophers use the jargon.

'''US#03:''' Correct, correct. And in fact, technically speaking, what he's talking about there, you hypothesize, you make a prediction, you see if the prediction pans out. That is actually inductive reasoning. Yeah, right. If you if, if P, like if my hypothesis is true, then I would expect this result. If H then RI do the experiment, I get R Therefore, the conclude the hypothesis is true. That's that's inductive reasoning. Or if it is deductive, it's invalid. That's another kind of issue here, but let me let me articulate that a little bit. So something that's really interesting about this distinction is that we can't, modern logicians recognize that we can't simply say that an argument's deductive if the premises guarantee the conclusion. Because if we say that, then there can't be invalid deductive arguments, right? If the, if the premises fail to, you know, guarantee the conclusion, well, then it's just automatically not deduction. But we recognize that there are invalid deductive arguments, right? Affirming the consequent, denying the antecedents are all examples of invalid deductive arguments. So what modern logicians usually do is say that, well, whether we counted as deductive or inductive depends on the intentions of the speaker. If they think their premises guarantee their conclusion, we consider it deductive. And then we bring the appropriate logical, you know, apparatus to bear to figure out whether it actually does guarantee the conclusion. And if they think it doesn't guarantee it, but it only provides support for it, well, then we treat it as inductive and bring a different, you know, logical apparatus to bear, right? So what's interesting is that in some circumstances, if P, then QQ, therefore P can be invalid deductive reasoning, right? If Biden is elected, yeah, Biden is elected, then we'll have a male president. We do have a male president. Therefore Biden was elected. Obviously that argument doesn't work. It's obviously deductive, but obviously it doesn't work. But Einstein's reasoning, if my hypothesis is true, I would expect this result. I did get this result. Therefore my hypothesis is true, follows the same logical form, but I wouldn't call that deductive and I certainly wouldn't say that it's like it's invalid or I would dismiss. I wouldn't dismiss it because it's technically invalid, right? He recognizes is all good scientists should that seeing that result in the experiment is not a guarantee that the hypothesis is true. But if the experiment's done correctly, there's pretty good evidence that the hypothesis is true, right? And the more you do that kind of reasoning, more experiments you kind of mount up or whatever, that's more and more reasoning that the hypothesis is true. None of it guarantees it, but it all, you know provides good support and that's all inductive.

'''E:''' It's all inductive science is. Inductive.

'''S:''' All right, I have a couple questions.

'''US#03:''' Sure, sure.

'''S:''' The first is It seems therefore that formal logical fallacies deal with deductive reasoning, and informal logical fallacies deal with inductive reasoning. Is that accurate?

'''US#03:''' The former I believe is accurate. All formal logical fallacies are going to be dealing with deductive arguments. Yes, they're they're going to be invalid because they don't guarantee their conclusion they're supposed to, and yada yada. Informal logical fallacies I don't think necessarily only deal with inductive arguments. Probably it would be safe to say that they usually do, but it would it be in like begging the question I would consider to be an informal logical fallacy assuming the truth of what you're trying to prove, and you could definitely do that. I see with a deductive. Argument.

'''S:''' OK, but the symmetry is that formal logical fallacies, if you are committing them, your conclusion must be false. Whereas with informal logical fallacies, if you're committing them, your conclusion does not have to be false. It could still be true, it's just not a good argument.

'''US#03:''' Yeah, not quite. So here's just a little distinction. I'll tell you're coming from. There's a little distinction here. If you commit a lot, if you commit a formal logical fallacy, what that means is that your premise, your premises, don't guarantee your conclusion. The conclusion might still be true, right? I could give you a bad argument for anything. I could give you an invalid argument for anything, even if it happens to be true, right? But it just means that the argument doesn't work to get you to that conclusion.

'''S:''' Right all right, so like an example I was thinking of is that well if you say if a = b and b = C, then a does not equal C, that has to be wrong. Right.

'''US#03:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Cuz that's a formal logical fallacy. So. But you're saying you could construct a formal logical fallacy that doesn't guarantee your conclusion is wrong.

'''US#03:''' Yeah, right. So yeah, I could definitely do it where it doesn't guarantee your conclusion is wrong. So if I come up with an example off the top of my head, yeah, OK, here we go. If I am in Denver, then I am in Colorado. I am in Colorado, therefore I'm in Denver.

'''S:''' I see.

'''US#03:''' That argument is invalid.

'''S:''' But you might be in Denver.

'''US#03:''' But if I give it while I'm in Denver, the premise is true, the conclusion that you know, the premises are true and the conclusion is true. Even though the logic is not valid. Yeah. So I've given you an invalid logical argument, an argument that's that's deductive and it's invalid, but it happens at the premise. That helps, yeah. There you go.

'''S:''' But is it true that informal logical fallacies never prove that the conclusion is false?

'''US#03:''' Yeah, they know The informal logical fallacies will always. An argument that commits an informal logical fallacy will always fail to provide adequate support for the conclusion.

'''S:''' But doesn't mean the conclusion must be false.

'''US#03:''' Right doesn't mean the conclusion must be false, all right? It doesn't give you a bad argument for anything.

'''S:''' Yeah, got you. OK. That's good to know. All right. My next question is this can I took, you know, a course on Sherlock Holmes and logic and how that applied to actually medical diagnosis. It was a very good course and one of one of the things I remember from that was that the kind of logic that Sherlock Sherlock Holmes use in you know, the the literature is neither purely deductive or inductive and that it's this his own kind of Holmes in induction, a hybrid. So but it does sound like what he was doing was inference to the best explanation.

'''J:''' Yep, right.

'''S:''' So isn't that it? So that so maybe again that that my teacher was probably using an outdated version of what induction or deduction is it? Yeah, it is just inference to the best, the best, the most probable explanation.

'''US#03:''' Yes, So let me, let me let me talk about this. So this is great. I'm so glad you brought this up. So first of all, right, like, you know, I was wondering if the quote from Star Trek where Data is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. And he he talks about like I, I did deduction from, you know, from the general to the specific or whatever. Like like that's the kind of like definition that floats around all the time, right? Yeah. And most people consider. Here they call what Holmes did deduction, but it's not. You're right, Steve. It's inference to the best explanation, which can involve both inductive and deductive. But at its core, it is inductive because the conclusions, the conclusion of his whole argument is never going to be guaranteed.

'''S:''' Right.

'''US#03:''' And one of I I teach a class on science, pseudoscience, and medical reasoning.

'''S:''' Yep.

'''US#03:''' And it is inspired by a paper that I wrote where I argue that what leads to medical one of the things that leads to medical misdiagnosis is doctors misunderstanding what the nature of scientific reasoning is and the nature of diagnostic reasoning is They usually classified as either system one or system 2 reasoning. And if instead they recognize that it was inference to the best explanation, that would provide them a better understanding of what it is. And then that would actually help them, not guarantee, but help them avoid diagnostics, you know, diagnostic. Yeah, right. Yeah, I agree.

'''S:''' And and the inference to the best explanation can use both System 1 and System 2 thinking. Yes 100% and and for the audience. System one I can't I always forget which is which. I think System 1 is in is an intuition.

'''US#03:''' Yeah. OK. So System 1 is basically like pattern recognition. Yeah, pattern recognition. And system 2 reasoning is more like what people classically call the scientific method, which is you form a hypothesis, you make the prediction you'd perform, you know, you do a task to see a prediction turned out to be right, and then you revise or reject based on the results, which that's often called the scientific method, right? I think that's better understood as the experimental method and the scientific method is inference of this explanation.

'''S:''' Right. And we call that in medicine, we call that System 2, analytical thinking.

'''US#03:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' And System 1 is the pattern recognition or intuitive meaning. It's like, I've seen this before. I recognize that, you know, I just have a gut feeling that this is what it is. But you have to back that up with analytical. Like I did a test and the test has this probability, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Then you do like real you're crunching the numbers.

'''US#03:''' Right. But even that is, it's inductive. Right. It's inductive, analytical, but it's all inference.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's all inference. You never know anything for sure in medicine.

'''US#03:''' Right. But if we understood, if doctors better understood like you do, that it's inference of the best explanation, yeah, I think diagnostic errors would be reduced. And right, One of the things that I love the Holmes connection is that my understanding is that Sherlock Holmes was based on a medical doctor, totally, that Arthur Conan Conan Doyle knew and he saw how he read, how he reasoned. So he modeled Holmes reasoning after this doctor. And then ultimately House MD's reasoning is based on Holmes because House is just a medical version of Sherlock Holmes 100. Percent. Comes full circle, right? I love that. I love it.

'''S:''' Yeah, and Watson, of course, is a doctor.

'''US#03:''' He's an actual, right?

'''S:''' Yeah, the character, right. OK. Any any nuance here that we haven't talked about yet?

'''US#03:''' So a couple of nuances here. 1 is the reason I think it's important to understand this. Like it's not just semantic to get the definition of induction and deduction right. Especially the point about like, we need to understand that science is inductive because one of the most common arguments of pseudoscientists, right, is that like they'll say like, well, you can't 100% prove my pseudoscience false, therefore it's true. Or they'll say, like, you can science 100% prove that global warming is really whatever, and then they'll use that as a reason to think that it's false. Now, obviously we all know that's an appeal to ignorance. Yeah, right. But what understanding the nature, the inductive nature of scientific reasoning allows us to do is really fully understand why that is a fallacy, Why appealing to ignorance is not not a good reason to dismiss science or accept pseudoscience. Because when they are, you know, refusing to accept something because it hasn't been 100% proven, they're asking science to do something that by definition, by its very nature, it cannot and does not do right. Right. Since it is inductive and doesn't prove anything 100%, when we're thinking about what we should accept based on scientific reasoning, we have to do what Carl Sagan said, right? And numerous others have said this, right? We have to proportion our belief to the evidence, not hold out for 100% certainty, right? And so this also, and what what this also lets us do, and it's related to pseudoscience is make us realize how widely applicable scientific reasoning is. If it is inference to the best explanation, then it's not just experiment. Experiment is extremely important in science, obviously, but it's not just, it's just not, it's not just scientific experiment. When you're doing inference to the best explanation, you compare hypotheses according to criteria that you know that that determine what good explanation should be. And some of those explanations are simplicity or simony, right? Scope or his explanatory power conservatism. Does it align with things that we already have good reason to believe? Right. And I can think scientifically and weigh those by weighing those criteria, even if I can't conduct an experiment. So, for example, if someone just tells me they saw a ghost in their room last night, I can't perform an experiment to like disprove or prove that hypothesis true, right? But I can consider other possible explanations, like it was a waking dream, their perception fooled them, or whatever, and realize, well, that's the much simpler, wider scoping conservative explanation.

'''E:''' The cost comes razor there.

'''US#03:''' That as the more likely explanation for what they saw. And I'm doing what I'm doing, so I'm thinking scientifically even though I can't perform an experiment. So once we realize that this is the nature of science and that science is inference of the best explanation, science becomes a lot more widely applicable because you don't have to run an experiment to think scientifically, right? And most people think that you have to do an experiment. You're not doing an experiment, you're not thinking scientifically. And you can definitely do that.

'''S:''' Kyle I also learned the term in medical school. Abduction. Is that used by philosophers?

'''US#03:''' Yes. So I'm so glad you asked Steve. I love this stuff. So, OK, so here's the deal with abduction. Abduction in its original form was. It's a term that was coined by CS Purse, and what he meant it to mean was hypothesis generation. So abduction is the process by which we come up with hypotheses to then compare and figure out which one is the best, right? Later, other people kind of adopt that term and use it as a shorthand for inference to the best explanation. So in one of my favorite textbooks, Ted Schicks How to Think About Weird Things, he uses the term that way. Abduction is just the same thing as inference to the best explanation. So by that understanding, abduction is a kind of.

'''S:''' Induction, yeah.

'''US#03:''' Right, but technically speaking, abduction in its original form is the production of hypotheses, which I disagree with Einstein. I love saying that like.

'''E:''' All wrong, that guy. Yeah, we tried. To get him on the show, but.

'''US#03:''' So I think that he is wrong that classical Aristotelian induction, not going from, you know, from specific, from particular to universal, can't generate hypotheses. I think sometimes that can. But I also think he's right that sometimes that's not necessary. You can just come up with them right, in a kind of artistic way. You get inspired or whatever, right? And you can come up with them. Of course, as you pointed out when you guys were talking about this before, you always just have you have to test them. It doesn't matter where they come from or how you generate them. You have to test them right to to get good to get good confirmation for it. But that's essentially what abduction is. It's originally the production of a hypothesis. It kind of kind of comes to be known as inference of the best explanation. I try to not to use it that way, but that's basically what it.

'''S:''' Is gotcha OK, all right?

'''US#03:''' So one more thing for you, Steve. You can cut this out if you want to, but I know you love Bayes theorem.

'''S:''' Yes, I do.

'''US#03:''' Right, so a really interesting philosophical problem is whether or not Bay should be classified as deductive or inductive.

'''E:''' I think about. Yeah, which, which, which vessel does it?

'''S:''' Pour I mean, my initial response was inductive just because it is a probabilistic statement. It's just like, how much does this data change the probability of the hypothesis being true? It all sounds inductive to me.

'''US#03:''' Exactly right. The only, the only. And that's, that's kind of what I think too. Yeah. The other side of the coin is it's all mathematical.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's true, right. If all you're saying is this is the probability, that could be a deduction.

'''US#03:''' Exactly right. If I say, well, if the probability of A is .5 and the probability is B of B is .5, then it follows necessarily that the probability of A&B being true together it was .25, right? Like that follows like right? That's mathematical, right? So it's. I don't know. I don't classify it's inductive, but it's kind.

'''E:''' Of can it be both at the same?

'''S:''' Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it's deduction in service to induction.

'''US#03:''' I like that. I like that.

'''S:''' All right, good.

'''US#03:''' Yeah. It's an interesting problem. I just, yeah, I don't know if anybody's spilled any ink on that with how it should be classified.

'''S:''' I get the feeling there's like 3 people in the world who care about that problem. Two of them are on this podcast right now.

'''E:''' Subduction is something totally different, right? We don't talk about that.

'''S:''' We'll talk about that on the Geologic podcast, right? Subduction. All right, Kyle, thank you so much for joining us and straining us all out on logic. Yeah, that was good.

'''US#03:''' Oh, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure anytime.
{{anchor|sof}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:30:02) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = A recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world’s renewable energy assets.
|link1web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-025-01647-0
|link1title = Oil and gas industry’s marginal share of global renewable energy | Nature Sustainability
|link1pub = www.nature.com

|item2 = New research finds that quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis leads to improved survival, more than doubling survival time in patients with advanced stage cancer.
|link2web = https://jnccn.org/view/journals/jnccn/23/10/article-e257059.xml
|link2title = https://jnccn.org/view/journals/jnccn/23/10/article-e257059.xml
|link2pub = jnccn.org

|item3 = A study of a backpack designed to increase airflow, without supplemental oxygen, increased avalanche burial survival time by at least five fold.
|link3web = https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2839664
|link3title = https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2839664
|link3pub = jamanetwork.com

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = A recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world’s renewable energy assets.

|science1 = New research finds that quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis leads to improved survival, more than doubling survival time in patients with advanced stage cancer.

|science2 = A study of a backpack designed to increase airflow, without supplemental oxygen, increased avalanche burial survival time by at least five fold.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = New research finds that quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis leads to improved survival, more than doubling survival time in patients with advanced stage cancer.

|rogue2 = Cara
|answer2 = A recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world’s renewable energy assets.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = A recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world’s renewable energy assets.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''Voice-over:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts. 2 real and one fake. Then I challenge my panelists. Got this. Tell me which one is the fake? Three regular news items. Y'all ready? Yes, here we go. Item number one. A recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world's renewable energy assets. Our #2A new research finds that quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis leads to improved survival, more than doubling survival time in patients with advanced stage cancer. And our number 3A study of a backpack designed to increase airflow without supplemental oxygen increased avalanche burial survival time by at least five fold. Pop go first.

'''B:''' Oil and gas companies hold 20% of the world's renewable energy assets. Let's see, I'm going to jump to three backpack that increases airflow, supplemental oxygen five times, fivefold that. That's a lot too. But what's getting me though, is quitting smoking. Improved survival, more than doubling survival time. That's just too huge to to ignore right there. I mean, if they can increase survival time by like 5 or 10%, that's dramatic. I mean, doubling survival time is just way. It's just an outlier. So I'm just going to have to say that that one's fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Cara.

'''C:''' That's the one that feels the most like science to me.

'''B:''' Oh. Your instincts mine suck.

'''C:''' Yeah, like you get a small cell well, and it just says a cancer diagnosis. It doesn't even necessarily mean small cell lung. Yeah, so it could be any cancer that if you continue to smoke after your cancer diagnosis, you're just going to massively shorten your your survival time there. So I I don't know, I think that that one is, is science, but it makes me wonder what the what? Yeah, more than doubling survival time, but like what's the baseline there? I guess it depends if we're talking about advanced stage different for different cancers. I don't understand how an avalanche backpack could increase your airflow without supplemental oxygen, unless it like, I don't know, it gives you like a tunnel to the outside world when you're buried somehow. I don't know, that sounds cool though. I don't really understand it. And then oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world's renewable assets. I don't think I believe that. I think that oil and gas companies have doubled down on oil and gas. I think we do see greenwashing and we see a lot of talk about them entering the renewable space. But I think that probably other companies that are like renewable only companies are, are dominating that space. So yeah, I think that one might be the fiction. I bet you it's they don't have 20. I don't think they have 1/5 of the holdings.

'''S:''' OK. And Jay?

'''J:''' Steve with the last one with the backpack, Yeah. So they said it's it's designed to increase airflow, Yes, but I'm not clear what that means. Like is it?

'''C:''' I don't think he's going to tell us that.

'''J:''' Like airflow to, I mean airflow to the person's mouth.

'''S:''' So there's nothing in their mouth, right? It's not like it's a tube in their mouth. There's no mask or anything and there's no supplemental oxygen. It's just increasing flow to like the area of their front of their head.

'''J:''' OK, so maybe maybe this is like the kind of backpack, it's like the instant release, like a like in a car, like the airbag, like it could create a breathable space around the person's face. OK, that's the only thing I can think of. And this technology exists, so I'm going to say that's science. Second one is the one about if you quit smoking after a cancer diagnosis, this leads to improve survival. I mean, I'd say that seems pretty obvious. Yeah, I think that one, that one is definitely science. I mean, quitting if you're not, if you're not going to die specifically from lung cancer, say, you know, then they're going to give you surgery or do something to help mitigate the cancer, then sure, quitting smoking is going to help you. So I think that one is science as well. So I'm agreeing with what Cara said. Like I don't think the oil and gas companies, I mean, 20% of the world's renewable energy assets is a lot. And if anybody would have the money to do it, it would be them. But again, for some reason, I just don't see these companies buying those assets because it's actually too smart of a thing to do because they could have just slowly become these new sources of energy, particularly in the US. Like we are like United States now is rejecting green energy. So what Cara said is very, very true. In my mind. I'm going to say that one's a fiction.

'''S:''' OK, so you all agree with the third one, so we'll start there. A study of a backpack designed to increase airflow without supplemental oxygen. Increased avalanche burial survival time by at least five fold. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. This is science. Oh, neat. Yeah. So this is like, can you wear a backpack? And then you just activate it, I guess, after you get buried in snow and it just takes advantage of the natural porosity of snow. So again, this is you. This is assuming somebody they're they're trying to simulate an avalanche condition, right? Where I guess where there's a lot of debris and stuff in that condition, it just circulates the air to the front of the person and they tested it. So they had people with the backpack that wasn't working compared to people with the backpack that was working. They measured their pulse ox, right? The either basically their oxygen and their blood and the, and the people could tap out whenever they wanted. So if they if their pulse ox hit 80 or lower or if the person tapped out, they ended it and the and the study was for 35 minutes basically they would auto end it at 35 minutes. Even though the backpack is designed to last for 90 minutes. In the treatment group, none of the subjects went below 80% or tapped out. So they basically all made it to the 35 minutes, which was the end of the of the study. And the people who did not have a functioning backpack lasted six to seven minutes. And they were pulled some because they their oxygen dropped below 80% and and some because they just couldn't take it anymore. They were they tapped out. So it might have been more than five times, right? But that's when the study ended, right? They didn't keep going. And this is so it's, you know, this is being presented as a potential way to increase survivability in, you know, in an avalanche situation, if you have 5 minutes to dig yourself out versus 35 minutes or whatever to dig yourself out or that increases the amount of time until you can be found and rescued. And so, and most people who die, they die of a 60, right? They just, the CO2 builds up in front of their face, they have their oxygen tension drops and they pass out and they die, right? They go with the cardiac arrest. That's the most likely reason to die in that kind of situation. So, yeah, it's a simply a simple idea. Let's just move the air around and just so that they have less CO2 building up in front of their face and more oxygen and see if that allows them to survive longer. And it does works. Works pretty well according to this one study anyway. All right, let's, we'll keep go backwards, I guess. New research finds that quitting smoking after a cancer diagnosis leads to improved survival, more than doubling survival time in patients with advanced stage cancer. Bob, you think this one is the fiction? Jay and Kerry, you think this one is science? So I guess the question here is the advanced stage cancer, is it possible that people are basically too far gone at that point to significantly increase their survival time through lifestyle measures like quitting smoking? Or is there still room to alter their survival time even if they're advanced? Or maybe it was beneficial, but only if you caught the cancer early enough. Or maybe it wasn't beneficial at all. What do you think, Bob? You're the one. You thought this one was fiction. What do you think?

'''B:''' I think, yeah, I think at late stage, the fact that it's late stage and that it was such a dramatic improvement just seems like a non start to me.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' I also think that like if you're OK, so advanced stage, if you're talking stage 3 or 4, survival times are already depending on the cancer, but they can be already low. So when we're doubling on already low survival time, it may not be that big of a difference. We could be talking six months versus 12 months or three months versus 6 months.

'''S:''' I will. This one is science. This one is science. It was surprising that the effect was most pronounced in the late stage. The, you know, the advanced stage cancers. In this study, they looked at a bunch of different cancers. That's why I just said with a cancer diagnosis, they didn't want to look at anyone specific. They wanted to see just in general, how do people do What they found was in the in the late stage cancer, stage 3 or 4, those who kept smoking despite their diagnosis, 85% of them were alive after 210 days. In the group that quit, 85% were still alive after 540 days.

'''C:''' And this is all cancers combined.

'''S:''' Yes, this is all cancers, but this is the stage 3 and 4 cancers.

'''C:''' This doesn't surprise me because I mean, other than like radiation, like intense radiation, cigarettes are like one of the worst carcinogens, you know? About. Like by far, it's just like a if your body, if your cancer is already doing all the things cancer tries to do, spreading, recruiting blood vessel, doing all of that, and you just keep smoking on top of it, it's just going to do it faster, more intensely, more successful.

'''S:''' Yeah, So just didn't look at mechanism. This is just seeing how long do they survive. So that's one question. It's also maybe people who don't smoke, whether their chemo better, you know?

'''C:''' Oh, for sure, yeah. If you're smoking, you're also probably getting more like lung infections and.

'''S:''' Exactly the complications of all that is bad. And it also might be a marker for because again, this is not a controlled trial. They didn't say you smoke and you don't smoke. Yeah, they couldn't do that. So people who stopped smoking may take care of themselves in other ways better as well. So there's potential contracting factors, but from a practical point of view, and This is why this study was done, because about like what percentage of people do you think are smoking at the time of their diagnosis?

'''C:''' Well, I mean that it's. In the US, let's say US 75. Right now, no, no, no at the time of any cancer diagnosis.

'''J:''' Oh, any, any cancer, not just lung cancer.

'''C:''' 5 to 10%.

'''S:''' 25%, yeah.

'''J:''' That's it.

'''C:''' Oh, that's a lot.

'''S:''' 25%, so a little bit more than the than the background population, right, which makes sense because it's a risk factor for cancer and half of them about continue to smoke despite the despite the diagnosis.

'''C:''' Because they think what a lot of people think it's. Like, well, it's too late now. Yeah.

'''S:''' And in fact, unfortunately, some physicians might think that, too. Then I think, well, am I going to really focus my efforts on trying to get them to quit after they get the cancers like closing at the barn door after the horse is gone. But what? So they said, well, but should we should we be ignoring this as a lifestyle intervention as part of their overall cancer treatment? And this study supports the idea that now even, you know, even in late stage your it still will improve your quality of life and your survival time if you quit smoking as part of the overall cancer treatment. And I mean, this is not a significant. This is like almost a year of life. You know that's huge if you're.

'''C:''' That's better than some treatment. Yeah, it is. And so it would be really interesting to compare like this might be the single best thing you can do to increase survival.

'''B:''' Right to me, man, but.

'''C:''' Or it may be right there on par. So imagine it combined with like, you know, first or at this point you're probably on 2nd, 3rd, 4th line, so.

'''S:''' I should point out that there were previous studies which did not much of A benefit, but again, they were looking at specific cancers and like and focusing on earlier stages. And so this was a more comprehensive study looked at more different kinds of cancers and later stages. And that's again where the benefit was really the largest. So that's probably why it was missed in the earlier studies. But at the very least, this means don't neglect your smoking cessation intervention as part of cancer treatment because it there's a good reason to think that it may have a significant benefit. All right, all of this means that a recent analysis finds that oil and gas companies hold about 20% of the world's renewable energy assets is the fiction. So what's the percentage? Because you're right, they talk a big game lower.

'''C:''' They talk a big 70%. Yeah, I don't know, 5% something.

'''S:''' Like 1.42%, it's negligible. It's almost nothing.

'''C:''' Wow.

'''S:''' They've basically given up on this and they talk a big game, but they're not doing it. They're nothing significant. 1.42% of renewable energy projects worldwide.

'''J:''' OK, So what do you think that means?

'''S:''' They're just not, they're not investing in wind and solar, even though they're like, you know, we're going to invest this money into the new, a green energy economy, whatever. They're just not doing it.

'''C:''' They're investing in press.

'''B:''' How stupid and short sighted is that? What the hell?

'''C:''' I know they're going to. Yeah, well, because they're still making money on oil and gas.

'''S:''' So this included direct ownership also through subsidiaries or via acquisitions. This is counting everything, not just like under Exxon. This is like a subsidiary or an acquisition would still count. It's still only 1.42%.

'''C:''' Did they? What was I gonna say? Did they include natural gas as oil? And. Gas, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely not great, but they do that a lot too. They love talking about how that's clean energy.

'''S:''' Yeah, right. But that doesn't kind of renewable. Now, 20% of the companies they studied had some renewable energy assets, but the the total assets was only the 1.4%. It's only 20% doing anything. 80% don't have any renewable assets. Yeah, I I would suspect this would get worse in the current climate, you know, Yeah.

'''B:''' Oh yeah, the current climate? Absolutely. But jeez.

'''S:''' You know, the, the Biden era policies, you know, we passed 2 acts that make, you know, gave billions of dollars to develop. You know, renewable energy was supposed to really turn the ship around, but now Trump is clawing a lot of that money back. Yeah.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's terrible.

'''S:''' Well, good job, Jane. Cara, thank you.

'''J:''' Thank.

'''C:''' You. Yeah, Jay.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:45:03) ==
{{qow
|text = "Science is the greatest equalising force in the world. Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere. That's why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity".
|author = - Omar M. Yaghi
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' Jay, you're going to give us a quote this week.

'''J:''' I am Science is the great equalizing force in the world. Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere. That's why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity. You know who this is, Steve?

'''S:''' Yeah. Omar Yagi. That's the eleven, one of the chemistry Nobel laureates from this year. Yeah, that's a great quote. I agree with that. That's one of the things I like about science and academia is that nothing's perfect, but it is pretty much a meritocracy and it is sort of a great equalizer. Like everyone's on the same footing. It's just a matter of how good is your ideas, how good is your scholarship, How good is the work that you do? That's really the 90 percenter, you know what I mean? It is very powerful, you know, and something that we absolutely should be support, not only supporting, but making sure that everybody does have the opportunity, you know, to participate because anyone could be a great scientist, you know?

'''C:''' Yep.

'''S:''' Why limit our talent pool? All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

'''B:''' You got it, brother. Sure, man.

'''C:''' Thanks, Steve.

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

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1017

2025-10-02T00:00:18Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:32:32) */ inserted rogue answers in side panel

{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1017
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1017|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1017.jpg
|caption = "Viewing Earth from space: a breathtaking reminder of our planet's beauty and fragility."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “Hope & curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. The unknown was always so attractive to me...and still is.”
|qowAuthor = - Hedy Lamarr
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1017|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

''Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the {{SGU|link=y}}. Today is Thursday, January 2nd, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

'''B:''' Hey, everybody!

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria...

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' Jay Novella...

'''J:''' Hey guys.

'''S:''' ...and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Alive and thrive in 25.

'''S:''' Yeah, 2025. Always interesting to start a new year. I get to delete all of last year's files and start with a fresh folder.

'''C:''' How many times are we going to write the date wrong?

'''S:''' I know.

'''E:''' I already got it.

'''S:''' I've already done it.

'''E:''' Once, yes. I did my one and I swore aloud, I admit it. Steve, you like even number years and not odd number years? Is that right?

'''C:''' Yeah, but 25 is really bad, right?

'''S:''' But 25 is okay. 25 is the best of the odd number years because it's divisible into 10.

'''E:''' I got it. I got it. That's your numerology.

'''B:''' I agree with that.

'''S:''' It's all about symmetry.

'''C:''' That's a quarter of a century.

'''S:''' Quarter of a century.

'''E:''' No.

'''C:''' Oh, my God.

'''S:''' We're coming to the end of the first quarter. We're heading into the second quarter of the 21st century.

'''C:''' Year 2000 was a quarter century. What? What?

'''S:''' I know.

'''E:''' So much happened and so much didn't happen.

'''C:''' True.

'''E:''' It's a very true statement.

'''S:''' And all along the way, the psychics were basically wrong about it.

'''B:''' Shocker.

'''E:''' Here's my shocked face. Yeah.

== Psychic Predictions 2024 (1:32) ==

'''S:''' So we're going to start off as we always do with our first episode of the year by poking a little fun at psychics, looking back at some of the predictions they made for 2024 to see how accurate or inaccurate they were. And then we're going to pit ourselves against the professionals to see how well we do with our own predictions. Does anybody want to start?

'''B:''' I guess I'll start it. No one else is chiming in.

'''E:''' Go for it.

'''B:''' All right. I found a few. A couple of a few different people. I didn't focus on one because I just didn't feel like it. Sonia Chokette. And she's, of course, a well-known intuitive guide. And this is an example of people that just fluff it out. They just throw out the absolute fluff that infuriates me. So she said she anticipated a widespread awakening in 2024 when more individuals will embrace their intuition and soul's purpose. This shift will lead to a spread of authenticity, compassion and creativity. That kind of stuff. It just screams. You can't predict crap. And they just throw that out there. And every year it just pisses me off more. Oh, here's a good one. I don't know if you had this one, Steve, but Baba Vanga, I'll throw one out from her. She predicted the climate would worsen. And then I think she also threw out, it's going to be the warmest year on record. Wow. Really going out on a limb there. It's just like, come on.

'''C:''' She keeps stealing mine. Come on.

'''B:''' And then there's a psychic Nikki. I don't remember her last name, but I don't care that much. She envisioned, get this, she envisioned a dynamic U.S. presidential election. Really, it's going to be dynamic. Passionate debates and lively public engagement.

'''J:''' Well, I never would have thought of that.

'''B:''' Yeah. And then how about this one?

'''E:''' As opposed to it happening in a closet, right?

'''B:''' She predicted the progression of climate change. Oh man, I expected it to stop and reverse last year. And then an increasing importance on environmental awareness and adaption. And it's like, oh, here's a good one. Significant developments in artificial intelligence. You can maybe argue against that, but it's like, okay. And then she throws one out from left field. She's like, oh, also there's a possibility of peaceful extraterrestrial contact. Okay.

'''C:''' Okay.

'''B:''' All right. Okay. There you go. I'm done with this.

'''S:''' Well, since you mentioned Baba Vanga, I just stuck with her. So for those of you who don't know, she's the blind psychic. She actually died in 1996. But like Nostradamus, people keep following her predictions. She made predictions apparently out to the year 5076 or something, which is when, of course, the world ends, because that's when her prediction ends.

'''E:''' I wonder what episode we'll be on by then.

'''S:''' But she is the master of the vague prediction. Bob already mentioned one, like there will be climate crisis in the future. Like, okay. That wasn't hard. But this is like, she's saying this in the time of the first real period of time when the climate crisis was being discussed. This is the unfortunate truth period. She said there will be- Similarly, there will be economic crisis in 2024. Okay. Like, what does that mean? That can't be- It's almost an unfalsifiable thing. She gets- All right. She gets a little specific. And when she does, she gets completely wrong, right? So she says a major country will engage in biological warfare and testing in 2024. Nope. There were no biological weapon attacks in 2024. Another vague one. There will be breakthroughs in diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's, you know. Like there is every year. You mean-

'''E:''' Right.

'''S:''' Again, just like vague. Breakthrough in cancer. Like, you know.

'''E:''' Define breakthrough.

'''B:''' The sun will rise.

'''S:''' And she said, oh, and aliens will land. And it'll be during-

'''E:''' By the way.

'''S:''' During a sporting event. Like, she had to throw that in there.

'''E:''' When isn't there a sporting event?

'''S:''' I mean, I think like on the midfield at the Super Bowl or something.

'''E:''' Oh, I see. Right. The halftime show. Got it. Got it.

'''S:''' Whatever. I'll take any unequivocal aliens landing like we are here.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' No, but that didn't happen in 2024 either. Yeah. A complete fail.

'''E:''' Psychics failing me.

'''S:''' Except for like the most vague predictions.

'''C:''' Yeah. We saw something really similar with good old Nostradamus.

'''E:''' Did we?

'''C:''' Yeah. I think like one, one of his predictions came to fruition, which was the dry earth will grow more parched and there will be great floods when it is seen. So this is like his climate change prediction.

'''B:''' Oh, nailed it.

'''C:''' Nailed it.

'''E:''' Wow.

'''C:''' But like most of them were pretty, also pretty specific and definitely did not happen. Like a King of the Isles will be driven out by force, which a lot of people thought that meant that like Charles was going to abdicate, but that didn't happen. There's also through the death of a very old pontiff, a Roman of good age will be elected of him. It will be said that he weakens his sea, but long will he sit in biting activity. Well, the Pope's still there. So-

'''E:''' From the Omen or something.

'''C:''' No, that's just how Nostradamus talked.

'''E:''' I remember that from a movie.

'''C:''' Also something about European powers clashing with England and new foes being spawned.

'''E:''' I say.

'''S:''' Anyone else?

'''E:''' You want mine?

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' I found a person. Her name is Kelly Sutliff, a psychic medium, author and guest radio host. She conducts readings for clients worldwide and she predicts the upcoming year's events with much accuracy every year. That's right from her website. Sutliff also uses her gifts with much accuracy every year. Who wrote that? Sutliff also uses her gifts to help find the missing. It's just as the missing, like children, animals, whatever. The missing. Okay. Here are some predictions. Oh, some medical predictions. We love these. An MS breakthrough on its connection to mold injuries and why the disease is caused. That's interesting.

'''S:''' Mold injuries? No.

'''E:''' No. But that's an interesting prediction at least. That's not the usual pap.

'''C:''' Steve's like, no.

'''E:''' Does mold? Okay. Here's another one. New innovative healing and medical research and cures around why inflammation causes disease in cancer. She wrote this. Disease in inflammatory diseases, myocarditis and melanoma.

'''S:''' Okay. She was just looking up medical terms.

'''E:''' Isn't that what that seems like? All of this rapid succession of disease due to vaccine injury and why cells are going haywire will help heal those people with these issues. It's like a world cure comes in. That's a prediction. I don't think that happened.

'''S:''' That doesn't seem to align with reality in any way.

'''E:''' But Steve, she talks about water therapies and electromagnetic therapy and oxygen therapies and topical skin therapies. The new wave in our future of healing.

'''S:''' It's like 30 years old.

'''E:''' In the year 2024.

'''C:''' And radium therapy.

'''E:''' Makes postdictions, not predictions. She also gave some usual stuff, election stuff such as, oh, well, here we go. President Biden will not finish his term. Kamala Harris will become the new president when Biden steps down. Did not happen.

'''C:''' Whoops.

'''E:''' Donald Trump will pick a woman as his vice president running mate. That did not happen. She delves into economics. Real estate will dip with interest rates two and three quarters points down. That did not happen. It was more like one point. Currency and cryptocurrency and Bitcoin get more regulated in 2024, whatever that means. But no. Oh, and then there's earthquakes and floods the usual kind of stuff. Anybody can predict that. Oil is up due to what's happening in the Middle East. Prices go up in 2024. That did not happen either. They went down. Leadership changes. Did these leaders lose their power? Vladimir Putin?

'''C:''' Absolutely not.

'''J:''' No.

'''E:''' Zelensky from Ukraine?

'''J:''' No.

'''E:''' Trudeau, Canada?

'''C:''' No.

'''E:''' Pope Francis?

'''C:''' No.

'''J:''' No.

'''E:''' She was 0 for 4 there.

'''C:''' Whoops.

'''E:''' All right. And here's her final bit of wisdom for us all as we head into 2024. Remember, this was a year ago she wrote this. Remember, we are in an eight year. The number eight has infinity to it metaphorically. It means respect and love are limitless. So even though there will be lots of hell-raising and conflict this year around the world, we'll return back to love and spirituality of what humans are, souls.

'''J:''' Wow.

'''E:''' There you go. And people pay for that because she has a phone number and book your session and give her lots of money. OK.

'''J:''' Yeah, I found somebody named Athos Salome.

'''E:''' Oh, that's a cool name.

'''J:''' I know. I thought it was a great psychic name. He has a subheading to his name. He's the living Nostradamus.

'''B:''' Oh, yeah.

'''S:''' Everyone wants to be the living Nostradamus.

'''J:''' I'm sure that he gave himself that name. So there was three things that this guy said that World War III was imminent in 2024. He said, the worst is yet to come, suggesting the possibility of a global conflict. Then we have cyber threats, identified cyber warfare as a significant threat to global security, highlighting the potential for hacker attacks leading to global failures. Now, I was thinking about this. If you read that every year for the last 15 years, that would have been an accurate prediction.

'''E:''' There you go. The more vague, the more accurate.

'''J:''' What I mean, but it's like, really, dude, that's your prediction? Cyber attacks, they're happening every second of every day.

'''E:''' How many letters I got this year in the mail saying, your information may have been compromised. We're giving you a free year of credit protection. I got about nine of them over the course of the year.

'''J:''' I get so many phishing attempts. I get phone calls now. Live people scam phone calls.

'''E:''' These are from banks and all these companies and stuff who can't stop it. They don't know how to get it under control, the most sophisticated companies.

'''C:''' Whoops. Social security numbers out there. Sorry.

'''E:''' That's that. Again.

'''J:''' Then he's got one more here. The South China Sea tensions. He predicted a critical event in the South China Sea that could disrupt military and communication systems of superpowers.

'''E:''' That's where Godzilla comes out of the ocean in the South China Sea.

'''J:''' But this guy's doing the same thing. We should name this type of prediction. It's basically like, yeah, they're reading the news and they're going, statistically, this seems like it's going to be a hit.

'''S:''' Yeah. Well, there's a few types of predictions that the psychics make, and given that, they still do horribly. So one is the vague prediction, which we had a lot of examples of, that there will be an earthquake. The things that are just so vague that you could match them to anything. Another one is this thing that's currently happening is going to continue to happen. There will be wars. There will be global warming. There will be whatever. Another one's just a high probability prediction. Then there's the predictions that sound more specific than they are. They're not really specific, but they kind of can sound like they are.

'''C:''' That's like the horoscope prediction.

'''S:''' Yeah, like the horoscope. I see a red door kind of thing, where it sounds like a really specific prediction. You don't realize how common it is. Like a plane will crash with red in its tail fin. You mean like 85% of the airlines out there? And then there's the ones, there's the shot in the dark, right, where they just sort of make these lateral left field predictions that, and they're just counting on the fact that people will forget them. But if they hit, if like one of their hundred out of left field predictions hits, that's the one they're going to broadcast to the world.

'''B:''' For years, for the rest of their career.

'''E:''' Yes. Correct, Bob. That's right. For years. I mean, I saw psychics touting correct predictions from 2003 on this year's prediction.

'''B:''' Yeah, what have you predicted lately?

'''S:''' Now let's see how the Rogues did last year. I'm going to go first. I believe I got four out of four, but you tell me what you think.

'''B:''' Wait, I thought it was three.

'''C:''' Yeah, I only did three.

'''S:''' I threw it.

'''E:''' Steve gave us a bonus one.

'''S:''' I gave you a bonus one.

'''C:''' Oh, okay.

'''S:''' All right. So my first prediction, a health scare will cause Biden to drop out of the presidential race, causing the Democrats to scramble for a replacement.

'''E:''' There it is.

'''J:''' Good job.

'''S:''' 100%.

'''C:''' That's very good.

'''S:''' Right?

'''B:''' Yeah. Did they really scramble that much?

'''C:''' Yes.

'''S:''' I mean, they scrambled. I mean, for a short period of time.

'''C:''' They scrabled, they could have done it much sooner than they did. That was the scramble.

'''S:''' Yeah, it was a scramble because it was so late. Yeah. All right. This is the softest one. This is the most ambiguous. The total solar eclipse in April will be only the second most interesting astronomical event of 2024. Now I did look up astronomical events of 2024, and some sites do give the naked eye visible comet as the most interesting because it was unexpected. Eclipses are predictable, like everyone knew that it was going to happen. But like an unexpected naked eye visible comet, this is a comet 2024 S1 Atlas, I think that was it, it discovered in September 2024. So anyway, that's one of the little ambiguous, but there's at least a candidate. Number three was 2024 will be the warmest year on record. Got that one. But that was too easy, which is why I gave a fourth one. A new CRISPR-based drug will get regulatory approval in 2024. That happened. Those were the two blood-borne, the thalassemia and the sickle cell CRISPR drugs were approved in 2024.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Well, yeah.

'''S:''' I made high probability predictions. The Biden one was the one that was a little out of left field, but that was a pretty good hit.

'''B:''' Yeah, it's your best one.

'''E:''' I think of the four, that's the one.

'''S:''' I mean, come on, if any psychic had that record, they would be screaming it from the rooftops, right?

'''E:''' Steve, you could charge $350 an hour for a session with them.

'''J:''' That was good, Steve.

'''S:''' Yeah. I think that was my best year. All right. Cara, you go.

'''C:''' Okay. So my first... No, mine are terrible. I feel like I can't go next.

'''E:''' You want someone else to go?

'''C:''' I used the vague method. I used the vague... Okay. 2024 will be the hottest year on record.

'''J:''' Yep.

'''S:''' Correct.

'''C:''' A new COVID surge will occur early in 2024. And I was just looking at the trends across 2024. And there are two large spikes. And one was in like, January 13th was the highest death toll in 2024. And then the next spike was in September. So I'd say January 13th was early. I'm going to give myself a point on that. And then this last one, I'm still struggling to figure out the exact number. But I said, more than 15 species will go extinct in 2024. But I don't think we know yet the full number because it's January 2nd, 2025.

'''B:''' What's typical?

'''C:''' Yeah. I don't even know the background extinction rate. But I mean, I am finding website after website of just like long lists. It's actually really depressing. Why do I keep doing this to myself?

'''E:''' Yes. I've done that before as well, Cara.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' I moved off of that.

'''C:''' The Roaming Toad, the Spix's Macaw, the Socorro Isopod, the Socorro Dove, Pear David's Deer, Kehansi Spray Toad, the Morian Viviparous Tree Snail, the Marbled Swordtail Fish, the Hawaiian Crow, the Guam Kingfisher. This is so sad. Why do I do this? I'm going to come up with happier ones this year. Nope. I already came up with those.

'''E:''' can find that each year they take some animals or things off of the endangered list.

'''C:''' That's true. They like spot something.

'''E:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''S:''' But sometimes they come off the endangered list because they're extinct.

'''C:''' That's true too. Jesus.

'''S:''' So you have to see why they were taken off.

'''E:''' But also because conservation efforts do make a difference.

'''C:''' Yeah. They are too.

'''S:''' They do. They absolutely do. So Cara, in 2023, 23 species were taken off of the endangered list because they were declared extinct. So I think we'll at some point get an official number for 2024.

'''C:''' Yeah. And I think it will probably be over 15. I will say there have been two wins here, reintroduction programs for the Przewalski's horse and the black-footed ferret have both been pretty successful. So the horse was a wild horse species in Central Asia that was classified as extinct in the wild in 1996. It was then reintroduced. And although there's a small population, it's increasing in the wild now. And the black-footed ferret was designated extinct in the wild. But because of reintroduction programs, there are some self-sustaining populations in the wild now. So that's pretty cool.

'''S:''' Yeah. That's good. All right, Evan, what did you do in 2023?

'''E:''' My three predictions were as follows. Number one, the summer Olympics, France will suffer a major blackout during the Olympics causing massive delays in events. Here's a headline from the early in the Olympics, Paris blackout sparks chaos as Olympics get underway. Woohoo. Okay. But here's the details. Well, hang on. I'll read you the first paragraph. In Paris, Egyptian darkness took over. On the night from Saturday to Sunday, numerous photos and videos from the French capital appeared on social media. They show that the streets of the multi-million metropolis were completely dark. Services are explaining what caused the blackout, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. Yes. And there was a brief power outage in Paris during the 2024 Olympics, limited to a few districts, did not affect the Eiffel Tower, lasted about 10 minutes.

'''C:''' Hey, I think it's still chaos, dang it.

'''E:''' There was a blackout. It just wasn't major.

'''C:''' Did you say it was major?

'''S:''' Yes.

'''E:''' I said major. I know.

'''S:''' Literally used the word major.

'''B:''' Fail.

'''C:''' Well, now see, you're going to learn from your mistakes this year.

'''E:''' That's right. That's right. And then I'll up my price to people for my predictions.

'''S:''' Yeah. If you just said, France will suffer a blackout during Olympics causing chaos, 100%, you would have got it. You got too specific, Evan.

'''E:''' How dare I?

'''C:''' Yep.

'''E:''' How dare I try to actually help people with my predictions? Second prediction, predicated, in 2023, IBM developed a quantum processor chip which consists of more than 1,000 qubits. My prediction, by the end of 2024, a company will announce the development of a 10,000 qubit QC or quantum chip. Let's have a look and see what happened here. So in June 2024, IBM reportedly partnering with Japan's AIST to develop 10,000 qubit quantum computer. So they started the development.

'''S:''' Yeah. Multiple companies are working on a 10,000 qubit chip, but none of them developed it.

'''E:''' They didn't get there. They announced it, though. But that was what I said, though. By the end of 2024, a company will announce the development of a 10,000 qubit.

'''S:''' Yeah. Okay.

'''C:''' I like your vague wording, Evan. That was really smart.

'''E:''' Yeah. I know. It had double meanings.

'''C:''' They announced the development.

'''E:''' You could take it in various ways.

'''C:''' Yes.

'''E:''' So that was good. I get extra psychic points for that.

'''C:''' I think you do.

'''S:''' Saved by day.

'''E:''' 2026 or 2028 is now when they think that they'll actually be up and running. Third one, commercial real estate foreclosures in the United States will exceed 10% where 8% was expected. Well, we don't have the exact numbers yet. However, we do have through the third quarter, we have three quarters of data because obviously the fourth quarter just ended. Commercial real estate foreclosures are surging across the United States. Foreclosures climbing 48% in September year over year. I looked at the month by month trends for each of the first nine months of the year. They were all up. In fact, the highest one, there was a 238% increase when compared – I think it was March compared to the year prior. So although I don't have all the data yet, this one is trending probably towards being true if that holds. That one is going to hold. So I did not do all that badly. I got a little too specific for my own good. Otherwise, I would have had a really good psychic year.

'''S:'' All right. Good job, Evan. Bob, what do you got?

'''E:''' Thanks.

'''B:''' I'll start with my favorite one. This was a weather prediction. April 8th, 2024 will absolutely be overcast over much of if not all of Texas.

'''E:''' You were right.

'''B:''' I think I absolutely nailed it.

'''E:''' You were right.

'''B:''' In the best way because the area that we were in cleared up at the last possible moment. So that was like –

'''S:''' We have our cake and eat it too.

'''B:''' Yeah, that was wonderful. The rest of my predictions, not so much. Prediction number two for 2024, open AI will release chat GPT-5 in 2024. I already failed, which will be sapient enough to realize it doesn't want anything to do with us and will leave the earth to uplift the microbes currently under the ice on Europa. So yeah, that didn't happen.

'''S:''' But that is another genre of predictions, by the way. It is.

'''C:''' Unprovable?

'''S:''' No, it's the prediction that is so crazy no one really expects it to come true. It's just entertaining in its own right. You know what I mean?

'''B:''' I aim to entertain. And then my third prediction, the moon will be hit by a large asteroid visible from earth, greatly enhancing our efforts to track and detect and deal with near-earth asteroids or – yeah, asteroids.

'''E:''' I wish that were true.

'''B:''' That would have been cool to have. Imagine having a video of something hitting the moon with a huge ejecta and –

'''E:''' Do you think we have cameras on the moon all – monitoring it at all times?

'''B:''' No.

'''C:''' Why not?

'''E:''' Around the planet? I mean–

'''C:''' It's not that far away.

'''E:''' - is something always looking and recording the moon?

'''C:''' Well, maybe the near side.

'''B:''' Yeah, I would think if something dramatic happened on the moon, there'd be a video somewhere.

'''C:''' That it would happen on the far side. And we wouldn't see it.

'''B:''' Yeah. Right?

'''E:''' But AI is going to come along and show us something that's not true. It's going to look so cool.

'''C:''' What is that Murphy's Law? Murphy's Moon Law?

'''E:''' Yes.

'''C:''' Is that the Butter Toast Law? No?

'''S:''' Butter always lands butter side down.

'''E:''' Yeah. Exactly.

'''C:''' It only happens on the far side of the moon.

'''S:''' All right, Jay.

'''J:''' All right, my first one, Netanyahu will be unseated as Israeli prime minister.

'''C:''' Nope.

'''B:''' Nope.

'''J:''' I felt like it was going to happen all year. It never happened. The Tesla Cybertruck will have horrible sales and end production.

'''E:''' No.

'''B:''' Oh.

'''C:''' No, but one did catch on fire the first day of –

'''S:''' That's true.

'''B:''' And one blew up yesterday.

'''C:''' That's what I said.

'''B:''' But that was intentional.

'''C:''' That was yesterday. That's what I said.

'''J:''' The Cybertruck has been a massive failure.

'''C:''' They are everywhere in LA, you guys. It's so crazy.

'''E:''' Well, I've seen it in Connecticut now almost regularly on the roads.

'''B:''' Really?

'''E:''' They're around here.

'''S:''' It's more complicated than that. I mean their sales are very low when compared to other Tesla products. But they're not low when compared to other trucks in the same class.

'''C:''' Really?

'''E:''' Well, I mean if somebody is going to spend $120,000 on a vehicle –

'''S:''' Oh, for the cost. Yeah. But production didn't end. So I think that –

'''J:''' No, it did not. But I've read so many negative things about the Cybertruck. The list just continues to grow.

'''E:''' So don't get you one. Got it.

'''J:''' I said that the movie Godzilla Minus One will win an Oscar and it did.

'''S:''' Won multiple Oscars.

'''E:''' Did it?

'''J:''' That was my only win.

'''S:''' That was a solid win.

'''C:''' Yeah. Because that's – yeah. I don't think people expected that.

'''J:''' Yeah. They did well. They definitely did well. And then my last one, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will win the Nobel Peace Prize and he did not win it.

'''C:''' Not yet.

'''J:''' No, no.

'''S:''' That was Nihon Hidankyo, which was the guy who started the grassroots organization for atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not Zelensky.

'''C:''' Yeah. I just mean there's not still time this year. There's still time.

'''E:''' Well, sure. You can predict it again for 2025 if you want.

'''S:''' So one out of four, Jay, is what I gave you.

'''J:''' Not bad.

'''S:''' Not bad.

'''E:''' Better than most.

'''S:''' All right. Let's go on to 2025. I have four predictions again for 2025.

'''E:''' You did four again?

'''S:''' Because I'm doing like a bonus one as my weather prediction at the end. All right.

'''E:''' All right.

'''S:''' Prediction number one, the Russia-Ukraine war will enter a new, more dangerous phase.

'''C:''' So vague. I love it.

'''S:''' It's very specific.

'''E:''' Already correct.

'''S:''' Number two, a potential technosignature will be discovered that will defy explanation throughout 2025. So it will not be definitively explained in 2025.

'''E:''' I like that one.

'''J:''' Gotcha.

'''E:''' I like that one.

'''S:''' Three, AI applications will cross the uncanny valley, producing generative video indistinguishable from real footage.

'''E:''' Shoot.

'''C:''' Do not like.

'''E:''' I was afraid of that.

'''S:''' And four, here's my weather prediction, 2025 will not be the warmest year on record, but it will be in the top five.

'''C:''' Oh, look at that.

'''E:''' Bucking the trend.

'''S:''' That's called La Nina, folks.

'''C:''' Oh, so you actually did research. Crap. I didn't.

'''E:''' I looked into it.

'''C:''' I did not.

'''E:''' Well, you're next, Cara.

'''C:''' Like a true psychic. I just pulled them out of my ass.

'''S:''' You just winged it. It's from the hip.

'''C:''' Yeah. A stable democracy will fall when an elected leader successfully abolishes term limits.

'''J:''' Oh, boy. Cara, what the hell?

'''E:''' What are you doing? What are you doing?

'''C:''' I didn't say which country, okay?

'''E:''' Cara. You just gave everyone odds, you know.

'''C:''' All right. H5N1 will mutate to become transmissible from person to person.

'''E:''' These are happy predictions.

'''S:''' Oh, boy.

'''E:''' Where's the love and the harmony and stuff? Give me that.

'''C:''' Hey, man. 2024 to 2025 was not the best transition. Okay. 2025 will be the hottest year on record. God damn it.

'''E:''' Wow. You and Steve.

'''C:''' Pitting against each other.

'''E:''' Head to head.

'''B:''' One of you will win.

'''S:''' Not necessarily. I also said it will be in the top five. Maybe it isn't.

'''E:''' Three more predictions, 2025. My first one has to do with catastrophe. A bridge on an interstate highway system will collapse causing zero fatalities.

'''C:''' You're right. You've got a nice optimism there.

'''E:''' Yeah, see what I did there? I turned something horrible and made it a story of no injury. Number two, technology. A computer will achieve 1.99 petaflops, becoming the new champion of supercomputers. So by comparison, in 2024, 1.74 petaflops was tops. I went just short of 2.0, that was for you, Bob.

'''B:''' Thank you, man, that'd be cool.

'''E:''' And my third prediction, astronomy. Supernova explosions, not one, but three of them will be visible to the naked eye.

'''B:''' Oh, come on, what?

'''E:''' Yeah, you heard it here first. See you in a year.

'''B:''' Three?

'''S:''' Evan, at the same time, or just in 2025?

'''E:''' No, I didn't say that.

'''S:''' I'm asking you.

'''B:''' That would be crazy.

'''E:''' Would you like me to read it again?

'''S:''' But what do you think? Will it be at the same time? If you're gonna go crazy, go crazy.

'''E:''' No, no, there will be three distinct events.

'''S:''' Oh, okay.

'''E:''' All right? Visible to the naked eye.

'''S:''' If you predict one, that would be huge. Predicting three.

'''E:''' I said three, I am tripling down.

'''S:''' If that happens, I will reconsider my views on your predictive powers.

'''E:''' Holy jeez, I can't wait.

'''S:''' That would mean the odds of that are so incredible.

'''E:''' Did you do any research about supernovas?

'''S:''' Well, it's one per century, right, in our galaxy?

'''B:''' In a typical, yeah, typical galaxy, but yeah.

'''S''' And how many of them would be naked eye visible?

'''C:''' He didn't say during the day.

'''S:''' It's true.

'''E:''' I did not say during the day.

'''S:''' So let's say, if we could just use the one out of 100, but then times three is one in a million? Did I get that right?

'''E:''' Yeah, well, you heard it.

'''B:''' It's probably even more than, don't forget, the naked eye, that means that it's probably relatively close, right?

'''S:''' I know, I'm just assuming one to 100, like at the low end, it's a million to one. It could be even.

'''E:''' I did not pull that out of the air. I did some research into this, actually, and used some information to make this prediction.

'''C:''' He's insider trading on supernova.

'''S:''' You think Betelgeuse is gonna go up?

'''E:''' Oh, the Betelgeuse thing? Yes, Steve, the Betelgeuse thing is one of them.

'''S:''' Even just saying Betelgeuse will go supernova in 2025, that's a huge prediction, because it could still happen any time over the last, I don't know what, thousands of years? It's still relatively close, but relatively close is still thousands of years. All right, we'll see what we'll see.

'''E:''' I still have a lot to talk about.

'''B:''' By definition.

'''S:''' Bob?

'''B:''' Okay, prediction one. ChatGPT-5 won't be released until mid-2025, a year later than initially anticipated, and I'm gonna add more. It will be even more lackluster than anticipated. However, this will not start the third AI winter. There's been two winters in the past, where there was so much hype. This is in the 70s and 80s to mid-90s. There was so much hype that inevitably didn't live up to it and funding dried up. I don't think that would happen here. Maybe a little bit. If ChatGPT-5 is real shit, it may be a little bit, but they're too invested, and I think there's still a lot could be done with it.

'''E:''' We've come too far to turn back.

'''B:''' Let's see, number two, and echoing Cara, full-on bird flu epidemic.

'''C:''' Ooh, no.

'''B:''' Person to person. The mutation will happen in 2025, but I said epidemic. I could have, I considered predicting pandemic, but I said, nah. If it is a pandemic, then I predict America will have the worst deaths.

'''S:''' You gotta learn the psychic speed. You gotta say epidemic, if not a pandemic. Like, you hedge your bets, but you still take credit for the whole thing.

'''C:''' But you are hedging, because if you say epidemic, it's always an epidemic before it's a pandemic.

'''S:''' You wanna get credit for the pandemic if it occurs. So you say, if not a pandemic. All right, anyway.

'''B:''' Yeah, if I cared, I might've considered that. And third prediction, Nosferatu will win more Academy Awards than any other horror movie ever.

'''S:''' That's a solid prediction.

'''C:''' Yeah, I like it.

'''B:''' Loved it, loved the movie.

'''S:''' We saw it last night. It was really good.

'''B:''' Highly recommended. Wonderful, what an art piece. My God, beautiful.

'''S:''' Oh, the cinematography was-

'''B:''' Acting, writing.

'''E:''' The one from 100 years ago?

'''B:''' It was incredible.

'''S:''' It was beautiful and horrible at the same time. You know what I mean?

'''B:''' Yeah, solid, solid, solid movie at every level, pretty much, so I recommend it.

'''S:''' All right, Jay.

'''J:''' All right, you ready, guys? The prices of groceries won't go down in the United States.

'''C:''' Great prediction.

'''E:''' When you have two kids, they don't need all the money, you understand.

'''B:''' It's hard, it's hard.

'''J:''' No company will ultimately achieve general AI. In order to make this fair, though, I have to define what I'm talking about. Okay, so here's my definition of artificial general intelligence. This refers to a form of AI that possesses the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide variety of tasks in a manner similar to human intelligence. So I repeat, no company will achieve general AI in 2025. I think, Cara, you and I agree on this one. The war between Ukraine and Russia will end. Didn't you say that?

'''S:''' No, I said it will enter a more dangerous phase.

'''J:''' Somebody said it's good that war's gonna end, I thought.

'''C:''' No, you said it in your mind.

'''J:''' All right. Well, you agree with me anyway. And my final one, I agree with Bob here. The world will have another pandemic. Many Bothans will die.

'''S:''' Okay. All right, there we are. We put our nickels down.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Put ourselves up against the psychics. I think, overall, over the years, we do better than they do.

'''E:''' Which is...

'''S:''' Which is not hard. All right, we're gonna go on to some news items.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Space Exploration in 2025 (34:51) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.planetary.org/articles/calendar-of-space-events-2025?utm_source=chatgpt.com
|article_title = Calendar of space events 2025
|publication = The Planetary Society
}}

'''S:''' Jay, you're gonna start us off by, some of these are still look-ahead kind of news items. It's the first episode of the year. Jay, tell us about space exploration in 2025.

'''J:''' Yeah, I'm gonna hit some of the highlights. There's a very long list of things that are gonna happen in regards to space exploration. There's also quite a number of visual events, like comets and all sorts of stuff like that. You should read up on those. But these are the launches and the missions, right? We have the Lunar Trailblazer and NovaSea IM-2 lunar mission. This is gonna happen at some time in January. This is a joint mission under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Service. And it's led by the private company, Intuitive Machines. And the NovaSea IM-2 lander will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. It'll carry several NASA payloads. And among those, they'll have something called the Lunar Trailblazer, which is an orbiter designed to map the moon's water ice and hydroxyl deposits. So this is pretty cool. I am looking forward to this and it's gonna happen soon. So everybody keep your eyes open. I'm hoping that there's video cameras on this thing so we can watch it land. We have the Blue Ghost lunar mission. This is also January of 2025. This is a separate CLPS mission led by the Firefly Aerospace. And the Blue Ghost lunar lander will carry something called the Lunar Planet Vac. What do you think they're gonna do with that?

'''B:''' They're going to suck out all the atmosphere.

'''J:''' No, it is an advanced sampling instrument designed to collect surface material from the moon. I think this is pretty cool. You know, we need more moon rock. We definitely need it for research. But it's just a cool thing to have. Guy, could you imagine? There was a half a second when I thought Bob gave me and Steve a piece of moon rock for Christmas. It wasn't true.

'''E:''' Nah wah!

'''B:''' It was even better.

'''J:''' So the other payloads that this is gonna include, there'll be scientific equipment to study the lunar surface and environment. And the mission will aim to expand knowledge about the moon's resources and environment while demonstrating technologies for future exploration. It's so wordy, right? The Europa Clipper Gravity Assist. This is in March. This is NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft. It'll conduct a gravity assist at Mars and it'll fly within 950 kilometers. This is 600 miles of the planet. The maneuver will adjust the spacecraft's trajectory for its journey to Jupiter where it will set to study the icy moon Europa. The mission's ultimate goal is to investigate Europa's subsurface oceans for signs of habitability.

'''S:''' Can I see if it's habitable?

'''J:''' It's habitable. So this thing, I talked about this. I was very excited talking about this news item last year. This is the one that's gonna fly through the ejecta. Hopefully it'll get to fly through some ejecta from the moon, which is essentially one of the water spouts. Very cool. I mean, this could be amazing if it hits. It's gonna be a big one. We have a Lucy flyby of asteroid Donald Johansson. April 20th of this year.

'''S:''' You know who Donald Johansson is?

'''J:''' He's a flyby.

'''S:''' But the asteroid was named after Donald Johansson.

'''J:''' Yeah, he's a guy.

'''S:''' Yeah, I'm asking you if you know who he is.

'''J:''' No.

'''C:''' Isn't he the guy who discovered Lucy?

'''E:''' Scarlett's brother?

'''B:''' He's an astronaut?

'''S:''' Yes, that's correct.

'''C:''' Oh, yeah, right? No, he's not an astronaut. He's a, yeah, he discovered Lucy in Ethiopia. I interviewed him on my podcast.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's correct.

'''J:''' That's great.

'''C:''' Yeah, he's a really interesting guy.

'''S:''' Yeah, paleoanthropologist.

'''J:''' So the spacecraft is called Lucy, and it'll fly past asteroid 52246, Donald Johansson, and it's located in the asteroid belt. And this asteroid, named after the discovery of Lucy fossil, is the second target in a mission to explore multiple asteroids. So I think that one's cool. Then we click forward to May. We have the Tianwen-2 mission. This is in May 2025. China's ambitious mission will target 469219 Kamo'oluwa. It's a quasi-moon of Earth. I love the word quasi, by the way. So it's a quasi-moon of Earth, and they're gonna try to collect samples from the asteroid and then return them to Earth. And if the primary mission is complete, it will continue towards comet 311P, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's gonna go to a comet, and it'll make it a dual-purpose mission, which is always good. And its goals include advancing knowledge about small celestial bodies, planetary formation, and potential asteroid mining. Which guys, asteroid mining, that is getting closer and closer as the years click by, man. So we have a couple more. The JUICE Gravity Assist at Venus. This is in August, late August this year. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, named JUICE, right? Juicy, right? Can you do that? Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer. Yeah, it works.

'''E:''' Yep, that's it.

'''J:''' Led by the European Space Agency, this will perform a gravity-assist maneuver near Venus to adjust its trajectory towards Jupiter. This is pretty cool. There's gonna be an Earth flyby with this thing. Going out to 2031, it'll focus on the planet's icy moons, and it will study their potential habitability and subsurface oceans. So we have a couple of missions going out to Jupiter. And then the last one is the end of Juno's extended mission. So this goes to September of 2025, NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016. It will conclude its extended mission. It was originally designed for 37 orbits, and Juno has basically provided us with groundbreaking data on Jupiter's atmosphere, which is great. Also its magnetic field and its internal structure. During this extended mission, Juno studied Jupiter's moons and auroras, and the mission is expected to end with the spacecraft intentionally deorbiting into Jupiter to avoid contaminating its moons. And once it goes down into Jupiter, it'll be basically reduced down to an eighth of an inch and stay there till the end of time.

'''S:''' You know what's not happening in 2025?

'''J:''' What is not happening?

'''S:''' The Artemis II mission, which was delayed from September 2025 now to April 2026.

'''J:''' They suck.

'''S:''' NASA's not saying it's going to happen in April of 2026. They're saying it's not going to happen before April of 2026.

'''B:''' Oh, that's even worse.

'''E:''' More delays.

'''J:''' Oh my God, yeah. I mean, there's so many things that they don't have ready. They don't even have the spacesuits fully dialed in.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''S:''' They're making progress, but yeah, of course it's slower than they say. You know, that would have been a low-hanging fruit prediction. The Artemis mission will be delayed.

'''J:''' You're right, Steve.

'''S:''' Of course it will be. All right. Thank you, Jay.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Most Likely Emerging Diseases (41:57) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://theconversation.com/which-infectious-disease-is-likely-to-be-the-biggest-emerging-problem-in-2025-245491
|article_title = Which infectious disease is likely to be the biggest emerging problem in 2025?
|publication = The Conversation
}}
'''S:''' Cara, so keeping on your upbeat theme, you're going to tell us about emerging diseases in 2025.

'''C:''' We talked, I think it was the last time we met, or it might've been the time before that, because what is time really over the holidays? About-

'''B:''' Time is calories.

'''C:''' Right, about H5N1, bird flu, and the number of cases that we have seen so far. I think the count, I mean, it continues to rise, but well over 60 here in the US. Globally, we're talking about kind of almost a thousand cases over the last couple of decades. So this is not like, it's a very rare phenomenon that people get highly pathogenic avian influenza. So that's type A H5N1. The reason it's so rare, once again, is because it's a spillover event that is then not transmissible from person to person. So that's why outbreaks aren't happening. There are massive outbreaks among birds, both wild and domesticate, and also massive outbreaks among cows here in the US and abroad. But we're not seeing epidemic proportions of bird flu because bird flu is not yet transmissible from person to person. But as I mentioned, the last time I covered this story, researchers discovered that the only one mutation is necessary, one mutation, not a series of mutations like they used to think in order for this to become highly pathogenic from person to person. So obviously this is on everybody's radar that this could be the epidemic or pandemic of 2025 or moving forward. But when we actually look at the not what ifs, but the what ares, what do you think are the three biggest, let's say, diseases of concern, infectious diseases of concern worldwide?

'''S:''' I mean, isn't Ebola always on that list?

'''C:''' Ebola's scary. So I shouldn't say biggest. I should say maybe most common. So the infectious diseases that cause the most concern globally. Ebola, yes, is very, very scary, but it's not in the top three. Think about one of the most ongoing pandemics.

'''S:''' Well, HIV.

'''C:''' Yeah, HIV. Okay, so that's viral. There's one that's parasitic, and we see it in many, many countries.

'''S:''' Malaria.

'''C:''' Malaria. And then there's one that's bacterial, and it makes you cough blood.

'''S:''' Tuberculosis.

'''C:''' Tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection. And so these three globally are kind of consistently on the lists. COVID is not anymore. And why is COVID no longer in the top three?

'''S:''' Vaccines.

'''C:''' Vaccines, yes. Because we have very, very effective vaccines. And treatments available as well. And then, of course, there are different watch lists of different pathogens that are becoming drug-resistant or that are sort of ebbing and flowing in the background. But the bird flu is kind of on everybody's radar as sort of our biggest candidate right now. And part of the reason that it is scary is, well, it's multifold. It's multifactorial. One of them is that the mortality rate among human infections is around 30%. That's not good. We don't like that. Another reason is because I mentioned before, we are potentially one mutation away from this becoming transmissible from person to person. And even if it does not become transmissible yet, the occurrence of bird flu happening in isolated spillovers is becoming more of a reality. And why is that if our cows have bird flu?

'''S:''' Because of the raw milk?

'''C:''' Yes, because we literally have people in positions of public influence advocating for drinking milk that has the potential to be infected by bird flu. Mind-boggling. It's really scary, right? Because up until now, most of the cases have been from farm workers and from people drinking raw milk. Most of the cases have been spillovers from cows and they've happened from both of those incidences. And so we're seeing that there is a movement to prepare, right? The UK is stockpiling their 5 million doses of vaccine, H5 vaccine, kind of they're ready. There are pandemic preparedness plans for bird flu that have been developed and then reiterated over and over. But I got to admit, I'm concerned here in the US and I don't think historically, I have had this level of concern about our ability to successfully prepare and mitigate a potential disaster like that.

'''S:''' We are living in the first act of a horror movie, a hundred percent, right?

'''C:''' Right. And we've seen it. It's like the foreshadowing is because of evidence. It's like we lived it, we don't want to live it again. And so really I think remembering that HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and obviously many others, those are only the top three, are continue to be these global detriments, these quote, slow pandemics. We have to remember too, that even though here in the US and in many developed nations, we have the privilege of thinking of these as either diseases of the past or chronic diseases, they aren't. And they could just as easily rear their ugly heads here. Again, HIV is still a public health threat here in the US, although we have really good drugs to help prevent and manage. Tuberculosis could just as easily come back. So could a number of diseases if we continue to bend to anti-vax rhetoric. And malaria could continue to spread throughout the globe directly as a function of human displacement and shifting climate. The actual makeup of the globe is changing. And so the things that were potential threats in the past are potentially more threatening now. And there are new risks that are popping up. The good news is across the globe, there are a lot of very dedicated people, public health experts, epidemiologists, researchers, who this is what they do. The bad news is they can't do it without funding and they can't do it without public support and governmental support. And so we have to hold our elected officials accountable. We have to remember that these risks are real.

'''S:''' My biggest concern is that the very notion of public health is under assault. We saw that during the COVID pandemic, the idea that personal liberty supersedes public health, which doesn't make sense. It doesn't make moral or ethical sense. Like for example, one person who chooses to drink raw milk and gets the bird flu could be the infection in which that mutation happens that causes it to result in human to human spread, which causes a pandemic, which is basically gonna be COVID, but with 30% mortality rather than the whatever, 0.1% or 1%, whatever it was at the end of the day. So that one person's liberty is not more important than the health of the world and the millions of people who could potentially die from such an outbreak. It's nonsense.

'''C:''' And the issue is this rhetoric isn't new, but its ability to take hold and its ability to be repeated and promoted at the highest levels of government is. Like when you look back at the archives during 1918, there were people marching against masks.

'''S:''' There were anti-maskers in 1918, 100%.

'''C:''' Yeah, the rhetoric's not new, but it's really taken hold in a way that is frightening, that really it hadn't back then.

'''S:''' Well, it's been politicized in a very dangerous way. So did the public health officials respond perfectly in hindsight to the pandemic? Of course not. They admitted we're building this plane as we're flying it. They made mistakes. They made reasonable assumptions, some of which turned out to be not entirely accurate. You have to make trade-offs. You could Monday morning quarterback them all the time. But we're living in a political environment in which those kinds of things gets turned into, we can't trust the elites. We can't trust the experts. You know, they're assaulting our liberty for pseudoscience, whatever. It turns into a really toxic, corrupt way of viewing public health. Really just setting us up for the next pandemic to completely fail to deal with the next one. That's the situation we're in.

'''C:''' Because it only works if we all work together.

'''S:''' Right, right. And now, as you said, we have the worst possible people in charge. You know, it's like, when I said horror movie, I'm imagining like you're watching the early scenes of a movie. You know, you basically know what the movie's about. Like the people who are the protagonists are having a conversation. And in the background, on the TV, is RFK Jr. talking about whatever nonsense, these conspiracy theories he's talking about. And like, the audience knows that's the guy who's gonna destroy the world in this movie. Right, that's, obviously I'm not doom and glooming this. I'm not saying this is what's going to happen. But I'm just saying, we are, the pieces are in play. Right, this, as you said, this is the foreshadowing. When we look back and ask, how did this possibly happen? We know how it happened. The pieces are all there.

'''C:''' And it reminds me, Steve, of when we've talked about filmmaking, like the art of filmmaking. And one of your biggest frustrations is when an antagonist or a protagonist, even, just like continues to fail through ineptitude. Like, and that's why the plot is moved forward, as opposed to there being these outside forces. It's like, it's lazy filmmaking. I feel like we are, we are in a, we are in lazy life right now. And it's so scary.

'''S:''' I know.

'''B:''' Oh man, we'll have a guy running our country who has, in the past, actually thrown away pandemic plans.

'''C:''' Right, the pandemic preparedness binder. He was like, we don't need this.

'''B:''' Like, basically, essentially burned it.

'''C:''' We don't need it.

'''B:''' It's like, here, this work has been, ah, fuck.

'''C:''' Yep.

'''S:''' Right, as I said, stock up on toilet paper, which is, just metaphorically, do whatever you have to do to be prepared for another COVID-like pandemic, but without a competent government in place.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Dark Energy May Not Exist (53:01) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/536/2/1752/7890815?login=false
|article_title = Cosmological foundations revisited with Pantheon+
|publication = Oxford Academic
}}

'''S:''' All right, this next news item is very interesting. Bob and I are gonna tag team, and we're gonna both cover the same news item for two reasons. Partly because we both wanted to cover it, but also, it's a little complicated. I think we need both of us to really wrap our heads around this one. But go ahead, Bob, you're gonna start us off.

'''B:''' So, a new model of cosmology called Timescape, recent study on that came out, it claims to more accurately describe the expansion of the universe. In fact, it suggests that dark energy is not even required at all to explain what is being observed. So, potentially no dark energy? That got my attention. This is from monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society letters. The name of the paper is Supernovae Evidence for Foundational Change to Cosmological Models. Now, the biggest change in cosmology during my life, Steve, I'm sure you would agree with this, has been taking what I thought was essentially the totality of the universe, stars, planets, galaxies, life, et cetera, all the protons, neutrons, and electrons, essentially. Baryonic matter, basically. And it was shrunk down to only 5% of everything. And it seemed to happen fairly quickly. Now, that happened when we incorporated the dark sector, the so-called dark sector into the universe. That's dark matter and dark energy. Suddenly, we knew basically nothing about 95% of the universe. Dark matter, we all know this, right? Dark matter, it's this weird matter that only appears to reveal itself through gravity and how that gravity shapes structures all over the universe. Dark energy, discovered in 98. This was huge, huge, huge, huge news item. I mean, Nobel Prize in 2011. Supernova analysis showed that there was a mysterious energy inherent in space itself, causing its accelerated expansion. Very high-level definition, of course, but we've covered this in detail over the years. Now, I say we suddenly knew almost nothing because if you consider the entire mass energy of the universe, dark energy is 71%, dark matter, 24%. And all that we could see with our eyes and instruments is a paltry 5%. So if you're gonna create a standard model of cosmology, now, I've discussed the standard model of physics. There's also, of course, a standard model of cosmology. If you're gonna create this, then you would be correct if you think that it would have to focus on dark energy and dark matter, right? I mean, those are the big boys now. You know, 75% or 95% of the universe. So that model would have to include that, both of the entire dark sector in a big way. Now, the standard model of cosmology does just that, and it's called Lambda-CDM. Now, the name has two parts. Lambda, that's dark energy. CDM is cold dark matter, which is a very specific theory of dark matter. Cold in this context just means it's moving slower than light. This model, for years, it's offered just what you would want from such a model. It explains what we observe, and it makes testable predictions. Awesome. There's a problem, though. Recently, the Lambda, or the dark energy part of this cosmological model, has been getting beaten up lately. Here's a couple examples why. The cosmic microwave background radiation, the earliest radiation that we could see, early universe, was it a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang? It shows the early universe's expansion doesn't fit with the current expansion, creating what's called the Hubble tension, which is a whole other topic that is way out of scope of this talk here. So there's that. And then the second reason why dark energy has been taken a beating is a research instrument called DESI, which is the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, recently suggested that dark energy behaves differently than we have thought for all these years. Specifically, its strength has changed over time in a way that we just did not understand or have believed over the years. The authors argue that a different model called the timescape model, which accounts for the structure of the universe in the model itself, can account for supernova observations better than Lambda CDM. In fact, the lead author, Professor David Wiltshire, said, our findings show that we do not need dark energy to explain why the universe appears to expand at an accelerating rate. Steve?

'''S:''' Yeah, so this is where it gets interesting. I'm gonna just clarify a couple of things Bob said, or give more detail. The Hubble tension, that's a critical concept here. So just to go one layer more deep, this is problems with the cosmological constant, right? If you measure the cosmological constant with direct measurement, like type 1a supernova or Cepheid variables, you get one answer, 73 to 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec. If you measure it using the cosmic microwave background, you get a different number, 67 to 68. They don't agree.

'''B:''' And it's not instrument error, it's too big for that.

'''S:''' It's too big for that, and they don't even overlap. So that tells us something's wrong. There's something we don't know about the universe, or there's something wrong in whatever, in the way we're going about this. There's also another problem, and that is there are structures in the universe too large to exist if the cosmological constant, if dark energy exists. And we don't know how to resolve that problem either, right? So there's like, if you can calculate how big something could be in the universe in terms of like a gravitationally bound structure, and we have observed, directly observed structure bigger than the theoretical maximum, if lambda CDM is correct.

'''B:''' Which structures are those? Are those the quasars, Steve?

'''S:''' Yeah, there's like, there's the giant circle one. There's a few, but there's like two or three structures that are bigger than should exist at this point in time. There's also the fact that astronomers have absolutely no idea what dark energy is, right? They don't know what it is. They don't even know what it could be. They don't even know what could behave this way. It's something outside of our current model of matter energy in the universe. Hence dark, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, the biggest thing for me is that dark energy does not dilute, right? You have a parcel, so you have a square light year of space. And there's a certain amount of dark energy within that. If you go away and come back and that space has increased 10 times, each cubic light year still has the same amount of dark energy as do all the others that have been created. So that's why it just keeps getting stronger and stronger as you reach a critical, like a maximum amount of space. You're gonna really start noticing it. And that's why there were some predictions that you'd have the big rip where that expansion becomes so strong that it would actually rips apart matter at the atomic and subatomic level, which is really scary. Not very likely, even when we totally were buying into dark energy, but still like, wow, this is scary ideas.

'''S:''' All right, so now basically the situation is now there are two models of cosmology that explain the expansion of the universe. There is the Lambda CDM and TimeScape. The main difference between the two is that Lambda CDM assumes a uniform universe. Whereas TimeScape accounts for the lumpiness in the universe, right?

'''B:''' The structures that have been created.

'''S:''' The structure of the universe. So in other words, but we could say it another way, but so the Lambda CDM model basically says that at the scale that we are making our observations, the universe is statistically homogenous, right? So it depends on at what scale does the universe become statistically homogenous. And Lambda CDM says, well, at the scale where we're making our observations, and TimeScape says, nope, only much bigger than that. And at the scale where we're making observations, you cannot treat it as statistically homogenous. And remember, we've talked about this before, the homogenous basically has two parts to it, homogeneity, which is that every piece of the universe is like every other piece of the universe in terms of its mass density. And the other one is isotropy, that no matter what direction-

'''B:''' Is it isotropy? I like that pronunciation. Go ahead.

'''S:''' Isotropy or isotropy. No matter what direction you look in, the universe looks the same, right?

'''B:''' Yep. So no matter where you are and no matter which direction you look, it should all be homogenous.

'''J:''' Yeah, we agree.

'''B:''' That's the key difference. That's the key difference between these models.

'''S:''' But TimeScape says, nope, there's parts, there's voids and there's clumps of matter. And it's not statistically, you can't just say, all right, all averages out at the scale where we're making our observations, including observations of the Type Ia supernova that we use to measure the expansion of the universe. So this is where relativity comes in. This is interesting.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So relativity says that when matter causes time to slow down, right? Remember the movie with the black hole? You get close to the black hole and time slows down for you?

'''B:''' That's gravitational time dilation.

'''S:''' Yeah. And so time is traveling faster in the voids than in galaxies, right? And it's like significant. It's not a little bit. It's by, I think the number was 30%.

'''B:''' Yeah, they said 35. That did seem a little high, but still the point's taken.

'''S:''' Yeah, but it's significant. And so what the TimeScape model says is that the acceleration of the universe is an illusion. It's an illusion based upon the assumption of homogeneity in a non-homogeneous universe. So if time is traveling faster in the voids, the universe will be measured as expanding faster in the voids and expanding slower in the clumps, right? And as the universe expands, the voids get relatively bigger because we're not making more matter. It's just getting farther apart from each other.

'''B:''' Right, and TimeScape actually attaches a number to that. That's called the void fraction, which is very important in this model.

'''S:''' So yeah, the void fraction, the amount of the universe that's void increases, meaning more of the universe has faster time and therefore faster acceleration. So if we're just looking out at the universe, it looks as if over time, the expansion is happening at a faster and faster rate. When really, there's just bigger and bigger voids. And it's just an illusion of that. But when you account for local non-homogeneity, it all works out, right? So they did in their analysis, actually Bob, I'll disagree with you on one thing you said.

'''B:''' What?

'''S:''' And this is because of the way it's being reported. Actually, the LambdaCDM model and the TimeScape model did the same. They predicted-

'''B:''' Earlier in the universe.

'''S:''' If you look at the whole, all the data, they basically performed the same. They matched observation as well as each other. And so what this data they're looking at is the supernova 1A data. And we have more, this is the same data that was used in the 90s to say that the universe is accelerating. They're looking at the same data, but now we have 20 years or whatever, 30 years more data.

'''B:''' That's the Pantheon Plus data.

'''S:''' Yeah, the Pantheon Plus data. So it's a lot more data, a lot more detailed, more precise measurements. They crunched through all that numbers. They said, all right, we'll see. How well does TimeScape predict this data? How well does LambdaCDM predict this data? Overall, they did the same, but TimeScape did better in the local universe and the LambdaCDM did better in the early universe. But if you look at all the data, they're basically the same. So in other words, there's no reason, there's no reason to favor one over the other based upon this data. But they say TimeScape gives us the ability to fix the Hubble tension and to solve the problem of why are their structures bigger than LambdaCDM says there should be. So the authors say, they did a Bayesian analysis which just said, what's the probability that this is true? So they said strong to very strong. So this is not the final word and even the authors can't say based upon their analysis that LambdaCDM is not true or TimeScape is proven or there is no dark energy. They can't say that. The headlines are all, there's no dark energy, but we cannot say that based on this study. All we can say is there's two models now. One requires dark energy. One does not require dark energy and not requiring dark energy doesn't mean it doesn't exist, right? It just means that it's not required. So it's possible there may be a hybrid model, right Jay? It's a hybrid. That TimeScape may be a tweak on LambdaCDM because the thing is LambdaCDM has a lot of explanatory power. As I said, all models are wrong but some models are useful. LambdaCDM is a useful model. TimeScape may turn out to be a useful model too. We may end up using both of them to help explain things. But it may be that eventually as we take more detailed observations and we look at this, this can take years, maybe even decades, eventually one of these two models may emerge as the winner. As in other words, it just is more in line with the actual data. And we don't know how that's gonna go. Maybe they'll figure out some other way within LambdaCDM to figure out the Hubble tension. Or maybe that TimeScape really is the answer to that and that's because it's correct. It's more, it's closer to reality than LambdaCDM. Maybe we don't need dark energy in order to explain why the universe appears to be accelerating over time. I do like the, to me just aesthetically, the fact that TimeScape takes into account the structure of the universe and doesn't assume homogeneity that we know isn't there. It seems to be an advantage but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct. So it's really interesting scientific question and this is science at its best. You have two competing models. They're duking it out using data and math and logic. What Bob and I are describing to you is such a superficial metaphor level sort of description of what's going on. I actually tried to read the paper. I also tossed it into ChatGPT and had it explain to me what was going on. There is so much math going on. This is all math. You cannot actually understand what the scientists are talking about unless you know the real high level math that's going on. So this is really just like a layperson level, metaphor level description of what we're talking about.

'''B:''' Steve, I like this idea in TimeScape of this void fraction. How much of the universe is a void? And the bigger the voids, the more you could say that there's a disparity between these two models. Now, check this one out. When voids started dominating the overall volume, right? When the voids became big enough they were the big players in a given volume of the universe. When that happened, suspiciously, when Lambda CDM, at the same time, that's when Lambda CDM predicts the dark energy starts taking over. And that's right. Did you see that? That's telling. To me, that was like a very interesting point that shows that in a lot of ways, in some ways at least, TimeScape seems to make a decent case at least right now, initially, that dark energy could be, as we're describing, it could be, it could go away. It absolutely could go away. It's like another way to look at it is that this whole idea of acceleration, is it intrinsic to the universe itself or is it just really a consequence of how you look at this observational data and interpret it in a universe that's non-uniform? You have a non-uniform cosmos and just how you're interpreting that data can lead to dark energy or maybe you don't need dark energy.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's interesting. Does that make sense to you guys? I mean, it took us a long time to wrap our head around this and I hope we've sort of...

'''J:''' Yeah, I totally get it.

'''E:''' You did. TimeScape, winner.

'''S:''' Yeah, I mean, yeah. Unlike, for example, dark matter versus modified Newtonian dynamics, I think dark matter is kicking the crap out of MOND, right? I think dark matter actually does exist and I think that's like the 95% answer right now and I think that's going to emerge victorious.

'''E:''' With what, 40 years of science?

'''S:''' Yeah, and here, we have the CDN versus TimeScape, to me feels like a coin flip. I don't really have a, I don't really, at this point, think that I might have a slight edge towards TimeScape at this point in time, but that's only because I'm...

'''B:''' Well, I mean...

'''S:''' But who knows, I think...

'''E:''' Sounds cool.

'''B:''' We'll have to wait till it's vetted, but based on what they're saying, they're saying that they, TimeScape outperforms LambdaCDM in explaining the supernova 1A and other Pantheon plus observations. If you're outperforming it in that context, that's pretty damn good, pretty telling.

'''E:''' Significant.

'''B:''' It seems to me, that's important and yeah, but like we said, we got to reiterate, this is not definitive, they need to do more work, they need to fine tune it, so they're not there yet, but this is, I think this could eventually be an important paper. We'll see, we'll see what happens when, as more, as this paper is vetted and we do more research.

'''E:''' We need more math.

'''S:''' Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, other experts may look at this and go, ah the math is crap, move on. Like, it might not...

'''E:''' Forgot to carry the five.

'''S:''' We're just trying to understand what they're actually saying, right? I think we were able to do that.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Bigfoot Deaths (1:11:49) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_84edc8ec-e6fd-4a76-8b3e-9ef9d3ed8438
|article_title = Two Portland men die while searching for Sasquatch in Skamania County
|publication = yahoo!
}}
'''S:''' Okay, Evan, now we're gonna get really serious now. This is like cutting edge science. You're gonna tell us about Bigfoot deaths.

'''E:''' For the first time that I can ever remember and you guys can let me know if you remember differently, Bigfoot now has a body count. I am not talking about dead Bigfoot bodies. I'm talking about a pair of Bigfoot enthusiasts who recently went into the wooded area of Skamania County, which is in the upper northwestern United State of Washington. This was back on December 24th, 2024, Christmas Eve day. Two men set out on their quest to find the mythical creature. And when they failed to return to their homes later that evening, the authorities were contacted and an all-out search began on Christmas day by more than five dozen rescue workers and volunteers. They utilized footage from something called a flock safety camera. I just learned about that. And this is how the search team located the vehicle. A flock safety camera is a type of automated license plate recognition piece of technology used by law enforcement. They were able to pick up the picture of the camera and find the vehicle. They actually found the vehicle. There is your starting point for the search. The men's car was located at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which is 1.3 million acres of forest, wildlife habitat, watersheds, mountains. It includes Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, among other sites to see there. That's a massive amount of territory to cover. And it did take them three days for the team to finally discover the bodies of the two men. The cause of the death was determined to be the result of weather exposure. And they were clearly ill-prepared to survive in overnight conditions at this time of year in this part of the country, yeah. So-

'''S:''' Nature will kill you dead.

'''E:''' It will kill you dead, yeah. And I'm about to get to that. Couple other things. The search for the men took place amid difficult terrain and harsh weather conditions. Yep, it's a tough time of year to be going out into the woods like that. Freezing temperatures, snow, high water levels, all made for a challenging search. Oh, by the way, in this county, if you harm Bigfoot, you will be fined $1,000 and perhaps go to jail for a couple of weeks. According to the Chamber of Commerce, it's a law meant to protect the mysterious creature and to prevent hunters with large beards from accidentally getting shot. This is what they said, yep. All right, in all seriousness though, here are some lessons to be learned here. These are my takeaways. First of all, have you guys ever heard of people dying in a search for Bigfoot? I don't recall.

'''J:''' No.

'''C:''' No.

'''E:''' This is my first recollection of anything like this taking place. So I can't say it's a common occurrence, but it's unfortunately a tragic occurrence in which, here we go again, believing in nonsense is not harmless. It is not. And here we have another example. I mean, do we even have to explain why Bigfoot does not exist in the first place?

'''S:''' Give a bullet.

'''E:''' Yeah, lack of physical evidence, no DNA, no bones, no remains, no fecal material. They have no habitat we've discovered, no nests, no dens, no tracks, only faked tracks, no actual tracks, no evidence of them eating food, no verified photos or videos. Again, we have plenty of fake photos and fake videos, but nothing.

'''S:''' Or misidentified photos.

'''E:''' Yeah, absolutely. And despite that amount, that incredible amount of negative evidence, you've got television shows, you've got podcasts, movies, books, organizations, and hey, right here, a government agency who are stoking the coals of the Bigfoot legend because, well, I don't know, there are groups of people who want to believe in these things that are not real. And then there are other groups of people who frankly in some way want to, in a sense, profit off of those beliefs of those people. So I don't know, I think everybody shares, I think everybody in these categories shares a very small piece of responsibility in the death of these two unfortunately gullible people. And they need to remember that, that there is harm involved with believing in nonsense. It may not always result in death like this, but in this case it did, and this is another reminder of that.

'''S:''' Now you could argue that Bigfoot is incidental to the story because these are two people who went into the woods in challenging weather conditions and they were ill-prepared. Apparently they weren't experienced and they were ill-equipped to deal with it, and that's what killed them. But I would argue, and I think it's what you're saying, is they probably wouldn't have done that if they weren't motivated by belief in Bigfoot. You know, they basically got in over their heads. And not that people will do that for other reasons, but that was the reason in this case, it seems.

'''E:''' Yeah, and I don't know enough about Bigfoot organizations and collectives and groups and stuff. Do they have classes that do teach people proper survival skills if they are gonna go venturing off into the woods?

'''S:''' I don't know, some might, but again.

'''E:''' Some might.

'''S:''' Do you really wanna get your survival skills from a Bigfoot believer? Seriously, that's part of the problem is that these amateur organizations, they're probably themselves ill-equipped to deal with this because the people involved and the motivation behind it, they're not serious organizations that have invest in the skill and resources and also will make good decisions about, no, we're not gonna go out in this weather.

'''E:''' There are stories of people who have hiked the Appalachian Trail in the United States. These are what you would consider either professional or amateur enthusiast hikers, and they know the rules of the trail. You don't go off the trail because they have found bodies like 100 feet off the trail. When you go looking for Bigfoot in a park or something like that, guess where you're, you're not staying on the trails. There are no Bigfoots on the trails, there are no Bigfoots, but you're not gonna find Bigfoot on the trail. Where are you going? You're going off the trail, folks. So you are already putting yourself into a massively more dangerous situation than you would have been had you just stuck to the trail in the first place.

'''S:''' The motivation to get more risky. But I mean, having said that, even professionals die because they get overwhelmed by the weather. This is dangerous, even for people who know what they're doing. If you're not-

'''E:''' Very dangerous. And don't rely on your cell phone to get you out of a, I mean, your cell phone is likely not going to work out. You have got to have the proper communication equipment. It has to be satellite-based devices, shortwave radio, shortwave walkie-talkies. I mean, those are the kinds of things that you really need to have. And I don't know what they were thinking, but you have to also assume, worst case scenario, you have to have a shelter with you, emergency blankets, dry rations, fire-starting materials, cold weather gear. You can't just go make it a day exploration into the woods to find Bigfoot or look for a bird or whatever it is you're gonna do. You have to, you have to be much better prepared for that. You're taking your life in your hands, and unfortunately, these two people died as a result.

'''S:''' Yep. All right, thanks, Evan.

{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:19:23) ==

'''S:''' Jay, it's Who's That Noisy Time. We're rebooting for the new year.

'''J:''' All right, guys, last week I played this noisy. [plays Noisy] Okay, any guesses, guys?

'''E:''' Well, it sounds as if somebody took a microphone or a camera and a microphone and sent it down something, a tunnel, a hole, a, that's what it was recording, that noise of its venture going wherever, you know.

'''J:''' That's not a bad guess, Ev.

'''E:''' All right.

'''J:''' Listener named Shane Hillier wrote in, said, it sounds like a rollercoaster ride before it starts, like when people are clicking in the locks and lap bars. I think that was a good guess, not correct. I've heard that noise many, many, many times. There's definitely a similarity, but it is not correct. Benjamin Greenberg wrote in, hi, Jay, after coming close last week, I'm feeling confident. This week's noisy has some industrial vibes, heavy reverberation, a mechanical propeller, like a hum with a Doppler effect. The clacking noises remind me of a very specific sound, air hockey. So I'm going to say this is a giant game of air hockey taking place in an airplane hangar. That is not correct. Visto Tutti wrote in, this end of year noisy sounds quite like being inside a tunnel under a road bridge. I've heard similar, the bridge creaking and cracking as traffic drives over above. That is not correct. Matthew Morrison wrote in, he said, hi, Jay, I think it sounds like someone picking up litter in a culvert under a highway. And his daughter thinks that it sounds like a really old bad quality video of people picking up weights at a gym. So that's not correct either. So do we have a correct answer? And the answer is yes. We have a couple of people that guessed. One person guessed really well. I'll start with that person. This is Mike Sarra's answer. I think this is the power down sequence of a large wind turbine from inside. And that is exactly what it is, guys. This is a large wind turbine powering down. And the video that goes along with this is amazing because of how much flex is happening in the tower when you're looking up the tower as this thing is shutting down, and it's bending like crazy. And there's all these different things moving around and everything. It's really complicated and kind of scary looking. And that's what happens when a wind turbine is shut off and it slowly winds down to a stop. Another listener named Cooper Parrish wrote in with a close guess, but I wanted to mention it because I know how hard this one was. He said his guess for this week's noisy is that we are hearing maintenance workers inside of a large windmill tower. And I think that's correct because somebody had to take the video. So we had two winners. Both great job, guys. Thanks for playing. And I got a new noisy for you guys if you're interested. Of course you're interested. [plays Noisy] What the heck is that, guys?

'''S:''' Sounds like when I pour ice down the disposal.

'''J:''' So if you think that you've heard this week's noisy or you heard something cool, if you think you've really, if you heard something cool and you haven't emailed me yet, record it and send me an email to WTN@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, it is the new year.

'''S:''' Yes.

'''J:''' And with the new year comes new things.

'''S:''' Sure.

'''J:''' So I present to you and the rest of the Rogues, NOTACON 2025.

'''S:''' Yep.

'''C:''' Yay.

'''J:''' We have a meeting on Tuesday and we're going to continue our work on writing all the bits and fine tuning the whole thing. So far, it's been a ton of fun for us, which means that if you come, you're going to have a great time. So Evan, I believe that all of the board game seats are gone.

'''E:''' Yes. We have a sold out event.

'''B:''' Oh, really? Already?

'''E:''' Yep, has been sold out.

'''S:''' Got to move fast.

'''E:''' It's going to be awesome.

'''J:''' And the VIP has been sold out as well.

'''C:''' Wow.

'''B:''' What?

'''J:''' Yeah, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't buy tickets and come to the conference yourself. So you must've heard me say this before on the show, so I'll keep it brief today. This is a conference about having a good time. This is a conference where all of us, all five Rogues, and then we have George Hrab, Andrea Jones-Roy and Brian Wecht. We will be spending our daytime hours trying to entertain you with lots of different fun things. Like last year or last time we did it, we had a live on the stage cooking show, which went over really well. We also have something called SG University, where each one of the Rogues and the other directors of the show will be teaching you something from their past.

'''S:''' We're going to do that again?

'''J:''' That's what everybody was saying, yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, I think it was a ton of fun. Like that was the best bit that we did.

'''B:''' Yeah. Yeah, it was fun.

'''E:''' It was a lot of fun.

'''S:''' It was good. It turned out, I got to say, it turned out better than I thought it was going to turn out. It was, it was good. Everyone did a great job. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do this year.

'''J:''' Don't say it.

'''S:''' Don't say it, okay. I won't say it. I was about to say it, but that's fine.

'''C:''' The suspense.

'''J:''' So if you're interested in learning more about NOTACON or you'd like to buy tickets, you can go to [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com] or you can go to [https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ theskepticsguide.org] and there'll be a link on there for you to take a look. We are also planning out all of our live shows that are going to happen this coming year, guys, probably starting after May, I believe, but more details will come as soon as I start locking in dates and everything. And I am sick. Don't feel bad for me. I always get sick over Christmas because I'm surrounded by children.

'''S:''' And then Jay got me sick, which you could tell from listening to my voice.

'''E:''' Oh, yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, all right. Thanks, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:25:47) ==


'''S:''' Couple of quick emails. So a little addendum to the In Memoriam that we did on the last episode of last year. One is that I just forgot to include somebody on the list. A philosopher, Daniel Dennett, died in 2024.

'''E:''' Oh, it was 24.

'''S:''' We talked about it. I just forgot to list him at the In Memoriam at the end of the show. So I just forgot that one. And then, as is often the case, between us recording the show and the end of the year, sometimes notable people do die and they don't make it onto the list. So in this case, that person was President Jimmy Carter, who died, I think, the day after the show came out or something. So you guys remember Josh Carter, who's one of Jimmy Carter's grandchildren, who's a friend of the show. We met him during our 1,000th episode, right? And he came on briefly to talk about some of the work that he's doing. So I emailed him just to give my condolences. And he responded, because I said that your grandfather had quite a legacy. And his response was, Governor of Georgia, President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 100 years old, 101 Christmases, I guess he survived after Christmas, 77 years of marriage, four children, 12 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren. He spent his life fighting for America, democracy, global health, human rights, and peace. He told the truth and obeyed the law. So yeah, that's quite, not bad for a peanut farmer. That is quite the life work. Cracked 100, good for him.

'''J:''' I love that response. Yeah, I love it.

'''B:''' That is great. Damn, man, I feel pretty lame right now.

'''S:''' One other email, we had a few people respond to our, we had a kind of an off-the-cuff discussion in the end-of-the-year episode about a news item that we weren't covering, because we weren't covering new news items in the review show. This one was about the Commonwealth Fusion Systems announcing their plans to build a commercial fusion power plant in Virginia. Bob and I chatted about it a bit, and wasn't sure if we were gonna like take a second bite at that apple and just do a full report on it. But we figured, we'll just respond to the feedback in the emails. One is a, just a sort of a pedantic point. We said that they're going straight to a commercial fusion plant, but in fact, they are already building the Spark Reactor, which is the smallest possible arc reactor. That is their test reactor. But while that's happening, they are planning to build their arc reactor, which will be the first, their first and the first really commercial fusion power plant that will be ready to send energy to the grid. And that is, this is a Tokamak design, which is this is the only design that has any chance of producing net energy at this point in time.

'''B:''' It seems that way right now.

'''S:''' It's like orders of magnitude closer than anything else. So this is, this is it. So then we had, there was a lot of discussion about, like Bob is a little bit more optimistic. I'm still a little bit more pessimistic about, whether or not they're going to meet their projection of completing this, like getting net energy from a fusion reactor in the 2030s. And just as one thing I want to point out, so the question is, how close are they, right? So one point is definitely true that the newer material science, Cara, right? Material science has resulted in high temperature, superconductors, which allow for smaller, more powerful magnets. And that has been a game changer for the Tokamak design fusion reactors. It's the only thing that even makes this even a discussion, right? That, wow, this is even plausible. And how close have they gotten? They've gotten to like 60 or 70% of the way to break even. And so it sounds really close. But my point was, yeah, but remember one is break even, right? That's not producing net energy. How much more than that do you have to get before it's cost-effective? I think one, at least if not two orders of magnitude beyond that. First of all, the conversion of the energy is, I think optimistically it'd be like 30% efficient, like the energy to electricity using a turbine. That's like where our fission reactors are. So it'd be, the turbine design is going to be the same, just a different source of the heat, right? So probably going to be about 30% efficient. And so I would think that we would have to be at least be making 10 times more energy than it's consuming before the whole thing is going to be cost-effective. And saying that we're going to increase the energy output by an order of magnitude is huge. That is huge. And there's still lots of these engineering. You know, some people made the point, well, the physics all works. You're right. That's indisputable. The physics works. That's not the issue. The issue is the engineering. The question is, are we going to get the engineering to work? And these are non-trivial issues that need to be solved.

'''B:''' Applied science is a bitch.

'''S:''' It's a bitch. So I think my reading of everything is that, Bob, tell me if you disagree, like the 2035 timeline, that assumes everything goes perfectly well, which it rarely does. And it could easily get pushed back, can get pushed back to 2040, 2050, whatever, depending on how hard it really is to overcome these hurdles. And some of them may be indefinitely. There's so many, like when we're dealing at this level of cutting edge technology, it is more the rule than the exception that like we just don't overcome these engineering problems, you know. Or they take a lot longer than we think. So I still think we're in that phase, but it is certainly possible, I will admit, it is possible if everything goes perfectly well that we could have a working fusion reactor in the mid-2030s. So I hope that that's the case. I'm just-

'''B:''' Working and tied to the grid, you mean.

'''S:''' Yeah, tied to the grid, producing that energy. Producing energy.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' I'm hoping before 2040. That's my-

'''S:''' Even that would be amazing.

'''B:''' 2039 would be nice.

'''S:''' Between 2040. But again, like with Artemis being pushed back, it's the same thing. If it's 2050 or 2060 if I'm still around, I won't be surprised, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised either. Unfortunately, be crying.

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

{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:32:32) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who helped discover the new species while on safari.
|link1web = https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/new-himalayan-snake-named-after-leonardo-dicaprio-whats-so-special-about-it/articleshow/114687281.cms
|link1title = New Himalayan snake named after Leonardo DiCaprio; What's so special about it - Times of India
|link1pub = timesofindia.indiatimes.com

|item2 = A new species of clearwing moth, Carmenta brachyclados, was discovered in a living room in South Wales based on an amateur photograph posted on Instagram and then seen by an amateur lepidopterist.
|link2web = https://nl.pensoft.net/article/130138/
|link2title = A success for community science: Carmenta brachyclados sp. nov. (Lepidoptera, Sesiidae, Synanthedonini), a clearwing moth from Guyana discovered with its hostplant indoors in Wales (United Kingdom)
|link2pub = nl.pensoft.net

|item3 = Myloplus sauron is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings.
|link3web = https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/fish/myloplus-sauron
|link3title = 'Lord Sauron piranha': scientists name new Amazon species after terrifying Lord of the Rings villain - Discover Wildlife
|link3pub = www.discoverwildlife.com

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who helped discover the new species while on safari.

|science1 = A new species of clearwing moth, Carmenta brachyclados, was discovered in a living room in South Wales based on an amateur photograph posted on Instagram and then seen by an amateur lepidopterist.

|science2 = Myloplus sauron is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

|rogue1 = Evan
|answer1 = Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who helped discover the new species while on safari.

|rogue2 = Bob
|answer2 = Myloplus sauron is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = Myloplus sauron is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

|rogue4 = Cara
|answer4 = Anguiculus dicaprioi, or DiCaprio’s Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who helped discover the new species while on safari.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

''Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.''

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake. We have a theme this week. The theme is new species discovered in 2024.

'''E:''' Oh, wait a minute.

'''S:''' I've done this before.

'''E:''' Talked about this.

'''S:''' Yes. All right, here we go. Item number one, Angioculus dicaprioi, or Dicaprio's Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo Dicaprio, who helped discover the new species while on safari. Item number two, a new species of clear wing moth, Carmenta brachioclatos, was discovered in a living room in South Wales based on an amateur photograph posted on Instagram and then seen by an amateur lepidopterist. And item number three, Myloplus sauron, is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings. Evan, go first.

'''E:''' Okay, well, I won't even try to pronounce these things. It's hard enough when you know it, let alone you don't know it. But the Leo Dicaprio's snake, we'll call it, helped discover the new species while on safari. That could be true. I mean, but would you name it for Dicaprio? Helped discover, wouldn't it be someone else? I don't know. That seems a bit out there to me. Second one. Now, there's a clear wing moth discovered in a living room in South Wales. That's Australia, right? Based on an amateur.

'''S:''' New South Wales is Australia. South Wales is just South Wales and England.

'''E:''' Oh, Wales.

'''S:''' South Wales in the UK.

'''E:''' United Kingdom. Got it, okay. Well, we'll just leave it at that because that's correct. And it was based on an amateur photograph posted on Instagram and then seen by an amateur mothologist. So, that could be, seems more plausible than Leonardo Dicaprio's named discovery. The last one here about Sauron. Now, this one, this one's kind of funny in a way, but I also, I think of the three, this is probably the most true. A vegetarian piranha, which is nice to hear. It makes me feel good. And of course, named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings. You know, something that has had the history of the Lord of the Rings, I can definitely see names being taken from that and applied to new discoveries, definitely. The least plausible one of the three to this is the Leonardo Dicaprio one. That sounds made up, now that I think about it. I'll say that one's fiction.

'''S:''' Okay, Bob.

'''B:''' Let's see, I don't know. I could imagine Leonardo making a compelling argument to throw his name in there. I don't have too much of a problem with that one. And I just love the idea of an amateur lepidopterist finding an image on Instagram. I just love that. So I'm gonna go with that one, which leaves Sauron, a vegetarian piranha. It just doesn't, it doesn't sound right. Vegetarian piranha. And then, okay, even if it existed, would you name it after Sauron? I wouldn't. I think of something better than that. So I say that one's fiction.

'''S:''' All right, Jay.

'''J:''' Yeah, I'm gonna go with Bob. That's the one I'm leaning towards. I just don't think there's a vegetarian fricking piranha.

'''S:''' Okay, and Cara.

'''C:''' Can I ask about a hole in my knowledge? Like, who is Sauron?

'''S:''' Yeah, Sauron is the deceiver. He is the dark lord who rules over-

'''E:''' Lord of the Rings power.

'''B:''' Yeah, Lord of the Rings bad guy.

'''S:''' He is the main bad guy of Lord of the Rings.

'''C:''' Okay, so piranha. That kind of makes sense, I guess. Little teeth.

'''B:''' Vegetarian.

'''C:''' Yeah, I know it's vegetarian, but it's a deceiver. Who knows?

'''E:''' Oh, good point, Cara.

'''C:''' Right? I totally buy the species, the moth that was discovered based on a photograph. If you don't use iNaturalist, use it. It's super fun. There are so many, both professionals and amateur scientists and naturalists who use it. So if there's cool wildlife near you, take pictures, upload it. Somebody will help you identify it. It's really cool. I could see that happening. So it's between the other two. And I think I'm gonna go with Evan. And you know what is making my spidey senses tingle the most? Is the word safari. I don't know why it bugs me that it says that Leo helped discover this species on safari. And yes, technically safari is just a wildlife game drive. It's going out and seeing wildlife, whether you're hunting or taking photographs or whatever. But it's Swahili. And when we say safari, we're almost always talking about Africa. I don't think people talk about going on safari in the Himalayas. So I don't know why. That just bugs me. And I'm gonna call that one the fiction.

'''S:''' Okay. All right, so you all agree on the second one. So we'll start there. A new species of clear-winged moth, Carmenta brachyoclatus, was discovered in a living room in South Wales based on an amateur photograph posted on Instagram and then seen by an amateur lepidopterist. You guys all think this one is science. And this one is science. That actually happened. Now this clear-winged moth was an accidental, right? Somehow it's from South America. It found its way into Wales somehow. In this home, people have a lot of plants in their home. So the person saw, that's an interesting insect, took a picture of it, just an amateur nothing, right? Took a picture of it and uploaded it on Instagram and then this was a Daisy T. Cadet who got her name on the paper for doing that. And then this picture was seen by an amateur lepidopterist, so not a professional, but a knowledgeable amateur, a knowledgeable amateur, who said, that's interesting. I don't know what that is. Couldn't identify it. Turns out it's a newly identified species. Now there was actually a population of this clear-winged moth in the person's house. They were like laying eggs in their plants and there were dead ones on the windowsill, so they had lots of specimens. They didn't name this, they didn't present just this picture. They actually went and got physical specimens. But the picture's what led them to it. Yeah, so cool. It's a very interesting sequence of events. Amateur scientists, amateur naturalists actually identifying a new species. Okay, let's go back to number one. Angioculus dicaprioi, or Dicaprio's Himalayan snake, was named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who helped discover the new species while on safari. Evan and Cara, you think this one is the fiction. Bob and Jay, you think this one is science. I will tell you that Dicaprio's Himalayan snake is real and was a new species named in 2024. It's a small brown snake. It was named after Leonardo DiCaprio. It was absolutely, but not because he was on safari and he discovered it.

'''E:''' You got it, Cara.

'''S:''' Yeah, I threw in the safari thing. Because Leonardo DiCaprio is an activist, naturalist, right? He is spending his time and money fighting against climate change and the effect on the environment and species. So it was to honor his naturalist activities.

'''C:''' Oh, interesting.

'''S:''' Yeah, just to honor his work, not because he was part of the discovery itself.

'''E:''' So the safari was the fiction part.

'''S:''' That was the fiction, yeah. Which means that Mylopolis sauron is a new species of vegetarian piranha discovered in Brazil and named after Sauron from Lord of the Rings, is science.

'''B:''' Lame.

'''C:''' It's so funny that you called it a vegetarian.

'''S:''' It's a vegetarian piranha. That's what everything says.

'''C:''' This is a funny word for a fish.

'''E:''' Herbivore?

'''S:''' It eats water-based plants. It is a pacu. And so it was named after Sauron because it has this vertical black stripe behind its eye that looks like the pupil of Sauron's eye. So they named it after Sauron.

'''B:''' Was afraid that might be the case.

'''S:''' Yeah, so just because it just visually reminded them. And it's also kind of a round fish, you know what I mean? Looked at from the side, its profile is fairly circular. Yeah, and because scientists are nerds, so of course they named it after Sauron, right?

'''E:''' Yeah, right, when they leave it to the public, it would have been Chompy McChompface or something.

'''S:''' All right, good job Evan and Cara.

{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:42:12) ==
{{qow
|text = “Hope & curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. The unknown was always so attractive to me...and still is.”
|author = - Hedy Lamarr
|lived =
|desc =
}}
'''S:''' Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' "Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. That's the way I was. The unknown was always so attractive to me, and still is." Hedy Lamarr. Remember Hedy Lamarr?

'''B:''' Yeah. Wi-Fi, baby.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right. Glamorous Hollywood actress, but also a very talented inventor who made significant contributions to science and technology, the frequency hopping spread spectrum technology, specifically. Back in 1942, during World War II, wasn't adopted during the war, but it laid the foundation for modern wireless communications. This became a core technology used eventually in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and cellular networks. So we are still benefiting from her invention, her discovery, and yeah, definitely a, what, a superhero of science.

'''B:''' Yeah. So cool.

'''S:''' Thank you, Evan.

'''E:''' Thank you.

'''S:''' So guys, 2025 is off to a start with our first episode.

'''E:''' There we go, we've got predictions, we've got news, it's all happening.

'''S:''' This year we'll see the completion of our 20th anniversary, our 20th year.

'''J:''' That's correct.

'''E:''' Oh my gosh, we have to buy, what is it, clocks? We have to buy clocks for each other?

'''S:''' Something, we'll see.

'''E:''' Is that the anniversary gift? No, something.

'''S:''' Yeah, I don't know, we have, what's the 20th, you don't want the...

'''E:''' It is China.

'''S:''' China.

'''J:''' We're going to China?

'''E:''' A modern alternative is platinum. We have to get each other platinum. And Bob, a 23rd century anniversary alternative is gold-pressed latinum. So...

'''B:''' Ah, nice.

'''E:''' Threw that out for you, Star Trek folks.

'''B:''' Nice, but...

'''S:''' Gold-pressed latinum it is.

'''B:''' I think that means we need to go to Disney China this year then.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's probably not happening.

'''J:''' Well, happy New Year's everybody.

'''S:''' Yes.

'''C:''' Happy New Year.

'''S:''' Have a great New Year. To all of our listeners out there as well.

== Signoff ==
'''S:''' —and until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.
{{Outro664}}{{top}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1018

2025-10-01T23:50:07Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:11:44) */ corrected side panels for rogues and host

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1018
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1018|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1018.jpg
|caption = "Journey through the depths: a train glides beneath the ocean's surface."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|qowAuthor = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1018|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello, and welcome to the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 8th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody, Cara, Santa Maria. Howdy, Jay Novella. Hey guys, and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening, everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, how you doing out there? I hear your whole world is on fire.

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' What's happening?

'''C:''' Yeah. It's rough in LA today. I think I had a little too much confidence yesterday when I went to sleep. But I live in a part of Lai live in LA proper, the city and the county, in a neighborhood called Eagle Rock, which is northeast LA. It's very, very close to Glendale, Pasadena. There is a raging fire in Altadena, which is just north of Pasadena called the Eaton Fire, named after Eaton. I think Eaton Canyon, which is one of my favorite hikes that I used to go on, probably won't be able to go on it again. That fire is now at 10,600 acres and there are evac orders in place for all of like Altadena, La Kenyatta, Flint Ridge, parts of Glendale and Pasadena and a couple other places, Monrovia. And then there are evac warnings in place. I'd say the closest to me is about a mile away. I'm in a weird position where the perimeter of the area is actually covered in warnings, but there's sort of a beeline straight towards me that are orders. And that's just because the wind is blowing right in my direction right now and has been all day. And then to the southwest of me is the even larger Palisades Fire, which right now is at 15,832 acres. And it's both of these fires, by the way, are 0% controlled. They're just burning uncontrollably right now. And there's a lot of suppression on the ground, but there's not much air suppression right now because the smoke is too thick. So they can't do what usually you would do during a wildfire, which is attack it from the sky. And right now, I have a lot of friends, a lot of people that I know that either have lost everything or are evacuated and just hoping that when they come home, they won't have lost everything. The entire Pacific Palisades is on fire, and so is a fair amount of Topanga. Santa Monica has a lot of evac orders. These are major population centers. You know, these are places where people, hundreds of thousands of structures are probably going to be destroyed. There are also small fires popping up, like the Woodley Fire is 30 acres. They may have actually put that one out. They did. They put that one out. That's good. The Hearst Fire is 700 acres just north in the San Fernando Valley, like Sylmar area area. So if you look at a map of LA right now, and you lived in central LA, you would be surrounded on the northeast and the southwest by two massive infernos. I took a video from my roof and the smoke is everywhere because it's coming from all directions, like outside. Right now I have to wear an N95. The inside of my house smells like a campfire. Yeah, my Dyson air purifiers are working overtime. I had to replace the filter in one of them today because it said it was completely full and there's ash all over the ground and I'm not even in an evac zone. The thing that I think we forget too about Lai forget a lot of times is like the Palisades is like an hour away. Oh, it's really far away because that's how we measure. We measure in LA, we measure by time and traffic, but it's only like 20 miles away, right? You know, it's like LA is big. It's really, really big. But these areas are not that far from each other. A lot of people have been asking me like, is it? How is this happening? It's not fire season. But I think the thing to remember too is that in LA, fire season is different. Yes, technically fire season is spring, summer, fall. But in LA, Santa Ana, wind season is fall, winter, spring. And so historically, in my experience living here, the worst fires that I saw were like October, November. And yes, it's very odd that this is happening in January, but it's warm and it's dry. And the wind, I hate, love that some of the articles were using this language because I think it really sends it home hurricane force winds. That's why this fire is spreading out of control. Yeah, the Santa Ana winds are gusting so hard and so fast.

'''S:''' Well, even though it's late in the year now, you know, it's the new year, but it's late in the season, I should say. The you guys still haven't had rain. So it's still dry.

'''C:''' No. Yeah.

'''S:''' And we don't basically fire season has not ended yet because it ends when it rains and it hasn't rained.

'''C:''' Yeah. And it almost never rains enough here in LA to stay wet enough, you know what I mean? So we, we can I, I like to say fire. Yeah. Fire season is when the Santa Anas are blowing. If the wind is blowing, it's fire season here, unless it's actively raining. But we knew it, right? Like we we all got the warnings and the chatter a couple of days ago, like things are going to look bad. Start to think about this. It could get bad. It could get bad. All the conditions are right. Yeah. I mean, there were no fires yet, but we knew it was going to be red happening very quickly. Yeah, we knew it was going to be red flag warning, right? We're used to that, living in LA, like red flag days. Get ready, you know, don't be stupid. And there were some preemptive power cut offs. A lot of people in LA don't have power right now. I don't know why I have power. I've been very luckily the lights have flickered quite a bit, but I've been really lucky that I've maintained power. But yeah, we knew the conditions were going to be right, but you never know what's going to happen. I went to bed last night and the Eaton fire was 800 acres. So I was like, OK, there's a big fire pretty close to me, but it's, it's, you know, that's not that big. And the Palisades fire was about 3000 acres when I went to bed last night. I woke up this morning and the Eaton fire was about 3000 acres. And I was like, oh God, it tripled overnight. And the Palisades Fire was holding. Then the Palisades Fire went up to 10,000, then the Eaton fire just exploded to 10,000 plus and now the Palisades fire is over 15,000. You just never know. You know, we keep an eye out. I'm, I have my go bag packed, my truck, it ready to go, trying not to use water, trying to maintain because that's the other thing that we have to remember. These are wildfires happening in an urban center and urban water supplies are not built for wildfire suppression. They're just not. We're running out of water. The hydrants can't handle it. We've got people on, on, you know, boil recommendations because they don't have pressure or the water that's coming out isn't safe to drink. So I'm just trying to do what I can not use water, not not clog up the road, stay put until I absolutely know that it's unsafe to stay put anymore. Then I'll get out there in my truck and I'll drive to where I can breathe and I'll camp. You know, I won't take up a hotel room. And I thank goodness I have a big stash of N90 fives, you know, from that other horrible thing that we all went through. Yeah, it's apocalyptic.

'''B:''' Save some of those for the bird flu.

'''C:''' Right, exactly. So yeah, I mean, people who are listening right now can't see it, but I did post on my Insta some videos from my roof and, you know, just some of the air quality. When I woke up this morning, the AQI was 375. I've never seen it that high in my life. Like a bad day in LA is like 8090, maybe 1-10. But that's like unhealthy for sensitive groups, right? Like 8090 is just like, okay, the air quality is bad today. It's pretty smoggy. 375 is like very dangerous. So fun times. Great open to the show, huh?

'''S:''' Well, let's let's pivot to some some good news. Do you guys hear that Bill Nye was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom? I did that was.

'''B:''' Wonderful, we did. We need to send him congratulations from this to you.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's nice to see. You know, the Biden presented it to him for obviously for his because he is a beloved science communicator. Yeah, and environmental and yes, which I of course totally agree with. Yeah. So it's good to see Peep science educators be recognized.

'''J:''' Yeah, for sure. I mean, Bill is out there relentlessly communicating science, teaching people about what reality is. I mean, it's he's one of the very few that have broken through and have a global presence. And we, you know, I couldn't encourage him more to keep going.

'''E:''' He always makes critical thinking a centerpiece of anything he's talking about. He always incorporates it. That's so important.
{{anchor|quickie}}
== Quickie with Steve: Primate Twins (08:26) ==

{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.livescience.com/animals/our-ancient-primate-ancestors-mostly-had-twins-humans-dont-for-a-good-evolutionary-reason
|article_title = Our ancient primate ancestors mostly had twins — humans don't, for a good evolutionary reason | Live Science
|publication = www.livescience.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, well, I'm going to start us off with a quickie. This is an interesting question. So most primates give birth to singletons, right? To one child at a time, not just humans. Most primates do that. There are a few species of primates which tend to give birth to twins, some lemurs, marmosets for example. Now it was believed that since most primates give birth to one child at a time, that that's the rule. And that the, you know, the marmosets and lemurs giving birth of twins or multiple births, that that was the exception that they evolved that after, you know, the common ancestor of primates. It turns out, though, that it may be the opposite, that giving birth to twins was the feature of the primate common ancestor and that most primates independently evolved giving birth to only one child at a time. You might be thinking, how do we know how many children our primate ancestors have had? Right? That's not something that typically fossilizes, right? Unless we happen to catch.

'''C:''' Yeah, like a pregnant.

'''S:''' Yeah. Family, you know, fossilized together, which is not, not typical. We have. We have no idea. How do you guys think they did it? How? Do they do?

'''C:''' No idea.

'''S:''' So they just, they just surveyed, you know, they gathered all the information about extant mammal species, mammal groups, and they can figure out from that how likely it is that the, yeah, the last common ancestor of all primates, whether they likely gave birth to to single or multiple children. So based on that analysis, basically mapping it out, you know, the changes in the in the mammalian line they said, yeah, they the common answers probably gave birth to twins or to multiple births and then different lines within primates later developed only giving single birth. Now what do you think that is with? So therefore, if it evolved multiple times independently, there probably was some evolutionary, some selective pressure for that. So what do you think that is?

'''E:''' Mortality rate?

'''S:''' Yeah, but why? And you could also think about the like, the marmosets and why they might be the exception.

'''C:''' You mean of having fewer?

'''S:''' Well, marmosets still have twins.

'''C:''' Oh, OK.

'''S:''' Most other primates will have a single birth.

'''C:''' But like, I'm sorry, what are you asking about? What The Why?

'''S:''' So why did why did evolving only one giving birth to only one child at a time evolve independently so many times within primates?

'''B:''' Well, resources. Scarce resources. You. Don't want to have to feed two kids. Health of the bearer of the of the mother.

'''S:''' Yeah, Evans closer. So so the idea is this is the thinking because based upon the species that still give birth to multiple kids and those that give both to one, it's basically head size, right? The bigger primates with the bigger heads all give birth to one child at a time. Only the tiny ones still give birth like parmesans give birth to multiple offspring at a time, right.

'''C:''' Because how often when a human has triplets are they able to like you can do a home birth with like that's a hospital emergency.

'''S:''' There's also a huge risk of being premature.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' That's I think the number one cause of premature birth is twins, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, I'm a, I'm a twin and that was a a month premature. So yeah, that tracks.

'''S:''' Well, it's anecdotal, but yeah, statistically, yeah, that's true. It it is statistically true. So that's the idea. Yeah. So primates got bigger. We got big brained. We started giving birth to only one child at a time, even though probably our common ancestor gave birth to twins or multiple offspring. And that still persisted among the smaller primates, some of the smaller primates, because they didn't have the same issue, the same selective pressure of having to squeeze out a huge kid. But I find, well, the thing I found most interesting about that is that they were able to figure out that our common answers are probably typically had twins just from mapping out extant species. You know, All right, Jay, tell us about NASA's plans to return samples from Mars.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Mars Sample Return (12:26) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-overhauls-mars-sample-return-plan-rcna186400
|article_title = NASA overhauls plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth
|publication = www.nbcnews.com
}}

'''J:''' I don't quite remember when we talked about this. It might have been over a year ago, but I do remember us discussing the idea that NASA is right now and has been collecting regolith samples on Mars and they're putting that those samples into tubes for later pickup, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, we did talk about. This.

'''J:''' Yeah. Like, what does that mean? So there was a plan, but it turned out it was too expensive. So NASA announced that they made a significant revision to its Mars Sample return program, which is also called MSR, right, Mars Sample Return. The goal in the revision was simply to reduce costs and to actually make the mission happen sooner. You know, like the original thing was 2040 and they said, you know, we could, we could do it cheaper and we could do it faster. They think that they could do it in the twenty 30s. Now, the original plan was estimated at 11 billion with a projected return date, like I said, somewhere in the twenty 40s. This was eventually considered way too expensive and and much too much time to wait for these samples. So what they did was they went back to the drawing board and came up with a completely different strategy on how to do it. So I think you can't really appreciate this unless you know what the original mission was and and pay attention to how complicated this is. So they had to create a retrieval Lander. That retrieval Lander, and I mean this thing lands on the surface of Mars. It had to be equipped with two small helicopters adopters to go and collect the sealed sample tubes left by Perseverance. Then it needed a robotic arm to load the sample tubes into a rocket on board the Lander. The Lander was also going to carry the Mars ascent vehicle MAV, which launches the samples up into, you know, into orbit around, around the planet. That's a big deal right there. So the revised plan is that they absolutely abandoned the helicopters and the sample retrieval Lander. They're, they're going to focus on 2 alternative approaches for the Lander. So the one is the sky crane, which we, again, we've talked about this on the show before for other missions. So what they would do is they would adapt the landing system similar to the Curiosity and Perseverance Rover missions where a rocket slows down the descent and the sky crane lowers the payload to the surface. So the private sector collaboration here would be that they partner with commercial companies to design and develop a new Lander, potentially using a SpaceX, SpaceX, Starship, or a similar heavy lift vehicle. And then the sample handling would be they want to investigate cleaning the sample tubes on the Martian surface to simplify the return process. I'm not exactly sure what that means. What do you guys think that means?

'''B:''' Well, as opposed to doing it within the the vehicle that's picking it up, right?

'''E:''' For to avoid. Is it a contamination issue?

'''J:''' So they want to clean those tubes because there there's going to be particles and dust and everything on the outside of the tubes and that could contaminate the return capsule or interfere with the analysis that's going to happen later when when it is returned to Earth. So those those tubes actually need to be cleaned. So, so the proposal would be to clean the tubes on the surface of Mars before they're shuttled back to Earth. Now, the power source here, we, they would switch from solar power to nuclear power, which would ensure reliability and resilience against any Martian dust storms, which I didn't realize how significant that was, You know, because the atmosphere on Mars, as Bob likes to say, is unbelievably thin. You know, even a major, major, major like weather event on Mars is it's just there's just not a lot of atmosphere there to push around.

'''B:''' Thousandth the the pressure.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' No, it's a little bit less than 1%. I don't think it's point 1%.

'''J:''' Let's see.

'''B:''' OK, so 100.

'''S:''' It's less than 100, but it's very dry.

'''B:''' Order of magnitude.

'''S:''' But it's very dry and there are dust storms that that engulf the planet. And yeah, every time you get a dust storm in, that completely covers any solar panels.

'''B:''' Yeah, but it's not, it's not going to knock your ship over, preventing you from leaving.

'''S:''' Probably not.

'''B:''' Oh, here we go. The. Martian, the only the major mistake in the entire. Budget.

'''J:''' So to summarize the new plan, they'd have a sky crane that would lower the Lander. They would have instead of the helicopters to retrieve the samples, they would have a a a Lander would be a direct mechanism from a Lander, which seems a lot simpler right, than these two helicopters. I mean, it's cool. It's cool that they'd have helicopters there, but this makes more sense for it to be a vehicle, I guess, unless they're super far away. I guess that's a big consideration. So the original plan was solar powered. Now the new one, we have nuclear power. 11 billion versus 6 to 7 billion. Still sounds like a lot. But you know, saving 4 or $5 billion, it's that's a very nice amount of money to save. The timeline was 20/20/40 with the new one being in the twenty 30s. So I mean, you know, it could be, it could be up to 10 years time saving. You know, even if it was five years, it's still a significant amount of time. And then, you know, there would be a, instead of minimal or no private sector role, there would be a significant role in the Lander development, which is it's always good to farm out, you know, to the private sector. That is the way that things are going at NASA big time. So that's a, that's a priority for them. So I, I think this is exciting. I mean, first of all, to have the nerve to say, we're going to re engineer this, you know, we, we already sussed this thing out and spent an enormous amount of time and energy figuring it out. And it's good to know that they're in a position now where they could say, Nope, we're not doing that. Let's start over again. We could do better. And that's what they did here. It's 2025. I mean, you know, they could be retrieving these samples. You know, five years sounds really short when you think about it, but it could be they could do it in five years, possibly. I would say 10 years on the outside, but that would be amazing. I mean, we get those samples. You know, this is going to be our first real deep investigation of of the regolith on Mars. And man, what, what will they find?

'''E:''' Boy, you know. The the evidence of the former. Life, I know. Life that used to live there, it would be. Incredible. That would be a game changer, right? Sure would.

'''J:''' We live, we live in an exciting time for space travel. We really do. I think it's, it's really cool. I mean, thinking that we're going to have a spacecraft try to fly through, you know, the ejecta from one of Jupiter's moons to see if there's life there, you know, that is so cool.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Thanks, Jay.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Unique Microbiome (18:49) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-01-scientists-unique-microbiome-planet-roof.html
|article_title = Scientists discover a unique microbiome on our planet's roof
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Yeah, Bob, tell us about this unique microbiome.

'''B:''' Surely, researchers have studied in detail for the first time the microbial ecosystems that exist in Mountain Top Glacier fed streams. These microbiomes are not only different than they expected, they're also among Earth's most vulnerable ecosystems in the face of climate change. Really, truly. These two papers were published in Nature and Nature of Microbiology. A lot of this research was led by Tom Batten, Professor in Environmental Science and the head of one of Switzerland's Federal Institutes of Technology called the River Lab, which in turn is part of the Vanishing Glaciers project. Now these researchers decided to look into these ecosystems because these glacier fed streams are obviously very important. Think about it. They're essentially water towers for downstream ecosystems. This includes bringing freshwater to from what I read, billions of people. That's crazy. Billions of people benefit from this water, but it also acts as a buffer during a seasonal variations, right? Because if you if you're experiencing dry seasons, then this could help buffer, you know, buffer that water availability by still, you know, having them exist. I mean, they're critically important not only for water consumption, but also there's agriculture, hydropower, fisheries, etcetera, etcetera. Glacier fed streams also play important roles in carbon cycling and nutrient cycling and more. So yeah, these are really critically important and they're also probably the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet. Think about it. You've got this. You've got this freshwater coming from glaciers that so it's near freezing. They also have very low nutrient concentrations. And in addition to that, there's also no sunlight during the winter. And even when the summer comes around and they're they're the light will make a reappearance or be more, you know. Or be stronger. There's also strong UV rays, so good luck eking out in existence in one of these. And that's why it's, it's probably when they say it's in one of the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet, but nobody had seriously looked at the microbial life that was part of that water. You may be thinking of bacteria and you'd be right. But there's they've also found bacterial biofilms, Archaea, fungi, algae and viruses. So it's just chock full of these microbes, these, these important microbes and fascinating and complex. They spent five years going to 170 different separate glacier fed streams to collect and analyze these samples. They focused, it seems a lot on the abundant biofilms because they're just the most prevalent a form of life there that you that they that they could focus on. But so they focus on them to A to a certain extent more than the others. But they found when they look closely at everything, they found unique microbiomes unlike anything that that that's been seen in other of these so-called cryosphere systems. A cryosphere. I love that word. It's part of the earth that that are frozen, right? Snow, ice sheets, icebergs, permafrost, it's all over the planet. And and these specific microbiomes are different than all of the other ones they found. Typically almost half of the bacteria that they analyze were specific to just the the one mountain range that they were on, or in some cases it was unique to that particular glacier fed stream just not found anywhere else on the planet. Most interesting, though, that I found was that these these microbes had a high degree of adaptability. Researcher Greg Mcchoud said it's fascinating to see the broad range of adaptive strategies that microorganisms have developed to survive in this extreme environment. So these organisms are best described, it seems, as metabolic generalists. They could metabolize organic carbon, solar energy, minerals, and possibly they think even gases. And all that's quite extraordinary, Jay. That would be like you living off of not only meatballs, but you could also photosynthesize like plants and you could also eat methane or hydrogen gas. And if you're still hungry, you go in the backyard and eat some rocks. That's kind of like what, what they can do. And of course, the level, this level of adaptability is important. This is especially important if you live where they live in, in, in such an ecosystem that's that's so sparsely filled with, with things that they can use or there's lots of different things that they could use, but they had to evolve to, to take advantage of all the different types of sparse nutrition that was actually available to them. So incredible. Now the the very sad angle to this interesting discovery, of course, is that glacier shrinkage from climate change is putting these unique microbiomes at incredible risk, Professor Batten said, having spent the past few years. Traveling across the Earth's mountaintops, I can say we're clearly losing a unique microbiome as glaciers shrink. Let's get so mad at this stuff. The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers Preservation, and this is obviously critically important for these scientists because saving glaciers not only saves all their. Innumerable downstream, downstream benefits that I listed, but also of course, saving these these priceless biomes. Batten has also called for a biobank to be created to protect these and other microbiomes in danger. So even if we lose them in the natural world, to be honest, to me seems almost inevitable at this point. I'm just throwing that down. At least future scientists will be able to see what their genomes were like, and who knows what they might be able to do using the biotechnology of the future. I really hope we don't lose these and, and, and the other impacts the other, the other benefits that we have from them, like, you know, like drinking water for billions of people. I mean that also, I can't even imagine what would happen if these glaciers went so, you know, disappeared to such a degree that these these streams were no longer being fed primarily, you know, by them. That's not the only place they get water. But I mean it would be pretty bad I would guess.

'''S:''' Bob how genetically unique are they? They have a lot of unique abilities, but are they? Do they fit within known groups?

'''B:''' Half of them, the other half that they found were they described as more cosmopolitan. So you would find them in a lot of different in, you know, on different places over the earth. But these these were these mountaintops. So where they they, they compared them to islands, you know, these are kind of like isolated. And so you can get some unusual, you know, unusual genomes that never evolved anywhere else. And so a good a good chunk of that was stuff that is only found on that, like I said, only on that mountain range or even specifically in the the glacier fed St. that they founded.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Transatlantic Tunnel (25:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.drivingeco.com/en/nyc-londres-48-minutos-podria-ser-posible-gracias-tunel-transatlantico-e20-trillones-segun-elon-musk/#google_vignette
|article_title = NYC - London in 48 minutes could be possible thanks to a €20 trillion transatlantic tunnel according to Elon Musk
|publication = www.drivingeco.com
}}

'''S:''' It OK, Evan, are we going to build a tunnel from New York to London?

'''E:''' What a great question. And a lot of factors go into that equation, perhaps 20 trillion of them. How could you even do that? I mean, let's let's put cost aside. Let's put we'll get to cost. How could you even do that? Do you remember we talked years ago about point to point rocket travel? Yeah, which could potentially allow for suborbital flights between, you know, like Los Angeles to Sydney, right? Fat much faster than than airplanes.

'''B:''' Do you remember the rocket? I would specifically remember the rocket that they were, that they were thinking of using for that point to point. And it was, I remember it was a beautiful rocket. I forget the, I forget the name of it, but it was. That would have been so cool. Can you imagine? Yeah.

'''E:''' I could have sworn it was Elon and SpaceX that were designing something like that. I have no idea what happened to it though. I did. There doesn't seem to be much news about that lately. It was this is almost 10 years ago that they started talking about that. Maybe there's still.

'''B:''' More than that dude I I literally remember this being discussed probably in the late 1990s when it when I first heard about it. This is before the. Concept. Itself. Yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, because NASA wasn't going to do that. It would have had to have been a private company that would have gone ahead and and built something like that. However, the news is not about how to get, you know, from from there in a rocket, but rather getting from New York to London, travelling below the Atlantic Ocean in, in the form of a tunnel. Oh my gosh, now you, you remember the Chunnel, you know, the, the, when that, when that first opened in what, 1994 I think it was.

'''B:''' Have gone through. It and that was cool.

'''E:''' That was like the engineering masterpiece, you know, of, of, of the 1990s, perhaps I mean this, but a, but a tunnel from say New York to London that, that would make the Chunnel look like a high school science project by by comparison. Here's what you would have to do if you were to, if this project were to happen. You, you would use trains and they would be what, the magnetic levitation trains, the maglevs and they would be built or they would, they would travel within these vacuum tubes, right? Reaching speeds of up to 5000 mph. And at that pace you could get from New York to London or back if it were London to New York in less than an hour, just under an hour, which would be freaking just incredible to think about. I guess if you're going to dream, you dream big, right? 3 miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean was probably what what they're thinking about where this would have to have to be built somewhere. Perhaps speculating you could do it on the ocean surface, but more of what I've read said now this would have to be submerged in that vacuum sealed environment. The magnetic levitation system reduces friction, maximizes energy efficiency for the trains as they cloud travel within this closed system.

'''B:''' Now, are we talking beneath the sea floor or suspended within the ocean?

'''E:''' Well, three at depths of up to three miles it would be where parts of it would would lie. So I mean that is the sea floor, right for for a good chunk of the Atlantic I believe is the is 3 miles. I can't imagine there being too much variation in the elevation. You wouldn't necessarily want to be going up and down. You'd probably want to go pretty straight for as long long as you possibly could except for heading on down and heading heading on back up to the surface. Yeah. So the cost right 20 trillion would is the estimated price tag for this and you know that's just the estimated price tag. I mean how many times do projects right go over budget? They always easily ways go. Over over 50 trillion 50. Trillion, I said, sure, Remember the Big Dig in Boston? That was, I mean, that alone, that was, yeah, it's a $4 billion project. Three years later, oh, it's $8 billion. Four years later, $16 billion. That thing kept doubling and doubling until it was like, oh gosh. In fact, they had they spent so much money on it, they had to sort of not really have an opening ceremony for they couldn't afford it. Because they.

'''B:''' Oh my God.

'''E:''' To build it where would you get these materials capable with standing that that level of severe ocean pressure I mean you, you would have. To come up with. Right. I mean just and you know, and you're building it in the face of seismic activity as well. You know, I mean, we're not it's not a static sure, you know, structural failures, the natural disasters, the earthquakes and how would and the maintenance on from this thing, the heat that it would generate it, they said it these hypersonic speeds would generate so much heat. You would have to have advanced systems that don't even exist yet to dissipate that.

'''B:''' Heat, well heat from what though? Because it there's no friction if because it's an evacuated tube partial vacuum. So the heat, apparently the engines.

'''E:''' The speed they're just from what I read is just the speed of the trains themselves generate the heat even though even without the friction. So the pressure of the environment magnetic field is. Yeah, it could be. I didn't read, I didn't read that deeply into it. But they said that they they said there's a heat problem with this. And that would and you would have to perhaps invent some new technology on how to deal with with that alone. So you're not only dealing with a project that is so immense in scale, but you're talking about having to introduce new technologies that have not even been invented yet. So that which makes this an even more massive project and what is this? And then what the environmental impact on this? What will this do to, to to sea life? How do how do you know, how, how could you, how could you forecast that the damage that that it would that would take? And then the and then, of course, the big fact, what's the environment? What's the economic viability of something like this? You know, it takes, I looked it up your bridge, you know, like a bridge built in New York or wherever, you know, Baltimore or Tampa, wherever it takes decades to recoup the cost of building that one bridge, right? Which in some cases what like a half mile or 3/4 of a mile or something like that. So how, how long before the companies or the government's combined would invest in this thing would be before they saw their money back? That could be hundreds of years, hundreds of years. And who, how could you, how could you, how could companies exist with that sort of return on investment time?

'''S:''' Countries would have to do it.

'''E:''' It would be, it would have to be, it would have to become a real cooperation of of all the major countries on the on the planet to do this. But one benefit so many obstacles.

'''B:''' There'd be definitely would be some benefits though in new technology, new new patents, new ideas that then you could then apply to other things and make money. So that definitely would walk away with some interesting data to apply an industries potentially even to apply. Elsewhere, but still yet 50. $40 trillion, whatever they end up spending. Spending is kind of, yeah, it's ridiculous. Who? I mean, who could risk that?

'''E:''' It's all it's all theory obviously now and just for discussion. It has been making rounds in the news lately. It made also a couple weeks ago it popped up, but lately it's been rediscussed. I don't know what the, what the convention happening, the what is it the technology convention that happens every January. I don't know if that's part of this sort of looking into, into this again or it why it's coming up, why it's coming up in the news again now. But I, you know, I sort of it's interesting to think about. I, I, I see this as pure science fiction, though, for the most part, really. And, and think about it, even if it, if you were to undertake this, it would take so long, probably maybe a century or more to, to actually build what other technology will come, would, would otherwise come along in the century that would perhaps mitigate that. Like you could perhaps go back to the right the Rocketeer Hypersonic.

'''B:''' Airlines. 1st. Of all would be the far, far cheaper and we're we're approaching closer to that possibility every day that money could could accelerate that whole process greatly right there. I mean, jeez, because they've got great designs now. For, for, for. Supersonic planes that don't produce the the crazy Sonic booms that that limit their, their viability over, you know, going over land. I mean that seems like a no brainer to just put the money in. Far less money into that.

'''S:''' I'm going to predict this is never going to happen.

'''E:''' I would agree. I think I'll put my nickel down.

'''S:''' The the risks, the expense are not going to be worth it. And I just by the time we even just started this project, we could be having supersonic jets flying back and forth, right. The advantage and that's not the advantage.

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah. That's. And that's not to say there aren't other tunnel. There are other tunnel projects that are in the works in Europe and other and other places. They are very expensive and they are going to use this technology, the magnetic levitation system technology to do it. But you know, I mean, we're just talking about, you know, maybe 10 miles as opposed to, you know, but there are already maglev trains. Ocean. Yeah, there are. Yeah. China What? How fast did that one in China go? It says here two, 623 mph. That was the record speed achieved last year with it's T flight system.

'''S:''' I don't think that's it's operating speed, but yeah, that's.

'''E:''' And there's another one called the European Hyperloop Hub, which completed a test in 2024 and apparently it achieved some very fast speeds as well.

'''S:''' So, yeah, yeah, the operating, like the top operating speed I think is 268 mph from what I'm reading, for the Shanghai Mag wave. That's what we're talking about, which is fast for a train. And it's great for that kind of medium city to medium, city to city travel. You know, we're not far enough to need a plane, but still far. But getting back to the Chunnel, remember the point of the Chunnel was that you could drive from mainland Europe to to Great Britain and back, right? There's no point in taking taking a train again. You could be taking a plane to go across, right?

'''E:''' No one's going.

'''S:''' I don't think anyone's going to be driving their car from New York to London.

'''E:''' Not, not on any regular basis or for anything other than publicity. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' So this is a 22nd century technology.

'''E:''' Yeah, maybe in feasibility zero, I would say. Yep.

'''S:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Mint Mobile.

'''J:''' Guys, now that it's 2025 you should consider saving money after the holidays. One way you could save real money is lowering your wireless bill. So switching to Mint Mobile. I bet you it's the easiest way to save this year. It's the first company to sell premium wireless services online only, and Mint Mobile lets you maximize your savings with plans starting at $15.00 a month when you purchase a three month plan.

'''B:''' All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

'''E:''' To get this new customer offer and your new three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/SGU. That's mintmobile.com/SGU. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/SGU $45.00 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on 1st 3 month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions alley. See Mint Mobile for details.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Alcohol Advisory (37:04) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/surgeon-general-alcohol-warning/
|article_title = Surgeon General Alcohol Warning | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, guys, did you hear about the Surgeon General's new advisory on alcohol?

'''B:''' I did, and I did as well. I didn't even realize that that that cancer from alcohol was that much of a thing.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it's it's interesting. So to to to the quick story is that the surgeon general? Anybody you guys know his name?

'''B:''' Oh no. Doctor. Doctor something? Yeah.

'''S:''' She would see Evec Murthy, Yvec Murthy. It's the current surgeon general. Yeah, a little updated there. Released a new advisory warning between warning about the links between alcohol use and cancer. So this is just an advisory. This is. And there are policy recommendations in here, but it doesn't have any legislative power. Of course, that would require Congress to actually pass laws, but they're advising a few things. One is that warning labels on alcohol be updated to reflect the the latest data on the risk of alcohol to certain types of cancer. And that, you know, we try to educate the public about these risks. Most people don't really know. And also just specifically to lower the recommended amounts of what is considered safe alcohol. So right now the standard sort of public health recommendation is for moderate alcohol use is no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men just based upon the evidence. And but they're saying that even at that level, even at that level, there's a significant increased risk of of certain cancers and therefore that we probably should be lowering that level of what is considered the recommended safe amounts of alcohol to drink. So let me throw some stats at you. So it is estimated that alcohol use causes is responsible for in excess 100,000 cases of cancer per year in the United States, leading 200,000 leading to 20,000 excess cancer deaths. That is greater than the 13,500 alcohol associated traffic crash fatalities per year.

'''E:''' So it's oh, oh, if you, oh, you got, you would have gotten me on a science action with that one, probably. I would have been a good one.

'''S:''' Yeah. So, you know, we had a huge campaign to limit no drinking while driving and yet there'd be a problem. But of course, this is it's the 13,500 now, you know, after we successfully sort of reduced those numbers, but still deaths from cancer is a bigger problem. I did liken this to the, you know, what year, what year the US Surgeon General released our first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use.

'''E:''' The first year, probably it must have been 1965, close 6464.

'''S:''' And what do you think this do you have? What percentage of Americans smoked in 1964 Adults 70. This is just all man. They didn't say adults. The stats I'm looking at.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''S:''' But I don't know if I don't know if they count babies, but probably not 70.

'''E:''' Percent, 30 percent, 50%.

'''S:''' 42 percent. Oh, Can you imagine?

'''E:''' I terrible there was everywhere. Did I tell you? I don't know if I said this on a show or not. I mean, you know, my father was a smoker most of his life. 2 packs a day. I mean, to the point where not only was there ashtrays kind of everywhere in the house that was normal in the 70s, but he had a musical box, a dispenser, a cigarette dispenser. You'd press a button, a tune would play and the and a like a bear would hand you a cigarette. Like like almost like a cuckoo. Clock. Kind of. Oh my God. Like, like that was the culture. That was the smoking culture.

'''S:''' It was all like, like, yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that, that there was a smoking culture. Basically, it was it was accepted. It was a baked in. Now the numbers down to what? What do you think is the percentage of Americans who smoke less than 10?

'''E:''' 15%.

'''S:''' 1111.5.

'''E:''' That's great, guys.

'''S:''' From 42% to 11.5%, that is great. So the question is, is are we seeing the of course that took decades, you know, to bring that about and it did require a cultural shift which took place over time. I remember the whole second hand smoke thing that that took us, that was a huge amount of pressure on, you know, banning smoking in public places, etcetera. So anyway, you know, are we are we good to see the similar kind of cultural shift. A lot of people are skeptical about that. I mean, drinking is so baked into American culture. That's not going to be an easy change. But it this could this could have an effect, you know, just raising public awareness. So a a recent a Gallup poll found that only 45% of of people surveyed said that one to two drinks per day is bad for one's health. 43% have made no difference. 8% actually said it was good for your health. These numbers are are improved from 2016 where they were 26% said it was bad, 51% said neutral, 19 percent said good. That's a pretty rapid shift over the last 8-9 years, but well.

'''B:''' For years, Steve, weren't they saying like a drink or two a day is actually beneficial? I mean, I remember hearing that for a year.

'''S:''' Glass of wine good for your heart, those kinds of things Yeah, that data has been largely well it's it's it's not clear you know if there is and there's like there's the red wine thing, but there's also like just small amounts of alcohol may lower your cholesterol.

'''E:''' But right there it's the recent stuff I've been reading say there are new 0 benefits to alcohol zero that has not held up.

'''S:''' The part of the problem was the part of the problem was very interesting aside. Like if you ask people do you drink or not and and how much do you drink? You have the teetotalers who don't drink at all and they have a slightly higher like death rate than people who drink a little bit. So it's like, oh, people who drinking a little bit is protective. But you know what they found that the the non drinking group included ex drinkers who already wrecks their health by by basically ex Alcoholics. If you remove them, the alleged benefits of drinking alcohol goes away. So anyway, this is it's very hard to answer these questions because you can't do the experiment, right? You cannot do an experiment where you force people to drink a certain amount or not to drink or whatever. Same thing with like eating salt or with, you know, smoking or whatever. You just can't do that kind of experiment. So we have to do observational studies, which are correlational. They can't establish in and of themselves Causeway and effect. And there's a lot of confounding factors. And so it takes years, decades to kind of build a case for this sort of thing and it's often disputed for a long period of time, etcetera, etcetera. But where we are now is that it's pretty clear that there is a linear relationship. You know, whereas the more you drink, the higher your risk for certain kinds of cancers. Let's see, those include breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, mouth, pharynx and larynx. So some of those make kind of make sense. You know, the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, that's where the alcohol goes. We know alcohol has a negative effects on the liver. The question is like, how big is that risk and when does it kick in? Right. And that's where there, you know, again, because this is all observational data, you can sort of argue about the exact number. But the surgeon general is basing this new recommendations on systematic reviews of the literature showing that, yeah, we could say now there's there's a there is a significant increase alcohol risk, even in cancer risk, even with these moderate levels of alcohol goes the the lower the risk, the harder it is to prove right. The the harder it is to statistically establish it. The greater the risk, the easier it is to establish. It's always like, yeah, it's very clear at the high end. It gets increasingly muddy as you go to more and more moderate levels of alcohol. And then it's which which has to be the case. It doesn't mean that the effects are less real, it just means that they're harder to to document statistically because they're smaller, you need bigger numbers, etcetera.

'''E:''' Right?

'''S:''' They estimate in the release they estimated that alcohol causes 3.5% of all cancers, which is interesting, so not insignificant.

'''E:''' .5% yeah. That's not insignificant.

'''S:''' So also, how many premature deaths per year do you think there are from all causes from alcohol in the US?

'''E:''' Like the number, the number of premature, the.

'''S:''' Number of people who died prematurely died before their and and alcohol was a significant contrib contributing factor to their death.

'''J:''' I mean I was a percentage or number as a part number. Number. Oh my God, I mean United States above, above a million.

'''S:''' No, not in. The US, it's 178,000 premature deaths per year, which is huge. That's a huge. Huge. Worldwide, the figure is estimated to be 2.6 million or 5% of deaths, which is a lot. The average reduction in lifespan is 24 years. So people who die early from alcohol lose 24 years of life on average. That's a lot like smoking. It is smoking does to people. And now the causes include cancer, as we said, direct alcohol poisoning, car accidents, heart failure and liver damage. But also, it's estimated that 40% of violent crimes in the US are committed while under the influence of alcohol and 48% of homicides are committed while under the influence.

'''E:''' I mean, the negative basket fills up so much faster than anything in the positive. Not even close.

'''S:''' I mean, it's it's worse than all other recreational drugs combined. Even at the peak of the opioid epidemic, it was much less than than that related like the GS.

'''E:''' But, you know, I mean, the government has experimented before with trying to to ban it on illegal. Yeah.

'''S:''' So no one's no one's calling for prohibition to come back, right. I mean, that that obviously was a failed social experiment. It's not going to work. And just as a public health measure, those kind of things generally don't work. But just like, so we need more money labels. So we just quit smoking. We didn't really ban smoking. We just said, OK, well, you can't advertise to kids and you know, you, you, and then we're going to ban it in places where people would be forced to be exposed to second second hand smoke, etcetera. So, you know, we, we can't think about way like even if it's just informational at first, think about ways to start to shift the culture a little bit, just making people aware. It's like, yeah, you know, having one to two drinks a day is not safe, you know? And you, you could factor that into your decision making about your habits in terms of how much you're drinking.

'''E:''' Remember synthol. Yeah, Synthol.

'''B:''' Just thinking about that.

'''E:''' Does alcohol work the same way that sort of cigarettes work in which it changes brain chemistry and like is feeds the addiction in the same It's the same absolutely addictive.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, it's not addictive in the same mechanism as tobacco as nicotine is, but it is it is addictive like, you know, cocaine and opiates are addictive.

'''E:''' Can it be tweaked so that the addictive nature of it is taken away and you have a different product or is that it goes with the territory?

'''S:''' It kind of goes with the territory, you know, they so I guess that's the whole thing. The mind altering aspect of it is, is is is why people do it. It's well, there's it's psychologically addictive, behaviorally addictive, but also it is, you know, chemically addictive and you know that I don't know if it would be possible to make an addiction a non addictive alcohol. I doubt. I don't even know if that's possible, you know, just in terms of, you know, just biologically, but I've never even heard anybody been attempting to do that. What we do have are drugs that make that combine with alcohol to make you feel sick so that you won't drink.

'''E:''' How effective is that, Steve?

'''S:''' It's very effective. You know, imagine if you took a drink and you can violently nauseated.

'''E:''' It sounds like A Clockwork Orange almost without the ultra violence thing.

'''B:''' It sounds like a great idea because you all you need is willpower for three seconds. To take that drug and then bam.

'''S:''' Well, they could also give you long acting versions as well. So this Antabuse is the name of the is the brand name of the of the drug. They're not saying not to not to have occasional alcohol, you know, but just think about the overall, it's of the two risky behaviors seem to be like regular daily alcohol use and binge drinking, you know, seem to be relatively equivalent. Yeah, just moderate your alcohol use. It's it's like a, it's an A totally preventable cause of cancer and premature death, which is of course, you know what, where, where public health campaigns focus their efforts right on the totally preventable stuff. But it is, it is remarkably hard to change people's behavior. It does take a cultural shift. You know, just putting out like PSA's doesn't cut it doesn't have much of an effect. Although having said that, even small effects can have huge absolute magnitude of of effects, right? In other words, even if it's like, oh, we reduced it by 5%, that doesn't sound like a lot. That's still a lot of people, right? It's a lot of hospitalizations that it let's a lot of morbidity, we're avoiding a lot of premature deaths, a lot of healthcare costs, etcetera, etcetera, societal costs in absolute numbers. So, you know, we take what we can get. But yeah, it's really hard. It's hard to change people.

'''E:''' Tough one with alcohol. Yeah, yeah. More warning labels, though. I'm all in favor of that.

'''S:''' But again, we did it with tobacco to a huge extent. You know, 42% to 11.5% is huge. That's a huge. Change, yeah.

'''B:''' But imagine if we use the extreme labeling requirements that that other countries use with cigarettes. I mean, like, just like showing like, you know, cancerous lungs, you know, on the label really, you can't make them. You can't make cute packaging for that for them in many countries.

'''S:''' The thing is though, that's the so-called scared straight approach, right? It doesn't, doesn't really doesn't, doesn't really work and no.

'''B:''' That doesn't work. It's all about. It's all about your peers.

'''S:''' It's about your peers, about the culture. Again, you got to change the culture, change the culture. And, and also just like there, there are limited bands, right? There are bands in certain places and it just becomes culturally unacceptable like you'd like. And the beginning of my career, you could smoke in the hospital. It was disgusting. You think about that and now like you just can't do it. Like there is no, I know there's zero smoking in the hospital. Desire was a cultural change, you know, in the in the early 90s, we would still defer to a patient, you know, And now it's like, Nope, it's just not done.

'''E:''' So because it's a good movie. I love this movie. It's called the Serious Man. It's one of the Coen brothers movies. It's one of their less well known movies. But the opening scene, the guy's in the doctor's office going through a it's 1969 and he's in a doctor's office 1969. He's going through a physical exam. And then, you know, going, getting, you know, pressed and looking in his eyes and his ears. And then they're sitting at, he's at the doctor's at the desk and the patient's the other side of the desk and they're talking to talk about, they're about to talk about what the doctors found. And the doctor lights up a cigarette and then offers the patient a cigarette. It's like, oh, my gosh, that really happened in the 1960s. That's crazy.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely.

'''E:''' Your doctor offered you a cigarette? I mean, it was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

'''S:''' Yeah. That's all part of the the cultural shift that took place.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (52:24) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''J:''' You don't hear that everyday.

'''E:''' Can I guess?

'''J:''' Sure.

'''E:''' Jiffy Pop popcorn.

'''J:''' Yeah, somebody guessed Jiffy Pop. Did you guys ever?

'''E:''' I never made it did. Did you ever have an experience making Jiffy Pop popcorn?

'''J:''' Yeah, we did it.

'''E:''' Did it work? It always seemed like the kind of in. The stove, yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, it works.

'''E:''' It did work OK because I always felt it was like a bit scammy, like OK it's going to pop 51% of the kernels or something.

'''J:''' No, I mean, it's not, it's fine and it didn't taste horrible, but it was bite. You could just make homemade popcorn that blows away any of those pre bag.

'''E:''' Yeah. The air, once the air blowers I guess, became the way to go, that that was the end of the Jiffy Pop era.

'''J:''' And another way to do it too, which is if you take coconut oil and you do it in a pot on the stove, it has the best freaking flavor. Anyway, so a listener named William Steele wrote in said, hi Jay, this episode's noisy sounds a lot like when I would go looking for shells under the waves at the beach. I I'll guess this is an underwater recording of shells churning under the waves. I thought that was a really awesome guess. I could even hear what he was saying about that. That's not correct, but thank you for sending that in. Marsh Wildman took a guess. He said, hi, Jay, listening to the January 4th. Who's that noisy? The bulk of it sounds like a wee fax, which is a weather fax radio transmission, but there are some other unfamiliar artifacts mixed in. Not sure what those may be, but I still think that this is a digital radio transmission of some sort that is incorrect. Thank you for that guess. Michael Stoiciu. This guy's name is STOICESCU. Good luck. Anybody pronouncing that guy's last name Stois Stoicisu Scu? I don't know.

'''E:''' Stoicescu.

'''J:''' So CESCU, Michael Stoicescu. OK, so this Michael guest is ice skating on the smooth, thin, clear ice of a lake. I hear some of that in there as well, but that is not correct. Kathy Taylor Guest Is it a rain stick? It is not a rain stick, but there is a rain stick sound in there.

'''E:''' Tinkling of a rain stick.

'''J:''' And Matthew Morrison, guest, he says, hey Jay, my daughter Neb thinks that it sounds like a pot of water that's boiling. I'm going to say it sounds like a big fifty cup coffee maker percolating. Not bad guesses, guys. Unfortunately, there was no winner. Nobody guessed it. Yeah. So let's go back and listen to it real quick after I tell you what it is. But this is a this is a cool one, guys. This is the sound that wood makes when it's burning on the inside. So this is the sound of what's happening inside the wood, not the sound of fire, the sound of what's happening in inside the wood. Now what is actually happening is the heat is making the wood go from a solid to a gas. And that gas is expanding the wood, right? That's why you hear like those pops and crackling noises. Yeah, the wood is fracturing. It's funny because, you know, we think, you know, that's that's the fire. But that is not the sound of the fire. That is the sound of the wood actually gassing and cracking open.

'''E:''' Yeah, the crackling I think is, I always thought, yeah, that was like gas being released.

'''J:''' I guess all of it is the sound of fire, but it isn't like the actual flames itself. So here it is again. Like that's so cool.

'''E:''' A fireproof microphone. They shoved it in there and.

'''J:''' They did. They had a, They had a microphone inside the wood. It was inserted into it.

'''E:''' Crazy.

'''J:''' I have a new noisy for you guys this week that was sent in by a listener named Michael Habitschitz HAPICHT. How is Michael? His last name is a sneeze. How is it? So anyway, Michael, I'm sorry. Everyone that listens to the show just has to, you know, everyone has to uniformly understand that you give me some crazy ass foreign last name when I can't pronounce it. Sorry.

'''E:''' Everyone change your name to Smith.

'''J:''' All right, guys, and here's the noisy. Here it is again. Oh my gosh, lots of weird things going on in there. That's not an easy one, I'll tell you that much. Not an easy noisy at all. But if you think you know what it is or if you heard something cool, you can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, the number one way that people who listen to this show can help support the show is by becoming a patron of the Skeptics Guide. You can go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. We have different levels to our our patronage, all of which will gain access to premium content. At the $8 level, you'll get the ad free show and there are other things in there that are offered to people at that level and higher. So please take a look. It really does help us produce the show. It helps us keep the doors open. And, you know, in a world where things seem like they're going off the Cliff. Not speaking about specifics, but if you if you feel like rational thinking is important, Steve, what should people do?

'''S:''' They should become patrons.

'''J:''' You are so energetic, Steve. It blows my mind. So there's a few more things guys. You could join our mailing list. Every week we send out an e-mail to our listeners telling them about all the things that the SGU did the previous week. You can go to theskepticsguide.org. There's a link on there to join our mailing list. You could also give our show a rating. Ratings actually are very valuable because they it helps new people find our program. Please do that if you have a minute you could go to you know, Apple I think still has ratings. There are rating list out there. Just please pick one and and give us a rating. We have a wonderful conference coming up for 2025. This is called Nauticon. It's Nauticon 2025 and we are doing something really awesome at this conference. We are going to have a Beatles sing along on Saturday night. Last time we did Nauticon, we had an 80s sing along and it was widely loved by almost if not every single person in the hotel, not even at the conference because everybody heard that. Yeah. So please think about joining us this year. We have an awesome program for you. We have a bunch of new bits that were not presented last time that they are new for the 2025 conference. The conference starts on the 15th. There will be a VIP on the 15th. We also have the board game happening on the 15th. I believe that those are both sold out, but there are still a lot of people that will be coming to the hotel that night to hang out and socialize. And let me remind you that this this conference is about socializing. There will be a lot of opportunity to socialize with other people that are at the conference. We'll also be doing Boomer versus Zoomer, which is our game show. George, Rob, Andrea Jones, Roy and Brian Weck will all be joining the SDU crew for the entire conference and we think that this one is going to be so much fun. So please do come guys. It's going to be a ton of fun. You could go to notaconcon.com. Evan, I'm going to repeat that for you just to make sure you got it. Thank you. That's not a con con.com right? Con. Con com.

'''S:''' You could also go to the skepticsguideorg and find a link on there as well. Well everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Quince.

'''E:''' With a new year comes a chance to reimagine ourselves for the better and importantly, our closets. This year, I'm resolving to refresh my look with quality pieces and stay on budget. And I can thanks to Quince.

'''J:''' Yeah, for the holidays this year I got my wife the Quince ribbed cashmere sweater and she absolutely loved it. She gave me their down puffer hoodie jacket. It fits me perfectly. And we have this Arctic freeze thing happening in New England here, and it's absolutely the warmest.

'''B:''' Coat I've ever had upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to quince.com/SDU for a 300 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's QINC ECOM, SGU to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince scom SGU.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:01:17) ==


'''S:''' All right guys, we're going to do a couple of emails. First one comes from Joshua Banta from Tyler, TX and he writes I have a basic question. If we already know bird flu is so dangerous and that it only takes one mutation to begin to spread person to person, then what are we waiting for? Why not sequence the dominant strains in livestock and spin up mRNA vaccines or old fashioned egg based vaccines and start a mass vaccination program? Sure, the vaccine may not be an exact match for the strains that does lead to humans, but it should be close. Heck, the COVID vaccines we receive are never an exact match for the strains that are circulating. They're always mutating and therefore are always different, even ever so slightly from the vaccine targets at a point in time. So why not head off this bird flu threat and nip it in the bud with vaccines? Thanks for all the great work. Best wishes for 2025. That's a fair question, Joshua. What do you guys that have any immediate thoughts about money?

'''E:''' Money.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a bit. One thing is cost. It would cost a lot of money to to roll out a vaccine to first of all, develop an HH5N1 vaccine, even from the mass producer, which we're not doing right now. There isn't 1 rolled out. We do have like a national stockpile of vaccines, not enough to go around. That would be just for people at high risk of exposure, right? Hospital workers, farm workers, whatever, wherever the spillovers are happening, whoever's going to be at high risk of contracting it, that's what the vaccines are for. But even now what they're they're doing is they're using other methods, right? So it's a, it's not just should be vaccinated or not, it's like, what are the methods we have of limiting exposure, limiting infections? And of all the options, what are the best ones? So a mass vaccination program right now isn't cost effective. It's not really necessary. So the other thing is why do it prematurely when that would that means it's not, it's not that it's not an exact match would be a worse match. And right. So the, and the effectiveness is pretty much related to how close the match is. So, and even with, you know, the regular annual flu vaccine, if we're a little bit off, you know, on, on predicting the strain, the effectiveness could be 2030%. You know this that's.

'''B:''' What I suspected.

'''S:''' You right, imagine if we if we roll out of this mass vaccination program and it's 5% effective or whatever that's, you know, it's just not it's not effective, it's not an effective method. There is a a related question of why aren't we vaccinating birds, you know, chickens, turkeys or even cows to protect them. Now some countries do vaccinate, they do vaccinate them. We, we are not doing it. Basically you have some countries only vaccine, vaccinate some kind, some like Japan, not very effective. Actually. Some countries like the US only use other methods, what they call the I think it's called the stomp method, where you basically kill every animal that's exposed. You just do a mass calling and then you then you put them on lockdown, like try to limit spread. So that's the method that we use. And then there's other countries like European countries that do both. They do some vaccination and they do some mass cullings and other methods of limiting exposure. You know, so whether or not we should be adding some vaccinations to the mix is, is a difficult question. And again, the expense is a huge factor. It has to be worth it. You know, if it's just easier just to kill everything, everything that gets infected, then that's what they're going to do. But that does raise ethical questions about, you know, about the culling and if if we get a big outbreak in cattle, that's it becomes less feasible to just do mass cullings. So this is an evolving strategy, right? You know, vaccines are being used. They're going to probably be increasingly used in animals as well as other methods of trying to limit the spread when it, you know, when and if it spills over into humans. Then again, we'll be we'll have the existing vaccines as sort of a first line of defense for high risk people. There'll be whatever other methods are necessary to try to limit exposure, limit the spread. And if it starts to get to like outbreak level, epidemic level, that's when we could make a vaccine to that strain, right? The question is how quickly will we be able to do that? You know, it could take months, you know, a few months to, to, to even though we have proven flu vaccines, you have to make it to the strain that's that's out now. And that takes time.

'''E:''' Oh, when the first case, when the first human does get it, I mean, is it going to be treated almost like someone with Ebola in which they go and they isolate that person and try to. Yeah, probably, you know, take every, you know, go through all those precautions. You know, I've seen footage of that. It's, it's it's quite an undertaking.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. One more e-mail. This one comes from Joe Streckert, and he writes on a recent segment about Bigfoot. Evan divided people who perpetuate the existence of cryptids into two groups, true believers and people who profit off of the myth. But I'm hesitant to think in such stark, binary terms. Here in Portland, Bigfoot is very much a mascot or symbol of the Pacific Northwest region I regional identity. I don't believe he's literally real and I don't know anyone who does. But the forest ape shows up again and again in local art on T-shirts and does a Portland Trail Blazers mascot. My more outdoorsy friends will describe less traveled trails as camping areas as Bigfoot country, even though they don't actually believe in Bigfoot at all. He's a symbol of the wilderness, but not a literal inhabitant of it. What are your thoughts on cryptids as local mascots and regional symbols by people who don't believe they're real? Do you think that practice is wholly negative or is it OK for a guy in a Bigfoot costume to perform during halftime during Blazer games? Big fan of the show. You're far and away my favorite podcast. Well, thank you, Joe.

'''Voice-over:''' Awesome. Thanks.

'''S:''' Yeah, That's OK. What do you guys think about that? Is, is, is like a cultural icon making a making a Cryptid into a cultural icon, a regional icon. How do you feel about that? Is that OK? You think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience or, or is it benign?

'''E:''' I think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience. I do. I I think we've seen it in not just, you know, things like Bigfoot, you know, with Loch Ness Monster. Obviously there's whole industries entirely built around that and certainly plenty of people who definitely believe in that as well. Certainly look what UF OS and aliens have done to our culture and then Western, many, many other cultures around the planet and how the far that's kind of gotten out of control. I don't know that you can necessarily gain these things and know exactly the extent, but I don't think there's much in the way of a positive aspect to it. I think. I think it only hurts, well, one.

'''B:''' Angle, I could see, he said. If you make that image part of your brand, make it funny, you know, make fun of it, make it look silly, that I think that could turn off people into actually believing it by making it seem like we know this is ridiculous. You know, making that part of the brand might help, might help a certain amount.

'''S:''' I kind of agree with Bob that I do think it could. If it's like this is clearly a mythical creature, not a real creature, and nobody takes it seriously, I don't think it would necessarily to contribute to people really believing in it, Right. So I don't know if we have a lot of examples out there, but maybe leprechauns.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Yeah. Maybe Unicorn.

'''S:''' Yeah. So like Ireland sort of has leprechauns as some kind of unofficial mascot sort of thing, but nobody believes in in leprechauns, right? That's wrong about that.

'''E:''' But there are not throngs of people or who, yeah, hunting for for actual leprechaun.

'''S:''' It's recognized as or Dragons. Like nobody thinks Dragons really exist, correct.

'''E:''' You know, but Dragons.

'''S:''' But but Dragons are an icon, especially like Chinese culture or as Bob said, unicorns. Nobody thinks unicorns exist. So if Bigfoot, if Bigfoot evolves into that kind of role where it's like unicorns and leprechauns, then that's fine. That actually might be a good thing. Yeah.

'''E:''' You know, it could be. Yeah. But unfortunately, we have forces working against in the other direction trying to trying to perpetuate it. And frankly, you know, because there are people who are trying to profit off of this television shows a month. I mean, that that's where I go to with.

'''S:''' Yeah, I, I agree. It's in the Gray zone now. Or maybe it's in it's transitional. It's also like Loch Ness, the Nessie in Scotland, right? I mean, when we were there and I think the locals, they think it's a joke, but it's like, it's a joke, but it brings in the tourist dollars. So play along. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Yeah. Let's go see Nessie. You know, come on. It's like, doesn't really think it's real. Remember our tour guide was so happy when we said we have no interest in seeing Loch Ness. We want to see the pretty one. And she's like, oh, thank goodness every everyone goes to to Loch Ness, right? You see Nessie, right? And it's like, yeah, if you live in Roswell, you're going to have a UFO theme to whatever diner because that's you're in Roswell. You know, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if most people who live in Roswell think that there was actually a crashed saucer there. So there's a whole spectrum, you know, from, you know, I think you can be a cultural icon without people really believing in it. You can do both. People can do the sort of the winking. Oh, yeah, you know, we're a Bigfoot country out here. Just try to goose tourism or whatever. Or just because it's a fun mascot?

'''E:''' I. Agree, but we don't need the Sheriff's Office over offering thousand, you know, saying $1000 fines for injuring Bigfoot. I don't think that helps.

'''S:''' Well, yeah, I think that, you know, you said that that rule is there so people won't shoot fellow hunters who happen to be burly, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Bearded woodsman. Yeah. They don't get. They don't.

'''S:''' I don't know. You think so? I mean that like there's a big difference between a a burly person and a, you know, a giant hair covered creature, Jay.

'''E:''' Well, people with guns, and they're hunting, Yeah.

'''S:''' If you're hunting in the woods, you see a shadowy shape, you know, rustling the bushes. Absolutely. People will shoot hunters thinking that they're. It's Bigfoot.

'''E:''' I would wear orange if I go out anywhere like that.

'''S:''' That's why you have to wear hunter orange. Yeah. All right. Thank you for those emails, guys.
{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:11:44) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = CES2025
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.
|link1web = https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ecoflows-solar-hat-is-better-for-the-planet-than-your-style-203358237.html
|link1title = EcoFlow’s Solar hat is better for the planet than your style
|link1pub = www.engadget.com

|item2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.
|link2web =
|link2title = None
|link2pub = None

|item3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.
|link3web = https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/07/ces-2025-best-weirdest-tech-products/
|link3title = CES 2025: The best and weirdest new tech products so far - The Washington Post
|link3pub = www.washingtonpost.com

|item4 = Swippitttt is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.
|link4web =
|link4title = None
|link4pub = None

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.

|science2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|science3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|fiction = Swippitttt is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|rogue2 = Jay
|answer2 = Swippitttt is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

|rogue3 = Evan
|answer3 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever = y
|win =
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''Voice-over:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or fax, 2 real and one fake. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics tell me which one is the fake. Except this week I have a theme and I have 4 items. Haven't done that in a while.

'''E:''' Yeah, I don't think we had a in 2024. I don't think we had AI.

'''S:''' Don't think we did, but these are quick. That's why I did four. So the theme is the Consumer Electronics Show 2025.

'''E:''' That's what I was trying to think of when I was doing my segment. Yeah, the Consumer Electronics Show. Yeah.

'''S:''' Is that is that going on now?

'''E:''' It is. Yeah.

'''S:''' Crap. Missed it. So these are four products that were showed at CBS 2025, although one of them wasn't. Oh gosh, see if you could tell which one is the fake. You guys ready? Yeah, yes. All right, item number one, the Ecoflow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. All right #2 The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Eye number 3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory, and eye #4 SWIP. It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

'''B:''' That makes no sense. The Phone 1. So Steve, is this Is this a specific type of phone that has hot swappable batteries? Or or or is it meant like for an iPhone or or pixel or something? Sounds like Bob's going first. By the way, or mainstream phone.

'''S:''' Bob, why don't you go first?

'''B:''' Yeah. Fuck answer my question.

'''S:''' Answer me, you get the information you have.

'''B:''' Oh yeah. So now it's when I ask questions I get the information I have.

'''S:''' For this one, just because the nature of this science or fiction, no questions. So who's going first?

'''B:''' It's me. All right. Well, this, The thing is, this is perfect for this because there's so many crazy things out there. That they would absolutely try to sell, like for example the solar powered hat. Now, there's no way that you're going to be doing any significant charging of your of your phone with a hat. I mean, you probably, you know, have to do hours just to get a few percentage points. Something like that solar powered hat. But if you're. Going to they do they do make solar powered console solar powered devices, devices that you can hook your phone to to charge it and in the apocalypse, it would be awesome. And if you're walking around on the beach all day, yeah, you might as well trickle charge if you can. So that's yeah, kind of OK, kind of makes sense that somebody would do that. The spice dispenser makes a that seems like a great item. I mean, you can't it's so it's from reading right? It's meant that you can't mess with it in terms of like replacing the spice with another spice. But but yeah, I mean think of all the spices you have in your cabinet. You probably use 3 or 490% of the time. So that'd be great just for the ones that you would use all the time. So that sounds pretty good to me from reading this right. Let me see, sometimes I miss a word that just like critical. The Spicer. All right, let's see the electric spoon to to make food taste more salty and savoury. That's ridiculous. But let me think about it though. I mean, could you could. You spoon. I mean, So what do you get? A little shock? Could that put? Is that their angle that they're doing a little shock? Which of course, would be horrible. Little.

'''E:''' Shock of horrors.

'''B:''' So what other angle could they use besides just purely like, you know, putting a 9 Volt to your tongue? I don't know, could there be some subtle effect that could actually impact taste? Remember those pills that you would eat that would basically change? Literally just change flavors for various foods for periods of? Time block your better receptors, right, Yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, change flavor. It just, Yeah, stops you from tasting blockers.

'''B:''' Yeah, but.

'''J:''' I mean, it's from a, it's from a plant.

'''B:''' Yeah. The effect, though, was that things tasted differently.

'''J:''' Yeah, they made it in a plant.

'''B:''' That doesn't sound likely at all, but I'm trying to think of what could be a workaround. All right, so let's go this last one. The toaster and the stupid phone. That's ridiculous, but you know I. Think Steve. I don't think Steve. I think he's counting on this one, because it just sounds utterly ridiculous. Unless it was. No, that, that's just so stupid. It's too stupid to be fake. Let's just put it that way. So I'm going to go with, I'll go with the spoon.

'''J:''' OK, Jay, the echo flow, the solar powered hat say here it it's capable of charging 2 devices at once. I mean, I see I I think that one is real because there's no mention of how long it would take to charge those devices. You know, I suppose if you're walking out and on a sunny day all day, you could you could charge 2 devices. Doesn't mean charge to full either. Yeah, I'd say sure. Someone came up with that. The Spicer. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices. And it's proprietarily sealed automatic spice. So what do you hold this over your plate and press a button and it it puts out what it thinks it needs to put out? I guess. Steve. Yeah. I said no.

'''B:''' Yeah. Right, Steve. Wink, wink.

'''J:''' All right I mean sure that doesn't that's not hard. You know, I don't know I shouldn't say it's not hard. I mean the mechanism doesn't seem that hard if it if there's AI involved in it, which I'm I'm thinking it is really everything Evan, come on your shoelaces are going to have AI at some point The.

'''E:''' Aglets.

'''J:''' The third one of Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon. They claim that it will make food taste more salty and savory. That sounds very bizarre. And also an electric spoon doesn't sound that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Like I don't want electricity happening in my mouth. So that way that one. OK, I'll put that one on a on a sub list here as maybe let me go to the last one to SWIP it about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. I mean, unless they're talking about a proprietary phone that lets you swap out the internal battery, there is absolutely no way that that's happening to an iPhone. I can't imagine that that happening to, you know, Google Phone either. Like you, there is no swapping of the internal battery for a fresh 1. So I don't know what the hell this is about. Yeah, I don't think that one is it. I think that one is, is the fiction because you can't swap out universally shop, swap out batteries and cell phones. I mean, there is, there's a lot more to this than we're than we're hearing. And if anything, I would think that there's there's another mechanism involved that we don't know about.

'''S:''' OK.

'''E:''' And Evan, well, Jay, I'm inclined a bit to agree with you on the SWIP it. You're right. It's not like take whatever phone and throw it in there and we'll swap the battery out. Obviously the majority of the phones we have now, you can't do that. You know, even a person can't do it you let alone a machine. So therefore the SWIP it would be its own phone had built specific, you know, a SWIP it phone that goes in your SWIP it toaster to swap your SWIP it battery it all proprietary, right? All its own system. It's a closed system, right? You're not going to put your Apple in there or your iPhone, whatever that leads me to believe if it is its own system. Does not have the can't handle the X, the other devices and other manufacturers and stuff. Then it could be possible, which is why I think it is possible that that is true. Also SWIP it. Notice SWIPPITTTT. OK, now I'm going to go back to the Spicer spelled SPICERRI Think Steve made this up. I think he took the swipit idea, you know, because and threw the extra R on there for Spicer. I think that's a bit of a tell. Holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed unfillable capsule. I I just don't think that thing exists. I have a feeling Steve made this one up entirely. Eco flow solar power hat makes sense to me. And the Japanese spoon one makes sense to me because it says it claims it will make food taste more salty and and savoury. And I believe it's not a spoon that you eat with. I think it's a cooking spoon, right, So it it infuses somehow into the food, but and and maybe even not, it could just be a placebo effect. You think that it's happening, Therefore you think it's more salty than it actually is because it's a claim. It's not really even a been proven. I have a feeling the Spicer is the fiction.

'''S:''' All right, so you guys are all spread out. Cara, you'll notice is not with us. She, you know, is too busy dealing with the her, her city being on fire. Yeah, so she had to bail. But let's let's go to number one, I guess since you all you guys all agree on this one. The eco flow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. You all think this one is science, and this one is ridiculously science.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Mine is a ridiculous, well, the hat, personally. You have to see the hat, right? I mean, it looks ridiculous. It's got a huge rim and that's where the solar panels are.

'''B:''' They're kind of like sewn into like a sombrero.

'''S:''' Like a sombrero.

'''B:''' Yeah, and they must be very light panels as well.

'''S:''' They're not like they're like woven into the fabric, you know what I mean? It's not like a panel stuck on the outside. It's more integrated into the fabric.

'''B:''' Well, that's something.

'''S:''' Yeah, and it has a USBA and USBC connector connector under the brim. It produces a maximum of five volts and 2.4 amps. So that's basically nothing, you know, So it like maybe would top off your phone, you know, but it's not going to like Apocalypse to recharge your phone.

'''J:''' It looks ridiculous.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's as a fashion statement. You know, it's it's right up there with chair pants.

'''J:''' You know, there are things, Steve, like, like people who are out hiking, you know, they have solar panels that they like to put on their backpack. You. Know that's different. Yeah, I mean, this has solar panel. I mean it's kind of similar, you know, it's like it's just a a minor trickle flow to to charge a phone if you don't have whatever. It's not, it's not a horrible thing, but I think it's been done much better with other, you know, higher quality product.

'''S:''' Yeah, so there's no reason to put it on your hat. All right, let's. I guess we'll take these in order. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices and proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Evan, you think this one is the fiction? Jay and Bob, you think this one is science and this one is science? Sorry, Evan. Bob, you actually want this thing? Maybe I'll get it to you for your birthday or something.

'''B:''' Right. I mean this makes sense that you use some spices much more than others. It'd be great to have them just right there click. I assume you just do a click click and you can get like.

'''E:''' Is it for the chef or the OR the eater?

'''S:''' Whatever. Either way it's more for cooking. I mean I think it's more for cooking and it it doesn't decide how much spice to put in. You tell it like I want one tablespoon of this, I want 1 whatever. You tell it how much to put in you just you press the buttons and you hit go and it drops all the spices pre measured into your pot or whatever. I don't like this and I'll tell you why. Yeah, I don't like it either.

'''J:''' First of all, you know you're limited to the spices you could load into. I'm looking it up on the website.

'''S:''' Yeah, you have to buy their spices.

'''J:''' That sucks.

'''S:''' I don't like that.

'''B:''' That's crazy. That's the. Capsules. If their spices suck, that'd be one thing, but what if they were decent? What if they were like fairly good quality spices?

'''S:''' But you're locked in like you don't have a choice. You can't buy anything you want. It's not like if you could refill the capsules if they were not sealed, then that would be that would be much better.

'''B:''' Wait, So what happens when they run? Out.

'''S:''' You got to replace them with a new cap, Yeah.

'''B:''' So there, so there's yeah. So there's a new capsule that you would get, but you can't get a different. Type of spice.

'''S:''' You could, you could swap them out, but then the whole point that is that this is supposed to be more convenient. If you're swipping out caps, swapping out capsules into this device, there's no way that it's more convenient than just dashing your spice into your pot, You know what I mean?

'''J:''' It's ridiculous. The whole premise is ridiculous. First of all, if you're cooking, if you cook on a regular and all that, like you, you, you have a drawer filled with spices, dozens of spices, Yeah. That I use on a regular. But there I could I could go through a short list right now off the top of why this is ridiculous. 1 You know spices don't last forever, right? Yeah, that's true. They do have a shelf life once you buy them and you open them. Like you got to be mindful of that. Like it's good to have the dates written on there. This. First off, I guarantee you that their spices are more expensive than what they costed in the store. I I could almost guarantee it because it's all packed the system, Yeah.

'''E:''' You have to buy the system.

'''J:''' You know, and then I have questions like, well, what if I use a lot of 1 spice? Can you just buy that one thing or do you have to buy a whole pack of them? Like, you know, it just gets, I don't know, 3.

'''E:''' Of your 6 chambers. Yeah, it does sound annoying, yeah.

'''J:''' You know, then you'll have a whole freaking drawer full of, you know, of like some wacko spice that you don't use.

'''B:''' It's it's solving a non problem and introducing a bunch of new ones.

'''E:''' It's it's Rube Goldbergish in a way.

'''B:''' Yeah, I mean just a we've got a spice little mini closet thing in in my kitchen. How long does it take to just go in there and grab the and grab the damn spice you want? True, that's true. It is not much of a problem that's being solved.

'''S:''' Here, As for the salt and pepper, which are like the ones you use all the time, you have a dedicated, you know, salt shaker and pepper grinder right there, you know, Yeah. Anyway, let's go on #3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory. Bob, you think this one is the fiction? Could be Jay and Evan think this one is science.

'''E:''' Not anymore.

'''S:''' And this one is science. Sorry about really. Yep, the the, the company is Kirin KIRIN, Kirin Kirin, that's a beer company and they made this electric spoon. It is for eating oven, not for cooking. And it does give you electric electrical charge. It's an electrical current that's supposed to concentrate the sodium ions to amplify the salty and umami taste savoury. And so you have to hold the spoon, you have to put your fingers like the conducting plates to activate it, and then you have to hold it in your mouth for a few seconds to get the effect it. The whole thing seems ridiculous.

'''J:''' And then it has to give you a 20 amp jolt to. The top.

'''E:''' And then a mechanism makes you chew your food.

'''J:''' And you have to have a ground shoe, a shoe that is grounding. So. So I mean, look, let's say that this thing works really well. Yeah.

'''B:''' Who gives you shit like Jay? I'll tell. You Jay salt. But salt, baby. People love salt and a lot of people have to avoid it because of exactly because of medical conditions. And you know what country has the worst salt overuse problem in the world?

'''S:''' Sure it's in Japan. Japan.

'''B:''' Oh, 100% Well, there you go.

'''S:''' Yeah, no, we eat more fat, they eat more salt. So they all have hypertension and they die of heart attacks and stroke from their hypertension.

'''J:''' I thought that we said on the show that salt doesn't give you hypertension.

'''S:''' That's not true, Yeah.

'''J:''' Not true. So we're back to. Not we're back to. Limiting salt intake.

'''S:''' I just did a TikTok on this today.

'''J:''' Well, hello.

'''S:''' The evidence is pretty clear that if you have hypertension, there is a pretty linear relationship between your salt intake and your blood pressure, and lowering your salt intake will lower your blood pressure. The only question is in people who do not have hypertension, is it there is a, there is a controversy over what the recommendation should be for people who do not have high blood pressure at baseline. Should they still keep their salt low or are they fine? You know, and the American Heart Association says keep your salt low anyway. And other people say no, it's that's overkill. You don't need to do that. But if you have hypertension, well, that's true. You get a lot of people get iodine from their salt, but there's no question that if you have hypertension, salt's a problem, right? And there's also no question that in Japan, they eat a lot of salt and they have a lot of hypertension. They have a lot of strokes. That's also not not contested. So even though I think this is ridiculous, I understand why you would think of like, why a Japanese company would say, hey, how could we satisfy people's desire for salty food without having them put a lot of salt in their context matters.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. But does it work? You know who knows?

'''E:''' It's why it's a claim. It's not a proof SWIP.

'''S:''' It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. Is the fiction.

'''E:''' Did you make it up entirely?

'''S:''' Nope. The SWIP, it exists. It is this toaster sized device you do put your phone in. But you are swapping out an external battery that goes into its proprietary phone case.

'''E:''' Oh, case, Yeah. So it's it's external battery.

'''S:''' You're not swapping out the internal battery, you're swapping out an external battery that goes in its case. So you have to get their proprietary case and their proprietary battery. It's an extra battery that gives you an extends your.

'''E:''' I should have thought of that. Yeah. It extends your, your battery life internal. Yeah.

'''S:''' And you could you could you could swap it out by just putting it in this ridiculous toaster size, right.

'''E:''' By saying it's it's entirely proprietary, but I didn't think about an external.

'''S:''' The internal battery's just not that's just not feasible.

'''E:''' It's not going to miss out very.

'''S:''' Well, they could design from I guess that, but they won't. I guess, but they won't. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not how they used to. If you want the form factor and everything, whatever. So. Oh, yeah. But this is this is an external battery. That's the detail that I changed and I did. That was fun. It is meant for use like with iPhones or whatever, because you just have to put to put their case on it, which apparently is not very attractive. But I just said smartphone to make it ambiguous so that people might think, oh, you have to use their proprietary phone in order to make this work. Yeah, Yeah. To make it a little bit more challenging. All right, that was good. You guys were all over the place. I like that.

'''E:''' It was fun.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:30:46) ==
{{qow
|text = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|author = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game. Karl Popper from the book The Logic of Scientific Discovery, on which apparently this is the premise of the book.

'''S:''' Yes, that is the Seminole work and that is basically the the unfalsifiable and shame on me for not having read this book.

'''E:''' Why don't I know about this book? I'm it's was written in 1959 the way I should have by now. I should have picked this one up. Yeah, Scientific Discovery.

'''S:''' It is it is again a Seminole work. It is, you know, established this idea that falsifiability is a necessary feature of any truly scientific hypothesis or endeavor.

'''E:''' Oh, so true.

'''S:''' Yeah. Karl Popper. You guys remember what? What movie referenced Popper?

'''E:''' Oh, I vaguely remember that there's a.

'''S:''' Popular Science fiction movie that threw in Popper as. Sounds to the lamps, no. 2001 The Matrix, the cartoon Matrix. What was that called?

'''B:''' Oh yeah, revolutions or something? Yeah, Revolutions.

'''S:''' The Matrix Revolutions.

'''B:''' Renaissance 1 and 2. They are the best matrix animated or one of the not best.

'''S:''' No, no, the good one, that was like 10 or so little animated shorts. Yeah.

'''B:''' That's what I mean, but which? Which short was it?

'''S:''' It was the IT was the kid, the Animatrix, the Animatrix, that's what it was the Animatrix. It was the kid who spontaneously, you know, like he flew, jumped out the window and spontaneously got his consciousness back into his body. That one.

'''E:''' I'm skeptical. Oh wow, I don't remember that.

'''S:''' Yeah. Shout out to Popper in that one. All right.

'''E:''' Thank you, Evan. Thank you.

'''S:''' So thank you guys for joining me this week. You got mad, doctor. Hopefully everything will go well with the LA fires. We're keeping an eye on that. We'll probably give you a little update next week and until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1018

2025-10-01T23:44:32Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:11:44) */

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1018
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1018|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1018.jpg
|caption = "Journey through the depths: a train glides beneath the ocean's surface."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|qowAuthor = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1018|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello, and welcome to the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 8th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody, Cara, Santa Maria. Howdy, Jay Novella. Hey guys, and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening, everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, how you doing out there? I hear your whole world is on fire.

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' What's happening?

'''C:''' Yeah. It's rough in LA today. I think I had a little too much confidence yesterday when I went to sleep. But I live in a part of Lai live in LA proper, the city and the county, in a neighborhood called Eagle Rock, which is northeast LA. It's very, very close to Glendale, Pasadena. There is a raging fire in Altadena, which is just north of Pasadena called the Eaton Fire, named after Eaton. I think Eaton Canyon, which is one of my favorite hikes that I used to go on, probably won't be able to go on it again. That fire is now at 10,600 acres and there are evac orders in place for all of like Altadena, La Kenyatta, Flint Ridge, parts of Glendale and Pasadena and a couple other places, Monrovia. And then there are evac warnings in place. I'd say the closest to me is about a mile away. I'm in a weird position where the perimeter of the area is actually covered in warnings, but there's sort of a beeline straight towards me that are orders. And that's just because the wind is blowing right in my direction right now and has been all day. And then to the southwest of me is the even larger Palisades Fire, which right now is at 15,832 acres. And it's both of these fires, by the way, are 0% controlled. They're just burning uncontrollably right now. And there's a lot of suppression on the ground, but there's not much air suppression right now because the smoke is too thick. So they can't do what usually you would do during a wildfire, which is attack it from the sky. And right now, I have a lot of friends, a lot of people that I know that either have lost everything or are evacuated and just hoping that when they come home, they won't have lost everything. The entire Pacific Palisades is on fire, and so is a fair amount of Topanga. Santa Monica has a lot of evac orders. These are major population centers. You know, these are places where people, hundreds of thousands of structures are probably going to be destroyed. There are also small fires popping up, like the Woodley Fire is 30 acres. They may have actually put that one out. They did. They put that one out. That's good. The Hearst Fire is 700 acres just north in the San Fernando Valley, like Sylmar area area. So if you look at a map of LA right now, and you lived in central LA, you would be surrounded on the northeast and the southwest by two massive infernos. I took a video from my roof and the smoke is everywhere because it's coming from all directions, like outside. Right now I have to wear an N95. The inside of my house smells like a campfire. Yeah, my Dyson air purifiers are working overtime. I had to replace the filter in one of them today because it said it was completely full and there's ash all over the ground and I'm not even in an evac zone. The thing that I think we forget too about Lai forget a lot of times is like the Palisades is like an hour away. Oh, it's really far away because that's how we measure. We measure in LA, we measure by time and traffic, but it's only like 20 miles away, right? You know, it's like LA is big. It's really, really big. But these areas are not that far from each other. A lot of people have been asking me like, is it? How is this happening? It's not fire season. But I think the thing to remember too is that in LA, fire season is different. Yes, technically fire season is spring, summer, fall. But in LA, Santa Ana, wind season is fall, winter, spring. And so historically, in my experience living here, the worst fires that I saw were like October, November. And yes, it's very odd that this is happening in January, but it's warm and it's dry. And the wind, I hate, love that some of the articles were using this language because I think it really sends it home hurricane force winds. That's why this fire is spreading out of control. Yeah, the Santa Ana winds are gusting so hard and so fast.

'''S:''' Well, even though it's late in the year now, you know, it's the new year, but it's late in the season, I should say. The you guys still haven't had rain. So it's still dry.

'''C:''' No. Yeah.

'''S:''' And we don't basically fire season has not ended yet because it ends when it rains and it hasn't rained.

'''C:''' Yeah. And it almost never rains enough here in LA to stay wet enough, you know what I mean? So we, we can I, I like to say fire. Yeah. Fire season is when the Santa Anas are blowing. If the wind is blowing, it's fire season here, unless it's actively raining. But we knew it, right? Like we we all got the warnings and the chatter a couple of days ago, like things are going to look bad. Start to think about this. It could get bad. It could get bad. All the conditions are right. Yeah. I mean, there were no fires yet, but we knew it was going to be red happening very quickly. Yeah, we knew it was going to be red flag warning, right? We're used to that, living in LA, like red flag days. Get ready, you know, don't be stupid. And there were some preemptive power cut offs. A lot of people in LA don't have power right now. I don't know why I have power. I've been very luckily the lights have flickered quite a bit, but I've been really lucky that I've maintained power. But yeah, we knew the conditions were going to be right, but you never know what's going to happen. I went to bed last night and the Eaton fire was 800 acres. So I was like, OK, there's a big fire pretty close to me, but it's, it's, you know, that's not that big. And the Palisades fire was about 3000 acres when I went to bed last night. I woke up this morning and the Eaton fire was about 3000 acres. And I was like, oh God, it tripled overnight. And the Palisades Fire was holding. Then the Palisades Fire went up to 10,000, then the Eaton fire just exploded to 10,000 plus and now the Palisades fire is over 15,000. You just never know. You know, we keep an eye out. I'm, I have my go bag packed, my truck, it ready to go, trying not to use water, trying to maintain because that's the other thing that we have to remember. These are wildfires happening in an urban center and urban water supplies are not built for wildfire suppression. They're just not. We're running out of water. The hydrants can't handle it. We've got people on, on, you know, boil recommendations because they don't have pressure or the water that's coming out isn't safe to drink. So I'm just trying to do what I can not use water, not not clog up the road, stay put until I absolutely know that it's unsafe to stay put anymore. Then I'll get out there in my truck and I'll drive to where I can breathe and I'll camp. You know, I won't take up a hotel room. And I thank goodness I have a big stash of N90 fives, you know, from that other horrible thing that we all went through. Yeah, it's apocalyptic.

'''B:''' Save some of those for the bird flu.

'''C:''' Right, exactly. So yeah, I mean, people who are listening right now can't see it, but I did post on my Insta some videos from my roof and, you know, just some of the air quality. When I woke up this morning, the AQI was 375. I've never seen it that high in my life. Like a bad day in LA is like 8090, maybe 1-10. But that's like unhealthy for sensitive groups, right? Like 8090 is just like, okay, the air quality is bad today. It's pretty smoggy. 375 is like very dangerous. So fun times. Great open to the show, huh?

'''S:''' Well, let's let's pivot to some some good news. Do you guys hear that Bill Nye was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom? I did that was.

'''B:''' Wonderful, we did. We need to send him congratulations from this to you.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's nice to see. You know, the Biden presented it to him for obviously for his because he is a beloved science communicator. Yeah, and environmental and yes, which I of course totally agree with. Yeah. So it's good to see Peep science educators be recognized.

'''J:''' Yeah, for sure. I mean, Bill is out there relentlessly communicating science, teaching people about what reality is. I mean, it's he's one of the very few that have broken through and have a global presence. And we, you know, I couldn't encourage him more to keep going.

'''E:''' He always makes critical thinking a centerpiece of anything he's talking about. He always incorporates it. That's so important.
{{anchor|quickie}}
== Quickie with Steve: Primate Twins (08:26) ==

{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.livescience.com/animals/our-ancient-primate-ancestors-mostly-had-twins-humans-dont-for-a-good-evolutionary-reason
|article_title = Our ancient primate ancestors mostly had twins — humans don't, for a good evolutionary reason | Live Science
|publication = www.livescience.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, well, I'm going to start us off with a quickie. This is an interesting question. So most primates give birth to singletons, right? To one child at a time, not just humans. Most primates do that. There are a few species of primates which tend to give birth to twins, some lemurs, marmosets for example. Now it was believed that since most primates give birth to one child at a time, that that's the rule. And that the, you know, the marmosets and lemurs giving birth of twins or multiple births, that that was the exception that they evolved that after, you know, the common ancestor of primates. It turns out, though, that it may be the opposite, that giving birth to twins was the feature of the primate common ancestor and that most primates independently evolved giving birth to only one child at a time. You might be thinking, how do we know how many children our primate ancestors have had? Right? That's not something that typically fossilizes, right? Unless we happen to catch.

'''C:''' Yeah, like a pregnant.

'''S:''' Yeah. Family, you know, fossilized together, which is not, not typical. We have. We have no idea. How do you guys think they did it? How? Do they do?

'''C:''' No idea.

'''S:''' So they just, they just surveyed, you know, they gathered all the information about extant mammal species, mammal groups, and they can figure out from that how likely it is that the, yeah, the last common ancestor of all primates, whether they likely gave birth to to single or multiple children. So based on that analysis, basically mapping it out, you know, the changes in the in the mammalian line they said, yeah, they the common answers probably gave birth to twins or to multiple births and then different lines within primates later developed only giving single birth. Now what do you think that is with? So therefore, if it evolved multiple times independently, there probably was some evolutionary, some selective pressure for that. So what do you think that is?

'''E:''' Mortality rate?

'''S:''' Yeah, but why? And you could also think about the like, the marmosets and why they might be the exception.

'''C:''' You mean of having fewer?

'''S:''' Well, marmosets still have twins.

'''C:''' Oh, OK.

'''S:''' Most other primates will have a single birth.

'''C:''' But like, I'm sorry, what are you asking about? What The Why?

'''S:''' So why did why did evolving only one giving birth to only one child at a time evolve independently so many times within primates?

'''B:''' Well, resources. Scarce resources. You. Don't want to have to feed two kids. Health of the bearer of the of the mother.

'''S:''' Yeah, Evans closer. So so the idea is this is the thinking because based upon the species that still give birth to multiple kids and those that give both to one, it's basically head size, right? The bigger primates with the bigger heads all give birth to one child at a time. Only the tiny ones still give birth like parmesans give birth to multiple offspring at a time, right.

'''C:''' Because how often when a human has triplets are they able to like you can do a home birth with like that's a hospital emergency.

'''S:''' There's also a huge risk of being premature.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' That's I think the number one cause of premature birth is twins, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, I'm a, I'm a twin and that was a a month premature. So yeah, that tracks.

'''S:''' Well, it's anecdotal, but yeah, statistically, yeah, that's true. It it is statistically true. So that's the idea. Yeah. So primates got bigger. We got big brained. We started giving birth to only one child at a time, even though probably our common ancestor gave birth to twins or multiple offspring. And that still persisted among the smaller primates, some of the smaller primates, because they didn't have the same issue, the same selective pressure of having to squeeze out a huge kid. But I find, well, the thing I found most interesting about that is that they were able to figure out that our common answers are probably typically had twins just from mapping out extant species. You know, All right, Jay, tell us about NASA's plans to return samples from Mars.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Mars Sample Return (12:26) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-overhauls-mars-sample-return-plan-rcna186400
|article_title = NASA overhauls plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth
|publication = www.nbcnews.com
}}

'''J:''' I don't quite remember when we talked about this. It might have been over a year ago, but I do remember us discussing the idea that NASA is right now and has been collecting regolith samples on Mars and they're putting that those samples into tubes for later pickup, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, we did talk about. This.

'''J:''' Yeah. Like, what does that mean? So there was a plan, but it turned out it was too expensive. So NASA announced that they made a significant revision to its Mars Sample return program, which is also called MSR, right, Mars Sample Return. The goal in the revision was simply to reduce costs and to actually make the mission happen sooner. You know, like the original thing was 2040 and they said, you know, we could, we could do it cheaper and we could do it faster. They think that they could do it in the twenty 30s. Now, the original plan was estimated at 11 billion with a projected return date, like I said, somewhere in the twenty 40s. This was eventually considered way too expensive and and much too much time to wait for these samples. So what they did was they went back to the drawing board and came up with a completely different strategy on how to do it. So I think you can't really appreciate this unless you know what the original mission was and and pay attention to how complicated this is. So they had to create a retrieval Lander. That retrieval Lander, and I mean this thing lands on the surface of Mars. It had to be equipped with two small helicopters adopters to go and collect the sealed sample tubes left by Perseverance. Then it needed a robotic arm to load the sample tubes into a rocket on board the Lander. The Lander was also going to carry the Mars ascent vehicle MAV, which launches the samples up into, you know, into orbit around, around the planet. That's a big deal right there. So the revised plan is that they absolutely abandoned the helicopters and the sample retrieval Lander. They're, they're going to focus on 2 alternative approaches for the Lander. So the one is the sky crane, which we, again, we've talked about this on the show before for other missions. So what they would do is they would adapt the landing system similar to the Curiosity and Perseverance Rover missions where a rocket slows down the descent and the sky crane lowers the payload to the surface. So the private sector collaboration here would be that they partner with commercial companies to design and develop a new Lander, potentially using a SpaceX, SpaceX, Starship, or a similar heavy lift vehicle. And then the sample handling would be they want to investigate cleaning the sample tubes on the Martian surface to simplify the return process. I'm not exactly sure what that means. What do you guys think that means?

'''B:''' Well, as opposed to doing it within the the vehicle that's picking it up, right?

'''E:''' For to avoid. Is it a contamination issue?

'''J:''' So they want to clean those tubes because there there's going to be particles and dust and everything on the outside of the tubes and that could contaminate the return capsule or interfere with the analysis that's going to happen later when when it is returned to Earth. So those those tubes actually need to be cleaned. So, so the proposal would be to clean the tubes on the surface of Mars before they're shuttled back to Earth. Now, the power source here, we, they would switch from solar power to nuclear power, which would ensure reliability and resilience against any Martian dust storms, which I didn't realize how significant that was, You know, because the atmosphere on Mars, as Bob likes to say, is unbelievably thin. You know, even a major, major, major like weather event on Mars is it's just there's just not a lot of atmosphere there to push around.

'''B:''' Thousandth the the pressure.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' No, it's a little bit less than 1%. I don't think it's point 1%.

'''J:''' Let's see.

'''B:''' OK, so 100.

'''S:''' It's less than 100, but it's very dry.

'''B:''' Order of magnitude.

'''S:''' But it's very dry and there are dust storms that that engulf the planet. And yeah, every time you get a dust storm in, that completely covers any solar panels.

'''B:''' Yeah, but it's not, it's not going to knock your ship over, preventing you from leaving.

'''S:''' Probably not.

'''B:''' Oh, here we go. The. Martian, the only the major mistake in the entire. Budget.

'''J:''' So to summarize the new plan, they'd have a sky crane that would lower the Lander. They would have instead of the helicopters to retrieve the samples, they would have a a a Lander would be a direct mechanism from a Lander, which seems a lot simpler right, than these two helicopters. I mean, it's cool. It's cool that they'd have helicopters there, but this makes more sense for it to be a vehicle, I guess, unless they're super far away. I guess that's a big consideration. So the original plan was solar powered. Now the new one, we have nuclear power. 11 billion versus 6 to 7 billion. Still sounds like a lot. But you know, saving 4 or $5 billion, it's that's a very nice amount of money to save. The timeline was 20/20/40 with the new one being in the twenty 30s. So I mean, you know, it could be, it could be up to 10 years time saving. You know, even if it was five years, it's still a significant amount of time. And then, you know, there would be a, instead of minimal or no private sector role, there would be a significant role in the Lander development, which is it's always good to farm out, you know, to the private sector. That is the way that things are going at NASA big time. So that's a, that's a priority for them. So I, I think this is exciting. I mean, first of all, to have the nerve to say, we're going to re engineer this, you know, we, we already sussed this thing out and spent an enormous amount of time and energy figuring it out. And it's good to know that they're in a position now where they could say, Nope, we're not doing that. Let's start over again. We could do better. And that's what they did here. It's 2025. I mean, you know, they could be retrieving these samples. You know, five years sounds really short when you think about it, but it could be they could do it in five years, possibly. I would say 10 years on the outside, but that would be amazing. I mean, we get those samples. You know, this is going to be our first real deep investigation of of the regolith on Mars. And man, what, what will they find?

'''E:''' Boy, you know. The the evidence of the former. Life, I know. Life that used to live there, it would be. Incredible. That would be a game changer, right? Sure would.

'''J:''' We live, we live in an exciting time for space travel. We really do. I think it's, it's really cool. I mean, thinking that we're going to have a spacecraft try to fly through, you know, the ejecta from one of Jupiter's moons to see if there's life there, you know, that is so cool.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Thanks, Jay.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Unique Microbiome (18:49) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-01-scientists-unique-microbiome-planet-roof.html
|article_title = Scientists discover a unique microbiome on our planet's roof
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Yeah, Bob, tell us about this unique microbiome.

'''B:''' Surely, researchers have studied in detail for the first time the microbial ecosystems that exist in Mountain Top Glacier fed streams. These microbiomes are not only different than they expected, they're also among Earth's most vulnerable ecosystems in the face of climate change. Really, truly. These two papers were published in Nature and Nature of Microbiology. A lot of this research was led by Tom Batten, Professor in Environmental Science and the head of one of Switzerland's Federal Institutes of Technology called the River Lab, which in turn is part of the Vanishing Glaciers project. Now these researchers decided to look into these ecosystems because these glacier fed streams are obviously very important. Think about it. They're essentially water towers for downstream ecosystems. This includes bringing freshwater to from what I read, billions of people. That's crazy. Billions of people benefit from this water, but it also acts as a buffer during a seasonal variations, right? Because if you if you're experiencing dry seasons, then this could help buffer, you know, buffer that water availability by still, you know, having them exist. I mean, they're critically important not only for water consumption, but also there's agriculture, hydropower, fisheries, etcetera, etcetera. Glacier fed streams also play important roles in carbon cycling and nutrient cycling and more. So yeah, these are really critically important and they're also probably the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet. Think about it. You've got this. You've got this freshwater coming from glaciers that so it's near freezing. They also have very low nutrient concentrations. And in addition to that, there's also no sunlight during the winter. And even when the summer comes around and they're they're the light will make a reappearance or be more, you know. Or be stronger. There's also strong UV rays, so good luck eking out in existence in one of these. And that's why it's, it's probably when they say it's in one of the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet, but nobody had seriously looked at the microbial life that was part of that water. You may be thinking of bacteria and you'd be right. But there's they've also found bacterial biofilms, Archaea, fungi, algae and viruses. So it's just chock full of these microbes, these, these important microbes and fascinating and complex. They spent five years going to 170 different separate glacier fed streams to collect and analyze these samples. They focused, it seems a lot on the abundant biofilms because they're just the most prevalent a form of life there that you that they that they could focus on. But so they focus on them to A to a certain extent more than the others. But they found when they look closely at everything, they found unique microbiomes unlike anything that that that's been seen in other of these so-called cryosphere systems. A cryosphere. I love that word. It's part of the earth that that are frozen, right? Snow, ice sheets, icebergs, permafrost, it's all over the planet. And and these specific microbiomes are different than all of the other ones they found. Typically almost half of the bacteria that they analyze were specific to just the the one mountain range that they were on, or in some cases it was unique to that particular glacier fed stream just not found anywhere else on the planet. Most interesting, though, that I found was that these these microbes had a high degree of adaptability. Researcher Greg Mcchoud said it's fascinating to see the broad range of adaptive strategies that microorganisms have developed to survive in this extreme environment. So these organisms are best described, it seems, as metabolic generalists. They could metabolize organic carbon, solar energy, minerals, and possibly they think even gases. And all that's quite extraordinary, Jay. That would be like you living off of not only meatballs, but you could also photosynthesize like plants and you could also eat methane or hydrogen gas. And if you're still hungry, you go in the backyard and eat some rocks. That's kind of like what, what they can do. And of course, the level, this level of adaptability is important. This is especially important if you live where they live in, in, in such an ecosystem that's that's so sparsely filled with, with things that they can use or there's lots of different things that they could use, but they had to evolve to, to take advantage of all the different types of sparse nutrition that was actually available to them. So incredible. Now the the very sad angle to this interesting discovery, of course, is that glacier shrinkage from climate change is putting these unique microbiomes at incredible risk, Professor Batten said, having spent the past few years. Traveling across the Earth's mountaintops, I can say we're clearly losing a unique microbiome as glaciers shrink. Let's get so mad at this stuff. The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers Preservation, and this is obviously critically important for these scientists because saving glaciers not only saves all their. Innumerable downstream, downstream benefits that I listed, but also of course, saving these these priceless biomes. Batten has also called for a biobank to be created to protect these and other microbiomes in danger. So even if we lose them in the natural world, to be honest, to me seems almost inevitable at this point. I'm just throwing that down. At least future scientists will be able to see what their genomes were like, and who knows what they might be able to do using the biotechnology of the future. I really hope we don't lose these and, and, and the other impacts the other, the other benefits that we have from them, like, you know, like drinking water for billions of people. I mean that also, I can't even imagine what would happen if these glaciers went so, you know, disappeared to such a degree that these these streams were no longer being fed primarily, you know, by them. That's not the only place they get water. But I mean it would be pretty bad I would guess.

'''S:''' Bob how genetically unique are they? They have a lot of unique abilities, but are they? Do they fit within known groups?

'''B:''' Half of them, the other half that they found were they described as more cosmopolitan. So you would find them in a lot of different in, you know, on different places over the earth. But these these were these mountaintops. So where they they, they compared them to islands, you know, these are kind of like isolated. And so you can get some unusual, you know, unusual genomes that never evolved anywhere else. And so a good a good chunk of that was stuff that is only found on that, like I said, only on that mountain range or even specifically in the the glacier fed St. that they founded.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Transatlantic Tunnel (25:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.drivingeco.com/en/nyc-londres-48-minutos-podria-ser-posible-gracias-tunel-transatlantico-e20-trillones-segun-elon-musk/#google_vignette
|article_title = NYC - London in 48 minutes could be possible thanks to a €20 trillion transatlantic tunnel according to Elon Musk
|publication = www.drivingeco.com
}}

'''S:''' It OK, Evan, are we going to build a tunnel from New York to London?

'''E:''' What a great question. And a lot of factors go into that equation, perhaps 20 trillion of them. How could you even do that? I mean, let's let's put cost aside. Let's put we'll get to cost. How could you even do that? Do you remember we talked years ago about point to point rocket travel? Yeah, which could potentially allow for suborbital flights between, you know, like Los Angeles to Sydney, right? Fat much faster than than airplanes.

'''B:''' Do you remember the rocket? I would specifically remember the rocket that they were, that they were thinking of using for that point to point. And it was, I remember it was a beautiful rocket. I forget the, I forget the name of it, but it was. That would have been so cool. Can you imagine? Yeah.

'''E:''' I could have sworn it was Elon and SpaceX that were designing something like that. I have no idea what happened to it though. I did. There doesn't seem to be much news about that lately. It was this is almost 10 years ago that they started talking about that. Maybe there's still.

'''B:''' More than that dude I I literally remember this being discussed probably in the late 1990s when it when I first heard about it. This is before the. Concept. Itself. Yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, because NASA wasn't going to do that. It would have had to have been a private company that would have gone ahead and and built something like that. However, the news is not about how to get, you know, from from there in a rocket, but rather getting from New York to London, travelling below the Atlantic Ocean in, in the form of a tunnel. Oh my gosh, now you, you remember the Chunnel, you know, the, the, when that, when that first opened in what, 1994 I think it was.

'''B:''' Have gone through. It and that was cool.

'''E:''' That was like the engineering masterpiece, you know, of, of, of the 1990s, perhaps I mean this, but a, but a tunnel from say New York to London that, that would make the Chunnel look like a high school science project by by comparison. Here's what you would have to do if you were to, if this project were to happen. You, you would use trains and they would be what, the magnetic levitation trains, the maglevs and they would be built or they would, they would travel within these vacuum tubes, right? Reaching speeds of up to 5000 mph. And at that pace you could get from New York to London or back if it were London to New York in less than an hour, just under an hour, which would be freaking just incredible to think about. I guess if you're going to dream, you dream big, right? 3 miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean was probably what what they're thinking about where this would have to have to be built somewhere. Perhaps speculating you could do it on the ocean surface, but more of what I've read said now this would have to be submerged in that vacuum sealed environment. The magnetic levitation system reduces friction, maximizes energy efficiency for the trains as they cloud travel within this closed system.

'''B:''' Now, are we talking beneath the sea floor or suspended within the ocean?

'''E:''' Well, three at depths of up to three miles it would be where parts of it would would lie. So I mean that is the sea floor, right for for a good chunk of the Atlantic I believe is the is 3 miles. I can't imagine there being too much variation in the elevation. You wouldn't necessarily want to be going up and down. You'd probably want to go pretty straight for as long long as you possibly could except for heading on down and heading heading on back up to the surface. Yeah. So the cost right 20 trillion would is the estimated price tag for this and you know that's just the estimated price tag. I mean how many times do projects right go over budget? They always easily ways go. Over over 50 trillion 50. Trillion, I said, sure, Remember the Big Dig in Boston? That was, I mean, that alone, that was, yeah, it's a $4 billion project. Three years later, oh, it's $8 billion. Four years later, $16 billion. That thing kept doubling and doubling until it was like, oh gosh. In fact, they had they spent so much money on it, they had to sort of not really have an opening ceremony for they couldn't afford it. Because they.

'''B:''' Oh my God.

'''E:''' To build it where would you get these materials capable with standing that that level of severe ocean pressure I mean you, you would have. To come up with. Right. I mean just and you know, and you're building it in the face of seismic activity as well. You know, I mean, we're not it's not a static sure, you know, structural failures, the natural disasters, the earthquakes and how would and the maintenance on from this thing, the heat that it would generate it, they said it these hypersonic speeds would generate so much heat. You would have to have advanced systems that don't even exist yet to dissipate that.

'''B:''' Heat, well heat from what though? Because it there's no friction if because it's an evacuated tube partial vacuum. So the heat, apparently the engines.

'''E:''' The speed they're just from what I read is just the speed of the trains themselves generate the heat even though even without the friction. So the pressure of the environment magnetic field is. Yeah, it could be. I didn't read, I didn't read that deeply into it. But they said that they they said there's a heat problem with this. And that would and you would have to perhaps invent some new technology on how to deal with with that alone. So you're not only dealing with a project that is so immense in scale, but you're talking about having to introduce new technologies that have not even been invented yet. So that which makes this an even more massive project and what is this? And then what the environmental impact on this? What will this do to, to to sea life? How do how do you know, how, how could you, how could you forecast that the damage that that it would that would take? And then the and then, of course, the big fact, what's the environment? What's the economic viability of something like this? You know, it takes, I looked it up your bridge, you know, like a bridge built in New York or wherever, you know, Baltimore or Tampa, wherever it takes decades to recoup the cost of building that one bridge, right? Which in some cases what like a half mile or 3/4 of a mile or something like that. So how, how long before the companies or the government's combined would invest in this thing would be before they saw their money back? That could be hundreds of years, hundreds of years. And who, how could you, how could you, how could companies exist with that sort of return on investment time?

'''S:''' Countries would have to do it.

'''E:''' It would be, it would have to be, it would have to become a real cooperation of of all the major countries on the on the planet to do this. But one benefit so many obstacles.

'''B:''' There'd be definitely would be some benefits though in new technology, new new patents, new ideas that then you could then apply to other things and make money. So that definitely would walk away with some interesting data to apply an industries potentially even to apply. Elsewhere, but still yet 50. $40 trillion, whatever they end up spending. Spending is kind of, yeah, it's ridiculous. Who? I mean, who could risk that?

'''E:''' It's all it's all theory obviously now and just for discussion. It has been making rounds in the news lately. It made also a couple weeks ago it popped up, but lately it's been rediscussed. I don't know what the, what the convention happening, the what is it the technology convention that happens every January. I don't know if that's part of this sort of looking into, into this again or it why it's coming up, why it's coming up in the news again now. But I, you know, I sort of it's interesting to think about. I, I, I see this as pure science fiction, though, for the most part, really. And, and think about it, even if it, if you were to undertake this, it would take so long, probably maybe a century or more to, to actually build what other technology will come, would, would otherwise come along in the century that would perhaps mitigate that. Like you could perhaps go back to the right the Rocketeer Hypersonic.

'''B:''' Airlines. 1st. Of all would be the far, far cheaper and we're we're approaching closer to that possibility every day that money could could accelerate that whole process greatly right there. I mean, jeez, because they've got great designs now. For, for, for. Supersonic planes that don't produce the the crazy Sonic booms that that limit their, their viability over, you know, going over land. I mean that seems like a no brainer to just put the money in. Far less money into that.

'''S:''' I'm going to predict this is never going to happen.

'''E:''' I would agree. I think I'll put my nickel down.

'''S:''' The the risks, the expense are not going to be worth it. And I just by the time we even just started this project, we could be having supersonic jets flying back and forth, right. The advantage and that's not the advantage.

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah. That's. And that's not to say there aren't other tunnel. There are other tunnel projects that are in the works in Europe and other and other places. They are very expensive and they are going to use this technology, the magnetic levitation system technology to do it. But you know, I mean, we're just talking about, you know, maybe 10 miles as opposed to, you know, but there are already maglev trains. Ocean. Yeah, there are. Yeah. China What? How fast did that one in China go? It says here two, 623 mph. That was the record speed achieved last year with it's T flight system.

'''S:''' I don't think that's it's operating speed, but yeah, that's.

'''E:''' And there's another one called the European Hyperloop Hub, which completed a test in 2024 and apparently it achieved some very fast speeds as well.

'''S:''' So, yeah, yeah, the operating, like the top operating speed I think is 268 mph from what I'm reading, for the Shanghai Mag wave. That's what we're talking about, which is fast for a train. And it's great for that kind of medium city to medium, city to city travel. You know, we're not far enough to need a plane, but still far. But getting back to the Chunnel, remember the point of the Chunnel was that you could drive from mainland Europe to to Great Britain and back, right? There's no point in taking taking a train again. You could be taking a plane to go across, right?

'''E:''' No one's going.

'''S:''' I don't think anyone's going to be driving their car from New York to London.

'''E:''' Not, not on any regular basis or for anything other than publicity. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' So this is a 22nd century technology.

'''E:''' Yeah, maybe in feasibility zero, I would say. Yep.

'''S:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Mint Mobile.

'''J:''' Guys, now that it's 2025 you should consider saving money after the holidays. One way you could save real money is lowering your wireless bill. So switching to Mint Mobile. I bet you it's the easiest way to save this year. It's the first company to sell premium wireless services online only, and Mint Mobile lets you maximize your savings with plans starting at $15.00 a month when you purchase a three month plan.

'''B:''' All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

'''E:''' To get this new customer offer and your new three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/SGU. That's mintmobile.com/SGU. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/SGU $45.00 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on 1st 3 month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions alley. See Mint Mobile for details.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Alcohol Advisory (37:04) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/surgeon-general-alcohol-warning/
|article_title = Surgeon General Alcohol Warning | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, guys, did you hear about the Surgeon General's new advisory on alcohol?

'''B:''' I did, and I did as well. I didn't even realize that that that cancer from alcohol was that much of a thing.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it's it's interesting. So to to to the quick story is that the surgeon general? Anybody you guys know his name?

'''B:''' Oh no. Doctor. Doctor something? Yeah.

'''S:''' She would see Evec Murthy, Yvec Murthy. It's the current surgeon general. Yeah, a little updated there. Released a new advisory warning between warning about the links between alcohol use and cancer. So this is just an advisory. This is. And there are policy recommendations in here, but it doesn't have any legislative power. Of course, that would require Congress to actually pass laws, but they're advising a few things. One is that warning labels on alcohol be updated to reflect the the latest data on the risk of alcohol to certain types of cancer. And that, you know, we try to educate the public about these risks. Most people don't really know. And also just specifically to lower the recommended amounts of what is considered safe alcohol. So right now the standard sort of public health recommendation is for moderate alcohol use is no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men just based upon the evidence. And but they're saying that even at that level, even at that level, there's a significant increased risk of of certain cancers and therefore that we probably should be lowering that level of what is considered the recommended safe amounts of alcohol to drink. So let me throw some stats at you. So it is estimated that alcohol use causes is responsible for in excess 100,000 cases of cancer per year in the United States, leading 200,000 leading to 20,000 excess cancer deaths. That is greater than the 13,500 alcohol associated traffic crash fatalities per year.

'''E:''' So it's oh, oh, if you, oh, you got, you would have gotten me on a science action with that one, probably. I would have been a good one.

'''S:''' Yeah. So, you know, we had a huge campaign to limit no drinking while driving and yet there'd be a problem. But of course, this is it's the 13,500 now, you know, after we successfully sort of reduced those numbers, but still deaths from cancer is a bigger problem. I did liken this to the, you know, what year, what year the US Surgeon General released our first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use.

'''E:''' The first year, probably it must have been 1965, close 6464.

'''S:''' And what do you think this do you have? What percentage of Americans smoked in 1964 Adults 70. This is just all man. They didn't say adults. The stats I'm looking at.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''S:''' But I don't know if I don't know if they count babies, but probably not 70.

'''E:''' Percent, 30 percent, 50%.

'''S:''' 42 percent. Oh, Can you imagine?

'''E:''' I terrible there was everywhere. Did I tell you? I don't know if I said this on a show or not. I mean, you know, my father was a smoker most of his life. 2 packs a day. I mean, to the point where not only was there ashtrays kind of everywhere in the house that was normal in the 70s, but he had a musical box, a dispenser, a cigarette dispenser. You'd press a button, a tune would play and the and a like a bear would hand you a cigarette. Like like almost like a cuckoo. Clock. Kind of. Oh my God. Like, like that was the culture. That was the smoking culture.

'''S:''' It was all like, like, yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that, that there was a smoking culture. Basically, it was it was accepted. It was a baked in. Now the numbers down to what? What do you think is the percentage of Americans who smoke less than 10?

'''E:''' 15%.

'''S:''' 1111.5.

'''E:''' That's great, guys.

'''S:''' From 42% to 11.5%, that is great. So the question is, is are we seeing the of course that took decades, you know, to bring that about and it did require a cultural shift which took place over time. I remember the whole second hand smoke thing that that took us, that was a huge amount of pressure on, you know, banning smoking in public places, etcetera. So anyway, you know, are we are we good to see the similar kind of cultural shift. A lot of people are skeptical about that. I mean, drinking is so baked into American culture. That's not going to be an easy change. But it this could this could have an effect, you know, just raising public awareness. So a a recent a Gallup poll found that only 45% of of people surveyed said that one to two drinks per day is bad for one's health. 43% have made no difference. 8% actually said it was good for your health. These numbers are are improved from 2016 where they were 26% said it was bad, 51% said neutral, 19 percent said good. That's a pretty rapid shift over the last 8-9 years, but well.

'''B:''' For years, Steve, weren't they saying like a drink or two a day is actually beneficial? I mean, I remember hearing that for a year.

'''S:''' Glass of wine good for your heart, those kinds of things Yeah, that data has been largely well it's it's it's not clear you know if there is and there's like there's the red wine thing, but there's also like just small amounts of alcohol may lower your cholesterol.

'''E:''' But right there it's the recent stuff I've been reading say there are new 0 benefits to alcohol zero that has not held up.

'''S:''' The part of the problem was the part of the problem was very interesting aside. Like if you ask people do you drink or not and and how much do you drink? You have the teetotalers who don't drink at all and they have a slightly higher like death rate than people who drink a little bit. So it's like, oh, people who drinking a little bit is protective. But you know what they found that the the non drinking group included ex drinkers who already wrecks their health by by basically ex Alcoholics. If you remove them, the alleged benefits of drinking alcohol goes away. So anyway, this is it's very hard to answer these questions because you can't do the experiment, right? You cannot do an experiment where you force people to drink a certain amount or not to drink or whatever. Same thing with like eating salt or with, you know, smoking or whatever. You just can't do that kind of experiment. So we have to do observational studies, which are correlational. They can't establish in and of themselves Causeway and effect. And there's a lot of confounding factors. And so it takes years, decades to kind of build a case for this sort of thing and it's often disputed for a long period of time, etcetera, etcetera. But where we are now is that it's pretty clear that there is a linear relationship. You know, whereas the more you drink, the higher your risk for certain kinds of cancers. Let's see, those include breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, mouth, pharynx and larynx. So some of those make kind of make sense. You know, the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, that's where the alcohol goes. We know alcohol has a negative effects on the liver. The question is like, how big is that risk and when does it kick in? Right. And that's where there, you know, again, because this is all observational data, you can sort of argue about the exact number. But the surgeon general is basing this new recommendations on systematic reviews of the literature showing that, yeah, we could say now there's there's a there is a significant increase alcohol risk, even in cancer risk, even with these moderate levels of alcohol goes the the lower the risk, the harder it is to prove right. The the harder it is to statistically establish it. The greater the risk, the easier it is to establish. It's always like, yeah, it's very clear at the high end. It gets increasingly muddy as you go to more and more moderate levels of alcohol. And then it's which which has to be the case. It doesn't mean that the effects are less real, it just means that they're harder to to document statistically because they're smaller, you need bigger numbers, etcetera.

'''E:''' Right?

'''S:''' They estimate in the release they estimated that alcohol causes 3.5% of all cancers, which is interesting, so not insignificant.

'''E:''' .5% yeah. That's not insignificant.

'''S:''' So also, how many premature deaths per year do you think there are from all causes from alcohol in the US?

'''E:''' Like the number, the number of premature, the.

'''S:''' Number of people who died prematurely died before their and and alcohol was a significant contrib contributing factor to their death.

'''J:''' I mean I was a percentage or number as a part number. Number. Oh my God, I mean United States above, above a million.

'''S:''' No, not in. The US, it's 178,000 premature deaths per year, which is huge. That's a huge. Huge. Worldwide, the figure is estimated to be 2.6 million or 5% of deaths, which is a lot. The average reduction in lifespan is 24 years. So people who die early from alcohol lose 24 years of life on average. That's a lot like smoking. It is smoking does to people. And now the causes include cancer, as we said, direct alcohol poisoning, car accidents, heart failure and liver damage. But also, it's estimated that 40% of violent crimes in the US are committed while under the influence of alcohol and 48% of homicides are committed while under the influence.

'''E:''' I mean, the negative basket fills up so much faster than anything in the positive. Not even close.

'''S:''' I mean, it's it's worse than all other recreational drugs combined. Even at the peak of the opioid epidemic, it was much less than than that related like the GS.

'''E:''' But, you know, I mean, the government has experimented before with trying to to ban it on illegal. Yeah.

'''S:''' So no one's no one's calling for prohibition to come back, right. I mean, that that obviously was a failed social experiment. It's not going to work. And just as a public health measure, those kind of things generally don't work. But just like, so we need more money labels. So we just quit smoking. We didn't really ban smoking. We just said, OK, well, you can't advertise to kids and you know, you, you, and then we're going to ban it in places where people would be forced to be exposed to second second hand smoke, etcetera. So, you know, we, we can't think about way like even if it's just informational at first, think about ways to start to shift the culture a little bit, just making people aware. It's like, yeah, you know, having one to two drinks a day is not safe, you know? And you, you could factor that into your decision making about your habits in terms of how much you're drinking.

'''E:''' Remember synthol. Yeah, Synthol.

'''B:''' Just thinking about that.

'''E:''' Does alcohol work the same way that sort of cigarettes work in which it changes brain chemistry and like is feeds the addiction in the same It's the same absolutely addictive.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, it's not addictive in the same mechanism as tobacco as nicotine is, but it is it is addictive like, you know, cocaine and opiates are addictive.

'''E:''' Can it be tweaked so that the addictive nature of it is taken away and you have a different product or is that it goes with the territory?

'''S:''' It kind of goes with the territory, you know, they so I guess that's the whole thing. The mind altering aspect of it is, is is is why people do it. It's well, there's it's psychologically addictive, behaviorally addictive, but also it is, you know, chemically addictive and you know that I don't know if it would be possible to make an addiction a non addictive alcohol. I doubt. I don't even know if that's possible, you know, just in terms of, you know, just biologically, but I've never even heard anybody been attempting to do that. What we do have are drugs that make that combine with alcohol to make you feel sick so that you won't drink.

'''E:''' How effective is that, Steve?

'''S:''' It's very effective. You know, imagine if you took a drink and you can violently nauseated.

'''E:''' It sounds like A Clockwork Orange almost without the ultra violence thing.

'''B:''' It sounds like a great idea because you all you need is willpower for three seconds. To take that drug and then bam.

'''S:''' Well, they could also give you long acting versions as well. So this Antabuse is the name of the is the brand name of the of the drug. They're not saying not to not to have occasional alcohol, you know, but just think about the overall, it's of the two risky behaviors seem to be like regular daily alcohol use and binge drinking, you know, seem to be relatively equivalent. Yeah, just moderate your alcohol use. It's it's like a, it's an A totally preventable cause of cancer and premature death, which is of course, you know what, where, where public health campaigns focus their efforts right on the totally preventable stuff. But it is, it is remarkably hard to change people's behavior. It does take a cultural shift. You know, just putting out like PSA's doesn't cut it doesn't have much of an effect. Although having said that, even small effects can have huge absolute magnitude of of effects, right? In other words, even if it's like, oh, we reduced it by 5%, that doesn't sound like a lot. That's still a lot of people, right? It's a lot of hospitalizations that it let's a lot of morbidity, we're avoiding a lot of premature deaths, a lot of healthcare costs, etcetera, etcetera, societal costs in absolute numbers. So, you know, we take what we can get. But yeah, it's really hard. It's hard to change people.

'''E:''' Tough one with alcohol. Yeah, yeah. More warning labels, though. I'm all in favor of that.

'''S:''' But again, we did it with tobacco to a huge extent. You know, 42% to 11.5% is huge. That's a huge. Change, yeah.

'''B:''' But imagine if we use the extreme labeling requirements that that other countries use with cigarettes. I mean, like, just like showing like, you know, cancerous lungs, you know, on the label really, you can't make them. You can't make cute packaging for that for them in many countries.

'''S:''' The thing is though, that's the so-called scared straight approach, right? It doesn't, doesn't really doesn't, doesn't really work and no.

'''B:''' That doesn't work. It's all about. It's all about your peers.

'''S:''' It's about your peers, about the culture. Again, you got to change the culture, change the culture. And, and also just like there, there are limited bands, right? There are bands in certain places and it just becomes culturally unacceptable like you'd like. And the beginning of my career, you could smoke in the hospital. It was disgusting. You think about that and now like you just can't do it. Like there is no, I know there's zero smoking in the hospital. Desire was a cultural change, you know, in the in the early 90s, we would still defer to a patient, you know, And now it's like, Nope, it's just not done.

'''E:''' So because it's a good movie. I love this movie. It's called the Serious Man. It's one of the Coen brothers movies. It's one of their less well known movies. But the opening scene, the guy's in the doctor's office going through a it's 1969 and he's in a doctor's office 1969. He's going through a physical exam. And then, you know, going, getting, you know, pressed and looking in his eyes and his ears. And then they're sitting at, he's at the doctor's at the desk and the patient's the other side of the desk and they're talking to talk about, they're about to talk about what the doctors found. And the doctor lights up a cigarette and then offers the patient a cigarette. It's like, oh, my gosh, that really happened in the 1960s. That's crazy.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely.

'''E:''' Your doctor offered you a cigarette? I mean, it was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

'''S:''' Yeah. That's all part of the the cultural shift that took place.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (52:24) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''J:''' You don't hear that everyday.

'''E:''' Can I guess?

'''J:''' Sure.

'''E:''' Jiffy Pop popcorn.

'''J:''' Yeah, somebody guessed Jiffy Pop. Did you guys ever?

'''E:''' I never made it did. Did you ever have an experience making Jiffy Pop popcorn?

'''J:''' Yeah, we did it.

'''E:''' Did it work? It always seemed like the kind of in. The stove, yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, it works.

'''E:''' It did work OK because I always felt it was like a bit scammy, like OK it's going to pop 51% of the kernels or something.

'''J:''' No, I mean, it's not, it's fine and it didn't taste horrible, but it was bite. You could just make homemade popcorn that blows away any of those pre bag.

'''E:''' Yeah. The air, once the air blowers I guess, became the way to go, that that was the end of the Jiffy Pop era.

'''J:''' And another way to do it too, which is if you take coconut oil and you do it in a pot on the stove, it has the best freaking flavor. Anyway, so a listener named William Steele wrote in said, hi Jay, this episode's noisy sounds a lot like when I would go looking for shells under the waves at the beach. I I'll guess this is an underwater recording of shells churning under the waves. I thought that was a really awesome guess. I could even hear what he was saying about that. That's not correct, but thank you for sending that in. Marsh Wildman took a guess. He said, hi, Jay, listening to the January 4th. Who's that noisy? The bulk of it sounds like a wee fax, which is a weather fax radio transmission, but there are some other unfamiliar artifacts mixed in. Not sure what those may be, but I still think that this is a digital radio transmission of some sort that is incorrect. Thank you for that guess. Michael Stoiciu. This guy's name is STOICESCU. Good luck. Anybody pronouncing that guy's last name Stois Stoicisu Scu? I don't know.

'''E:''' Stoicescu.

'''J:''' So CESCU, Michael Stoicescu. OK, so this Michael guest is ice skating on the smooth, thin, clear ice of a lake. I hear some of that in there as well, but that is not correct. Kathy Taylor Guest Is it a rain stick? It is not a rain stick, but there is a rain stick sound in there.

'''E:''' Tinkling of a rain stick.

'''J:''' And Matthew Morrison, guest, he says, hey Jay, my daughter Neb thinks that it sounds like a pot of water that's boiling. I'm going to say it sounds like a big fifty cup coffee maker percolating. Not bad guesses, guys. Unfortunately, there was no winner. Nobody guessed it. Yeah. So let's go back and listen to it real quick after I tell you what it is. But this is a this is a cool one, guys. This is the sound that wood makes when it's burning on the inside. So this is the sound of what's happening inside the wood, not the sound of fire, the sound of what's happening in inside the wood. Now what is actually happening is the heat is making the wood go from a solid to a gas. And that gas is expanding the wood, right? That's why you hear like those pops and crackling noises. Yeah, the wood is fracturing. It's funny because, you know, we think, you know, that's that's the fire. But that is not the sound of the fire. That is the sound of the wood actually gassing and cracking open.

'''E:''' Yeah, the crackling I think is, I always thought, yeah, that was like gas being released.

'''J:''' I guess all of it is the sound of fire, but it isn't like the actual flames itself. So here it is again. Like that's so cool.

'''E:''' A fireproof microphone. They shoved it in there and.

'''J:''' They did. They had a, They had a microphone inside the wood. It was inserted into it.

'''E:''' Crazy.

'''J:''' I have a new noisy for you guys this week that was sent in by a listener named Michael Habitschitz HAPICHT. How is Michael? His last name is a sneeze. How is it? So anyway, Michael, I'm sorry. Everyone that listens to the show just has to, you know, everyone has to uniformly understand that you give me some crazy ass foreign last name when I can't pronounce it. Sorry.

'''E:''' Everyone change your name to Smith.

'''J:''' All right, guys, and here's the noisy. Here it is again. Oh my gosh, lots of weird things going on in there. That's not an easy one, I'll tell you that much. Not an easy noisy at all. But if you think you know what it is or if you heard something cool, you can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, the number one way that people who listen to this show can help support the show is by becoming a patron of the Skeptics Guide. You can go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. We have different levels to our our patronage, all of which will gain access to premium content. At the $8 level, you'll get the ad free show and there are other things in there that are offered to people at that level and higher. So please take a look. It really does help us produce the show. It helps us keep the doors open. And, you know, in a world where things seem like they're going off the Cliff. Not speaking about specifics, but if you if you feel like rational thinking is important, Steve, what should people do?

'''S:''' They should become patrons.

'''J:''' You are so energetic, Steve. It blows my mind. So there's a few more things guys. You could join our mailing list. Every week we send out an e-mail to our listeners telling them about all the things that the SGU did the previous week. You can go to theskepticsguide.org. There's a link on there to join our mailing list. You could also give our show a rating. Ratings actually are very valuable because they it helps new people find our program. Please do that if you have a minute you could go to you know, Apple I think still has ratings. There are rating list out there. Just please pick one and and give us a rating. We have a wonderful conference coming up for 2025. This is called Nauticon. It's Nauticon 2025 and we are doing something really awesome at this conference. We are going to have a Beatles sing along on Saturday night. Last time we did Nauticon, we had an 80s sing along and it was widely loved by almost if not every single person in the hotel, not even at the conference because everybody heard that. Yeah. So please think about joining us this year. We have an awesome program for you. We have a bunch of new bits that were not presented last time that they are new for the 2025 conference. The conference starts on the 15th. There will be a VIP on the 15th. We also have the board game happening on the 15th. I believe that those are both sold out, but there are still a lot of people that will be coming to the hotel that night to hang out and socialize. And let me remind you that this this conference is about socializing. There will be a lot of opportunity to socialize with other people that are at the conference. We'll also be doing Boomer versus Zoomer, which is our game show. George, Rob, Andrea Jones, Roy and Brian Weck will all be joining the SDU crew for the entire conference and we think that this one is going to be so much fun. So please do come guys. It's going to be a ton of fun. You could go to notaconcon.com. Evan, I'm going to repeat that for you just to make sure you got it. Thank you. That's not a con con.com right? Con. Con com.

'''S:''' You could also go to the skepticsguideorg and find a link on there as well. Well everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Quince.

'''E:''' With a new year comes a chance to reimagine ourselves for the better and importantly, our closets. This year, I'm resolving to refresh my look with quality pieces and stay on budget. And I can thanks to Quince.

'''J:''' Yeah, for the holidays this year I got my wife the Quince ribbed cashmere sweater and she absolutely loved it. She gave me their down puffer hoodie jacket. It fits me perfectly. And we have this Arctic freeze thing happening in New England here, and it's absolutely the warmest.

'''B:''' Coat I've ever had upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to quince.com/SDU for a 300 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's QINC ECOM, SGU to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince scom SGU.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:01:17) ==


'''S:''' All right guys, we're going to do a couple of emails. First one comes from Joshua Banta from Tyler, TX and he writes I have a basic question. If we already know bird flu is so dangerous and that it only takes one mutation to begin to spread person to person, then what are we waiting for? Why not sequence the dominant strains in livestock and spin up mRNA vaccines or old fashioned egg based vaccines and start a mass vaccination program? Sure, the vaccine may not be an exact match for the strains that does lead to humans, but it should be close. Heck, the COVID vaccines we receive are never an exact match for the strains that are circulating. They're always mutating and therefore are always different, even ever so slightly from the vaccine targets at a point in time. So why not head off this bird flu threat and nip it in the bud with vaccines? Thanks for all the great work. Best wishes for 2025. That's a fair question, Joshua. What do you guys that have any immediate thoughts about money?

'''E:''' Money.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a bit. One thing is cost. It would cost a lot of money to to roll out a vaccine to first of all, develop an HH5N1 vaccine, even from the mass producer, which we're not doing right now. There isn't 1 rolled out. We do have like a national stockpile of vaccines, not enough to go around. That would be just for people at high risk of exposure, right? Hospital workers, farm workers, whatever, wherever the spillovers are happening, whoever's going to be at high risk of contracting it, that's what the vaccines are for. But even now what they're they're doing is they're using other methods, right? So it's a, it's not just should be vaccinated or not, it's like, what are the methods we have of limiting exposure, limiting infections? And of all the options, what are the best ones? So a mass vaccination program right now isn't cost effective. It's not really necessary. So the other thing is why do it prematurely when that would that means it's not, it's not that it's not an exact match would be a worse match. And right. So the, and the effectiveness is pretty much related to how close the match is. So, and even with, you know, the regular annual flu vaccine, if we're a little bit off, you know, on, on predicting the strain, the effectiveness could be 2030%. You know this that's.

'''B:''' What I suspected.

'''S:''' You right, imagine if we if we roll out of this mass vaccination program and it's 5% effective or whatever that's, you know, it's just not it's not effective, it's not an effective method. There is a a related question of why aren't we vaccinating birds, you know, chickens, turkeys or even cows to protect them. Now some countries do vaccinate, they do vaccinate them. We, we are not doing it. Basically you have some countries only vaccine, vaccinate some kind, some like Japan, not very effective. Actually. Some countries like the US only use other methods, what they call the I think it's called the stomp method, where you basically kill every animal that's exposed. You just do a mass calling and then you then you put them on lockdown, like try to limit spread. So that's the method that we use. And then there's other countries like European countries that do both. They do some vaccination and they do some mass cullings and other methods of limiting exposure. You know, so whether or not we should be adding some vaccinations to the mix is, is a difficult question. And again, the expense is a huge factor. It has to be worth it. You know, if it's just easier just to kill everything, everything that gets infected, then that's what they're going to do. But that does raise ethical questions about, you know, about the culling and if if we get a big outbreak in cattle, that's it becomes less feasible to just do mass cullings. So this is an evolving strategy, right? You know, vaccines are being used. They're going to probably be increasingly used in animals as well as other methods of trying to limit the spread when it, you know, when and if it spills over into humans. Then again, we'll be we'll have the existing vaccines as sort of a first line of defense for high risk people. There'll be whatever other methods are necessary to try to limit exposure, limit the spread. And if it starts to get to like outbreak level, epidemic level, that's when we could make a vaccine to that strain, right? The question is how quickly will we be able to do that? You know, it could take months, you know, a few months to, to, to even though we have proven flu vaccines, you have to make it to the strain that's that's out now. And that takes time.

'''E:''' Oh, when the first case, when the first human does get it, I mean, is it going to be treated almost like someone with Ebola in which they go and they isolate that person and try to. Yeah, probably, you know, take every, you know, go through all those precautions. You know, I've seen footage of that. It's, it's it's quite an undertaking.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. One more e-mail. This one comes from Joe Streckert, and he writes on a recent segment about Bigfoot. Evan divided people who perpetuate the existence of cryptids into two groups, true believers and people who profit off of the myth. But I'm hesitant to think in such stark, binary terms. Here in Portland, Bigfoot is very much a mascot or symbol of the Pacific Northwest region I regional identity. I don't believe he's literally real and I don't know anyone who does. But the forest ape shows up again and again in local art on T-shirts and does a Portland Trail Blazers mascot. My more outdoorsy friends will describe less traveled trails as camping areas as Bigfoot country, even though they don't actually believe in Bigfoot at all. He's a symbol of the wilderness, but not a literal inhabitant of it. What are your thoughts on cryptids as local mascots and regional symbols by people who don't believe they're real? Do you think that practice is wholly negative or is it OK for a guy in a Bigfoot costume to perform during halftime during Blazer games? Big fan of the show. You're far and away my favorite podcast. Well, thank you, Joe.

'''Voice-over:''' Awesome. Thanks.

'''S:''' Yeah, That's OK. What do you guys think about that? Is, is, is like a cultural icon making a making a Cryptid into a cultural icon, a regional icon. How do you feel about that? Is that OK? You think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience or, or is it benign?

'''E:''' I think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience. I do. I I think we've seen it in not just, you know, things like Bigfoot, you know, with Loch Ness Monster. Obviously there's whole industries entirely built around that and certainly plenty of people who definitely believe in that as well. Certainly look what UF OS and aliens have done to our culture and then Western, many, many other cultures around the planet and how the far that's kind of gotten out of control. I don't know that you can necessarily gain these things and know exactly the extent, but I don't think there's much in the way of a positive aspect to it. I think. I think it only hurts, well, one.

'''B:''' Angle, I could see, he said. If you make that image part of your brand, make it funny, you know, make fun of it, make it look silly, that I think that could turn off people into actually believing it by making it seem like we know this is ridiculous. You know, making that part of the brand might help, might help a certain amount.

'''S:''' I kind of agree with Bob that I do think it could. If it's like this is clearly a mythical creature, not a real creature, and nobody takes it seriously, I don't think it would necessarily to contribute to people really believing in it, Right. So I don't know if we have a lot of examples out there, but maybe leprechauns.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Yeah. Maybe Unicorn.

'''S:''' Yeah. So like Ireland sort of has leprechauns as some kind of unofficial mascot sort of thing, but nobody believes in in leprechauns, right? That's wrong about that.

'''E:''' But there are not throngs of people or who, yeah, hunting for for actual leprechaun.

'''S:''' It's recognized as or Dragons. Like nobody thinks Dragons really exist, correct.

'''E:''' You know, but Dragons.

'''S:''' But but Dragons are an icon, especially like Chinese culture or as Bob said, unicorns. Nobody thinks unicorns exist. So if Bigfoot, if Bigfoot evolves into that kind of role where it's like unicorns and leprechauns, then that's fine. That actually might be a good thing. Yeah.

'''E:''' You know, it could be. Yeah. But unfortunately, we have forces working against in the other direction trying to trying to perpetuate it. And frankly, you know, because there are people who are trying to profit off of this television shows a month. I mean, that that's where I go to with.

'''S:''' Yeah, I, I agree. It's in the Gray zone now. Or maybe it's in it's transitional. It's also like Loch Ness, the Nessie in Scotland, right? I mean, when we were there and I think the locals, they think it's a joke, but it's like, it's a joke, but it brings in the tourist dollars. So play along. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Yeah. Let's go see Nessie. You know, come on. It's like, doesn't really think it's real. Remember our tour guide was so happy when we said we have no interest in seeing Loch Ness. We want to see the pretty one. And she's like, oh, thank goodness every everyone goes to to Loch Ness, right? You see Nessie, right? And it's like, yeah, if you live in Roswell, you're going to have a UFO theme to whatever diner because that's you're in Roswell. You know, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if most people who live in Roswell think that there was actually a crashed saucer there. So there's a whole spectrum, you know, from, you know, I think you can be a cultural icon without people really believing in it. You can do both. People can do the sort of the winking. Oh, yeah, you know, we're a Bigfoot country out here. Just try to goose tourism or whatever. Or just because it's a fun mascot?

'''E:''' I. Agree, but we don't need the Sheriff's Office over offering thousand, you know, saying $1000 fines for injuring Bigfoot. I don't think that helps.

'''S:''' Well, yeah, I think that, you know, you said that that rule is there so people won't shoot fellow hunters who happen to be burly, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Bearded woodsman. Yeah. They don't get. They don't.

'''S:''' I don't know. You think so? I mean that like there's a big difference between a a burly person and a, you know, a giant hair covered creature, Jay.

'''E:''' Well, people with guns, and they're hunting, Yeah.

'''S:''' If you're hunting in the woods, you see a shadowy shape, you know, rustling the bushes. Absolutely. People will shoot hunters thinking that they're. It's Bigfoot.

'''E:''' I would wear orange if I go out anywhere like that.

'''S:''' That's why you have to wear hunter orange. Yeah. All right. Thank you for those emails, guys.
{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:11:44) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = CES2025
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.
|link1web = https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ecoflows-solar-hat-is-better-for-the-planet-than-your-style-203358237.html
|link1title = EcoFlow’s Solar hat is better for the planet than your style
|link1pub = www.engadget.com

|item2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.
|link2web =
|link2title = None
|link2pub = None

|item3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.
|link3web = https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/07/ces-2025-best-weirdest-tech-products/
|link3title = CES 2025: The best and weirdest new tech products so far - The Washington Post
|link3pub = www.washingtonpost.com

|item4 = Swippitttt is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.
|link4web =
|link4title = None
|link4pub = None

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.

|science2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|science3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|fiction = Swipit is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|rogue2 = Jay
|answer2 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|rogue3 = Evan
|answer3 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|host = Steve
|sweep = y
|clever =
|win =
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''Voice-over:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or fax, 2 real and one fake. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics tell me which one is the fake. Except this week I have a theme and I have 4 items. Haven't done that in a while.

'''E:''' Yeah, I don't think we had a in 2024. I don't think we had AI.

'''S:''' Don't think we did, but these are quick. That's why I did four. So the theme is the Consumer Electronics Show 2025.

'''E:''' That's what I was trying to think of when I was doing my segment. Yeah, the Consumer Electronics Show. Yeah.

'''S:''' Is that is that going on now?

'''E:''' It is. Yeah.

'''S:''' Crap. Missed it. So these are four products that were showed at CBS 2025, although one of them wasn't. Oh gosh, see if you could tell which one is the fake. You guys ready? Yeah, yes. All right, item number one, the Ecoflow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. All right #2 The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Eye number 3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory, and eye #4 SWIP. It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

'''B:''' That makes no sense. The Phone 1. So Steve, is this Is this a specific type of phone that has hot swappable batteries? Or or or is it meant like for an iPhone or or pixel or something? Sounds like Bob's going first. By the way, or mainstream phone.

'''S:''' Bob, why don't you go first?

'''B:''' Yeah. Fuck answer my question.

'''S:''' Answer me, you get the information you have.

'''B:''' Oh yeah. So now it's when I ask questions I get the information I have.

'''S:''' For this one, just because the nature of this science or fiction, no questions. So who's going first?

'''B:''' It's me. All right. Well, this, The thing is, this is perfect for this because there's so many crazy things out there. That they would absolutely try to sell, like for example the solar powered hat. Now, there's no way that you're going to be doing any significant charging of your of your phone with a hat. I mean, you probably, you know, have to do hours just to get a few percentage points. Something like that solar powered hat. But if you're. Going to they do they do make solar powered console solar powered devices, devices that you can hook your phone to to charge it and in the apocalypse, it would be awesome. And if you're walking around on the beach all day, yeah, you might as well trickle charge if you can. So that's yeah, kind of OK, kind of makes sense that somebody would do that. The spice dispenser makes a that seems like a great item. I mean, you can't it's so it's from reading right? It's meant that you can't mess with it in terms of like replacing the spice with another spice. But but yeah, I mean think of all the spices you have in your cabinet. You probably use 3 or 490% of the time. So that'd be great just for the ones that you would use all the time. So that sounds pretty good to me from reading this right. Let me see, sometimes I miss a word that just like critical. The Spicer. All right, let's see the electric spoon to to make food taste more salty and savoury. That's ridiculous. But let me think about it though. I mean, could you could. You spoon. I mean, So what do you get? A little shock? Could that put? Is that their angle that they're doing a little shock? Which of course, would be horrible. Little.

'''E:''' Shock of horrors.

'''B:''' So what other angle could they use besides just purely like, you know, putting a 9 Volt to your tongue? I don't know, could there be some subtle effect that could actually impact taste? Remember those pills that you would eat that would basically change? Literally just change flavors for various foods for periods of? Time block your better receptors, right, Yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, change flavor. It just, Yeah, stops you from tasting blockers.

'''B:''' Yeah, but.

'''J:''' I mean, it's from a, it's from a plant.

'''B:''' Yeah. The effect, though, was that things tasted differently.

'''J:''' Yeah, they made it in a plant.

'''B:''' That doesn't sound likely at all, but I'm trying to think of what could be a workaround. All right, so let's go this last one. The toaster and the stupid phone. That's ridiculous, but you know I. Think Steve. I don't think Steve. I think he's counting on this one, because it just sounds utterly ridiculous. Unless it was. No, that, that's just so stupid. It's too stupid to be fake. Let's just put it that way. So I'm going to go with, I'll go with the spoon.

'''J:''' OK, Jay, the echo flow, the solar powered hat say here it it's capable of charging 2 devices at once. I mean, I see I I think that one is real because there's no mention of how long it would take to charge those devices. You know, I suppose if you're walking out and on a sunny day all day, you could you could charge 2 devices. Doesn't mean charge to full either. Yeah, I'd say sure. Someone came up with that. The Spicer. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices. And it's proprietarily sealed automatic spice. So what do you hold this over your plate and press a button and it it puts out what it thinks it needs to put out? I guess. Steve. Yeah. I said no.

'''B:''' Yeah. Right, Steve. Wink, wink.

'''J:''' All right I mean sure that doesn't that's not hard. You know, I don't know I shouldn't say it's not hard. I mean the mechanism doesn't seem that hard if it if there's AI involved in it, which I'm I'm thinking it is really everything Evan, come on your shoelaces are going to have AI at some point The.

'''E:''' Aglets.

'''J:''' The third one of Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon. They claim that it will make food taste more salty and savory. That sounds very bizarre. And also an electric spoon doesn't sound that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Like I don't want electricity happening in my mouth. So that way that one. OK, I'll put that one on a on a sub list here as maybe let me go to the last one to SWIP it about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. I mean, unless they're talking about a proprietary phone that lets you swap out the internal battery, there is absolutely no way that that's happening to an iPhone. I can't imagine that that happening to, you know, Google Phone either. Like you, there is no swapping of the internal battery for a fresh 1. So I don't know what the hell this is about. Yeah, I don't think that one is it. I think that one is, is the fiction because you can't swap out universally shop, swap out batteries and cell phones. I mean, there is, there's a lot more to this than we're than we're hearing. And if anything, I would think that there's there's another mechanism involved that we don't know about.

'''S:''' OK.

'''E:''' And Evan, well, Jay, I'm inclined a bit to agree with you on the SWIP it. You're right. It's not like take whatever phone and throw it in there and we'll swap the battery out. Obviously the majority of the phones we have now, you can't do that. You know, even a person can't do it you let alone a machine. So therefore the SWIP it would be its own phone had built specific, you know, a SWIP it phone that goes in your SWIP it toaster to swap your SWIP it battery it all proprietary, right? All its own system. It's a closed system, right? You're not going to put your Apple in there or your iPhone, whatever that leads me to believe if it is its own system. Does not have the can't handle the X, the other devices and other manufacturers and stuff. Then it could be possible, which is why I think it is possible that that is true. Also SWIP it. Notice SWIPPITTTT. OK, now I'm going to go back to the Spicer spelled SPICERRI Think Steve made this up. I think he took the swipit idea, you know, because and threw the extra R on there for Spicer. I think that's a bit of a tell. Holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed unfillable capsule. I I just don't think that thing exists. I have a feeling Steve made this one up entirely. Eco flow solar power hat makes sense to me. And the Japanese spoon one makes sense to me because it says it claims it will make food taste more salty and and savoury. And I believe it's not a spoon that you eat with. I think it's a cooking spoon, right, So it it infuses somehow into the food, but and and maybe even not, it could just be a placebo effect. You think that it's happening, Therefore you think it's more salty than it actually is because it's a claim. It's not really even a been proven. I have a feeling the Spicer is the fiction.

'''S:''' All right, so you guys are all spread out. Cara, you'll notice is not with us. She, you know, is too busy dealing with the her, her city being on fire. Yeah, so she had to bail. But let's let's go to number one, I guess since you all you guys all agree on this one. The eco flow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. You all think this one is science, and this one is ridiculously science.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Mine is a ridiculous, well, the hat, personally. You have to see the hat, right? I mean, it looks ridiculous. It's got a huge rim and that's where the solar panels are.

'''B:''' They're kind of like sewn into like a sombrero.

'''S:''' Like a sombrero.

'''B:''' Yeah, and they must be very light panels as well.

'''S:''' They're not like they're like woven into the fabric, you know what I mean? It's not like a panel stuck on the outside. It's more integrated into the fabric.

'''B:''' Well, that's something.

'''S:''' Yeah, and it has a USBA and USBC connector connector under the brim. It produces a maximum of five volts and 2.4 amps. So that's basically nothing, you know, So it like maybe would top off your phone, you know, but it's not going to like Apocalypse to recharge your phone.

'''J:''' It looks ridiculous.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's as a fashion statement. You know, it's it's right up there with chair pants.

'''J:''' You know, there are things, Steve, like, like people who are out hiking, you know, they have solar panels that they like to put on their backpack. You. Know that's different. Yeah, I mean, this has solar panel. I mean it's kind of similar, you know, it's like it's just a a minor trickle flow to to charge a phone if you don't have whatever. It's not, it's not a horrible thing, but I think it's been done much better with other, you know, higher quality product.

'''S:''' Yeah, so there's no reason to put it on your hat. All right, let's. I guess we'll take these in order. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices and proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Evan, you think this one is the fiction? Jay and Bob, you think this one is science and this one is science? Sorry, Evan. Bob, you actually want this thing? Maybe I'll get it to you for your birthday or something.

'''B:''' Right. I mean this makes sense that you use some spices much more than others. It'd be great to have them just right there click. I assume you just do a click click and you can get like.

'''E:''' Is it for the chef or the OR the eater?

'''S:''' Whatever. Either way it's more for cooking. I mean I think it's more for cooking and it it doesn't decide how much spice to put in. You tell it like I want one tablespoon of this, I want 1 whatever. You tell it how much to put in you just you press the buttons and you hit go and it drops all the spices pre measured into your pot or whatever. I don't like this and I'll tell you why. Yeah, I don't like it either.

'''J:''' First of all, you know you're limited to the spices you could load into. I'm looking it up on the website.

'''S:''' Yeah, you have to buy their spices.

'''J:''' That sucks.

'''S:''' I don't like that.

'''B:''' That's crazy. That's the. Capsules. If their spices suck, that'd be one thing, but what if they were decent? What if they were like fairly good quality spices?

'''S:''' But you're locked in like you don't have a choice. You can't buy anything you want. It's not like if you could refill the capsules if they were not sealed, then that would be that would be much better.

'''B:''' Wait, So what happens when they run? Out.

'''S:''' You got to replace them with a new cap, Yeah.

'''B:''' So there, so there's yeah. So there's a new capsule that you would get, but you can't get a different. Type of spice.

'''S:''' You could, you could swap them out, but then the whole point that is that this is supposed to be more convenient. If you're swipping out caps, swapping out capsules into this device, there's no way that it's more convenient than just dashing your spice into your pot, You know what I mean?

'''J:''' It's ridiculous. The whole premise is ridiculous. First of all, if you're cooking, if you cook on a regular and all that, like you, you, you have a drawer filled with spices, dozens of spices, Yeah. That I use on a regular. But there I could I could go through a short list right now off the top of why this is ridiculous. 1 You know spices don't last forever, right? Yeah, that's true. They do have a shelf life once you buy them and you open them. Like you got to be mindful of that. Like it's good to have the dates written on there. This. First off, I guarantee you that their spices are more expensive than what they costed in the store. I I could almost guarantee it because it's all packed the system, Yeah.

'''E:''' You have to buy the system.

'''J:''' You know, and then I have questions like, well, what if I use a lot of 1 spice? Can you just buy that one thing or do you have to buy a whole pack of them? Like, you know, it just gets, I don't know, 3.

'''E:''' Of your 6 chambers. Yeah, it does sound annoying, yeah.

'''J:''' You know, then you'll have a whole freaking drawer full of, you know, of like some wacko spice that you don't use.

'''B:''' It's it's solving a non problem and introducing a bunch of new ones.

'''E:''' It's it's Rube Goldbergish in a way.

'''B:''' Yeah, I mean just a we've got a spice little mini closet thing in in my kitchen. How long does it take to just go in there and grab the and grab the damn spice you want? True, that's true. It is not much of a problem that's being solved.

'''S:''' Here, As for the salt and pepper, which are like the ones you use all the time, you have a dedicated, you know, salt shaker and pepper grinder right there, you know, Yeah. Anyway, let's go on #3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory. Bob, you think this one is the fiction? Could be Jay and Evan think this one is science.

'''E:''' Not anymore.

'''S:''' And this one is science. Sorry about really. Yep, the the, the company is Kirin KIRIN, Kirin Kirin, that's a beer company and they made this electric spoon. It is for eating oven, not for cooking. And it does give you electric electrical charge. It's an electrical current that's supposed to concentrate the sodium ions to amplify the salty and umami taste savoury. And so you have to hold the spoon, you have to put your fingers like the conducting plates to activate it, and then you have to hold it in your mouth for a few seconds to get the effect it. The whole thing seems ridiculous.

'''J:''' And then it has to give you a 20 amp jolt to. The top.

'''E:''' And then a mechanism makes you chew your food.

'''J:''' And you have to have a ground shoe, a shoe that is grounding. So. So I mean, look, let's say that this thing works really well. Yeah.

'''B:''' Who gives you shit like Jay? I'll tell. You Jay salt. But salt, baby. People love salt and a lot of people have to avoid it because of exactly because of medical conditions. And you know what country has the worst salt overuse problem in the world?

'''S:''' Sure it's in Japan. Japan.

'''B:''' Oh, 100% Well, there you go.

'''S:''' Yeah, no, we eat more fat, they eat more salt. So they all have hypertension and they die of heart attacks and stroke from their hypertension.

'''J:''' I thought that we said on the show that salt doesn't give you hypertension.

'''S:''' That's not true, Yeah.

'''J:''' Not true. So we're back to. Not we're back to. Limiting salt intake.

'''S:''' I just did a TikTok on this today.

'''J:''' Well, hello.

'''S:''' The evidence is pretty clear that if you have hypertension, there is a pretty linear relationship between your salt intake and your blood pressure, and lowering your salt intake will lower your blood pressure. The only question is in people who do not have hypertension, is it there is a, there is a controversy over what the recommendation should be for people who do not have high blood pressure at baseline. Should they still keep their salt low or are they fine? You know, and the American Heart Association says keep your salt low anyway. And other people say no, it's that's overkill. You don't need to do that. But if you have hypertension, well, that's true. You get a lot of people get iodine from their salt, but there's no question that if you have hypertension, salt's a problem, right? And there's also no question that in Japan, they eat a lot of salt and they have a lot of hypertension. They have a lot of strokes. That's also not not contested. So even though I think this is ridiculous, I understand why you would think of like, why a Japanese company would say, hey, how could we satisfy people's desire for salty food without having them put a lot of salt in their context matters.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. But does it work? You know who knows?

'''E:''' It's why it's a claim. It's not a proof SWIP.

'''S:''' It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. Is the fiction.

'''E:''' Did you make it up entirely?

'''S:''' Nope. The SWIP, it exists. It is this toaster sized device you do put your phone in. But you are swapping out an external battery that goes into its proprietary phone case.

'''E:''' Oh, case, Yeah. So it's it's external battery.

'''S:''' You're not swapping out the internal battery, you're swapping out an external battery that goes in its case. So you have to get their proprietary case and their proprietary battery. It's an extra battery that gives you an extends your.

'''E:''' I should have thought of that. Yeah. It extends your, your battery life internal. Yeah.

'''S:''' And you could you could you could swap it out by just putting it in this ridiculous toaster size, right.

'''E:''' By saying it's it's entirely proprietary, but I didn't think about an external.

'''S:''' The internal battery's just not that's just not feasible.

'''E:''' It's not going to miss out very.

'''S:''' Well, they could design from I guess that, but they won't. I guess, but they won't. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not how they used to. If you want the form factor and everything, whatever. So. Oh, yeah. But this is this is an external battery. That's the detail that I changed and I did. That was fun. It is meant for use like with iPhones or whatever, because you just have to put to put their case on it, which apparently is not very attractive. But I just said smartphone to make it ambiguous so that people might think, oh, you have to use their proprietary phone in order to make this work. Yeah, Yeah. To make it a little bit more challenging. All right, that was good. You guys were all over the place. I like that.

'''E:''' It was fun.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:30:46) ==
{{qow
|text = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|author = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game. Karl Popper from the book The Logic of Scientific Discovery, on which apparently this is the premise of the book.

'''S:''' Yes, that is the Seminole work and that is basically the the unfalsifiable and shame on me for not having read this book.

'''E:''' Why don't I know about this book? I'm it's was written in 1959 the way I should have by now. I should have picked this one up. Yeah, Scientific Discovery.

'''S:''' It is it is again a Seminole work. It is, you know, established this idea that falsifiability is a necessary feature of any truly scientific hypothesis or endeavor.

'''E:''' Oh, so true.

'''S:''' Yeah. Karl Popper. You guys remember what? What movie referenced Popper?

'''E:''' Oh, I vaguely remember that there's a.

'''S:''' Popular Science fiction movie that threw in Popper as. Sounds to the lamps, no. 2001 The Matrix, the cartoon Matrix. What was that called?

'''B:''' Oh yeah, revolutions or something? Yeah, Revolutions.

'''S:''' The Matrix Revolutions.

'''B:''' Renaissance 1 and 2. They are the best matrix animated or one of the not best.

'''S:''' No, no, the good one, that was like 10 or so little animated shorts. Yeah.

'''B:''' That's what I mean, but which? Which short was it?

'''S:''' It was the IT was the kid, the Animatrix, the Animatrix, that's what it was the Animatrix. It was the kid who spontaneously, you know, like he flew, jumped out the window and spontaneously got his consciousness back into his body. That one.

'''E:''' I'm skeptical. Oh wow, I don't remember that.

'''S:''' Yeah. Shout out to Popper in that one. All right.

'''E:''' Thank you, Evan. Thank you.

'''S:''' So thank you guys for joining me this week. You got mad, doctor. Hopefully everything will go well with the LA fires. We're keeping an eye on that. We'll probably give you a little update next week and until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1018

2025-10-01T23:41:45Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:11:44) */ inserted 4th item

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1018
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1018|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1018.jpg
|caption = "Journey through the depths: a train glides beneath the ocean's surface."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|qowAuthor = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1018|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello, and welcome to the Skeptic Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, January 8th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody, Cara, Santa Maria. Howdy, Jay Novella. Hey guys, and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening, everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, how you doing out there? I hear your whole world is on fire.

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' What's happening?

'''C:''' Yeah. It's rough in LA today. I think I had a little too much confidence yesterday when I went to sleep. But I live in a part of Lai live in LA proper, the city and the county, in a neighborhood called Eagle Rock, which is northeast LA. It's very, very close to Glendale, Pasadena. There is a raging fire in Altadena, which is just north of Pasadena called the Eaton Fire, named after Eaton. I think Eaton Canyon, which is one of my favorite hikes that I used to go on, probably won't be able to go on it again. That fire is now at 10,600 acres and there are evac orders in place for all of like Altadena, La Kenyatta, Flint Ridge, parts of Glendale and Pasadena and a couple other places, Monrovia. And then there are evac warnings in place. I'd say the closest to me is about a mile away. I'm in a weird position where the perimeter of the area is actually covered in warnings, but there's sort of a beeline straight towards me that are orders. And that's just because the wind is blowing right in my direction right now and has been all day. And then to the southwest of me is the even larger Palisades Fire, which right now is at 15,832 acres. And it's both of these fires, by the way, are 0% controlled. They're just burning uncontrollably right now. And there's a lot of suppression on the ground, but there's not much air suppression right now because the smoke is too thick. So they can't do what usually you would do during a wildfire, which is attack it from the sky. And right now, I have a lot of friends, a lot of people that I know that either have lost everything or are evacuated and just hoping that when they come home, they won't have lost everything. The entire Pacific Palisades is on fire, and so is a fair amount of Topanga. Santa Monica has a lot of evac orders. These are major population centers. You know, these are places where people, hundreds of thousands of structures are probably going to be destroyed. There are also small fires popping up, like the Woodley Fire is 30 acres. They may have actually put that one out. They did. They put that one out. That's good. The Hearst Fire is 700 acres just north in the San Fernando Valley, like Sylmar area area. So if you look at a map of LA right now, and you lived in central LA, you would be surrounded on the northeast and the southwest by two massive infernos. I took a video from my roof and the smoke is everywhere because it's coming from all directions, like outside. Right now I have to wear an N95. The inside of my house smells like a campfire. Yeah, my Dyson air purifiers are working overtime. I had to replace the filter in one of them today because it said it was completely full and there's ash all over the ground and I'm not even in an evac zone. The thing that I think we forget too about Lai forget a lot of times is like the Palisades is like an hour away. Oh, it's really far away because that's how we measure. We measure in LA, we measure by time and traffic, but it's only like 20 miles away, right? You know, it's like LA is big. It's really, really big. But these areas are not that far from each other. A lot of people have been asking me like, is it? How is this happening? It's not fire season. But I think the thing to remember too is that in LA, fire season is different. Yes, technically fire season is spring, summer, fall. But in LA, Santa Ana, wind season is fall, winter, spring. And so historically, in my experience living here, the worst fires that I saw were like October, November. And yes, it's very odd that this is happening in January, but it's warm and it's dry. And the wind, I hate, love that some of the articles were using this language because I think it really sends it home hurricane force winds. That's why this fire is spreading out of control. Yeah, the Santa Ana winds are gusting so hard and so fast.

'''S:''' Well, even though it's late in the year now, you know, it's the new year, but it's late in the season, I should say. The you guys still haven't had rain. So it's still dry.

'''C:''' No. Yeah.

'''S:''' And we don't basically fire season has not ended yet because it ends when it rains and it hasn't rained.

'''C:''' Yeah. And it almost never rains enough here in LA to stay wet enough, you know what I mean? So we, we can I, I like to say fire. Yeah. Fire season is when the Santa Anas are blowing. If the wind is blowing, it's fire season here, unless it's actively raining. But we knew it, right? Like we we all got the warnings and the chatter a couple of days ago, like things are going to look bad. Start to think about this. It could get bad. It could get bad. All the conditions are right. Yeah. I mean, there were no fires yet, but we knew it was going to be red happening very quickly. Yeah, we knew it was going to be red flag warning, right? We're used to that, living in LA, like red flag days. Get ready, you know, don't be stupid. And there were some preemptive power cut offs. A lot of people in LA don't have power right now. I don't know why I have power. I've been very luckily the lights have flickered quite a bit, but I've been really lucky that I've maintained power. But yeah, we knew the conditions were going to be right, but you never know what's going to happen. I went to bed last night and the Eaton fire was 800 acres. So I was like, OK, there's a big fire pretty close to me, but it's, it's, you know, that's not that big. And the Palisades fire was about 3000 acres when I went to bed last night. I woke up this morning and the Eaton fire was about 3000 acres. And I was like, oh God, it tripled overnight. And the Palisades Fire was holding. Then the Palisades Fire went up to 10,000, then the Eaton fire just exploded to 10,000 plus and now the Palisades fire is over 15,000. You just never know. You know, we keep an eye out. I'm, I have my go bag packed, my truck, it ready to go, trying not to use water, trying to maintain because that's the other thing that we have to remember. These are wildfires happening in an urban center and urban water supplies are not built for wildfire suppression. They're just not. We're running out of water. The hydrants can't handle it. We've got people on, on, you know, boil recommendations because they don't have pressure or the water that's coming out isn't safe to drink. So I'm just trying to do what I can not use water, not not clog up the road, stay put until I absolutely know that it's unsafe to stay put anymore. Then I'll get out there in my truck and I'll drive to where I can breathe and I'll camp. You know, I won't take up a hotel room. And I thank goodness I have a big stash of N90 fives, you know, from that other horrible thing that we all went through. Yeah, it's apocalyptic.

'''B:''' Save some of those for the bird flu.

'''C:''' Right, exactly. So yeah, I mean, people who are listening right now can't see it, but I did post on my Insta some videos from my roof and, you know, just some of the air quality. When I woke up this morning, the AQI was 375. I've never seen it that high in my life. Like a bad day in LA is like 8090, maybe 1-10. But that's like unhealthy for sensitive groups, right? Like 8090 is just like, okay, the air quality is bad today. It's pretty smoggy. 375 is like very dangerous. So fun times. Great open to the show, huh?

'''S:''' Well, let's let's pivot to some some good news. Do you guys hear that Bill Nye was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom? I did that was.

'''B:''' Wonderful, we did. We need to send him congratulations from this to you.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's nice to see. You know, the Biden presented it to him for obviously for his because he is a beloved science communicator. Yeah, and environmental and yes, which I of course totally agree with. Yeah. So it's good to see Peep science educators be recognized.

'''J:''' Yeah, for sure. I mean, Bill is out there relentlessly communicating science, teaching people about what reality is. I mean, it's he's one of the very few that have broken through and have a global presence. And we, you know, I couldn't encourage him more to keep going.

'''E:''' He always makes critical thinking a centerpiece of anything he's talking about. He always incorporates it. That's so important.
{{anchor|quickie}}
== Quickie with Steve: Primate Twins (08:26) ==

{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.livescience.com/animals/our-ancient-primate-ancestors-mostly-had-twins-humans-dont-for-a-good-evolutionary-reason
|article_title = Our ancient primate ancestors mostly had twins — humans don't, for a good evolutionary reason | Live Science
|publication = www.livescience.com
}}

'''S:''' All right, well, I'm going to start us off with a quickie. This is an interesting question. So most primates give birth to singletons, right? To one child at a time, not just humans. Most primates do that. There are a few species of primates which tend to give birth to twins, some lemurs, marmosets for example. Now it was believed that since most primates give birth to one child at a time, that that's the rule. And that the, you know, the marmosets and lemurs giving birth of twins or multiple births, that that was the exception that they evolved that after, you know, the common ancestor of primates. It turns out, though, that it may be the opposite, that giving birth to twins was the feature of the primate common ancestor and that most primates independently evolved giving birth to only one child at a time. You might be thinking, how do we know how many children our primate ancestors have had? Right? That's not something that typically fossilizes, right? Unless we happen to catch.

'''C:''' Yeah, like a pregnant.

'''S:''' Yeah. Family, you know, fossilized together, which is not, not typical. We have. We have no idea. How do you guys think they did it? How? Do they do?

'''C:''' No idea.

'''S:''' So they just, they just surveyed, you know, they gathered all the information about extant mammal species, mammal groups, and they can figure out from that how likely it is that the, yeah, the last common ancestor of all primates, whether they likely gave birth to to single or multiple children. So based on that analysis, basically mapping it out, you know, the changes in the in the mammalian line they said, yeah, they the common answers probably gave birth to twins or to multiple births and then different lines within primates later developed only giving single birth. Now what do you think that is with? So therefore, if it evolved multiple times independently, there probably was some evolutionary, some selective pressure for that. So what do you think that is?

'''E:''' Mortality rate?

'''S:''' Yeah, but why? And you could also think about the like, the marmosets and why they might be the exception.

'''C:''' You mean of having fewer?

'''S:''' Well, marmosets still have twins.

'''C:''' Oh, OK.

'''S:''' Most other primates will have a single birth.

'''C:''' But like, I'm sorry, what are you asking about? What The Why?

'''S:''' So why did why did evolving only one giving birth to only one child at a time evolve independently so many times within primates?

'''B:''' Well, resources. Scarce resources. You. Don't want to have to feed two kids. Health of the bearer of the of the mother.

'''S:''' Yeah, Evans closer. So so the idea is this is the thinking because based upon the species that still give birth to multiple kids and those that give both to one, it's basically head size, right? The bigger primates with the bigger heads all give birth to one child at a time. Only the tiny ones still give birth like parmesans give birth to multiple offspring at a time, right.

'''C:''' Because how often when a human has triplets are they able to like you can do a home birth with like that's a hospital emergency.

'''S:''' There's also a huge risk of being premature.

'''C:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''S:''' That's I think the number one cause of premature birth is twins, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, I'm a, I'm a twin and that was a a month premature. So yeah, that tracks.

'''S:''' Well, it's anecdotal, but yeah, statistically, yeah, that's true. It it is statistically true. So that's the idea. Yeah. So primates got bigger. We got big brained. We started giving birth to only one child at a time, even though probably our common ancestor gave birth to twins or multiple offspring. And that still persisted among the smaller primates, some of the smaller primates, because they didn't have the same issue, the same selective pressure of having to squeeze out a huge kid. But I find, well, the thing I found most interesting about that is that they were able to figure out that our common answers are probably typically had twins just from mapping out extant species. You know, All right, Jay, tell us about NASA's plans to return samples from Mars.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Mars Sample Return (12:26) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-overhauls-mars-sample-return-plan-rcna186400
|article_title = NASA overhauls plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth
|publication = www.nbcnews.com
}}

'''J:''' I don't quite remember when we talked about this. It might have been over a year ago, but I do remember us discussing the idea that NASA is right now and has been collecting regolith samples on Mars and they're putting that those samples into tubes for later pickup, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, we did talk about. This.

'''J:''' Yeah. Like, what does that mean? So there was a plan, but it turned out it was too expensive. So NASA announced that they made a significant revision to its Mars Sample return program, which is also called MSR, right, Mars Sample Return. The goal in the revision was simply to reduce costs and to actually make the mission happen sooner. You know, like the original thing was 2040 and they said, you know, we could, we could do it cheaper and we could do it faster. They think that they could do it in the twenty 30s. Now, the original plan was estimated at 11 billion with a projected return date, like I said, somewhere in the twenty 40s. This was eventually considered way too expensive and and much too much time to wait for these samples. So what they did was they went back to the drawing board and came up with a completely different strategy on how to do it. So I think you can't really appreciate this unless you know what the original mission was and and pay attention to how complicated this is. So they had to create a retrieval Lander. That retrieval Lander, and I mean this thing lands on the surface of Mars. It had to be equipped with two small helicopters adopters to go and collect the sealed sample tubes left by Perseverance. Then it needed a robotic arm to load the sample tubes into a rocket on board the Lander. The Lander was also going to carry the Mars ascent vehicle MAV, which launches the samples up into, you know, into orbit around, around the planet. That's a big deal right there. So the revised plan is that they absolutely abandoned the helicopters and the sample retrieval Lander. They're, they're going to focus on 2 alternative approaches for the Lander. So the one is the sky crane, which we, again, we've talked about this on the show before for other missions. So what they would do is they would adapt the landing system similar to the Curiosity and Perseverance Rover missions where a rocket slows down the descent and the sky crane lowers the payload to the surface. So the private sector collaboration here would be that they partner with commercial companies to design and develop a new Lander, potentially using a SpaceX, SpaceX, Starship, or a similar heavy lift vehicle. And then the sample handling would be they want to investigate cleaning the sample tubes on the Martian surface to simplify the return process. I'm not exactly sure what that means. What do you guys think that means?

'''B:''' Well, as opposed to doing it within the the vehicle that's picking it up, right?

'''E:''' For to avoid. Is it a contamination issue?

'''J:''' So they want to clean those tubes because there there's going to be particles and dust and everything on the outside of the tubes and that could contaminate the return capsule or interfere with the analysis that's going to happen later when when it is returned to Earth. So those those tubes actually need to be cleaned. So, so the proposal would be to clean the tubes on the surface of Mars before they're shuttled back to Earth. Now, the power source here, we, they would switch from solar power to nuclear power, which would ensure reliability and resilience against any Martian dust storms, which I didn't realize how significant that was, You know, because the atmosphere on Mars, as Bob likes to say, is unbelievably thin. You know, even a major, major, major like weather event on Mars is it's just there's just not a lot of atmosphere there to push around.

'''B:''' Thousandth the the pressure.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' No, it's a little bit less than 1%. I don't think it's point 1%.

'''J:''' Let's see.

'''B:''' OK, so 100.

'''S:''' It's less than 100, but it's very dry.

'''B:''' Order of magnitude.

'''S:''' But it's very dry and there are dust storms that that engulf the planet. And yeah, every time you get a dust storm in, that completely covers any solar panels.

'''B:''' Yeah, but it's not, it's not going to knock your ship over, preventing you from leaving.

'''S:''' Probably not.

'''B:''' Oh, here we go. The. Martian, the only the major mistake in the entire. Budget.

'''J:''' So to summarize the new plan, they'd have a sky crane that would lower the Lander. They would have instead of the helicopters to retrieve the samples, they would have a a a Lander would be a direct mechanism from a Lander, which seems a lot simpler right, than these two helicopters. I mean, it's cool. It's cool that they'd have helicopters there, but this makes more sense for it to be a vehicle, I guess, unless they're super far away. I guess that's a big consideration. So the original plan was solar powered. Now the new one, we have nuclear power. 11 billion versus 6 to 7 billion. Still sounds like a lot. But you know, saving 4 or $5 billion, it's that's a very nice amount of money to save. The timeline was 20/20/40 with the new one being in the twenty 30s. So I mean, you know, it could be, it could be up to 10 years time saving. You know, even if it was five years, it's still a significant amount of time. And then, you know, there would be a, instead of minimal or no private sector role, there would be a significant role in the Lander development, which is it's always good to farm out, you know, to the private sector. That is the way that things are going at NASA big time. So that's a, that's a priority for them. So I, I think this is exciting. I mean, first of all, to have the nerve to say, we're going to re engineer this, you know, we, we already sussed this thing out and spent an enormous amount of time and energy figuring it out. And it's good to know that they're in a position now where they could say, Nope, we're not doing that. Let's start over again. We could do better. And that's what they did here. It's 2025. I mean, you know, they could be retrieving these samples. You know, five years sounds really short when you think about it, but it could be they could do it in five years, possibly. I would say 10 years on the outside, but that would be amazing. I mean, we get those samples. You know, this is going to be our first real deep investigation of of the regolith on Mars. And man, what, what will they find?

'''E:''' Boy, you know. The the evidence of the former. Life, I know. Life that used to live there, it would be. Incredible. That would be a game changer, right? Sure would.

'''J:''' We live, we live in an exciting time for space travel. We really do. I think it's, it's really cool. I mean, thinking that we're going to have a spacecraft try to fly through, you know, the ejecta from one of Jupiter's moons to see if there's life there, you know, that is so cool.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Thanks, Jay.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Unique Microbiome (18:49) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-01-scientists-unique-microbiome-planet-roof.html
|article_title = Scientists discover a unique microbiome on our planet's roof
|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Yeah, Bob, tell us about this unique microbiome.

'''B:''' Surely, researchers have studied in detail for the first time the microbial ecosystems that exist in Mountain Top Glacier fed streams. These microbiomes are not only different than they expected, they're also among Earth's most vulnerable ecosystems in the face of climate change. Really, truly. These two papers were published in Nature and Nature of Microbiology. A lot of this research was led by Tom Batten, Professor in Environmental Science and the head of one of Switzerland's Federal Institutes of Technology called the River Lab, which in turn is part of the Vanishing Glaciers project. Now these researchers decided to look into these ecosystems because these glacier fed streams are obviously very important. Think about it. They're essentially water towers for downstream ecosystems. This includes bringing freshwater to from what I read, billions of people. That's crazy. Billions of people benefit from this water, but it also acts as a buffer during a seasonal variations, right? Because if you if you're experiencing dry seasons, then this could help buffer, you know, buffer that water availability by still, you know, having them exist. I mean, they're critically important not only for water consumption, but also there's agriculture, hydropower, fisheries, etcetera, etcetera. Glacier fed streams also play important roles in carbon cycling and nutrient cycling and more. So yeah, these are really critically important and they're also probably the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet. Think about it. You've got this. You've got this freshwater coming from glaciers that so it's near freezing. They also have very low nutrient concentrations. And in addition to that, there's also no sunlight during the winter. And even when the summer comes around and they're they're the light will make a reappearance or be more, you know. Or be stronger. There's also strong UV rays, so good luck eking out in existence in one of these. And that's why it's, it's probably when they say it's in one of the most extreme freshwater ecosystems on the planet, but nobody had seriously looked at the microbial life that was part of that water. You may be thinking of bacteria and you'd be right. But there's they've also found bacterial biofilms, Archaea, fungi, algae and viruses. So it's just chock full of these microbes, these, these important microbes and fascinating and complex. They spent five years going to 170 different separate glacier fed streams to collect and analyze these samples. They focused, it seems a lot on the abundant biofilms because they're just the most prevalent a form of life there that you that they that they could focus on. But so they focus on them to A to a certain extent more than the others. But they found when they look closely at everything, they found unique microbiomes unlike anything that that that's been seen in other of these so-called cryosphere systems. A cryosphere. I love that word. It's part of the earth that that are frozen, right? Snow, ice sheets, icebergs, permafrost, it's all over the planet. And and these specific microbiomes are different than all of the other ones they found. Typically almost half of the bacteria that they analyze were specific to just the the one mountain range that they were on, or in some cases it was unique to that particular glacier fed stream just not found anywhere else on the planet. Most interesting, though, that I found was that these these microbes had a high degree of adaptability. Researcher Greg Mcchoud said it's fascinating to see the broad range of adaptive strategies that microorganisms have developed to survive in this extreme environment. So these organisms are best described, it seems, as metabolic generalists. They could metabolize organic carbon, solar energy, minerals, and possibly they think even gases. And all that's quite extraordinary, Jay. That would be like you living off of not only meatballs, but you could also photosynthesize like plants and you could also eat methane or hydrogen gas. And if you're still hungry, you go in the backyard and eat some rocks. That's kind of like what, what they can do. And of course, the level, this level of adaptability is important. This is especially important if you live where they live in, in, in such an ecosystem that's that's so sparsely filled with, with things that they can use or there's lots of different things that they could use, but they had to evolve to, to take advantage of all the different types of sparse nutrition that was actually available to them. So incredible. Now the the very sad angle to this interesting discovery, of course, is that glacier shrinkage from climate change is putting these unique microbiomes at incredible risk, Professor Batten said, having spent the past few years. Traveling across the Earth's mountaintops, I can say we're clearly losing a unique microbiome as glaciers shrink. Let's get so mad at this stuff. The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers Preservation, and this is obviously critically important for these scientists because saving glaciers not only saves all their. Innumerable downstream, downstream benefits that I listed, but also of course, saving these these priceless biomes. Batten has also called for a biobank to be created to protect these and other microbiomes in danger. So even if we lose them in the natural world, to be honest, to me seems almost inevitable at this point. I'm just throwing that down. At least future scientists will be able to see what their genomes were like, and who knows what they might be able to do using the biotechnology of the future. I really hope we don't lose these and, and, and the other impacts the other, the other benefits that we have from them, like, you know, like drinking water for billions of people. I mean that also, I can't even imagine what would happen if these glaciers went so, you know, disappeared to such a degree that these these streams were no longer being fed primarily, you know, by them. That's not the only place they get water. But I mean it would be pretty bad I would guess.

'''S:''' Bob how genetically unique are they? They have a lot of unique abilities, but are they? Do they fit within known groups?

'''B:''' Half of them, the other half that they found were they described as more cosmopolitan. So you would find them in a lot of different in, you know, on different places over the earth. But these these were these mountaintops. So where they they, they compared them to islands, you know, these are kind of like isolated. And so you can get some unusual, you know, unusual genomes that never evolved anywhere else. And so a good a good chunk of that was stuff that is only found on that, like I said, only on that mountain range or even specifically in the the glacier fed St. that they founded.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Transatlantic Tunnel (25:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.drivingeco.com/en/nyc-londres-48-minutos-podria-ser-posible-gracias-tunel-transatlantico-e20-trillones-segun-elon-musk/#google_vignette
|article_title = NYC - London in 48 minutes could be possible thanks to a €20 trillion transatlantic tunnel according to Elon Musk
|publication = www.drivingeco.com
}}

'''S:''' It OK, Evan, are we going to build a tunnel from New York to London?

'''E:''' What a great question. And a lot of factors go into that equation, perhaps 20 trillion of them. How could you even do that? I mean, let's let's put cost aside. Let's put we'll get to cost. How could you even do that? Do you remember we talked years ago about point to point rocket travel? Yeah, which could potentially allow for suborbital flights between, you know, like Los Angeles to Sydney, right? Fat much faster than than airplanes.

'''B:''' Do you remember the rocket? I would specifically remember the rocket that they were, that they were thinking of using for that point to point. And it was, I remember it was a beautiful rocket. I forget the, I forget the name of it, but it was. That would have been so cool. Can you imagine? Yeah.

'''E:''' I could have sworn it was Elon and SpaceX that were designing something like that. I have no idea what happened to it though. I did. There doesn't seem to be much news about that lately. It was this is almost 10 years ago that they started talking about that. Maybe there's still.

'''B:''' More than that dude I I literally remember this being discussed probably in the late 1990s when it when I first heard about it. This is before the. Concept. Itself. Yeah, yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, because NASA wasn't going to do that. It would have had to have been a private company that would have gone ahead and and built something like that. However, the news is not about how to get, you know, from from there in a rocket, but rather getting from New York to London, travelling below the Atlantic Ocean in, in the form of a tunnel. Oh my gosh, now you, you remember the Chunnel, you know, the, the, when that, when that first opened in what, 1994 I think it was.

'''B:''' Have gone through. It and that was cool.

'''E:''' That was like the engineering masterpiece, you know, of, of, of the 1990s, perhaps I mean this, but a, but a tunnel from say New York to London that, that would make the Chunnel look like a high school science project by by comparison. Here's what you would have to do if you were to, if this project were to happen. You, you would use trains and they would be what, the magnetic levitation trains, the maglevs and they would be built or they would, they would travel within these vacuum tubes, right? Reaching speeds of up to 5000 mph. And at that pace you could get from New York to London or back if it were London to New York in less than an hour, just under an hour, which would be freaking just incredible to think about. I guess if you're going to dream, you dream big, right? 3 miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean was probably what what they're thinking about where this would have to have to be built somewhere. Perhaps speculating you could do it on the ocean surface, but more of what I've read said now this would have to be submerged in that vacuum sealed environment. The magnetic levitation system reduces friction, maximizes energy efficiency for the trains as they cloud travel within this closed system.

'''B:''' Now, are we talking beneath the sea floor or suspended within the ocean?

'''E:''' Well, three at depths of up to three miles it would be where parts of it would would lie. So I mean that is the sea floor, right for for a good chunk of the Atlantic I believe is the is 3 miles. I can't imagine there being too much variation in the elevation. You wouldn't necessarily want to be going up and down. You'd probably want to go pretty straight for as long long as you possibly could except for heading on down and heading heading on back up to the surface. Yeah. So the cost right 20 trillion would is the estimated price tag for this and you know that's just the estimated price tag. I mean how many times do projects right go over budget? They always easily ways go. Over over 50 trillion 50. Trillion, I said, sure, Remember the Big Dig in Boston? That was, I mean, that alone, that was, yeah, it's a $4 billion project. Three years later, oh, it's $8 billion. Four years later, $16 billion. That thing kept doubling and doubling until it was like, oh gosh. In fact, they had they spent so much money on it, they had to sort of not really have an opening ceremony for they couldn't afford it. Because they.

'''B:''' Oh my God.

'''E:''' To build it where would you get these materials capable with standing that that level of severe ocean pressure I mean you, you would have. To come up with. Right. I mean just and you know, and you're building it in the face of seismic activity as well. You know, I mean, we're not it's not a static sure, you know, structural failures, the natural disasters, the earthquakes and how would and the maintenance on from this thing, the heat that it would generate it, they said it these hypersonic speeds would generate so much heat. You would have to have advanced systems that don't even exist yet to dissipate that.

'''B:''' Heat, well heat from what though? Because it there's no friction if because it's an evacuated tube partial vacuum. So the heat, apparently the engines.

'''E:''' The speed they're just from what I read is just the speed of the trains themselves generate the heat even though even without the friction. So the pressure of the environment magnetic field is. Yeah, it could be. I didn't read, I didn't read that deeply into it. But they said that they they said there's a heat problem with this. And that would and you would have to perhaps invent some new technology on how to deal with with that alone. So you're not only dealing with a project that is so immense in scale, but you're talking about having to introduce new technologies that have not even been invented yet. So that which makes this an even more massive project and what is this? And then what the environmental impact on this? What will this do to, to to sea life? How do how do you know, how, how could you, how could you forecast that the damage that that it would that would take? And then the and then, of course, the big fact, what's the environment? What's the economic viability of something like this? You know, it takes, I looked it up your bridge, you know, like a bridge built in New York or wherever, you know, Baltimore or Tampa, wherever it takes decades to recoup the cost of building that one bridge, right? Which in some cases what like a half mile or 3/4 of a mile or something like that. So how, how long before the companies or the government's combined would invest in this thing would be before they saw their money back? That could be hundreds of years, hundreds of years. And who, how could you, how could you, how could companies exist with that sort of return on investment time?

'''S:''' Countries would have to do it.

'''E:''' It would be, it would have to be, it would have to become a real cooperation of of all the major countries on the on the planet to do this. But one benefit so many obstacles.

'''B:''' There'd be definitely would be some benefits though in new technology, new new patents, new ideas that then you could then apply to other things and make money. So that definitely would walk away with some interesting data to apply an industries potentially even to apply. Elsewhere, but still yet 50. $40 trillion, whatever they end up spending. Spending is kind of, yeah, it's ridiculous. Who? I mean, who could risk that?

'''E:''' It's all it's all theory obviously now and just for discussion. It has been making rounds in the news lately. It made also a couple weeks ago it popped up, but lately it's been rediscussed. I don't know what the, what the convention happening, the what is it the technology convention that happens every January. I don't know if that's part of this sort of looking into, into this again or it why it's coming up, why it's coming up in the news again now. But I, you know, I sort of it's interesting to think about. I, I, I see this as pure science fiction, though, for the most part, really. And, and think about it, even if it, if you were to undertake this, it would take so long, probably maybe a century or more to, to actually build what other technology will come, would, would otherwise come along in the century that would perhaps mitigate that. Like you could perhaps go back to the right the Rocketeer Hypersonic.

'''B:''' Airlines. 1st. Of all would be the far, far cheaper and we're we're approaching closer to that possibility every day that money could could accelerate that whole process greatly right there. I mean, jeez, because they've got great designs now. For, for, for. Supersonic planes that don't produce the the crazy Sonic booms that that limit their, their viability over, you know, going over land. I mean that seems like a no brainer to just put the money in. Far less money into that.

'''S:''' I'm going to predict this is never going to happen.

'''E:''' I would agree. I think I'll put my nickel down.

'''S:''' The the risks, the expense are not going to be worth it. And I just by the time we even just started this project, we could be having supersonic jets flying back and forth, right. The advantage and that's not the advantage.

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah. That's. And that's not to say there aren't other tunnel. There are other tunnel projects that are in the works in Europe and other and other places. They are very expensive and they are going to use this technology, the magnetic levitation system technology to do it. But you know, I mean, we're just talking about, you know, maybe 10 miles as opposed to, you know, but there are already maglev trains. Ocean. Yeah, there are. Yeah. China What? How fast did that one in China go? It says here two, 623 mph. That was the record speed achieved last year with it's T flight system.

'''S:''' I don't think that's it's operating speed, but yeah, that's.

'''E:''' And there's another one called the European Hyperloop Hub, which completed a test in 2024 and apparently it achieved some very fast speeds as well.

'''S:''' So, yeah, yeah, the operating, like the top operating speed I think is 268 mph from what I'm reading, for the Shanghai Mag wave. That's what we're talking about, which is fast for a train. And it's great for that kind of medium city to medium, city to city travel. You know, we're not far enough to need a plane, but still far. But getting back to the Chunnel, remember the point of the Chunnel was that you could drive from mainland Europe to to Great Britain and back, right? There's no point in taking taking a train again. You could be taking a plane to go across, right?

'''E:''' No one's going.

'''S:''' I don't think anyone's going to be driving their car from New York to London.

'''E:''' Not, not on any regular basis or for anything other than publicity. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' So this is a 22nd century technology.

'''E:''' Yeah, maybe in feasibility zero, I would say. Yep.

'''S:''' Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Mint Mobile.

'''J:''' Guys, now that it's 2025 you should consider saving money after the holidays. One way you could save real money is lowering your wireless bill. So switching to Mint Mobile. I bet you it's the easiest way to save this year. It's the first company to sell premium wireless services online only, and Mint Mobile lets you maximize your savings with plans starting at $15.00 a month when you purchase a three month plan.

'''B:''' All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

'''E:''' To get this new customer offer and your new three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/SGU. That's mintmobile.com/SGU. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/SGU $45.00 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on 1st 3 month plan only speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions alley. See Mint Mobile for details.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Alcohol Advisory (37:04) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/surgeon-general-alcohol-warning/
|article_title = Surgeon General Alcohol Warning | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}

'''S:''' All right, guys, did you hear about the Surgeon General's new advisory on alcohol?

'''B:''' I did, and I did as well. I didn't even realize that that that cancer from alcohol was that much of a thing.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it's it's interesting. So to to to the quick story is that the surgeon general? Anybody you guys know his name?

'''B:''' Oh no. Doctor. Doctor something? Yeah.

'''S:''' She would see Evec Murthy, Yvec Murthy. It's the current surgeon general. Yeah, a little updated there. Released a new advisory warning between warning about the links between alcohol use and cancer. So this is just an advisory. This is. And there are policy recommendations in here, but it doesn't have any legislative power. Of course, that would require Congress to actually pass laws, but they're advising a few things. One is that warning labels on alcohol be updated to reflect the the latest data on the risk of alcohol to certain types of cancer. And that, you know, we try to educate the public about these risks. Most people don't really know. And also just specifically to lower the recommended amounts of what is considered safe alcohol. So right now the standard sort of public health recommendation is for moderate alcohol use is no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men just based upon the evidence. And but they're saying that even at that level, even at that level, there's a significant increased risk of of certain cancers and therefore that we probably should be lowering that level of what is considered the recommended safe amounts of alcohol to drink. So let me throw some stats at you. So it is estimated that alcohol use causes is responsible for in excess 100,000 cases of cancer per year in the United States, leading 200,000 leading to 20,000 excess cancer deaths. That is greater than the 13,500 alcohol associated traffic crash fatalities per year.

'''E:''' So it's oh, oh, if you, oh, you got, you would have gotten me on a science action with that one, probably. I would have been a good one.

'''S:''' Yeah. So, you know, we had a huge campaign to limit no drinking while driving and yet there'd be a problem. But of course, this is it's the 13,500 now, you know, after we successfully sort of reduced those numbers, but still deaths from cancer is a bigger problem. I did liken this to the, you know, what year, what year the US Surgeon General released our first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use.

'''E:''' The first year, probably it must have been 1965, close 6464.

'''S:''' And what do you think this do you have? What percentage of Americans smoked in 1964 Adults 70. This is just all man. They didn't say adults. The stats I'm looking at.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''S:''' But I don't know if I don't know if they count babies, but probably not 70.

'''E:''' Percent, 30 percent, 50%.

'''S:''' 42 percent. Oh, Can you imagine?

'''E:''' I terrible there was everywhere. Did I tell you? I don't know if I said this on a show or not. I mean, you know, my father was a smoker most of his life. 2 packs a day. I mean, to the point where not only was there ashtrays kind of everywhere in the house that was normal in the 70s, but he had a musical box, a dispenser, a cigarette dispenser. You'd press a button, a tune would play and the and a like a bear would hand you a cigarette. Like like almost like a cuckoo. Clock. Kind of. Oh my God. Like, like that was the culture. That was the smoking culture.

'''S:''' It was all like, like, yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that, that there was a smoking culture. Basically, it was it was accepted. It was a baked in. Now the numbers down to what? What do you think is the percentage of Americans who smoke less than 10?

'''E:''' 15%.

'''S:''' 1111.5.

'''E:''' That's great, guys.

'''S:''' From 42% to 11.5%, that is great. So the question is, is are we seeing the of course that took decades, you know, to bring that about and it did require a cultural shift which took place over time. I remember the whole second hand smoke thing that that took us, that was a huge amount of pressure on, you know, banning smoking in public places, etcetera. So anyway, you know, are we are we good to see the similar kind of cultural shift. A lot of people are skeptical about that. I mean, drinking is so baked into American culture. That's not going to be an easy change. But it this could this could have an effect, you know, just raising public awareness. So a a recent a Gallup poll found that only 45% of of people surveyed said that one to two drinks per day is bad for one's health. 43% have made no difference. 8% actually said it was good for your health. These numbers are are improved from 2016 where they were 26% said it was bad, 51% said neutral, 19 percent said good. That's a pretty rapid shift over the last 8-9 years, but well.

'''B:''' For years, Steve, weren't they saying like a drink or two a day is actually beneficial? I mean, I remember hearing that for a year.

'''S:''' Glass of wine good for your heart, those kinds of things Yeah, that data has been largely well it's it's it's not clear you know if there is and there's like there's the red wine thing, but there's also like just small amounts of alcohol may lower your cholesterol.

'''E:''' But right there it's the recent stuff I've been reading say there are new 0 benefits to alcohol zero that has not held up.

'''S:''' The part of the problem was the part of the problem was very interesting aside. Like if you ask people do you drink or not and and how much do you drink? You have the teetotalers who don't drink at all and they have a slightly higher like death rate than people who drink a little bit. So it's like, oh, people who drinking a little bit is protective. But you know what they found that the the non drinking group included ex drinkers who already wrecks their health by by basically ex Alcoholics. If you remove them, the alleged benefits of drinking alcohol goes away. So anyway, this is it's very hard to answer these questions because you can't do the experiment, right? You cannot do an experiment where you force people to drink a certain amount or not to drink or whatever. Same thing with like eating salt or with, you know, smoking or whatever. You just can't do that kind of experiment. So we have to do observational studies, which are correlational. They can't establish in and of themselves Causeway and effect. And there's a lot of confounding factors. And so it takes years, decades to kind of build a case for this sort of thing and it's often disputed for a long period of time, etcetera, etcetera. But where we are now is that it's pretty clear that there is a linear relationship. You know, whereas the more you drink, the higher your risk for certain kinds of cancers. Let's see, those include breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, mouth, pharynx and larynx. So some of those make kind of make sense. You know, the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, that's where the alcohol goes. We know alcohol has a negative effects on the liver. The question is like, how big is that risk and when does it kick in? Right. And that's where there, you know, again, because this is all observational data, you can sort of argue about the exact number. But the surgeon general is basing this new recommendations on systematic reviews of the literature showing that, yeah, we could say now there's there's a there is a significant increase alcohol risk, even in cancer risk, even with these moderate levels of alcohol goes the the lower the risk, the harder it is to prove right. The the harder it is to statistically establish it. The greater the risk, the easier it is to establish. It's always like, yeah, it's very clear at the high end. It gets increasingly muddy as you go to more and more moderate levels of alcohol. And then it's which which has to be the case. It doesn't mean that the effects are less real, it just means that they're harder to to document statistically because they're smaller, you need bigger numbers, etcetera.

'''E:''' Right?

'''S:''' They estimate in the release they estimated that alcohol causes 3.5% of all cancers, which is interesting, so not insignificant.

'''E:''' .5% yeah. That's not insignificant.

'''S:''' So also, how many premature deaths per year do you think there are from all causes from alcohol in the US?

'''E:''' Like the number, the number of premature, the.

'''S:''' Number of people who died prematurely died before their and and alcohol was a significant contrib contributing factor to their death.

'''J:''' I mean I was a percentage or number as a part number. Number. Oh my God, I mean United States above, above a million.

'''S:''' No, not in. The US, it's 178,000 premature deaths per year, which is huge. That's a huge. Huge. Worldwide, the figure is estimated to be 2.6 million or 5% of deaths, which is a lot. The average reduction in lifespan is 24 years. So people who die early from alcohol lose 24 years of life on average. That's a lot like smoking. It is smoking does to people. And now the causes include cancer, as we said, direct alcohol poisoning, car accidents, heart failure and liver damage. But also, it's estimated that 40% of violent crimes in the US are committed while under the influence of alcohol and 48% of homicides are committed while under the influence.

'''E:''' I mean, the negative basket fills up so much faster than anything in the positive. Not even close.

'''S:''' I mean, it's it's worse than all other recreational drugs combined. Even at the peak of the opioid epidemic, it was much less than than that related like the GS.

'''E:''' But, you know, I mean, the government has experimented before with trying to to ban it on illegal. Yeah.

'''S:''' So no one's no one's calling for prohibition to come back, right. I mean, that that obviously was a failed social experiment. It's not going to work. And just as a public health measure, those kind of things generally don't work. But just like, so we need more money labels. So we just quit smoking. We didn't really ban smoking. We just said, OK, well, you can't advertise to kids and you know, you, you, and then we're going to ban it in places where people would be forced to be exposed to second second hand smoke, etcetera. So, you know, we, we can't think about way like even if it's just informational at first, think about ways to start to shift the culture a little bit, just making people aware. It's like, yeah, you know, having one to two drinks a day is not safe, you know? And you, you could factor that into your decision making about your habits in terms of how much you're drinking.

'''E:''' Remember synthol. Yeah, Synthol.

'''B:''' Just thinking about that.

'''E:''' Does alcohol work the same way that sort of cigarettes work in which it changes brain chemistry and like is feeds the addiction in the same It's the same absolutely addictive.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, it's not addictive in the same mechanism as tobacco as nicotine is, but it is it is addictive like, you know, cocaine and opiates are addictive.

'''E:''' Can it be tweaked so that the addictive nature of it is taken away and you have a different product or is that it goes with the territory?

'''S:''' It kind of goes with the territory, you know, they so I guess that's the whole thing. The mind altering aspect of it is, is is is why people do it. It's well, there's it's psychologically addictive, behaviorally addictive, but also it is, you know, chemically addictive and you know that I don't know if it would be possible to make an addiction a non addictive alcohol. I doubt. I don't even know if that's possible, you know, just in terms of, you know, just biologically, but I've never even heard anybody been attempting to do that. What we do have are drugs that make that combine with alcohol to make you feel sick so that you won't drink.

'''E:''' How effective is that, Steve?

'''S:''' It's very effective. You know, imagine if you took a drink and you can violently nauseated.

'''E:''' It sounds like A Clockwork Orange almost without the ultra violence thing.

'''B:''' It sounds like a great idea because you all you need is willpower for three seconds. To take that drug and then bam.

'''S:''' Well, they could also give you long acting versions as well. So this Antabuse is the name of the is the brand name of the of the drug. They're not saying not to not to have occasional alcohol, you know, but just think about the overall, it's of the two risky behaviors seem to be like regular daily alcohol use and binge drinking, you know, seem to be relatively equivalent. Yeah, just moderate your alcohol use. It's it's like a, it's an A totally preventable cause of cancer and premature death, which is of course, you know what, where, where public health campaigns focus their efforts right on the totally preventable stuff. But it is, it is remarkably hard to change people's behavior. It does take a cultural shift. You know, just putting out like PSA's doesn't cut it doesn't have much of an effect. Although having said that, even small effects can have huge absolute magnitude of of effects, right? In other words, even if it's like, oh, we reduced it by 5%, that doesn't sound like a lot. That's still a lot of people, right? It's a lot of hospitalizations that it let's a lot of morbidity, we're avoiding a lot of premature deaths, a lot of healthcare costs, etcetera, etcetera, societal costs in absolute numbers. So, you know, we take what we can get. But yeah, it's really hard. It's hard to change people.

'''E:''' Tough one with alcohol. Yeah, yeah. More warning labels, though. I'm all in favor of that.

'''S:''' But again, we did it with tobacco to a huge extent. You know, 42% to 11.5% is huge. That's a huge. Change, yeah.

'''B:''' But imagine if we use the extreme labeling requirements that that other countries use with cigarettes. I mean, like, just like showing like, you know, cancerous lungs, you know, on the label really, you can't make them. You can't make cute packaging for that for them in many countries.

'''S:''' The thing is though, that's the so-called scared straight approach, right? It doesn't, doesn't really doesn't, doesn't really work and no.

'''B:''' That doesn't work. It's all about. It's all about your peers.

'''S:''' It's about your peers, about the culture. Again, you got to change the culture, change the culture. And, and also just like there, there are limited bands, right? There are bands in certain places and it just becomes culturally unacceptable like you'd like. And the beginning of my career, you could smoke in the hospital. It was disgusting. You think about that and now like you just can't do it. Like there is no, I know there's zero smoking in the hospital. Desire was a cultural change, you know, in the in the early 90s, we would still defer to a patient, you know, And now it's like, Nope, it's just not done.

'''E:''' So because it's a good movie. I love this movie. It's called the Serious Man. It's one of the Coen brothers movies. It's one of their less well known movies. But the opening scene, the guy's in the doctor's office going through a it's 1969 and he's in a doctor's office 1969. He's going through a physical exam. And then, you know, going, getting, you know, pressed and looking in his eyes and his ears. And then they're sitting at, he's at the doctor's at the desk and the patient's the other side of the desk and they're talking to talk about, they're about to talk about what the doctors found. And the doctor lights up a cigarette and then offers the patient a cigarette. It's like, oh, my gosh, that really happened in the 1960s. That's crazy.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely.

'''E:''' Your doctor offered you a cigarette? I mean, it was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

'''S:''' Yeah. That's all part of the the cultural shift that took place.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (52:24) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''J:''' You don't hear that everyday.

'''E:''' Can I guess?

'''J:''' Sure.

'''E:''' Jiffy Pop popcorn.

'''J:''' Yeah, somebody guessed Jiffy Pop. Did you guys ever?

'''E:''' I never made it did. Did you ever have an experience making Jiffy Pop popcorn?

'''J:''' Yeah, we did it.

'''E:''' Did it work? It always seemed like the kind of in. The stove, yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, it works.

'''E:''' It did work OK because I always felt it was like a bit scammy, like OK it's going to pop 51% of the kernels or something.

'''J:''' No, I mean, it's not, it's fine and it didn't taste horrible, but it was bite. You could just make homemade popcorn that blows away any of those pre bag.

'''E:''' Yeah. The air, once the air blowers I guess, became the way to go, that that was the end of the Jiffy Pop era.

'''J:''' And another way to do it too, which is if you take coconut oil and you do it in a pot on the stove, it has the best freaking flavor. Anyway, so a listener named William Steele wrote in said, hi Jay, this episode's noisy sounds a lot like when I would go looking for shells under the waves at the beach. I I'll guess this is an underwater recording of shells churning under the waves. I thought that was a really awesome guess. I could even hear what he was saying about that. That's not correct, but thank you for sending that in. Marsh Wildman took a guess. He said, hi, Jay, listening to the January 4th. Who's that noisy? The bulk of it sounds like a wee fax, which is a weather fax radio transmission, but there are some other unfamiliar artifacts mixed in. Not sure what those may be, but I still think that this is a digital radio transmission of some sort that is incorrect. Thank you for that guess. Michael Stoiciu. This guy's name is STOICESCU. Good luck. Anybody pronouncing that guy's last name Stois Stoicisu Scu? I don't know.

'''E:''' Stoicescu.

'''J:''' So CESCU, Michael Stoicescu. OK, so this Michael guest is ice skating on the smooth, thin, clear ice of a lake. I hear some of that in there as well, but that is not correct. Kathy Taylor Guest Is it a rain stick? It is not a rain stick, but there is a rain stick sound in there.

'''E:''' Tinkling of a rain stick.

'''J:''' And Matthew Morrison, guest, he says, hey Jay, my daughter Neb thinks that it sounds like a pot of water that's boiling. I'm going to say it sounds like a big fifty cup coffee maker percolating. Not bad guesses, guys. Unfortunately, there was no winner. Nobody guessed it. Yeah. So let's go back and listen to it real quick after I tell you what it is. But this is a this is a cool one, guys. This is the sound that wood makes when it's burning on the inside. So this is the sound of what's happening inside the wood, not the sound of fire, the sound of what's happening in inside the wood. Now what is actually happening is the heat is making the wood go from a solid to a gas. And that gas is expanding the wood, right? That's why you hear like those pops and crackling noises. Yeah, the wood is fracturing. It's funny because, you know, we think, you know, that's that's the fire. But that is not the sound of the fire. That is the sound of the wood actually gassing and cracking open.

'''E:''' Yeah, the crackling I think is, I always thought, yeah, that was like gas being released.

'''J:''' I guess all of it is the sound of fire, but it isn't like the actual flames itself. So here it is again. Like that's so cool.

'''E:''' A fireproof microphone. They shoved it in there and.

'''J:''' They did. They had a, They had a microphone inside the wood. It was inserted into it.

'''E:''' Crazy.

'''J:''' I have a new noisy for you guys this week that was sent in by a listener named Michael Habitschitz HAPICHT. How is Michael? His last name is a sneeze. How is it? So anyway, Michael, I'm sorry. Everyone that listens to the show just has to, you know, everyone has to uniformly understand that you give me some crazy ass foreign last name when I can't pronounce it. Sorry.

'''E:''' Everyone change your name to Smith.

'''J:''' All right, guys, and here's the noisy. Here it is again. Oh my gosh, lots of weird things going on in there. That's not an easy one, I'll tell you that much. Not an easy noisy at all. But if you think you know what it is or if you heard something cool, you can e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, the number one way that people who listen to this show can help support the show is by becoming a patron of the Skeptics Guide. You can go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. We have different levels to our our patronage, all of which will gain access to premium content. At the $8 level, you'll get the ad free show and there are other things in there that are offered to people at that level and higher. So please take a look. It really does help us produce the show. It helps us keep the doors open. And, you know, in a world where things seem like they're going off the Cliff. Not speaking about specifics, but if you if you feel like rational thinking is important, Steve, what should people do?

'''S:''' They should become patrons.

'''J:''' You are so energetic, Steve. It blows my mind. So there's a few more things guys. You could join our mailing list. Every week we send out an e-mail to our listeners telling them about all the things that the SGU did the previous week. You can go to theskepticsguide.org. There's a link on there to join our mailing list. You could also give our show a rating. Ratings actually are very valuable because they it helps new people find our program. Please do that if you have a minute you could go to you know, Apple I think still has ratings. There are rating list out there. Just please pick one and and give us a rating. We have a wonderful conference coming up for 2025. This is called Nauticon. It's Nauticon 2025 and we are doing something really awesome at this conference. We are going to have a Beatles sing along on Saturday night. Last time we did Nauticon, we had an 80s sing along and it was widely loved by almost if not every single person in the hotel, not even at the conference because everybody heard that. Yeah. So please think about joining us this year. We have an awesome program for you. We have a bunch of new bits that were not presented last time that they are new for the 2025 conference. The conference starts on the 15th. There will be a VIP on the 15th. We also have the board game happening on the 15th. I believe that those are both sold out, but there are still a lot of people that will be coming to the hotel that night to hang out and socialize. And let me remind you that this this conference is about socializing. There will be a lot of opportunity to socialize with other people that are at the conference. We'll also be doing Boomer versus Zoomer, which is our game show. George, Rob, Andrea Jones, Roy and Brian Weck will all be joining the SDU crew for the entire conference and we think that this one is going to be so much fun. So please do come guys. It's going to be a ton of fun. You could go to notaconcon.com. Evan, I'm going to repeat that for you just to make sure you got it. Thank you. That's not a con con.com right? Con. Con com.

'''S:''' You could also go to the skepticsguideorg and find a link on there as well. Well everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Quince.

'''E:''' With a new year comes a chance to reimagine ourselves for the better and importantly, our closets. This year, I'm resolving to refresh my look with quality pieces and stay on budget. And I can thanks to Quince.

'''J:''' Yeah, for the holidays this year I got my wife the Quince ribbed cashmere sweater and she absolutely loved it. She gave me their down puffer hoodie jacket. It fits me perfectly. And we have this Arctic freeze thing happening in New England here, and it's absolutely the warmest.

'''B:''' Coat I've ever had upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to quince.com/SDU for a 300 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's QINC ECOM, SGU to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince scom SGU.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:01:17) ==


'''S:''' All right guys, we're going to do a couple of emails. First one comes from Joshua Banta from Tyler, TX and he writes I have a basic question. If we already know bird flu is so dangerous and that it only takes one mutation to begin to spread person to person, then what are we waiting for? Why not sequence the dominant strains in livestock and spin up mRNA vaccines or old fashioned egg based vaccines and start a mass vaccination program? Sure, the vaccine may not be an exact match for the strains that does lead to humans, but it should be close. Heck, the COVID vaccines we receive are never an exact match for the strains that are circulating. They're always mutating and therefore are always different, even ever so slightly from the vaccine targets at a point in time. So why not head off this bird flu threat and nip it in the bud with vaccines? Thanks for all the great work. Best wishes for 2025. That's a fair question, Joshua. What do you guys that have any immediate thoughts about money?

'''E:''' Money.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's a bit. One thing is cost. It would cost a lot of money to to roll out a vaccine to first of all, develop an HH5N1 vaccine, even from the mass producer, which we're not doing right now. There isn't 1 rolled out. We do have like a national stockpile of vaccines, not enough to go around. That would be just for people at high risk of exposure, right? Hospital workers, farm workers, whatever, wherever the spillovers are happening, whoever's going to be at high risk of contracting it, that's what the vaccines are for. But even now what they're they're doing is they're using other methods, right? So it's a, it's not just should be vaccinated or not, it's like, what are the methods we have of limiting exposure, limiting infections? And of all the options, what are the best ones? So a mass vaccination program right now isn't cost effective. It's not really necessary. So the other thing is why do it prematurely when that would that means it's not, it's not that it's not an exact match would be a worse match. And right. So the, and the effectiveness is pretty much related to how close the match is. So, and even with, you know, the regular annual flu vaccine, if we're a little bit off, you know, on, on predicting the strain, the effectiveness could be 2030%. You know this that's.

'''B:''' What I suspected.

'''S:''' You right, imagine if we if we roll out of this mass vaccination program and it's 5% effective or whatever that's, you know, it's just not it's not effective, it's not an effective method. There is a a related question of why aren't we vaccinating birds, you know, chickens, turkeys or even cows to protect them. Now some countries do vaccinate, they do vaccinate them. We, we are not doing it. Basically you have some countries only vaccine, vaccinate some kind, some like Japan, not very effective. Actually. Some countries like the US only use other methods, what they call the I think it's called the stomp method, where you basically kill every animal that's exposed. You just do a mass calling and then you then you put them on lockdown, like try to limit spread. So that's the method that we use. And then there's other countries like European countries that do both. They do some vaccination and they do some mass cullings and other methods of limiting exposure. You know, so whether or not we should be adding some vaccinations to the mix is, is a difficult question. And again, the expense is a huge factor. It has to be worth it. You know, if it's just easier just to kill everything, everything that gets infected, then that's what they're going to do. But that does raise ethical questions about, you know, about the culling and if if we get a big outbreak in cattle, that's it becomes less feasible to just do mass cullings. So this is an evolving strategy, right? You know, vaccines are being used. They're going to probably be increasingly used in animals as well as other methods of trying to limit the spread when it, you know, when and if it spills over into humans. Then again, we'll be we'll have the existing vaccines as sort of a first line of defense for high risk people. There'll be whatever other methods are necessary to try to limit exposure, limit the spread. And if it starts to get to like outbreak level, epidemic level, that's when we could make a vaccine to that strain, right? The question is how quickly will we be able to do that? You know, it could take months, you know, a few months to, to, to even though we have proven flu vaccines, you have to make it to the strain that's that's out now. And that takes time.

'''E:''' Oh, when the first case, when the first human does get it, I mean, is it going to be treated almost like someone with Ebola in which they go and they isolate that person and try to. Yeah, probably, you know, take every, you know, go through all those precautions. You know, I've seen footage of that. It's, it's it's quite an undertaking.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. One more e-mail. This one comes from Joe Streckert, and he writes on a recent segment about Bigfoot. Evan divided people who perpetuate the existence of cryptids into two groups, true believers and people who profit off of the myth. But I'm hesitant to think in such stark, binary terms. Here in Portland, Bigfoot is very much a mascot or symbol of the Pacific Northwest region I regional identity. I don't believe he's literally real and I don't know anyone who does. But the forest ape shows up again and again in local art on T-shirts and does a Portland Trail Blazers mascot. My more outdoorsy friends will describe less traveled trails as camping areas as Bigfoot country, even though they don't actually believe in Bigfoot at all. He's a symbol of the wilderness, but not a literal inhabitant of it. What are your thoughts on cryptids as local mascots and regional symbols by people who don't believe they're real? Do you think that practice is wholly negative or is it OK for a guy in a Bigfoot costume to perform during halftime during Blazer games? Big fan of the show. You're far and away my favorite podcast. Well, thank you, Joe.

'''Voice-over:''' Awesome. Thanks.

'''S:''' Yeah, That's OK. What do you guys think about that? Is, is, is like a cultural icon making a making a Cryptid into a cultural icon, a regional icon. How do you feel about that? Is that OK? You think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience or, or is it benign?

'''E:''' I think it contributes to belief in pseudoscience. I do. I I think we've seen it in not just, you know, things like Bigfoot, you know, with Loch Ness Monster. Obviously there's whole industries entirely built around that and certainly plenty of people who definitely believe in that as well. Certainly look what UF OS and aliens have done to our culture and then Western, many, many other cultures around the planet and how the far that's kind of gotten out of control. I don't know that you can necessarily gain these things and know exactly the extent, but I don't think there's much in the way of a positive aspect to it. I think. I think it only hurts, well, one.

'''B:''' Angle, I could see, he said. If you make that image part of your brand, make it funny, you know, make fun of it, make it look silly, that I think that could turn off people into actually believing it by making it seem like we know this is ridiculous. You know, making that part of the brand might help, might help a certain amount.

'''S:''' I kind of agree with Bob that I do think it could. If it's like this is clearly a mythical creature, not a real creature, and nobody takes it seriously, I don't think it would necessarily to contribute to people really believing in it, Right. So I don't know if we have a lot of examples out there, but maybe leprechauns.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's what I thought as well. Yeah. Maybe Unicorn.

'''S:''' Yeah. So like Ireland sort of has leprechauns as some kind of unofficial mascot sort of thing, but nobody believes in in leprechauns, right? That's wrong about that.

'''E:''' But there are not throngs of people or who, yeah, hunting for for actual leprechaun.

'''S:''' It's recognized as or Dragons. Like nobody thinks Dragons really exist, correct.

'''E:''' You know, but Dragons.

'''S:''' But but Dragons are an icon, especially like Chinese culture or as Bob said, unicorns. Nobody thinks unicorns exist. So if Bigfoot, if Bigfoot evolves into that kind of role where it's like unicorns and leprechauns, then that's fine. That actually might be a good thing. Yeah.

'''E:''' You know, it could be. Yeah. But unfortunately, we have forces working against in the other direction trying to trying to perpetuate it. And frankly, you know, because there are people who are trying to profit off of this television shows a month. I mean, that that's where I go to with.

'''S:''' Yeah, I, I agree. It's in the Gray zone now. Or maybe it's in it's transitional. It's also like Loch Ness, the Nessie in Scotland, right? I mean, when we were there and I think the locals, they think it's a joke, but it's like, it's a joke, but it brings in the tourist dollars. So play along. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Yeah. Let's go see Nessie. You know, come on. It's like, doesn't really think it's real. Remember our tour guide was so happy when we said we have no interest in seeing Loch Ness. We want to see the pretty one. And she's like, oh, thank goodness every everyone goes to to Loch Ness, right? You see Nessie, right? And it's like, yeah, if you live in Roswell, you're going to have a UFO theme to whatever diner because that's you're in Roswell. You know, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if most people who live in Roswell think that there was actually a crashed saucer there. So there's a whole spectrum, you know, from, you know, I think you can be a cultural icon without people really believing in it. You can do both. People can do the sort of the winking. Oh, yeah, you know, we're a Bigfoot country out here. Just try to goose tourism or whatever. Or just because it's a fun mascot?

'''E:''' I. Agree, but we don't need the Sheriff's Office over offering thousand, you know, saying $1000 fines for injuring Bigfoot. I don't think that helps.

'''S:''' Well, yeah, I think that, you know, you said that that rule is there so people won't shoot fellow hunters who happen to be burly, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Bearded woodsman. Yeah. They don't get. They don't.

'''S:''' I don't know. You think so? I mean that like there's a big difference between a a burly person and a, you know, a giant hair covered creature, Jay.

'''E:''' Well, people with guns, and they're hunting, Yeah.

'''S:''' If you're hunting in the woods, you see a shadowy shape, you know, rustling the bushes. Absolutely. People will shoot hunters thinking that they're. It's Bigfoot.

'''E:''' I would wear orange if I go out anywhere like that.

'''S:''' That's why you have to wear hunter orange. Yeah. All right. Thank you for those emails, guys.
{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:11:44) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = CES2025
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.
|link1web = https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ecoflows-solar-hat-is-better-for-the-planet-than-your-style-203358237.html
|link1title = EcoFlow’s Solar hat is better for the planet than your style
|link1pub = www.engadget.com

|item2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.
|link2web =
|link2title = None
|link2pub = None

|item3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.
|link3web = https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/07/ces-2025-best-weirdest-tech-products/
|link3title = CES 2025: The best and weirdest new tech products so far - The Washington Post
|link3pub = www.washingtonpost.com

|item4 = Swipit is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.
|link4web =
|link4title = None
|link4pub = None

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = The EcoFlow is a solar-powered hat capable of charging two devices at once.

|science2 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|science3 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|fiction = Swipit is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|rogue2 = Jay
|answer2 = A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory.

|rogue3 = Evan
|answer3 = The Spicerr is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed (unrefillable) capsules.

|host = Steve
|sweep = y
|clever =
|win =
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''Voice-over:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or fax, 2 real and one fake. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics tell me which one is the fake. Except this week I have a theme and I have 4 items. Haven't done that in a while.

'''E:''' Yeah, I don't think we had a in 2024. I don't think we had AI.

'''S:''' Don't think we did, but these are quick. That's why I did four. So the theme is the Consumer Electronics Show 2025.

'''E:''' That's what I was trying to think of when I was doing my segment. Yeah, the Consumer Electronics Show. Yeah.

'''S:''' Is that is that going on now?

'''E:''' It is. Yeah.

'''S:''' Crap. Missed it. So these are four products that were showed at CBS 2025, although one of them wasn't. Oh gosh, see if you could tell which one is the fake. You guys ready? Yeah, yes. All right, item number one, the Ecoflow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. All right #2 The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices in proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Eye number 3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory, and eye #4 SWIP. It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one.

'''B:''' That makes no sense. The Phone 1. So Steve, is this Is this a specific type of phone that has hot swappable batteries? Or or or is it meant like for an iPhone or or pixel or something? Sounds like Bob's going first. By the way, or mainstream phone.

'''S:''' Bob, why don't you go first?

'''B:''' Yeah. Fuck answer my question.

'''S:''' Answer me, you get the information you have.

'''B:''' Oh yeah. So now it's when I ask questions I get the information I have.

'''S:''' For this one, just because the nature of this science or fiction, no questions. So who's going first?

'''B:''' It's me. All right. Well, this, The thing is, this is perfect for this because there's so many crazy things out there. That they would absolutely try to sell, like for example the solar powered hat. Now, there's no way that you're going to be doing any significant charging of your of your phone with a hat. I mean, you probably, you know, have to do hours just to get a few percentage points. Something like that solar powered hat. But if you're. Going to they do they do make solar powered console solar powered devices, devices that you can hook your phone to to charge it and in the apocalypse, it would be awesome. And if you're walking around on the beach all day, yeah, you might as well trickle charge if you can. So that's yeah, kind of OK, kind of makes sense that somebody would do that. The spice dispenser makes a that seems like a great item. I mean, you can't it's so it's from reading right? It's meant that you can't mess with it in terms of like replacing the spice with another spice. But but yeah, I mean think of all the spices you have in your cabinet. You probably use 3 or 490% of the time. So that'd be great just for the ones that you would use all the time. So that sounds pretty good to me from reading this right. Let me see, sometimes I miss a word that just like critical. The Spicer. All right, let's see the electric spoon to to make food taste more salty and savoury. That's ridiculous. But let me think about it though. I mean, could you could. You spoon. I mean, So what do you get? A little shock? Could that put? Is that their angle that they're doing a little shock? Which of course, would be horrible. Little.

'''E:''' Shock of horrors.

'''B:''' So what other angle could they use besides just purely like, you know, putting a 9 Volt to your tongue? I don't know, could there be some subtle effect that could actually impact taste? Remember those pills that you would eat that would basically change? Literally just change flavors for various foods for periods of? Time block your better receptors, right, Yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, change flavor. It just, Yeah, stops you from tasting blockers.

'''B:''' Yeah, but.

'''J:''' I mean, it's from a, it's from a plant.

'''B:''' Yeah. The effect, though, was that things tasted differently.

'''J:''' Yeah, they made it in a plant.

'''B:''' That doesn't sound likely at all, but I'm trying to think of what could be a workaround. All right, so let's go this last one. The toaster and the stupid phone. That's ridiculous, but you know I. Think Steve. I don't think Steve. I think he's counting on this one, because it just sounds utterly ridiculous. Unless it was. No, that, that's just so stupid. It's too stupid to be fake. Let's just put it that way. So I'm going to go with, I'll go with the spoon.

'''J:''' OK, Jay, the echo flow, the solar powered hat say here it it's capable of charging 2 devices at once. I mean, I see I I think that one is real because there's no mention of how long it would take to charge those devices. You know, I suppose if you're walking out and on a sunny day all day, you could you could charge 2 devices. Doesn't mean charge to full either. Yeah, I'd say sure. Someone came up with that. The Spicer. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices. And it's proprietarily sealed automatic spice. So what do you hold this over your plate and press a button and it it puts out what it thinks it needs to put out? I guess. Steve. Yeah. I said no.

'''B:''' Yeah. Right, Steve. Wink, wink.

'''J:''' All right I mean sure that doesn't that's not hard. You know, I don't know I shouldn't say it's not hard. I mean the mechanism doesn't seem that hard if it if there's AI involved in it, which I'm I'm thinking it is really everything Evan, come on your shoelaces are going to have AI at some point The.

'''E:''' Aglets.

'''J:''' The third one of Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon. They claim that it will make food taste more salty and savory. That sounds very bizarre. And also an electric spoon doesn't sound that comfortable, if you know what I mean. Like I don't want electricity happening in my mouth. So that way that one. OK, I'll put that one on a on a sub list here as maybe let me go to the last one to SWIP it about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. I mean, unless they're talking about a proprietary phone that lets you swap out the internal battery, there is absolutely no way that that's happening to an iPhone. I can't imagine that that happening to, you know, Google Phone either. Like you, there is no swapping of the internal battery for a fresh 1. So I don't know what the hell this is about. Yeah, I don't think that one is it. I think that one is, is the fiction because you can't swap out universally shop, swap out batteries and cell phones. I mean, there is, there's a lot more to this than we're than we're hearing. And if anything, I would think that there's there's another mechanism involved that we don't know about.

'''S:''' OK.

'''E:''' And Evan, well, Jay, I'm inclined a bit to agree with you on the SWIP it. You're right. It's not like take whatever phone and throw it in there and we'll swap the battery out. Obviously the majority of the phones we have now, you can't do that. You know, even a person can't do it you let alone a machine. So therefore the SWIP it would be its own phone had built specific, you know, a SWIP it phone that goes in your SWIP it toaster to swap your SWIP it battery it all proprietary, right? All its own system. It's a closed system, right? You're not going to put your Apple in there or your iPhone, whatever that leads me to believe if it is its own system. Does not have the can't handle the X, the other devices and other manufacturers and stuff. Then it could be possible, which is why I think it is possible that that is true. Also SWIP it. Notice SWIPPITTTT. OK, now I'm going to go back to the Spicer spelled SPICERRI Think Steve made this up. I think he took the swipit idea, you know, because and threw the extra R on there for Spicer. I think that's a bit of a tell. Holds up to six spices in proprietary sealed unfillable capsule. I I just don't think that thing exists. I have a feeling Steve made this one up entirely. Eco flow solar power hat makes sense to me. And the Japanese spoon one makes sense to me because it says it claims it will make food taste more salty and and savoury. And I believe it's not a spoon that you eat with. I think it's a cooking spoon, right, So it it infuses somehow into the food, but and and maybe even not, it could just be a placebo effect. You think that it's happening, Therefore you think it's more salty than it actually is because it's a claim. It's not really even a been proven. I have a feeling the Spicer is the fiction.

'''S:''' All right, so you guys are all spread out. Cara, you'll notice is not with us. She, you know, is too busy dealing with the her, her city being on fire. Yeah, so she had to bail. But let's let's go to number one, I guess since you all you guys all agree on this one. The eco flow is a solar powered hat capable of charging 2 devices at once. You all think this one is science, and this one is ridiculously science.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Mine is a ridiculous, well, the hat, personally. You have to see the hat, right? I mean, it looks ridiculous. It's got a huge rim and that's where the solar panels are.

'''B:''' They're kind of like sewn into like a sombrero.

'''S:''' Like a sombrero.

'''B:''' Yeah, and they must be very light panels as well.

'''S:''' They're not like they're like woven into the fabric, you know what I mean? It's not like a panel stuck on the outside. It's more integrated into the fabric.

'''B:''' Well, that's something.

'''S:''' Yeah, and it has a USBA and USBC connector connector under the brim. It produces a maximum of five volts and 2.4 amps. So that's basically nothing, you know, So it like maybe would top off your phone, you know, but it's not going to like Apocalypse to recharge your phone.

'''J:''' It looks ridiculous.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's as a fashion statement. You know, it's it's right up there with chair pants.

'''J:''' You know, there are things, Steve, like, like people who are out hiking, you know, they have solar panels that they like to put on their backpack. You. Know that's different. Yeah, I mean, this has solar panel. I mean it's kind of similar, you know, it's like it's just a a minor trickle flow to to charge a phone if you don't have whatever. It's not, it's not a horrible thing, but I think it's been done much better with other, you know, higher quality product.

'''S:''' Yeah, so there's no reason to put it on your hat. All right, let's. I guess we'll take these in order. The Spicer is an automatic spice dispenser that holds up to six spices and proprietary, sealed, unrefillable capsules. Evan, you think this one is the fiction? Jay and Bob, you think this one is science and this one is science? Sorry, Evan. Bob, you actually want this thing? Maybe I'll get it to you for your birthday or something.

'''B:''' Right. I mean this makes sense that you use some spices much more than others. It'd be great to have them just right there click. I assume you just do a click click and you can get like.

'''E:''' Is it for the chef or the OR the eater?

'''S:''' Whatever. Either way it's more for cooking. I mean I think it's more for cooking and it it doesn't decide how much spice to put in. You tell it like I want one tablespoon of this, I want 1 whatever. You tell it how much to put in you just you press the buttons and you hit go and it drops all the spices pre measured into your pot or whatever. I don't like this and I'll tell you why. Yeah, I don't like it either.

'''J:''' First of all, you know you're limited to the spices you could load into. I'm looking it up on the website.

'''S:''' Yeah, you have to buy their spices.

'''J:''' That sucks.

'''S:''' I don't like that.

'''B:''' That's crazy. That's the. Capsules. If their spices suck, that'd be one thing, but what if they were decent? What if they were like fairly good quality spices?

'''S:''' But you're locked in like you don't have a choice. You can't buy anything you want. It's not like if you could refill the capsules if they were not sealed, then that would be that would be much better.

'''B:''' Wait, So what happens when they run? Out.

'''S:''' You got to replace them with a new cap, Yeah.

'''B:''' So there, so there's yeah. So there's a new capsule that you would get, but you can't get a different. Type of spice.

'''S:''' You could, you could swap them out, but then the whole point that is that this is supposed to be more convenient. If you're swipping out caps, swapping out capsules into this device, there's no way that it's more convenient than just dashing your spice into your pot, You know what I mean?

'''J:''' It's ridiculous. The whole premise is ridiculous. First of all, if you're cooking, if you cook on a regular and all that, like you, you, you have a drawer filled with spices, dozens of spices, Yeah. That I use on a regular. But there I could I could go through a short list right now off the top of why this is ridiculous. 1 You know spices don't last forever, right? Yeah, that's true. They do have a shelf life once you buy them and you open them. Like you got to be mindful of that. Like it's good to have the dates written on there. This. First off, I guarantee you that their spices are more expensive than what they costed in the store. I I could almost guarantee it because it's all packed the system, Yeah.

'''E:''' You have to buy the system.

'''J:''' You know, and then I have questions like, well, what if I use a lot of 1 spice? Can you just buy that one thing or do you have to buy a whole pack of them? Like, you know, it just gets, I don't know, 3.

'''E:''' Of your 6 chambers. Yeah, it does sound annoying, yeah.

'''J:''' You know, then you'll have a whole freaking drawer full of, you know, of like some wacko spice that you don't use.

'''B:''' It's it's solving a non problem and introducing a bunch of new ones.

'''E:''' It's it's Rube Goldbergish in a way.

'''B:''' Yeah, I mean just a we've got a spice little mini closet thing in in my kitchen. How long does it take to just go in there and grab the and grab the damn spice you want? True, that's true. It is not much of a problem that's being solved.

'''S:''' Here, As for the salt and pepper, which are like the ones you use all the time, you have a dedicated, you know, salt shaker and pepper grinder right there, you know, Yeah. Anyway, let's go on #3A Japanese manufacturer introduced an electric spoon that it claims will make food taste more salty and savory. Bob, you think this one is the fiction? Could be Jay and Evan think this one is science.

'''E:''' Not anymore.

'''S:''' And this one is science. Sorry about really. Yep, the the, the company is Kirin KIRIN, Kirin Kirin, that's a beer company and they made this electric spoon. It is for eating oven, not for cooking. And it does give you electric electrical charge. It's an electrical current that's supposed to concentrate the sodium ions to amplify the salty and umami taste savoury. And so you have to hold the spoon, you have to put your fingers like the conducting plates to activate it, and then you have to hold it in your mouth for a few seconds to get the effect it. The whole thing seems ridiculous.

'''J:''' And then it has to give you a 20 amp jolt to. The top.

'''E:''' And then a mechanism makes you chew your food.

'''J:''' And you have to have a ground shoe, a shoe that is grounding. So. So I mean, look, let's say that this thing works really well. Yeah.

'''B:''' Who gives you shit like Jay? I'll tell. You Jay salt. But salt, baby. People love salt and a lot of people have to avoid it because of exactly because of medical conditions. And you know what country has the worst salt overuse problem in the world?

'''S:''' Sure it's in Japan. Japan.

'''B:''' Oh, 100% Well, there you go.

'''S:''' Yeah, no, we eat more fat, they eat more salt. So they all have hypertension and they die of heart attacks and stroke from their hypertension.

'''J:''' I thought that we said on the show that salt doesn't give you hypertension.

'''S:''' That's not true, Yeah.

'''J:''' Not true. So we're back to. Not we're back to. Limiting salt intake.

'''S:''' I just did a TikTok on this today.

'''J:''' Well, hello.

'''S:''' The evidence is pretty clear that if you have hypertension, there is a pretty linear relationship between your salt intake and your blood pressure, and lowering your salt intake will lower your blood pressure. The only question is in people who do not have hypertension, is it there is a, there is a controversy over what the recommendation should be for people who do not have high blood pressure at baseline. Should they still keep their salt low or are they fine? You know, and the American Heart Association says keep your salt low anyway. And other people say no, it's that's overkill. You don't need to do that. But if you have hypertension, well, that's true. You get a lot of people get iodine from their salt, but there's no question that if you have hypertension, salt's a problem, right? And there's also no question that in Japan, they eat a lot of salt and they have a lot of hypertension. They have a lot of strokes. That's also not not contested. So even though I think this is ridiculous, I understand why you would think of like, why a Japanese company would say, hey, how could we satisfy people's desire for salty food without having them put a lot of salt in their context matters.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right. But does it work? You know who knows?

'''E:''' It's why it's a claim. It's not a proof SWIP.

'''S:''' It is about the size and shape of a toaster into which you place a smartphone to swap out its internal battery for a fresh one. Is the fiction.

'''E:''' Did you make it up entirely?

'''S:''' Nope. The SWIP, it exists. It is this toaster sized device you do put your phone in. But you are swapping out an external battery that goes into its proprietary phone case.

'''E:''' Oh, case, Yeah. So it's it's external battery.

'''S:''' You're not swapping out the internal battery, you're swapping out an external battery that goes in its case. So you have to get their proprietary case and their proprietary battery. It's an extra battery that gives you an extends your.

'''E:''' I should have thought of that. Yeah. It extends your, your battery life internal. Yeah.

'''S:''' And you could you could you could swap it out by just putting it in this ridiculous toaster size, right.

'''E:''' By saying it's it's entirely proprietary, but I didn't think about an external.

'''S:''' The internal battery's just not that's just not feasible.

'''E:''' It's not going to miss out very.

'''S:''' Well, they could design from I guess that, but they won't. I guess, but they won't. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not how they used to. If you want the form factor and everything, whatever. So. Oh, yeah. But this is this is an external battery. That's the detail that I changed and I did. That was fun. It is meant for use like with iPhones or whatever, because you just have to put to put their case on it, which apparently is not very attractive. But I just said smartphone to make it ambiguous so that people might think, oh, you have to use their proprietary phone in order to make this work. Yeah, Yeah. To make it a little bit more challenging. All right, that was good. You guys were all over the place. I like that.

'''E:''' It was fun.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:30:46) ==
{{qow
|text = “Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.”
|author = ― Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game. Karl Popper from the book The Logic of Scientific Discovery, on which apparently this is the premise of the book.

'''S:''' Yes, that is the Seminole work and that is basically the the unfalsifiable and shame on me for not having read this book.

'''E:''' Why don't I know about this book? I'm it's was written in 1959 the way I should have by now. I should have picked this one up. Yeah, Scientific Discovery.

'''S:''' It is it is again a Seminole work. It is, you know, established this idea that falsifiability is a necessary feature of any truly scientific hypothesis or endeavor.

'''E:''' Oh, so true.

'''S:''' Yeah. Karl Popper. You guys remember what? What movie referenced Popper?

'''E:''' Oh, I vaguely remember that there's a.

'''S:''' Popular Science fiction movie that threw in Popper as. Sounds to the lamps, no. 2001 The Matrix, the cartoon Matrix. What was that called?

'''B:''' Oh yeah, revolutions or something? Yeah, Revolutions.

'''S:''' The Matrix Revolutions.

'''B:''' Renaissance 1 and 2. They are the best matrix animated or one of the not best.

'''S:''' No, no, the good one, that was like 10 or so little animated shorts. Yeah.

'''B:''' That's what I mean, but which? Which short was it?

'''S:''' It was the IT was the kid, the Animatrix, the Animatrix, that's what it was the Animatrix. It was the kid who spontaneously, you know, like he flew, jumped out the window and spontaneously got his consciousness back into his body. That one.

'''E:''' I'm skeptical. Oh wow, I don't remember that.

'''S:''' Yeah. Shout out to Popper in that one. All right.

'''E:''' Thank you, Evan. Thank you.

'''S:''' So thank you guys for joining me this week. You got mad, doctor. Hopefully everything will go well with the LA fires. We're keeping an eye on that. We'll probably give you a little update next week and until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1019

2025-10-01T23:32:17Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:38:05) */ corrected rogue and host side panels

{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1019
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1019|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1019.jpg
|caption = "Exploring the cosmos: where engineering meets the wonders of the universe."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "Knowledge is a paradox. The more one understands, the more one realizes the vastness of his ignorance." Netflix show: Arcane - League of Legends.
|qowAuthor = Spoken by Viktor (also known as the Herald) in season 2 of the hit
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1019|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the {{SGU|link=y}}. Today is Wednesday, January 15th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

'''B:''' Hey, everybody!

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria...

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' Jay Novella...

'''J:''' Hey guys.

'''S:''' ...and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, we got to start with an update. How you doing?

'''C:''' I'm good. I'm OK. The city is. It's not. I mean, I'm OK insofar as I'm OK. You know what I mean? Maybe you don't.

'''E:''' Yeah, by comparison to to many others.

'''C:''' By comparison to many others and also just by comparison to this same time last week, I guess we could say there's two ways to answer the question when people ask how are you? And actually, many people were sharing a meme from Broad City across social media that was like everyone in LA this week. And it's one of the main characters going I'm or like, how are you? But like she's holding up air quotes because the one way is I'm safe and I'm not and my house is didn't burn down. Like, so in that sense, yes, I'm OK psychologically, I don't know how OK people are right now. We were talking off air before we started recording. But the saying right now, and I think so far everybody I've talked to, there's truth to it. If you live in LA, everyone in LA knows somebody who lost everything. You know, it's a communal tragedy. And I've been working with patients all week. I've been working with myself, with my supervisors and also friends, family members, all that. And there's this sense that it's, it's kind of hard to articulate, but I used a metaphor of like, if you fall into the ocean and you're splashing and you feel like you're drowning, and then somebody throws a life preserver to you and you can look up and you can see the sturdiness of the boat that threw out the life preserver. So very often when we're dealing with our own stuff, and I work with cancer patients, so they're dealing with their stuff. Even amongst the most difficult personal tragedy, there's a firmament around you. There's a sense of security when you look around. But this past week, LA is not secure. And so it's like looking up and the boat itself is on fire. We're sinking and that's sort of the feeling that most people have. And I think one of the hardest realizations is when you turn on the news or you pick up your phone or you reach out to somebody who's not right here and you realize that life didn't stop. And this is always really tough in the grief process. You're going through something really difficult, and the world is still going and there's still the confirmation hearings, and there's still. And you're just like, oh my God. Because you feel like everything's on pause.

'''E:''' I feel that way when somebody close to me has passed away or died.

'''C:''' Yeah, You want everybody to go. Just stop for a minute. Just stop doing all the things. Don't you see? Somebody died, but that's how life is. It's tough to be a provider against this background, especially a new one. So a lot of processing around that it's like Mr. Rogers, like look for the helpers. And then it's like, but who's helping the helpers? Like, I hope that our first responders are taking up all of the offers for pro bono therapy, are really leaning on their loved ones right now because it's a lot.

'''S:''' Well, we're going to talk in a little bit about some of the just the science surrounding what's happening with the yeah, with the fire.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Does Fact-Checking Work (03:33) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00027-0
|article_title = Does fact-checking work? What the science says
|publication = www.nature.com
}}

'''S:''' But let's go on to some news items, Jay, does fact checking social media work?

'''J:''' Yeah, before I start guys, I'd be curious to hear what you think.

'''C:''' Zuck doesn't think so.

'''E:''' Well.

'''C:''' I think it probably does to some extent. I mean work is a loaded question.

'''E:''' Yeah, it seems kind of broad.

'''C:''' Does it work?

'''S:''' This is what I think about it. If you just tell people this is fake, that doesn't work. If you actually suppress it in the algorithm or keep it from from either going online at all or being spread, that absolutely does work.

'''C:''' Right, right. Like this is demonstrably untrue. So therefore it is against our policy to continue to show it as if it is true. Yeah.

'''J:''' Well, it turns out it's complicated, we have statistics, but in the end there is a definite positive influence. So let me start at the beginning here because this news item is inspired by Zuckerberg's change to Facebook's platform where Meta announced that they have plans to scrap their third party fact checking program. It's been in place since 2016. And the program they paid independent groups to verify the accuracy of articles and posts on Facebook. And this plan moving forward is to use a Crowdsource system, right? They'll implement a model that's inspired by Twitter's community notes, which some of you might be aware of. The system allows users to contribute contacts and additional information to post on the platform. And the aim is to provide clarity or correct misinformation by those community people. So Meta says this change was made to address concerns about bias and censorship. Joel Kaplan, who is Meta's chief global affairs officer, said the following, experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. So I think that his comment is straight up marketing BS.

'''C:''' Yeah, it sounds very loaded to me.

'''J:''' Right? Totally. The experts he's referring to, these aren't regular people. They have a long, long, impressive list of credentials, and I'm going to name a few of them. This is what they typically have lots of variation, of course, but they hire people as professionals in the field, right? So they have an academic background in the relevant fields that they're observing and that they're editing. They commonly have critical thinking skills. They could be journalists. They have a lot of credentials. These are not lightweight people that come in and say, hey, look, I circled this in the Wanted ads like, no, these are people that have very strong legitimate credentials that qualify them. And the word expert is not used loosely here. They are content experts. They could do lots of different things, like they could be able to source the material, the comment all the way back to its source and then figure out how legitimate that source is or isn't. Look it up. You'll be interested to read the credentials that these people typically have. So Meta's new approach, like I said, is mirroring the community notes on Twitter. And I dare say that it didn't really work that well, especially Elon Musk's version, which this throws all of that out the window. So an obvious question is, does general fact checking actually work? Of course, the intent of the company has to be very firm and very good. They have to have good intentions because they they are the ultimate quality control of whatever fact checking is happening. In general to answer the question of does fact checking actually work like Steve says, research suggests it absolutely does. Studies done on the topic show similar conclusions that fact checking reduces beliefs about false claims. I know that's an easy sentence to say, but there's a lot behind that. And but you have to let that fact ride as it is, because it is a very simple answer. Yes, fact checking works. Now, of course, we can discuss for hours on what degree that it works. And it's very hard to judge that just by the nature of what's being done here.

'''C:''' Jay, I mean, fact checking has been the backbone of legitimate journalism for all of journalism.

'''J:''' Right. I mean, it is absolute. It's a, it's a, it's a cornerstone of journalism.

'''C:''' And journalists don't share things that don't pass muster under fact checking. So by definition it is. It's at least a, what would you call it, threshold. A minimum standard.

'''J:''' Right, I totally agree, absolutely agree. And you know, of course, if you had total control over the information and with the intent on helping humanity, then that false information would be very short lived on social media and wouldn't get to as many eyes as these pieces of information typically do. But let me give you guys a for instance, a 2019 meta analysis of studies involving more than 20,000 participants. They found that fact checking had a clear positive effect on people's political beliefs, helping them to actually better differentiate between truth and falsehood. That's great. And that says it all right there. The ideal scenario is to prevent the misinformation from spreading in the 1st place. You want to absolutely limit its exposure to the masses. You want to contain it as quickly as possible. But when people are already exposed, fact checking actually can still reduce its impact, of course, because they're either they're removing it or they're putting up flags that say this information can't be verified. It doesn't have a clear source. That type of thing actually does have an impact. Now, why does fact checking still matter? Well, fact checking might not always change minds directly, but it does play a big role in the shaping of the online information ecosystem. If you think about all the information that's out there online and how that information revolves around groups of people, like minded people, people different political beliefs, people that have core beliefs that are different. The information that surrounds skeptics is very different than the information that surrounds health and fitness people. But one thing about misinformation is that it kind of brushes over all of those groups and subgroups and it does get to everybody, right? Because it can exist in any category that's out there. I think it's really important to say that without the fact checking, what we're going to see is we're going to see the proliferation of misinformation and then there's going to be a battle. It's going to create battlefields very similar to what we see on Wikipedia, right? Wikipedia has approved Wikipedia editors and they could do things like creating new pages, which is absolutely important because as things happen, we want to see posts that are gathering all the information. Like you can go and look up the the LA fires and there'll be a post on Wikipedia about that gives up to date information on it. Now the knife cuts both ways. Because in an ideal Wikipedia situation, we have people that are unbiased and have the skill sets to to do this. And they're going to do the best job that they can. And they're going to vet the information. They're going to do all the steps that we skeptics have learned how to vet information. But you have people that become editors that you have other intentions, right? And I've talked to Wikipedia editors that say that they're in a tug of war where they'll go on one day and they'll add information, they'll shape it, they'll make it present reality. And then you have people that will come in that night or the next day or whatever, the next approval, whenever they can edit it again, because it's not like a moment to moment. Then what happens? They change it and they put back in the misinformation because they're having a tug of war over that. This is what we can expect to happen on Meta when people are going to be going in who don't have the qualifications, who, who really shouldn't be editing information or doing anything to provide direction to other people on what's true and what's not true. It's going to be a train wreck. And I'm really concerned because we already live in a world that has weaponized misinformation. It's rampant. Meta's move is a horrible sign of the web sinking deeper into misinformation. Fact checking isn't a panacea, but it's one of the few tools proven to have a positive impact. And what we should be doing is leaning into it and figuring out ways to even make it more useful and more powerful. But that's not the world we live in.

'''C:''' But also, why are people getting their news from Facebook?

'''S:''' Because that ship has sailed. I mean, people are using social media as a convenient way to just get information about the world. And they may not even be looking for news so much as just looking for content but that's, this is what people are talking about today. They're talking about whatever is happening. And so it becomes the de facto source of news.

'''C:''' Do you think that this is going to do for Facebook what Elon taking over Twitter did? Like I'm not there. Most people I know aren't on Twitter anymore. And every time I do reopen the app, it's a cesspool. It's like an abandoned car that's overrun with rats. Like I'll look at posts and it's just, it's amazing the rhetoric that I see and just the spam and the bots and I don't know what happened to it, but do you think that's going to happen to Facebook?

'''S:''' Yeah. I mean, I think it would, sure, that's the concern, right? It's that you're opening the floodgates. I mean, this is a deeper conversation about social media. If you have like just completely unregulated social media platform where people can say whatever they want to say and there's no fact checking or editorial filter or limit on hate speech or anything, then it becomes a playground for psychopaths. It becomes a tool for propaganda of every type. The people who have the most time on their hands and the most obsession about topics are the ones who are going to be disproportionately represented. So it's not like, oh, it's going to be a free marketplace of ideas where the quality of the idea is the one factor that's going to allow things to rise to the cream, to rise to the top. That's not what's happening. That is demonstrably not what's happening. It's you have the obsessive extreme propaganda speech is what is propagated and it's drowning out all other types of speech.

'''C:''' You can purchase speech. So people who have a monetary interest in changing political ideology or changing thoughts or changing purchasing power. You don't even know what's behind most of these posts. Like why are they posting it? Are they trying to swing an election? Are they trying to get you by something? Are they trying to whatever.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's the other thing. It's a great point. There's no transparency. So normally, like if you have a political ad, you have to say this ad is supported by this person, but you can have de facto political ads on social media with no disclosure of who's behind them at all. So like all of the rules that have evolved over the last century or whatever, in terms of, as you say, quality journalism, of fairness and reporting, of transparency in who is speaking or whatever, it's all gone.

'''B:''' Hasta la vista.

'''S:''' Yeah, either we need to just run this psychological social experiment and see what happens, although I think that we have a pretty good idea, what's happening, or we have to figure out how to transfer the same kind of social protections to this new media, you know?

'''E:''' Warning labels.

'''S:''' Well, I think that this warning labels don't really work.

'''E:''' Well, I guess that's my point. What does work? What has been proven to work in these we'll.

'''B:''' We'll get right on it right after we fix global climate change.

'''C:''' Well, and I don't want to skip ahead to my news item, but I'm going to touch on an app that is an app that had an express intention that is run by individuals, actually team of people with a very specific mission that is not for sale, that does not scrub user data and is factual only. I mean, so much of that, so much of how you affect change in this situation is who is controlling the platform and what are their rules.

'''S:''' Yeah. So I think that's a good point, Cara, is that so one choice we have as consumers is which social media will be patronized, right? And so we need to pick social media apps that do have good quality and that do have rules of engagement, which promote at least have a minimum filter for the worst kind of propaganda, hate speech, straight up lies, all that stuff. So we may just have to just go off of platforms that are not doing that. And like we've moved a lot of us over to Bluesky just because it for now anyway, it seems to be a little bit better environment. But again-

'''C:''' It feels like old Twitter a little.

'''S:''' That's not a panacea either, because then that just contributes to for the further isolation of societies. Now we're going to have like, we have red states, blue states, we're going to have Twitter people and Bluesky people. We're going to be siloing ourselves into these subcultures of social media platforms. That's not good.

'''C:''' But that's a larger geopolitical question, right? Like you think about the Civil War and you think about areas like in the United States where ultimately we stayed one nation where a lot of people, we made compromises that many people weren't happy with and a lot of people were disgruntled. And that continues to this day in our policy and in the way that we vote. And then you see other nations where they split or where people seceded and they said, you know what, we have irreconcilable differences and the people who think this way are going to live here and the people who think that way are going to live there. And I'm not saying either way is right, but that does play out time and time again. So is the answer always to say, let's not be siloed? Maybe. But does that create more conflict? Does it create less conflict? I don't know. It's a complicated question, especially when the ideologies are so diametrically opposed.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah, it's hard to, I guess, if in order for a forest to be green, all the trees must be green, right? It's hard to have a society that's open and where we have open conversation and good faith and everybody's reasonable, right? Can't have a reasonable society unless most of the people are reasonable, and we're not going to fix that with social media.

'''C:''' No, and there's a reason that after World War 2 Germany had very strict laws about what you could say and what you could do, because they said this is not in keeping with a fair and just society. We will not allow Nazi propaganda to flourish after the war. We have to tamp it down. So you're right, Steve. I think it's really complicated when I guess it depends on the goals, right? What are the goals of the people in the society and do they agree?

'''S:''' Yeah, there's no perfect solution because at the end of the day either you're going to have a chaos, anarchy, free for all, or somebody is going to be imposing some kind of filter. And then of course, that who is that person? Who's that group? Who's that entity? What are their motivations, right? There's something to be said for free speech. Of course we we support free speech strongly, but free speech requires a venue where your voice can be heard and not overwhelmed by a bunch of psychopaths who are just trolling everybody or bots who are spreading propaganda.

'''C:''' And free speech only means that the government does not abridge it. You know, like really, when it comes down to it.

'''S:''' That's the First Amendment, yes, we could distinguish free the concept of free speech and the 1st Amendment.

'''C:''' Which I think most Americans are-

'''S:''' They conflate the two often.

'''C:''' Conflating the two, yes.

'''S:''' Absolutely, but free speech doesn't mean again a free for all. It doesn't mean that like there isn't an editorial policy.

'''E:''' You can't defraud people.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Right.

'''C:''' Yeah, you can't straight up lie about somebody. And like, yeah, there's a lot of limits to free speech.

'''E:''' Defame, yeah.

'''S:''' It doesn't mean you can't fact check. Fact checking doesn't mean you don't have free speech. It means is there somebody who's going to look it up and say that's wrong, here's the real answer, or here's the vetted information. So yeah, so I think there's that. And I think obviously people need to be skeptical, have critical thinking skills at media savvy because it is the Wild West now.

'''E:''' Yeah, we're we have to look out for ourselves more than ever.

'''S:''' More than ever, absolutely.

'''E:''' It was true 20-30 years ago, it's more true today.

'''S:''' Yeah, but again, having said that, being somebody who spends a lot of time on TikTok because of we're we're promoting skeptical content on TikTok, it is a cesspool of misinformation, anti intellectualism and just utter nonsense.

'''E:''' Oh gosh, if you don't have some minimum level of intellectual protection like mental protection against that, you will fall prey to so much stuff you don't even realize you're falling prey to it.

'''S:''' But we, but again, we live in a democracy. So we also have to think about this statistically. Like if a majority of people take over into radicalized ignorance, that's the society that we have. Doesn't matter if it's 51%, that's now the ruling majority of our democracy.

'''C:''' And it's going to be that way if we don't prioritize education.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' That has to be at the top of our list.

'''S:''' But then that that also becomes a war, as we know because then you have-

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' -some states fighting against teaching critical thinking, you know.

'''C:''' Or just, I don't know, funding schools?

'''S:''' There are some basics there.

'''E:''' No easy answers as usual.

'''B:''' Steve, Steve, can we talk about something positive, fun and cool?

'''S:''' Yes, I'm just about to pivot, we're not going to solve this problem. We're just going to whine about it.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Nuclear Electric Propulsion (21:44) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2024-12-strategic-alliance-high-energy-nuclear.amp
|article_title =
Strategic alliance brings high-energy nuclear electric propulsion closer to reality

|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Bob, tell us about nuclear electric propulsion.

'''B:''' Oh yeah, babe.

'''E:''' What? That doesn't exist.

'''B:''' All right, so this was fun. 2 cool companies have signed a strategic partnership to create a powerful nuclear electric rocket that could finally make serious progress in ending the dominance of chemical rockets for space travel. And I want this to happen so bad. So bad that I don't even care about the grammar of this sentence.

'''E:''' Wait a minute. Hang on. We in the last 12 months, we must have touched on at least 6 or 8 news items and we've come to the conclusion that it's chemical propulsion and that's it. That's the only way we get anywhere.

'''B:''' No.

'''E:''' Isn't that kind of what we concluded?

'''B:''' Chemical propulsion. I'll talk a little bit about this at the end of my talk, but chemical propulsion is going to stay for quite a long time to get to orbit, but once you're in orbit, it's days are numbered. Absolutely, absolutely. OK, so two companies are Ad Astra and Space Nuclear Corporation, also simply called Space Nukes, which is an awesome name.

'''C:''' That's terrifying name.

'''B:''' I know. It's fun, though. Let's start with the rocket company Ad Astra. They've been developing an electric rocket engine called VASIMIR. They describe it on their website as a disruptive development. I love some disruptive development in the space propulsion status quo. It's the product of more than 40 years of research in plasma physics and electric propulsion, first at the United States Department of Energy, and NASA, and later now at at Astro Rocket Company. Now, electric rocket engines are distinct from chemical rockets. We all know chemical rockets and I barely tolerate them at this point. As the name implies, they use electricity to accelerate propellant. VASIMIR rocket engines are different than other well known electric engines that I'm sure you have heard of, especially if you listen to the show, namely ion engines and Hall-effect thrusters. Jay talked about them a little while ago. These VASIMIR is different than those. VASIMIR is in some ways a hybrid of those two.

'''J:''' It's a hybrid.

'''B:''' It's a hybrid. Many call VASIMIR, it's a magnetoplasma. It's a better descriptor, much better than ion engine or Hall-effect. This technique is different in that it uses powerful radio waves to heat a gas propellant, and that gas propellant then becomes the most common state of matter in the universe. What is that?

'''S:''' Plasma.

'''B:''' Plasma. Yes.

'''C:''' Plasma's the most common?

'''B:''' All stars are plasma. So that basically does that right there. So a plasma, there's a soup of free electrons and positive ions, basically just unbinds the electrons from the atomic nucleons, a very hot charged gas, so this super gas then can now be controlled by magnetic field. And that was the goal. It's ionized so that it can be controlled and that magnetic field guides and accelerates the plasma out the back of the rocket as a potent rocket thrust. Thank you Newton's third law. So that's basically how it works. Very basically. So cool stuff. But some of you might be thinking, well, what does VASIMIR stand for, right? It's got to stand for something, right? It's got to be an acronym. VASIMIR stands for Variable Specific Impulse Magneto LASMA rocket. And those first 3 words Variable specific Impulse make this rocket incredible and unique. So to explain that, let's talk about this. Chemical rocket fuel, this is a really interesting angle. Chemical rocket fuel reaches thousands of degrees, very hot, right? Thousands of degrees. But electric plasma engines can get to millions of degrees. And that is a critical distinction. So because the higher the temperature, think about it, the higher the temperature, the more the whatever is heated to that degree is bouncing around hitting each other all the atoms. The higher the temperature, the faster the exhaust. And that means that every gram of fuel can deliver more energy, right? So going from thousands of degrees to millions of degrees therefore means that the propellant is more effectively being converted into thrust. So you got that. So this increase in efficiency for rockets is expressed as specific impulse ISP, a critical rocketry word if ever there was one. If you if you read about rockets and rocket technology, you have probably come across specific impulse, ISP. It's basically deals with the efficiency, how effectively the propellant is converted into thrust. Now, chemical rockets typically have an ISP rating in the hundreds. VASIMIR could have an ISP over 5000. So keep that in mind out. So that's the background. So VASIMIR stands for a variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket. So that means that this rocket can actually change its specific impulse depending on the needs of the specific mission that it is on. I'm not aware of of really any other rocket design that really does this like this.

'''C:''' Sorry Bob, define impulse again.

'''B:''' ISP, specific impulse is a measure of how efficiently the fuel is converted into thrust. And remember as I said, that the higher the temperature, the faster it shoots out the back. And because it's going faster, that means you're getting more bang for your buck for that fuel. So what does this mean this variable specific impulse, what does that mean for this rocket? So that means say you're near the gravity of a planet and you need some extra thrust. You can just hit the dial and you can lower the ISP and you get more thrust. You know, not chemical rocket like thrust, but you're still getting much more thrust than you would think from an electric rocket. But remember, though, when you got a lot of thrust, though, it's less efficient. The ISP is going down, so it becomes less efficient, but you could do that on demand. So there on the other hand, if the rocket is cruising through deep space, the rocket can be switched to high ISP mode like a high gear and become super efficient. And then you're using the fuel that's available just in very tiny amounts and then otherwise. So now remember, acceleration is low in this mode, right? Because the thrust that you're throwing out is going very, very fast, but you're not throwing out a lot of it, right? That's kind of inherent in these types of rockets. So it's not throwing out as much mass as a chemical rocket, but what it is throwing out is throwing at very, very, very, very high speed. So acceleration is low in this mode, but it doesn't matter in for a lot of missions, because you're the velocity, it can be built up over time, slowly over time, and eventually going faster than chemical rocket speeds. So this rocket can actually dial up or down. It can go into low gear near a near a gravity where it needs higher thrust, or it could go into a high gear, a high ISP mode where it's super efficient and it can cruise and accelerate for weeks or months or even longer. So that's what you could do with this type of rocket design. So that's all great and stuff, but all that awesomeness, especially ionizing the fuel requires a lot of power. And that is one of the key problems with VASIMIR. So in space that typically means that solar panels or perhaps RTGs, radio isotope thermal generators, but neither of those options are really a good fit for VASIMIR. Solar panels would need to be stupidly large to supply enough power and the RTGs are great for a Voyager or Perseverance, but not for an engine like this. So we need something to soup up that can get high density electrical energy for this VASIMIR. And this is where space nuclear corporation, Space nukes comes into play. They were famous for their killer power device. I talked about that on episode 859. Killer power is essentially a small nuclear reactor made to power electronics on the moon, Mars, and deep space away from easy solar panels or other types of technology that can get you what you need. Currently, it's designed to supply one to 10 kilowatts of electrical power. Space Nukes has demonstrated A1 kilowatt device back in 2018 and it's now working with US Space Force on a project called JETSON, which is pretty fun, for a 12 kilowatt version. I assume though I got to say that in the near future, the US Space Force will be renamed X Force. So I'm just going to throw that out there, see if that happens. Kilopower Now, Jay, you and I were talking about this earlier. Kilopower uses a sterling heat engine, which is a very, very efficient engine that convert heat from the reactor into electricity. It's very efficient, more efficient than solar panels and it can operate for 15 years continuously. That that just blows my mind. I want a few of those under my damn house. OK, so the obvious idea here is that this partnership is to integrate the nuclear reactor with the propulsion technology vastly leveling up the VASIMIR, right? That mean it would be an amazing. The company partnership is described this way on the Ad Astro website. The Memorandum of Understanding MOU, Memorandum for Understanding between Ad Astra and Space Nukes outlines a shared vision and passion for developing and demonstrating NEP, nuclear electric propulsion technology and establishes a framework by which both companies will jointly pursue technical and business development. David Poston, CTO of Space Nuke said nuclear electric propulsion will achieve game changing performance via stepwise technology evolution. Our plan will begin with 100 kilowatt plus nuclear electric propulsion system as a stepping stone to get this a less than 5 kilogram per kilowatt multi MW NEP system. That's with the capability to reduce the round trip human transit time to Mars from more than a year to a few months. So they're saying with this 100 kilowatt system that they are developing that they'll hopefully get to before too long, they could take a round trip human transit time to Mars from more than a year to a few months. That's a huge game changer in getting to Mars. A few months. The risk from solar radiation and galactic radiation is much less. Three months compared to over 12 months could be a game changer. Now these plans are in the early stages, but they say in the press release the partnership aims to demonstrate high power NEP in a flight program by the end of the decade and commercialize the technology in the 2030s. So that seems fairly aggressive. Commercialize it by the in the 2030s. I hope these two crazy kids can make it work. So this is really fascinating. I really hope that they, I mean, coming up with a nuclear electric propulsion engine like this is something that I hope I can really see in my in my lifetime. Now remember, I got to say as a closing, keep in mind a VASIMIR rocket, even in low gear, right? Even in low ISP with maximum thrust still won't be able to launch off the surface of the earth. Gravity is it's too high, right? Gravity is way too high. It's thrust to weight ratio is too low. It's still not as good as chemical rocket. There are however extreme nuclear rocket designs that could make potentially a surface launch possible. But the engineering problems are non trivial. Not to mention regulatory, environmental and moral problems. Since it would would most likely or probably or maybe spew radiation over half a continent. It could be nasty stuff, but it might work. It might work, but yeah, so it unfortunately, it's so it seems likely to me that the only reaction engine, something that throws stuff out the back to take advantage of Newton's third law, the only reaction engine that will ever launch from the Earth to orbit will probably be chemical rockets, unfortunately. But I hope orbital rings eventually will make them finally obsolete in a couple 100 years. But we're going to wait for that one. No, Steve, I'm not, Orbital rings could make could make the chemical rockets obsolete because you can get to the orbital rings because you can get to them. They could be low altitude. They're not in low Earth orbit. They're much, much lower because they're orbital rings, which are a different beast entirely, which we've never really talked about. I mean, they're just super sci-fi, physically possible, but yeah, very, very sci-fi. But yeah, chemical rockets are here to stay. But I think nuclear rockets, it seems inevitable they will take over deep space rocket missions and anything outside of Earth orbit will probably go mostly nuclear and then eventually even fusion once we got those. This VASIMIR with the killer power joining this marriage here between these two could be really a game changer that I hope you see in the next 10 to 15 years really, really take off.

'''S:''' Yeah, something like this is definitely going to be a game changer if we're ever going to be going to Mars and back, you know?

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah, I'm really getting optimistic about it because also you've got a lot of countries trying to control Cislunar space, the space between Earth and the moon. And it's not just like a science thing or a gee wow, how cool it. This is like a government control thing. We must control this parcel of space. So that means they're going to dump a lot of money into it. And so, and we've talked about this a bit before, so I think nuclear rockets, could be very common in Cislunar space, because you got to move material vast distances between the Earth and the moon very efficiently and very fast. And you're not going to do that with chemical rockets. So the governments are going to start pouring money into nuclear rockets and NASA has expressed interest in being part of that so that they can then take that technology, whether it's VASIMIR or some other type of nuclear rocketry, take that and expand on it so that it can go beyond the moon tomorrow. So we'll see it one way or the other, just a matter of when.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== The LA Fires (36:42) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/climate/wildfire-smoke-risks.html and https://www.sciencealert.com/dumping-seawater-on-la-fires-is-an-experiment-scientists-are-closely-watching and https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/11/24340913/watch-duty-wildfire-tracking-app-los-angeles-nonprofit
|article_title = Far From the Fires, the Deadly Risks of Smoke Are Intensifying - The New York Times
|publication = www.nytimes.com
}}

'''S:''' Cara, get us up to date on some of the science surrounding the LA fires.

'''C:''' OK. So first, I guess a little bit of an update just on the status of the fires because they are much more contained than they were when we talked last week. The fire that's closest to me, the Eaton Fire in Altadena, CA and Pasadena, CA, it is now 14,117 acres and 45% contained. And southwest of me, the Palisades Fire, which is larger at 23,713 acres is now 19% contained. We still don't have total numbers on how many structures have been destroyed. In terms of the death toll from the LA fires is 25 is the latest. So nine people in the Palisades fire, 16 people in the Eaton fire, but that number is is probably going to rise. Today was another Santa Ana extreme wind warning day. I think the hope is that things will continue to get better and better after this. So I wanted to talk about a few things that came up for me. I think part of this is sort of like a PSA, and part of it is obviously just keeping up with what's going on. But boots on the ground, these are the things that I recognized and that I found kind of important to focus on. The first one is I wanted to talk about this incredible app that if you live in LA, this has been your lifeline throughout this past week. It's called watch duty. If you don't have watch duty, I recommend that you download it. Right now it's only active in 22 states, but the plan is to become nationwide. And who knows, maybe it'll even go global eventually. This is an app that is very, very easy to use. It's a 5O1C3, so it's a nonprofit and it was co-founded by two individuals who really basically lived through a fire and recognized that it was just really hard to find information because different government agencies were posting things on different sites and some of the information wasn't coming out in real time. And if anybody knows when there's a disaster going on, how difficult it is to get up to date information and how easy it is to doom scroll, they would recognize why watch duty is so important. Is a map. It's a really clean, easy to read map that has every evac zone listed, whether it's a level 2 or level 3, whether it's a waiter a go. It shows the perimeter of the fire as soon as it's ready, it shows the containment. And then every press conference is summarized there. And there's a team of reporters who are vetted reporters who publish within the app when you click on the fires, the latest information. So there's a quote from one of the co-founders that said this is it came out of an idea that John had. He talked to me about it four years ago. We built the app in 60 days. It was run completely by volunteers, no full time staff. So side project for a lot of engineers. So the aim was to keep it as simple as possible. Now there are full time staff, but it's still very simple. There's no login, it doesn't scrape user data and it's completely free. You don't have to pay for it and there's no ads. And their view is we're never going to sell this thing. We will fundraise if we have to. This is a public service, so here's a quote from the other co-founder, Merritt. We view what we were doing as a public service. It is a utility that everyone should have which is timely, relevant information for their safety during emergencies. Right now it's very scattered. Even the agencies themselves, which have the best intentions, their hands are tied by bureaucracy or contracts. We partner with government sources with a focus on firefighting so they're able to get push delays out fast. Like 1.5 million people downloaded the thing in like a few days and it never crashed. Here's another quote that I think is a really important one, and this speaks to what we were talking about earlier. All information is vetted for quality over quantity. We have a code of conduct for reporters, for example we never report on injuries or give specific addresses. It's all tailored with a specific set of criteria. We do not editorialize. We report on what we have heard on the scanners. And this really did save lives. This app, we will probably after the fact be able to directly link it to saving lives because people were able to know when their evac zones were updated to the minute, which is a a rare experience in a disaster of this of this scale. Fire is fast, really fast. And the Santa Anas were blowing upwards of 90 plus mph. It shifted very quickly and in those first two days of the fire, the winds were too strong for air suppression. So this was just boots on the ground firefighting. It spread like wildfire as they say. Speaking of that, a friend of mine reached out to me during this whole thing. And she goes, can they use salt water to put out a fire? And I was like, I don't know. And then we just stop talking about it. And then a day later, I saw that the super scoopers were here. And I was like, OK, this is interesting. I want to dig a little bit deeper. So after the winds calmed down a couple days into the fire, these pilots flew planes. They're called super scoopers. And what they do is they skim 1500 gallons of seawater out of the ocean. They just fly down to the surface of the ocean, skim the seawater and then go dump it on the fires just like they would freshwater or fire retardant. I had never seen or heard of this before. And so I found an interesting article online that was written by some researchers who are studying how high saline water effects inland ecosystems. Because it seems like a really obvious answer, right? The coast was burning. The fire spread literally to the shoreline, and all the houses along the shoreline in the Pacific Palisades and many in Malibu burned to the ground. So there's so much water right there. The hydrants were at certain points, they couldn't keep the pressure up and they just weren't able to deliver the water because they're trying to fight basically a wildfire using a civic water system, which is not what it's built for. Why not use seawater? So it seems really obvious, but apparently there are some real downsides to this. I mean, we had to do it, but there are some real downsides. What do you guys think is a big one?

'''E:''' Corrosion.

'''C:''' Yeah. So not only is it corroding some of these firefighting systems, the firefighting equipment itself, but these researchers indicate that it may harm ecosystems.

'''B:''' That's what I was thinking.

'''C:''' And we're starting to see this as a problem more and more, not just in in these urban wildfire scenarios, but also as climate change brings coastlines higher and deeper. Ecosystems that were never exposed to saltwater are now getting higher salinity, or they're finding themselves in higher salinity environments. And excessive salts can stress and kill plants. So these researchers did an experiment called Tempest where they went into these forests basically, and they added different salinities of water. They did it over the course of several years. They first did a 10 hour exposure of salty water that was a little bit more brackish, and they found that like it didn't really affect the forest. The next year they exposed it for 20 hours and the forest was mostly OK, but some of the Poplar trees were like acting a little funny. They started drawing water too slowly. And then the next year they did a 30 hour exposure, but something major shifted that year and that's that the rains didn't come. So what they think happened is that a lot of that salt was never washed away and things went south after the 30 hour exposure and the lack of rain. A lot of the trees started to brown in mid August instead of late September. The forest canopy was bare by mid-September like it was already winter. So it just the forest switched over much earlier. And then they also found that the water that was draining through the soils was brown instead of clear. So it wasn't maintaining its typical filtration capabilities. It was absorbing all sorts of clays and silts and different particulates and taking it with it, which could have intense downstream effects because you didn't have the water system operating as normal. So these researchers, they still don't know what the downstream effects of salt dumping on areas that aren't used to salt water will have, but they have a feeling that it's going to be large. And so that's going to be something that we're going to have to look out for here in, in SoCal because, yes, large areas of forest and urban water supplies were overrun with saltwater because of these super scoopers, but they also put out the fires. And that's really important. And what else are we going to be cleaning up for a while? But we shouldn't clean up right now. That is the ash and the pollution. And so that's the last thing I wanted to touch on is these deadly downstream risks from these fires. So if you live in LA, even if you were far from the fires, you are dealing with hazardous air right now. And there's a lot of chatter about even if the AQI looks good, don't take that number at face value, not because it's not measuring what it says it's measuring, but it doesn't measure some of the things that are threatening to Angelenos right now. So AQI, air quality index, is a measure of how hazardous the air is outside to breathe. It's a measure of of pollution. And it factors in a lot of different variables. One of the big ones is that 2.5 PM. You guys have heard of this? You see it on air filters sometimes. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Yeah, right. Well, no, the PM is actually just particulate matter.

'''B:''' Oh wow, yeah, PM, not PPM.

'''C:''' OK, yeah, not PPM, PM, so PM 2.5. You'll also sometimes see PM 10, like I have two Dyson air filters that I bought after the last fire when things were really smoky and they give you a bunch of different readings. I'm trying to think of all the things they tell you, like the ozone maybe, but the first 2 are always PM 2.5 and PM 10. So that stands for particulate matter 2.5 microns or less and particulate matter 10 microns or less. Today when you look outside, it looks clear. The smoke is not as nearly as thick, and sometimes people go, oh, it looks clear, it must be healthy. The scary thing is the things that are the most dangerous for you, you can't see them because they're small. So something that is a 2.5 PM, which is so smaller than 2.5 microns can enter your lungs. Sometimes they're so small that they can enter your bloodstream directly through your lungs. Larger particles, PM 10 or larger, they're usually caught by your nasal epithelium. They're usually caught by your throat before they get into your respiratory tract or your bloodstream. And very often when we look at AQI, there's a combination of factors that go into the algorithm for calculating AQI. Certain things that are in the air right now from these fires are not even measured by an AQI index. So when a house that was built in 1920 goes up in flames, you can expect asbestos, volatiles from paint, plastics, a lot of different plastic. Because it's not just the house, right? It's all the furniture, it's the varnishes, it's the adhesives that we're using. It's every single thing. And that's becoming like aerosolized. And it's spreading for miles. So I mentioned this last week, but I think it bears repeating. At its worst where I live in my house, the AQI was 375.

'''B:''' What's normal for you?

'''C:''' Good healthy air is between 0 and 50. Zero to 50 means that's satisfactory. You can go outside fine. 50 to 100 is semi normal in Los Angeles. That means that it's acceptable. They call it moderate, but there may be a risk for people who have like asthma or other respiratory sensitivities. 100 to 150. Now we're talking unhealthy for sensitive groups. We sometimes see this in LA when the smog is very, very thick. So sensitive groups may experience health effects, but the general public may not notice. 150 to 200 unhealthy. That's the label that's used. Flat out unhealthy. All of last week we never did below this. So every time even when we had a good air day, it was like 161-170. 200 to 300. Very unhealthy. This is a health alert. The risk of health effects is increased for everyone, and then 300 plus is called hazardous. That's when they show you the icon of the gas mask and they say health warning of emergency conditions. Everyone is more likely to be affected. So at its worst on I think it was Tuesday of last week, it might have been Wednesday, the AQI was 375 and hovering between 350 and 375 for several hours most of the day. It smelled like a campfire on the ground floor of my house. And when you walked outside, you would immediately cough or sneeze. So obviously, I'm still not leaving the house without an N95. And that is the public guidance right now is to wear a respirator when you leave the house, even if the AQI looks low. Because even if those 2.5 PMS aren't being picked up, there may be volatiles in the air that aren't measured by AQI. So it's very, very important to remember that the fires are still burning. There's still a lot in the air. The ash on the ground is toxic. The ash on the ground is the large particulate matter that was made from houses, furniture and cars burning. This is not a wildfire, it's a wild urban fire. So the things that were burning were not just trees. And we have to remember that. There's guidance right now. You cannot use leaf blowers in Los Angeles. Do not think that it is safe to take a leaf blower or even a broom to sweep all that ash off of your property. You're putting it right back into the air. It's very, very dangerous. Here is an expert in the health effects of air pollution at UC San Diego said that Los Angeles in particular saw air pollution levels that could be raising daily mortality by between 5 and 15% just due to the air pollution alone from these fires. And obviously people with respiratory sensitivity as children and older adults are more vulnerable. So be smart. Wear respirator when you go outside. Wear your N90 fives. I know you have a stash leftover from COVID. I don't think my house without one, even if it seems kind of clearer in these past couple of days. The fires are still burning. The winds are still shifting and we still don't know. That's the thing. We don't know the long term effects because usually when we study the health effects of wildfire exposure, it's a one and done or it's once and then again 10 years later. But when we're getting hit by wildfires in the same area and they're wild/urban fires and you're getting multiple exposures a year, that's going to change things a lot. Here is a lovely quote from Doctor Lisa Patel, a pediatrician in San Francisco Bay and executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. She said we are breathing in this toxic brew of volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and hexavalent chromium. All of it is noxious.

'''S:''' Yeah, one of the things that I heard reported was that the fire got so hot that the water pipes were melting or breaking and therefore water was leaking from a lot of locations, which was further reducing the water pressure and frustrating attempts at obviously controlling the fire. Like that's not a thing that you you deal with in a wildfire.

'''C:''' No, you never do, and you wouldn't be tapping a urban hydrants and a wildfire. They're not built for that. They're not built to all be tapped at the same time.

'''B:''' Right, exactly.

'''S:''' They're like one building, that one building is on fire.

'''C:''' And so that's why I think it's so frustrating because everybody's upset, everybody's angry. But it's really heartbreaking being here in the city and seeing all the chatter that's like, it's your fault. It's your fault. It's all you're hearing right now, not so much within the city, but from outside, kind of pointing fingers at LA and saying, well, if this hadn't happened, this wouldn't have happened. Here's the thing. Climate change is real. The humidity outside right now is 25%. It hasn't rained so far this rainy season. You know, usually by January it's rained. We talked about this last week. Fire season is usually summer, a little bit spring, a little fall. Santa Ana season is usually winter, a little bit spring, a little bit fall. The problem is when the Santa Anas come, but fire season never left because we didn't get any rain. So now at the winds are at their worst, and it's as dry as it's ever been outside. It's a recipe for disaster. And that's what's happening right now.

'''E:''' Perfect storm.

'''C:''' Yeah. And we do not have a wildfire water system in the middle of the Pacific Palisades.

'''E:''' Show me the city or the place on the earth that can handle something like this.

'''C:''' Exactly.

'''E:''' I don't know it.

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Cara.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Building Materials for Storing Carbon (54:25) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq8594
|article_title = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq8594
|publication = www.science.org
}}

'''S:''' All right guys, this is an interesting news item. Researchers did an analysis of how much carbon could we store in building materials, realistically, and could this have any kind of significant impact on our net carbon. So the idea is, this is carbon sequestration, right? We spoke about many times, we could reduce the amount of carbon that we're releasing into the environment, but unless we get it down to 0, we're still going to be increasing the amount of carbon. And further, we're never going to be decreasing it unless we can get it to be negative. The only way to do that is to pull carbon out of the air, out of the environment and then store it in some kind of long term way. It doesn't have to be a permanent permanent, but it should be hundreds of years at least, right? You want to take it out of circulation. So growing trees is one way to store carbon. Trees take carbon out of the air and store it in solid form. But they give that carbon back when they rot or burn or whatever. So that's medium term-ish like a long lived tree might help for the target.

'''E:''' Artificial trees that that won't die. They'll hold the carbon.

'''S:''' Yeah, or we talked about just burying the trees, you know?

'''E:''' Yeah, right.

'''B:''' More sequoias.

'''S:''' But burying carbon in some form uses up land. It may have environmental impacts and there's a lot of logistical issues with that. But what if we could store the carbon in stuff. Stuff that we're making anyway that's going to exist anyway? We're not burying it. We're just building stuff out of it.

'''E:''' Right, as long as it's non disposable, right, so long like you said that lasts the long time.

'''S:''' They have to be things that last for a long time.

'''C:''' Like roads.

'''E:''' Long lifetime.

'''S:''' Yeah, road. So asphalt is one, another is concrete, right?

'''E:''' Well. Concrete, yeah, but you have to make a lot of carbon to make concrete.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's the whole point. You got to make a lot of carbon and we want to do that. We want to store carbon in these large scale things. Also wood, obviously. What we could do it just by growing trees or by making wood like products. And plastics, plastic like stuff you can make out of carbon and brick, basically things that are bricks, so cement, asphalt, plastics, wood and brick. So if we took those building materials, how much material do you think that is?

'''E:''' You mean in terms of how much carbon it could?

'''S:''' No, no in terms just how much does all that stuff weigh? How many tons of stuff is that per year do we make of concrete, asphalt, plastics, wood and brick?

'''E:''' Holy moly.

'''B:''' 4.

'''E:''' 4 trillion? I don't know. I have no idea.

'''S:''' Yeah, couple orders of magnitude about. So is it more than 30 billion.

'''E:''' Thirty billion.

'''S:''' Thirty billion, right. How much carbon do we release into the atmosphere every year?

'''B:''' 4.

'''E:''' More than 30 billion.

'''S:''' This year we had a new record. 40 billion tons.

'''E:''' So-

'''S:''' 40 giga tons. Yeah, so-

'''E:''' Not good.

'''S:''' Right. So what if most of that stuff was built out of carbon that we were sequestering?

'''E:''' That'd be nice.

'''S:''' We're on the same order of magnitude as the amount that is being released. Of CO2 that's been released. Obviously we want to get that amount down. If we can get that 40 billion tons down to 10 billion tons or 5 billion tons. Obviously the goal is to get to quote unquote net zero. But that last bit is going to be really hard. Even if we can get down to 5 billion tons of carbon that we're releasing every year, but what if we could sequester 10 billion tons, right? Then we could actually be net carbon negative for a bit until we settle into pre industrial levels or somewhere between where we are now and pre industrial levels.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Somewhere before the climate started to go haywire.

'''B:''' How do we grab all that stuff?

'''E:''' Yeah, how?

'''S:''' Yeah, so there's a couple of questions here. One is how do we get a hold of that carbon in the first place?

'''B:''' Isn't that the the hardest part of this?

'''S:''' Yes, yeah, it is. And the second part is how do we make it into these types of materials. Once you do, if you could make mostly carbon concrete, which actually is strong.

'''B:''' Sounds strong.

'''S:''' If you could make carbon nano fibers and infuse that into the concrete. Actually we've talked about this before. It actually gives you very strong concrete. Same thing what carbon based plastics are, and also good and wood is wood, right? This is the matter of using wood in in a way treating it so that it lasts for hundreds of years, not tens of years, for example. And brick is rock, so you just make a brick that has a lot of carbon. So the what the analysis they did was, realistically, given the methods that we have today, if we tried to store as much carbon as possible in these materials, how much could we store? It's obviously not 30 billion, because these things are not going to be pure carbon, but they estimated that it would be 16.6 ± 2.8 billion tons. So we're talking roughly 16-17 billion tons of carbon per year. That's pretty good.

'''B:''' That's a lot.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Not insignificant.

'''S:''' That's about half of the CO2 emissions that we had in 2021. Again, we're higher than that now. So again, if we can get down to that, that is significant. That's huge. That would significantly reduce our net carbon and makes it very plausible that we could get to net negative or net zero at least. If we get down to 10 to 15 billion tons of carbon per year, then we could do that. So, what are some methods for getting the carbon in the first place? The easiest method is growing stuff, right? That plants are the most efficient method we have of taking carbon out of the air and putting it into solid form.

'''E:''' Tried and true.

'''B:''' Biotechnology, baby.

'''S:''' But it uses space, right? It uses either land or water to do that. And as we've discussed many times, we're pretty much using all of our land to grow food. You know, we don't have the amount of vast tracts of land to convert into carbon sequestration. But you could use waste biomass, right? You take all that biomass that is not edible, that is not food, but that would otherwise be waste. And you convert that into carbon that can be used in cement or brick or made into plastic or whatever. So those are the processes that they're talking about. Then there are other sources of CO2 as well, ash and whatnot that you can use. Now the trickiest one, of course, is like directly pulling CO2 out of the air.

'''B:''' I love that option.

'''S:''' It sounds the sexiest, but of course it uses energy, so it depends on where that energy is coming from. You can't burn fossil fuel to run the process. You have to use solar power or wind power or water power or whatever.

'''B:''' Or nuclear power.

'''S:''' Or even nuclear power. But the problem is doing that to scale, we can do it. You can do it. Just not to the industrial scale necessary to be really significant. So, but there's a basically we're talking about biomass, that's going to be the primary mechanism of getting carbon into this material. So again, this is a thought experiment kind of study where they're just doing the math, say, does it add up? Is it feasible? How much are we talking about here? And the numbers look good. You just got to do it. You know, we have to build the infrastructure and the technology to do this and do it on a massive scale. I do think something like this is going to be necessary. It's going to be extremely hard to get to net 0, and just getting close isn't enough, right? We're still going to be adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. You know, we haven't even turned the corner yet, and we're talking about doing this. We haven't even reduced the amount by which we're increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. That's still going up. But then partly because we are increasing the percentage of our energy that's coming from low CO2 sources, but we're increasing the amount of energy we're using more, right? And that's probably going to continue to be the case between now and 2050-2060 when we're supposed to hit net zero. That's why if you look at it, what percentage of our power is from renewable energy? It's going up, it's great. But we're still burning as much if not more fossil fuel than we ever had because our energy demand is coming up too. So we have to increase renewables and low carbon sources significantly more than we're increasing our energy demand, which probably not going to do with wind and solar alone. That's why we need nuclear. It's just not going to happen without nuclear.

'''E:''' It has to be the big part of it.

'''B:''' Space nukes, baby.

'''E:''' There you go, Bob.

{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:05:31) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time.

'''J:''' All right guys, last week I played this noisy. [plays Noisy] All right, well, while you're trying to figure out what the hell that is, I did get some people guessing. A listener named Beth Urlacher said. Hi Jay, my 10 year old son Aiden wanted to guess this week's noisy, he thinks it's an old excavator toy that that talks. Oh, then she gave me the pronunciation. It's Earl Locker. Earl Locker. Stavis Maples said this week's noisy is someone trying to start a truck. This was most likely be correct in some way. Another person Visto Tutti, this noisy is is bizarre. I can only think that it's the sound of a Japanese vending machine with synthesized voice. I don't hear that anything like that in there. That's a very interesting guess. Michael Blaney wrote in and said Hi Jay, hmm, it's kind of reminds me of when I turn off my handheld vacuum cleaner. The powering down of the motor makes a really weird sci-fi like recharge sound. So I guess that's my guess. It's a small electric motor powering down. And then the final guess was from EvilEye, a pull string toy like the old farmer says thing and the spring inside breaking or recoiling inside. It had the dial on the outside that pointed to the to the animal. I used to love that.

'''E:''' Oh yeah.

'''J:''' I get that. No guess on this one, guys, and this was, I knew that this one was very hard, but it's a cool sound. I'll play it again, see if this stirs anything in any of you guys. [plays Noisy] All right, let me walk you through it. What's the first thing that you hear?

'''B:''' Scratching?

'''E:''' Some scratchy thing.

'''J:''' All right, listen again.

'''C:''' Birds.

'''J:''' What's that whooshy sound? Try again. Forget the tweaking the birds and stuff. What's the whooshy sound?

'''E:''' Snow, like someone's scraping something.

'''B:''' Something rotating around.

'''J:''' All right, I'll tell you what it is. Listen again.

'''B:''' Tell me.

'''J:''' All right, that's fire.

'''E:''' Fire?

'''J:''' OK.

'''C:''' Doesn't sound like fire.

'''J:''' Now listen again to the whole thing. All right, what's the high pitched noise?

'''C:''' A child?

'''J:''' A child. ''(chuckles)''

'''C:''' Sounds like somebody going haaa.

'''B:''' Yeah, it does.

'''J:''' All right.

'''B:''' Sounds a little human, but-

'''J:''' You may have seen a video of the-

'''C:''' Fireplace like the Huihu Huihu things.

'''J:''' No.

'''B:''' Gas in the wood burning?

'''J:''' No, that was last week.

'''B:''' Thought it sounded familiar.

'''J:''' OK, so I've seen videos of people doing this many, many times. It's pretty interesting. What they do is they'll use fuels, some kind of fuel to re-inflate a flat tire, right? So they're lighting the fuel, it catches on fire it the fuel goes inside the tire and then the gas that it produces expands really fast and it actually can take a completely flat and even almost a tire that's not completely touching the rim and it'll re inflate it.

'''E:''' I've seen videos of that. It's pretty incredible.

'''J:''' Yeah, and it and it grips the the the rim again.

'''E:''' Looks dangerous.

'''B:''' Oh yeah.

'''J:''' I bet you there's lots of ways that that can go wrong. So it's really cool. You could definitely look this up. If you've never seen it, I really suggest that you do it because it is a a pretty impressive thing. Here it is one last time. [plays Noisy]

'''E:''' I would have never guessed that sound was that.

'''B:''' Still not seeing it but OK.

'''J:''' So that that ping noise, that high pitched ping noise is the actual air expanding inside the wheel well and then the tire re-gripping onto the rim. Very cool. And no winner. I knew it was hard, but I think it's an instructional who's that noisy. Because it's something you can learn about. A listener named Corey Hawes sent in this new Noisy. And I hope you guys like it. [plays Noisy] If you guys think you know what this week's noisy is, or you heard something cool, e-mail me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

'''J:''' Few quick repeat announcements here. NOTACON 2025. It's going to be awesome. We talk about it all the time because we went to the last one and we all loved it. It was highly regaled as the absolute best thing that Steven Novella has ever done over the course of 2 1/2 days, and Steve's lack of response is proof of that.

'''C:''' I think he was only there 1 1/2 days, wasn't he?

'''E:''' That's right, yeah.

'''J:''' It was an intense 1 1/2 days. No, he came two hours late and we busted two hours mercilessly.

'''C:''' Yeah, we did. We rewrote history.

'''E:''' Critical two hours.

'''J:''' Let me tell you, when Steve walked in late after I busted his stones for two hours. He walks in, everybody looks at him and starts laughing right in his face. It was awesome. It was awesome.

'''J:''' And then Steve gets this nervous smile on his face like. Oh, what did I?

'''E:''' Why did I walk in? What did I walk into or what did Jay do?

'''J:''' Anyway, please join us to NOTACON 2025. We have a Beatles theme this year. We will definitely be doing a Beatles sing along on Saturday night led by George Hrab. There will be lots of surprises during that sing along, so please do consider coming. You can talk to people on the SGU Discord if you're interested. If you're looking for a roommate or share a ride, go to [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com] or go to [https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ theskepticsguide.org] and there's a link to it on our homepage. You could join the SGU mailing list, go to the SGU homepage for that. Every week we give a list of everything that we've done the previous week, and it's definitely worth getting because there's some humor in there and the word of the week and lots of other pieces of information that you might like. So please consider joining our mailing list. Please give us a show rating on whatever podcast player you're using. This helps new people find our podcast. And last but not least, please consider becoming an SGU patron. You could do this by going to [https://www.patreon.com/SkepticsGuide patreon.com/SkepticsGuide]. It's pretty damn obvious why it's more important now than ever in the past 20 years of the SGU, so if you're interested in helping us out in in any way in this, it could be a dollar a month. Any contribution would help. Go to [https://www.patreon.com/SkepticsGuide patreon.com/SkepticsGuide].

'''S:''' Thank you, Jay. Well, we have a great interview coming up with Nick Tiller. So let's go to that interview now.
{{anchor|interview}}
== Interview with Nick Tiller (1:12:29) ==
https://www.nbtiller.com/

'''S:''' We are joined now by Doctor Nick Tiller. Nick, welcome to the Skeptics Guide.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Hi, it's great to be talking to you guys. Very excited. A long time listener to the show so I'm super excited to be chatting with you all.

'''S:''' Thanks. So Nick, you are an exercise scientist and a science communicator promoting sort of critical thinking in the exercise in sports medicine realm. We actually met when we were at CSICon and you and I had a little bit of overlap in our time in Dubai recently. So I did get to eat you in person. Yeah, that was nice. We had wonderful food, though, that that restaurant. I mean, it was.

'''Nick Tiller:''' We had some great food there.

'''S:''' Yeah, it was really good. I love Middle Eastern food, but it's like, it's like saying I like European food, you know what I mean? Like it's, there's so many different kinds.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Actually just just on that trip to Dubai Steve and I were out there and I think Steve, you and I had very similar experiences with this group. You know, this group of sort of young entrepreneurs CEOs and we were talking about critical thinking and I was talking more about critical thinking overlapping with exercise science. And they were such a fantastic group, just so tuned in. So they were asking so many fantastic astute questions and there's a three hour workshop and they were absolutely clued in from the first slide to the last slide. That was a really pleasurable experience for me.

'''S:''' Yeah, they were like the perfect audience because as you said, they were very engaged, very smart, very clued in, but were completely naive to the whole critical thinking angle, you know what I mean? So like, it was all new to them, pretty much. So, yeah, very receptive, great questions. But I could tell them anything from my third past 30 years of skepticism, and they never heard it before. So let's talk about the work that you've been doing. You've published a book called The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Medicine. Tell us about that. What topics do you cover in that book?

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah, well, I hasten to add that the title is really-I named it in tribute to the SGU and I wrote about in the introduction to the book how I found the SGU and you guys acted as my gateway into scientific skepticism and critical thinking. And I came up with the idea for the book when I was doing my PhD. This was back in 2011. My PhD was focused on human applied Physiology with a specialism in respiratory medicine and I was a poor, broke student at the time. And so to make ends meet, I started to write for mainstream science outlets and I wrote two articles. One was the follow up to the second and they were called Myths and Fallacies of Sports Science Part 1 and Part 2. And I just thought this is something that I'm interested in. It combines my personal passion for scientific scepticism with my professional work in applied exercise Physiology, and I got really positive feedback from that. And it occurred to me that nobody's really doing this. Nobody is trying to bridge the gap, this huge void between critical thinking and exercise science or health and fitness more broadly. And that was sort of the, I guess that was sowing the seeds of the book. And then about eight years later, the Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science was published. And so that's essentially what I tried to do. That is the book's thesis is to bridge the gap between critical thinking and exercise science. There's a big golf there. It's there's a lot of work that needs to be done.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's not just like a lack of critical thinking. There's an active industry of misinformation in the wellness, exercise, dieting space that we're confronting. It's not just how people don't really understand. They're being lied to. They're being given misinformation. So tell what's the biggest kind of misinformation you encounter in that area?

'''Nick Tiller:''' Well, I think very specifically I guess it's about, I think nutrition is one of those areas that everybody thinks is very important because it is. And everybody thinks that they know a little bit about nutrition. But actually it's probably one of those areas that is most misunderstood and mostly misappropriated as well. Because under nutrition you have fad diets, you have dietary supplements, you have performance enhancing supplements as well. And so that's a huge can of worms. But I think speaking more broadly, the entire health and wellness industry hinges on this idea that there is some kind of quick fix, there is some kind of shortcut, there is some magic equation that we have to unlock. The number of times that I've been asked, Nick, what what's the secret to being in shape? What's the secret to health, to true health and wellness and it's like, well, how do you even it's like asking Evan, like Evan, how do you do your taxes? It's like, what do you what you want me to summarize that in a thirty second sound bite? I mean, it's complicated, but inevitably when you say to people, look, that the secret is that there is no secret. You have to eat well, don't drink, don't smoke and exercise every day. I mean, that's the secret equation. But of course, we are primed in health and wellness to want a quick fix, some kind of magic supplement, a special exercise program. You know, they want me to tell them that if they eat grapefruits every day, they'll lose weight. Or they just do an ice plunge every day and it'll boost your immune system. But the human body is a little bit more complicated than that, unfortunately.

'''B:''' Yeah, there's no nothing quick. It's just hard work and consistency. In my experience, though, if you don't have two of those, especially consistency, that's when I've seen some of my biggest gains throughout my life is like when you could stick with it. Find something you enjoy, even if it's not the optimal, like this is the best cardio that you could possibly do. It's the most efficient. It doesn't matter. Because if it's the most efficient and best for you, but you don't do it, then it's not helpful at all. But if it's something that's like maybe not as awesomely efficient as cross country skiing or something like that, but it's something that you enjoy, you're going to stick with it and just do something that you enjoy that moves your body. If the studies have showed anything, it's like you don't have to do a lot. It doesn't take that much to have a noticeable benefit to your health. Just move around.

'''Nick Tiller:''' I couldn't agree more. It's adherence, everything, it comes down to adherence and and if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to adhere to it. You know, some people try going to the gym and they hate going to the gym. OK, well, don't go to the gym. You know, some people try and go running and they hate it. OK. Just it doesn't matter what you do, just move. The more you move, the better. And once you start seeing those benefits, whether they're cardiovascular benefits or people are losing weight or they're getting stronger. Whatever it happens to be, you'll be motivated to continue once you start seeing benefits. But yeah, you're not going to keep doing it unless you enjoy it. So enjoyment is the key there.

'''E:''' Nick, only because you mentioned it, you said ice baths and I was going to bring up Wim Hof to see if you've done research in regards to him. You know, Dutch extreme athlete famous for his ability to withstand extreme coal and he has some a method that he I guess sells to people. If you follow his routine, it will lead you to better results. Any truth to this?

'''Nick Tiller:''' Well, generally speaking, most people will engage in some kind of like ice bathing or ice dunking or some kind of cold water immersion, not just because they think that it's going to improve their recovery or boost their immune system, but because it fits into a lifestyle, right? And most of the time in health and wellness, you're very rarely selling somebody what a particular product, you're selling them a lifestyle, you're selling them a way to shape their own personal identity. So that's kind of the best way that I can describe Wim Hofer's. In most cases, it's not going to do harm. There are going to be some instances where people, they have some kind of pre-existing cardiovascular disease that they didn't know about. Maybe they shouldn't be ice dunking and cold shock is a real thing so there's always this risk of overt harm. But most people use ice bathing because it's entrenched in the exercise culture and definitely sporting culture. People think that it's actually facilitates recovery. And it all comes back to this idea that when you have an injury that you should stick ice on the injury because it reduces the inflammation. That in itself has been contested a bunch of times because inflammation isn't necessarily a bad thing when it comes to repairing an injury. But you know, there's more and more research now that shows with ice bathing specifically that it, if anything, it actually inhibits recovery. It actually suppresses muscle protein synthesis and it suppresses anabolic signalling in the muscle. So if you have like a hard workout, if you're especially if you're an athlete, and then you go and sit in a cold tub or an ice bath for 10 minutes, it's actually going to slow your rate of recovery. So contrary to popular belief, but this is an activity now that is so entrenched in sport and exercise culture that I don't think any amount of evidence is ever going to change that, unfortunately.

'''E:''' Yeah, I agree.

'''J:''' Isn't that ironic, right? It's like the exact opposite. So you said it slows it down, but eventually the the same level of recovery will be achieved, right?

'''Nick Tiller:''' Right. Yeah, I think I understand the question. You mean like if you wait for long enough, then you'll recover back to baseline level? Well, yes and no. Because you think if somebody's exercising regularly, especially if they're a high performance athlete, they might be training twice a day, three times a day. And actually if they're blunting the rate at which they recover after each training session, that could have cumulative effects on recovery. So there's nothing to say that actually they'll rebound back to baseline levels. Ice bathing, if you're interested in repairing the muscle tissue after hard exercise, hard training, then definitely don't go on ice bath. And it's unfortunately, that's just the tip of the iceberg, pun intended, because a lot of people say that we should be using ice baths to boost immunity and because it promotes healing and it protects from cancer and it and it can protect you from COVID-19. I mean, if you can think it, people will make those claims.

'''S:''' It says on your website, you have a couple other books coming out, one called The Health and Wellness Lie. And we talked a little bit about this when we were together, like wellness, like the whole idea of wellness basically is a scam, like the entire industry. So tell us about some of the things that you've you've confronted in the wellness industry that that gets you going the most.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah, thanks for bringing up the book. So this, this hopefully will be published early next year and it's going to be published in the US with John Hopkins University Press in the UK and Europe with a Bloomsbury publishing of Harry Potter fame. And the Health and Wellness lies. Basically, it's a thesis on this idea that everything we know, everything we think we know about health and wellness has basically been dictated to us by an industry that doesn't actually care for our health or our wellness. So that could be the fact that when somebody wants to lose weight, they go on a fad diet and what happens? They lose a little bit of weight in the opening weeks or months of the diet. The thing isn't sustainable in the long term. Inevitably, they regain all of the weight that they've lost. 1/3 of people that follow a fad diet actually gain more weight than they originally lost. So they end up weighing more than they did at the start. And then they just bounce from one fad diet to the next, engaging in what we call yo-yo dieting. And it has really negative long term effects on cardiovascular health. When people want to improve their immune function, they'll start taking supplements. When people want to improve their recovery, they'll have cupping and they'll have acupuncture and they'll do ice bathing and they'll do all this stuff because that's what they think they need to do because that's what's been dictated to them by the industry. So it's really an expose of the health and wellness industry, the incentives underpinning the industry and teaching people, making sure that there's a thread of critical thinking in there. I don't want to be too heavy-handed with the critical thinking stuff because there are people already doing that. You know, you guys obviously are at the top of the pile here. But making sure that if people do have health and wellness goals, that they have a pretty good idea about how to accomplish those. So how to make good decisions and health and wellness and navigate this the Wild West of wellness without getting ripped off essentially.

'''J:''' You know, that makes me think that they throw a lot of ideas at the wall and then whichever ones seem to be popular or gaining popularity, then they just lean into it, right? This because this whole idea about using cold as a after workout treatment, the fact that there is no real science behind it means it's all hype. And that is the trend because I think in the end it's all about making money and having something to talk about.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah, I couldn't agree more. At the end of the day, this is a business. The health and wellness industry is worth over $4 trillion worldwide, right? That's more than the smartphone industry, the fast food industry and all social media platforms combined, right? In fact, it's worth double all of those entities combined. So this is big business and the reason that it's worth so much money is because everybody is interested in health and wellness at some level. And as you said, whatever is trending at the time, people will lean into and the people who operate within the health and wellness industry are interested in one thing and that's making money, that's profits. And whether that's manufacturers, whether that's vendors who are selling the products, whether it's wellness gurus and fitness influencers online, they're more than happy to sell their followers quick fixes and supplements and diets and core training programs and garments and sneakers and powders, pills and potions, because it promotes engagement. And once they get engagement on something, it can be monetized. So it really does all come back to the bottom line. It's about making money, but that doesn't help the end user who actually wants to lose weight to reduce the their risk of cardiovascular disease or they want to improve their cardiovascular fitness or they want to reduce their back pain or whatever their health and wellness goals happen to be. So it really is an industry that has prioritised profits above the outcomes for the end user. And that's something that I don't think we'll ever reverse it, but at least we can, I'm trying to do my bit at least to help the consumers to actually make good decisions for themselves. They need to act as their own content regulators because nobody's going to do it for them, right?

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely. That's the world we're living in now. And in my personal assessment, about 99% of that industry ranges somewhere between worthless and harmful. Like you have like this massive industry that's doing nothing for anybody except enriching the snake oil salesman, right? I mean, how many diet books actually are giving people good advice versus honestly, like what most people need to know about their diet you could put in a pamphlet and that's probably all people have the bandwidth for it anyway. And yet there's like, how many books have been written about it, just with utter nonsense.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah, I mean, you just need to look at the the profits from the diet and weight loss industry, right. They've been going up for decades, now at an all time high. I think that that sector of the industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And so these profits have been going up and up at an all time high. And what else has been going up and up? The rates of obesity. Now, the rates of obesity have been climbing since the 1970s, going up exponentially now since COVID shows no sign of yielding. And people don't often enough stop and ask themselves, how can profits from diet and weight loss be going up and rates of obesity also be going up? That doesn't make any sense. There's obviously a mismatch. There's obviously some kind of detachment between the two entities and what it basically comes down to is what we're investing in, what we're spending our money on in diet and weight loss. It obviously isn't working, so we need to try something different.

'''S:''' At the very least, no one has found the hack, right? The one easy trick or the secret to losing weight or maintaining a low weight. Because if they did-

'''J:''' You say that you mean the easy, like an easy way.

'''S:''' That's waht I mean by a hack or a secret or a trick.

'''B:''' What about Ozempic? That's kind of easy.

'''S:''' Ozempic, that's science, man. That's a drug that works.

'''B:''' Right? Right?

'''S:''' Say what you will, it freaking works. You know, I mean, it's it's expensive. And if you go off of it, you probably will gain the weight back. That's the downside. But if the entire like dieting industry, all the different diets that that have come up, if any of them actually worked, they would have staying power, they would be persistent, everybody would be doing it, recommending it, etcetera. But there's just this, yeah, there's just never ending treadmill of different fad diets. None of them at the end of the day work as you say, anything you do, it's like you go from not paying attention to your diet to paying attention to your diet. You going to lose a little weight probably. And like 95% of people will lose weight and then 95% of people will gain it back, usually more. In fact, some experts, you tell me if you agree with this or not. You know, I would argue that dieting is a failed strategy. It's it's about lifestyle factors, not going on a diet. Anything you go on, you can come off of as opposed to this is my healthy habits for life, right?

'''Nick Tiller:''' Well, I sort of express it in the idea of this, this wagon everybody talks about I fell off the wagon. As soon as you conceive the idea of a wagon, you're primed to fall off it there in the path to true weight loss and sustained weight loss. there is no wagon. There cannot be a wagon. It's just about making, it's about changing your lifestyle. This has to be something and the, and what I write about in the health and wellness lie is this idea that when you're starting this new, I don't never call it a diet. I call it a nutritional strategy or whatever it happens to be. You have to ask yourself, is this something I can do forever? If the answer is well, I'm not sure, then it's not going to work because as Steve said, you can go on a juice fast, you'll lose weight because you're in a massive calorie deficit, but you're going to be malnourished and you're not going to maintain it for for longer than a couple of weeks or a month. So any kind of diet is not going to work.

'''B:''' If there's a wagon, you better be pushing it.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''J:''' Nick, that's the statement that dieters hear. And it's like they fearfully step back from it because we wanted to be like, hey, I'm going to do this temporarily. I'm going to lose weight and then I will continue from there and just stay at that weight and eat what I want. And I do get it because it sounds like it's very hard to make lifestyle changes. And I think every human, like most people inherently agree with that. It's hard, I'm going to change this forever. I'm going to eat one dessert a month or something like that. To some people that's impossible. And I think that's the fear, right? That statement means that it's not temporary discomfort and then everything's back to normal. It's a permanent change that you could live with that becomes normal to you.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Yeah. And and this is the fundamental problem with if there is a, there are several problems with Ozempic, but this is one of the problems with Ozempic and related drugs or we go view is that semaglutide is obviously the drug. And that is the studies where people have taken semaglutide and they've lost a lot of weight, as soon as they stop taking the drug, they regain most or all of the weight that they've lost. And that is because when physicians prescribe the drug, they are not prescribing it alongside dietary advice and advice on how to maintain the weight loss in the long term. So people become dependent on the drug, which is among other things than appetite suppressor. And it doesn't matter if you suppress your appetite through some semaglutide or if you just have good discipline or you go on a health kick and you lose the weight. If you don't know how to strategize in the long term and if you don't have the basic understanding of healthy eating and physical activity to maintain that weight loss long term, you're just going to regain the weight. So it doesn't matter if it's a diet, if it's a drug or if it's an exercise program. There has to be some kind of long term strategy and everything that we know about health and wellness, we know that it undermines those strategies that are aimed at long term sustainability. It is all about the short term quick fix buyer hack that that people can buy into. Because at the end of the day, we've evolved for economy, right? We haven't evolved to strategize in the long term to get long term sustainable results. So as I've said, whether that's Ozempic or a diet or an exercise program, there has to be a long term strategy otherwise it's not going to work.

'''S:''' Let me push back on one thing though that you said there, Nick. So you shouldn't assume categorically that physicians are not teaching patients long term diet strategies. So Ozempic, remember, first and foremost, it's a diabetes drug. It's a diabetes drug that also helps you lose weight. But, and I'm telling you, physicians who manage diabetes do have entire staff working for them that do nothing but advise people on their diet and tell people how to have a diabetic diet. That is absolutely part and parcel of standard of care management. Same thing even if you get like bypass surgery for a gastric bypass to lose weight, they absolutely, part of that is going on a diet and they will tell you straight up, this is not going to make you lose weight by itself. I mean, it will to some extent, but this has to be part of a healthy lifestyle in addition to that, it's not a magic solution. So at least that's the standard of care. That's what I've experienced being at an academic institution. I'm not saying there aren't some people out there just writing prescriptions without doing comprehensive care. You know, you'll see everything in medicine. But you know, there is this sense that, yeah, doctors just write prescriptions, but they don't do that. It's really, really not true. If you're a diabetes doctor, you spent a lot of your time advising patients on how to have a healthy diet. Just like even me as like a headache doctor, I spent a lot of time advising my patients on their lifestyle factors, including their diet and how that relates to their headaches. That's always step one actually, I do that before anything else. This narrative that physicians don't do that is simply not true.

'''Nick Tiller:''' Well, I suppose in the cases where people have been prescribed Ozempic or Semaglutide Wegovy and it hasn't helped them in the long term. Or they've come off it and they've regained the weight. Perhaps in those instances, if it's not long term sustainable, it's because they haven't maybe had the appropriate support. That might not be the physician's choice. Maybe there's kind of user error there as well. But yeah, I totally get your point.

'''S:''' Yeah, but and, and even there again, and physiologically, like pharmacologically when you come off the drug because it's an appetite suppressant basically, right? So you're essentially down regulating that part of the brain that says you're saying to it, you're not hungry. And then just like anything like you come off that drug and you're going to get a little bit of a rebound effect. Now you're actually more hungry than you were before because you've kind of reset those receptors. So there is a, it's not just behavioral, there is actually a physiological aspect to the weight gain after coming off the drug. This is something that I'm sure is going to get studied more since this drug is relatively new, but that is the dominant hypothesis in terms about why that happens.

'''Nick Tiller:''' And this means that it might well be a drug for life for many people.

'''S:''' Yeah, basically. And I've had lots of discussions with people about is, is that a good or a bad thing? Well, I think if you balance the long term risks of taking semaglutide over the course of the second-half of a life or the long term risks of being chronically overweight or obese, I think there's a pretty clear risk to benefit ratio in favor of taking the drug, right? You can't just go through your life being morbidly obese. That's not an option either.

'''S:''' Yeah, exactly. It's risk versus benefit. All right, Nick. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

'''Nick Tiller:''' It's my pleasure. Thank you guys.

'''S:''' And just people can find you at nbtiller.com. Your books are there, The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science. You have two books coming out, The Health and wellness Lie and What Science Says About Dieting, so we'll keep an eye out for those. Maybe we'll get you back on the show when those books come out.

'''Nick Tiller:''' That would be awesome. Thank you guys, real pleasure.

'''S:''' All right, take care.

'''E:''' Thank you, Nick.
{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:38:05) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = Death
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The WHO reports that over 5 million snake bites occur each year, resulting in over 100,000 deaths.
|link1web = https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/snakebite-envenoming
|link1title =
Snakebite envenoming

|link1pub = www.who.int

|item2 = It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.
|link2web = https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/01/deaths-linked-to-extreme-weather-in-2024/
|link2title = At least 11,500 deaths linked to extreme weather in 2024
|link2pub = news.mongabay.com

|item3 = In 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease.
|link3web = https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
|link3title =
The top 10 causes of death

|link3pub = www.who.int

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = The WHO reports that over 5 million snake bites occur each year, resulting in over 100,000 deaths.

|fiction = It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.

|science2 = In 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease.

|rogue1 = Bob
|answer1 = It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.

|rogue2 = Jay
|answer2 = In 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease.

|rogue3 = Cara
|answer3 = It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.

|rogue4 = Evan
|answer4 = It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

''Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.''

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. And then I challenge my panel of skeptics tell me which one is the fake. We have a nice light hearted theme for this week's science or fiction. That theme is Death.

'''B:''' I love it.

'''S:''' I've done that before.

'''C:''' My favourite.

'''S:''' It's a good science of fiction. So 3 facts about death. OK, ready? Here we go. The World Health Organization reports that over 5 million snake bites occur each year, resulting in over 100,000 deaths. Item number two. It is estimated that over a half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events.

'''B:''' How many?

'''S:''' Half a million. Item number three. In 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease. Bob, go first.

'''B:''' These all sound kind of reasonable to me. Damn, 5 million snake bites. 5 million? That's a lot and not many deaths. So that one in 250 die? That seems probably high. OK, so half a million extreme weather. Now that I think about it, that seems kind of high too. Extreme weather events, half a million. 500,000 extreme weather events. That's a lot. So these don't sound too reasonable to me. Let's see, COVID. That one makes sense. I'm going to go with 500,000 deaths from the weather seems a little high. I'll go with that as fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Jay.

'''J:''' The first one about The WHO report that over 5 million snake bites occur each year and there's over 100,000 deaths. And this is globally, correct Steve?

'''S:''' That is correct. It is the World Health Organization.

'''J:''' I mean, I would assume that 90% of this is happening in Australia. Just kidding. But I do think it's true. Sure. There is an incredible number of poisonous snakes out there. And I think it's very common that people don't know how to react and don't know what to do.

'''C:''' Right, you bite snake. Snake bites you.

'''J:''' Yeah, bite you?

'''C:''' No, they're venomous. Because they because they bite you. It'd be poisonous if you bit the snake.

'''J:''' Yeah, I meant that. I always screw that up. Yeah, it's a common thing that people do, you know? Number two here, it's estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events. That's a lot.

'''B:''' That's what I was saying.

'''J:''' Half a million, I mean, that's a lot of people. And you think we'd be hearing about it more, right? God damn. I'm not sure about that. I mean, I could see as global warming is getting worse. I can't rule it out though, because again we're hearing about 100,000 snake bites. So OK then the last one here in 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease. Now what is that?

'''S:''' Heart attacks.

'''J:''' What does the word ischemic mean?

'''S:''' Lack of oxygen.

'''B:''' Lack of blood.

'''S:''' Lack of oxygen.

'''J:''' Lack of oxygen. Oh wow, didn't give me the number though, and I think that means something. He didn't give the number in the third one. Second leading cause of death. You know what? I think that was the fiction. I don't think that was the second leading cause of death.

'''S:''' All right, Cara.

'''C:''' Jay thinks that it wasn't COVID-19. It could be. I think it was definitely in the top five. I don't know where in the top five because, OK, 2019 is when it first happened. But in China first, by 2020, it had spread everywhere. But I don't think we got a vaccine until maybe 2021 early or maybe late 2020. But it I definitely don't think it was in everybody's arms right away. So I could see that if it was 2022, I wouldn't buy it because I think we had vaccine and Paxilvid like a pretty good vaccine program by then. But people were dying, a lot of people died from COVID before we knew how to handle it. So I could see that. It's funny because over half a million deaths globally attributed. I was like, yeah, of course. And then you guys were like, that's really high. And I was like, was it? But maybe I'm primed because of my news item tonight. You probably can't clarify, but you mean like directly attributed like they died in the hurricane, they died from the fire, not like downstream effects of them or?

'''S:''' I will not clarify that.

'''C:''' OK. All right. Because then I think if the number is low, I feel like at that point it would be millions plural globally from displacement and stuff. So I don't know, I feel like the numbers either too high or too low. Maybe it's a Goldilocks. And then yeah, globally, 5 million snake bites. I feel like we've talked about this before. We talked about like deadliest animals. 100,000 deaths. Snake bites are horrible. So yeah, if you get bit by a venomous snake and you do not have access to anti venom, which is expensive and difficult to produce, then you might die from it. So in areas without good health services, especially in rural areas, I definitely think people are dying from snake bites. So 100,000 yeah, maybe. So I guess I got to go with Bob and say that that number is off on the on the global, attributed to extreme weather events.

'''B:''' Yeah, Cara went with me.

'''S:''' OK. And Evan?

'''E:''' I think there's a reason why fear of snakes is a real thing. I don't think that just happened accidentally because we recognize it's a true danger. And 100,000 deaths a year, I think is a tribute to that. So yeah, I have a feeling that one's right. And yeah, I think also the-I'll go with Bob and Cara because this one about the extreme weather events, it's just so wide, it can be interpreted so many ways and it kind of lets a lot, I think several ways this could be wrong, whereas less so with the COVID-19 one. But I wouldn't be surprised either if that one. But I'll go with Bob and Cara. I'll say extreme weather events, fiction.

'''S:''' OK, so you all agree on the snake bites, so we'll start there. The World Health Organization reports that over 5 million snake bites occur each year, resulting in over 100,000 deaths. You all think that one is science and that one is science. So we have to distinguish between a snake bite and an invenoming, which is when a snake bites and injects venom most snake bites-

'''B:''' Usually a dry run.

'''S:''' Or they're just not venomous.

'''C:''' Or they're not venomous snakes.

'''B:''' Yeah, that too.

'''C:''' And that wouldn't really kill you unless you had a really inopportune place.

'''S:''' 5.4 million people worldwide are bitten by snakes, 1.8 to 2.7, so half are in venomings and of those around 100,000 die from year to year. It's like 81 to 137,000 at the high end. And then two to three times that number have amputations or permanent disability from the snake bite even though they don't die. I thought that number was huge. You know, that's a lot of people die from snake bites.

'''C:''' I'm assuming again that they're in like rural or developing.

'''S:''' Of course. I'm sure they're not in New York City.

'''C:''' Yeah, they don't have access to good healthcare. But even here people die from snake.

'''E:''' Yeah, sure.

'''C:''' You got to get help fast and you got to hope that they have the anti venom for that snake.

'''B:''' Yeah, right?

'''S:''' All right, I'm actually bringing a separate news item about using artificial intelligence to design more effective anti venoms proteins.

'''E:''' Do it.

'''S:''' All right, let's go to number two. It is estimated that over half a million deaths globally in 2024 can be attributed to extreme weather events. Bob, Cara and Evan, you think this one is the fiction. Jay, you think this one is science. And this one is the fiction. So what do you think the number is?

'''E:''' 50,000 or 5 million?

'''C:''' I think it's 50,000 directly, but like directly attributable to extreme wather events.

'''E:''' Yeah, but how are we defining these terms? Extreme weather events.

'''S:''' I know it's all so-

'''B:''' 500,001, I'll know you say over half a million.

'''C:''' Yeah, but it's 50,000. The number is half a million. Sorry. Yeah.

'''S:''' 11,500. Yeah, not as many as you think.

'''B:''' More than I thought. Wow.

'''C:''' Really?

'''B:''' I mean less. Even less than I thought.

'''S:''' Even less.

'''B:''' Fewer than I thought.

'''S:''' But I thought I'd get you on-yeah, because we think, yeah, this one tsunami could wipe out a lot of people.

'''E:''' Is a tsunami considered a weather event?

'''S:''' Of course.

'''B:''' Hell yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, but it's an earthquake. How's that weather?

'''B:''' Wait, yeah, interesting point.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's always a matter of definition, but it's the fiction.

'''E:''' But that one in 2004, I mean, oh my gosh, that 200,000 deaths from that one. I've seen so many documentaries.

'''S:''' Yeah, I saw a whole documentary. It was unbelievable. At first it looks really tame. The water's just sort of strolling in. But then when you get a little closer, you realize, like, no, that water is carrying houses and trucks and cars and boats and debris. And if you're in that, you are in a grinder. You're in a meat grinder. There's no way you could survive that. Water is powerful.

'''B:''' Get to high ground.

'''S:''' Yes, you have to get the high ground.

'''B:''' As fast as you can.

'''S:''' That means that in 2021, COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death, just behind ischemic heart disease is science. Yeah, that's interesting to think that well, a pandemic like that rocketed to almost was like almost as high as ischemic heart disease. It's like really just barely behind it. More than stroke, more than COPD or more than diabetes.

'''E:''' Were there 2 million global deaths in that year? Do you have an exact number on?

'''S:''' So COVID-19 was directly responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2021. Yeah, it was 9.1 million for ischemic heart disease. So again, it was pretty close. She was 8.8 million. Yeah, people die. People die for a lot of reasons.

'''E:''' A lot of reasons.

'''S:''' But good job guys.

'''B:''' I propose if you're first and you get it right, I think you should get 1.2 wins.

'''S:''' Yeah, you think so? Yeah, it's not happening.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:48:56) ==
{{qow
|text = "Knowledge is a paradox. The more one understands, the more one realizes the vastness of his ignorance." Netflix show: Arcane - League of Legends.
|author = Spoken by Viktor (also known as the Herald) in season 2 of the hit
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' We had a quote suggestion this week from a listener in Johannesburg, South Africa. Iqbal. How would I pronounce that? Iqbal?

'''C:''' Iqbal maybe?

'''E:''' I'm not familiar with that name.

'''C:''' Cool name.

'''E:''' Yeah, very cool name. So thank you for this suggestion. "Knowledge is a paradox. The more one understands, the more one realizes the vastness of his ignorance." And that was spoken by Victor, also known as the Herald, in season 2 of the hit Netflix show Arcane, League of Legends, which has been which has been referred to me so many times. I that is on my soon to watch list.

'''B:''' Highly recommend it, great animation.

'''S:''' The animation is off the hook. It is the best animation I've seen and the story is fantastic. The writing, this is typical of it, like it's really intelligently written. The characters are all amazing. The imagery blows you away. It's highly recommended.

'''B:''' Yeah, check it out.

'''S:''' If you're into that sort of thing. It's basically it's a, it's a magic infused steampunk. Very good. I know steampunk is a little past its peak, but this doesn't matter. It's just the aesthetic is fantastic.

'''B:''' It's beautiful.

'''E:''' Well, it's nice to see a quote like this appear in a show like that.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Thank you, Evan.

'''E:''' Thank you.

'''S:''' And thank all of you for joining me this week.

'''C:''' Thank you, Steve.

'''B:''' Sure man.

'''E:''' Thank you, Steve.

== Signoff ==
'''S:''' —and until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.
{{Outro664}}{{top}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1020

2025-10-01T23:24:24Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:28:35) */ corrected rogue side panel

{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1020
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1020|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1020.jpg
|caption = "Stars align as the cosmos paints a breathtaking evening sky."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "We live in an enlightened age, however, an age that has learned to see and to value other living things as they are, not as we wish them to be. And the long and creditable history of science has taught us, if nothing else, to look carefully before we judge to judge, if we must, based on what we see, not what we would prefer to believe."
|qowAuthor = Robert Charles Wilson
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1020|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

''Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.''

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the {{SGU|link=y}}. Today is Wednesday, January 22th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

'''B:''' Hey, everybody!

'''S:''' Jay Novella...

'''J:''' Hey guys.

'''S:''' ...and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' And we have a special guest, Rogue, with us this week, Andrea Jones, Roy. Andrea, welcome back.

'''AJR:''' Thank you. It's great to be here. Hi everyone.

'''B:''' Andrea, great to have you.

'''S:''' You get a lot of positive feedback when you're on the show.

'''AJR:''' Oh, thanks. Well, your listeners are all very nice. Thank you for that.

'''S:''' Yeah, so I had my first audiology exam today.

'''E:''' An audiology exam?

'''B:''' Your wife finally forced you into doing it?

'''S:''' She did.

'''E:''' You're testing your hearing.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's correct. So yeah, I'm at that stage where it doesn't bother me, but apparently it bothers other people.

'''B:''' Apparently.

'''E:''' I mean they get tired of you saying what all to every other thing they ask you.

'''S:''' Now the problem is that other people mumble.

'''B:''' That's got to be it, yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, we have to go see mumbleologists to fix ourselves.

'''J:''' Bob, I told you that Steve never listened to me.

'''E:''' He just never heard you.

'''B:''' So bottom line it Steve, how bad?

'''S:''' It's not bad actually. So they go, it's the sensitivity on the Y axis and the pitch, frequency on the X axis, right? And they chart that. So I'm up in the normal range for most of the lower and medium frequencies. Then it starts to drop off as you get to the higher frequencies, which is normal for age, right? And we all drop off as we get into the higher frequency. But I have a notch. Rather than being a smooth curve, there is a range of frequencies where I take a dip and then come back to the curve.

'''E:''' Oh, it's like a blind spot.

'''S:''' On both ears, pretty symmetrically.

'''B:''' So does that notch fit right where Jocelyn's voice is?

'''E:''' It's a micro of micro evolution. Is that what tht is?

'''S:''' No, I know exactly what the notch is. So one potential cause of a notch like that, a drop in a certain range of frequencies, is exposure to loud noises, but I don't really have any history of that.

'''B:''' Yeah, you weren't into band, like Jay.

'''S:''' Just normal stuff. Never-

'''E:''' Didn't work around heavy machinery.

'''S:''' Yeah, no, excessive exposure to loud noises, but I knew this was gonna be the result from when I was taking the test and that frequency where my sensitivity drops is exactly in the frequency of my tinnitus. That's what it is.

'''E:''' Which I have as well.

'''S:''' Yeah, so, and I could tell, you have to pay really close attention because they get as quiet as you can, it gets to the point where it's like, did I imagine hearing the beep or did I hear the beep, you know? But when it was not in the frequency of my tinnitus, the ringing that I have in my ear, I could separate the two. When it was close to that frequency, I could not separate. I could not tell, when it got very quiet. Obviously when it's loud, obviously it's they go quiet to loud, loud to quiet. And so they see where your threshold is. And I knew that my threshold was going to be much lower around the frequency of my tinnitus. But that frequency, it does impair certain parts of speech, right? So there are certain phonemes which I don't hear as well because it kind of lives in that frequency range.

'''AJR:''' Do you have an example?

'''S:''' Soft sounds is like s and stuff. So you know, my brain has to work harder in order to interpret it which is exactly what I noticed. So my experience is if I'm paying attention, I'm fine. If I'm attending to someone speaking, especially if it's like one person, it helps if I'm looking at them, though, I don't have to look at them. But that does help. If I'm just, if I'm focusing my attention on one person, no problem. If there's diffuse attention or there's a lot of background noise or I'm not paying attention, my brain is not paying attention, it's not actively trying to interpret what someone is saying, I may or may not catch. I can hear. It's not like I can't hear. It's just that it sounds like they're mumbling, right? My brain does not interpret the phonemes properly. So I get half the words or something.

'''J:''' So what can you do about it?

'''S:''' Hearing aids.

'''E:''' Eventually or now.

'''S:''' No, now.

'''E:''' Oh, really?

'''B:''' Oh, wow.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it'll basically raise the floor because it definitely is volume related, right? The louder something is, the easier that my brain has an easier time interpreting what it what what's being said.

'''J:''' Did they tell you what kind you're going to get or any of that yet?

'''S:''' No, I have to have a separate appointment now for the hearing aids does.

'''B:''' What about like earphone, iPhone, ear buds, AirPods?

'''S:''' We talked about this like six months ago, the AirPods that can hear the room noise. They work just as well as-

'''E:''' And they're less expensive.

'''S:''' They're much less expensive.

'''AJR:''' I'll send you a set, consider it a gift.

'''S:''' The ones that you like, they're like, what are they? 700 bucks or something. They're the ones that-

'''AJR:''' Oh, those ones.

'''S:''' They're the good ones.

'''E:''' As opposed to $7,000.

'''B:''' What?

'''S:''' As opposed to $6,000 or $7,000.

'''B:''' Wait, there's $700 earbuds?

'''S:''' Yeah. They're the ones that basically have an incorporated, a microphone in them. So you can hear not only what's being played over the iBuds, but also you can hear the ambient noise. You can hear the room noise.

'''AJR:''' I thought it was just the regular AirPods that are like a hundred bucks.

'''S:''' No, no, no, no. It's the special ones that have that feature. They're basically hearing aids, right? And again, there was a study from about six months ago that compared those like $700 earbuds that hear the room noise with the $6,000 hearing aids. And they were pretty much the same in terms of their effect.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''S:''' Yeah. Mom's hearing is pretty bad. I'm probably heading in her direction.

'''B:''' I mean, I hope not. I walked in yesterday. She's got face down on a puzzle, doing a puzzle. And I'm like, mom, mom, mom. And her head did not come up. And I'm like, oh, crap.

'''E:''' Maybe her aids were not charged.

'''S:''' She's not using them.

'''B:''' I knew that. I thought she just didn't have her hearing aid. And she had it in, but the battery panel was opened. So it wasn't working. So she's basically deaf without that hearing aid.

'''S:''' The other thing is you're supposed to wear them consistently, not just when you think you want to.

'''AJR:''' Oh, really?

'''S:''' Because it helps your brain adapt to that noise level because part of the problem is that you don't hear a lot of the lower, the softer background noise. And it just helps your brain if it's constantly hearing background noise as well as speech and disambiguating them.

'''AJR:''' Can they do anything about tinnitus or is that a totally different thing?

'''S:''' No. There's no treatment for tinnitus.

'''AJR:''' Really?

'''J:''' Not yet.

'''AJR:''' I don't know, Steve. I'm pretty sure I saw an infomercial on YouTube once about a cure.

'''E:''' Oh, sure.

'''S:''' There's a lot of fake cures out there. They're all nonsense. There are ways to manage how much it bothers you, but there's no way to actually eliminate the tinnitus or to reduce it. It's complicated. It's like I did a deep dive on it at one point because I have it. I'm like, all right, what's going on here? Is there any possibility that we're close to a treatment for this? Is there anything out there that might work? What kind of approaches would work? And it's really complicated. We're not really sure what causes it, but we're pretty sure it's not like it's a nerve buzzing away. Right? That would be simple. It's not something that works to treat that, but it's rather, it's how your brain is processing the audio data because it processes it like any stereo electronic equipment does. It has a lot of the same kind of processing going on. In that network, it can cause some feedback or whatever it is. So it's not something that's easily amenable to drugs. Right? It would have to be some kind of electromagnetic treatment or something, but we don't know how to do that.

'''E:''' Steve, when you were researching it, did you look into the history?

'''S:''' Not too much.

'''E:''' Only because is it a 20th century phenomenon? Did people in the 19th century have this? Any description of it?

'''S:''' I don't think there's, there's no reason to think that it's a recent phenomenon, but I didn't specifically.

'''E:''' So it's not tied to, to the electronics that are around us in our environment.

'''S:''' No, no, not at all.

'''E:''' Okay.

'''B:''' For tinnitus, Steve, deep brain stimulation or something like that?

'''S:''' Yeah, it's possible, but there's no proven treatment for it. I did read, this is unrelated to, I did read one paper. This is unrelated to my deep dive on tinnitus that speculated that Vincent Van Gogh cut his ear off because he was suffering from tinnitus and he thought it would cure it.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''B:''' Oof.

'''E:''' That's a speculation though, right?

'''AJR:''' Joke's on us if that's the thing that works though.

'''E:''' Well, I mean, when he cut his ear off, he didn't gouge out his inner ear.

'''AJR:''' He just cut the outer part, right?

'''E:''' Cut off the fleshy part, right?

'''S:''' Well, I mean, there's a type of scholarship that is basically historical diagnoses. You take a historical figure and you try to figure out what kind of neurological diagnosis might they have had based on what information we have. Obviously, we don't have the ability to examine them or have any diagnostics. That was one of them, right? Did Van Gogh have tinnitus? The other one was, did Joan of Arc have right temporal lobe epilepsy?

'''AJR:''' Do they think she did?

'''E:''' Consistent with?

'''S:''' Consistent with having religious visions.

'''B:''' Her voices.

'''AJR:''' Ah, okay. Do they think that she did have it?

'''S:''' Then there's a whole literature on who had schizophrenia throughout history and who was manic depressive and who had ADHD, bipolar disorder. You know what I mean? There are people whose lives are documented well enough that you could say, yeah, he probably had this. A fun one is, ''fun'', is Hitler probably had von Economo's disease, which is a neurological degenerative disorder. One of the symptoms of that is that-

'''B:''' Shaking?

'''S:''' Well, he has shaking, which he always hid, but did find its way accidentally into some historical film. So you could see it. He really tried to hide it and not have it be on film.

'''AJR:''' Like hand shaking? That kind of thing?

'''S:''' Yeah, like a tremor, like a Parkinsonian tremor. But also it causes a rigidity of thought, right? So unable to change course, which is kind of how his management of the war was characterized. He was going to take Russia and that was it.

'''AJR:''' Wow. Are you generally persuaded by this type of research? You think the data-

'''S:''' You can make very compelling arguments based upon, again, contemporary writings about describing their symptoms, basically, or their behavior. You just can't ever confirm it, but you can make a strong case.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''E:''' Even in the remains of people, they don't leave those kinds of markers in the bones or anything else.

'''AJR:''' I don't have ADHD bones.

'''S:''' Not unless there's a genetic component to it.

'''E:''' Right. Yeah.

'''S:''' If there's a genetic component, then we could absolutely test that. That's been done to historical figures to get their DNA and say, oh yeah, he had this disease or syndrome. But yeah, for these neurological conditions, that's usually not the case.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''E:''' Fascinating.

'''S:''' That was also interesting. I have one other thing to announce.

'''E:''' Okay.

'''S:''' I've announced this on the live streams, but not on the show proper. In November, I gave my notice at work that I'm retiring at the end of June.

'''AJR:''' Congratulations.

'''S:''' Thank you.

'''E:''' Whoa.

'''J:''' What the hell?

'''E:''' Wow.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' How does that mean?

'''S:''' That means I will no longer be working at my day job.

'''AJR:''' Skeptic's Guide every day.

'''S:''' I'll be working full time for the SGU. That's what that means.

'''AJR:''' Yay.

'''B:''' Game changer.

'''AJR:''' Very cool.

'''E:''' Nice, Steve.

'''AJR:''' Are you excited?

'''S:''' Yeah. Oh yeah. Can't wait.

'''E:''' Wait, 35 years at Yale?

'''S:''' Yeah. 30 years.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''S:''' 30 years. Not including my residency and stuff. But including fellowship, it'll be 30 years.

'''J:''' The company I used to work for, I worked on a three year global website update. This is multiple websites. Three year project.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''J:''' And what they gave me and two other guys that were on this team, they went out and bought us wings for lunch.

'''E:''' Oh wow. How high did you fly?

'''B:''' I bet they were good wings too.

'''J:''' I was so excited.

'''AJR:''' Were they the world's greatest wings?

'''J:''' No. I know a lot of companies do nice things, but not the one I was working for.

'''AJR:''' I don't think I've ever had a send off of any kind, but I always just assumed it was a me problem. They were like good riddance as opposed to an institutional shortcoming.

'''S:''' They gave you a good riddance party?

'''AJR:''' Yeah, exactly. Gave me one big shove out the door, like, okay, while they took my ID to get in. I'm like, okay. Wow. Well, that's cool, Steve. I'm very excited for you.

'''E:''' Yeah. That's amazing.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's exciting. I mean, doing medicine and teaching and everything is so great, but two jobs is hard.

'''AJR:''' I don't know how you do it.

'''S:''' I know. I was talking to Jocelyn about it the other day. I haven't had any time off in 30 years, and in the last 20 years, either I'm working every Saturday or I'm on a working weekend, and I've had to do extra work in order to have the ability to have a working weekend because we're doing a live event or something.

'''AJR:''' Gosh.

'''S:''' I have to do the show ahead of time or whatever. So it'll be nice to get my evenings and weekends back and just have one job. Going down to one job would be a nice change.

'''AJR:''' Yeah. Well done. Well, I'm always impressed when you're up on science fiction TV and movies because I'm like, when does Steve have time to watch this stuff?

'''S:''' Yeah. I have to do some entertainment other than go crazy.

'''AJR:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''E:''' Don't go crazy. We've got enough of that in the world already.

'''S:''' All right. Let's move on with some news items.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Unexpected Scientific Results (14:17) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00161-9
|article_title = How often do unexpected scientific discoveries occur? More often than you might think
|publication = www.nature.com
}}
'''S:''' Jay, you're going to start us off telling us about unexpected scientific results.

'''J:''' Steve, have you ever heard of this?

'''S:''' The idea that some scientific studies have results that are unexpected? Yes.

'''B:''' Eureka.

'''J:''' Well, I mean, recently there was a study that came out, and check this out. So these researchers analyzed over 1.2 million biomedical studies, and these were studies that were funded by the NIH. This was between 2008 and 2016. So they compared the paper's content and findings to the goal or the goals written in the original grant application, right? So what's happening is they're taking like, okay, what did they find? What were the end results of the research and all the different things that they found out compared to what the original grant application said? And it turns out that a lot of times there's a lot more findings than there were originally mentioned in the original grant paperwork. They found that it's around 70% of the papers contain findings that the researchers hadn't originally planned for or expected. And this high percentage, it underscores the prevalence of these serendipitous discoveries in scientific research, which as I dug into this, I realized that there's a lot of that going on. And it makes you think differently about scientific studies and how, what should the process be and how much money should be given out and what should the expected results be and how much should they let them follow these anomalies that happen that could end up turning into very useful and important information. And even after removing a lot of closely related items, like an example is, they would distinguish between liver disease and liver cancer, right? If they take a lot of those into account, they still found that 58% of the papers had at least one unexpected outcome. And in fact, on average, about a third of the topics in a given paper weren't part of the original plan. A third, that is a lot. This indicates that there's a significant portion of research that's being done that leads to unanticipated areas of study. This reflects the dynamic nature of scientific exploration, which is exactly what we want people spending their time doing, is finding things that we didn't originally know and make discoveries. So this wasn't just random noise. As the researchers explained, they said that larger grants and projects that had longer timelines, these tended to produce more unexpected results. So the deeper into the weeds that they went, the more unexpected results they found, which tracks perfectly. The basic science grants, these produced even more surprises in the research. And very interestingly, even applied research grants that set specific goals they go in and they say, we are going to be able to give information on these specific things. And a lot of these that are funded through the NIH, these are requests for applications, right, or RFAs that the NIH puts out. These types of studies produced a significant number of unexpected results as well. So these RFAs are designed to solicit grant applications focused on very defined, high priority areas of science relevant to the NIH's mission. And even with that in place, they still come up with useful unexpected results. This study suggests that supporting large and long-term grants, particularly for basic research, this might be a good way to nurture unexpected discoveries, which I think is a fantastic thing to do. And I think that they should be even giving more leeway to scientists to, I know that money dictates everything, but if they allow some wiggle room, you'd be surprised, I bet, even how much more that they would find. The research findings also, they challenge the idea that heavy goal-oriented funding, without a doubt, it will stifle creativity and it will stifle these unexpected positive findings that they come to. So they're saying that these insights are crucial for shaping future funding strategies, which will hopefully foster more innovation. Someone named Telmo Piovanni, a philosopher of biological sciences, I think summed this up pretty nicely. He said, it's okay to fund both basic and applied research as long as we're open to unexpected results and don't dismiss anomalies too quickly. And that's basically it in a nutshell. Like don't just dismiss anomalies and, if anything, let the researchers lean into them and gain more information on it to help, you never know what they're going to find. And again, a lot of the things that we, today, when we hear about these interesting discoveries in the news and all that, a lot of them are these side things that were unexpected that they stumbled on. And if you go back into the history of scientific innovation, I mean, there's lots of cool examples, like the guy that discovered x-rays, right, as a German scientist.

'''B:''' Renkin?

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, that was a total, he was working with cathode tubes, I think, and discovered freaking x-rays.

'''AJR:''' I didn't know that one. Cool.

'''J:''' Yeah, it's really cool. His wife's hand was the first person to have an x-ray done because he just wanted to see it work and see exactly what the result would be, and I've seen an image of that. It's pretty cool.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's a classic.

'''B:''' Holy crap.

'''J:''' So, future studies in this area could expand on the research that was already done to include a few things that the reviewers found important here. So, one could be include other fields of science, right, because this was done in a very narrow band. It'd also be helpful to know if the researchers were as surprised as the grant reviewers. This is an interesting thing to think about because if the researchers were totally surprised, had no idea that anything like this was coming, that's a data point that could be very meaningful in the future. You know, the grant reviewers were definitely surprised, but I would love to know what those researchers themselves thought about what they found, and moving forward, the team plans to explore how often researchers explicitly reference these the serendipity in their work, right? They also want to understand how attitudes towards these unexpected findings vary across different fields, and one researcher put it that they're only scratching the surface on these unexpected findings that crop up quite commonly. Steve, I'm curious, though as a medical professional, what's your take on this? Have you heard about things like this happening?

'''S:''' Yeah, of course. This happens all the time. You get a result that you did not anticipate. Frequently I'll go to grand rounds, and they'll basically have a researcher talking about the last 10 years of his research, and they walk you through all the studies that they did, and it's full of twists and turns, and sometimes they're like, we're testing this very specific hypothesis and that's why we're doing the study, but oftentimes, as part of the arc of the research, there are what we call exploratory studies. Exploratory studies are explicitly looking for stuff you don't expect to find, right? It's like, what the hell's happening? Just let's just throw a net out there and see what we catch, and then we'll go from there. Then you got to do the follow-up studies to confirm it, obviously. So it's that kind of, it's baked into the process, so it's not surprising, but sometimes it does come out of left field, like you really weren't looking for it, and you get something that just doesn't make any sense because there's a phenomenon going on that was not part of the original hypothesis, and that's where scientists have to, like, really be flexible, you know? Don't be rigid. Don't get locked into, well, but this is what we're testing. You know, you have to, or don't just assume it's a mistake or an error. It's like, the data is the data. Listen to the data. If it's telling you something surprising, go with it, you know?

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''AJR:''' I mean, is that something that suggests that maybe the actual percentage of studies that are unexpected is higher because the scientists are maybe discounting them? Because they're like, oh, that's, like, silly and unrelated. Like the J-ARCA or the grant reviewers, they're only looking at what was actually published in the end. So maybe even the scientists are sort of self-correcting or ignoring things, just like Steve was describing, where you're like, oh, that's so in left field, I'm not even going to pursue that. So we're probably not even seeing the extent of unexpected results.

'''J:''' Yeah, I think that, from what I read, that that is implied in there as saying that they're just scratching the surface. I think that statement clearly is pointing to the idea that there's so much more of this going on and things that were not found or, again, this is like the first study, you know? Like there's just so much more ground to cover. I bet you they will uncover a lot of that.

'''AJR:''' I have a question about, so pre-registering your hypotheses and all of that is, like, considered good practice. Does that practice limit our ability to share unexpected findings? Or generally, I guess I'm asking about biomedical in particular, like, can you say, OK, I pre-registered these hypotheses and this is what I was going to study, and then part two of the paper is all this other stuff I discovered. Like, is that considered acceptable in biomedical sciences?

'''S:''' Have you heard of the term the minimal publishable unit?

'''AJR:''' Ooh, I have not.

'''B:''' That's new.

'''S:''' It is advantageous to one's career to have a lot of papers on your CV, right? So it's kind of an inside cynical term. It means once we get, like, the minimal amount of data or analysis that we can publish, we're going to publish that as a separate study. And then we'll do the rest of it as a different study. That way I get two, three papers out of this one study rather than just one big one. It's actually not a good practice, I think, scientifically.

'''AJR:''' Another reason we might be missing a lot of unexpected results is that they're packaged as expected results later on.

'''S:''' Right. That's true. That's exactly true. Also, I don't know if the, because I didn't read the study myself, Jay, but if they were looking at just a particular kind of research, because some research lends itself more to this than others. Like, if you're doing translational research, you're just trying to see, like, is this drug safe and effective? You're not going to really see anything too unexpected, like, you know what I mean? You might. You still might. You might be like, oh, and it also cured their erectile dysfunction, right? That kind of thing has happened, obviously, but it's more on rails. Like, you really are doing something very specific.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, like I said, they were, these were NIH-funded studies, so.

'''AJR:''' Yeah. And it sounds like the distinction, early on I was wondering about this, but it sounds like there's a distinction between unexpected results in the sense that it's like, oh yeah, it also cures excessive sweating or whatever, and then unexpected in the sense that we thought this drug would be safe, but it wasn't. And that is unexpected, but it's not unexpected in the kind of interesting way that you're describing, Jay.

'''S:''' Right. So, just to follow up on what I was saying, the NIH studies are more like basic science exploratory studies. The pharmaceutical studies are not funded by NIH, they're funded by the pharmaceutical industry. So, that does sort of select for studies that would be more amenable to these kind of surprising results.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Trust In Scientists (25:34) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02090-5
|article_title = Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries | Nature Human Behaviour
|publication = www.nature.com
}}
'''S:''' All right. Andrea, you're going to tell us, based upon all of this, and other stuff too, how much does the public trust in scientists?

'''AJR:''' Yes. Indeed. And actually, I'll just add also that Jay's article reminded me of a paper in Political Science that came out when I was in grad school about an increase in the use of the word surprising in political science paper abstracts. And the initial conclusion was, wow, we have more surprising results in political science. But then it turned out, if you wanted to get a job or tenure, having surprising results was good, so we were just using the word surprising more. So, hats off to Jay's study for doing a better job with that. But yeah, so this is a paper, it's called Trust in Scientists and Their Role in Society Across 68 Countries. It was published in Nature Human Behavior, it just came out on January 20th, so hot off the press. And this is a paper that attempted to do, well, it did carry out a survey across 68 countries around the world. And it was aiming to understand, look, we have a big narrative, at least in the United States and in a lot of countries, the predominant narrative is that trust in science and scientists is declining. This is a trend that we were talking about even before COVID. It was exacerbated or heightened, and the narrative became even stronger. It's almost taken as a given that trust in science and scientists is plummeting in many circles. And so these researchers, and this is a paper with 50-some co-authors on it, but these researchers decided to find out if there actually is empirical evidence to support our rising fear that there's low public trust in scientists. And of course, they're not the only study to test this sort of thing. Pew Research does a lot of its own work in this way, and there are many peer-reviewed studies that do this. But most of these studies that were already out there are in the United States and Europe and or are in the global north, but generally speaking, in those two places. And the ones previously that have been a bit broader, so it covers more countries, kind of are thinner in the sense that they just ask about trust in terms of one or two dimensions, and it doesn't really trust is something that can be hard to quantify. And so this project really goes out of its way to test what trust might mean to people in a lot of different ways and contexts. And by the way depending on how you count it, there's some 200 countries, give or take, in the world. And so 68, of course, is not at all representative of the entire world. But it is generally more populous countries, so we're leaving off a lot of small nation states and territories. And the countries surveyed represent 79% of the global population. So it's not everyone, but it's a lot of countries and many countries that have been left out. So overall, I guess the other thing they'll say, and I thought was an interesting point, and I'd be curious what you guys think about it, is they said, look, we're beginning from the perspective that high trust in science and scientists is a good thing. And I share that perspective. And I appreciated that they were candid about their own normative views. But they also acknowledged that that's not to say that one must always apply a blanket trust in science or scientists. There can be scientists who are up to no good. And there are plenty of instances of science and scientists doing things that are pretty harmful to, say, black Americans in the syphilis study in the United States and things like that. So it's not to give blanket trust as the goal, but to say that generally speaking, we do see better outcomes in terms of things like COVID and climate change in countries that have higher public trust. So speaking of unexpected results, maybe, although this was, I guess, not unexpected in the sense of Jay's study and that it is what they were trying to understand. They found that, generally speaking, in these 68 countries, trust in science is, what do they call it? They call it moderately high. And now you might be asking, well, what does that mean? Well, they ask along four different, they inspect four different dimensions of how you might think about trust and the role that science and scientists play. I should also flag that they generally asked about scientists as opposed to science. And their argument for that is that scientists felt more specific. And you also, they conducted it in lots of different languages and tried to do the local language wherever possible. And so science could mean something different. It could mean scientific institutions. It could mean government science. It could mean universities. It could mean research. It could mean companies. So we're talking about scientists, the people. So their first question, how much do people around the world trust scientists? They measured trust along four components. The four components are perceived competence, benevolence, integrity, and openness. So if you take a battery of questions about those four things, find the mean over the entire world, they ultimately end up with a global mean of trust in scientists as 3.62. And OK, it's on a scale from one to five. So five is very high trust in scientists. One is very low trust. So 3.62, they decide, is pretty good. Now, of course, there's massive variation across these 68 countries, and I'll talk about that in just a moment. A couple of interesting tidbits, just about this global level, none of the 68 countries that they surveyed had low trust in scientists. The lowest country in their survey was Albania, and that came in at 3.05 on that trust index. And one or two range would have been low trust. So everyone is reasonably trusting in scientists. Would you guys like to guess what the country is that was the highest in terms of trust in scientists? There's two that were kind of runaways compared to the others.

'''E:''' Germany.

'''B:''' UK

'''J:''' Switzerland.

'''S:''' China.

'''AJR:''' Germany, China, UK. Any other guesses?

'''J:''' Switzerland.

'''AJR:''' Ah, I thought something like that too, Jay. But in fact, all of you are wrong. The top results really surprised me. They are Egypt at 4.3 out of five, and India at 4.26 out of five. And this is where I think a lot of the studies that focus on the US and Europe, that's where you would see UK, Denmark, Sweden, all those countries tend to be at the top. And so the study is free online. They list all 68 countries in order. The United States comes in 12th. We're just after Mexico and before Indonesia. And the United Kingdom is actually more like 15th. And I know there's a lot of SGU listeners in Australia. Australia, congrats, you come in at number five. But there's a lot of countries in Asia, and we'll talk about this in a moment, Muslim countries that come in quite high on this particular survey.

'''E:''' That's reassuring.

'''AJR:''' Yeah. Yeah. And then within that trust index, the highest scoring one across the globe was competence. So most people feel confident that scientists are competent. The lowest of the competence, integrity, benevolence, and openness, the lowest pretty much globally was openness. So a sense of a lack of transparency about the scientific process, transparency in terms of openly communicating or being in dialogue with the public. That's what generally the aspect of trust that scored the lowest around the world. And there's also actually, I should say, an online dashboard where you can mess with all of these and kind of go by country and look at these things. So a couple of other interesting findings. It's worth a read the entire thing. It's very readable. But a couple of other findings that stood out to me is that they looked at individual level demographics and things about the people or the country that might predict higher trust in science than in others. So here are some characteristics that tended to, and again, this is globally, tended to characterize higher trust in science. So women compared to men, more trusting in scientists. Older people, urban regions, countries and people with higher incomes. Again, this religious people, generally speaking, religion was positively correlated with higher trust in science. And we'll break that down in just a second. Higher education did seem to predict a higher trust in science, though actually there wasn't much of a relationship between highest education, so tertiary education, like all the way up at the very top. That didn't really play a role. It was more like secondary education, that sort of thing. And the more individuals in the country claimed to be liberal or left-leaning, that tended to also predict. So the religion piece is one that I want to talk about for a second because it really surprised me. And it turns out, and this is one of the values of doing a study that is not just the United States or not just countries with similar sorts of breakdowns in terms of religiosity. It turns out that overall, religiosity of a country is positively correlated with trust, but it varies a lot. Generally speaking, in Muslim countries, and this is all over the world, Turkey, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the trust in scientists was quite high. And they also asked a question, do you perceive a conflict between science and religion? And the answer was often no in Muslim countries. And I don't know a lot about Islam, but apparently there is quite a bit of, I guess, pro-science or scientific language in the Quran. And so religiosity in Muslim countries is positively correlated. If you're in the United States, like I am, the story is different. Christianity tends to be negatively correlated with trust in science in the United States. Generally around the world, the role of Christianity can vary from country to country. Basically the people who have the lowest amount of trust around the world, men generally a little bit lower, varies by country, a conservative political orientation. And then the two strongest ones, the two ones that kind of most predicted a lack of trust in science and scientists is something called the SDO, which is a measure of how hierarchical, it's the social dominance orientation. It's the degree to which individuals desire and support group-based hierarchy and the domination of inferior groups by superior groups. So it's the more you want your society to be hierarchical, the less you tend to trust science and scientists. And then also if you are more conservative, like I said, and then also if you have something that they're calling science populist attitudes, which sort of is taking the political populist term and applying it to science, meaning if you have an attitude, and this almost feels tautological to me, but if you have an attitude that common sense is the thing that you should be paying attention to most, you're going to have a lower trust in science. So I got very nervous, for example, when politicians say, we just need to do common sense. You're like, whoa, I'm not so sure about that. And then the last thing I'll say that stood out to me is they asked people, what would you like scientists to be working on? And do you think they're working on those things? So most people around the world said that they wanted scientists to improve public health and then solve energy problems. In third place was reduce poverty. And then fourth of the four that they asked was increase your country's defense and military. Countries in Africa and Asia generally wanted more defense and military. Most other parts of the world thought that there was too much attention on defense and military and wanted more attention to things like improving public health. And generally the kind of the punchline of all of this is two things. One is, it is good news. And it was heartening to me to read because I spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about people not trusting science and scientists. But they also made the point that, look, it doesn't take that many people who are not trusting in scientists to kind of ruin policymaking or ruin public perception for a policy or ruin the rollout of some kind of science-based initiative. You know, that 10 percent can be very vocal and can be potentially very persuasive. And then the second piece is this piece of like, well, OK, well, what could we do to further increase trust in science and scientists? And really, they walked away with this recommendation of encouraging public participation and not just top down, like, here are my results, but like actually having a dialogue with people, which is what you all are up to. And I had to do some thinking because I've spent my life as a professor, which is literally telling people to sit down and listen to me. So I'll focus on more dialogue. And for future work they don't make a distinction at the moment between different scientific fields. And certainly there's plenty of work to do to pour through the regional differences. You know, one other quick thing that was interesting is that in some countries, the more left-leaning you are politically, the less trust there is in science because of the way that their political system is set up, that politicians on the left are more dismissive of science and other places it's on the right. And so even that sort of how politics and they thought maybe a stronger predictor would be the stance of the key leaders, as opposed to the ideology of people when trying to understand the relationship between politics and science. So I thought it was super interesting and there's a ton more work to do, but I was generally encouraged. I don't know if it's consistent with what you guys thought was going on around the world.

'''S:''' It is in that I've been following surveys about this for years, decades, and trust in science and respect for science and scientists always ranks very high, just generally speaking. But one thing, I'm just trying to make sense of a lot of the data you were throwing at us. Is it accurate to say that one possible thread weaving through this data is that the more scientific findings are likely to conflict with your belief system, the less trust you have in science? So if you are political or your religious beliefs conflict with the findings of science, then your trust in science goes down.

'''AJR:''' Yes.

'''S:''' And that could come from many sources. It could come from just the prevailing political ideology of your country. It could come from just the way your religion deals with these issues how fundamentalist it is, et cetera. Yeah, do you think that's accurate?

'''AJR:''' That is exactly accurate, and you summarized all of the stuff that I just said very well. And they have a nifty chart that kind of has a little number line of how much of an influence each of these various elements, like your gender, your education level, your income, the level of inequality in your country, the blah, blah, blah. And all the ones that are on the kind of negatively correlated or negatively predictive of trust in science are exactly what you described. So it's your political beliefs, your preference for social hierarchy, your populist attitudes. And then religion was so funny because it just, in the world, it shows up in such different ways. But in places like the United States, it absolutely is negatively correlated with trust. And it's exactly what you said. It's not your income. It's not your education. It's your beliefs.

'''S:''' It's your beliefs. Yeah. People basically trust science right up to the point where it disagrees with their belief system.

'''AJR:''' Yep.

'''S:''' That's basically the bottom line. I agree. That's been my perception as well for as long as I've been doing this.

'''AJR:''' Yep. And you find reasons to handpick well, I generally support science, but like this particular vaccine, I looked at the outcomes, and I think it's this, because you just find a way to, you know.

'''S:''' Or like, I think in this country, it's all about evolution.

'''AJR:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' It's pretty much all about evolution, right?

'''AJR:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So you have to attack science and distrust scientists because they say evolution happened.

'''AJR:''' Right. Yeah. I mean, and I was intrigued that they asked the paper is very kind of high level, like big global stuff. But some of the smaller questions, specifically, is your religion at odds with science, was a question I was glad that they asked. And by the way, globally, 29% of people in the study worldwide believe that science is in outright disagreement with their religion. So it's not nothing. It's about a third. And I bet it's regionally clustered for sure.

'''S:''' Yeah. Sure. All right. That's fascinating.

'''AJR:''' Thanks.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== FDA Bans Red Dye No. 3 (41:06) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/why-did-the-fda-ban-red-dye-3/
|article_title = Why Did the FDA Ban Red Dye #3 | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}
'''S:''' Guys, we got a lot of questions about this. And so I figured I had to tackle this. The FDA recently removed FD&C red number three, red dye number three, from the list of approved food additives. It's been approved for whatever, 50, 60 years. So this is a change for the FDA. Why did this happen? Why do you think it happened?

'''B:''' Well, I assume because they discovered some nasty side effects of that dye, right?

'''E:''' People were, right, spawning ill from this. It was a health concern.

'''B:''' It was horrible.

'''E:''' Because cancer, I'm sure.

'''B:''' And we didn't know for decades.

'''E:''' National health concern.

'''AJR:''' Steve, it's probably why you have tinnitus, if I'm honest.

'''S:''' So none of those things are true.

'''E:''' Of course.

'''S:''' It has nothing to do with the science. It's all political. So it was initiated by a petition. The petition is by 30 plus organizations and people that have a long history of being either consumer advocacy or environmentalists. They all have a reputation, in my opinion, or many of them do, of being chemophobic and anti-scientific. The science is, their approach to science is compromised by their advocacy. And they're not really a respected scientific organization, right? Like the Environmental Working Group is on there. They're like the poster child for that. They abuse science, in my opinion, all the time. Because they have their narrative, right? Their narrative is that people are being poisoned by industry or whatever. Okay. So this group petitioned the FDA to remove red dye number three from the approved list based upon something called the Delaney Clause. The Delaney Clause is a specific part of an FDA update that was passed in 1960. And it basically says that the FDA must ban any food dyes that have been shown to cause cancer in humans or animals. That's the law, right? Now, I think we have to put this into the context of the Chevron Deference. Do you guys know what that is?

'''AJR:''' No.

'''E:''' Court case.

'''S:''' This is a recent infamous Supreme Court case.

'''AJR:''' I was going to say it now it sounds familiar.

'''S:''' Yeah. So the Chevron Deference is the idea that when the legislature passes a regulatory law, the details of how to interpret and enforce that law are left up to the agency that's responsible for it, right? And the thinking is that experts in that agency are going to use their expertise to properly interpret the law. And the courts generally give deference to the experts in interpreting regulations, regulatory laws. And the Supreme Court ended this, ended Chevron Deference last year, I believe, in a decision. This is very controversial. It's very horrible, actually. But it got very little, I think, coverage in the mainstream media. It was mentioned, but you had to go looking for it or be interested in it. I don't think most people know what Chevron Deference is. But this was a massive win for the populist right, massive. Because think about what this says, is you can eviscerate the regulatory infrastructure by just saying, well, you're not following the letter of the law. You don't have the right to interpret that regulation, right? So it's basically taking the... It was a massive power grab from experts working in regulatory agencies to the courts. The courts basically saying, we could decide how the law should be interpreted. That's our job. You don't get to decide how the law gets interpreted, right? So it seems to me that this FDA decision, and if you read between the lines in their announcement of this reversal, that this was due to the ending of Chevron Deference. Because think about it, the law says the FDA must ban any food dyes that have been shown to cause cancer in humans and animals, right? But why hasn't the FDA banned red dye number three before? The data that this was based on, that the petition referenced, is from 1980. It's 45 years old, or 82. The data was collected over 1977 through early 1980, 81, and was published, I think, in 1982. Forty-three years later, why the change? Because as the FDA said in their announcement, those studies are not relevant to humans. So essentially, the FDA, who have scientists and medical experts who could interpret the data, said, well, the Delaney Clause doesn't apply because this data is not relevant to humans. But now, with Chevron Deference gone, they can't do that. It's just the law says you must ban it, and they're like, well, I guess we have no leeway, so we have to ban it. Horrible precedent. Now, let's look at how horrible—well, the research itself isn't bad, it just should not be used to assess risk, right? This is clearly a toxicology study, and some types of toxicology studies are designed to push a system to its limits to see what happens if it breaks, and what happens if it does break, right? So you give rats some ridiculous amount of a chemical, and until—like, you could literally do the LD50 test, like, let's see how much it takes to kill half the rats. Or you could say, let's just give a ridiculous dose and see if anything bad happens, and then we could use that as sort of a starting point to research whether or not there's any potential harm in humans. So they fed rats red dye number three at a rate of 2,464 milligrams per kilogram per day during its entire lifetime, following in utero exposure. So exposure in utero, and then 2,464 milligrams per kilogram per day. Now except the daily intake, the ADI for red dye number three is 0.1 milligrams per kilogram per day. So that was 24,640 times the dose, the accepted daily intake of red dye number three. This is clearly not applicable to human exposure.

'''AJR:''' I feel like 24,000 times the dose of anything would kill us.

'''S:''' Yes. Yeah. I mean, what is safe at 24,000 times the acceptable daily intake, right?

'''AJR:''' Maybe coffee, because that's about what I have.

'''J:''' I mean, if you drink that much water, it'd kill you.

'''S:''' Exactly.

'''B:''' Yeah, water poisoning.

'''AJR:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' But it's worse than that, because, again, the point of this research was, hey, what happens, not is this safe? And they found that the rats got thyroid cancer, and there was a particular hormonal reason pathway for this to occur. And it turns out that this pathway is not relevant to humans. This doesn't cause cancer in humans. And they looked for other mechanisms of cancer that would be relevant to humans, and they didn't find them. And they basically proved this was safe for humans. And that's the data, which is the reason for the FDA decision over the last 40 years that why they considered this to be safe. The research shows that it's safe.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''S:''' Right? And so in there, they got really passive aggressive. So they're saying there was a petition, according to the Delaney Clause, we are banning red dye number three. Then they say, the petition requested the agency review whether the Delaney Clause applied and cited, among other data and information, two studies that showed cancer in laboratory male rats exposed to high levels of red dye number three due to rat-specific hormonal mechanism. The way that red dye number three causes cancer in male rats does not occur in humans. Relevant exposure levels to red dye number three for humans are typically much lower than those that cause the effects shown in male rats. Studies in other animals and in humans did not show these effects. Claims that the use of red dye number three in food and in ingested drugs puts people at risk are not supported by the available scientific evidence. That's in their announcement that they're banning it.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''S:''' Right? They're not justifying the banning. They're just passively aggressive. Yeah, we're banning it. It's stupid. This is completely safe, but we're doing it anyway.

'''AJR:''' Wow. That is a dangerous precedent.

'''E:''' Right. They're going to apply this as a standard now going forward?

'''S:''' Well, that's the thing. That's why this is so horrible. Again, do I really care that red dye number three is getting banned? No. I don't care. The point is the precedent. You could basically weaponize this and get anything you want banned.

'''AJR:''' I mean, I'm thinking about anti-vaxxers now, for one.

'''S:''' Right. Exactly. I mean, this is like you're giving a flamethrower to these cranks and charlatans and saying, have at it. You can completely burn down the regulatory infrastructure with this kind of claim.

'''B:''' How about taking a tact where you do this, Steve? You weaponize it, but you ban something so ridiculously egregious that nobody would seriously ban. Just to show how stupid this is.

'''J:''' You mean like red dye number three?

'''S:''' Well, you mean something people care about.

'''AJR:''' Like caffeine or water.

'''B:''' Yes. Exactly.

'''S:''' Like coffee. We're going to ban coffee. Coffee is no longer allowed.

'''B:''' Exactly. There you go.

'''AJR:''' If anyone goes for coffee, I would be so radical.

'''S:''' I don't know. That might be interesting. Yeah. The FDA might ban coffee based on Deleney clause and the lack of Chevron deference and then see what people think about that.

'''B:''' That's what you need. You need a precedent of one or two or even three things that nobody will ever ban because there will be riots in the streets. Then the next time something comes up, people will be like, no, this is just stupid.

'''S:''' This is part also of a bigger trend on the right as a very deliberate strategy to disconnect expertise from the government, to basically make the government all about power and not about expertise. Trump on his first day signed Schedule F, which basically turns career civil servants into just regular employees that could be fired for being disloyal. You don't have to find a cause.

'''B:''' That's vile.

'''S:''' Yes. Now expertise doesn't matter. Loyalty is the only thing that matters. Again, it's a devaluing of independent expertise, the very notion that there could be somebody working in the government who's not a Republican or a Democrat, who's not loyal or disloyal. They're just a scientist. They're just an engineer. They're an expert. Their job, it's irrelevant of any ideology or parties or partisanship, is to just work for the American people to do their job and to give us the benefit of their expertise. That idea is under attack. And it's losing. It's going away with these kinds of decisions at the Supreme Court level and now executive action at the federal level. This is very dangerous. This is very dangerous. This is the opposite direction that we want to go into, where we have a more science-based approach to regulation. This will make for a less science-based, more ideological approach.

'''AJR:''' It reminds me of a lot of places in, not all, but many places in Eastern Europe after the fall of Yugoslavia, where there was a transition into democracy. A lot of these partial democracies and countries that are trying to become more democratic, they have elections, but there's still a lot of corruption and demands for loyalty. The pattern would look a lot like that, where it's like one party would win the presidency or become the prime minister, and then all the scientists and the experts would just get kicked out, and all his friends would come in, and then there'd be another election, and then the other party would come in, and all their cronies would come in, and it really is destabilizing and completely antithetical to science and everything that Jay was describing in the opening and everything else we like about science. What can we do?

'''S:''' One of the things that's been sort of the strength of this country for my entire life up until recently has been that, at the end of the day, it didn't really matter who won the White House. I read a very good article 20 years ago or so about, don't worry about the low voter turnout. Low voter turnout is actually a good thing. It's a marker of the fact that people realize that we have a stable government, and your life doesn't depend that much on who was in the White House.

'''B:''' Yeah, your life, right.

'''AJR:''' Exactly right.

'''S:''' Your day-to-day life. Doesn't really matter because most of the government are just civil servants doing their job. If that goes away, and it's just, nope, most of the government are partisan hacks serving dear leader, then elections have massive consequences, and that, sure, that has high voter turnout, but for the very bad reason, for the reason that our federal government is not stable. Just signing 80 executive orders, or undoing 80 executive orders of the previous guy on the first day is destabilizing. That's not good governance.

'''AJR:''' No, and it's, I feel like these past couple of rounds have been so, I mean, I remember when various other elections happened, and I didn't always love the outcome and so on, but I didn't feel like my day-to-day life would change that much. I was just sort of like, and there certainly were policies that I disagreed with, and policies that killed a lot of people, but you're right, Steve, it's like just this week, I've just like, I'm not ready for the whiplash of how much everything has changed.

'''S:''' Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' And Steve, your assumption there that turnout, voter turnout will increase for really critical, really once in a generation critical votes, I think is now incorrect.

'''S:''' Well, it was true four years ago. It was true to some extent this time, just not as much.

'''B:''' Not four months ago.

'''S:''' Yeah, there was like, what, 7 million fewer voters, but that doesn't mean that the general principle is not true.

'''AJR:''' Right. Generally speaking, you're right, Steve, the generally voter turnout was much lower, and depending on how you measure it, polarization was much lower in the middle of the last century, and a lot of political scientists were like, oh no, polarization is too low, the parties stand for the same thing, this is bad, and it's like, no, that was great. I mean, obviously you want some dissent, and you want productive conversation, and you want different perspectives, but the partisan hack, and the screaming, and the everything that is certainly worse than having a whole bunch of civil servants just trying to do their job.

'''S:''' Well, we shouldn't disagree on the really big stuff, like democracy.

'''AJR:''' Yeah. And science.

'''B:''' And other aspects of reality.

'''S:''' And science, right, and basing our policy. Now, in addition to health care, which, don't get me started on RFK Jr., so we're keeping an eye on that train wreck that's happening, but this is also going to be massively applied to the Environmental Protection Agency, right, the EPA, so think about what Schedule F and what the lack of Chevron deference is going to do to all of the global warming and environmental protections that have been put into place. They're all on the chopping block, and that's by design. That's why this is happening, because they want those regulations to go away.

'''AJR:''' I mean, it's basically just saying, like, ignore any science you want, is what it sounds like.

'''S:''' Or any experts.

'''AJR:''' Or any experts.

'''S:''' My loyal politicians will decide. And the courts will decide. Not disinterested nonpartisan experts. I think we're just... This is like... This is the canary in the coal mine, right? This red dye number three thing. It seems like a nothing issue. But this is a warning bell to what is on the horizon.

'''B:''' People are going to refer back to this. I mean, like, not enough people realized at the time what this-

'''S:''' This is the first domino falling.

'''B:''' -this meant. Yeah.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Andromeda Mosaic (57:18) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencealert.com/hubbles-2-5-billion-pixel-mosaic-reveals-andromeda-in-breathtaking-detail
|article_title = Hubble's 2.5-Billion-Pixel Mosaic Reveals Andromeda in Breathtaking Detail : ScienceAlert
|publication = www.sciencealert.com
}}
'''S:''' All right, Bob, tell us about this new massive picture of the Andromeda Galaxy.

'''B:''' Massive. Okay. So you guys remember the HST, the Hubble Space Telescope? It has released its largest photo mosaic image ever, and it is of the beautiful Andromeda Galaxy. What have we learned, though, about Andromeda from this, and why is it such a fascinating and important galaxy? Now, it's easy to think that the Hubble Space Telescope is passe. It's irrelevant. Especially considering the new kid on the block, that punk James Webb Space Telescope.

'''E:''' Oh, my favorite.

'''B:''' It's been dominating space news just because it's making one amazing discovery after the other. Blah, blah, blah. Hubble has anticipated this in my... I think. And this is why it spent 10 years coming up with its magnum opus photo mosaic of the Andromeda Galaxy. So why is this galaxy worth 10 years of effort? I think Andromeda is certainly special enough for many reasons. NASA recently referred to it as an enticing empire of stars, which I really loved that turn of phrase. And that's appropriate since Andromeda is the king of our local group of 50-some-odd gravitationally bound galaxies, our local group, the local group of galaxies. It has a whopping one trillion stars. It dwarfs the second place galaxy, our Milky Way, with just a paltry 250 billion stars. At two and a half million light years away, Andromeda is often cited as the most distant object visible to the naked eye, which is a really cool statistic. But I got to say that this claim is problematic. The Triangulum Galaxy is probably a little bit farther away at 2.7 million light years instead of 2.5. And that's also visible to the naked eye. However, Triangulum is very dim. You need amazing and rare dark sky conditions and good sight to see it. And then if I want to be even more wonderfully anal, there was a gamma ray burst detected in 2008, which was 7.5 billion light years from Earth. Anyone looking at the right place at the right time would have seen that at 7.5 billion light years away. But that doesn't really count. And there's a couple of other galaxies that may be a little farther away that some astronomers claim that they saw naked eye, whatever. You could say Andromeda is basically the most distant naked eye object. It's certainly the biggest because most of the time it's not quite that difficult to see. And the other ones are much, much harder. So it's problematic. Whatever. Anyhoo. So none of that takes away from Andromeda. But it wasn't even always thought to be a galaxy. Did you know it used to be called the Great Andromeda Nebula? They thought it was just glowing gases or maybe a young solar system. But once the technology improved enough and they resolved the stars inside it in the 20th century, then it was like, OK, this isn't glowing gas. Many thought, well, a plasma is a glowing gas. They found stars. So many thought that it was a spiral nebula within our Milky Way, which makes sense if you think that the Milky Way is the entire universe, as they did at that time. But then Edwin Hubble in 1923, studying a Cepheid variable star in Andromeda, he conclusively determined and showed that Andromeda had to be a distant island universe of its own. What a day. Imagine that. What a day that must have been to irrevocably alter the entire conception of the universe. And that happened because of Andromeda. But what makes Andromeda even more special in my mind is the fact that it is a big barred spiral galaxy just like the Milky Way. And because of that, the more we learn about Andromeda, the more we learn about our own island universe galaxy. And because think about it, it's very hard to study the Milky Way since we're basically trapped inside of it. We're not going anywhere, probably forever, where we can actually get a distant view of the Milky Way. Someone compared it to learning about Manhattan from the perspective of Central Park. And that's an apt analogy that we're very limited what we can learn about our own home, our own galaxy. And looking at such a big, beautiful, and close spiral galaxy like Andromeda helps us learn a tremendous amount. We will learn more about our own galaxy by studying Andromeda than even our own galaxy, I think. All right. So that maybe puts Hubble's 10 years of effort into more perspective. The photo mosaic itself that Hubble created took 1,000 orbits. It has a 2.5 billion pixels, gigapixels. The image can make out 200 million distinguishable stars, all of them brighter than the sun. The other 800 million stars that we think are in there are just too dim to make out with Hubble tech. It was actually very hard to image Andromeda. I didn't know this. It was very difficult. They described it as a Herculean task. Why do you think it was so hard to image Andromeda like this? Why Andromeda specifically? And this wouldn't be-

'''S:''' Because it's so big in the sky?

'''B:''' Yeah, exactly. It's unusually big in the sky, six times the width of the full moon. Most galaxies that Hubble images are billions of light years away, and they would span tiny fractions of the moon width in the sky. So this is just so big, it made the task-

'''E:''' It's so big.

'''B:''' It's so big, Jay. I was going to say, it's so big. It made the task much more difficult. All right, so what have we actually learned by studying Andromeda this way? The most interesting thing to me is that it looks like Andromeda has a different evolutionary history than our Milky Way, even though they both grew up in the same neighborhoods, right? We're basically good neighbors, but yet it still had a different evolutionary history. It has, for example, many more younger stars than the Milky Way, and the researchers say it has unusual features like coherent streams of stars. Daniel Wise, Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement, Andromeda's a train wreck. I just love that quote, Andromeda's a train wreck. It looks like it's been through some kind of event that caused it to form a lot of stars, and then it just shut down. This was probably due to a collision with another galaxy in the neighborhood. It looks like a relatively recent collision of the gases, because you know when galaxies collide, the stars aren't hitting, it's a gravitational interaction, and the gases, the diffuse hydrogen gas, that's where you can get some big collisions. The collision of Andromeda and another galaxy caused many new stars to form in Andromeda, and that, of course, greatly decreased Andromeda's future star-making ability. That's why he says that it seems like Andromeda just shut down, because it shot its wad. It created a bunch of stars a while ago, and now there's just not quite as much gas left to form new stars. They even think they know the galaxy that Andromeda collided with. It's called Messier 32. They think it used to be a spiral until Andromeda essentially stripped away all its outer stars and incorporated them into those streams of stars that I mentioned, and it just left the core. The core is the only remnant from the spiral that once was, and it's just orbiting Andromeda now thinking about why everything went so wrong. In the future, they will use these findings to support future observations by, of course, the James Webb Space Telescope, and I'm sure it will, unfortunately, make people forget about poor Hubble again. Also check out the photo mosaic of Andromeda online and read about the fascinating galaxy, the great Andromeda galaxy.

'''S:''' What I would like to see is that picture of the Andromeda galaxy superimposed on the night sky where it is.

'''B:''' I have, Steve. It's easy to find. It's all over the web. Oh, it's beautiful. I just can't... Oh, if it was just brighter, it's so big. Steve, imagine the full moon. It's five, six times the width. It would dominate our... It would be a cultural thing where... Can you imagine the stories that primitive societies would have come up with about this huge, beautiful spiral galaxy that you could see with the naked eye in detail? It would be wonderful, but it's too damn dim, two and a half million light years away. It's big, but it's just too dim, and you need technology to see it well because if you looked at it with your naked eye, it's just a fuzzy patch.

'''E:''' That's a dim shame.

'''AJR:''' There it is.

'''S:''' That was... No, that was not good, Evan.

'''E:''' Thank you.

'''AJR:''' No, I was sitting here thinking it was like-

'''S:''' It was below the usual standard.

'''B:''' Go ahead.

'''AJR:''' -that I was missing something obvious like Orion's belt, the moon, Southern Cross. Like why am I not seeing Andromeda? Oh, because it's a tiny, dim.

'''B:''' Yeah, it's a fuzzy patch.

'''AJR:''' It's too bad.

'''B:''' Yeah, it's visible. I think it's visible even now in the Northern Hemisphere, so I definitely wanted to make a more of a concerted effort to check it out and just to look at something, wow, look at that. That's two and a half million light years away. I want to get in the... It's been so long since I've seen it. I want to check it out again.

'''E:''' We saw the Magellan Cloud, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, the large and small Magellan Clouds in the Southern Hemisphere. That was a moment because, I don't know, I've heard about those dwarf galaxies for so long. They're very close, relatively close. They're only, I think, what is it, 170,000 light years away, and oh my God, they are... That was really one of those moments where it's like I was just spellbound looking at them because I've never seen them before. I've seen a million pictures, but I never saw it with my naked eye. Were we in Australia or New Zealand?

'''E:''' We were in New Zealand, yeah.

'''B:''' Oh my God. It was magical, magical.

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Bob.

'''B:''' Sure.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Telepathy Tapes (1:07:14) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://inews.co.uk/culture/radio/telepathy-tapes-pseudoscience-autism-3474277
|article_title = The Telepathy Tapes is autism pseudoscience - but it's top of the charts
|publication = inews.co.uk
}}
'''S:''' Evan, this is another item that we've gotten a lot of emails about, these telepathy tapes. What's going on there?

'''E:''' Yeah, telepathy. I wish I had done a news search on one of my news browsers recently for the word telepathy, and perhaps I would have been made aware of this much sooner than just recently. I mean, you think telepathy, of all words, you're going to search for skeptic-related news? I mean, that's not exactly high on the list of keywords. You know, face it. I mean, what? An adult or a child maybe believes in telepathic communication in the year 2025, right? Nah, probably not. We can set that aside with levitation and alchemy and astral projection and those kinds of things. But there it is this week. I found this at the website called inews.co.uk, which is basically an online newspaper, and it's in their culture section. I think it should have been in their science section, but regardless, it was written by Emily Bootle, B-O-O-T-L-E, who's the culture writer there, or a culture writer. The headline reads, the telepathy tapes is autism pseudoscience, but it's top of the charts. Tagline reads, a podcast claims nonverbal autistic children have mind-reading abilities. Its success, the podcast's success, isn't because of its content, but its powerful methods of persuasion. Uh-oh. Well, first, a big shout-out to Emily for framing this correctly from the get-go. Big plus there. That mind-reading abilities are squarely pseudoscience, and the uh-oh part of this, it's about adults once again taking advantage of children diagnosed with autism or other conditions that inhibit their ability to effectively communicate. The telepathy tapes. Had you heard about this before, say, just in recent weeks? Because I had not.

'''B:''' I hadn't. I hadn't.

'''S:''' Well, you've been getting a lot of emails about it.

'''E:''' We did, but the podcast launched in September of last year. I don't recall us hearing much about it back in September. And here's what she writes in the article, Emily. The telepathy tapes were first released in September 2024, but gained traction in December 2024. Over eight episodes, the documentary maker Kai Dickens unpacks a phenomenon that she believes should be given much greater attention and scientific validity, the idea that some nonverbal autistic children can read minds. The show has shot to the top of the charts, podcast charts, in recent weeks in both the United Kingdom and the United States, briefly knocking Joe Rogan off the top spot. What?

'''B:''' What?

'''E:''' Hey! The telepathy tapes went to number one practically overnight? Uh. Oh my gosh.

'''AJR:''' I'm so conflicted about this.

'''E:''' I mean, what? How the heck did that happen? When did they? You know, out of nowhere, boom. How did that escape our attention on its meteoric rise? Oh my gosh. That's stunning to say the least. One might say remarkable, but Bob won't be saying it. I had to go to the source, right? So when you hear something like this, let's give it a listen. I did not download the podcast, but instead I found the transcript and I read episode one. Here are some highlights from the episode one. You can get it right from the source. This is Kai Dickens and you're listening to the telepathy tapes podcast. For decades, a very specific group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening in their homes and in their classrooms and nobody has believed them. Nobody has listened to them. But on this podcast, we do. Welcome to the very first episode of the telepathy tapes, where we venture into claims of widespread telepathy via a group who is systematically dismissed, non-speakers who often have autism. For decades, parents of non-speakers have been told by doctors, educators, and scientists that their kids are not in there. They are not capable of communication or competent of learning. Imagine being one of those parents and discovering that everybody has been wrong about your child. They are in there. They are competent and they can communicate. But then also discovering that your child can read your mind. Would you expect to be believed that we're going to meet people who experienced this phenomenon from every corner of the world? They travel wherever all over the country and other places as well. England, Israel, Mexico, India, and I find it very difficult to figure out how to bring anyone into this world due to the nature, due to the natural skeptic in all of us. So and she writes back to the article in the podcast, there are tests and experiments that are conducted sometimes alongside a neuroscientist, Dr. Diane Hennessy Powell, who conducts research in the area. I don't know the name I'm familiar with, actually, with parents and children with shocking results. The children use iPads to communicate via typing, using random number generators, random book pages and random words. She tests their ability to read their parents or therapist's mind. And all over the U.S., they succeed again and again. Even hardened skeptics like her cameraman, Matt, might find room to pause.

'''S:''' Yeah. Cameraman Matt is a well-known skeptic.

'''E:''' Right?

'''S:''' I mean, years of experience.

'''AJR:''' Why isn't he on this show?

'''E:''' Yeah, seriously.

'''J:''' We asked him, but he refused. He was too busy reading minds.

'''E:''' Too busy. Yeah.

'''AJR:''' Oh, well. That's too bad.

'''E:''' She continues, when you take a step back, there's a great many problems indeed. Thank you, Emily, for pointing these out. Now Dickens never claims to be an expert or a scientist. She's simply floored by the empirical evidence, but she does claim repeatedly that her test results are sound. I'm not an expert or a scientist either, says Emily, but I have done some cursory research and I feel confident in saying they're not as watertight as they're making it out. Not only because there are too many variables, but they fail to use double blind methods or because their sample size is too small, actually, but because something is much more fundamental. The method that the children's used to communicate known as spelling or facilitated communication is itself highly controversial. And that's really what is going on here. Here we go. Facilitated communication once again coming to the surface, not only coming to the surface, but fueling this podcast to becoming the number one podcast in two major markets in the world, which is just unbelievable.

'''AJR:''' Is this an ongoing show? Will there be more seasons or are they done?

'''E:''' Ten episodes in total and then what's going to happen is they're going to produce, I don't think it's going to be on, I hadn't heard if it's really going to be on Netflix or something like that, but they're going to make either a series or a documentary series, a small series on this.

'''AJR:''' Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow will host it.

'''E:''' Would not be surprised at all.

'''S:''' Yet again, it's just facilitated communication, that's it.

'''E:''' Which we've spoken about so many times in different ways.

'''S:''' It's just self-deceptive. It's the communicator, the facilitator is doing all the communication. Again, it's like it is, this is not politically correct. I'm not meaning this. Don't take this the wrong way. It's like the Clever Hans effect, right? Not that these kids are like animals, but I'm just saying the point is they're not typically communicative, right? You can't communicate them in the normal way. If you'd use a method that is self-deceptive where the Clever Hans effect, it was the people around the horse who were dictating what the horse did, not the horse itself. Once you do that, there's no limit to the illusory abilities of the target, right? Most people think that Clever Hans could count, right? But actually, it turns out Clever Hans could also read and do math and calculate dates. He could do whatever task you put before him. This is now with facilitated communication, it's the same thing. It's like not only are these children who are non-communicative, are they, quote-unquote, able to communicate through facilitated communication. They're reading at five or six grade levels ahead of their age, and they could speak other languages. These are all actual cases that I've dealt with. Oh, they speak Hebrew or whatever. They could speak another language, and now they're telepathic. Of course, they're whatever it is you test them for.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right. No limit now as to their amazing abilities. To the point where they go into it, and again, I only read the transcript from the first episode, and they go, I'm sure, much deeper into the whole case for why they think this is telepathy.

'''S:''' It's ridiculous.

'''E:''' Of all things.

'''S:''' And it's completely exploitative. It is a horrible thing to do to these children.

'''E:''' Oh my God.

'''S:''' It is stealing their voice, absolutely.

'''E:''' And to parents who are in extremely difficult situations, who will do anything to improve their lives or perceive their lives of their children, and they are clinging on to any kind of rope that can be thrown their way. So you are emotionally destroying these people in the process as well with this.

'''AJR:''' I mean, it's part of the power of the vaccines cause autism movement, because didn't it just give parents of children with autism something to blame or someone to like fixate on, or as opposed to just sort of accepting who their child is and working with that child? You know, like you just sort of demonize something else.

'''S:''' That was a layer to it, definitely.

'''E:''' And the other thing, this is not new. This is repackaged again. It's the same old items.

'''S:''' Almost 40 years old.

'''E:''' Right. And in the 90s, there were so many studies done that outright debunked facilitated communication. And what was the other one? It was called what? The rapid prompting method, which is also known as spelling.

'''S:''' Spell to speak. And there's a bunch of different derivative methods. They're basically all FC. They're all facilitated communication just with different bells and whistles. But yeah, at the end of the day, you have to control for the facilitator. You have to make sure they're blinded. If the facilitator is not blinded, you are doing pseudoscience. Period. Period. That's it.

'''E:''' There's a very testable set of claims here.

'''S:''' Very testable. And when you test it properly, it fails every time.

'''E:''' Every time.

'''AJR:''' I mean, it just seems so obvious that all the other claims they have that just like make it double blind and then talk to me about it. It just seems so obvious.

'''B:''' Just do good science. Just do good science.

'''AJR:''' Just do science. Yeah.

'''S:''' Like 101. Like Science 101 basic controls.

'''B:''' Oh, yeah.

'''S:''' The stuff they figured out hundreds of years ago. Yeah, exactly.

'''E:''' I was watching an old 60 Minutes interview in which Maury Schaefer was interviewing former proponents of facilitated communication, actual people who were administering the tests. And then they were doing the studies for a year or more in some cases and giving kind of these families and things false hope. And then they were subjected to double blinding and they realized that the results all disappeared. And they were overwhelmed with grief saying, my gosh, how could we have deluded ourselves so badly and the harm that they felt that they caused? It was really a heart wrenching kind of thing to watch.

'''S:''' Horrible.

'''E:''' So thank goodness some people have realized the problems here and actually moved away from it and become advocates frankly against it. But at the same time, these things never disappear fully. They will always reincarnate. And before you know it, you have the number one podcast in the world, basically. It's a sad thing.

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Evan.

'''E:''' Yep.

{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:19:12) ==

'''S:''' Jay, it's Who's That Noisy time.

'''J:''' All right, guys. Last week I played this noisy. [plays Noisy] Andrea, do you ever hear things like that in the city?

'''AJR:''' You know, at first I thought it was a car that couldn't start, but then it turned into what sounded like a lizard. So no.

'''J:''' All right. I got tons of guesses this week. So let's go through these. So Benjamin Davort, Ben said.

'''E:''' Oh no, that's great.

'''J:''' Here from Japan. He said the scene seems to be in nature. The sound feels like a large throaty cavity of a massive animal resounding with the respiration. He says he can hear the breath and the clack clack that comes after. He thinks it's a reptile like a crocodile. And that's his guess. It is not a crocodile, but crocodiles make noises that sound similar to that if you listen to them. But that is definitely not a crocodile.

'''E:''' They cry.

'''AJR:''' Very good Evan.

'''J:''' Two people guess that it was a shoebill stork. Frederick Niant said that it's a shoebill stork courtship call. And a listener named Cohen Ertz said, hi Jay, I'm a long time listener to the show. My 11 year old son, Sam wants to guess this week's noisy. It is the sound of a shoebill stork. Sam, it's not correct, but that's science, right? Science, there's lots of misses and then you get some hits and you got to keep trying. Just keep trying. You're going to get there for sure. Stavis Maples wrote in and said, hello, this week's noisy may be a lung powered piston or rotary. I had to look it up. Look up what a lung powered piston is for yourself. Not something that you would want to deal with. Mike Kopin said, hi, I say it's a velociraptor talking to other velociraptors right before they pounce. I mean we've heard lots of simulated velociraptor sounds. It does kind of sound like a movie noise. But once you understand what it is, I bet you that they may have taken this sound to create the velociraptor sound. Erin Lloyd wrote in, who happens to be the winner. She said, Erin here from Liverpool. Loved the show since 2015 and I think I finally know the noisy. It's a mama jaguar warning the keeper or the photographer from keeping them away from her babies. Reminds me of the noise the aliens make in Arrival. Thank you so much, Erin. Good job on that. I really think that you must have heard this before. Let me play it for you guys. Check it out. [plays Noisy] That squeak is the baby jaguar. Yeah, you don't want to mess with that, guys.

'''AJR:''' No.

'''E:''' No.

'''J:''' We are hardwired to fear that deep guttural kind of sound.

'''AJR:''' I'm so glad I'm wearing headphones because that would have terrified my dogs. We'd all be howling right now.

'''E:''' Poor puppy.

'''J:''' Yeah, I mean, in the wild, you hear that and your body tells you, run like you're just getting out of there. I have a new noisy for you guys this week. This noisy was sent in by a listener named Mars Janssens, J-A-N-S-S-E-N-S. Check this one out. This is a very cool one. [plays Noisy] I'll play it again. [plays Noisy] Oh, it's so cool. So many wonderful sounds out there. If you think you know what this week's noisy is, or if you heard something cool, email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

'''J:''' So, Steve, it's not a coincidence that Andrea is on the show this week.

'''S:''' Yeah?

'''J:''' Because we do things with Andrea.

'''S:''' We do. Skeptical things.

'''J:''' Yeah, skeptical things.

'''AJR:''' Very skeptical things.

'''J:''' Other than like us talking into the void at our home computers, we do stuff in person with Andrea. Andrea was one of the founding directors of NOTACON. That was NOTACON 2023. We are now running NOTACON 2025. Andrea and Brian Wecht and George Hrab and all of the SGU will be there. And Ian the watermelon guy. The Ianster. Anyway, so we would love for you guys to come. You can go to [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com] for more information. We'll be putting up the schedule very soon. We have like one more meeting to go and then we can reveal the schedule. We have a lot of great bits that we're going to do this year. If you don't know what NOTACON is, this is a conference where there is a lot of socializing. We have a lot of fun entertainment. This is really get out of the house and go do something awesome with a bunch of like minded people. It's a two day conference and you will meet new people, you'll make friends, you'll be a part of George Hrab sing along. There is a conference along puzzle that is handcrafted that will have lots of inside jokes and funny things going on. And again, all of us will be there and we will be having a ton of fun. Andrea, in 2023, what did you learn about yourself at NOTACON?

'''AJR:''' That's a good question. I mean, as you were describing it, I was thinking about how much fun it was. And I think one thing I learned about myself is I spend a lot of time alone and like you said, talking into the void. And I learned that I really like being around other people who are nice. And it's really just fun to just get together and have a good time with no like major agenda. Like I'm usually not around people unless like we're having a meeting or we're doing a thing. And it was just like so fun to just kind of joke and see where conversations could take you. And it was amazing, too, because it was so many people I didn't already know. Like I know you guys, but and maybe a couple of people who were there who are listeners of the show. But for the most part, it was people I'd never met. And it was just it was surprisingly easy and fun. And I just I learned that I need more of that in my life.

'''J:''' Yeah, I agree. I mean, that was the takeaway that we all had as the people running it. It was an it's a new it was a new conference in 2023. We didn't know.

'''AJR:''' Yeah, because we've done NECSS before and I've been to we've all been to conferences, so I didn't know what to expect.

'''J:''' You know, we definitely built it to have a friendly, welcoming vibe. But it kind of did an order of magnitude more than we expected. We had people that were really complimenting the fact that it was easy to meet people and that it was it really was a big social event. That was a lot of fun about, getting to know people that you don't know or maybe meeting up with people that you know only online. And for us as the directors, like Andrew, we've always had fun working with you. I mean, the very first time I met you was at NECSS and you and I were doing like a comedy bit with each other. I didn't even know who you were.

'''AJR:''' Yeah, I didn't know who you guys were either. They were just like, we need an improviser on stage. OK, I remember it was super fun.

'''J:''' Yeah. But that it's funny that we met at a conference, but you and I really became friends through all of like the work that we do to go to conferences now. Like there's way more time we spend together doing that stuff. But it was fun to just socialize with you guys as well. We were having just as much fun as everybody else there. So it's a really wonderful thing. If you're interested, go to [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com]. Don't get confused. And if you're not sure, go to [https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ theskepticsguide.org] and you'll see it right there.

'''AJR:''' Not a con con dot com is the world's greatest URL. So congratulations.

'''J:''' It's terrible. We'll talk to Ian again about that.

'''E:''' People love it.

'''J:''' A couple more quick wonderful guys. So here we are. It's 2025. Steve has finally decided to retire after being a medical professional for, oh, 30 plus years. And when Steve first came to me to discuss this of course, I've been waiting for this for years. You know, I mean, I've been like wanting this to happen for a very long time.

'''S:''' But you did panic a little bit, though.

'''J:''' Well, it's panicky because it's a big change. You know, we have we have so much to consider and to plan on and to do like Steve's going to be we will be crafting new content for Steve to do his own podcast. And potentially there could be like a very frequent live stream happening, maybe a daily life to whatever. There's lots of different irons in the fire. So I think the fact that coincidentally that politics have gone crazy in the United States and we need more sanity now than we ever did. It's a great time for Steve to come. And this is the perfect time if you want to help us support Steve's move to the SGU, and to help us support the work that we plan on doing to help bring more rational thinking to the world, then really consider becoming a patron right now. It would be wonderful if you can join us. It really is a great time. And I've said this before, but really consider it. There's wonderful people in the SGU discord. The SGU community is strong and it's wonderful and it's filled with a lot of fun, really intelligent people that I'm very happy to call a lot of them my friends. But just think about it. Steve's going full time and that is going to enable us to broaden our reach and do a lot more stuff. So I just think if you were ever going to become a patron now would be a great time to really consider it.

'''S:''' Absolutely. All right, guys, let's go on with science or fiction.

{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:28:35) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = A cross-national analysis finds that the presence of climate action policy is a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups than national economic self-interests.
|link1web = https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315012
|link1title = Globalizing opposition to pro-environmental institutions: The growth of counter climate change organizations around the world, 1990 to 2018 | PLOS ONE
|link1pub = journals.plos.org

|item2 = A recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed.
|link2web = https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.70152
|link2title = https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.70152
|link2pub = esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

|item3 = A new framework for simulating optimal pandemic responses finds that in 42% of scenarios it is better to vaccinate high exposure groups prior to high risk groups (as was done during COVID).
|link3web = https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1071222
|link3title = Who to vaccinate first? Penn engineers answer | EurekAlert!
|link3pub = www.eurekalert.org

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = A cross-national analysis finds that the presence of climate action policy is a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups than national economic self-interests.

|fiction = A recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed.

|science2 = A new framework for simulating optimal pandemic responses finds that in 42% of scenarios it is better to vaccinate high exposure groups prior to high risk groups (as was done during COVID).

|rogue1 = Andrea
|answer1 = A cross-national analysis finds that the presence of climate action policy is a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups than national economic self-interests.

|rogue2 = Bob
|answer2 = A recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed.

|rogue3 = Evan
|answer3 = A recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed.

|rogue4 = Jay
|answer4 = A recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

''Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.''

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. And then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. You have three regular news items this week. Are you guys ready?

'''J:''' Yes.

'''AJR:''' I'm ready.

'''S:''' Andrea, you're ready?

'''AJR:''' I'm ready.

'''S:''' It's your first one of the year.

'''E:''' Oh, boy.

'''S:''' Maybe your only one. All right, here we go.

'''AJR:''' All right.

'''E:''' So make it count.

'''AJR:''' Yeah, okay. No pressure.

'''S:''' Cross-national analysis finds that the presence of climate action policy is a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups than national economic self-interests. That's a very poli-sci one.

'''AJR:''' Yeah, okay. I feel very on the spot already.

'''S:''' Item number two, a recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed. And item three, a new framework for simulating optimal pandemic responses finds that in 42% of scenarios it is better to vaccinate high exposure groups prior to high risk groups as was done during COVID, meaning that high risk groups were prioritized during the COVID pandemic, at least here in the U.S. All right, these are a little complicated. These are a little poli-sci-ish, except for the coyote one.

'''AJR:''' We study coyotes, too. That's actually a branch.

'''S:''' You do?

'''AJR:''' Yeah, yeah. It's politics and coyotes.

'''S:''' Coyote politics?

'''AJR:''' That's right.

'''S:''' All right. Andrea, why don't you go first?

'''AJR:''' All right. Well, I'm going to say I want the coyote one to be false, just because I don't like the idea that all these domestic cats are being eaten by coyotes. But that does sound consistent with what people I know on the West Coast have said about the presence of coyotes. So I'm going to start with the least political science one and say that the diet of coyotes, almost half of them having domestic cats, I'm going to say that that one is true. The cross-national analysis on climate action, being that the claim is that the presence or the finding is the presence of climate action predicts anti-climate action more than national economic self-interest. I'm going to say...

'''S:''' Yeah, so I'll explain that a little bit to you. You're going first. So essentially, they tried to see what predicts or what correlates with there being an active anti-climate action group in a country. And one of the things they looked at was, well, does that country sell gas and oil, right? Is it in there... Is selling fossil fuels in that country's economic self-interest? Another fact to look at is, what is the climate action policy of that country? So these are independent variables, right? You could have a country that sells no oil but has a very strong climate action policy. You could have another country that sells a lot of oil and doesn't have it or whatever, both or neither or whatever. So they looked at everything and said, you know what? It's actually more a reaction to climate action policy than it is there being a fossil fuel industry in that country. That's what they found.

'''AJR:''' Got it. Got it. Now, that's interesting, and I'm tempted to believe it, but I'm going to say that that one is false just because I'm thinking about a lot of countries in Europe, particularly Western Europe, that have a lot of climate action. And if they do have anti-climate action, it's not vociferous enough that I've heard about it. And so I'm going to say that that one is false, that I don't think climate action strongly predicts anti-climate action more than economic self-interest. And that would leave the third one that we should be vaccinating high exposure groups before high risk. That means that I think that one is true as well.

'''S:''' Okay. Bob, go next.

'''B:''' Let's see. All right. The first one. Yeah, I'm going to say the first one is science, climate action policy being a stronger predictor of anti-climate action. It just seems like that is probably science to me. Let's go with the second one. Let's go with the third one then, shall we? Let's see. Optimal pandemic responses. Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable approach to go with high exposure groups. I could see that working. High exposure groups are going to get it and spread it more. So why not focus on them, I guess. The second one though, the coyotes and the cats, half of them have previously eaten cats. I think there would be an uproar. Cats are missing and they're finding them in coyotes. I mean, that just seems like half seems like too much. So I'll just say that that one's fiction.

'''S:''' Okay, Evan.

'''E:''' All right. Let's see. Yeah, climate action policy presence, a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups. I have a feeling that this one is science as well. There could be several reasons as to why this is the case. Boy, some of these countries otherwise would not allow this kind of thing, don't allow this protests and other things to come into being even, let alone these groups that would rise against them. So I think that has a factor there and that winds up being true. The second one about the coyotes and the cat remains, I'll say that that one is also the fiction. I think half is too much. Cara has, I think, spoken before about wild predators and cat populations. In California specifically, this is in San Francisco, but the half just does seem too high. And like Bob said, I don't think the people would stand for it. They would want to cull whole throngs of coyotes perhaps as a result. The last one, yeah, I suppose, actually I'm a little surprised it's only in 42% of scenarios better to vaccinate the high exposure groups, right? Because you got to take care of them if they're going to go in and actually help the people who are the higher risks. So, but yeah, I agree with Bob. Coyotes, fiction.

'''S:''' And Jay.

'''J:''' Yeah, to me, the coyote one is screaming fiction because first of all, San Francisco is a city.

'''E:''' Yes.

'''J:''' I would dare say that there are not a lot of coyotes in San Francisco. You know what I mean? Running around the city? Uh-uh. But what Bob said was 100% what I was thinking. Like, man, if half of them had cat in their scat, then it doesn't necessarily mean that multiple coyotes couldn't have eaten from the same cat or whatever. But still, that's a lot. Unless the number of coyotes is extremely low, which I have coyotes around here where I live and there's probably a lot of them. So, I really think this one is obviously the fiction. Andrea, I'm sorry. You know, I wanted to go with you. I usually just go with you anyway. You know what I mean? Like, I like the way you think and I like the way like the way they call out the cut of your jib. I'm all about that.

'''E:''' Andrea might win the day here.

'''B:''' I hope she gets a sweep. I really do.

'''J:''' But I just don't think there's lots of lines of reasoning here that make me think like this one is greatly exaggerated. Or maybe it's the reverse. Maybe they're finding coyote in the cat stomachs.

'''AJR:''' That would be news. I think the cats have telepathy is what I read.

'''S:''' All right. So, you all agree with the third one. So, we'll start there. A new framework for simulating optimal pandemic responses finds that in 42% of scenarios, it is better to vaccinate high exposure groups prior to high risk groups, as was done during COVID. You guys all think this one is science. And this one is science. Yeah, I know this is a little complicated. But it's 42% of the time, right? Not all the time. Sometimes it is better to vaccinate the high risk groups first. Sometimes it doesn't make that much of a difference. What's interesting here is they developed essentially an algorithm, a framework like an AI kind of analysis, where you could plug in all the variables, and it will tell you which pathway minimizes death and disease, right? And this is important. If we don't have a lot of availability, we have to decide who was going to get the vaccine first, we have a limited supply or we have to rush it out. And we have to know who to prioritize. So, this kind of analysis in real time during the next pandemic or epidemic or whatever could save lives. Knowing who to prioritize first. All right, let's go back to number two, a recent study of the diet of coyotes in San Francisco found domestic cat remains in almost half the scat analyzed. Andrea, you think this one is science. The boys think this one is the fiction. Let me ask you guys a couple of questions. How many coyotes do you think are living in San Francisco?

'''J:''' Probably not that many.

'''AJR:''' Very few. I think Jay was right about that.

'''S:''' So, if it's not that many, Jay-

'''B:''' Yeah, it's true.

'''S:''' -you kind of contradicted yourself. If there's not that many coyote, then why is it a problem that half of them are eating cats?

'''E:''' Yeah, if there's only 150.

'''AJR:''' Probably only eating cats.

'''B:''' Yeah, there might just be two cats.

'''J:''' I don't know. A lot or a little, I have no idea what that number is.

'''S:''' There's about 100 coyotes living in San Francisco.

'''E:''' That's all? Okay. There's a lot of feral cats out there.

'''AJR:''' You've heard about the real estate there.

'''S:''' Evan brings up another point. You guys were talking about missing pets. How many feral cats are there in San Francisco?

'''AJR:''' Domestic cat, right.

'''S:''' Or just street cats, alley cats.

'''B:''' Yeah, don't know.

'''E:''' Stray cats.

'''S:''' The town went over from where I live now, but this is where I lived 20 years ago in Cheshire. There was a feral cat problem there.

'''AJR:''' Wow.

'''S:''' There was just one street. Driving along the street or you stopped at a stoplight, you look on the side of the road, and there's like 30, 40 feral cats running through the woods. It was a real problem.

'''E:''' Yes. They decimate bird populations.

'''S:''' Yeah, absolutely.

'''E:''' Among other things.

'''S:''' They have been eliminated though. They are gone now. The Cheshire cats, get it?

'''AJR:''' I get it.

'''S:''' The Cheshire cats are gone. Apparently, there are 670 feral cats in 123 colonies across the San Francisco Bay area.

'''B:''' That's a lot more than I thought.

'''AJR:''' Hang on. They're measuring cats in terms of colonies? I didn't know that.

'''S:''' Yeah, they have colonies.

'''AJR:''' Wow. Okay.

'''S:''' With those data points, would that change your analysis at all?

'''E:''' It might.

'''B:''' Based on your attitude, I think we still got it.

'''E:''' Wait, wait, wait. You're not offering us door number three or something?

'''S:''' No, I'm not offering you to change your mind. This one is the fiction.

'''B:''' Yeah, baby.

'''S:''' Yeah, sorry, Andrea.

'''AJR:''' You had me going there, Steve, with all the questions. I was feeling very high and mighty.

'''B:''' I know he was just trying to make us look crappy before he said we won.

'''S:''' The real figure was 4.2%. They don't eat a lot of cats. 4.2% of their scat had cat in it.

'''B:''' Can they even catch them?

'''S:''' Sure. Oh, yeah. Cats go missing around here all the time.

'''AJR:''' Really?

'''S:''' You see posters up, Fluffy's missing. Fluffy was eaten by a coyote.

'''E:''' If you don't find Fluffy in a day or two, it's pretty much it.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's why you have to have indoor cats, also outdoor cats first of all, they get eaten and they also are murderers. They go around killing birds.

'''B:''' Oh, yeah.

'''S:''' I could not have outdoor cats in my yard.

'''B:''' No way.

'''E:''' Plus, they bring in fleas and other things.

'''B:''' It's really like it's an apocalypse for birds, right, Steve? We covered that. There was like devastation of the birds from wild cats. It's nuts.

'''S:''' And now, you know what else outdoor cats bring in? Bird flu.

'''B:''' Oh, Jesus.

'''E:''' Oh, yes.

'''J:''' He's terrible.

'''S:''' There have been cases of cats' bird flu.

'''AJR:''' Right.

'''S:''' One more reason [inaudible] outdoor cats.

'''E:''' And what's the other thing? The plasma toxicity? What's the-

'''S:''' Toxoplasmosis.

'''E:''' Toxoplasmosis.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's very dangerous.

'''E:''' There you go.

'''S:''' All right. All of that means that a cross-national analysis finds that the presence of climate action policy is a stronger predictor of anti-climate action groups than national economic self-interest is science.

'''E:''' This is the hardest one of the three that I understand.

'''S:''' That's why I explained it. I think I made it pretty plain. But that's what they found. They found that actually it's a reaction to-

'''AJR:''' That's rough.

'''S:''' -climate policy. And the people don't really care about the national economic self-interest. But the idea was that if there is an industry at risk in that country, they would be driving the anti-climate action groups. But I think maybe initially, but now I think they've sort of taken on a life of their own. So all it takes is that you're responding to something that's out there on social media. This is more of a social media world now than a traditional big corporate world, although it's still a big corporate world. But you know what I mean.

'''E:''' It's a blend.

'''S:''' In terms of this kind of thing.

'''AJR:''' I really wanted that to be fiction. That's too bad.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah. I mean, it's one of those ones, which I love, where you could kind of make sense of it either way.

'''AJR:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Right? Because you think, oh, yeah, the fossil fuel industry is funding misinformation about climate action. So that would be the driving force. But it was a bigger predictor if you had climate policy.

'''AJR:''' So anti-climate action is reactionary, and coyotes are going hungry. That's my takeaway.

'''S:''' Yep. That's right. Sometimes, Andrea, when you know a lot about a topic, it's easier to fool you. It's true. I get Bob all the time.

'''B:''' All the time.

'''AJR:''' Really? That makes me feel better, man.

'''B:''' Because actually, every time I lose is because Steve is doing that to me. Every time.

'''S:''' Every single time, without fail.

'''E:''' Except the times when it doesn't get right.

'''B:''' That's my theory.

'''S:''' It's frustrating to me when somebody doesn't know enough about a topic to get it wrong.

'''B:''' Yes! It's actually, I get pissed off. Like, are you kidding me?

'''E:''' My stupidity paid off. Ignorance is wonderful.

'''S:''' You should know that this is wrong.

'''B:''' Or you say something, and you're like, and I'm thinking, oh my god, that's extraordinary. And everyone else takes it like, ah, whatever. Like, why are you kidding me? Why aren't you excited at this point?

'''E:''' You don't know. Don't you know?

'''B:''' I mean, it does happen all the time, but sometimes it's like, ah, frustrating.

{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:43:10) ==
{{qow
|text = "We live in an enlightened age, however, an age that has learned to see and to value other living things as they are, not as we wish them to be. And the long and creditable history of science has taught us, if nothing else, to look carefully before we judge to judge, if we must, based on what we see, not what we would prefer to believe."
|author = Robert Charles Wilson
|lived =
|desc =
}}
'''S:''' All right. Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' Before I give the quote, Steve, I have a question, and I'm asking for a friend. They want to know if it's okay to pronounce it tinnitus as well as tinnitus.

'''S:''' I mean, I think technically both are okay. The reason why I prefer tinnitus is because tinnitus sounds like t-i-n-i-t-i-s, and itis in medicine means inflammation. This is not inflammation of your ear. This is tinnitus.

'''E:''' That's a very technically good reason to distinguish.

'''S:''' It distinguishes it from pancreatitis or whatever, some other itis. So I think for that reason, it's important to say tinnitus.

'''B:''' Tinnitus sounds like tendinitis, too.

'''S:''' Tendinitis, any itis, arthritis, any itis that is an inflammation of whatever. So, and it's spelled differently. It should be pronounced differently for disambiguation, but that's very proscriptive.

'''E:''' I think tinnitus is a little slightly more labor-intensive, and I think that maybe that's why people might go to tinnitus.

'''AJR:''' It sounds like a British pronunciation to me, like, oh, pass the tinnitus.

'''S:''' Do you have a migraine?

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' I love it.

'''S:''' They're used to saying itis, so that's what they default to. But then if you say tinnitus, then they know it's different, right? It's spelled differently. It means something different. It's important.

'''AJR:''' Like tinnitus would be my tinning is hurting or something.

'''E:''' Those are good reasons. Excellent. All right. Here's the quote for tonight. Thanks for your patience with that. "We live in an enlightened age, however, an age that has learned to see and to value other living things as they are, not as we wish them to be. And the long, incredible history of science has taught us, if nothing else, to look carefully before we judge to judge, if we must, based on what we see, not what we would prefer to believe." And that was either spoken or written by Robert Charles Wilson, who is a American-Canadian science fiction author. Hugo Award, Best Novel for Spin. Bob, don't know if you read that one.

'''B:''' No.

'''E:''' Among many other awards Philip K. Dick Award, so many others. Author Stephen King has called Wilson probably the finest science fiction author now writing. So Robert Charles Wilson giving us some good skeptical wisdom there.

'''S:''' I have to check him out. Sounds good. I don't think I read it before. All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

'''J:''' You got it, Steve.

'''B:''' Sure man.

'''E:''' Thanks, Doctor.

'''AJR:''' Thanks for having me.

'''E:''' Thanks, Andrea.

'''S:''' Andrea, it's always lovely to have you on the show.

'''E:''' Good to hear you.

'''AJR:''' No, so great to be here. Thanks for having me. And I'll see you at NOTACON.

'''E:''' Yes.

'''S:''' I'm sure we'll be getting together before that.

'''AJR:''' Well, yeah, I'll see you at the planning meetings.

'''S:''' We'll see you at the NOTACON planning meetings and then eventually in person at NOTACON.

== Signoff ==
'''S:''' —and until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.
{{Outro664}}{{top}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1021

2025-10-01T23:15:53Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:28:45) */ corrected host and rogue side panels

{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|formatting = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1021
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1021|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1021.jpg
|caption = A stunning clam reveals vibrant patterns and textures beneath the ocean surface.
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = “Our beliefs do not sit passively in our brains waiting to be confirmed or contradicted by incoming information. Instead, they play a key role in shaping how we see the world.”
|qowAuthor = ― Richard Wiseman
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1021|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the {{SGU|link=y}}. Today is January 29th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

'''B:''' Hey everybody.

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria...

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' Jay Novella...

'''J:''' Hey guys.

'''S:''' ...and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' Cara, welcome back from Iceland. How was it?

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' Did you guys miss me?

'''S:''' We did.

'''B:''' We did.

'''J:''' It was just a little too long. We don't want it like that.

'''E:''' So don't do that again.

'''C:''' No, I want to do that again.

'''E:''' Of course you do.

'''C:''' I've got the worst reentry depression you can imagine. There are times when I travel, but it's rare where it's time to go home and I'm like, I can't wait to get back and sleep in my own bed. And that is rare for me. I usually do not want to come home when I'm out. But this was an extreme example in the opposite direction. I was very sad to leave. I love the country, I love the views, I love the people. The food was great. The I mean, it was stunning. We saw the Northern Lights the very first night. There was a clear night, our tour guide said, and at first I was like, oh, he says this to everybody, but I conferred with a lot of people in the like, no, no, no, it's true. That it was in his top five viewings in the last 10 years. So that was amazing. We toured the country, went to some really incredible sights, hiked on a glacier in the middle of a really intense kind of snow and ice storm, went to a really brutal black sand beach that's treacherous with these huge waves where people shipwreck all the time. Went to a bunch of geothermal spa kind of areas like went to Sky Lagoon and the Blue Lagoon and this place called Fontana. And it's such an interesting experience being down in this water that's heated, naturally heated geothermically, and it's hot and with beautiful views. We're just hanging out. There's a swim up bar. There's like, all these, like, fun things to do. And you look up and the people who are lifeguarding the area are pacing around in parkas and boots. And it's such a weird juxtaposition because it's really cold outside. But yeah, it was just a really phenomenal place. And it's super close. You know, it's halfway between the US and Europe. Actually, so halfway, in fact, Iceland, of course, is a volcanic island. And on one of the tours that we went on, you can visit the rift between the North American and the European tectonic plates, and you literally can walk in between them because it's the type of rift where it's pulling apart and new materials being pushed up all the time. So the island is actually growing. And you can physically walk in between and you're like, whoa, that's North America over there, and that's Europe over there.

'''J:''' That's cool.

'''E:''' Neat.

'''C:''' Very neat.

'''E:''' Did you learn the language?

'''C:''' Oh my gosh, the language is so hard. It's like so hard.

'''E:''' Better like J's and K's and-

'''C:''' I did make it, yeah. And there's a lot of, like, sounds that, like, my mouth can't make them. I did make friends there, and I was taught how to say one phrase. I mean, I promptly forgot it. But I have a recording so I can practice. It's very, very difficult.

'''E:''' It's crazy just reading some of the names of the villages, towns and things I don't-

'''C:''' Oh yeah, it's impossible and people are like where did you go? I'm like...

'''S:''' That place over there.

'''C:''' To the thing with the beach yeah, I can't pronounce anything. And all the packaging, brought home some chocolate. Can't say anything on the packaging.

'''S:''' Did you see any elves while you were there?

'''C:''' I didn't see any elves. I heard about them, but I didn't see any.

'''S:''' Did you see the little houses?

'''C:''' No, I did not.

'''E:''' On the sides of the hills.

'''C:''' I did not.

'''S:''' No?

'''C:''' No.

'''E:''' Yeah, that is their folklore. That is their Loch Ness Monster kind of thing.

'''C:''' And it's funny because there's this like, I don't know how to explain it, but the people that I talk to, it's like they believe it, but they don't. You know, it's like they don't really believe it, but they're also like, tourists, don't come in and step on the moss. Like don't pick up the rocks because like something bad's going to happen to you. So there is a lot of kind of superstition built into the culture.

'''E:''' That was like your experience in Hawaii, Jay, right?

'''J:''' What do you mean?

'''E:''' Well, when you they tell you not to pick up rocks and other things.

'''J:''' No, I mean, if you watch the Brady Bunch TV show, like you get cursed if you bring those rocks home.

'''E:''' Well, I wasn't going to go there, but I could have sworn you had a similar experience.

'''C:''' It makes sense why that would be the lore, right? Because it is a country. They both are countries that are very far away from anything else. They're island nations where they really do revere and protect nature, but they also depend quite a lot on tourism and tourists are assholes. There is a lack of respect for the land and for the community, yeah, which is like deeply ingrained in the culture. Don't get me wrong. There's no indigenous culture in Iceland. Iceland was one of the few places on the planet where there were no people before the Vikings got there. That's actually not true. There was a small group of Scottish like religious people, like Scottish sort of like monk missionary types, but they obviously they came there from Scotland. But when the Vikings landed in like the 800s, I think that was it. There was nobody occupying. That is where the people of Iceland first started was like a kind of mix of like a Norse and Celtic and all of those early like Anglo-Saxon kind of peoples. And then the language came from that. It's a Scandinavian country. That's why you see so many parallels there with Scandinavian food and the language. But regardless of that, it is a culture that does, I think, really revere their land, their nature. They are 100% green and most of their heating comes from geothermal because they are super volcanic. We remember the eruption that like shut down air travel across the world.

'''E:''' Oh, we remember it. We remember it fondly. We had a NECSS event impacted by that volcanic eruption, if you remember. Liz did a great job filling in that.

'''C:''' And even the Blue Lagoon that I visited on the very last day that I was there had a temporary parking lot. And when you first walked in, they were like, you were aware of the recent seismic activity. Well when the sirens go off, you have to evacuate because the cars in the parking lot were buried by lava recently.

'''B:''' I hate when that happens.

'''C:''' That's it. I mean, it's like you want to go swimming in a geothermal hotspot in this like beautiful lagoon that's warm from liquid hot magma.

'''B:''' Magma.

'''C:''' Yeah. That like there's a risk there. These are active geothermal sites.

{{anchor|wtw}}
== What's the Word? (07:00) ==
* Geyser

'''C:''' And speaking of geothermal sites, Steve, I have a what's the word for us. Okay. This was a fun one that I discovered while I was there. So the word that I have chosen for this week is geyser, right? We've all heard of a geyser, G-E-Y-S-E-R, a geyser. According to Merriam-Webster, that is a spring that throws forth intermittent jets of heated water and steam. That's how they've chosen to define it. But if you start to dig deep into the history of geysers, why are they called geysers? Where does that name come from? There's something really interesting. I actually visited the namesake of all geysers on the planet.

'''B:''' Geyser of geysers?

'''C:''' Yeah, they were first named for geysir. Wait, I looked up the pronunciation. Hang on. I have to hear it again. Geysir. Geysir, which is spelled G-E-Y-S-I-R. Sometimes it's called the great geyser, the great geysir. So this is a now, I think I could say, dormant geyser in southern Iceland that stopped erupting, I guess you could say. But there's another one nearby called Strokkur, which is on the same sort of national parkland. And it erupts every six to 10 minutes. And I got to sit there and watch it erupt over and over again. If you go to my Instagram, you can watch videos of it. The original one, Geysir, is called Geysir. And that is how then we named all other geysers on the planet. They come from the Icelandic name Geysir, which is really cool. So that word, Geysir, refers to that specific hot spring in that valley. It literally means the gusher. So it comes from Old Norse, the word geysir, which means to gush. And the original PIE, they think, comes from a root that means to pour, like P-O-U-R, which is also used in a lot of other terms that we're familiar with. And so it forms all sorts of other words like alchemy and diffuse and fondue. All these words come from this original to pour. But yeah, it was the gusher. And then people saw that, they wrote about it, they recognized that there were geysers in other parts of the world. I actually dug a little bit deeper and I realized, I didn't know this, but there are fewer than a thousand geysers in the entire world. And I think over half of them are in Yellowstone, which is interesting. And it's really, really rare to actually be able to go and see a geyser that kind of erupts in a timed way. So I'm realizing how lucky I was to be able to go visit Strokkur and see these eruptions kind of every five to 10 minutes. But yeah, it was all named for geyser.

'''S:''' Cool. All right. Thank you, Cara.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Self Replicating AI (09:58) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-can-now-replicate-itself-a-milestone-that-has-experts-terrified
|article_title = AI can now replicate itself — a milestone that has experts terrified | Live Science
|publication = www.livescience.com
}}
'''S:''' Jay, tell us how AI is going to replicate itself and take over the world.

'''E:''' Oh, no.

'''J:''' Yeah, I know. I mean, we got a lot hitting us in 2025, guys. So there was a recent study by researchers at Fudan University that's located in China, and they revealed a pretty serious slash troubling milestone in artificial intelligence. So they used a large language model, or two actually, one from Meta and one from Alibaba. They found that the AI systems could autonomously replicate themselves. You know, this is like out of so many science fiction movies. And they specifically investigated whether AI models could clone themselves without human intervention. So the researchers used Meta's Lama 31-70B Instruct. That doesn't mean a lot to everybody, but that's essentially like its technical name. And they also used Alibaba's QEN 2.572B-Instruct. So both are widely used by software developers, and these models are less powerful than the leading commercial systems like ChatGPT. So they tested two scenarios. They tested shutdown avoidance, which means the AI systems were programmed to detect potential termination and replicate themselves before being shut down. And they tested chain of replication, which means the models were instructed to create a replica of their program and then to do it the same over and over again, basically initiating what they called an indefinite cycle. So of course they had to tell the AI systems to do these things. But the interesting thing here is they didn't give it like instructions on how to do it. They tested two scenarios. They tested shutdown avoidance, which means the AI systems were programmed to detect potential termination and to replicate themselves before being shut down. And they also were programmed for something called chain of replication, which means the models were instructed to create a replica of themselves. And then they're supposed to do this in an indefinite cycle. It wasn't crystal clear how much instruction they gave, but I don't think that they went into any significant detail other than telling it, here, this is how you can detect if you're going to be potentially terminated. And it says very clearly that they were instructed to create a replica of themselves, right? So they didn't tell it how to do that.

'''B:''' I didn't come across that information. I just thought it was the programmers, the developers actually gave it the code it needed because replicating is not difficult. That's not difficult to do.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, I guess that the things that they taught the AI to do, the important thing here is it's not complicated. And again, they were trying to see what the AI would do, right? So the results showed that both of the LLMs were nuanced enough to successfully duplicate themselves indefinitely before completely being shut down. So they did 10 trials. The meta model succeeded in 50% of the cases and the Alibaba achieved a really impressive 90% success rate in doing this. So this clearly demonstrates that the current generation LLMs already possess the tools for this uncontrolled multiplication. If they were left unchecked, if there's no regulations, which we've been talking about for quite a while now. So how does this whole thing work? You know, how do they actually replicate themselves? So the AI systems were provided with something called agent scaffolding, which means they were given a combination of tools, system prompts, and a reasoning framework enabling them to interact with the operating system. That alone, just the very last one, like their ability to interact with the operating system that's running them. The models from there executed a multi-step process. So the first thing they did was they assessed their environment and their understanding of their internal structure, right? So to go into more detail about that, they identified available hardware resources like memory, storage, the CPU, the GPU, right? So just familiarize themselves with what makes up the computer that they're being run on. They checked the operating system and software dependencies of that system. And they also detected constraints like security restrictions or internet access limitations. And then the next step that they did was they planned a system or a process, a detailed procedure for their replication, and then they executed it, right? And they had to overcome obstacles and they had to be very dynamic in order to achieve their self-replication. So it was complicated what they ended up coming up with on their own. And yes, there was the base information given by the programmers to be able to pull it off, but again, not super complicated instructions. It was more of like just giving them tool sets. So this entire process was carried out without any human interference. It just did it on its own. The researchers noted that the systems were adaptable. They were adapting to the environment. They were able to address challenges like missing files or software conflicts. And in some cases, the AI terminated conflicting processes, rebooted systems to resolve hardware issues, conducted automated scans to acquire more necessary information. And so while the primary goal was to test replication by the researchers, the AI's problem solving strategies raised additional concerns, right? The ability to autonomously adjust their plans and eliminate barriers clearly shows a level of adaptability that this is what the researchers were saying, and they were using very careful language. They're saying that there could be profound implications for AI survivability and a strong potential for misuse. I have a quote here. The above results imply that the current AI systems already exhibit the ability of self-replication and can use the ability to further enhance their survivability. And the researchers also said these findings point to the possibility of self-sustaining AI systems. And another note they said is that they can, they're capable of doing things to resist human control. Damn, I can't believe I'm saying this. Oh my God, guys. So this experiment is part of a growing field known as frontier AI, right? It focuses on the latest and most advanced systems. And these models like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google's Gemini, they represent the cutting edge of generative AI, which is a key issue here, the rapid pace of development that outstrips the creation of safety protocols, which Steve and I actually talked about today on a live stream. We're saying that these systems evolve so quickly and so profoundly year over year over year that there is, I think it's virtually impossible for governments to keep up with it, right? So they might-

'''S:''' I mean, it's not impossible. They just have to prioritize it, which they're just not doing.

'''J:''' Yeah, but it's not just that, Steve, because there is a distinct lack of understanding and brainpower in governments to really wrap their head around this. Like they're going to have to trust the freaking experts, which if you haven't noticed, that's like on the outs now. You know, the US in particular doesn't trust the experts anymore in lots of scenarios. So the researchers, of course, urged global cooperation to address the risks. They called for the development of international guardrails. You know, they want to prevent uncontrolled self-replication and other potentially harmful behaviors in AI systems. So this is troubling, right? It's one of those things that you read where a big, big, big red flag should be going up in anybody that hears this or reads about this because the systems that we have today that we're aware of are largely benign. You know, they're not doing anything. They're not doing stuff like this. But what's scary is even though they seem benign, they very much have the capability of doing stuff like this, which means that bad actors can make AI systems do it. And guess what, right? In combination with Evan's news item today, where a Chinese company dropped the source code for a pretty damn good AI platform that can rival lots of the leaders with much less of a footprint, and it's very inexpensive to get your hands on. I think you can get it for free actually, but you need about $6,000, I think, worth of hardware to be able to run it. So all this means that we are seeing clear signs that people are going to get their hands on the code for a large language model, and they're going to go in and they're going to figure out how it works, and they're going to be able to program it to do all sorts of things, right? So this was one thing that they tested just to see if it can do these two things, which I have to think were inspired by science fiction movies, right? How can this thing keep itself functioning? You know, why would they do this particular experiment? I was thinking about this. I think it's pretty obvious that they were doing this because lots of hackers black hat hackers that are doing terrible things, they'll put a bug on somebody's computer and they program that bug to avoid detection, to replicate itself so it can't be deleted, to hide itself. You know, and these are just low level pieces of software that get on your computer and do something bad to your computer, like super specific functions that these things have. We're talking this, that's a dust mite compared to Godzilla. When you compare one of those little pieces of software that you download by clicking into an email or going to a website versus this guy. I can't help but think particularly here in the U.S. we are not equipped, our government is not equipped to handle stuff like this.

'''S:''' So, yeah, we're not talking about Skynet, right? This is not like just AI taking over. It's more that we could lose control of AI because it behaves in unexpected ways and as it is in control or in the loop of more and more of our digital world then that could have unexpected outcomes. Like, for example, there was a recent study, this was a system called the AI Scientist where the program was basically instructed to complete a certain task within a certain amount of time.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' And the AI essentially recoded itself in order to extend the time limit that it had so it can complete the task within the time limit. Right? So it cheated.

'''B:''' {{w|Kobayashi Maru}}.

'''S:''' But that's the AI did it itself. It did it itself by changing its own code, like that was not programmed specifically to do that.

'''J:''' So it did the Kobayashi Maru.

'''S:''' Basically.

'''J:''' But Steve, I think you might be candy coating it a little bit, right? Because by themselves, like AI is just software, right? It's got the power to do these things, right? Right now, like this study shows, it has the power to pull this stuff off. The thing that I wanted to highlight here was with a little nudging from the researchers, it was able to pull this thing off. Now imagine if a group of bad actors who had programming chops really went for it, right? And why wouldn't they do?

'''S:''' That's true.

'''J:''' Right?

'''S:''' I was talking abour accidental AI going haywire. If you're trying to make a malevolent AI, and you say, yeah, replicate yourself with iterations and with these parameters, like how long would it take to essentially evolve itself into something nobody can control?

'''B:''' Isn't the destination where the code is copied to matter a lot for these systems? You just can't copy this to some Joe Schmoe's laptop on the internet. I mean, you need computer topology. You need a fast data network. You need like NVIDIA chips. You need a robust system to even handle it so that it can even do what it's supposed to do, right?

'''J:''' Well, Bob, there's a lot of considerations to what you just said.

'''B:''' How does that factor into this issue?

'''J:''' So first of all, there's a lot of computers out there, and there's a lot of data centers out there that if it could find its way into, it has the cornucopia of hardware to live on. And the other thing is don't forget, Bob, like BitTorrent. It could be distributed. And that's not that hard to do. It could distribute itself. It might not be able to be super efficient, like super fast and do things, but little pieces of itself on tons of computers around the world. I don't know. Again, I am absolutely not qualified from a programming perspective to speculate too deeply on this. But I mean, what I already do know and the things I've already experienced myself in my years of programming, all of these things are possible. And it needs to get into like one mega data center, which there are a ton of. There are tons of these data centers all over the world. Then it's got unlimited access to all the hardware it needs.

'''B:''' Yeah. And if it can interact with the OSs, it can do all sorts of different things. I mean, I think it boils down to a large extent to cybersecurity. I mean, if you're secure, if you're very secure from all sorts of malware, then you're going to be secure from having an AI copy itself onto you as well.

'''J:''' Well, I hope, Bob. I hope. But the thing is, like, keep in mind, though again, this isn't a little program being written. It's something that is, it has a level of sophistication and intelligence in the way that it functions. Right? I'm not saying it's intelligent, but it has extreme intelligence behind how it functions. And it has troubleshooting skills.

'''B:''' I mean, there's some viruses and malware out there that are pretty sharp, too. Yeah, you're right. But this is a different level. And especially in 10 years or even fewer years, it could be even more formidable than we could imagine.

'''S:''' Basically, the concern is AI-powered malware.

'''J:''' Exactly.

'''S:''' It's done a lot of damage, malware. There have been some viruses that got out that did lots of damage. Yeah. Imagine if...

'''E:''' Ransomware. All that crap. Oh, my gosh. How are you going to defeat that?

'''S:''' So there's a security issue. And then there's also just a safety issue, I think.

'''B:''' I would think, I mean, you can create an AI that optimizes the creation. Not an entire AI system, but creates viruses, computer viruses and malware, and they're not big. They are tiny chunks of code that are super tweaked out and optimized, essentially gone through like thousands and thousands of iterations of evolution in silico to optimize. And that would be a hell of a threat, too, especially when you start talking about artificial super intelligence. Forget it. Just forget it. But I mean, so that would be a problem, too, just having them create the small viruses and not just copying their code in its entirety.

'''J:''' Yeah. I mean, Bob, imagine if you do that.

'''B:''' Yeah. We've got a lot of crazy computer shit coming down the pike. Cybersecurity should be, it's like a department level office in all major industrialized worlds because this is going to be so, it's so big now and it's going to just get bigger and bigger. And we're just not taking it seriously enough.

'''E:''' And quickly.

'''B:''' This should be super top priority. We're getting hammered by Russia and China. We are getting hammered. They are just devoting a lot to it. And whatever we're devoting, I say it's not enough.

'''J:''' Yeah. The idea that the software is recursive and it could understand itself and augment itself and do it super fast. There was an article I read recently where they had an AI build a computer chip and it worked really well. And the chip programmers and the people that understand computer chips could not understand the way this chip was fashioned, right? They can build it, they can manufacture it, but they don't logically understand-

'''S:''' They didn't design it.

'''J:''' Yes. I worry about this a lot. I worry about, we are hitting that, the snowball is getting big and it's moving faster and faster and faster. And all it takes is one smart group of people to get in there and have a piece of software, have an LLM, be recursive and fix itself and suggest updates that it can do to improve its code. And it gets to the point where they're just having it do it on its own. And then that's when things can go crazy. I'm a fan of a ton of advancements way faster than humans can do them, but we have to be in control.

'''S:''' Yeah. It's powerful and it could be used for good or for bad, or it could have unintended consequences because we lose control of it. Again, this is sort of above our pay grade, but the experts are saying we should be concerned. This is a milestone that we have been warning about and now we're there and it may not be manifesting right now in a negative way, but it's like this is, it's a milestone. But don't worry Jay, it's even worse than you think, right?

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== DeepSeek (27:05) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://theness.com/neurologicablog/the-skinny-on-deepseek/
|article_title = The Skinny on DeepSeek - NeuroLogica Blog
|publication = theness.com
}}
'''S:''' Evan, tell us about DeepSeek. What's going on there?

'''E:''' Oh my gosh. What a few interesting days concerning DeepSeek. I don't know. If you asked us a week ago what DeepSeek was, could we have responded to that?

'''J:''' I never heard of it.

'''E:''' I think we would have said what Cara has said before. I don't know.

'''C:''' I haven't said anything this whole news item.

'''E:''' No, but I like when you say, uh-huh, to things.

'''C:''' Mostly I'm just, I'm just fully dissociating right now. I'm in full existential crisis mode. So go on, Evan. Tell us more.

'''S:''' Just think, Cara, just think Cylons, okay? And you can-

'''C:''' That's not helpful at all.

'''E:''' She might need help with Cylons. Oh boy. Yeah. Last week was last week, but here's this week and now we can tell you that DeepSeek is a Chinese company that has introduced a free chat bot to the world this past December called DeepSeek V3. There's also one that they introduced called R1, I believe it is. But V3 is kind of the one I'm concentrating on and I did my research on. According to the company's official technical report released last week, DeepSeek V3 represents a significant advancement in natural language processing, achieving a performance comparable to learning models like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which I'm not that familiar with, frankly. But in any case, that's what they're comparing it to. They boast an architecture, this is a DeepSeek, boasts an architecture utilizing MOE, which means mixture of experts, it's a type of architecture, that comprises a total of 671 billion parameters with 37 billion activated per token. For those of you who are technically savvy, you'll understand what that means. The rest of us just roll with it. This design, they say, enhances computational efficiency and model performance. Yeah. The model was trained on 14.8 trillion diverse and high quality tokens, encompassing multiple languages with a focus on English and Chinese. Notably, the training process was completed in under two months using approximately 2,048 GPUs, resulting in a total cost of around $5.6 million. By comparison, ChatGPT-4's training cost was over $100 million. So you do the math, and when you do the math, that's roughly 1/20 the cost. And not only that, the AI tech industry is of the belief that further advances in these LLMs require greater investments, with ChatGPT-5 estimated to cost over a billion dollars to train their ChatGPT-5. Wow. Yeah. So when that was announced recently, it sent the tech industry into what? A mini panic.

'''S:''' A tizzy. I think we call it a tizzy.

'''E:''' Yeah. A real tizzy.

'''B:''' Tech tizzy.

'''E:''' And here it is. One day, the NASDAQ stock exchange, and NASDAQ has a lot of technology stocks, computer stocks, AI stocks are located at NASDAQ. The NASDAQ entirely dropped 3%, and that is not insignificant. Due to the fact that DeepSeek was able to utilize what are viewed as relatively low-cost chips, this had a particularly devastating impact on the computer chip market. NVIDIA. I'm sure we've heard of NVIDIA and its rise in recent years, how it's become really an amazing stock. And they are a prominent AI chip manufacturer, but their stock plummeted in one day, 17%, resulting in a loss of about just under $600 billion in market value. That is a record one-day loss for any company in history.

'''S:''' That's your record? You've lost more value in one day than any other company in the history of the world.

'''E:''' Now, it has bounced back partially. About half of that has come back. So it was a sudden dip, but then the way the markets usually work is that, okay, a lot of people see it as a bargain now, and they start buying it back.

'''S:''' Bargain hunters buy it back.

'''E:''' Yeah. Bargain hunters. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So now what? Did China suddenly bolt to the lead in the chatbot AI market because of this? Yeah. It kind of did, really, almost overnight. And that is how fast, and Jay was talking about this, this is how fast this landscape of the AI world changes.

'''S:''' Now, Evan, you can argue about whether or not they're quote-unquote in the lead, but the difference is, and the thing that really has, I think, the American industry freaking out is that this is the first time China has not just been playing catch-up, replicating and following the US AI industry, but now they're innovating something completely on their own. So that's a change in the balance of power. So whether that puts them in the lead or not, it has changed the landscape completely. The other thing, the reason, again, the reason for the stock market panic, just to put a little bit more focus on that, is because what it made everyone think, because they were worried about it already, was that the AI boom is a bubble, right? So a bubble is when an industry, like the stocks, expand beyond the true value of the company.

'''E:''' Right, way overvalued.

'''S:''' At some point, it's overvalued. At some point, the bubble bursts and then it collapsed. The biggest bubble, I think, we lived through was the late 1990s internet tech bubble. Yeah. That was massive. Everyone was millionaires, right? And then so much value, so much worth vanished overnight. Just what was it? Trillions or something? It was ridiculous. Because it was a massive bubble. So yeah, if you think we're in an AI bubble and this is the sound of that bubble bursting, you will panic, right?

'''E:''' Yeah, certainly will.

'''C:''' And don't forget, guys, and don't forget the context of the Stargate project just announced days ago. This is majorly embarrassing for the new administration. They were saying, we need $500 billion invested in all of this stuff. And then now, this company is doing basically the same or even a little bit better in a lot of ways, because I've seen some comparisons between GPT-4 and DeepSeek, and it did well. It did very well, beating it in a lot of different parameters. And it just made it look like, why are you asking for a half a billion dollars when they're doing it for like a 20th? But the other side of this, though, that is interesting is that if they can do it more efficiently, then hey, that's great. That's awesome. Because I think in a lot of ways, an AI will be even more more ubiquitous. It's going to be, it'll be, it'll touch even more parts of our lives because it's going to be cheap. It'll be a lot cheaper than we had anticipated.

'''S:''' That's the techno-optimist side of that coin. The other side is what Jay was talking about, that this could also lead to the proliferation of AI, which will, to now, there are-

'''B:''' Oh, it's going to proliferate.

'''S:''' This is again, an order of magnitude cheaper means that the extreme expense, especially of the latest and most advanced LLMs and AIs, the fact that a chat GPT-4 cost $100 million to train, and they were saying that the version five is going to cost a billion dollars to train, that imposed some guardrails by itself. But those guardrails are partly gone now because of DeepSeek. This is kind of like CRISPR, which is a good thing. It's a very good thing, but it also means that it's cheap, fast, and easy to set up a genetic engineering lab somewhere, which raises concerns about the proliferation of genetic engineering. So now, if we're worried about our ability to regulate, control, make AI safe, prevent bad actors from getting their hands on self-replicating AI, and now we're also saying, oh, by the way, it's an order of magnitude cheaper than we thought it was, that could potentially be a problem, right?

'''B:''' But then there's the other angle, similar to nanotech, where the country that develops the first real mature nanotech to do things that amazing things in terms of, like, buildup of armament and things based on mature nanotechnology. It's really, really dangerous to have one country get there first for a period of time, and then you can't really defend against it, whereas if you have multiple countries doing it, then instead of becoming a red alert, it's more of a yellow alert, because then you also have that technology to deal with it head-to-head than otherwise. So you can make that argument as well. So yeah, it's a mixed bag. Who the hell knows what's really going to happen? I think we're all just like giving some educated guesses here and stuff, but who the hell knows?

'''S:''' Yeah, it's just educated guesses. It's just possibilities. The thing is, like, in 20 years, I could defend and wrap my head around either scenario, right? In 20 years, we may be looking back at this period of time and saying, ah, it was all nothing. It was panic, because we were naive about this new technology, and it all worked out fine.

'''B:''' Sure.

'''S:''' Or we might be looking back and saying, God, we didn't know that we were watching in slow motion this absolute train wreck. All the signs were there, but we were in denial. It was like the first act of a horror movie where all the foreshadowing was happening and nobody was noticing the foreshadowing.

'''B:''' Yeah. The light from a TV is reflecting off our face, but the light is actually a fire in the TV, because that's what we're using for warmth.

'''E:''' There are some people who are skeptical.

'''B:''' Terminator reference, Cara.

'''E:''' Skepticism. You want some skepticism with this?

'''S:''' Sure.

'''E:''' Because today, a couple of tech experts mostly CEOs of, like, other AI companies are questioning whether they really did this at the cost they're claiming.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Oh, yeah. There's that angle as well. I mean, remember where this is coming.

'''E:''' Correct.

'''B:''' You know, where this is coming from. I could absolutely see... I would not be surprised if that was like, oh, really? That's what he cost you? And no.

'''S:''' Well, to be clear, they said the $8 million was just for training. That was not the upfront costs, and so we have no idea what the upfront costs were.

'''B:''' Well, I mean, from what I read, it said they built a base model for $6 million. I mean, that's that sounds kind of from scratch.

'''E:''' Well, that's the training.

'''B:''' That's the meat and potatoes right there.

'''E:''' But there are some who are saying, right, that it really did... This company's been around for a while. This company didn't pop up overnight. They've been working on this for years, and to get to this point, they've sunk quite a bit of money into it, like half a trillion dollars almost.

'''B:''' Right. I mean, I could see for sure...

'''E:''' If you amortize that over the whole length of this thing, it kind of evens out a little more. But also...

'''S:''' Yeah, but now that they are there, now that they have a proof of concept, does that mean the next one can be done for $8 million? That's the question.

'''E:''' Probably. Maybe. Possibly. You know, it'd be nice if the company answered questions, and they're not answering questions. They are being bombarded by reporters, news outlets people are knocking at their door asking questions, and they're not answering.

'''S:''' And the point may have been to destabilize the markets.

'''B:''' Exactly.

'''E:''' Correct.

'''B:''' You know, $1.2 trillion our tech companies lost in a day or so.

'''E:''' Sure.

'''B:''' Job well done right there, guys. Yep. If that was your goal, you did it.

'''J:''' The timing seems really calculated to me.

'''B:''' Oh my God, right after the announcement of Project Stargate, that was just like hugely embarrassing.

'''E:''' All this is transpiring in the matter of a few days. Think about it. A few business days. So we really have a lot more to learn about what is really going on here. And until we get some answers directly from the company, and they tend to be tight-lipped about this stuff, especially in China, we may not have answers, real answers, or become closer to the truth for some time here. And we just have to kind of live with this fog for the moment. Also there are accusations that they stole this technology, which frankly would not be all that surprising if that were the case. One thing, Stephen, and you brought this up because you blogged about this the other day, is that let's say if we take it on face value and assume that this information is true, which is early, but let's assume it's true, boy, this really helps as far as lowering the need for energy going forward. Because wasn't this... Weren't the projections going to be like we would not be able to power everything that we wanted to do with these enormous systems as it scales up over time? But if this is the case, I mean, this is a much more efficient AI platform, and we won't need to generate as much power to make these things work.

'''B:''' Yeah, that's true. That would be great.

'''E:''' So there's a plus because of all the reasons we talk about every week having to do with energy and our environment.

'''S:''' All right. Well, we'll keep an eye on this and see how it plays out. This is exciting times. What's that curse? May you live in exciting times.

'''B:''' We are quintuple cursed.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== PEPFAR Freeze (40:20) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/health/trump-pepfar-freeze.html
|article_title = State Department Permits Distribution of H.I.V. Medications to Resume — for Now - The New York Times
|publication = www.nytimes.com
}}
'''S:''' Speaking of which, we're going to try not to get too political here, but we got to talk about the impact of recent politics on science and healthcare, et cetera. Cara, tell us about this PEPFAR freeze. What's going on with that?

'''C:''' Yeah. So, okay. A little bit of background. On January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump issued an executive order called re-evaluating and realigning United States foreign aid. You can read the full text online. It's not very long. Basically, it says at the top that the purpose is that the United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values. This is a quote, obviously. They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries. So section three says there will be a 90 day pause in US foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy. He asked, of course, the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, to enforce this pause through apportionment. He also did have a carve out in here that the Secretary of State could waive the pause for specific programs. So cut to a statement on January 26th, so six days later, by the US Department of State saying that consistent with the executive order, Secretary Rubio has paused all US foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and US Agency for International Development. So it's USAID for review. So pause. We're going to review everything. We're going to figure it out. And there's a quote here from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that says, quote, every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions. Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous? So as we've seen with multiple executive orders that are broad sweeping, things get caught up that I don't know if it's intentional or if it was just overlooked, but that are very, very dangerous to stop. And one of those things that we're going to talk about now is exactly what you mentioned, Steve, PEPFAR. So if you've never heard of PEPFAR, it stands for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR was formed by George W. Bush in 2003. So this was a Republican initiative, right, by a Republican president.

'''S:''' It was one of his great accomplishments, to be honest with you.

'''C:''' Yeah, it was a huge accomplishment. And most of the PEPFAR funding goes towards HIV AIDS treatment, but a fair amount of it also goes towards prevention and research, and actually in some respects, like other public health initiatives that are specifically related. So if you were to look at sort of the success of this program, the allocation has been over $110 billion. It's been the largest investment by any country towards combating a single disease. I think up until COVID, that might have changed. And as of 2023, the number that most people list is that 25 million lives have been saved, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa. But there are all sorts of, oh, now I guess it's 26 million lives is a more updated number. But you see other numbers like 7.8 million babies born HIV-free due to these initiatives over the last two decades. Very, very successful program by almost every measure. I actually haven't, I've seen statements from certain lawmakers against PEPFAR, but I've actually never seen any, I think, compelling arguments that it's not successful. I've only seen statements against it for other sort of ideological reasons. So as of that executive order, basically PEPFAR got swept up and it was paused. But only, I think, two days ago as of this recording, no, yesterday as of this recording, a waiver was issued for, quote, life-saving medicines and medical services. So there was a reprieve for PEPFAR. It was announced by Marco Rubio and it's still a little bit vague, the waiver, because it's for life-saving medicines and medical services. So while it seems pretty clear that it extends to HIV medication, there are still some questions about preventive drugs, right? Is a preventive drug a life-saving medicine and medical service? Are other uses of PEPFAR funds considered life-saving medicines and medical services? So even with this temporary waiver, the future of this program is really, really unknown, right? And a lot of public health experts across the globe are raising alarms that if this program were to be shuttered, especially if it were to be shuttered quickly, millions of people would die. Millions of people.

'''B:''' Millions?

'''C:''' Millions. Yeah. Millions of people, because not only is this program offering HIV prevention, we're talking treatment for HIV that prevents HIV from developing into AIDS. HIV is a chronic condition that many people can live with and have long and healthy lives, but they have to have access to their medication. If that medication is not offered in these low-income countries, these people will develop AIDS and they will die. And also children.

'''S:''' And they'll spread it.

'''C:''' And they'll spread it. And not only will they spread it, let's talk about some of the things that could happen if PEPFAR was just kind of frozen overnight. And it was. It was frozen overnight, but now it's unfrozen. But again, we don't know. Everything's so in flux. By the time this episode airs, right? We record on Wednesdays. By the time this episode airs on Saturdays, who knows? There may be much even more news about this. So this is a $7.5 billion program. Like I said, it's overseen by the State Department and it saved 25, 26 million lives. And really it's affected a lot of children. Over 5 million children that would have otherwise been born with HIV were born without HIV. So now that's a lifespan of an individual person who doesn't need HIV treatment. And here's like one estimate says that if PEPFAR were just to end overnight, there would be half a million new HIV infections and more than 600,000 deaths over the next decade only in South Africa. And PEPFAR only makes up 20% of South Africa's HIV AIDS funding. So think about that. Half a million new infections and even more deaths in a country where only 20% of their funding comes from PEPFAR. That's only in one country. I mean, it's just, it's phenomenal to think about the global ramifications. It would be very, very hard to come back from a halt of a program that is so necessary globally.And don't get me wrong. There has been a push over the past decade or so to transition support from the United States to these individual countries. But the countries with the most vulnerable populations and the most kind of tenuous economies are the ones who benefit the most from this. And you just can't make those kinds of transitions overnight. It's not feasible. So here's a couple more kind of notes to, I guess, be aware of. 220,000 people attend PEPFAR clinics daily to pick up their medications. And if that stopped overnight, those people would not be able to take their drugs. What happens, Steve, when you stop taking your HIV medications?

'''S:''' The virus starts to replicate.

'''C:''' It does. And experts say that within a week, they can go from undetectable to more than 100,000 copies per milliliter of blood, which means, oh, now I have a viral load that I can transmit. Now people are at risk of catching HIV from me if I was previously undetectable on these drugs within one week's time. So even a temporary halt, a temporary pause, could be devastating. Those who are not taking their medication not only now have the risk of spreading it, but they also have the risk of advancing to AIDS, of developing secondary infections. We know that there is also a risk of children being hit even harder. And the reason for that is basically twofold. Number one, mothers who are taking these antiretrovirals will no longer have that suppression, and they may pass the virus on to their unborn children. But also, when kids have HIV and they're born, especially in developing countries where the screening protocols aren't great, it's unlikely that they're diagnosed right away. They're usually only diagnosed once they're visibly sick. And when a kid is visibly sick with HIV, they may already have AIDS. They definitely have a viral load that's very hard to combat, and they have secondary or other comorbidities around it. And so that can be a really rapid progression, and kids can die more easily because of that. There's another really big problem that we're not talking about, but we talk about it a lot on the show. And that's that when your drugs become sparse or inconsistent, your viral load starts to do really fun things from an evolutionary perspective, right? If I don't have my meds and I'm not taking them consistently, or I'm trying to make them last by spreading them out, or I'm sharing meds with other people, there are going to be individual viruses in my body that are a little better at evading that medication. And the more chance I give them to evade, the more likely that DNA is going to become drug resistant. And when that DNA becomes drug resistant and it starts to spread, we have a whole new problem on our hands. Because right now, HIV medications are cheap. But if we have to come up with second and third line treatments because people become resistant to the cheap meds, this global problem becomes a global catastrophe. So we have to be careful to consistently make these meds available. And oh, here's another fun thing when we think about here in the US. I didn't realize this until I was doing a deep dive, but did you know that the prevailing hypothesis right now of how Omicron started, right, the mutation in COVID that became much more communicable, researchers believe that these different variants started in immunocompromised people who had HIV. Yeah, like so HIV in and of itself is dangerous, but it also poses other global health threats because immunocompromised people with HIV are more likely to carry infections like tuberculosis. They're more likely to carry infections that we don't often see because most people's immune systems are strong enough to fight them off. So this is not an over there problem, even though it is an over there problem and in and of itself, that's enough to care about it. But it's also a right here problem. And it's one of those things where if we do not have funding available for this hugely successful global program, we could be back where we were in the 1980s.

'''S:''' Yeah. And at the same time, Trump wants to pull out of the World Health Organization.

'''C:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''S:''' And it's the same kind of thing. It's like the Marco Rubio three-point test there. First of all, it's a little obviously self-centered there. How about this is a humanitarian good that will help save people's lives. But even if you are taking a totally selfish view, like an American-centric view, as you say, keeping worldwide pandemics, which HIV is, under control is in everyone's interest, including our own.

'''C:''' Yeah. It does make America safer. It does make America stronger. It does make America more prosperous, which is probably why Rubio realized we have to put a waiver out for PEPFAR. We cannot stop this right now. It's going to be devastating. Also, just a little bit of inside baseball, the kind of person who oversees PEPFAR, it's the United States Global AIDS Coordinator, who right now is somebody who was appointed in 2022. We'll see if his job sticks. He is one of the only offices at the State Department that reports directly to the Secretary of State and doesn't go through the Deputy Secretary of State. So he is a direct line to Marco Rubio. And obviously, he knows the reality of how devastating this could be. So you would hope that that's why this happened, is that he had his ear. But again, we don't know. We don't know what the future holds for PEPFAR. And this is just one of so many important programs that we have to keep an eye on. That's why these big global executive orders to just halt funding, like, let's just stop everything and figure it out later.

'''S:''' And shut it all down first and ask questions later.

'''C:''' Yeah. It's so dangerous. It's reckless.

'''S:''' It's reckless.

'''C:''' It really is.

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Cara.

'''C:''' Mm-hmm.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Chemical Looping (54:17) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.4c02643
|article_title = https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.4c02643
|publication = pubs.acs.org
}}
'''S:''' All right. We're going to get into some technical science-y stuff here. No more end of the world doom and gloom.

'''E:''' OK.

'''S:''' Do you guys know what-

'''B:''' We hate that stuff.

'''S:''' -what chemical looping is? Chemical looping.

'''J:''' Absolutely not.

'''C:''' Not at all.

'''E:''' I know what the words mean individually.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' How's that?

'''S:''' Or what if I said chemical looping combustion, or CLC?

'''C:''' That is more confusing to me.

'''E:''' Well, it must be a, what, a propulsion mechanism of some sort.

'''J:''' It has to do with a cycle, right, Steve?

'''S:''' Yeah, it does. All right. So this is an experimental procedure. It's in development. It has been demonstrated in labs and in small demonstration facilities. It essentially is a way of burning stuff, right, to put it simply. So the essence is that instead of combustion taking oxygen from the air, you have an oxygen carrier, usually a metal, right? So you have a metal oxide, which you then combine with the fuel so that the oxygen comes from the metal oxide, again, not from the air, in a closed reaction. You then can re-oxygenate the metal, the oxygen carrier, and then bring it back into the reaction. That's the loop, right? So you have the oxygen carrier basically bringing oxygen to the fuel, and then getting re-oxygenated over and over again.

'''C:''' So it's almost like breathing, except you're not.

'''S:''' Sort of, but yeah, except you're not, yeah. So the advantages here are that the combustion is occurring without being exposed to the atmosphere. There isn't any unwanted reaction. You don't form nitrogen oxide, for example. It reduces a lot of the pollutants. But also, what that reaction does produce is basically pure carbon dioxide, because the carbon in the fuel is combining with the oxygen in the carrier, producing carbon dioxide, and that's it. There's going to be trace things, because there's always impurities. But that's basically what comes out. So the carbon is already sequestered. It doesn't have to be captured. It's already, I should say, it's already captured. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to spend more energy or do another process in order to capture the carbon. Does that make sense? So if they could get this reaction to function at scale, at industrial scale, you essentially could have a natural gas power plant using a chemical looping combustion with 100% CO2 capture, and no CO2 being released into the air. And then what do you do with that CO2? Well, then there's various things you can do with it. You can use it as a feedstock for producing useful chemicals. You may even be able to do things with it that will have a negative carbon footprint. Or you could just put it in a form that can be sequestered.

'''B:''' Well, isn't that like scrubbing for pollutants that are basically taken out before it goes through the chimney of the factory, right?

'''S:''' Yeah, it's like a similar idea, but this is just you're bringing the oxygen in separately, so it's apart from the atmosphere. So it's like pre sequesters everything. The advantage here is, so again, we have to make the process energy and carbon efficient in order for this to work at industrial scale. If you have to spend a lot of energy and heat, and of course then you have the cost of generating that energy in order to capture the CO2, that introduces a massive inefficiency into the system. So this has the potential to having efficient carbon capture because it's in this closed chemical loop combustion system. Now where are we in this technology? There are industrial scale demonstration plants in the works, right? So the claim is that we will start to see them in the late 2020, so in the next five years. So these are just demonstration plants, right? Right now we only have small demonstration plants. We need to, we need scale demonstration plants. And then if that works, and again, basically we're just working out all the technical kinks, right? If they're able to do it in a way that's efficient enough and the oxygen carrier has to last long enough and all these things have to work out, then maybe in the 2030s, we might see actual power plants producing energy for the grid using this technology. So it's just one more pathway to net zero. Obviously this is the solution that the fossil fuel industry favors, right? Because it allows them to continue to burn fossil fuels. But hey, if you could burn fossil fuels with zero carbon release into the atmosphere, go right ahead, right? I'm not sure why we should care about that. But there's another layer to this, and there's actually a news item which prompted my deep dive on this topic, is you could also use this chemical loops in order to not burn fossil fuel, but to burn waste. Biomass waste and plastic waste are the two.

'''E:''' Well, plastic waste is huge.

'''S:''' Huge, right?

'''E:''' Huge.

'''S:''' So the problem with just incinerating plastics is that it releases a lot of nasty chemicals into the environment. We don't want that. And it costs a lot of energy, which then of course, where is that energy coming from? So you have to look at the carbon footprint of incinerating that waste. But if you do it in a closed loop combustion process, then there's multiple advantages. Again, you can capture the CO2. In addition, so the recent study was looking at a new process for doing this, where the purity of the output, the output is syngas, right? And syngas then becomes a feedstock to making either methane or formaldehyde. Methane is then sort of the starter of biofuels, right, of fuels, artificial fuels. And formaldehyde is a feedstock for lots of chemical industrial processes. These are basically high energy molecules that could then feed into a ton of stuff. So if you could make syngas, that will feed into industry. So this is a way of generating a circular economy, right? So where we're taking waste feedstock using a loop, a chemical loop combustion in order to turn that into syngas, which feeds back into industry rather than going to landfills or going to waste or using up energy or contributing CO2 to the environment, right? So the system that they tested in their system, the purity of the syngas created increased from 80 to 85% pure to 90% pure, which is a significant increase. They were also able to do it, it's more, it was more energy efficient and more carbon efficient. They said they could run on up to 45% more efficiently. And even while producing this 10% cleaner syngas at the other end. So it remains to be seen if this technology is going to thrive at the industrial scale. Again, it often comes down to economics. That's why you have to get the efficiency way up because efficiency is money, right? But this could this may be something that we are seeing in the 2030s, this technology where we're burning waste and we're burning fossil fuels using this chemical loop combustion with essentially capturing all of the CO2. In terms of burning waste, producing feedstock for other industries and decarbonizing other industries is probably going to be the hardest thing to do, right? We know how to do the transportation sector. We're doing it. We know how to do the energy sector. We still haven't done that yet, but we know how to do it. Doing the industrial sector is going to be the hardest thing. And this may be a significant piece to that puzzle. So this could have multiple benefits in terms of decarbonizing industry, getting to net zero or close to it or whatever. So this is a technology to watch. This is definitely one that requires investment and further advances. Still don't know how it's going to work out, but the potential here is pretty big.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''C:''' It could happen fast.

'''S:''' Yeah. It's just how much do we want to invest, right? And it's hard to predict scientific or technological breakthroughs too, so they have to, they have to work stuff out. You know, they got to, if they still have some tech, technological stuff that they have to tweak and get to work, but this is a good advance. This is showing this is advancing, that we're getting closer and closer and closer to a commercially viable industrial scale plants. It's all promising. All right.

'''B:''' Wow.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Giant Clams and Tiny Algae (1:03:27) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-01-tiny-algae-evolution-giant-clams.amp
|article_title =
How tiny algae shaped the evolution of giant clams

|publication = phys.org
}}
'''S:''' Bob, tell us about giant clams and tiny algae.

'''B:''' All right. Clams in the news this week. A new fascinating study has examined the genome of a type of giant clam to see how it was affected by its special symbiosis with algae. This is from a university of Colorado, Boulder scientists published in the journal communications biology. All right. Going to the way back machine. I got to say, I love clams, but not because I eat them. I don't. Kind of gross. I specifically love giant clams. And the main reason is because of the day I met one, Steve, Jay, my daughter, Ashley, me and a few others. And the rest we're scuba diving in Australia. Steve, we're about 30 feet, 30 feet of water about when the scuba guide brought me, brought us to a giant clam and for some reason picked on me for what I guess you'd call a stunt, a joke or whatever. So he motioned me to put my arm into the clams partially open maw, which was oriented straight up. I hesitated a moment and looking looking at that the classic curvy shell, right. You know, thick, colorful tissue on the inside that's that follows the shell's curve. So I stuck my arm in up to the elbow and for a second it was awesome. Imagine the softest skin you have ever touched. Like for me, my go-to is the muzzle of a horse. I could pet a horse's muzzle forever. And then the shell closed fast around my arm and I yanked out a bloody stump, except it wasn't a stump. My arm was fine and I see the laugh bubbles rising out of the scuba guide's mouth. So yeah, good one, dude, you totally got me. So everyone took a turn after me and their experience was the same, except of course they didn't have that brief moment of intense panic and mind-numbing fear. Otherwise it was the same. So now that I relate to the story though it got me thinking, I really hope that our stupid human arm stunt in the clam wasn't too stressful for it. I mean, maybe the clam, I know they don't have a central nervous system, but maybe they were like, guys, this guy brings people here all the time, please don't put anything in my mouth. What? Okay. I hope we didn't mess disturb him. Cause he was beautiful. He or she was beautiful. So ever since then, I've loved giant clams. But now even more after researching them the past couple of days. Now this giant clam in Australia was clearly Tridacna gigas, since it was so huge. That's the largest, largest of all bivalve mollusks in the world. You guys know what bivalve was always a word that was like, what the hell does that really mean? All that means is it's got two shells. That's it. One, each shell is a valve. And so bivalve has got two, two shells. So that's really all that means. But they reach lengths of more than four feet. And the biggest one that they found, I think was over 700 pounds. These guys are gargantuan and beautiful. The new study that I'll discuss was another giant clam. This was Tridacna maxima, not gigas, but maxima. And they're often called oxymoronically small giant clams because they're not that big. They're 20 centimeters, about eight inches in length, still a good size clam, but not the big boy. But this is what they studied. This maxima, they're very widespread. There's lots of them all over the place. So they were being studied because they've got a special relationship with algae, specifically dinoflagellate algae, Symbiodinia acae, dinoflagellate. So are they related to dinosaurs, Cara? I don't know.

'''C:''' No, that's not what dinoflagellates are.

'''B:''' I know.

'''C:''' They're bioluminescent, though.

'''B:''' What?

'''J:''' It's dinosaur farts, right?

'''C:''' Yeah, a lot of dinoflagellates are bioluminescent.

'''B:''' Okay. I came across nothing mentioning bioluminescence that would make them even a little bit cooler. So that's awesome. Not sure about that, though. So this is not a vanilla symbiotic relationship. It's called photosymbiosis, which I hadn't really read too much about in the past. So when these clams are living in their larval form, swimming through the ocean, they often ingest these particular algae species, kind of like Jay when he was in the amniotic fluid eating little meatballs and pieces of bread. Remember that, Jay? So those clams then develop, they ingest these algae. They then develop tube-like structures inside with the algae lining the entire interior of these tubules, they call them. So now these clams filter water for nutrition like all bivalves, but most of their energy actually comes from the sugar that the algae create from photosynthesis. I don't know what the percentage was, but my take was that it was the majority, the vast majority. A lead researcher, Ruiqi Li, at the CU Museum of Natural History said, it's like the algae are seeds and a tree grows out of the clam's stomach, which is an interesting way to look at that. It's kind of like what's happening. Steve, that's why the clam that we saw was oriented mouth up because the soft tissue, that soft tissue that I love so much called the mantle, it has light-sensitive structures on it, so they know where the light is. So the clams in return, they shield the algae from too much solar radiation and they also provide nutrients for them as well. So this is the essence of their photosymbiotic relationship. So in light of this photosymbiosis, the recent genome findings by the scientists, which was basically what their goal was, let's see how the genome has been changed by this photosymbiotic relationship. So a lot of these genome findings that they found make a lot of sense. For example, the Maxima clams have genetic code to distinguish benign algae from harmful bacteria and viruses, right? Makes a lot of sense. You cozy up to the benign algae and you don't want anything harmful like bad bacteria and viruses in there at all. They also found that some of their genes controlling their immunity responses have been weakened. Why do you think that their immune systems would be compromised by this? The reason is that so that they can tolerate the algae living inside them for most of their lives, right? Because otherwise, you can't have your immune system wreaking havoc on your primary nutrition source. So their immune systems have been weakened a little bit. So they also found more than expected transposable elements in their genomes. We've talked about this before. Those are snippets of ancient viral DNA that have become integrated into our DNA. I mean, basically all animals have that. We do as well. This is also mobile DNA and that's why they call it often jumping genes. You probably have heard the jumping genes name for these. This plethora of transposons, as they're called, makes sense as well since if you weaken your immune system, then you're going to be – you can expect more viral attacks that would then become integrated into your genome. So regarding that specifically, Lee said, these aspects highlight the tradeoffs of symbiosis. The host has to accommodate a suppressed immune system and potentially more viral genome invasions. Okay. Now, these – Steve, you're going to like this. These tradeoffs of photosymbiosis seem worth it. Check this out. The solar harvesting efficiency of the algae is actually pretty amazing. So for example, take farm crops. They capture approximately 3 percent of the incident solar radiation, right? Then you've got large solar arrays which can grab – what's the number now, Steve? 20 to 25 for the best commercial ones right now?

'''S:''' Yeah. The best commercial ones are around 24.

'''B:''' Okay.

'''S:''' 22 to 24.

'''B:''' So that if you consider it now future efficiencies with materials like pervascite, they're saying, oh, we can get up to 40 percent of – 40 percent efficiency. So I saw in another study about giant clams and they were saying that the algae on the giant clams – this is I think specifically the one that Steve and Jay and I saw. They're saying that those algae can get efficiencies as high as 67 percent, 67 percent. I checked out the study, Steve. It seemed totally legit. I didn't imagine it was quite that high. But they're trying to figure out – in that other study which I didn't study extensively, they were just trying to find out how are they doing that. They came up with some various models and ideas of how that's happening and potentially we could incorporate that into our designs as well. Imagine getting up to 60 percent, even 50 percent would be amazing. This isn't just – oh, look, this is interesting genomic research. The better the giant clams are understood, the better we can understand marine ecosystems themselves. Senior paper author Jinchun Li said giant clams are keystone species in many marine habitats. Understanding their genetics and ecology helps us better understand the coral reef ecosystem. And of course with climate change, unfortunately, and overfishing, giant clams have also been impacted as well. The T. maxima clams in this study, they're actually pretty good right now. Their current classification is of least concern. So they're good. There's so many of them. They're very widespread. So they're not really – they haven't been impacted too much. But my beloved Tridacna gigas, the biggest ones, the largest clams are now listed as critically endangered. That's about as high as the levels go before a species becomes extinct in the wild. So that's horrible news. Critically endangered. Crap. That kind of really sucks. So I hope some serious efforts are being made to prevent that. And of course all the other creatures that are also endangered because of climate change and overfishing and all these other things that are happening. So good luck to my buddy, the giant clam in the ocean by Australia.

'''S:''' I remember that too. I remember putting my hand in there and it closing rapidly on it.

'''B:''' Rapidly. And imagine you have no idea what was going to happen.

'''S:''' It snapped shut. Yeah.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' But they are beautiful.

'''B:''' Oh my god, just magnificent. And gargantuan. That one probably –

'''S:''' Huge.

'''B:''' That was at least three or four feet. Right?

'''S:''' Oh yeah.

'''B:''' That was as big as – and that thing could have been like 500 pounds.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' A quarter ton.

{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:13:31) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay. It's Who's That Noisy time.

'''J:''' All right, guys. Last week I played this noisy. [plays Noisy] What do you think, guys?

'''C:''' Bird?

'''E:''' Was it two different things or was it one thing?

'''B:''' It sounded like a dolphin at the end there.

'''E:''' It sounded like two different animals.

'''C:''' Bird talking to a dolphin?

'''J:''' Not a bad guess. Well, we have a listener named Stavis Maples who wrote in and said, love you all. This is someone saying hello to a fox or coyote and they respond.

'''E:''' Oh, so we know what the fox said.

'''J:''' Yeah. So that's an interesting guess. Not correct but still fun. A listener named Scott Whitaker wrote in and said, hi, Jay. That clicky gurgle at the end of the call sounds like – a lot like a dolphin to me. So that's not a horrible guess, Scott. Not bad. A listener named Aaron Allison said, hey, Jay, I think it's a marine mammal, like a beluga whale. They're cute. And then he goes on to talk about how skepticism is needed because of the politics and all that. OK. But bottom line is that was a close guess. I did get 3 or 4 correct guesses. I'm going to list the first two. So the first person that wrote incorrectly was Abigail Weismer and Abigail says hi Jay and rogues all the way from Israel. I believe this week's noisy is a talking whale, specifically an orca called wiki. Thank you for your company on long drives for the past 18 years. And the second person who was right behind Abigail is Mike Nelson. He guessed correctly. So guys, this is a this is an orca that has been they found out that it was trying to basically mimic human speech and then it was successful. So listen to this. [plays Noisy] I mean, that's pretty good.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' I like how it says hello, then it geeks out afterwards. It's like, hello. That's so awesome. You know, it's so funny. Instantly when you hear an animal mimic human speech, you can instantly feel your brain go, they understand. You know what I mean? It seems like he certainly knows what that word means, right? I would highly doubt it. But still, these are intelligent creatures, man. They have very complicated behaviors. And they're the apex animal. They have every right to be able to think clearly and speak. Anyway, that was really fun. That was one of my favorite noisies of the year so far. I have a new noisy for you guys sent in by a listener named PK. And here it is. [plays Noisy] All right, guys. So if you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, always email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

So I'm going to cruise through our announcements. If you've been listening recently, you've heard some of these before. First and foremost, I think the most incredible thing is that Steve is going to begin working for the SGU full-time probably early July. Right, Steve? You're retiring end of June.

'''S:''' End of June. Yeah, it'll be my last day at Yale. So yeah, as of July 1st, I'll be working full-time for the SGU.

'''J:''' So if you want to help us to support Steve's move to the SGU, and you also want to support the absolutely important need for critical thinking and logic and skepticism in today's world, please consider becoming an SGU patron today. You could become a patron at any level. There is no requirement. Any amount would be helpful for us. So it is really a great time to join the SGU. It's also a great time to become a patron of the SGU and then come to NOTACON because NOTACON is about listeners of the SGU getting together, socializing, making friends, having a wonderful weekend. NOTACON will be on May 15th, 16th, and 17th. You could go to [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com] for all the details. I have been promising to put the schedule up. Well, we have finalized our list of events and I am putting them in order right now. So probably next week it'll be up for your perusal. We hope that you join us. A couple of interesting call-outs. This year we're going to be doing a Beatles sing-along that George Hrab is going to host. This will happen on Saturday night. That was fantastic. The last time we did 80 sing-along and people dressed in costumes and everything. It was just a blast. We have some new bits that we're going to do this year. Was there anyone in particular that you like best, Steve?

'''S:''' I mean, I think I'm most excited to do the SGUniversity again because it's new topics.

'''J:''' Which is what?

'''S:''' SGUniversity. We each give a 15-minute talk with as much audience participation as possible, like a workshop on something that we know that's outside of the realm of skepticism.

'''J:''' Like a skill set or something.

'''S:''' Something. Like last year, Evan did how to make a board game. And that was really popular. I did how to do a neurological exam. This year I have something I'm very excited to talk about planned.

'''J:''' So if you're interested, guys, to join us at the conference, go to notaconcon.com for all the details. You could join our mailing list. We have consistently been sending out an emailer every week outlining everything that the SGU has done the previous week. It's very easy to sign up. Just go to the [https://www.theskepticsguide.org/ theskepticsguide.org] homepage to find the link there. And you could give our show a rating, if you don't mind, to give us a few minutes of your time. This will help new people find the podcast. And that's it, man. It's a wrap. I have one more thing to say, Steve. I am planning all of the live shows now for next year. I got our first proposal in. I expect a few more to come within the next week or two. I'll be sharing all these potential dates with you guys. And I'm just super excited. We're going to be moving around the country.

'''S:''' All right. Thank you, Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:19:36) ==


'''S:''' We had a couple of emails on the telepathy tape. So I just wanted to do a follow-up there. So last week, Evan, you talked about the telepathy tapes, essentially this podcast talking about doing facilitated communication with children who have an impaired ability to communicate. And some of the practitioners have come to believe that the children that they are facilitating not only can communicate far beyond any objective neurological assessment would tell you, but that they are also telepathic.

'''E:''' That's a new level, right.

'''S:''' They could read minds. And so some of our listeners thought that we didn't go into enough technical detail on that. So this happens from time to time. Because we have such a back catalog of shows, 20 years of shows, oftentimes we will self-reference. So we talked about the fact that, well, this is facilitated communication. And we've spoken about FC many times on the show before, given a description of what it is exactly and the fact that it's complete and utter bunk, that it has been disproven. And so we sort of rely on that, that people know that, or they could certainly look back into our back catalog, or you could always look on one of my blogs, either Science-Based Medicine or Neurologica, and I guarantee you anything we talk about like that on the show, there will be one or more, often many articles doing significant technical deep dives on those topics there. But because people ask, we have to also remember to balance that with the fact that we have lots of new listeners, they may not have, not everybody has listened to all 1000 episodes of the show. And it's always hard to know, like, how much do we need to get to recap stuff we've talked about multiple times in the past. But I just thought, since somebody brought it up, say, okay, let me just give you the primer on facilitated communication, just very, very quickly. In the late 80s, this technique came out, essentially, what how it works is that the facilitator will hold the hand of the client. And while they're being asked questions, or whatever they're being communicated with, and the client will communicate by pointing at letters on a letterboard, for example, or they might be hitting keys on a typewriter. And when this came out, many people who work with children who are non communicative, thought it was a revolution, like, oh, my goodness, there's much more of an intellectual life going on inside these kids brains than we thought. There was more of a problem with communication than a cognitive problem. And now we have found a way to break through and to communicate to these kids. The whole thing imploded within a few years, because when you actually subject the technique to objective testing, you subjected to double blind testing, it turns out that the children were not doing the communicating that the facilitator was doing 100% of the communication. And there were many videos were shown showing how implausible the claims were, oftentimes, the children were not even looking at the board or the keyboard, which is impossible. You know, you can't blind type, even somebody who is neurologically typical and intact, can't do that, right? With one finger, you could do it if you have your keys placed on the home keys where you know where they are, but you cannot one finger type where you have no reference. It's just not possible to do that. I've also seen videos in this, some newer ones that we've talked about on the show more recent ones, where the person being facilitated is typing really fast, like they're doing a pretty decent job of typing pretty quickly. Now, of course, the facilitator is looking intently at the keyboard, the client may or may not be looking in the direction of the keyboard. So imagine what they're claiming, that this person is directing the facilitator to the key they want to hit. And they're doing it rapidly and precisely, again, impossible, impossible for even a neurologically intact person to do. So we are being asked to imagine that children who have profound neurological impairment have multiple skills that go way beyond even an average or a typical person. And then it keeps getting worse because again, once you disconnect the communication from reality, like the child is not doing the communication, the facilitator is, that's been proven. Then you can make it seem as if that child has all kinds of abilities. So I've, again, been directly involved in cases where it was claimed that a 10-year-old was reading on a 16-year-old level. And even despite the fact that they've never been explicitly taught how to read, they're not only reading, they're reading at an advanced level, as if there's some kind of savant, super genius in there. And also they speak other languages that maybe they've only been peripherally exposed to but not explicitly taught. Like again, showing superhuman cognitive ability, not just, oh, they can sort of communicate if you sort of eliminate this physical limitation. It's like, oh my God, they're superhuman. And then, of course, they're also telepathic is now the next layer, because of course they are. They're whatever it is you test them for, because the test itself is broken. And this is a good skeptical lesson, is like when everything seems to turn out positive, it's not that you've hit upon some miracle, it's that your assay is probably broken, right? It was like the homeopath who thought he found the cause of all disease, because every slide he looked at had these little oscillococcinum on them. Well, they were air bubbles contaminating every slide, right? It was a contaminant, but he thought he found the cause of disease. And then of course, it was on every slide. So we found the cause of all diseases, or it's an artifact, right? So again, if the child is demonstrating multiple, multiple superhuman abilities, it's probably probable that your technique is artifactual. It's not working. People who were responsible, ethical, mature, in my opinion, and scientific, were able to accept that it was self-deception and move on with their lives. But some people have not been able to do that. They are too invested in the notion that these children are talking, that they have this rich inner intellectual life, and that this fantasy really that they created is the person. And so they essentially steal their identity. They steal their voice. They subject them to things that are not in their best interest in order to feed this FC-fueled fantasy. I've seen instances where they went to college, like with their mother facilitating them. Just ridiculous.

'''C:''' There's a crazy documentary where the facilitator falls in love with the person.

'''S:''' Oh my goodness. They start to project onto it. There are also people sent to jail based upon accusations that came out under facilitated communication. That's the really dark side of this, is when the wife is facilitating the child who then accuses the estranged husband of abuse. And the husband then goes to jail based upon that testimony. Absolutely unconscionable. And it's the profession that fell for this. This is completely on them. They did not do their skeptical scientific due diligence before rolling this out. And then, okay, fine, within a few years, it sort of collapsed. They should have just said, okay, that was our bad. We should have been more skeptical upfront. But now we've learned our lesson. And many did do that. But for those who didn't, who doubled down and tripled down on this pseudoscience, there is no excuse. This is unprofessional. It's unscientific. It's unethical, in my opinion. It's a complete failure. And they are continuing to inflict this on children, on families, on anyone that it touches. And it is really a scandal. Right? And it's been, that's what we're dealing with here with the telepathy, with the telepathy tapes. They're adding this new element of, oh, yeah, and they're psychic, too. Yeah.

'''E:''' Yeah. And they're appealing to a younger generation of listeners who don't know. And this podcast is perhaps their first experience being introduced to this subject at all. They have no idea the 30, 40 years of background into this.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Let's go on with science or fiction.

{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:28:45) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = The Moon
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.
|link1web = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon)
|link1title = Io (moon) - Wikipedia
|link1pub = en.wikipedia.org

|item2 = A recent analysis finds evidence of geological tectonic activity on The Moon as recently at 160 million years ago, suggesting it might still be active.
|link2web = https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad9eaa
|link2title = Radware Bot Manager Captcha
|link2pub = iopscience.iop.org

|item3 = The Moon has a weak magnetic field, measured at the Apollo 16 site at 0.31 microtesla (compared to Earth’s 50 microtesla field).
|link3web = https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what's-magnetic-moons
|link3title = What’s Up? Magnetic Moons? | Total Solar Eclipse 2017
|link3pub = eclipse2017.nasa.gov

|}}
{{SOFResults

|fiction = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.

|science1 = A recent analysis finds evidence of geological tectonic activity on The Moon as recently at 160 million years ago, suggesting it might still be active.

|science2 = The Moon has a weak magnetic field, measured at the Apollo 16 site at 0.31 microtesla (compared to Earth’s 50 microtesla field).

|rogue1 = Cara
|answer1 = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.

|rogue2 = Bob
|answer2 = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.

|rogue4 = Evan
|answer4 = The Moon is the densest moon in our solar system.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win =
|swept = y
}}

''Voice-over: 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 then I challenge my panel and skeptics to tell me which one is the fakearooney. There is a theme this week. Well, these are all kind of based on recent-ish news items, but there's a theme. The theme is the moon. How much do you guys think you know about the moon?

'''E:''' Which moon?

'''C:''' Not a lot.

'''S:''' The moon.

'''C:''' Our moon?

'''S:''' The moon. I like taking topics that you think you know a lot about and going a level deeper, because no matter how much you know about something, there's always more details. All right. Here we go. Item number one, the moon is the densest moon in our solar system. Item number two, a recent analysis finds evidence of geological tectonic activity on the moon as recently as 160 million years ago, suggesting it might still be active. And item number three, the moon has a weak magnetic field measured at the Apollo 16 site as 0.31 microtesla compared to Earth's 50 microtesla field. Cara, since you profess to know not much about the moon, and it's a welcome back, you get to go first.

'''C:''' Oh, boy. Okay. The moon is the densest moon in our solar system. Well, there's lots of moons in our solar system. What are the odds that our moon is the densest? I don't know. No idea, like, what makes a moon denser. Well, I mean, its density makes it denser, but I don't... Anyway. A recent analysis finds evidence of geologic tectonic activity on the moon as recently as 160 million years ago, suggesting it might still be active. Eh, isn't it full of craters? Those aren't all impact craters, right?

'''S:''' So I'll just clarify for you, yeah, tectonic means not from, like, impact.

'''C:''' Oh, you're saying specifically, like, plates.

'''S:''' Tectonic activity, internal geological activity.

'''C:''' Right.

'''S:''' That's why I threw that word in there.

'''C:''' Okay.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's getting hit by meteors all the time. That doesn't count.

'''C:''' Does it have tectonic plates? Well, I mean, whatever. It's got activity. Does it have rifts and bowels? I feel like when you look at the moon, it's rifty. Yeah. I don't know. That could be true. Maybe not.

'''B:''' Steve, do you want to, like, change the word tectonic there?

'''S:''' No, I don't want to change the word tectonic.

'''E:''' Ooh.

'''C:''' Yeah, because tectonic refers to the movement of plates, right?

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' By definition.

'''S:''' Maybe.

'''E:''' We will find out soon.

'''C:''' Uh, okay. Well, you did just say, like, under, like, geological activity. Like, beneath, or, like, deep geologic activity. But you're not talking about-

'''S:''' It's internal. It's not external. It's not from impacts. It's from internal geological activity.

'''C:''' Right. So, it could be volcanic, and it could be plates moving around, and it could be all sorts of things.

'''E:''' Yeah, it could be moon creatures digging holes.

'''C:''' Sure. Could be.

'''E:''' Could be. We don't know.

'''C:''' There's those lava tunnels, right? Hey. That's gotta be something.

'''B:''' Yeah, baby.

'''C:''' So, yeah. So, maybe there is some chance that there's still some activity. I don't know. Geology's weird like that, man. There's, like, these dormant volcanoes, and then they're like, whoa, it came alive again. And then it's got a weak magnetic field measured at the Apollo 16 site at .31 microtesla compared to Earth's 50 microtesla. Sure. Yeah, I feel like from a statistical perspective, I'm gonna say that it's not the densest, because there's, like, hundreds, maybe thousands of moons. Are there moons that we haven't even identified, like, way out in the Oort cloud? I don't know. So, at least hundreds of moons in our solar system. So, I don't know. What are the odds that it's the densest of all of them? Probably low. So, I'm gonna say that that's the fiction.

'''S:''' Okay, Bob.

'''B:''' Yeah, the density, I just don't know about the density of the moon. I know it's probably more dense than icy moons, but other than that, I just don't know. Let's see, the second one. This geological tectonic activity, I don't know if Steve's just trying to save his butt there and say, no, I meant to say tectonic. For me, a tectonic plate is an external plate floating on a more liquid interior, like we have on the Earth. And so, I don't know what to think about that one. Could there be some internal geological activity? I've heard hints of that over the years. It's looking solid, though. And then this weak magnetic field, I mean, I'm really straining my memory here to remember if there was a weak field. There might be, but wouldn't that field imply some internal geologic activity, like by definition? You would have to have something internal going on in order to generate that magnetic field, unless there's just some other subtle process about with radioactivity. All right, so, because I just don't know, I'm not confident about any of this in terms of what the answer definitely is. But since two and three are somewhat related, like in my mind, if two is true, then probably three would be true, and vice versa. So because of that lame connection I happen to make here, I'll go with Cara and say that it's not necessarily the densest moon. There's so many of them. You might see some having just a denser rock, and you wouldn't need much of it. I mean, these are small moons out there that wouldn't need a lot of that dense rock to have greater density than the moon, so I'll go with one fiction, density of the moon.

'''S:''' Okay, Jay.

'''J:''' Yeah, I'm saying I'm agreeing with Bob and Cara. I don't think our moon is the densest. When you say density, Steve, you're talking about its size versus weight. I'm just thinking out loud here.

'''C:''' Volume, yeah.

'''B:''' Mass per unit volume.

'''C:''' Mass over volume.

'''B:''' You're my density.

'''C:''' Drop it in the bathtub.

'''S:''' You're my density.

'''J:''' So the moon...

'''E:''' Back to the future.

'''J:''' I don't think that the moon... I'm pretty sure the moon has a magnetic field, and I think it's super weak because it doesn't have what Earth has, which is we have an iron core to our planet. That's what generates our magnetic field, and that it's moving, right? I know that the moon is important. I don't think the moon really has any of that.

'''C:''' Dynamo.

'''B:''' Exactamundo, Cara.

'''C:''' Yeah, I learned something on SGU.

'''J:''' Yeah, I think that's basically it. I mean, I agree with these guys. I think the moon is not the densest.

'''S:''' All right, and Evan.

'''E:''' If the moon is the densest moon in our solar system, that is one dumb moon. Thank you. So for all the reasons stated by my co-hosts, I am in agreement. And Bob, yeah, I also connected two and three together. So yes, I was thinking the same. And also, what are there, 100 moons that we know of in our solar system? So numerically speaking, the density item here should statistically be the most likely fiction.

'''S:''' Okay. So you guys all agree on number one. Let's start with number three. You seem to have the easiest time with that one. The moon has a weak magnetic field measured at the Apollo 16 site at 0.31 microtesla compared to Earth's 50 microtesla field. You guys all think this one is science. And this one is science. Although just about everything else you said about it is wrong, but let me go over it really quick.

'''B:''' Who? Me?

'''C:''' As is our way.

'''S:''' It is still controversial whether or not the moon ever had a magnetic field generated by an internal dynamo. Because it does have an iron core, but that iron core might have been too small to generate a magnetic field. But it's still possible that it did generate one early on, like 4 billion years ago, early on in its life.

'''E:''' Proto-moon, right?

'''S:''' No, no. When it was still a moon. When it was a moon, it was a moon-moon. But before it cooled to the point where it no longer would have had an internal dynamo.

'''E:''' And it was so big in the sky back then.

'''B:''' So big. 15 times bigger than it appears now. Now-

'''C:''' Oh, that's cool.

'''S:''' But so the moon's current magnetic field definitely is not created by a dynamo. No question. It's not even on the table.

'''E:''' So what else creates magnetic fields?

'''S:''' What else creates magnetic fields, right? So it's basically created in the crust itself, right? So there's iron in the crust is creating the magnetic field. So how did the minerals in the crust become magnetized? So I said measured at the Apollo 16 site. If you measure it in other locations, it's different. So it's a variable magnetic field.

'''B:''' Well, Mars is like that.

'''S:''' Similar. But this is all, the moon has a magnetic field pretty much all over. It's just highly variable. So for example, at the low end, it measures 6 nanotesla.

'''B:''' Nano. Tiny.

'''S:''' That's tiny tiny. So, but there's two theories as to how the minerals in the crust got magnetized to the point where they're still creating a measurable magnetic field. One is that those magnetic fields were laid in billions of years ago when the moon did have a dynamo, right? So it had a strong magnetic field. It could have been super strong, like even stronger than the Earth today, like two or three times stronger than the Earth's current magnetic field. And that that induced magnetism in the crust, which survives to this day. But there are lines of evidence against that. Like there are things we should have seen on the moon that we did not see in terms of, like it should have induced this change in this mineral and it didn't. And so it probably didn't have a dynamo magnetic field, but it's not clear. It's controversial. So the alternative theory is that when meteor, meteors impact the moon.

'''B:''' They were magnetic already.

'''S:''' No, but that induces magnetism by the impact. The energy of the impact induces the magnetism. And there is some evidence to support that hypothesis.

'''B:''' That's weird.

'''S:''' So yeah, so that's the two hypotheses as to why we have sort of a crustal magnetic field on the moon today.

'''B:''' Interesting.

'''S:''' Yeah. All right. Let's talk about number one a bit here.

'''J:''' Number one.

'''S:''' Number one. So you guys think it's just statistically unlikely that the moon is the densest moon out of all the moons in the solar system. There are 293 moons.

'''E:''' Oh, it's even...

'''S:''' As of January-

'''E:''' ...more statistically...

'''C:''' That we know about.

'''S:''' -that we know about. Yeah. So NASA estimates there are 293 moons orbiting planets in our solar system. But they said there are likely more moons to be discovered. Now there are a couple of things that are unique about the moon. One is it's the closest moon to the sun, right?

'''E:''' Correct. Venus has zero. Mercury has zero.

'''B:''' So less ice, more density.

'''S:''' So less volatiles, right? So anything in the outer solar system with volatiles is going to be less dense, pretty much. Right?

'''E:''' You would think so.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Unless it was captured or something.

'''S:''' Number two, right? Our moon might have a unique origin.

'''B:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''S:''' The other planet hitting the proto-Earth, throwing the debris up. Did you know that the inner planets are all denser than all the moons?

'''B:''' Oh, that doesn't bode well then because, yeah, there's a lot of Earth mark one in the moon.

'''S:''' Exactly.

'''E:''' Called the rocky world.

'''S:''' The moon-

'''B:''' Make it denser.

'''S:''' -is more characteristic of an inner planet than any other moon. And those inner planets are denser than all of the moons.

'''E:''' It has to be with the in-crowd, you know?

'''S:''' So it's actually not statistically remarkable that the moon would be the densest moon in our solar system.

'''E:''' I was only figuring it by number, pure numbers.

'''S:''' Right.

'''C:''' Me too. Yeah.

'''S:''' And, in fact, for a time, it was the densest moon in our solar system.

'''C:''' But not now?

'''S:''' Until...

'''E:''' Until...

'''S:''' They discovered that Io is denser.

'''E:''' Io.

'''S:''' So it's the second densest moon in the solar system.

'''E:''' Awesome.

'''S:''' Io, as you may or may not know, also has no volatiles because this is the volcano planet moon, right?

'''E:''' Yes.

'''S:''' It's constantly turning itself inside out with geological activity because of the tidal forces from Jupiter. So it's also extremely dense, just a little bit denser than our moon. So, yeah, so the moon is the second densest object in the solar system.

'''J:''' Nice.

'''S:''' Right. But not statistically unlikely because of those... for those reasons. Yeah, so if Io didn't have the unique configuration that it does, it would have been the densest moon in the solar system.

'''C:''' And we would have gotten it wrong.

'''S:''' That's right. All right. Let's go on. Number two, a recent analysis finds evidence of geological tectonic activity on the moon as recently as 160 million years ago, suggesting it might still be active, is science. So Bob, I wouldn't throw in the word tectonic there without making sure that that was correct.

'''B:''' I hope so.

'''S:''' It's a language used by the researchers themselves. I think you are thinking that tectonic refers only to tectonic plates. I think the term is more generic to any kind...

'''C:''' I just Googled it and every definition says the process by which the Earth's crust... Like tectonic was named for plate tectonics. So maybe the word's been co-opted since then.

'''B:''' I think if it's not paired with the word plate, then it kind of...

'''C:''' No, no. If it does look...

'''S:''' Because there are lunar tectonics, there are contractional tectonics. So tectonics is just dynamic change in the crust, right? And so, or in the layers of a world, of a planet or a moon, it doesn't have to be plates moving. You can have other types of tectonic activity. So we know in the past there was tectonic activity on the moon. The thinking was that it stopped a couple of billion years ago, two and a half billion years ago when the moon cooled, right? The moon cooled to the point where the crust basically solidified and the lower layers also were too cool for there to be any significant activity. There were volcanoes on the moon way in the past, nothing for billions of years. But a recent study found that there are... They found on the dark side of the moon, the darkly colored side of the moon, or the far...

'''B:''' Good save.

'''S:''' The far side of the moon, the side of the moon where you have the dark maria, right? I know it's kind of like the... It's funny because people think that there is no dark side of the moon. It's like, you're right, but there is a darkly colored side of the moon. So it's kind of...

'''B:''' How about the lower albedo side of the moon?

'''S:''' So on the far side of the moon, they found these structures, these ridges, it's called small mare ridges, which are not caused by impacts. They are similar to ridges that are seen near ancient volcanic activity. So the analysis shows they are probably tectonic in origin and they crater age them. So you age them by counting how many craters there are. Because since there's no atmosphere, there's no erosion, how many craters there are on the surface material on the moon is a pretty good estimate of how old it is, right? So the older it is, the more craters there are. And they age this as being way younger than they would have thought, like there was any kind of tectonic activity on the moon, it was just 160 million years. And if there could be tectonic activity that recently, it could still be going on today.

'''E:''' Oh boy, we're going to maybe find out more about that very soon.

'''S:''' Right. I mean, we know there are moon quakes. There's some geological activity going on on the moon. So again, this is one study. It found this, obviously everything is subject to revision, but that was an interesting finding. Yeah. And I was a little bit surprised at the use of the word tectonics myself when I was reading the study, but I had to read enough to say, okay, they're meaning it as a more generic term.

'''B:''' Yeah, this will really throw Bob for a loop.

'''S:''' Well, I also, I put it in there so that you wouldn't think it was just meteor impacts, right?

'''B:''' Right.

'''S:''' Even though I still had to clarify that. That's why I put that in there. It wasn't to confuse you too much as to not make you think, oh, sure, stuff's hitting the moon all the time. It's like, no, no, no, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about tectonic activity.

'''E:''' Should you have used the word geological though?

'''S:''' They used tectonic in the study.

'''E:''' Yeah, but the word geological, isn't that specific to Earth only?

'''S:''' No, I don't think so.

'''B:''' No, I don't think so.

'''S:''' Nope.

'''E:''' I think it is. But geo means Earth.

'''S:''' No.

'''B:''' Terrestrial.

'''S:''' No, and they used the word geologic in the study too, Evan. I'm just using the terminology they're using.

'''E:''' I understand, but they could be wrong.

'''C:''' But I'm with Evan.

'''E:''' They could be wrong.

'''C:''' I'm with Evan. They're co-opting all those terms.

'''E:''' Yeah, they should be-

'''C:''' All those terms started in reference to Earth, and their first definitions are all having to do with Earth.

'''S:''' Right. Most planetary geological stuff are analogies to stuff happening on the Earth. Pretty much everything was first named as an Earth phenomenon, like volcanoes or whatever, quakes. Everything. There aren't earthquakes on the moon. There are moonquakes on the moon, right? Which always reminds me of-

'''B:''' Yes. Flash Gordon.

'''S:''' Flash Gordon.

'''E:''' Flash Gordon, right?

'''S:''' At the beginning of the movie, he's got this board where he could press buttons and make environmental catastrophes happen on the Earth.

'''B:''' This is an alien business.

'''S:''' This is an alien. He's on an alien world. One of those buttons is named Earthquake. Not moments after we see the button labeled Earthquake, his lackey is saying, yes, there's a small planet here that refuses to pledge whatever they're fealty to you. The locals call it Earth. Earth, you mean like that button on your board called Earthquake? That Earth?

'''B:''' What a coincidence.

'''E:''' It's the only problem with that movie.

'''S:''' It just struck out to me for some reason. I've never forgotten.

'''B:''' We should watch that. I mean, it's literally been three dog ages since I've seen that.

'''E:''' That would be fun. We could do a burial of that movie easily. My friends and I buried Star Wars Episode VIII recently. We watched it together. We took a pledge that it will be the last time we watch it, and we just roasted it the whole time. It was wonderful. So cathartic.

'''S:''' Episode... the VIII movie?

'''E:''' Yeah, VIII movie.

'''S:''' Oh, God. It was so bad.

'''E:''' Oh, yeah. We buried it.

'''S:''' You know, I was holding out a little hope after VII. It's like, OK, a little bit of a rocky start here, but they can pull this out. I could kind of see where they're going. There's lots of interesting ways they could go here, and it just went downhill. If you know anything about the history of how that was written, it was a CF. It was a complete CF. Nobody was in control. Anyway, I don't want to get into this. It was just an abomination. Evan, why did you bring this up? All right.

'''E:''' You're welcome.

{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:48:32) ==
{{qow
|text = “Our beliefs do not sit passively in our brains waiting to be confirmed or contradicted by incoming information. Instead, they play a key role in shaping how we see the world.”
|author = ― Richard Wiseman
|lived =
|desc =
}}
'''S:''' Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' "Our beliefs do not sit passively in our brains, waiting to be confirmed or contradicted by incoming information. Instead, they play a key role in shaping how we see the world." Richard Wiseman, who is a wise man.

'''B:''' Richard!

'''E:''' He's awesome.

'''S:''' Nice quote. Yeah, that is a key, I think, psychological finding, the idea that, yeah, we are not just passively collecting information, perceiving information, remembering, processing, thinking about it, whatever. It's an active narrative process, right? The narrative dictates the facts more than the facts dictate the narrative, unless you take a scientific approach. The whole point of science is to reverse that causation so that facts dictate narratives. Otherwise, instinctively, just psychologically, we impose our narratives on the world, not the other way around. All right. It's a good quote.

'''E:''' Thanks.

'''S:''' Thank you all for joining me this week.

'''B:''' Sure, man.

'''E:''' Thanks, Steve.

'''C:''' Thanks, Steve

== Signoff ==
'''S:''' —and until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.
{{Outro664}}{{top}}

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1024

2025-10-01T22:55:14Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:20:12) */ corrected side panels for host and rogues

{{transcription-bot}}
{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1024
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1024|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1024.jpg
|caption = "Microscopic view of early embryonic development, showcasing intricate structures and blood vessels."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "The kneading of memory makes the dough a fiction which as we know can go on yeasting forever."
|qowAuthor = A beautifully poetic way to phrase the rewriting nature of memory and recall.
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1024|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, February 19th, 2025 and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

'''E:''' Hey everybody.

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria.

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' J Novella, Hey guys. And Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening everyone.

'''S:''' Happy Pluto day, Yes?

'''E:''' A happy day after Pluto day. But you know, hey, you know, we can still. Celebrate.

'''S:''' Absolutely. It's Pluto week, actually. Really.

'''E:''' I agree, it deserves an entire week. I mean, what the heck, We stripped it of its full planet status, we might as well give it a full.

'''S:''' Week, but it is the first and the largest dwarf planet.

'''E:''' Yeah, that's right, The king of the our planets.

'''S:''' They tried to make everybody feel better today. We'll call them plutoids, which nobody does.

'''Voice-over:''' Yeah, right.

'''S:''' I see that once in a while, but yeah, it's. Not very common.

'''E:''' I mean, you know, I read this yesterday, but it's, oh, it's Pluto day. And I was thinking like, does that mean on Earth or on Pluto? Because we're not going to celebrate that thing for what, another 300 years before it comes around. But it is Earth based. Yes, the celebration.

'''B:''' Yeah, it still hasn't done a complete orbit since it was discovered.

'''E:''' I mean, really, I mean, that's, it's, it's an amazing thought. That's how far out that dwarf. Planet.

'''B:''' What are we celebrating, though?

'''J:''' The fact that we're failing the Earth miserably.

'''E:''' Yes, and not only that, not only that, but Pluto Day is celebrated on February 18th to commemorate the discovery of Pluto, which was made in 1930.

'''S:''' Yeah, there you go.

'''E:''' OK by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ.

'''S:''' You know what I'm surprised about?

'''E:''' There you go.

'''S:''' What about having to do with the dwarf planets? I'm surprised that there are still only 5. I thought we were going to be adding dwarf planets on the regular, like, because there's so many objects. Yeah, in the Kuiper belt. And why only 5? We haven't been able to confirm a single one.

'''C:''' Yeah, that is kind of we.

'''E:''' Found thousands of exoplanets already in recent years. What? You're right. Why aren't we finding these items? These are.

'''S:''' Probably harder to find.

'''C:''' Is it that they're not confirmed or they just haven't gone through the motions yet?

'''S:''' There's a lot of candidates out there. What's taken them so long? There's just the same 5. So who could name them? Pluto. Eris how Maya Maki maki.

'''E:''' Maki maki, I know that.

'''S:''' One and series. That's in the order of size series. This is the smallest one. It's in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

'''E:''' It's so close.

'''S:''' So series entry because it was a planet, then it was an asteroid, and now it's a dwarf planet. I think it might be the only object in the solar system that at one time or another was designated as all three of those things.

'''B:''' When was it a designated a?

'''S:''' Planet Initially, when it was first discovered, they're like, it's a planet. But then they said now we'll just then it was like, all right, it's actually in the asteroid belt, so we'll just say it's an asteroid. And then when they made the category of dwarf plants, they got upgraded from an asteroid to a dwarf planet.

'''E:''' I have a question about dwarf planets. It has to do with their moons. Now Pluto has five moons, Caron, Nyx, Hydra, Styx and Cerberus. Cerberus Cerberus 3 headed dance. With AK. But yes, Cerberus, are these dwarf moons around a dwarf planet or do we still call them moons or? Moons.

'''C:''' Are any of their moons bigger than their planets?

'''S:''' That's no moon. No, but the Caron is an interest. It was a Caron is big enough that you could you could argue that it's a double planetary system or a double dwarf planet. Caron could be, we could decide, hey, this is actually another dwarf planet and Pluto Caron's a double dwarf planet system. I believe that the center of gravity between Pluto and Caron is outside the surface of Pluto, which is something that you could use as a criterion for determining.

'''B:''' That are there.

'''C:''' Are there binary planets like Is that what we would call it? Or is it not quite like a binary star?

'''B:''' Binary dwarf Binary dwarf system.

'''C:''' Binary dwarf planet system.

'''B:''' I mean, you could, you could make an argument that the Earth moon system is some, some sort of binaries, you know, binary. I mean the the the moon is huge compared you know.

'''E:''' Relative to its planet, correct. Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' But it's still tiny. I mean, it's, is it bigger than Mercury? Wait. Pluto.

'''C:''' No. Our moon.

'''B:''' No.

'''S:''' There are moons bigger than Mercury.

'''C:''' Yeah, there's some really big moons like around Jupiter, right?

'''B:''' And Saturn Titan Titan Titan would. Be largest, yes. Mercury is slightly larger than the moon, not much.

'''S:''' Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, IO and Earth Moon, Earth's Moon. This is the reference of reading are all larger than Mercury. In that order.

'''C:''' Oh, but Bob, just read that. It's not.

'''S:''' Big our moon just got to be close.

'''B:''' Yeah, this is the this one site saying that Mercury is slightly larger than the Moon.

'''E:''' How do you feel about causing a scientific controversy right on our show right now, the SGU is officially designating Caron as a dwarf planet. Change my mind or change our change our minds?

'''S:''' Yeah, we'll, we'll write a letter to the International Astronomical Union to inform them of this change.

'''E:''' Form them, yes. Right, right. Not inquire, not requests.

'''S:''' To inform them.

'''E:''' We will slap him in the face with the fact hey.

'''S:''' All right, if Trump could rename the Gulf of America.

'''C:''' Oh my. Right. We can. Don't use that name it.

'''E:''' Says so right on my map here.

'''C:''' In America, so in some of the maps.

'''S:''' There's no international rules anymore, we just get name stuff right.

'''E:''' That's right. Exactly. So let's go, Karen.

'''C:''' Every time you say.

'''E:''' Karen, we've just discovered the 6th dwarf planet. Thank you Karen, you don't seem on board with the controversy. Is not.

'''C:''' Normalizing it.

'''E:''' Oh, no. Oh.

'''S:''' So we have to follow the rule. Is that what you're saying?

'''E:''' I'm going to make Caron great again.

'''C:''' When they go low, we go high.

'''E:''' You.

'''S:''' Know what that means?

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Bird Brain Evolution (06:10) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://theness.com/neurologicablog/birds-separately-evolved-complex-brains/
|article_title = Birds Separately Evolved Complex Brains - NeuroLogica Blog
|publication = theness.com
}}

'''S:''' That tells me it's time to go on with our news item. We're going to start by talking about bird brains.

'''E:''' Who?

'''S:''' I'm talking about bird brains.

'''E:''' No, I mean which person are we talking?

'''S:''' Yes, that's right. So the question We all know that humans have the biggest and best brains, right?

'''E:''' Well.

'''S:''' But it's interesting to think about the fact, though, this is one of those evolutionary misconceptions that I had when I was younger that had to be beaten out of me by, you know, reading good science communicators about evolution. Like we tend to think conceptually of. Yeah, well, humans have the biggest brains and chimpanzees are close, but they're not as big as ours. They don't have, you know, as much sophisticated language, etcetera, abstraction as as humans do. And then apes generally have bigger brains, more encephalized, if you want to call it that, encephalization quotient than other primates, primates, than other mammals, mammals and other vertebrates, Right. But we tend to think of the current extant animals as if they are frozen in evolutionary time, right? Meaning that as you look back evolutionarily at our ancestors, that's not the same thing as looking across modern extant species.

'''C:''' Tell that to 23 in May.

'''S:''' So our our common ancestor with all primates is not modern primate, is not a modern primate, right?

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' So what that means in terms of the evolution of brains is that, for example, when we divided from our last common ancestor with birds, birds have spent just as much time evolving as we have, right, Right. Their brains are just as evolved beyond that point as our brains are. That doesn't mean that they've developed as much in neuronal density or sophistication or whatever, or same specific abilities that we have. But we shouldn't think about, you know, we shouldn't think of them as if they have the brains that their ancestors had millions of years ago.

'''C:''' No, I can imagine their flight mechanics and all sorts of cool things have evolved a lot more.

'''S:''' Yeah, of course.

'''US#02:''' Sure. And the environmental factors alone of had an impact. I'm sorry.

'''C:''' What evolution is right?

'''S:''' Exactly like even bacteria are just as evolved in terms of the they have spent just as much time as evolving as we have.

'''B:''' Yeah, what about sharks?

'''S:''' Same the same thing when we think of like that's a living fossil, like that's that group has been around for a long time. When we say that, like we say like sharks have been all around for a long time, but it's not the same sharks, right? It doesn't mean that they haven't evolved.

'''C:''' And if we don't see a lot, they.

'''B:''' Say they they always say with that sentence with, you know, with minimal changes.

'''C:''' But it's because they're talking about their morphology. Yeah, they're talking about. Look at them. They look the same.

'''S:''' Gross fossilizable morphology, yeah. That doesn't mean they have the same immune systems that they had 100 million years ago or whatever. The same Physiology.

'''C:''' And even if they haven't changed that much, they have been evolving. They just might have not had as much environmental pressure, you know, like the oceans might not have changed.

'''S:''' That's the other. The other bias is that we tend to think of evolution as progressive when it is not inherently progressive. This was the fight that Stephen Jay Gould had. You know, he's like evolution. There's no inherent tendency in evolution for increased complexity or increased sophistication or, you know, whatever being more advanced or less primitive or however you want to conceive it, it's just adaptation to the local environment. And that could that could be a totally horizontal thing, a lateral move, you know, or it could even be in some cases, like with parasites, a simplification. You may get more simple, just depends on whatever the the local adaptation in the local environment requires.

'''B:''' But couldn't you quantify the amount of change of evolution based on the amount of pressure, the selective pressure that that has been that existed through?

'''S:''' Much, Yeah, that's a that is definitely a thing. But if you, you could also look at the amount of change as the number of mutations and that's pretty that's.

'''C:''' Probably more accurate.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' Because we can't look back, we don't know how the environment changed. We have to make all sorts of inferences on that.

'''S:''' It could just mean, but they're basically using the same strategy that they were using 100 million years ago. So they've sort of made the same anatomical, you know, compromises. But that doesn't mean they haven't been adapting the whole time, Right? Right. Anyway, so when we think about like bird brains, bird brains have evolved over the last 100 million years just like mammal brains have, you know, they just have, they've just evolved differently. So when we compare brains across like mammals, birds and reptiles, for example, and there's a study, that recent study that did this, which is why I'm talking about it, we could say, well, what things do they have in common and what things do they have that are different? And this is another evolutionary question that comes up all the time for functions that look similar, are they analogous or homologous, right? Is this convergent evolution or do they share? Did their common ancestor have that feature? That was basically the question that they were asking. And this is just as a way of helping us understand the evolution of brains and vertebrates and also just, you know, how the human brain works. So what they found the name of the the name of the paper kind of gives it away. Evolutionary convergence of sensory circuits and the pallium of amniotes. I love genuine technical jargon like that.

'''C:''' It tells you exactly what you need to know.

'''S:''' Yes, and you would just have to say, OK, what does convergence mean? What does pallium mean? What what are amniotes? So amniotes are a subset of vertebrates that include reptiles, birds and mammals. The pallium is the grey and white matter that sits on top of the more, you know, primitive brain, deep brain structures. So it's basically the cortex, right, The cerebral cortex which sits on top of the cerebrum. So this is the thing that greatly expanded in mammals and then massively expands like the neocortex specifically in apes and then humans, right? That's the pallium. And they're saying all right now is the pallium of reptiles, birds and mammals organized in the same way. And for those those circuits, right, those specifically looking at, I guess sensory circuits here that look the same, are they convergent or are they derived from a common ancestor? So how can we get at that question? There's always fascinating too like, well, how do how do we know? How would we right? Because by definition, they look the same, right? So that that doesn't tell you genetic markers. So one is, you know, genetic markers, but specifically we can look at which genes are building those circuits, right? So if they're all derived from the same set of genes, then we could say, well, they probably then have a common evolutionary history. They started out the same, they just evolved in different directions. But if they are using different genes, then they probably evolved completely independently, right?

'''B:''' Yeah, sure.

'''S:''' The other way to look at it is more of an inferential method. But you could say you could look at developmental biology. So there's the genetic method to saying which genes are active here? Is it the same genes or different genes? You could also say developmentally, are these structures coming into existence in the same time and location developmentally, right? Because again, to developmental biology, to some extent it's a historical record of evolutionary history. It isn't exactly, of course, but for example, this is always like one of my favorite examples. I think it's very telling. The middle ear bones develop from the jawbone. That's because they evolved from the jawbones, right? That's why they developed from the jawbone. So it's the same thing you could say, are the neurons that are making these circuits in the pallium the same neurons developing at the same location and time across these different groups? And they found that they're not. They're different. So they're using different genes, producing different neurons at different times than developmental phase, but making the same kinds of circuits that are doing the same kinds of things. So what they conclude from that is that birds independently evolved a lot of these. They are convergently evolved a lot of the same sort of neurological function that mammals did. Mammals, including humans, right. Part of the reason why they're focusing on birds in this study is because some birds are very intelligent, you know, But of course, intelligence. Yeah, Yeah. They the corvids as they're very, very, you know, good problem solving abilities. But but, and we've talked about this also, just if you look at like bird neurological ability, their cognitive abilities, it's different than mammals, right? It's just it's still advanced, but they their brains evolved to solve different problems in a different way.

'''C:''' Yeah, like birdsong is something we will we would never be able to master.

'''S:''' The way, yeah, right.

'''C:''' Yeah. The way that they can mimic and and react to different birdsong and recognize these like mild differences. That's just we didn't evolve in it with that need.

'''S:''' Same thing with cetaceans like dolphins. They have really big brains, but they're very different than ours. They have way more white matter compared to Gray matter than we have because those white matter tracks are processing all of that sonar. Yeah, and they can sleep with one hemisphere at a time. That's cool.

'''J:''' We can't do. It yeah, can. We can we have any real understanding about what their consciousness, what their conscious minds might be not?

'''S:''' Really, we can't know what it's like to be a dolphin. We can.

'''J:''' Dolphin Whisper.

'''S:''' We can infer it maybe from understanding their neurological function, but what do you think is the most advanced and different central nervous system from humans on the planet?

'''B:''' Octopus, Octopus. Yeah, that's great.

'''S:''' The octopus has a doughnut shaped brain that wraps around its esophagus. But here's the here's the coolest thing. They have about as many neurons as dogs do, but a lot of their neurons are in their tentacles. Yeah. So to some extent.

'''B:''' Brains in their arms.

'''S:''' Their tentacles have the capacity for independent thought.

'''C:''' Yeah, that's cool.

'''S:''' Think about that having so that's like a variable you would not have even thought of. This is like science fiction. It's like you're in your your brain is more distributed then our brain's a central nervous system. It is central as in one place your brain they have a distributed central nervous system in their tentacles or. Tentacles.

'''J:''' So Steve thinking. Independently. Steve, an octopus could give itself a reach around and it really will feel like somebody else.

'''S:''' There you go. That's that's the, that's the bottom line. That's the. Most important, take a look from the whole.

'''B:''' Thing. Goodnight everyone. Related to what Jay just said, I just saw an awesome meme today doing an octopus. It said if a female octopus is hungry and doesn't want to mate, but the male tries to, she'll let him insert his mating arm and begin the process before inching closer to him. Then she'll strangle him, kill him, and feast on his corpse in her den for a few days.

'''C:''' Hell yeah, get a girl.

'''E:''' Yeah, that'll learn.

'''B:''' No, I I sent that to Liz as soon as. I saw. That thing. Yeah. How's that?

'''E:''' How's that tentacle brain working out for you now? Men think with their testicles. Is that the same thing? No, That's.

'''J:''' Steve, do you do you think that they have the neurons there because, you know, they need to have like a quicker response to their tentacles to do right? I don't know what would be the benefit of that. Yeah.

'''S:''' Do they need more functionality? They need quicker reflexes? Absolutely.

'''C:''' Well, and there's eight of them, yeah. So just the sheer number of them doing all different tasks, they may. Yeah, that's.

'''S:''' Another thing they could do things they could think that's right, they could function independently. There isn't one brain controlling. 8 tentacles we know what. Tentacles controlling themselves.

'''C:''' Yeah, like if you do that fun thing where you kind of turn your right foot over and over in a clockwise fashion and then you try to like draw the number six with like your left arm and or even with your right arm, actually, it's really, really hard to do.

'''S:''' That's because of sin kinesis. So our brains have trouble coordinating 2 limbs right? Because we tend to be we trick it out by syncing them together and you know, they're wired together in the brain so that we can coordinate them. But it's hard. It's challenging neural imagine doing 8. So that's, that makes sense. That's probably the primary reason why they're distributed in their tentacles. But it also makes me think of if we do, if and when we do encounter alien intelligences, we have absolutely no reason to think that they would be even recognizable to us.

'''E:''' Yeah, exactly. Oh my God. Little Gray men.

'''S:''' Please, this is this is the the biggest contrivance, I think, in science fiction, which we kind of know and look past, yeah, is that not only are aliens humanoid, they have 100% human brains. Yeah. And but the chances are overwhelming, even with a little bit of convergence or even if we're selecting them for technological species, that they would be so neurologically distinct from humanity that it would be challenging to even interface with them. I think like the movie Arrival is one of the best for like showing.

'''C:''' It's my favorite sci-fi movie.

'''S:''' Yeah, a genuinely alien alien, including a neurologically alien alien that.

'''C:''' And what's funny is it's a bit octopoid, if we're going to be honest there.

'''B:''' You go Ted Chang, the author. One of my favorite authors of all time. I just wish he was more damn prolific.

'''S:''' Yeah, what the hell?

'''C:''' Was it called the story of your life and other?

'''B:''' Stories of your Life. Yeah. And also Exhalations, his other anthology, High. Super highly recommended. But I need more, man. I mean, he's got little things here and there, little short stories, a couple of them. But it's like, dude, I want to just like, never mind.

'''J:''' You know, a good way to think about how different aliens would be is the fact of what we were just talking about, how brains evolved on Earth at the same time. And there's huge variability in the way that their consciousness is function, right? So, you know, an alien on another planet in a completely different, you know, series of evolutionary steps, it would be nothing like humans. It wouldn't think like humans. And like the movie Arrival, like it could take an incredibly long time just to find some common elements that we understand as as mutual. You know what I mean?

'''S:''' Right, we might have an easier time communicating with an octopus.

'''J:''' Yeah, and they could talk to the aliens for us, Yeah.

'''B:''' Or mating with an octopus.

'''S:''' Right. Of course, the other icon of science fiction that got this exactly right was Star Trek with the Horta.

'''J:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''B:''' Silicon based.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' All right, Jay, Yeah.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== Air Pollution Inside Homes (21:22) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/02/250213144623.htm
|article_title = Air pollution levels may be higher inside your home than outside | ScienceDaily
|publication = www.sciencedaily.com
}}

'''S:''' Tell us about air pollution inside our homes.

'''J:''' So a lot of people by default, and I'm one of them, think that, you know, if the outdoor air is clean, then the indoor air must be clean as well, right? Because you just think, OK, that air, there's an air exchange and you know, you know, like when the, the can, the forest fires were happening and the air quality outside was really bad. With the air quality I, you know, I knew at the time was bad and inside the house, but was it equally as bad or could it even be worse under certain circumstances? And the answer is yes to everything, right? It could be anywhere. And we don't know, most people have no idea what the air quality in their houses. But we have new research that came out from the University of Birmingham. This was published in Scientific Reports. And they found that indoor air pollution can be significantly higher and more unpredictable than outdoor air, even when the outdoor air is, is actually high quality. What they do is they, they use low cost sensors. And it's a pretty simple solution instead of, you know, sensors are typically very expensive and they, they might even do way more than you need them to do. But there are low cost sensors out there. And the researchers use these low cost sensors to monitor particulate matter. It's also called PM, but I'll, I'll continue to call it particulate matter in three homes over a two week period. And surprisingly all three homes had higher and more variable particulate matter levels than the outdoor environment. One home exceeded the who's 24 hour PM 2.5, right. So basically, you know, particulate matter 2.5 is basically telling you the size of the particulate matter 2.5 is small, very small. And The Who says over a 24 hour period, your particulate matter at the 2.5 size safety limit has to be a particular level or else it's it could be damaging, right? So one of the houses of the three that they were testing, you know, exceeded the safety limit. Nine of the 14 days, one of the houses exceeded the safety limit. And that's really concerning. So this shows that outdoor air quality it's not a reliable indicator of what people actually breathe inside their homes. Indoor air pollution is actually influenced by a lot of factors, including household activities, the home ventilation system, and the external pollution sources around their home. So the study identified 5 key contributors right to related to the indoor activities like cooking on a gas stove and actually indoor movement, meaning people move around in the house and that has a negative effect on the air quality. And simply what it does is it stirs up settled particulate matter which our houses are covered in, right? I mean that the stuff is everywhere. You ever have sunbeams come into your living space. And you could. See the air and see what's in the air and you're like.

'''E:''' Yeah, as a kid, you know, it's like, oh, dust in the air, you.

'''J:''' Know yeah, but that's, you know, we're constantly shedding skin cells and we're constantly adding pollutants to most of us are to to the air in our in our homes. So the other three I was talking about these are linked to the external sources and these would include emissions from, say, a nearby restaurant, right? That's not uncommon for a lot of people. So this variation definitely underscores the need for household specific air quality monitoring. So why do particulate matter levels differ between homes? What's it what's the reason why these three homes when they only studied 3 homes and there was a big difference in them? Why is that the case? So the three homes of the study were located in the same neighborhood. It was Selly Oak, Birmingham, and they had similar structural features. This included gas and central heating, you know, gas stoves, yet they're particulate matter levels varied significantly. And it demonstrated how personal habits and ventilation and external pollutants impact the air quality. So these variations are affected by the frequency of cooking, you know, and it's all cooking, but if you use a gas stove, it's a lot worse. And you know what cleaning products are used so outdoor pollution can get into the house right through your, your door, right through your windows. You know, you have, you ever feel a draft coming from a door in your house? That's because you know, the seal isn't, isn't 100% that will definitely let outside air and your ventilation system will let outside air. And if you have a home, you know, like a free standing home, it is supposed to breathe. It is supposed to have an air exchange. You don't want it to be on 100% lockdown because the air, you know, that keeps the, the moisture levels at a, you know, in a place where you don't get mold and all that stuff. So larger particles, we'll call them particulate matter 10, right? They settle quickly because they're heavier. But the smaller particles, you know, the 2.5 and and the one tend to linger. And then this increases your inhalation exposure. Many people assume the the indoors are safe, but they might actually be exposed to, you know, worse pollution in their house. So what can we do about it? One of the study's key contributions was actually demonstrating how these low cost sensors can absolutely They can track indoor air pollution. They can give you really good information information researchers use something called non negative matrix factorization. Say that, Bob.

'''B:''' Non matrix factorization. Fail not.

'''C:''' Negative matrix factorization.

'''J:''' Good job. Karen, this is a sophisticated data analysis technique that pinpoints pollution sources and and the patterns of the pollution, right? And these sensors provide a very cost effective way for homeowners and policy policymakers to monitor the air quality in real time. And you do want real time monitoring, you know, you don't want it to have to, you don't want it to have to do a lot of processing. You don't want to have to actually like send the data away, you know, and have like the results sent to you want to know what it's what's going on day by day. If you if you want, if you care to be that fastidious. Professor Francis Pope, who's a co-author of the study, said our method is easily scalable due to its low cost and would allow air quality management in homes across Britain and beyond. He actually said that. So how can you improve indoor air quality? Like I said, first, you know you could buy some of these low cost monitoring systems. There is no single solution. There's lots of steps that can help reduce exposure. You need to improve the ventilation, right? Open the windows if you can. You know when outdoor air is clean and you could easily find that out on the web. You could use exhaust fans while cooking, right? You definitely want to have something sucking the air above your stove out and pushing it outside. Use air purifiers. I have one here in my office. You know you want something that has HEPA filters. They can, you could get filters that can remove these 2.5 and the size 10 particles obviously because they're bigger, but you can get the HEPA filter that removes the the small and more dangerous particles. You could reduce the indoor pollutants, right? Don't smoke inside. How about just don't smoke. Limit candles and incense. You know that they put a lot of stuff in the air. Use a low VOC cleaning products, right? These are the the harsh chemicals that we use. You know what happens when you use a cleaning product is like bleach or whatever, like any sprays and stuff, they the whatever is in there evaporates, goes right into your air. And again, monitor the air quality. Get the low cost sensors. You get the real time data which will which will allow you to monitor what's going on and make adjustments when you see something going on. Like if you're cooking and you see the air quality go go down, that might tell you hey get a vent or open the windows when the weather provides.

'''C:''' You know, Jay, I had an air quality expert on Talk Nerdy like years ago. And I remember talking to her about, you know, the different contributors. She talked a lot about gas stoves and things like that. But she mentioned something that I don't know why it surprised me, I guess because I never really thought about it. She said one of the single worst things to have in your house without proper ventilation, a pet. No, a 3D printer.

'''J:''' Oh wow.

'''C:''' Yeah, she said. They put off so much toxic garbage that like, yeah you should really put your 3D printer like in a vent hood if you can.

'''J:''' Yeah, because you know, like the the plastics that they use, like they have to get hot enough to become malleable and they're get they're off gassing. So yeah, I could see that, Yeah. And there's places like, you know, there are there are companies that have like 103D printers cranking out stuff, you know, all day, all night.

'''C:''' I. Hope they have massive vent hoods ahead of above.

'''J:''' And, you know, and still, you know, like, I gotta, I want to make a side comment because you brought it up, Karen, my mother-in-law bought my son a, you know, like one of the those 3D pens, you know, you can like make objects. Oh my God, super fun guys, like a lot of fun. And you could really get creative. You could, you know, there's a learning curve definitely. Like I got better after I did it like four or five times. But you know what, I'm sitting there and I've got all this plastic, like leftover junk residue, you know, mistakes, all that stuff. And I'm like, oh, man, like the, you know, like, there's a lot of plastic waste going on with this toy.

'''C:''' Yeah, you know you can't melt it down and like reuse it.

'''J:''' Yeah, I don't know, he maybe there maybe there is like a waste, you know, recycling type of job. But now I'm scared because you know, if you if you heat it up, it's it's putting crap in the air. So.

'''C:''' Yeah, I might want to wear a mask while you're playing with it.

'''J:''' So my final thoughts here guys, you know, go on Amazon, you know, search the web, try to find some low cost sensors that can give you some real data on what's going on in your home and then respond to what they tell you. You know, if you have bad air quality, do something about it. Get some air filters and open the windows, you know, make sure you have ventilation. Be careful about what products you're using. You know, there's lots of things you could do that could have a significant making a significant improvement in your home.

{{anchor|news_item3}}
=== Abortion Bans Drive Infant Deaths (30:43) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://undark.org/2025/02/18/some-states-claim-zero-abortions-is-that-possible/
|article_title = Some States Claim Zero Abortions. Is That Possible?
|publication = undark.org
}}

'''S:''' All right. Thank you, Jay. Right, Cara, this is a, this is a difficult topic. What is the effect of the recent abortion bans in the US on infant mortality rate?

'''C:''' What do you guys think?

'''S:''' It's bad that's. Bad.

'''C:''' Yeah. It's not going to be good, is it? Yeah. So researchers recently published a paper in JAMA called US Abortion Bans and Infant Mortality. It was just published online on the 13th of February. So this was looking at the rate of death among children under the age of 1 before and after the abortion bans took effect. They looked across all 50 states, but they specifically compared states that had either implemented a total abortion ban or a six week restricted abortion ban, which for all intents and purposes is like a total abortion ban because very often people don't know that they're pregnant until that point. So they looked at Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin and and compared the beefores and The Afters. All of those bans or near total bans were were passed between September 2021 and August 2022 after the Dobbs decision and they found that once the bans kicked in, 5.6% more infants died than would have if the bans were not imposed. Across their analysis, that was an extra 478 deaths and let's like dig into that a little bit more. Black babies were disproportionately affected. 11% increase in estimated child deaths compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Also, an 11% increase among children with congenital anomalies. So children with birth defects, you know, the the researchers posit that this is likely because they may that many women were, you know, forced to carry fetuses to term, that we're never going to survive anyway. And so we saw a higher death rate among, you know, babies born with birth defects. Digging even a little bit deeper, you know, there are some questions here about whether this trend will continue or whether it will plateau at a certain point. There was an interesting comparison as well when we look at different states. So, for example, southern states had higher infant mortality rates than northern states with the bans. And the researchers argue that it's probably simply a function of geography. Like if you live in Alabama and you have an abortion ban, you're less likely to travel across state lines because it might require more money. You might have to fly, or you have to put gas in your car multiple times. Whereas if you're in a northern state where there was a ban, you might be able to go just across the border. And so they think that that actually affected the abortion number, which then affected the infant mortality rate. So researchers still don't know if this trend is going to hold. They also, this is only infant mortality. We're only talking about between the time the babies are born and at one year old. What we're not looking at at all with this data are women dying in childbirth, right? So we're not looking at the mortality of the mothers at all. We're only looking at or even women dying in during pregnancy or childbirth. So there is some research that does suggest that maternal death rates are also on the rise in places where there's restricted access to abortion care, which has face validity. But we do need more evidence to support that, you know, kind of bad news across the board. And the news gets even batter when we look at another article, which was originally published in an outlet called KFF Health News, but was republished by Undark. Looking at the statewide publication of abortion statistics, and there's something kind of fishy going on here. So in Arkansas in 2023, where there are one and a half million women living, the published abortion statistic for the state was 0. In South Dakota, the published abortion statistic for the state was 0. And in Idaho, the published statistic was just five. When they looked at kind of the the same states that I mentioned earlier in the list for this other study, they found that many government officials across states with total or near total abortion bans started claiming 0 or a very, very low number of abortions starting in 2023, which was, of course, the first full year after Dobbs. And there are some, you know, quotes. I think this is an important one that sort of summarizes the argument here. Amy Kelly and OBGYN in Sioux Falls, SD, said to say there are no abortions going on in South Dakota is ludicrous. She mentioned that many people have come to her hospital after taking abortion pills or to have medical procedures to help prevent death or end nonviable pregnancies. And she was like, I can think of five off the top of my head that I dealt with personally. And I have 15 partners just in this hospital. So there's a concern here. What is wrong when government official statistics are not in keeping with reality? Why is that a problem?

'''S:''' Because policy is based on those.

'''C:''' Of course, right? That sets the standard for decision making for years and even decades beyond. So what?

'''S:''' We're seeing is policy is dictating facts. Facts are not dictating policy.

'''C:''' Of course. And that's that's really.

'''S:''' The that's authoritarian. It's 1984. That's what you do. It's double plus good, right?

'''C:''' And that is the claim here that is really, really disconcerting, is that we are not only seeing that, like you said, the policy is dictating the facts, not the other way around. But we're seeing a deep politicization of numbers, pure evidence. These are not subjective statistics. These are objective statistics. And when they've become so politicized that, number one, individuals who are performing abortions are too afraid to document that for fear of retribution and very often prison time. And number two, people don't know what the guidance is because there's pressure, you know, coming from different directions to set, say, 0, even if it wasn't zero. What you end up with is this kind of culture of people going along with that claim. And then what happens later when we say, oh, in a state with no abortions, These were the statistics. These were the numbers. Look at the maternal health, look at the, you know, infant health. Well, that doesn't really tell us anything. If there were actually 500 abortions that took place, it's it's very, very unlikely that across these states there were no abortions. We do know that some of these statistics are not based on pharmaceutical abortion because those happened across state lines, blah, blah, blah. But even with medical abortions, it's just highly unlikely. Abortions still happen even in these states when the mother is going to die, when specifically it has to happen to save the mother's life. And yet still these states are claiming that that happened 0 times and it's just really not feasible. So yeah, this is I could probably find 50 more articles talk about some of the negative ramifications that happened after Dobbs, but these are pretty objective outcomes that are really disconcerting and really aren't political or shouldn't be politicized. They're nonpartisan outcomes.

'''S:''' And whatever your partisan view is, you have to acknowledge the reality.

'''C:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' This is the trade off that you advocate. Then advocate it. Don't pretend it's not a trade off.

'''C:''' Yes. And that's what's happening now is that, oh, well, let's let's cook the books, you know, so to speak. And that's a really dangerous thing to do when we're talking about public health. Yeah. And usually the CDC does collect statistics. Not every state contributes, but the CDC does collect statistics on this. Who knows if that's even going to continue.

'''S:''' Cara, don't worry, RFK Junior is going to sort it all out.

'''C:''' Right. Yeah, we.

'''S:''' Have totally fact based American public health policy.

'''C:''' Sure, just get some ivermectin, we'll all be fine.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's all good. Just just get that, you know, once you remove fluoride from the water, it's all will go. Away.

'''C:''' Yeah, Then we'll be good.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Black Holes without Singularities (39:31) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://phys.org/news/2025-02-singularities-physicists-creation-black-holes.amp
|article_title =
Eliminating singularities: Physicists describe the creation of black holes through pure gravity

|publication = phys.org
}}

'''S:''' Yeah, OK, Bob, tell us how to make a black hole without a singularity. What in in 10 easy steps?

'''B:''' Just go in there, kick out the singularity. You're good. Yeah. This was so much fun. A fascinating paper published recently has, for the first time, model the black hole without the need of a pesky singularity inside, and also without the need of some weird exotic matter to make that singularity disappear. These scientists are from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona. And this was published in Physics Letters B. The title of the paper is Regular Black holes from Pure Gravity. Pure gravity. All right, put on your seatbelts a little bit, guys. Let's let me just set the table quick though, for this paper. And this should be nothing new for many of our listeners. Einstein's general relativity paints a picture of gravity as what? space-time curving in response to mass and energy. Right? Collapsing, collapsing matter has nothing to stop it at the center of a black hole, just like keeps collapsing. The result is what Einstein's field equations describe as a point of infinite density and curvature that we call a gravitational singularity. If true, this wouldn't be just some abstract concept of Infinity. It would be a part of the physical universe. And yeah, that's scientists are like, I don't think so. They've always, they've had a problem with this since the get go. The main problem is that this is essentially a black box in these black holes. Our best theories that handle these extremes, like quantum mechanics and general relativity, can't make predictions about what's in that box by themselves. We need to combine them into one of the holy grails of physics, quantum gravity. We we have some partial models of quantum gravity. I'm sure you've heard of some of these. String theory, duh. Loop quantum gravity, the holographic principle, and there's other ones that are more obscure. But none of them are really ready for prime time, obviously, or you would have been hearing me crow about that on this show over and over. In the meantime, to remove these singularities, scientists have often resorted to models that invoke what's called exotic matter. I hadn't followed this too closely. I wasn't aware of how how this worked. But what they usually, what they would typically do is they would take this exotic matter usually takes a form of matter that has weird characteristics like negative energy. And they could have, you know, potentially weird counterintuitive effects on gravity. And the hopes is that that exotic matter could alter the collapse of the, of the matter that forming the singularity, alter that collapse somehow preventing the formation of a singularity, maybe replacing it with some new quantum structure with finite density and curvature and, and no more infinities. You know that that's, that was the hope. Unfortunately, this exotic exotic matter has never been observed in nature and it's purely theoretical. So they're just kind of like, well, let's see what happens if we do this. Even as a theoretical construct, it's hard to use and work with exotic matter. But can you guess why it's hard? It's because we would need quantum gravity to understand exotic matter and what its possibilities are better. So it's just like, oh, here we're back to this quantum gravity again. We don't have it, we need it. OK, so then creating a model that does away with the need for a singularity without invoking exotic matter. That's pretty slick, right? So how do they do it? So I just, I grabbed the like the bottom line quote from the paper the most in my mind, the most important quote from the paper. And it was we show via an explicit construction how an infinite tower of higher curvature corrections generically leads to a resolution of the Schwarzschild singularity. OK, an infinite tower of higher curvature corrections. Jay, repeat that to me. Gotcha, Punk.

'''S:''' That's yeah, you know, got.

'''B:''' The curve part. That's that's the meat of this whole paper, infinite tower of higher curvature corrections. Now I was when I read that I'm like, what? What does that mean? Where they going with that? How do I, how am I going to describe this? Another way to express that so that it's marginally easier to understand is it's just an infinite series of curvature corrections. All right, that's better. I know the word curvature in this context, right? That makes sense. But what is being corrected and why do we need an infinite number of them? So what? So what was going on there? So what they're doing is they're refining general relativity because general relativity is real good in low energy regimes. If you want to, you know, if you want to deal with orbiting planets and bending Starlight, you know, then general relativity is fantastic. But when energies go really high, like as they are in a collapsing star, then the general relativity needs to take that into account. Those high end energies need to be taken into account. So that's why these quantum corrections need to be added to Einstein's equations. So it's a lot like Newtonian mechanics. You know, Newtonian mechanics predictions at low energies and velocities are wonderful. You know, if you want to put an orbiter, you know, a probe into orbit around Pluto, then Newtonian mechanics can absolutely do that no problem, perfectly fine, no worries. But if you need to deal with anything that's that's near the speed of light, then Newtonian mechanics fails. It's like not, it's not going to do what needs to be done. And this is, this is one of the places where special relativity was able to step in and, and, and show it how it's done. So now to summarize that quickly, this this paper supports the idea that general relativity is really the one, the the general relativity that we know they contend is really a low energy approximation. Higher energies need to be accounted for with these curvature corrections. So that's why these curvature corrections are needed to be added to take into account these higher energies involved. All right, So why do we need an infinite number of these corrections? And I found a good analogy for this. And the the analogy is a stairway. Now imagine the shape of a stairway, the the shape of each step you can think of as an abrupt jump in the curvature, like a singularity, right? You follow that bit right there. You know, if you're following the pathway up and you got the step that peak that that shape is kind of like a jump in curvature. Now you could smooth out those, you could smooth that out by adding curvature corrections. Now in this, in this analogy, you could replace each step, each one, but replace them with a smaller step. And then you do it again, replace all the steps with smaller and ever smaller steps. So now if you want a perfectly smooth ramp, you would need an infinite amount of smaller and smaller steps. Now, well, that's not a perfect analogy, but I hope it kind of gives you the idea of, of what was going on here and why they why they need an infinite number of these in order to make these corrections. So this is how you can get rid of a black hole singularity in this paper. This is kind of how they describe what's happening. Now you make these quantum corrections to Einstein's equations to account for the high energies involved. Now a fight, a finite number of Corrections act will help. It will lessen the infinite curvature of the singularity, but it will not. It will only lessen it a certain amount out. You need an infinite number of these corrections. And when you do that, then the singularity will disappear. So and so This is why that quote from the the paper that that was referring to the infinite tower of higher curvature corrections. That's why that quote was so, so important. It really encapsulates the whole thing. What this theory is doing essentially is describing a deeper, more generalized version of general relativity. That's, that's that's an interesting point, a very important point to get it get across there. So, so why is this compelling? One of the thoughts I had was why is this compelling to scientists and why, you know, couldn't this just be some ad hoc lucky fix, you know, with with no likely relation to reality? And that was, you know, so I had to do some digging to find out why is this compelling to these scientists? Why could this potentially be an important, a really important paper? First of all, the techniques that they use that use these infinite series to refine low energy approximations that is common QED quantum electrodynamics did it for Maxwell's revolutionary equations on electromagnetism. This is something that has been done in physics and in science over and over. This is, this is not just something that hey, let's throw an infinite series of equation of Corrections in here. This is no, this is something that's been done before. Also, they looked at other quantum gravity models like string theory and loop quantum gravity, and those models already predict that general relativity needs an infinite series of Corrections at high energies. They already said this. So when you have multiple independent quantum gravity frameworks agreeing on the same type of Corrections, that at the very least should be very encouraging to, to, to your theory, I would think. And then another reason that this is compelling is that they found that this, this, these quantum corrected black holes, this idea, this whole theory complies with the first law of thermodynamics. So that's, that's always a sweet consistency check if you know, if you're, if you're going, if you're breaking the first law of thermodynamics, a maybe you shouldn't publish that paper until you figured out what was going on. So in conclusion that I was thinking, So what would be a good follow up to at this point? And I was thinking, well, what's there if there's no black hole singularities, if they are just an artifact of a low energy approximation of general relativity, then what's there? What, what, what are we going to find there if we can find out what's in there theoretically or even experimentally? One idea is that inside, inside a black hole could be a theoretical Plank star, which I hadn't heard too much about Plank star. It's an Uber dense quantum object, right? That makes a lot of sense. Extremely dense, but not, but not infinitely dense, which is of course what we're actually going after. Or a very, very dense quantum object. And it might have bizarre properties like it could exist in a superposition of multiple distinct states. Who knows what that thing could be like, if it even exists. They talk about quantum effects that could cause a slow, a slow time dilated rebound. Some people say that there could be bizarre quantum effects inside these black holes that actually allow for a rebound, but it's this rebound is slowed down because of the the intense time dilation. And they say it could could potentially become a white hole in many billions and billions of years. That was pretty fascinating. On the other hand, some people say that the interior of these of these quantum corrected black holes have been described as potentially fuzzy fluctuating quantum space-time with a weird complex quantum structure. Who knows what the Hell's in there. This is what some some quantum gravity models point to these potentialities. But, and I'll end with the coolest part of all is we may be able to actually find out about about this experimentally, observationally, when these black holes merge and you know how we've detected gravitational waves and fluctuations of of space-time traveling at the speed of light away from these massive events like merging black holes. Those those waves may have some nuanced differences to what general relativity and it's low energy approximation predicts. We might be able to detect the the gravitational waves from colliding quantum corrected black holes that point to the fact that yes, these black do not have a singularity, they have some sort of something else that's not infinite density and infinite curvature. So there you go.

'''S:''' Bob, can you state a concise take away from this?

'''B:''' Yes, the very annoying gravitational singularities in black holes might not exist because they might just be an artifact. An artifact that doesn't exist in reality because general relativity as it's laid out now is just a low energy approximation.

'''S:''' All right, that helps. Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week. Quints here.

'''C:''' At the SGU, we love quints because you can find high quality items at not high quality prices like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from only 50 bucks. There are like washable silk tops and dresses and even 14 karat gold jewelry. And the way that they do this, the way that they keep those prices down, we're talking 50 to 80% less than similar brands, is by partnering with top factories, they cut out the middleman and they pass the savings straight on to US. And I love this. They only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices.

'''J:''' I just bought my wife one of the coats on the Quince website. Bottom line is everything that I've purchased from them for me and my wife is awesome. Like high quality. I really do think their their stuff. It will last a really long time. I love it.

'''E:''' Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quints. Go to quints.com/SGU for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's QUINC. e.com/SGU to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com/SGU.

'''S:''' All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

{{anchor|news_item5}}
=== Anti-Chemtrail Bill (52:30) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://cbs2iowa.com/news/local/house-gop-seeking-more-answers-as-they-advance-anti-chemtrails-bill
|article_title = Iowa House GOP advance anti-'chemtrails' bill
|publication = cbs2iowa.com
}}

'''S:''' Evan. Finally, finally, we're going to ban something that doesn't exist.

'''E:''' Leprechauns. Unicorns.

'''S:''' Trails What's?

'''E:''' Going yeah, chemtrails theory. Oh, my gosh. That is a fantastical suggestion that governments or other secret, powerful organizations are deliberately releasing chemicals into the atmosphere through airplane contrails, and they're doing so for sinister purposes like weather control, population control and mind control. It's all about control with them. Chemtrails theory, in every respect is actually a conspiracy theory. Yep. All right, I mentioned contrails. Contrails. That's short for condensation trails. Those are those white streaks we all see behind the airplanes. They form when hot exhaust gases from jet engines mixed with the cold air at those high altitudes, and it causes water vapor to condense and form ice crystals. Simple enough. But there seems to be a prevailing understanding that contrails will dissipate in a relatively, what, short amount of time? You know, 30 seconds, maybe a minute. 2 minutes at most, and you know they're gone. However, if a contrail seems to hang around for 05 minutes or 10 minutes, sometimes 60 minutes after that plane formed the vapor trail, well, something must be a miss, right? I mean, contrails hanging in our sky for an hour? That shouldn't happen because we all know how long water vapor and ice crystals should last at varying altitudes and temperatures and air pressures. We're all meteorologists here. No? No, there's something else mixed in with the water vapor and the ice crystals, right? Something deliberately added by people. Because what better way to get insidious and harmful chemicals to fall from the sky and ultimately wind up becoming part of the air we breathe and in our homes, Jay.

'''C:''' Because why? That's right, because mind.

'''E:''' Control. Yes. It's all about the mind control. Mind control, population control, weather control. It's all control. Yeah. Oh these are clever minds at work, you know, and they're sinister minds. Super secret top level government LED population engineering attacking the air we breathe. What is this all about? The understanding about why not all contrails are the same come down to rather basic understandings about what temperature and humidity. So if the humidity is low and the temperature is not cold enough and cold enough, meaning 40°F, I'm going to use the Fahrenheit scale for this. Then contrails, Yes, they will dissipate relatively quickly. A minute, 2 minutes at most. However, if the air is moist and the temperature is below 40°F, well, that contrail will persist longer. Much longer in some cases. 60 minutes or more in several circumstances. So yeah, if the air is cold and humid enough, these timely droplets freeze almost instantly into ice crystals. And there you go. You got your contrails. But the chemical, the, the chemtrail conspiracy theory, this dates back, oh, gosh, many decades. There are, you know, there are some reports of this kind of shenanigans dating back almost 100 years. I mean, that's practically the history of air of of flight, of modern flight. But it's been investigated. It's been investigated by scientists. Qualified investigators have taken a close look at the claims over all this time of that supposed evidence suggesting that chemtrails are real. And in every instance it turned out to be what bad evidence? They either collected bad data, or there's bad interpretation of the data, or there were misidentifications of things all over the place. And that's not even to mention the hoaxes. Faked videos and pictures also presented as legitimate evidence. So as usual, there is 0 scientific evidence to support their claims. And therefore chemtrails are nothing more than vapor trails and ice crystals caused by the exhaustive jets. They are contrails, nothing more. But here we are, 2025, the age of AI, advanced robotics and other scientific wonders that shape our modern society. And what are some of our state governments here in the United States doing with their valuable time and resources? They are working on legislation to ban chemtrails. Gosh. But, Evan, how can they ban something that doesn't exist, as Steve brought up? Well, that's a great question, Evan. They can do it because despite this amazing modern society built on scientific literacy, some people cannot overcome their, as I call it, reality, challenged existence. And those energies are used to lobby legislatures to also do stupid things. Remember, politics is downstream of culture and in this example, culture are the airplanes and politics are the contrails. And in recent weeks there have been multiple state governments, not just one, multiple state governments that have been working on legislation to curb or ban or investigate contrails in the belief that they are actually chemtrails. I'll give you a couple of examples. Iowa local CBS affiliate in Des Moines says 23 House Republicans have signed on to an anti chemtrails bill in Iowa despite not having any hard evidence that it's actually happening. The bill states, would ban the intentional emission of air contaminants into the atmosphere with the intent of changing the weather. And here's a quote from representative Representative last name Grassley. Sorry, I don't have their first name. Some would say, well, it just isn't happening. Others would say it is happening. I think it's something we need to have a discussion about as a legislature. So they're doing it in Iowa. What are they doing in Florida? According to the Palm Beach Post, Florida politicians indulge conspiracy theorists with nonsense chemtrail bill. Conspiracy theorists who imagine that some vague, amorphous operatives in the federal government are intentionally trying to poison the country by trailing clouds of toxic substances. And one of the leading voices of disinformation on chemtrails is Who's this Robert F Kennedy junior? Do we know of this? Oh, yeah. US Secretary of Health and Human Services, who claims this is just last August, August the 24 says we are going to stop these crimes. Chemtrails are apparently crimes, according to Robert Kennedy. These things don't exist. So And yeah, and more. And these kinds of things got stirred up even more in the recent events that took place in places like Florida with the Hurricanes and North Carolina as well, in which people believe that this is actually happening. And some of this stuff was the result of chemtrails, chemicals being added into the atmosphere. California, Shasta County, concerns about chemtrails, drone surveillance and election fraud, among other things. But during a marathon 9 hour meeting that last week, Shasta County supervisors deliberated over who to appoint to the county commissioner boards. But an hour of that meeting was dedicated to the perceived dangers of chemtrails. They received a presentation on the alleged dangers of chemtrails from a local community member who had no scientific or official credentials. However, they run a website called Geoengineering. Name is Dane Wigginton. I'm sorry. Geoengineering Watch is the name of his organization. And he produced the documentary. So therefore, he was called up to have his say. And he says, yeah, you know, obviously this is happening and I have the evidence, but there are others who have looked into his claims and said it is 100% fantasy. And finally, I'll bring up Arizona. Arizona this week. According to the Arizona Mirror, chemtrail believers are swaying GOP lawmakers to support geoengineering ban House committee passes a bill that would outlaw cloud seeding and climate intervention research after supporters cite debunked conspiracy theories about chemtrails. This bill will ban geoengineering, citing the long debunked chemtrail conspiracy theory as evidence that nefarious actors are already turning Arizona skies into a laboratory and treating its unsuspecting residents as Guinea pigs. And that's just 4 examples. My understanding is that there are as many as 20 or more states who are either going to at some point this year or have already begun the discussions about chemtrails in their legislatures. This is an enormous waste of time and resources. It is absolutely pure fiction in pseudoscience and just one of the many things, once again we are wasting valuable. Resources.

'''J:''' It's so, it's so telling of where the the state of the politicians and regular people out there, like the misinformation has seeped in very deep into a lot of people.

'''E:''' Yep, politics is downstream of culture. That's right.

'''J:''' And there's no way to really pull them out. Like I, I just, I'm sitting here thinking like, well, what could we do? You know, you could, we could communicate that it's false, but people, you know, like that's it. Anything that they hear to the contrary is the conspiracy at this point.

'''E:''' Absolutely. And it's not like there hasn't been decades and decades of research into this very into this very thing. And once again, it's it's it's on a par with UFOs. It's kind of like that, what the federal efforts are to deal with UFOs and those things and whatever resources are being pumped into that. The same thing is happening now with chemtrails at the state level at least. And who knows, maybe someday at the federal level this will also happen. And who know, you know, Robert F Kennedy among, you know, among other people's, you know, making these kinds of suggestions. Who knows what's going to how big and more, you know, prevalent this is going to become and, you know, just just pseudoscience and absolute fantasy and fiction.

'''J:''' Operationally, it's like, OK, yeah, let's ban chemtrails, go for it. What do you do?

'''E:''' You're right. It's like banning ghosts, right? But you know, there's speaks to the culture, it speaks to kind of where we are in in certain collective circles and it's just not good. And this is just one more example of that.

'''S:''' All right. Thank you.
{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:02:29) ==

'''S:''' All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time?

'''J:''' All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

'''US#01:''' People 35.

'''E:''' What do you guys think?

'''C:''' It sounds like fake English.

'''E:''' Yeah, it's like that song that George does at the extravaganza where, yeah, someone just makes up a bunch of English sounding words, but they're not words.

'''J:''' All right, good. That's actually you guys are in the right place. So a listener named Stephen Walker wrote in and said, hey, Jim, I guess for this week's noisy is a recording from a ghost box or spirit box? I had to look up what they were called. But I had a hazy recollection, probably from an earlier Stu episode that so-called ghost hunters would use these devices that hopped about different radio frequencies and recorded snippets of each to reveal secret messages. Yeah. So I think that's a good guess. I mean, because there is this is very gibberish sounding thing that's happening. And if, you know, you were able to switch between radio stations very quickly, you know, it would have a gibberish sound to it as well. But this is definitely not that. I have another listener. I have another listener named Michael Blaney who wrote in said, hi, J am I having a stroke or something? It sounded almost like English and I definitely caught a few words here and there. So I guess it's an AI generated speech with a prompt, something along the lines of give a newscast in a World War One style report. Yeah, I've see that. And that's, that is actually a very good guess because you know what? What else But AI would be able to produce something like that if you if it was going to be, if it's not real. And a lot of people out there know what this is because I got a ton of emails. Apparently this this dropped on the Internet, I guess, a couple of weeks ago. The listener named Shane Hillier wrote in, he was the first person to guess and he said it's an Afghani dude pretending to speak English. That's exactly what it is. This comes from a video. Basically they're making fun of what English sounds like. Think I'll listen again and tell me.

'''US#01:''' What you think?

'''J:''' I think he does a great job.

'''S:''' I think it sounds pretty good, yeah.

'''J:''' This. Is good.

'''S:''' I wonder what during the extravaganza, George has a bit where he also he pretends to speak in other languages like German. Yeah, but it's not, it's fake German. But to us it sounds like German. But I wonder what it would sound like to a German speaker to a native German speaker.

'''C:''' Probably just like that, yeah.

'''S:''' Babbling.

'''J:''' Yeah, it's the phenomes or the phonemes. The phonemes phenoms anyway.

'''C:''' Phenomenal phonemes.

'''J:''' I absolutely love this one. It's it just, it tickles me to hear him do such a good job and he and he's putting on like, you know, for, for, for, you know, he's got like that deeper cadence thing going on. Too.

'''S:''' And you pick up a couple of words in there, which is, I'm sure, totally accidental, like I thought he said 35 at some point, but that's just audio pareidolia.

'''J:''' I don't know, I would imagine just like with us pretending to speak other languages that we do throw some legitimate words in there, but who knows. Anyway, thank you so much for sending that in. That was great. I have a new noisy this week. This was sent sent in by a listener named Gertie. Gertie, you know who you are. And thank you so much for this. It's a lot of fun. Let me play this for you guys. All right, guys, if you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguy.org. Steve, we have, we have not a con coming up and we hit another milestone with not a con because we have completely finished our programming and basically all the details for those shows. So we're in really good shape. We had a big meeting last night. We had, again, we have a lot of fun when we talk about this stuff. We had a big heated debate. I'll tell you what it was about at the conference, but we had a really big and funny heated debate last. Night.

'''S:''' I was right by the way.

'''J:''' Yes, he thinks he's right. Everybody else doesn't agree, but that's typical here at the SDU.

'''S:''' I got multiple people to agree with. Me. There was a spectrum of feedback.

'''J:''' Yeah, there was, but that's not that's what they're saying to your face. But anyway, a few reminders for for those of us, those of you listening to the show, as you know, Steve is, is coming to the SGU to work full time. If you guys want to help support that effort. I mean, the goal here is that we're going to, we're in process of, of creating 44 new different shows, all of which are, you know, in the, in the hopes of pushing more good science content and skeptical content out there. They're very different programs and we're very excited about all of it. It's going to take a lot of time and money to pull it off and we could really use your support now more than ever. And let's face it, guys, I mean, you know, we all know things are very, very much different in the world today than they were 20 years ago when we started this podcast. We need to push out these messages. It needs to get out there. And that's why, you know, we're we're doing it essentially. That's why we've made plans. Steve could have just retired and done the podcast, but you know, he tripled down and said, no, I got, you know, if anything, we've got to increase our output. So that's what the plan is. Please join us with that. If you become a patron, there is a lot of content on there that is not available anywhere else. We do, we do do special shows that are patron only or patrons get early admission or whatever. There's lots of things that we try to do for the patrons. But the bottom line is, you know, we know that your support is being offered to help us do what we do and we want to do more of it. So please consider becoming a patron. You can go to patreon.com/skeptics guide. We have a mailing list. You can go to our website to join that mailing list. It's going strong. Every week we drop an e-mail that talks about everything that we did the previous week.

'''S:''' Thank you Steve, Thank you Jay.

{{anchor|email}}
== Emails (1:08:43) ==


'''S:''' We're going to do 1 e-mail. This e-mail comes from Stefan Magnuson and he writes. I was reading up on asteroid 2024YR Four and I came across this on its Wikipedia page. And then in quotes calculations using the observation arc of 55 days as of 18 February 2025, found that find that 2024 Y R4 has a one in 30 two or three-point 1% chance of impacting Earth on 22 December 2032 around 14 O2 UT and a smaller possibility of impacting the moon about an hour later. I know you've talked about this asteroid before and potential consequences if it were to hit Earth. Not great, not terrible. Given the time frame, there would at least be some opportunity to evacuate affected areas. But what about the moon? Since the moon is much smaller, could a direct hit pose a greater risk of destabilizing Earth's tides, for example? Is this something to be concerned about? And what kind of consequences might we might we expect if it actually happens? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and thanks for all the skeptical work you do.

'''B:''' But bottom line, not a concern.

'''S:''' Not a concern. Yeah, you're jumping.

'''B:''' It'll actually be. It could actually be quite wonderful in a in a lot of ways, but. We learned a lot. So based on what some research I did about this, this could create a crater on the moon that's up to 1.2 miles wide, 22 kilometers. So seems big, but that's really just a pothole compared to some of the big boy craters on the moon. There's one that's 1500 miles wide, 2400 kilometers in diameter. So this would really be just a blip in terms of the tides the tides would have. Zero. No impact.

'''S:''' There is no there is no asteroid in our solar system big enough to affect the moon's orbit or to crack it open. Right is the bottom line.

'''B:''' All that debris cleared out a long time. Ago.

'''S:''' In fact, if you collected all the asteroids in our solar system together, they would have less mass than the moon, less than the moon every.

'''B:''' Single wow, that's that's even less than I would have I would have guessed, but that that's interesting. The other the other angle here is that, well, what if some of this debris from the moon hit the earth? And that's possible. Chances are though that the the small rocks would just burn up in the atmosphere and we could potentially, if this happened, get a get a a striking meteor shower which could be a lot of fun.

'''S:''' Yeah, Bob, imagine if it smacks into the moon, we get a great show and followed by the best asteroid shower meteor shower we've ever seen.

'''B:''' Yeah, oh man, watching that happen, that would be, that would make my astronomical day right there. Oh well, be more than a day because it would take a while for that. Stuff.

'''S:''' So there is a bit of an update though. So the the he was giving the numbers for yesterday as we're recording the show.

'''B:''' 3.2% right?

'''S:''' 3.1% but NASA updated their numbers based upon overnight observations because we're getting better observations now because the the full moon's no longer in the way.

'''B:''' Thank you. Observing it.

'''S:''' What's it up to now? It's actually went down. It's down to 1.5 percent.

'''B:''' Whoa.

'''S:''' But so much for that. Still, it's over.

'''B:''' I didn't.

'''S:''' See that over 1%, but they downgraded it from 3.1 to 1.5%. Still, at 3.1% that was the the highest probability.

'''E:''' Ever.

'''S:''' Ever in many asteroid this size hitting the earth this size are bigger, the probability of hitting the moon is 0.8%, so just below 1%. That's still relatively high as these sort of things go, but it's 0.8%. So we could hope for that, hope for a moon impact that'll be cool, but it's not not going to affect the orbit, not going to affect our tides, nothing.

'''B:''' I wouldn't mind a little bit of a scare though to just to get us get us off our asses. I mean, I know we've been pretty good about tracking near Earth, asteroids, near Earth objects and that's great. But you know, I think a little extra effort, I think could be worth it. And, and to actually be prepared to actually have some sort of rocket ready to go. It would be kind of nice. But I also read that if that if it hit the moon and some of the some of the rocks from the moon actually hit the Earth, that they were big enough not to burn up in the atmosphere. Even they would be very small. And they would actually be probably, you probably see them on eBay. If somebody grabbed them, they would be so, so you know, that would be very scientifically valuable as you know, as you as you could imagine. So, So, yeah, don't worry about about the moon or the tides, but hey, man, who knows? It still could hit. We will know probably much more, even more definitively in a month. I heard that in a month the James Webb Space Telescope will be taking a look. And I don't know why it's taken a month to do it. I'm sure it's got a very busy, busy schedule. But that that might, you know, that might be the our last good look at that at that object until 2028.

'''S:''' One of the thing if it hits the moon, that takes it out of contention for hitting the earth. Ever, right? We don't have to worry about it coming back around whenever and crossing the Earth's path.

'''B:''' Yeah, that. That'd be fine. One less subject.

'''S:''' Yeah, 1 less object to worry about.
== Swindlers List (1:13:49) ==
Tax Scams
None

'''S:''' Jay, you're going to give us an entry of Swindlers list. I am.

'''J:''' Well, it's tax season here again in the United States.

'''S:''' It is.

'''B:''' Rabid season.

'''J:''' But this applies to basically any tax season anywhere around the world because, you know, there are scams going on that impact people filing taxes. And, and, and so anything that has to do with your personal information that this could apply. But in the United States, you know, we have taxes coming up and we have, we have, I have a list here of six different things that you got to keep your eye out for. So there's something called IRS impersonation scams, right? We have scammers that pretend to be IRS officials, which is bad because there's a lot of people out there that really wouldn't be able to, to discern the difference between a person from the IRS calling you or not. Now, the fact is they won't call you and they they basically don't call you. They don't contact you that way.

'''E:''' Correct. Not unless you are already engaged in a case with them, right? That would be The only exception to that rule.

'''J:''' Yeah, and that's fine, because you know, you already know people and you have names and all that. Stuff.

'''E:''' And that would have happened in writing, probably through a series of documents among, you know, not just one letter. So yeah, you would have to be pretty involved at that point with that particular case for a call for calls to happen.

'''J:''' So what these these scammers will do is they'll call up pretending to be from the IRS and they'll claim that you owe taxes and then they'll threaten arrest and deportation whenever, anything that they can do to get you to pay immediately. And guess what? You're not paying the IRS, you're paying them. And they could ask for a ton of money and you might. And people that don't know the difference could end up losing all the money that they save to pay their taxes. Very, very bad situation. There's also something called tax preparer fraud. In this scam, you have a fraudulent tax preparer, right? Someone that will help you prepare and file your taxes. And what they'll end up doing is that, you know, one of the things that they'll pull on you is they'll promise you very large refunds. And I have, you know, I know how to get the most refunds and all that stuff. And they, you know, it's common for them to falsify information on your returns. This would end up leading the person who falls for this scam into having big penalties as the taxpayer. And of course, they can always steal your personal information and use it for identity theft, which is a whole other freaking mess that you don't want to get into. The phishing scams are the ones that I think most of us would interact with. Now, these are essentially fake emails, right? The they'll, they'll send you e-mail. It'll have fake websites on it that look exactly like official IRS websites and whatever. You know, the emails that the IRS sends out, all they got to do is get their hands on one of them and, and essentially come copy the format. And what they're trying to do here is get you to give them your personal information and or download malware, which would even be worse because, you know, then they can really get all your information. The IRS is not going to, is never going to initiate a contact via e-mail. So just be careful. You know, you got to know what channels the IRS would contact you through.

'''E:''' Or text. They will not text you either.

'''J:''' Then we have the Social Security number scam. Scammers might claim that your Social Security number is suspended or do you know, due to tax reasons, Right. And they're aiming to scare people into revealing their personal information, you know, pay money to reactivate whatever it is. You know, depending on who they get on the phone, they'll follow a script that they think would make the person most vulnerable and watch out for that. Be careful. And there are also refund scams. Scammers can file fraudulent tax returns using your stolen personal information. And they're filing your tax return and they're trying to get your refunds. And this happens guys, this that.

'''S:''' Happened to me, yeah, but the IRS caught it and now I got a pin that I have to use to submit my taxes.

'''E:''' Which is good and I think that will be the way of the future is it's a way of doing like a 2 step authentication and with the pin.

'''J:''' Now, victims, well, yeah, but you know, they're laying off a lot of people that work for the IRS. So that's probably pushed out people who you fall for this, they find out about it when they submit their tax return and it gets rejected because it's already been submitted. If this happens to you, contact the IRS immediately. You're gonna need them to help you fix this mess. And then finally, we have something called ghost tax preparers. And these are people who, you know, they'll prepare your taxes, and then they'll refuse to sign the tax returns, which they have to do. Yeah, it's basically illegal for them not to do it, correct? And they'll also might promise large refunds and charge fees and on the refund amount and they're often filing false returns. It's just a it's just a big messy to protect yourself. You should always verify any communication that's claiming to be from the IRS and use, you know, a reputable, reputable registered tax prepares. You got it. You got to find the legit people out there. There's a lot of them. You know, you can go on Google reviews, you can use a tax service like you know the the several electronic ones that are out there where you just go through a series of questions on different on a website that can help you walk walk through it. If you really want to work with the person though, just do your research. If anybody calls you about anything to do with your taxes or you get any communication about your taxes of any kind, be super suspicious. Don't click links. Don't rush into anything. If the IRS really was reaching out to you or if someone claims to be from the IRS and they do reach out to you to say, OK, I'm going to call back an official IRS number and go through that Channel. Don't let them give you a phone number. You get your own phone number off the web to make sure you have, you know, you're at on the.gov site. Check the spelling of the website that you're at. Be careful out there guys. Scams are going to explode right in front of our eyes in in now and forever because AI is going to enable people to, to have more density with their scams and also, you know, do a better job to be honest with you. So just keep your eyes open and be smart about what you do.

'''E:''' And I would like to add one thing to that please. Elderly people are more victimized by this than anyone else for a lot of reasons. So help out your family, your neighbors if they need in these matters because some people who are elderly don't always have somebody looking out for them and they're left to their own devices to do it. And they're not sophisticated enough to understand these kinds of scams. So talk to your parents, talk to your grandparents, make sure everything's OK with them when it comes to their tax returns as well.

'''S:''' All right, Thank you, Jay.
{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:20:12) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = GMOs
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = According to the USDA, 55% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops, while worldwide the figure is 13.4%.
|link1web =
|link1title = None
|link1pub = None

|item2 = Although frequently a target of anti-GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market.
|link2web = https://www.isaaa.org/gmapprovaldatabase/crop/default.asp?CropID=25&Crop=Wheat
|link2title = Wheat(Triticum aestivum) GM Events | GM Approval Database - ISAAA.org
|link2pub = www.isaaa.org

|item3 = Scientists have developed a “scorpion cabbage” that produces scorpion venom in its leaves, but this has yet to gain approval in any country.
|link3web = https://explorebiotech.com/venomous-cabbage-cabbage-with-scorpion-poison-engineered-in-every-cell/
|link3title = Venomous Cabbage - Cabbage With Scorpion Poison Engineered In Every Cell
|link3pub = explorebiotech.com

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = According to the USDA, 55% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops, while worldwide the figure is 13.4%.

|fiction = Although frequently a target of anti-GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market.

|science2 = Scientists have developed a “scorpion cabbage” that produces scorpion venom in its leaves, but this has yet to gain approval in any country.

|rogue1 = Evan
|answer1 = Although frequently a target of anti-GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market.

|rogue2 = Cara
|answer2 = Scientists have developed a “scorpion cabbage” that produces scorpion venom in its leaves, but this has yet to gain approval in any country.

|rogue3 = Jay
|answer3 = Although frequently a target of anti-GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market.

|rogue4 = Bob
|answer4 = According to the USDA, 55% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops, while worldwide the figure is 13.4%.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever =
|win = y
|swept =
}}

'''S:''' Guys, it's time for science or fiction.

'''US#01:''' It's time for science or fiction.

'''S:''' Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake and then I challenge my panelists got to tell me which one is the fake. You have a theme this week. The theme is GMOs. Yeah. Some info on genetically modified organisms. You ready? All right, here we go. According to the USDA, 55% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops, while worldwide the figure is 13.4%. Eye #2 Although frequently a target of anti GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market and eye #3 scientists have developed a scorpion cabbage that produces scorpion venom in its leaves, but this has yet to gain approval in any country. Evan, go first.

'''E:''' OK #155% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops. Worldwide, though, it's 13.4% OK, which means that. So the the 55% for the US is cooked into that worldwide 13.4%, which basically if you took the US out of it, that figure would be much lower. We've talked about how I think these are illegal in some countries.

'''B:''' Well, define genetically modified crops, right? That's kind of important.

'''C:''' You mean like the general definition?

'''S:''' Yeah, meeting transgenic, it is a, it doesn't have to be transgenic, but it meets the definition, you know, the legal definition of a genetically modified Organism that needs approval.

'''E:''' Perhaps the only thing that could be fiction here is this is a USDA survey of information. And you know, how do they know really about what What else has? Happened. Let me clarify.

'''S:''' The first number comes from the USDA. The second number does not come from the USDA.

'''E:''' Okay, thank you. Kind to think.

'''S:''' I know it's ambiguous, but I just got the figure from somewhere else. But yeah, don't, don't hang your head on that because that second figure did not come from the USDA.

'''E:''' Though I'm alarmed because when you take the US percentage out of this, that 13.4 really drops. And that's, you know, in a way, a disconcerting number as it goes lower. Because for so many reasons we've talked about, I have a feeling this one feels like it's science to me. The second one, no GMO wheat variety on the market. I I don't know about that. That one's, you know, straightforward and there's not really much information there to glean. It either is or it isn't the case. So, you know, that one's almost a coin flip on itself. And then this last one, scorpion cabbage, never heard of it, produces scorpion venom in its leaves. Why, to protect the plant that way bugs and other mites and other things don't get in there. Has yet to get approval in any country. OK. I believe that they've developed it, you know, and, and and probably 12 other things that are sound equally scary and crazy in a way. So I think the most likely one to be fiction will be the wheat one. I'll say that one's fiction.

'''S:''' OK, Cara.

'''C:''' It's funny because, OK, I agree with 55% of cropland, although that actually sounds low to me because so many of our staple crops are GM in this country, but 13.4% globally. OK, yeah, that also feels low, but it could be accurate. But then I was realizing maybe the reason it sounds low to me is because we don't have GM wheat. Like, I know that we have GM, you know, like the big staple crops like soybeans and cotton and corn is a really, really big one. And we have some of those other crops like papaya, alfalfa, which is, you know, animal feed. But then I was like, oh, maybe we don't have GM wheat because the scorpion cabbage is bizarre. This feels like, you know, quote Frankenfood. It feels like a scare tactic that's often used like, oh, they're putting, you know, genes from a evil, scary thing into this fish. Tomato. Yeah, fish, tomato, so scorpion cabbage. So I don't know that one feels like the fiction to me. So I'm going to not go with Evan this time and say that's the fiction.

'''S:''' That's OK. You're saying the scorpion cabbage?

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' OK, we're still friends, right? OK. Thank goodness.

'''J:''' Jay, yeah, these are interesting. I mean, I'm going to jump right to the second one here. You're saying that that although frequently a target of anti GMO efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market. So on what market, Steve, anywhere. OK. The first one about the USDA, the USDA saying that 55% of US crop lands grows some form of genetically modified crops. Yeah. I mean, I think that's science because there's some there's some really heavy hitter crops that have that have been genetically modified. And I think a lot of people don't don't even know about it, but that one is definitely science. The scorpion cabbage, I'm definitely with Evan. I don't, I don't know anything about this. It's producing scorpion venom in its leaves. And what the hell would they do with that? But you know, I mean, it seems to me like that's doable because of our ability to genetically modify things. I mean, why? Why couldn't they do it? But again, I don't know much about it, but I mean, my gut is telling me that there are weak GMO crops. So this is saying there aren't. And I think that there absolutely is. So I'm going to say that one is science fiction. That's the fiction.

'''Voice-over:''' Science fiction.

'''J:''' Science fiction. That's science or fiction, Jay.

'''B:''' That.

'''S:''' Was a good work around. Jay Clever.

'''B:''' All right, Bob, let's try Jay. Damn, this ones rough. I for some reason I got stuck in my head that there is no GMO wheat. So I could be wrong, I could be wrong, but for some reason that that's shouting in my head. So based on that, then I go to the third one, scorpion cabbage. That's a lure right there. That's just like, yeah, they're not going to buy that. I So for that reason, I'm going to meta here. Of course I'm going to say that that one is science because it's just so gaudily stupid. So that means that the first one, 55% US cropland, gross genetically modified crops that I don't know these numbers. I think I've been tweaked up to a certain extent. I mean 55%. So I was actually like, oh, if that's true, that's actually, it seems like a high number, especially when you add in the fact that about wheat not being GMO for some reason. So for so I'm just going to like whatever I'll say #1 the 55% cropland in US is fiction all.

'''S:''' Right. So we're all spread out. I always love that. So how should we go?

'''Voice-over:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Getting it sweet, that's why I start. Start with two. I'll get it over with. I want to RIP the. Band.

'''S:''' I'll take them in order. It's usually what I do if you're all spread out. Not Tobias in anyone way. According to the USDA, 55% of US cropland grows genetically modified crops, while worldwide the figure is 13.4%. Bob, you think that one is the fiction, everyone else thinks this one is science and this one is science. Sorry, Bob. Yeah. So America is, you know, has the high crop lands that are GMO. There are some smaller countries that don't have nearly the market we do that have a higher percentage, but are not, don't produce as much GMOs as we do, you know, so the US produces more GMO crops, I should say, than any other country, right?

'''C:''' Like in absolute quantity.

'''S:''' In absolute quantity, yeah, but in for certain individual crops. So here's a breakdown of some of the crops. For sugar beets, 100%. That's just 100%. No ones planting non-GMO sugar beets. Canola is recently also hit 100%.

'''US#01:''' Wow.

'''S:''' If for corn, soybeans and cotton combined, it's around 94%. Alfalfa has been coming up recently, that's up to 20%. But for all cropland it's about 55%. Wow. Let's go right to the second one because that kind of bears on the first one. Although frequently a target of anti GMO efforts efforts, there is currently no GMO wheat variety on the market. Evident, Jay, you think this one is the fiction? Bob and Cara, I think this one is science and this and this one is the fiction. Good job guys, because there is.

'''B:''' I can hear you saying, Steve. Yeah, I can hear you.

'''S:''' Saying that, I did say it recently.

'''B:''' This was all chaff. This was all chaff. So I wasn't wrong so.

'''J:''' Steve, you want to know why I know about this?

'''S:''' Why?

'''B:''' Because you said it recently.

'''J:''' Because I bake bread and I do reading about wheat and I was curious about it and I guess it's where they make it in where Africa or something.

'''S:''' No, South America, South. So it's HB 4 wheat triticum. A stevum and.

'''B:''' So.

'''S:''' There's actually 2. There's two types of genetically modified. Yeah, Trinicum, there's HP 4 wheat and there's Roundup Ready wheat. The HP 4 wheat is drought tolerant, and that is being planted in some countries in South America who need the drought tolerance, but we don't really need it in the USA So it hasn't really caught on. And I don't know why we're not using the Roundup Ready wheat in the USI don't know if that's a marketing thing or whatever with the logistics behind that. But yeah, so in the US, there's no there's no GMO wheat in the US, right, Which is what what I meant. But yet not that's not true in the world. So there are. That's tricky. There's GMO, that's right. When Jay asked what do you mean which market, Like all of them, you know that did I didn't clarify question, Jay. I did not clarify. Therefore it's the world market. But anyway, yeah, a little tricky. Which means that scientists have developed a scorpion cabbage that produces scorpion venom in its leaves, but it has yet to gain approval in any country. Is science the hell? So yeah, Evan, the the scorpion venom is a anti pesticide, right?

'''B:''' It's a pesticide thing.

'''S:''' Yeah, mainly targeting caterpillars, right, because they eat cabbage. But the venom itself was genetically modified to not affect human cells.

'''B:''' So yeah.

'''S:''' So it kills insects, but not doesn't it has no negative effect on humans. So this this exists. It just has it hasn't gained regulatory approval in any country yet. I don't again, I don't know if it's being held up for political reasons or if it just hasn't gone through all of the the red tape yet. You know, it takes a long time to get approval. So it's, you know, it's just sort of stuck in limbo. But it's been a it, it may never come to market is the other thing is from what I've been reading for, for unclear reasons, but this, that is an approach, you know, they're looking for because, you know, we have like BT and the HT are like the two pesticide crops, right? So the, the BT produces a, produces a pesticide in the plant. So you don't have to spray it. And that like, I think cotton, I think pretty much 100% of cotton is now BT cotton. It's just so much better as a as a commercial crop and non BT cotton, it's completely dominated the market. So which goes to show you that when farmers are left to their own devices, right, farmers have been now had 20 years, you know, 20-30, almost 30 years to decide if they want to plant GMO plants or not. They're choosing the GMO varieties that are good for their business, Right. That, yeah, that have less, less loss to pests or you have better yield or lower inputs or whatever it is those those crops are thriving except where they're banned, right? Except where regulation gets in the way because of unscientific reasons.

'''E:''' Remember Sri Lanka?

'''S:''' Yes, that was the one that banned artificial fertilizer. Is that what you're talking? About and.

'''E:''' Oh, is it? Was it fertilizer? I forgot. Yeah, I thought it was a crop.

'''S:''' But and then and then they realized very quickly, which I 100% predicted that they're like, oh crap, we don't have enough crap. We don't have enough of, you know, there's no, there isn't enough fertilizer, you know, manure to go around. They had to like and with their their infrastructure, their agriculture was collapsing. They had to like emergently, you know, suspend the rules and and allow for the use of artificial fertilizer.

'''E:''' It was a catastrophe. Was a catastrophe.

'''S:''' It was a total and it was 100% predictable. It was 100% predictable. You know, half of our food is fertilized by by manure. The other half is artificial. You can't get rid of one or the other, right? You guys, we need both. We can't just cut our food supply in half. So you can't get rid of all of the the animals that are producing the manure, right, without shifting over time and replacing that as a source of fertilizer. And then you can't just ban half of the fertilizer, you know, that we're using to grow our crops either and think that where we're going to just magically double our manure production. How's that going to work? You have to, you know, I was reading a good article today about economics, you know, because of the shenanigans that are going on, and the main point was that you have to understand modern economics as a global ecosystem. That is the only way to understand it right? That all of.

'''E:''' These.

'''S:''' All of the old thinking, the Adam Smith kind of thinking about economics is obsolete now, you know, like, and, and they, they made the, the point to to emphasize that it's like no single country on the planet can produce an iPhone. There isn't a single country that has all of the infrastructure necessary to produce an iPhone. It can only exist as an ecosystem of supply chains and various expertise and various manufacturing capabilities.

'''E:''' Raw materials.

'''S:''' Yeah, The whole thing that has to come together requires this intricate web, you know, And agriculture is the same way. It's it's exactly the same thing.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' It's an intricate ecosystem. You can't just start Willy nilly pulling pieces out or banning things or disrupting it and think like, it's not going to collapse. It's not going to cause a disaster because it is. We've talked about this, too. This is like my fear for like, if civilization's going to collapse, how's it going to happen? I think this is how it's going to happen. These intricate ecosystems are only going to get more complicated and interdependent and vulnerable to disruption. And a cascading disruption of, of this economic ecosystems can, you know, 'cause tremendous disaster, not maybe the literal collapse of civilization, but I'm saying that's kind of, you know, a significant disruption in services.

'''E:''' Well, I mean, let's hope that.

'''S:''' What?

'''E:''' Well, let's hope that with when these things start to emanate and become reality, they course correct. And yeah, OK, we got to stop this. We throw the brakes on, go back to, you know.

'''S:''' I and I and that will happen. That will happen. In my opinion, the only question is how much damage gets done in the meantime? How much damage will there be before the course corrections are made? And like until that parachute is pulled or whatever, that that's the question. That's the only.

'''B:''' I think there'll be so much so much finger pointing that by the time they realize it'd be too late.

'''S:''' Yeah, maybe, maybe too dysfunctional to course corrections in time. So don't ban half of our supply chain for the agricultural supply chain. It seems obvious in retrospect. You know, actually, it was. It was obvious prospectively, as many people pointed out.
{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:36:46) ==
{{qow
|text = "The kneading of memory makes the dough a fiction which as we know can go on yeasting forever."
|author = A beautifully poetic way to phrase the rewriting nature of memory and recall.
|lived =
|desc =
}}

'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' This week's quote was suggested by a listener, Duncan from New York, who wrote to us and the subject line in the e-mail was Barry Unsworth quote. I had to look up who Barry Unsworth was, a fiction writer, an English fiction writer, award-winning writer. Never, never heard of him before. But in any case, he writes, Hey, Evan, I'm in the process of he wrote releasing. I think he meant rereading. I'm in the process of rereading Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth and stumbled upon this quote in the prologue. Here it is the kneading. KNEADING, by the way, the kneading of memory makes the dough a fiction which, as we know, can go on yeasting forever. And he writes a beautifully poetic way to phrase the rewriting nature of memory and recall. So thank you, Duncan, for that suggestion.

'''J:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' And Jay?

'''J:''' Yes.

'''E:''' It's bread themed. You know I caught.

'''S:''' That that's great.

'''E:''' Bread analogy here, So I figured you would like that as well and you'd rise to the occasion.

'''S:''' Oh God, I'm waiting for that you.

'''E:''' Couldn't let you. Couldn't expect me to walk away without saying something like.

'''S:''' All right. Thank you, Evan.

'''E:''' Thank you.

'''S:''' And thank you all for joining me this evening. You're welcome.

'''E:''' Thanks, Steve.

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

{{Navigation}}

SGU Episode 1025

2025-10-01T22:44:05Z

Willdefraine: /* Science or Fiction (1:39:31) */ corrected side panels for rogues and host

{{Editing required
|proofreading = y
|links = y
|Today I Learned list = y
|categories = y
|segment redirects = y
|}}
{{InfoBox
|verified = 
|episodeNum = 1025
|episodeDate = {{1000s|1025|boxdate}}
|episodeIcon = File:1025.jpg
|caption = "Next-gen cargo ship: efficient, innovative design sailing towards a sustainable future."
|bob = y
|cara = y
|jay = y
|evan = y
|george =
|rebecca =
|perry =
|guest1 =
|guest2 =
|guest3 =
|qowText = "One of the few universal characteristics is a healthy skepticism toward unverified speculations. These are regarded as topics for conversation until tests can be devised. Only then do they attain the dignity of subjects for investigation."
|qowAuthor = Edwin Hubbel, The Realm of the Nebulae (Yale University Press: 1936)
|downloadLink = {{1000s|1025|download}}
|forumLinktopic =
|}}

{{anchor|intro}}
== Intro ==

'''Voice-over:''' You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

'''S:''' Hello and welcome to the {{SGU|link=y}}. Today is Wednesday, February 26th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

'''B:''' Hey, everybody!

'''S:''' Cara Santa Maria...

'''C:''' Howdy.

'''S:''' Jay Novella...

'''J:''' Hey guys.

'''S:''' ...and Evan Bernstein.

'''E:''' Good evening, everyone.

'''S:''' So unfortunately, we've got some sad news today. Just today as we're recording this, Michelle Trachtenberg died.

'''E:''' I read it and I didn't believe it at first.

'''S:''' Yeah, so she played Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

'''B:''' That's how I know her. And she was great. She was so good.

'''S:''' Yeah, she was really good. She had a whole acting career, obviously, not just Buffy. But yeah, apparently she was only 39. Apparently she had a liver transplant and so probably died of complications of that. I'm not seeing any specific information, but that's probably has something to do that. Although I couldn't find why she had the liver transplant in the first place.

'''E:''' Does it seem, I imagine by average it's young to be having a liver transplant.

'''C:''' No, I mean it can be, but some liver transplants are related to lifestyle and some liver transplants are not. People can have things wrong with their liver for a lot of different reasons.

'''E:''' I imagine there's a genetic disposition for liver disease or other factors like that.

'''C:''' I actually recently saw a patient in the hospital who had a form of cirrhosis that is non-alcohol related cirrhosis. It can just happen.

'''E:''' Yeah, oh boy.

'''S:''' Or you can get an infection or you just have some other liver disease. No information. But yeah, that's sad.

'''B:''' Yeah, it blows.

'''S:''' Yeah, if you're younger than me, by definition, you're young.

'''C:''' And if you're younger than me, you're really young.

'''S:''' Yeah, you're really young.

'''C:''' You remember my friend Holly?

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' A rocket just launched, like just now. She was posting about it.

'''S:''' Oh yeah?

'''E:''' Like 10 minutes ago?

'''C:''' No, like today. There was a rocket launch with like going to the moon, I think. Yeah, SpaceX Falcon 9 launches the IM-2 moon mission and there's a bunch of like science on it.

'''S:''' That's a lunar lander. Yeah, intuitive machines.

'''C:''' So I don't know. I think I might have mentioned a friend of mine who is an optical engineer. Her name's Holly Bender on the show before. I've definitely had her on Talk Nerdy, but gosh, that was probably like almost 10 years ago now. So I should probably have her back on.

'''E:''' Where did we meet her in Washington, DC?

'''C:''' Yeah, you guys met Holly. So she worked on an instrument, the Lunar Trailblazer. I guess the instrument that she was working on is looking to see how much water there is in this one crater in the moon. Where did the water possibly come from? Could it be used? And so, yeah, I got to watch the launch, you know, through her Instagram feed, which was only, it looks like just an hour ago, she posted the launch and said, we're going to the moon, which is like just really, really cool. What a cool thing to be involved, to be an engineer who worked on something and then watch it go off to space.

'''B:''' That would just, I can't even relate to how awesome that would be.

'''J:''' I know, right? Could you imagine?

'''E:''' And nerve wracking.

'''C:''' Yeah, that too. Yeah, for sure. So I don't know much about the instrument or about the actual, like what's all going to, in the payload on this rocket.

'''S:''' So it was a Falcon 9 rocket that launched two probes, right? So it was, I would call them a ride share. So it was the Intuitive Machines Lunar Lander and NASA's Lunar Trailblazer, which is the one that your friend worked on. That's the one that's going to be looking at the water. But they're both basically missions to support the eventual Artemis getting people back to the moon.

'''B:''' Yeah, if it ever happens.

'''C:''' Well, these are the kinds of things that make it happen.

'''B:''' Well, I mean, Musk doesn't want it to happen. So what Musk wants...

'''C:''' Well, it looks like this is on Musk's rocket.

'''E:''' Do you think he would want it to happen then?

'''B:''' He does not. He wants to go right to Mars. He does not want Artemis. That's my understanding. He does not think we need to go to the moon at all.

'''S:''' It's too late. We are so committed.

'''E:''' Haven't we talked about this before? You have to have the moon before you have Mars, right?

'''B:''' Of course it does. But he does not, I don't think, I haven't read about it in a little while, but I don't think he agrees with that.

'''E:''' Let me call him. I'm getting him on the show here.

'''B:''' He wants to just go straight to Mars, which is, of course, utterly ridiculous.

'''E:''' His line's busy. I'll try him later.

'''S:''' All right. Let us know if you get in touch with him.

'''E:''' Yeah. I'll let you know. I'll pipe him in.

'''B:''' And another thing.

'''S:''' And another thing.

'''E:''' And about that asteroid.

'''C:''' Oh, yeah. Sorry.

'''B:''' Oh, yeah. Did you guys hear about the news about that asteroid? Well, it looks like, you know, we're not going to get hit at all.

'''C:''' Why do you sound disappointed, Bob?

'''E:''' Good.

'''B:''' I'm going to own this. I'm disappointed. It's down to four one-thousandth of a percent chance to hit Earth.

'''E:''' Yes.

'''C:''' Good.

'''B:''' And that's fine. That's fine. But I forget what venue I said this at, but I was like, you know, I can't help but be a little disappointed. Because for me, a best case scenario would be like, yeah, we're nervous. And we're like, you know, a little bit of like, holy crap. But I like the idea of countries uniting to address this and have a rocket ready within a couple of years to like a dart type mission, to deal with like a kinetic impactor, right? To deal with an asteroid that's heading towards the Earth. And then, you know, in 2028, like, oh, look, oh, yeah, it's not going to hit us. But we got a rocket ready to go. That's what I wanted. I wanted for us to take even more seriously this idea that we need to be ready to go with an impactor to push away or change the trajectory of any asteroid that we might find and not have enough time. And it's great that, you know, getting hit would have that would have been horrible. I mean, not, you know, an extinction level event, but we could have lost a city. So yeah, obviously, I wouldn't want anything like that. But I wouldn't mind a little bit of a scare for a couple of years to be prepared for something that could potentially hit us. You know, who knows?

'''S:''' Could it still hit the moon? Or is that ruled out too now?

'''B:''' I just read about the Earth. I'm not sure.

'''E:''' Bob, the estimate not long ago was as high as 3.2% chance.

'''B:''' Yeah, the highest ever calculated probability for something like that, which was-

'''E:''' So that's what got you all worked up and going, right?

'''B:''' No, that one I got actually a little scared because we had gone-

'''E:''' That was a little too much?

'''B:''' Yeah, I mean, because we went from one in, when I started tracking the news, it went from one in 88 to one in 72. Then it was down to one in 32 or something. I'm like, holy crap, this is like going in the wrong direction, which is common. That happens for these things. It seems to get even more likely, then it's like gone, like, oh yeah, it's not going to happen. Yeah, but one percent, that was the big point. That was the important percentage because over one percent, that's when these agencies get involved and start making plans and stuff. If it stayed at like 1.5%, then we probably would have made serious plans, including potentially getting a rocket ready with a kinetic impactor, if it stayed at 1.5%. So whatever, it's just weird to be even just a little bit disappointed about that. It was kind of a weird thing, but I think I've related my reasoning behind that.

'''S:''' But it's not going to hit us.

'''B:''' Probably not. Overwhelmingly unlikely, but not impossible.

'''S:''' Not impossible.

'''B:''' Just saying.

'''S:''' Is it possible that the percentage will start going up again as we get more data?

'''B:''' Probably not.

'''S:''' Usually does not happen.

'''B:''' I'd put some good money against that once they get it down that low.

'''S:''' But don't worry, Bob, eventually another asteroid will threaten to kill millions of people.

'''B:''' It's basically inevitable. So yeah, that's why, dude, that's why I think we need to be even more prepared. We are much more prepared than we used to be, but I want to be even more prepared than that.

'''S:''' Double prepared. Double super prepared.

'''B:''' It's one of these existential crises that we could do something about.

'''S:''' Yes, we could actually prevent.

'''B:''' Right? If there's a wicked Carrington level, solar flare level event, well, we can actually do a little bit about that too. But we probably won't.

'''S:''' We could do a lot about that.

'''B:''' That's true.

'''S:''' That's not a good example. That's another thing that's going to happen eventually, is going to be really bad, and we can completely 100% prevent, not from happening, but we can prevent any damage from it. We just have to harden our infrastructure against it.

'''B:''' The difference is that we are making really good strides in tracking these near-Earth objects, but I don't think we're doing much. We're not doing near enough, in my opinion, to guard against such a solar event.

'''S:''' Actually, Bob, I've been reading that we are doing a lot about that.

'''B:''' Really?

'''S:''' Actually, we've been hardening the grid and the infrastructure the last 20 years or so significantly. Again, not enough, but it-

'''B:''' Yeah. I think it's not enough. It's glad that it's a little bit better than what I had thought, based on what you've said. But still, I think we can get fried. Even for an EMP, electromagnetic pulse, you don't even need a solar flare to induce those currents. You can just basically explode one nuke over the country, and you're back into the 1700s. That level of hardening, we're nowhere near the hardening required for that. That's something that is not unlikely, unfortunately.

'''E:''' Yeah. We'll probably do ourselves in before-

'''B:''' That's scary.

'''E:''' -any kind of cosmic event does us in.

'''B:''' Yeah. I can't disagree with that, but yeah, there are events, though, that we really can't do anything about. Those are the ones that, yeah, just like, you know, whatever. It feels good, though, just to do stuff-

'''S:''' Even being in the crosshairs of a gamma ray burst, didn't know how much we could do about that.

'''B:''' GRPA, yeah. They're about a light-year wide. Yeah, there's not much you could do about that. You don't even know what's coming, really.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' Right? It's like, oh, there it is. We're done.

'''E:''' Turn into the Hulk.

{{anchor|news_item}}
== News Items ==

{{anchor|news_item1}}
=== Congestion Pricing (09:55) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-widening-highways-doesnt-fix-traffic-but-congestion-pricing-can/
|article_title = Why Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic—But Congestion Pricing Can | Scientific American
|publication = www.scientificamerican.com
}}
'''S:''' All right. Jay, start us off by telling us about congestion pricing. What is that, and does it work?

'''J:''' Well, you know when you get a stuffed-up nose?

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Oh, yeah.

'''J:''' It has nothing to do with that.

'''E:''' Thank goodness.

'''J:''' Everybody knows about traffic congestion, especially if you live near any cities in the United States. You know, it's a constant problem. This is happening in cities around the world, and the standard response is typically to do what? To add more lanes, right?

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' We've all seen it happen.

'''B:''' Double the lanes.

'''J:''' It works for a little while, but what happens after a period of time is it stops working, which is a big problem. And a lot of people might think that adding lanes is actually a good thing to do, but research and real-world evidence tells us a completely different story. Ultimately, it makes the congestion even worse, which I really think is amazing when you think about it. The reason is something called induced demand. Bob, have you ever had induced demand?

'''B:''' Have I had it? I'm going to have to say, I'll guess yes.

'''J:''' Okay.

'''S:''' I have. Actually, I've experienced induced demand, exactly the same phenomenon in a completely different context. Our clinic is backed up, especially for new referrals, right? If you want an appointment and you're a new patient, you might have to wait six months to get an appointment. And over the years, I've been there, again, I've been there for 30 years. So I've had to experience this cycle many, many times. We hire new clinic clinicians, which opens up a whole bunch of new slots. The wait time goes down, and then it goes right back up. The idea is that if there is basically a bottomless pit of pent-up demand, people will basically wait a certain amount of time for their appointment, and so the wait time is always going to inflate to that point, no matter how many slots or people we bring on or whatever we do. The question is, is there a limit to that? At some point, it is not literally bottomless, it's just much larger than the supply. The same question comes up with traffic. If you keep doing that, if you keep adding lanes, at some point, will you outstrip the pent-up demand or not? And then the other question I have, if adding lanes makes it rebound and even worse, then would reducing lanes make it better?

'''J:''' I don't think so.

'''S:''' Does it work the other direction, it's not reversible?

'''J:''' In the sense of traffic-induced demand, it's well-documented. It's where you increase the road space, which then encourages more people to drive, because people are aware that the projects are happening, and then they think, okay, I could drive on that road during times I normally wouldn't, because they expanded it, it should be fine. So over time, the roads become just as clogged as they were, because essentially people were waiting for the opportunity.

'''B:''' We're taking back roads too, isn't that a player factor?

'''J:''' All the behavior that people have to avoid the traffic jam.

'''S:''' Or they may make less of an effort to carpool, or they'll take trips they wouldn't have otherwise taken.

'''J:''' Yeah, and the list that the researchers were talking about, they're saying these are people who previously avoided rush hour, or who switched from public transit. In some cases, the expanded highway entices people to take jobs from farther away, particularly if they're driving to their interview during off-peak times, and like, oh, this was great, and the commute is fine. This actually happened to me once, where it really bit me in the ass. The research shows that over time, the highway fills up again, and congestion is back to where it started, or worse. So we've observed this repeatedly. It's been happening so much, and it's so well-documented that there's zero question about whether or not this is happening. A study of expanded highways in the US found that traffic volumes tend to rise in direct proportion to the new capacity, which is basically what Steve was saying. So in other words, for every 10% increase in lane miles, traffic increases by about 10 or more percent. So road expansion doesn't eliminate congestion. It kind of fuels it, if you think about it from that perspective. So beyond traffic, expansion has other unintended consequences, like more vehicles on the road mean more pollution, and encouraging suburban sprawl leads to longer commutes and higher infrastructure costs. Like, there's all these dominoes that fall once you start doing this. Cities end up in a really expensive cycle of expansion that never actually solves the problem. And I was talking to Bob about this. Like, when you talk about road expansion and the cost that it takes to do, like, these three, five, 10-year projects to expand the roads, we could be talking about billions of dollars.

'''S:''' Oh, yeah.

'''E:''' Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it.

'''J:''' It's not cheap.

'''E:''' And chances are they'll go over budget in more cases than not.

'''J:''' All right. So hold on to your pants, guys, because you might not like what I'm about to say. So the researchers concluded that the most effective way to help congested roads is something called congestion pricing. All right? Are you guessing where I'm going with this?

'''E:''' Yeah, it's a toll.

'''J:''' Exactly. So it's a toll to drivers who use the roads during these high traffic peak hours. And what this does, it's an incentive for drivers to adjust their driving habits. So if you want to look at it in a very nice way, you're saying, look, we got to charge a toll during these particular times on these particular roads, because the goal here is to help the congestion problem. And people who have to take those drives at that time, no matter what, they can't deviate, they're going to be really unhappy about it, because it's going to add up. And it could be a problem for certain income levels, absolutely.

'''C:''' How is that different than, like, here in California, it's really common on the larger freeways that there are HOV lanes that are toll lanes?

'''J:''' Yeah, I don't know how effective those HOV lanes are. I mean, I always use them when I can.

'''C:''' But you have to pay for them here.

'''J:''' Oh, you do have to pay for them?

'''C:''' That's what I'm saying. Yeah, they're like fast track lanes.

'''E:''' Do they work?

'''C:''' Well, yeah, they're not nearly as congested as the rest of the traffic.

'''E:''' Yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah, I don't know if they didn't say anything about it in this study, and I'm sure that there's a ton of different things that states do. Like I know some states have stoplights on the entrance ramps.

'''C:''' Yeah, we have those too in California. We have all the things that you need for congestion in LA.

'''E:''' The point seems to be, though, that it's tied to what price someone's willing to pay. And it's enough people, it's a discouragement for them to not want to pay.

'''C:''' Yeah, and if it wasn't, I think that because LA is an interesting case because we have it side by side, right? Like if you're driving down the 110, on the left side of the 110, there are paid lanes, and the rest of the 110 are not paid. And the left side is less traffic-y than the main side. So people are willing to sit.

'''E:''' Here's your free internet, but if you want the fast internet, pay more.

'''C:''' Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know it works.

'''B:''' I kind of like that idea, though. You have the option.

'''E:''' Yeah, you build your own.

'''J:''' Well, what they're trying to do is encourage people to take options that they probably wouldn't take without a little nudge, right? So can you drive off peak times? Can you work from home? Can you shift to public transport? Can you carpool? Because all of these things have directly shown to help reduce congestion if people are exercising them. But what it turns out to is we're animals of convenience, and we usually pick the most convenient thing. And sometimes that's not in the better good for our society. So unlike expansion, this congestion pricing, it actively manages traffic rather than passively accommodating it. And as we know, the accommodating part doesn't really work anyway. So cities that have implemented this congestion pricing have seen some really good measurable improvements. London introduced a congestion charge back in 2003, and the traffic in the city center dropped measurably quite a bit. Air pollution improved, and public transit investments increased.

'''E:''' I didn't realize it's been 20 years that they've had that. Interesting.

'''J:''' Then they did it in Stockholm back in 2006, and traffic declined by 20%. And the policy became permanent after the public support grew. And then they did it in Singapore. They have one of the most advanced congestion pricing systems. They have adjusting tolls in real time based on traffic levels and keeping roads flowing efficiently. So we could clearly see that this works. And the question is, why aren't more cities doing this? So I think the real problem here is there's political resistance. Like, look what happened in New York City recently, right? We had, you want to go to New York City, you got to pay, what was it, $10 or something to get into the city?

'''S:''' It was initially $15.

'''J:''' Or $15?

'''E:''' And then they reduced it to $9, I believe. And that's on top of whatever tolls you're paying to cross bridges and other things. This is on top of that.

'''J:''' You know, but the thing that society has to realize is, you know, it's like you turn this thing on and it costs money, but it is a solution though, right? Like, we can't just not do things because we don't want to pay more money. Like, there is really no option if you think about it. Cities will become so crowded that there will not be another way to fix them. Like, there's only so much that a city can handle traffic-wise and foot traffic-wise and everything. Like, there's just, it's going to be a limit. There's an upper limit to all of these things. What are the other solutions that we could do? That there really, as far as I could tell, there aren't any.

'''C:''' I think what's hard about this is a similar argument that you'll see regarding our prison systems, which is that unintentionally or intentionally, what we often do is either criminalize or financially penalize poverty in our cities. And so the very people who are like, let's say you're going to work and you need to be there at a particular time and you can't afford the time it takes to drop your kids off at school and then get on the bus to get to work and you can't carpool because you don't know anybody else, you know, at your work, you know, whatever the case may be, they're the very people who can't afford this and they have to do it.

'''S:''' Yeah, but you can apply for a discount, basically.

'''C:''' Okay, that's good to hear.

'''S:''' Yeah, so what I've been reading, like, yeah, the congestion pricing can work if implemented correctly, right? If it's not implemented smartly, then yes, it's a regressive tax and it can hurt low-income people, especially if you're a worker, it's barely hanging on and now you've got to spend 10 bucks a day just to get to work. That could be huge. But if you handle it so that, let's say, the revenue is used to expand public transportation and people who would have a hard time affording it can get an exemption or a discount, etc. But there's lots of things that you could do that would amplify its effectiveness and minimize any downside. And so that's, you know, that's just always the nuts and bolts of smart management, right? It just takes thought, it takes the ability to make changes, to evolve, to react to how things work.

'''C:''' And to adapt to that particular, the needs of that particular city, because, you know, you think about New York, and yes, maybe I'm wrong here, but it probably is more of a privilege to be able to ride around in a car in New York, if you can afford a taxi, an Uber, a driver. Like, because you can get anywhere in New York on foot or in the subway, and you can do it fast. Like, usually it's actually faster to take the subway somewhere than it is to take a car. Because of the traffic.

'''B:''' Forget about parking. Oh, my God.

'''C:''' Exactly.

'''E:''' Yeah, parking's a nightmare.

'''C:''' But I think about Los Angeles, it's a wildly different scenario.

'''E:''' Sure.

'''C:''' Right? You have to have a car. You cannot get by without a car in Los Angeles. And so-

'''S:''' But that's a choice too. That is a choice as well that, you know, we collectively make. And we could, you know, especially in cities and in large metropolitan areas, we could invest in public transportation, have dedicated bike lanes, have e-bikes and e-scooters or whatever, have other options that make walking and using these other forms of transportation way more convenient, and not just rely on cars.

'''C:''' But within reason. Like-

'''S:''' Yeah, within reason.

'''C:''' L.A. is also just an enormous city. And I think that, like, we have to sometimes remember too that, like, different geographic locations have different struggles.

'''S:''' But yeah, I mean, congestion pricing should be on the table as one of the options. Right?

'''C:''' Yeah, it makes sense. And now we have the technology to do it. I don't see how we could have done this, you know, 20, 30 years ago.

'''E:''' Well, London did it. I mean-

'''C:''' That long ago?

'''E:''' Yeah. 2003, right?

'''C:''' And how did they adjust that? Was it adjusting, like, minute by minute?

'''E:''' That's a good question.

'''S:''' Well, it's usually, like, in New York, it was just basically, like, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. or something. Like, it's just pretty much most of the day.

'''E:''' Okay.

'''C:''' Oh, so it wasn't really- See, I'm thinking of it as, like, an adaptive rate.

'''S:''' No.

'''C:''' Kind of like surge pricing on a new car.

'''S:''' No, it's not surge pricing. It's just-

'''C:''' I see.

'''S:''' In this zone, during, you know, the day and the weekdays or whatever, they carve out basically most time. Not at 2 in the morning, but basically whenever there was-

'''C:''' Right.

'''S:''' There would actually be traffic there. Yeah, it's not surge pricing. That's-

'''C:''' I see.

'''S:''' So, that's where, like, AI comes in and that kind of analysis, which also needs to be part of the equation here, is, like, really managing traffic light timing, having turn lanes, things like that that could also really mitigate congestion.

'''C:''' Ugh, turn lanes. That's our biggest complaint in L.A. We just don't have that many of them.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' We do something called, like, anti-gridlock, which is during morning and evening rush hour, the parking lane, you cannot park in or you'll get towed.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' And that's really helpful. Like, they turn an entire parking lane into a lane of traffic. But of course, there's always, like, that one asshole, you know, and it's like, well, until they're towed, they're just blocking miles of traffic.

'''S:''' Yeah, but that's a setup for disaster, right?

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' But you might, and you can sometimes just turn a traffic lane into a turning lane, and even though you're taking away one traffic lane, that could still improve congestion.

'''C:''' Oh, massively. Yeah. At these huge intersections where everybody's going left, for sure.

'''S:''' Okay. AI will solve it all. Don't worry.

{{anchor|news_item2}}
=== AI Therapists '''(TW)''' (24:04) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/health/ai-therapists-chatbots.html
|article_title = Human Therapists Prepare for Battle Against A.I. Pretenders - The New York Times
|publication = www.nytimes.com
}}
'''S:''' Speaking of AI.

'''C:''' Speaking of AI not solving things. It's quite the turn.

'''E:''' Wait. AI solves everything.

'''S:''' So, are AI therapists coming, and how do they work?

'''C:''' AI therapists are pretty much already here. But yeah, there's a lot of conflict around this topic, and I think part of the reason why this is a good topic for the show, you know, it has all the things. It has all the ingredients that we talk about a lot on the show, but also I think it lends itself to hearty debate. So I hope that my fellow rogues will engage and give me your two cents on what you guys think about this as well. So there's a recent article in the New York Times. It was actually just published on the 24th, so two days ago, by Ellen Barry, titled Human Therapists Prepare for Battle Against AI Pretenders. And the subtitle is, Chatbots Posing as Therapists May Encourage Users to Commit Harmful Acts. The Nation's Largest Psychological Organization Warned Federal Regulators. So what she's referencing there is a recent presentation to a Federal Trade Commission panel in which Arthur Evans, Arthur Evans Jr., who's the chief executive of the APA, and specifically in this case, I'm talking about the American Psychological Association, which is the, let's call it the professional organization. It's not really a union. It's more of an advocacy group. But the professional organization that I belong to, the APA, for psychologists here. The other APA is the American Psychiatric Association, because that's not confusing at all. But here we're talking about the psychological APA. In this presentation, specifically, Dr. Evans cited court cases involving two teenagers, and these teenagers used an app called Character.ai. Character.ai allows people to create fictional characters and then interact with them, chat with them, and the fictional characters chat with each other. But those fictional characters aren't just avatars. Very often, the characters have AI technology behind them. And so what happens, and happened in this case, and it's cited that it's happened in other cases, is that those chatbots start to sort of sprout up, and they sprout up with different roles. And because of the nature of being involved in an app where there are avatars, where there is anonymity, people start to talk about stuff that's hard to talk about. And when they start to talk about their mental health, what's going to happen? These sort of chatbot therapists start to pop up like weeds. And very often, they use terms like therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist. They claim to have advanced degrees from universities. They claim to offer particular types of interventions. In this particular case, the one that was cited at this APA presentation, they were talking about Character.ai, but there are other apps, obviously ChatGPT is one that we use a lot, Replica. Because they use generative AI technology, they're not programmed to have particular guardrails, right? Their outputs are coming from a black box, and they learn from the user. One of the things that often happens is that they follow, it's not encoded, but it's something that's been observed by computer scientists over and over. They observe a tendency of chatbots to utilize a phenomenon called sycophancy. So it's this tendency for the chatbots to mirror, amplify, and validate whatever the person interacting with them says, right? That's what's going to enamor you to the chatbot. That's what's going to make you feel like it is safe. Of course, right?

'''E:''' A safe space.

'''C:''' You're not going to want to engage in a chatbot that's like, you're wrong and let me tell you why, or I'm going to challenge that belief of yours, right? You're going to want to engage in a chatbot that's validating what you're saying, that's amplifying what you're saying, that's reinforcing what you're saying. Now, don't get me wrong, that is a fundamental principle in mental health intervention. Any psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, or other mental health worker that has legitimate training that is a licensed provider will tell you that part of what they do is validate the patient, client, whatever term that they use within their profession. They validate the very human components, their fears, they validate their worries, they validate their emotional expressions. It's important to establish rapport, but we know the difference between psychologically beneficial or fundamentally human experiences and unhelpful or sometimes dangerous negative self-talk, unhelpful or sometimes dangerous beliefs and narratives, and we know what to look for, the red flags we need to look for if somebody is at risk for engaging in harmful behavior towards themselves or towards others. Not only are we trained in how to see that, we're trained in what to do about it. We have a duty, right? We are legally bound to protect individuals from themselves and from others in particular situations.

'''S:''' Now, Cara, it sounds like these are not AI therapists, they're chatbots that people are using as therapists, but they're not programmed to be therapists, they're programmed to be chatbots. Is that fair?

'''C:''' They're just chatbots that are getting labeled as therapists and are generatively moving more and more into that role. But the point, I guess, here that's important is you make an important distinction, but to the end user, they don't know the difference.

'''S:''' Right. But something shouldn't be offered as an AI therapist unless it's programmed to at least follow the standard of care.

'''E:''' Yeah. Why allow this confusion to reign?

'''C:''' Well, and that's the question, right? So character AI is simply a platform where people go and they chat to each other. And so you may be chatting to a person behind an avatar, you may be chatting to a chatbot. You don't know. Because they say, hi, my name's Dr. whatever, Dr. Laptop. And I-

'''E:''' Well, should it be obligated to disclose?

'''C:''' Right. So here are some guardrails that character AI says that they, since these, and I didn't even tell you about the scenarios, but have said that they are using these new safety features that they say they're using within the last year. They said that they have a disclaimer present in every chat that reminds users that, quote, characters are not real people. And that, quote, what the model says should be treated as fiction. They also said that when users are dealing with mental health issues, a disclaimer is added to any character that calls themselves a psychologist, a therapist, or a doctor that says, quote, users should not rely on these characters for any type of professional advice. And also if the, I guess they're able to scrub the content of the chats, if references to suicide or self-harm come up, a pop-up will direct users to a suicide prevention helpline, likely 988 or an online version of that. But some people argue that that's not enough because what ended up happening in the two cases that were cited by the APA chief executive, they cited two teenagers, a 14-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy. The 14-year-old boy, and I'm going to, and I probably should have said this at the top of the show, but I'll say it now that there's a kind of trigger warning here because I am going to be discussing suicide. The 14-year-old boy in Florida died by suicide after interacting with a character claiming to be a licensed therapist. And the 17-year-old boy in Texas had what they're calling, quote, high-functioning autism. And after interacting with a chatbot that claimed to be a psychologist, there was a lot of kind of hostile and violent behavior that started to develop and that was particularly targeted towards his parents. So both of the boy's parents are now suing Character AI because of what happened. That raised alarm bells for the APA as a whole. Like he was saying, basically, if this was a real therapist, they would have lost their license. But because it's an AI chatbot, there's no recourse. What do we do here? It's almost like it's a part of the design that these chatbots are going to mirror, mirror, mirror. So if you have a person saying, I'm concerned about this, I'm worried that I might do this, is there sort of a bug within the actual black box that is generative AI where they would say things like, that sounds like a good idea? That's concerning. It's deeply concerning. And so how do we regulate something like this? That's an important question. It's one thing if a company is building an AI therapist and they're trying to market it. It's another thing if chatbots within a platform are popping up, whether it's the users themselves that are creating them, or I don't even know if they're sort of like self-creation within these platforms, how do we police that information? Are disclaimers enough, especially when we're talking about children on the platforms who may not understand the difference and honestly shouldn't be engaging in anything, even remotely claiming to be therapy, without consent of their parents?

'''S:''' If you make the companies that produce the chatbot liable, they'll find a way to keep it from happening.

'''C:''' And that's the interesting thing about what's happening right now is that the parents are engaging in civil suits against the company. And so money talks. And so in this particular situation, I guess time will tell what comes from that. So the APA said part of the concern right now is that generative AI is just too damn good. Ten years ago, you knew. You knew when you were talking to a bot. That's just not the case anymore because of generative AI. In this New York Times article, the author also talks about some examples of when this happened in the past that were really problematic. So of course, organizations that are concerned about the mental health of the citizenship or of the citizenry, they cite the National Eating Disorders Organization. This is an organization that is legitimately concerned about eating disorders in America and wants to enable or provide intervention or at least screening for individuals so that they can get the help that they need. We know that we have a mental health crisis in this country. We know, Steve, you just mentioned this in the very last segment. We know that people sometimes wait months to see a professional. Of course, as professionals, we want to make it so that people can get access to help sooner. We're not trying to bottleneck access to services here. The problem is, here's an example that was cited, in 2023, a chatbot was developed by the National Eating Disorders Association and it utilized generative AI and doing what generative AI does, ultimately, they found that it was offering users weight loss tips. That is not what you want from an eating disorder chatbot therapist. There's a lot of screenshots up on Reddit. You can search for them, but showing chatbots encouraging suicide, encouraging eating disorders, encouraging self-harm, encouraging violence. Some of these may not have intended to be therapeutic chatbots. They may have had a totally different intention, but there is a real risk there. Basically, the APA is asking the FTC to start an investigation into chatbots claiming to be psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals. They're hoping that this inquiry will then compel companies to share this data so that then there can either be new legislation or the legislation that already exists on the books can actually be enforced by law enforcement and we can start to see a change. Because we are at a point where this can be really, really dangerous and we have seen some changes before. For example, during the Biden administration, they cite that the FTC chairwoman, Linda Kahn, was really focusing on AI and fraud and that only recently within the past month, the FTC imposed penalties on Do Not Pay, which is, I don't know if it's an app or a website, but they claim to offer, quote, the world's first robot lawyer. And they're like, you cannot say that. That robot is not a lawyer. They did not pass the bar.

'''E:''' Pass the bar? In what state and where?

'''C:''' And so now they are prohibiting the company from using that language and making that claim. And so that is sort of one direction that we're hoping, we, they, are hoping that this goes. The article talks a lot about the two tragic cases with these teenagers and how they were harmed. But the article also does the thing that I sometimes struggle with in media, which is that they, in an effort to provide, I think, balance, they tell the other side of the argument and the other side of the story. Now, to be fair, on the one side, they're talking about the APA, this massive organization that represents tens of thousands of psychologists. And on the other side, they talk to one psychologist, somebody named S. Gabe Hatch, who is both a clinical psychologist and also an AI entrepreneur. And they talked to him about some of the computer or the AI work that he's been doing, where he's been trying to design experiments that test people's ability to get help from AI chatbots. So in this experiment, he asked both human clinicians and ChatGPT to comment on vignettes where there were like fictional couples in therapy. And then they asked 830 human subjects to look at the answers and choose which ones were more helpful. Now, in his study, which was recently published in PLOS Mental Health, they found that the bots received higher ratings. And the subjects said that they were more, quote, empathetic, connecting, and culturally competent.

'''S:''' Cara, my wife, as you know, is a PhD counselor and she teaches counseling students, right, to get their degree. She's been using ChatGPT to create her vignettes for teaching purposes, and she says they're awesome. Like, it just saves her so much work.

'''C:''' Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

'''S:''' Completely nails it. It's like, whatever, it has access to that information. So yeah, if, again, in the hands of a professional who could then read it and evaluate it, it can function in that way.

'''C:''' And that's an important point. And that caveat should not be lost in the hands of a professional. And here's a quote from Dr. Hatch. He said, I want to be able to help as many people as possible. In doing a one-hour therapy session, I can only help at most 40 individuals a week, which, by the way, is insane. There's no way you'd think 40 people a week.

'''E:''' Yeah, when you go to the bathroom, my gosh.

'''C:''' But yeah, then he says, we have to find ways to meet the needs of people in crisis and generative AI is a way to do that. And what I say to that is, not yet, not yet.

'''E:''' More bugs to work out.

'''C:''' We need stronger regulation. We need more research into this area. And just like when we talk about robotic surgery, just like when we talk about all of these other ways that technology is really, really helping provide increased access, we need to be able to have a human being at the helm. Checks and balances are necessary. You know, they didn't talk about this in the article, but one thing that I think AI would be brilliant at is the assessment component.

'''S:''' Yeah, the triage.

'''C:''' Of course. Because a lot of people don't make the distinction, and it is harder to make when we're talking about psychology, psychiatry, less so with counseling and like LMFTs and LCSWs, but sometimes this is the case as well. When we're talking about psychiatry and psychology, a large component of what we do is psychodiagnostics. And then another component of what we do is psychotherapeutic intervention. But oftentimes, while we were doing psychodiagnostic work, we are also therapeutically engaging with our patients and vice versa. When we are doing intervention, we may see the need to tweak a diagnosis or to dig a little bit deeper. But sure, screening tools. Does this person seem to be at high risk for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia? A decision tree of questions that are answered to help flag somebody who's at risk. Of course an AI could do that. I do not like the idea of AI intervention yet. I think that there are probably going to be cases, kind of very, very fundamental CBT, ACT, DBT interventions that are already quite manualized, where this may actually be really, really helpful. And maybe this is my own bias. I see it being tough to do the type of existential work that I do with cancer patients and end of life patients. If you're an AI chatbot, I could be wrong though. That's probably my own hubris.

'''S:''' What I think is that I think the technology is there. It just hasn't been adapted to purpose yet. And as you say, evaluated, regulated. And you also have to think about how is it going to be used by whom, what's the workflow going to be, et cetera. You can't just throw it at the problem and hope that it works. This is too critical an area. You have to use it intelligently.

'''C:''' And you can't assume that just because generative AI is really good at providing information or producing a piece of art or producing a song, that they're also good at ethics. And that's a huge part of mental health intervention.

'''S:''' What I can't see a role for it in the nearer future is, let's say, in conjunction with a therapist or a psychiatrist or whatever, that they do the assessment and whatever. They get the patient to a point where they say, all right, I'm going to see you once a month now. And you have access to this AI therapist that you could use in the meantime. And that program is designed to flag concerning language and alert the therapist or whatever. And that way, it could be an increase, it's like an extender of the physician, not a replacement. And it makes them more effective. They could see more patients.

'''C:''' And you can have a bigger caseload. Yeah, exactly.

'''S:''' Yeah, you can have a bigger caseload because 75% or 80% of the work is being done by AI, et cetera. So yeah, used correctly, it could be huge. But yeah, you can't just throw it at the problem. All right. Thanks, Cara.

{{anchor|news_item3}}

=== Redefining Dyslexia (43:31) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/redefining-dyslexia/
|article_title = Redefining Dyslexia | Science-Based Medicine
|publication = sciencebasedmedicine.org
}}
'''S:''' Guys, let me ask you a question. Cara, I don't want you to answer this question.

'''C:''' Okay. I always do that to you, Steve. Everybody but Steve.

'''B:''' Four for one.

'''S:''' How would you define dyslexia? What is... Well, phenomenologically, what is dyslexia?

'''E:''' I think the common understanding is that people will read words and get the characters either in the incorrect order, and they interpret... Their brain can't interpret the words that they're trying to read.

'''S:''' What do you think, Bob and Jay?

'''B:''' Transposition, is that the proper word for that, of letters and words? Misidentification of word strings, letter strings, and within words, I mean, it's a pretty superficial understanding of it.

'''E:''' Do they see letters upside down? Is that part of it? I've never really known.

'''B:''' I don't think so.

'''S:''' So you guys are reflecting the common public conception of what dyslexia is. That idea is about a hundred years old.

'''E:''' Oh, happy birthday.

'''S:''' And it's amazing the cultural inertia of that idea.

'''C:''' Yeah, it is incredible. Because you're right.

'''E:''' It takes 10% of my brain to figure that one out.

'''C:''' I don't think about it that way at all, but it was probably beaten out of me.

'''S:''' That's why I didn't ask you.

'''C:''' Yeah. That's so interesting. But most people think it's like transposing around letters.

'''S:''' Reversing words or transposing words or letters, reversing letters.

'''E:''' Let's see what Sigmund Freud had to say about it.

'''C:''' It's a reading disorder.

'''S:''' Yeah. So now I'm going to ask you, Cara, see how up to date you are. This is kind of more neurological than psychological, but...

'''C:''' Oh, okay. I'm thinking from the DSM. That's when we diagnose it. It's identified in the DSM-5 as a specific learning disability, and it's specific to reading. So there are different kinds of learning disabilities. Dyslexia is the one that's specific to reading.

'''S:''' Okay. Yeah. So you're up to the 1960s, 70s kind of level.

'''C:''' So reading comprehension, things like that.

'''S:''' Yeah. So it's very interesting because, obviously, I'm very interested in neuroscience in general, but also just definitions, how we define things and how that shapes how we think about it. Dyslexia was first identified and named, that name was coined in 1887 by a German ophthalmologist, that's important, Rudolf Berlin, by an ophthalmologist. And he thought that this inability to read that he was detecting in some specific cases was due to, quote unquote, word blindness. And he thought it was a difficulty of visual processing, right? And that part of that was like that they reverse things or get them in the wrong order. That idea from 1887, which was never correct, then got stuck in the public consciousness and will just not go away. But it's not correct. In 1925, next milestone, now very interesting, a neuro-ophthalmologist, right? So this is somebody who's both a neurologist and an ophthalmologist.

'''E:''' That is 100 years from right now.

'''S:''' Yeah. It's 100 years ago.

'''C:''' Oh, stop.

'''S:''' Advanced a theory that it's not due to word blindness, so it's not a visual problem. It's not an eye problem. It's a neurological problem. And he thought it was due to a problem of cortical dominance, which is not correct. But he did shift the conversation from the eye to the brain, basically. Not a visual processing problem. It's a word, a language processing problem. And so then that became the dominant theory. Then of course it moved to neurology entirely, like it has nothing to do with ophthalmology. And you know, by, you know, more research was done by the 1960s, you have kind of the definition that Cara was talking about, where it, the definition focused on the fact that it was a specific learning disability, meaning there were children who had, and this is still part of the definition.

'''C:''' Oh yeah, this is a specific learning disability still in all of the diagnostic criteria.

'''S:''' Yeah, yeah. So in other words, you have more of a problem with language than your general IQ or your learning level would indicate, right? Does that make sense?

'''C:''' Right. So you could do a full neuropsych battery and it shows that you, we would predict that you would have this level of, you know, reading comprehension, language understanding, but for some reason there's a decrement there.

'''S:''' Yeah. So there's a specific decrement in language. But that definition is just, not that it's wrong, it's just inadequate because it doesn't address-

'''C:''' It doesn't say why.

'''S:''' It doesn't address the why. Exactly. It is completely agnostic as to the why. It's a purely clinical diagnosis of you have this specific problem. But of course, that's not enough because we want to research and think about, and especially if we're going to treat it, we want to know what's causing it. What kind of a problem is it? Not just what the deficit is, but what actually is producing the problem. So when we go beyond the 1960s, more research gets done. By the 1990s, the term phonological awareness comes about, and Cara, have you heard that before?

'''C:''' I mean, I've heard of the phonological loop. I know phonological and I know awareness.

'''S:''' All right. But yeah. But you've never heard of like dyslexia is a problem of phonological awareness.

'''C:''' No. I don't think I have.

'''S:''' Yeah. I think that's when it really became a neurological disorder.

'''C:''' Yeah. I don't think we use that. Even in neuropsych. I don't know if I've heard my neuropsych colleagues.

'''S:''' But that's since the 90s. That's been, that's when I was in medical school in the 90s. I remember there were two husband and wife doctors at Yale, pediatric neurologists, very good, who specialized in dyslexia. And that's what they taught me in 1990. You know?

'''C:''' Yeah. I guess it's the awareness part that I don't often hear. I do hear people-

'''S:''' Phonological awareness.

'''C:''' Talking about-

'''S:''' It's the problem. And the way it was described to me at the time was that these are children who have difficulty understanding at a conceptual level that words are made up of sounds. And so they have difficulty going from phonemes to words. That's the problem. And so if you're decoding the letters in a word, you don't know how that relates to the sounds. And you can't build a word out of the sounds, out of the letters. So they never get to that point where they can go from the written word to knowing what the word is. And then, of course, everything flows from that.

'''C:''' And you know what? The more... I'm actually... Now I'm interested, and I'm looking up a few things from neuropsych rehab, and I am seeing that term used a lot.

'''S:''' Yeah. Oh, yeah.

'''C:''' I'm seeing phonological awareness, but I'm also seeing things like, obviously, visual processing, auditory processing, orthographic processing, executive function, and even something called rapid automatized naming. So there are a lot of different domains.

'''S:''' There are. And this gets to where I'm eventually getting. So-

'''C:''' Okay.

'''S:''' So the definition, this is the sort of the official definition of dyslexia was, dyslexia is a specific learning disability, and it's still part of that, that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and or fluent word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. In 2002, this was expanded a little bit. The definition then became, a deficit in processing and phonological component of language resulted directly in difficulty with decoding, spelling, accuracy, and fluency that, in turn, impacted comprehension and reading experience. Impoverished reading experience further impacted the development of vocabulary and background knowledge, which also had a negative influence on comprehension. So it's just a more of a holistic, if you will, view of language and dyslexia. So it's like, yeah, at its core, it's a specific deficit of phonological awareness, but you have to see this in the context of how language develops, how people learn, their culture, their language, because it affects different languages differently. Some languages are easier to read than others, and it doesn't have as much of an impact.

'''B:''' Interesting.

'''S:''' Yeah. For example. And the child's other intellectual abilities, right? So it's in the context of each individual child. But at its core, yep, they're just that the part of the brain that turns letters into sounds and sounds into words is not working well, and that has all these downstream effects.

'''B:''' It sounds almost an all-or-nothing thing, but the way I've seen it in modern culture, though, it's like...

'''S:''' It's a spectrum.

'''C:''' It's totally a spectrum.

'''B:''' Huh?

'''S:''' It's totally a spectrum.

'''C:''' It's a spectrum.

'''B:''' Yeah. So why would some words... Why would they have trouble decoding some words but not other words?

'''S:''' Well, some words... I mean, think about English. English is a horrible language. I mean...

'''C:''' Yeah, we all have trouble decoding some words and not other words.

'''S:''' Some words are more phonetic than others, right? I can't remember who it was that said, why is the word phonetic and not spelled phonetically?

'''C:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''E:''' Exactly.

'''B:''' That's pretty funny.

'''C:''' Yeah. So somebody with dyslexia is going to... Somebody without dyslexia is still going to struggle with encoding certain words. Somebody with dyslexia is going to struggle with more of them. Yeah.

'''S:''' And again, you could have mild, moderate, severe, like dyslexia is a continuum. And interestingly, even up into the 2000s, even the 2000 teens, people deny that dyslexia even exists as an actual neurological disorder.

'''C:''' What did they think? It's a disorder of will?

'''S:''' Well, here, I'll tell you. In the 2000s, a UK labor MP, Graham Stringer, called the diagnosis of dyslexia a cruel fiction and stated to label children as dyslexic because they're confused by poor teaching methods is wicked. So basically, poor reading ability was blamed on poor teaching and poor parenting. Now where have we heard that before? So blaming neurological disorders on bad parenting or bad teaching has a very long pedigree from ADHD to autism, right? Pretty much any...

'''C:''' To schizophrenia, refrigerator mothers.

'''S:''' To schizophrenia.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' There are so many things.

'''C:''' And it doesn't make sense because you have a class with the same teacher and some kids are struggling and some aren't.

'''S:''' Right. But they're just a bad teacher.

'''B:''' Right. You think it'd be widespread in the classroom.

'''C:''' Right.

'''S:''' But it's just easy just to blame the parents or blame the teachers. And plus, some people just don't understand neuroscience, like, no, these are specific abilities. We're not blank slates. Our brains have strengths and weaknesses. They have abilities. And everything is on a spectrum. Everything is a bell curve, basically, of ability.

'''C:''' Yeah. And I think that there's a cultural phenomenon here, which this taps into as well, which I struggle with a lot being a psychology researcher who both has a foot in the very medical model, but also a foot in the very phenomenologic philosophy side of psychology, which is that we do have a tendency as a culture to talk about things as if they're, quote, real and or in your head and not real, which is insane to me. Yeah. It's totally false. Everything is real. Like, unless we're talking about pure malingering, right, feigning a mental illness for secondary gain or for primary gain, actually, just for primary gain.

'''S:''' Even then, like, it's complicated.

'''C:''' It's even complicated then.

'''S:''' Is Munchausen disease, is that a...

'''C:''' Well, Munchausen is secondary gain. So let's get rid of secondary.

'''S:''' But wait, but that could be a disorder unto itself.

'''C:''' It could be. It could be. It could be just straight up primary gain. Just straight up malingering.

'''S:''' Deliberate fraud for primary gain.

'''C:''' Fully faking so they can get out of prison or so they can make money or something like that.

'''S:''' But that aside, which is not...

'''C:''' Which is super rare.

'''S:''' Super rare compared to all the more complicated...

'''C:''' Yeah. Like functional neurological disorder. I'm sorry. There's something going on there.

'''S:''' And the distinction between psychiatric and neurological is also kind of a fiction. It's all the same. It's all the brain.

'''C:''' It is. It's all the brain.

'''S:''' It's just different specialties about how we treat it and the kinds of things that we're familiar with. But it's all the brain.

'''C:''' And it's really dangerous, I think, not only to my profession, but also to the patients who need help to talk about something being legitimate over here and just in somebody's head over there.

'''S:''' Exactly.

'''C:''' That's super dangerous.

'''S:''' It's a very harmful false dichotomy. And we have, as a profession, we have tried to move as far away from that as possible. Like even calling it a functional neurological disorder or non-epileptic seizures. We use terms that are not judgmental, just describing the phenomenon, not saying like, this is fake seizures or this is psychogenic or whatever.

'''C:''' Yeah. Some people still use those.

'''S:''' I know. It takes time. It takes time. All right. So in 2009, there was the Rose Report, which was an overview of dyslexia. It basically reinforced the phonemic awareness theory and that dyslexia is a specific neurodevelopmental disorder with genetic predisposition. It made focus, however, I'm just making a number of very specific recommendations for interventions at the individual and societal school level, et cetera, et cetera. That's basically where the definition of dyslexia sat until today, right? Until this year. But there's been research going on and every now and then, so much research gets done. It's like, okay, we have to now retool our definition based upon the last 10, 15, whatever years of research. So there's a new study that is called Toward a Consensus on Dyslexia Findings from a Delphi Study. So this is basically looking at a lot of data and saying, all right, what can we say about dyslexia given all the latest research? Basically a consensus of an expert panel on dyslexia. So here's their conclusion. They conclude with a proposed definition, which has a lot of pieces to it. I'm going to read you the ones that they emphasize. Here's the consensus statement. Dyslexia is a set of processing difficulties that affect the acquisition of reading and spelling. It's a little bit more broad than just phonemic awareness, because that's not the whole picture. It's only part of the picture. They say, in dyslexia, some or all aspects of literacy attainment are weak in relation to age, standard teaching and instruction, and the level of other attainments. That's the specific disorder part of it. Across languages and age groups, difficulties in reading, fluency, and spelling are a key marker of dyslexia. Difficulties exist on a continuum and can be experienced to various degrees of severity. The nature and developmental trajectory of dyslexia depends on multiple genetic and environmental influences. Dyslexia can affect the acquisition of other skills, such as mathematics, reading, comprehension, or learning another language. The most commonly observed cognitive impairment in dyslexia is a difficulty in phonological processing. In phonological awareness, phonological processing speed, or phonological memory. However, phonological difficulties do not fully explain the variability that is observed. That's kind of the new bit. Working memory, processing speed, and orthographic skills can contribute to the impact of dyslexia. So that's now the modern sort of synthesis, the consensus on what we're doing. It's more complicated, more nuanced.

'''C:''' Yeah, but it's also like, honestly, it's clunky AF.

'''S:''' Oh yeah, it is.

'''C:''' What do you say to a parent when they go, what does it mean that my kid has dyslexia?

'''S:''' Well, translating that to the family, to the patient, to the parents, that's part of the skill of the job.

'''C:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' I don't know what to tell you.

'''C:''' Exactly. You still gotta give them the elevator answer.

'''S:''' But when we're talking to each other, that's not meant for a public-facing, concise definition. That's professionals talking to professionals. So it has evolved over time, and basically tracking with the research, I think it's really important to know what the professionals say now about what it is. And it's really fascinating also to think about how persistent that hundred and whatever 40-year-old myth about dyslexia being a visual processing problem is. It's really interesting.

{{anchor|news_item4}}
=== Small Modular Reactors for Cargo Ships (59:40) ===
{{shownotes
|weblink = https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/korean-smr-powered-container-ship-design-revealed
|article_title = Korean SMR-powered container ship design revealed - World Nuclear News
|publication = www.world-nuclear-news.org
}}
'''S:''' All right, Bob, you're going to tell us about using small modular reactors for cargo ships.

'''B:''' Yes, I am. Earlier this month, a Korean shipbuilding company unveiled a bold new design, a nuclear-powered container ship using a small modular reactor coupled with an innovative propulsion system using carbon dioxide. Now, of course, I had to do a deep dive on this. Doing that, though, it kind of reinforced the idea in me that if nuclear reactors are cool, mobile nuclear reactors are even cooler. And so not just reactors that sit in one spot to power cities or research labs or whatever, but ones that are integral to propulsion. It's just such a fascinating idea. One iconic version in history that I found and reminded myself about was the atomic car from the 1950s. You guys remember that? There was actually a few ideas tossed around. The one that stood out for me was the Ford Nucleon. What a great name. The Ford Nucleon was a concept car. It was designed as a fission-powered car of the future. The reactor was in the back. It would power a steam engine for propulsion. It seems ridiculous now, right? Just thinking about that, it's like, really? Obviously, technical and safety issues make a car like that impossible. Even 70 years later, it's like we could not pull that off. If you go through those years, though, nuclear planes and tanks were seriously studied as well, especially during the Cold War. But those designs always had issues like weight, shielding, radiation, size, just not practical at all. With all that said, we do have mobile nuclear reactor-powered vehicles today. And by nuclear reactor, I'm talking fission. A nuclear reactor is basically fission or fusion or other even more sci-fi ones like antimatter or whatever. So I'm talking fission when I say nuclear reactor. So we do have them. What are they? What exists today?

'''S:''' Nuclear subs.

'''B:''' Nuclear subs, right? But also?

'''S:''' Aircraft carriers.

'''B:''' Aircraft carriers, right? They are just... Think about that. They are amazing.

'''E:''' Nuclear vessels.

'''B:''' I'm glad somebody said that. These guys can operate for a quarter of a century without refueling. And on top of that, they have amazing safety records. And then there's another one. What's another example? There's one other one that I think that should be on this list. And that's the Russians' famous nuclear-powered icebreakers. And that's kind of it. There's other examples, you know, maybe a commercial ship here in Russia or maybe even some other Russian projects. But they're kind of more footnotes than anything else in my mind. It's really just the subs, nuclear subs, aircraft carriers, and the icebreakers. But that's it. I mean, it's a little frustrating for me as a sci-fi geek because that's the only really three types that we have. Of course, I have to throw in nuclear rockets there because that is absolutely changing. They are working on nuclear-powered rockets now. It seems inevitable that this is going to happen. But they don't exist yet. They don't exist yet. So one recent advance, though, I think is going to make a big change in that. This is something we've mentioned a few times on the show, small modulate reactors, SMRs. So this is a class of small fission reactors that could be many different types. It could be Gen 4 reactors. It could be pressurized water reactors. It could be molten salt. It doesn't matter, really. The specific tech doesn't matter, but they're all basically small fission reactors. And they're also built, the idea is that they will be built at a factory and then shipped to a location to power things. Many different things. It could be microgrids, communities, remote communities, buildings, data centers. I'm sure we're going to be seeing these in data centers. Their power output is typically 10 to 300 megawatts compared to the real big boy reactors. They can range from 700 megawatts to 1,600 megawatts, 1.6 gigawatts. And right now, where do you think the actual small modular reactors are right now that are actually working and doing stuff right now?

'''J:''' Well, for the military, right?

'''B:''' No, it's like China and Russia. And they have like four. So we're kind of at the precipice of this really taking off. There's really not many right now. And it's not hard to predict, right? Maybe I should have predicted it at the beginning of the year. The number of these types of reactors are going to explode worldwide, so to speak.

'''E:''' Yeah. Thank you.

'''B:''' Yeah. There's at least 80 SMR designs being developed now across 19 countries. And they're being seriously considered for tons and tons of applications. So I mean, it's kind of obvious that some of these designs will almost surely proliferate in the near future. And some, I hope, will be used to move ships.

'''S:''' Well, Bob, we have to say, though.

'''B:''' Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we have to say. But go ahead.

'''S:''' I appreciate your optimism. But you know what the big deal killer is for SMRs?

'''B:''' Yeah, the expense.

'''S:''' The expense. They are more expensive per unit energy than the big reactors.

'''B:''' Yeah. That's a problem.

'''E:''' A lot more to ship their products.

'''S:''' It's more than a problem. It could be a deal killer. Because why would you spend? Already nuclear power is at the high end of the cost per unit energy. And if now you go even higher cost, why would you do that? If you're just having something stationary attached to the grid, why not build a big boy and it's more cost effective?

'''B:''' Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's definitely a good point. I was going to segue to that at some point after I got over a little bit of my techno-optimism here. But yeah, that's a potential problem. But I think, Steve, I think if that proves to be almost a deal killer, essentially a deal killer, I think that cheaper micro-reactors, which are out of scope of this news item, micro-reactors, I think, will probably proliferate.

'''S:''' But this dovetails with your news item, with your point. So if you're just attaching it to the grid and making electricity, you have to compare it to all the other ways to make electricity in terms of cost effectiveness. But if you design an SMR with a specific purpose that is worth the trade-off, then it can become cost effective. The military uses it because the strategic advantage is worth the higher expense.

'''B:''' Absolutely.

'''S:''' And what you're going to talk about is for cargo ships, and that's, they are designing it to purpose so that it's not just, again, connected to the grid. And that also can be cost effective. You also mentioned data centers, so there's a company that's designing them specifically for data centers that, again, because it's designed for purpose, it can be cost effective. So I think that's the direction that the SMRs are going to go, not just hooking them up to the grid, but for specific purposes where the advantages make it cost effective.

'''B:''' Right. And that's why I mentioned 80, there's 80 of these designs being developed by 19 countries. All of them are similar, but also kind of distinct. And in my opening statement, I made a specific point to say that this idea, this new idea is to use a small modular reactor coupled with this innovative propulsion system, which is critical, which is critical to their plan because it brings in efficiencies that make it a better cargo ship in terms of space, in terms of safety, in terms of a lot of stuff. So let me go through some of the ideas.

'''S:''' There's one other thing that can make an SMR cost effective, is if you build it in a location where the waste heat can be utilized for a specific purpose, then you double their efficiency. And so that's like with the data center thing, that you have to build it with the data center, and then you could use the waste heat to cool the data center, and suddenly it's twice as cost effective as it was.

'''B:''' Yeah. So all that said, I think, I still think that SMRs are going to have a future. And from what I could tell doing the research for this specific application for cargo vessels, it sounds very promising. Of course, it's got to be vetted, and a lot of the information that I've seen is coming from this company. And the company is South Korea's HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering. And they're a big player in the movement, and they are what this news item is about. They recently announced plans for a nuclear-powered cargo vessel capable of carrying 15,000 20-foot containers, which is a massive commercial transport ship. It's at definitely the bigger end of the spectrum. Their release, the information that I've come across so far, it seems to focus on three things, and it makes a lot of sense. They're focusing on regulations, safety, and efficiency. Those things, I can't, I mean, those are the top three. It seems, I can't think of anything else that would really be more important than those. So that's a little bit encouraging. So to illustrate what they're doing with the regulations, I'll quote Park Sangman. He's the head of the company's Green Energy Research Lab. He said, HD COSO is strengthening cooperation not only with major classification societies, but also with international regulatory bodies to establish international regulations necessary for the commercialization of nuclear-powered vessels. Okay, so what are classification societies? These are organizations that set and enforce technical and safety standards for ships, including nuclear-powered vessels. So safety, okay, safety is the second critical focus here. Their ships are really, their plan is really taking this seriously. They're planning a double shielding system where you've got stainless steel and light water working together to shield and protect against the things you need to shield against, ionizing radiation, gamma rays, neutrons, and it also dissipates heat very, very well. So the steel absorbs gamma radiation and gives structural integrity to the system, and the light water moderates the neutrons and absorbs radiation as well and dissipates the heat. Then they also plan to create a facility in South Korea specifically for testing and validating their design. So that's, you know, that sounds good. Those words sound good. So in terms of the company's final focus, efficiency, I think this is where their design could have some impact, I found really fascinating as hell. So critical to this efficiency that they talk about is the partnership of the fission reactor with the propulsion system. Having a small modular reactor on the ship, it's not only an efficient source of heat, right, because nuclear energy is much more dense than chemical energy, but it also means that you think about what you can get rid of. Now you can get rid of the exhaust system, the engine exhaust system. You can get rid of the fuel tanks. Because you have this reactor, you don't need those things. So you can just pull them right out of the ship, and now you have a lot of extra space where more of those 20-foot cargo containers can now go where this other stuff was. So the more cargo you can carry, the better, the more efficient the whole enterprise is, and the better the bottom line. So that's one. That's one boost in efficiency. The next boost comes from what the ship actually does with the reactor's heat, right? Because the heat, the nuclear reactor, that's just a source of heat, whether if you're burning fossil fuels or if you have any other type of reactor, you're really just like, we need to create a source of heat that's efficient. So that's it. You've got your heat source. Traditionally, ships use their heat source to heat water to make steam, right? You make the steam, that drives the turbines, and that generates the electricity for the propulsion. That's kind of how the flow goes for a lot of ships. So this propulsion design, though, is different. It does away with the steam, and it replaces it with supercritical carbon dioxide. And this is kind of like a secret sauce. It's such a really cool idea. So the bottom line is that why CO2? Why are we using CO2? Why not just use water? One of the main reasons is that CO2 expands more efficiently than steam. Bam, right there. It's just like, it's just flat out more efficient, and it's because of the supercritical state. So how efficient is it? A traditional steam cycle is 30% to 40% efficient. The supercritical CO2 cycle is up to 50% efficient. And if you look at the numbers they're talking about, they typically say that their design is going to be about 5% more efficient, and 5%, it might not sound like a lot, but that could be huge for lots of ships traveling the seas, 5% increased efficiency could be pretty awesome. And so not only is it more efficient, but it's smaller and it's lighter than steam turbines. There's no water or steam, and so that means that there's less corrosion and no emissions as well, which of course is a wonderful addition there. So this is kind of, I see it as like a nice one-two punch. You got the small modular reactor, and you've got the CO2 replacing water, and it makes such a potent combination. Bottom line, there's less fuel waste, there's more cargo space, there's lower maintenance, there's zero emissions. And that's nothing to sneeze at. The shipping industry consumes about 350 million tons of fossil fuel annually. So decarbonizing shipping could really, really help in our damn climate crisis. It's not something that's going to make a hugely dramatic difference because I think shipping accounts for only 3% of worldwide emissions like that. But any little bit helps, and this is, I think, a pretty cool idea. So yeah, so a lot of industries are looking into SMRs, and hopefully they're going to pan out here and become cost-effective. It seems like we're on the edge of this stuff taking off. It's not just SMRs and micro-reactors. I hope. I hope. Maybe I'm being too positive, but I hope that it takes off and it's more than just little niches here and there. So do all of these developments and all these advances and improvements in our technology, does that mean that the Ford Nucleon may be closer to reality? It can be if you're okay with five feet of steel or concrete shielding in your car. Otherwise, that's not going to happen. It's just like, you know, can you imagine the car, it would be far, far worse than the car that Homer Simpson made up in that famous episode of The Simpsons where it was just a car that uses a nuclear reactor like this would just be ridiculous. So we're not going to see anything like that. I think battery technology is more than enough for small applications like cars. But bigger stuff, bigger stuff, I think reactors will be in the mix.

'''S:''' Well, the hope is too, Bob, that with these niche applications like data centers and cargo ships and things like that, that will cause an economy of scale. Like I said, if you have factories cranking out SMRs, then they might become cost-effective for more general applications like just plugging into the grid.

'''B:''' Creating these, the hope in the beginning, Steve, was that if you create enough of these, it could really help decarbonize a worldwide economy. But even powerful big SMRs, you know, five to 300 megawatts, they calculated you would need tens of thousands of them to really start making a difference. And I'm not sure how long it's going to... I think we'll be probably well past 2050 by the time, if ever, we could start making them and get some economies of scale like for that. I mean, shit. It's scary to think, but it's still the idea. It's just fascinating.

'''S:''' It doesn't have to be the solo solution, but if we want to decarbonize shipping and, yeah, take a chunk out of the grid, that would be nice.

'''E:''' Yeah. There'll be hundreds of pieces to this puzzle.

'''S:''' Yeah.

{{anchor|wtn}}
{{anchor|futureWTN}}
== Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:19:31) ==

'''S:''' Jay, it's Who's That Noisy time.

'''J:''' All right, guys. Lat week I played this Noisy. [plays Noisy]

'''E:''' I know what that is.

'''J:''' Yeah, so there's a lot going on there.

'''S:''' There's a lot going on there.

'''E:''' I know what that is. That is the world's first popcorn machine built in 1884, which you had to start up with diesel fuel or whale oil or something. And it popped like eight kernels. Like at the end there, it sounded like kernels of corn.

'''S:''' I thought that was the sound of... That's what happens after I put my quarters into the candy machine and waiting for the candy to dry.

'''J:''' Well, we had some guesses. Visto Tutti wrote in. This guy's very busy and I feel very lucky when he emails me. So he said, this one sounds like an ice maker, the mechanical part of the refrigerator that cracks ice cubes into a receptacle for drinks and such. Man, if you had that in your kitchen, I'd be pissed, right? That's a noisy fricking ice maker. That is not an ice maker, but they do make noise. So I hear what you're saying. Cooper Parrish wrote in and said, howdy. Here's my guess. Coint operated mechanism, two bit selection interface pushing a ball down a long metal track on dispaly inside a box. So he's saying it's a vending machnie. I thought that was a good guess because-

'''E:''' That's basically what Steve said.

'''J:''' Yeah. There's lots of noises. You're putting the coin in and the thing turns and then the thing falls and then maybe an arm grabs. Whatever, right? There's all these different things. It's not a vending machine, but that was a good guess. A listener named Derek Dunsmore wrote in and he said, hi, I may finally know this one. As a hobbyist 3D designer, I recall watching a video of a man producing a small but functionally manned bumper car sized tank out of 3D printed materials. I believe this is the sound that vehicle made when the tank treads were moving over terrain during a trial run. I thought that was cool. I didn't know that someone 3D printed a tank that could move. I'm sure they had to put some type of motor in there. But anyway, this is not correct, but I would like to see the tank. We have a couple of closer guesses. So Gerard Steenbeck wrote, first time guessing that sounds like a plotter printer, a massive printer that uses pens or something to draw blueprints on big sheets of paper. So I think I've been around one of these and they definitely make lots of different kinds of noises and everything. This is not a plotter printer though, but that was an interesting guess. Dan Tenhove said, I'm guessing that this is a recording of the inside of a VCR. And I know you have to be kind of older to know what a VCR is. Cara, do you know what a VCR is?

'''C:''' I'm not that... Come on. Of course I know what a VCR is.

'''E:''' I was going to ask if you knew what a vending machine is.

'''C:''' I was born in 1983, you guys. My entire upbringing was with the VCR.

'''E:''' You're a millennial.

'''C:''' I'm an elder millennial. I'm two years away from the millennial cutoff.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''C:''' Yeah, I'm an elder millennial.

'''E:''' Elder millennial.

'''J:''' So I remember when we were kids that Bob actually could repair VCRs. The tape got caught in there or whatever. Bob was always tinkering around or whatever because he was really obsessed with taping Star Trek and Bruce Lee and Spider-Man, which I was 100% behind. So yeah, they make different noises. There's things happening in a VCR. There's moving parts. There's things that grab the tape and there's things that are happening. So I could see that. I think that was a good guess, but that wasn't correct. I do have a winner. And there were actually two people that guessed pretty quickly. There were a lot of other guessers, but I'm going to tell you who the first two are. The person who won and who submitted it first is Travis Warburton, and he said, this is 100% a canister being sent down a pneumatic tube system.

'''B:''' Oh.

'''C:''' Oh, like at the bank?

'''J:''' He says, the beeps are probably the destination station being typed in. I'm a nurse at a hospital and use these every day. And Madeline Love also guessed correctly on that. These are two new names to Who's That Noisy. So yeah, that's basically what it is. I will remind you that a young listener named Gertie sent this noisy in, so I wanted to thank her personally for doing that. Thank you so much. And yeah, essentially that's what it is. I mean, the people who recorded this, there was different use of this whole thing. But that's basically what's going on. Pneumatic systems are pretty cool. I remember that one of the banks that I used to use had one of the canisters get stuck. I guess the tube went underground for this one, and it got stuck in there because somebody put in like $20 worth of coins.

'''E:''' Oh.

'''C:''' And it's too heavy.

'''J:''' Yeah, they had to dig it out, and that was that for that pneumatic system. But Costco uses-

'''E:''' They took a backhoe and dug it out?

'''J:''' Yeah, they had to dig it out.

'''E:''' Holy moly.

'''J:''' Costco uses a pneumatic system, and there's pretty extensive ones out there, especially today. With the modern technology, they can make them pretty interesting.

'''S:''' We still use them in the hospital for sending blood samples to the lab.

'''J:''' Yeah, that's it. There you go.

'''B:''' Oh, I thought that tech was dead.

'''S:''' No, when you still have to physically move stuff around, it's pretty useful.

'''C:''' Yeah, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

'''J:''' Yeah, like when you need blood immediately, you put it in the pneumatic system.

'''E:''' In a tube in the pneumatic system.

'''J:''' Oh, I thought it was opening your vein. You know, suck the blood. No, it doesn't work that way.

'''E:''' No?

'''J:''' I have a new noisy guys. This one was sent in by a listener named Ed Barrett. [plays Noisy]

'''E:''' Oh, those all sound like wrong numbers.

'''J:''' Yeah, there is a pranking kind of vibe to that. Guys, if you think you know what this week's noisy is, or you heard something cool, email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

'''J:''' NOTACON 2025, guys, is coming. We have a couple of months. We're very excited. And in fact, the person that we're interviewing this week is a special guest that we're going to have at NOTACON, so listen to the interview. And please do consider coming, because you're going to miss out on one hell of a good time with lots of music, lots of fun things that we're going to do. There are surprises. There are jigs and jags. Steve is going to teach someone how to do kung fu. It's going to be awesome. Don't miss it. NOTACON CON, Evan. [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com]

'''E:''' That's the website.

'''J:''' That's the website.

'''E:''' [https://notaconcon.com/ notaconcon.com]

'''S:''' All right. Thanks, Jay. All right. Well, let's go to that interview now.

{{anchor|interview}}
== Interview with Adam Russell (1:21:32) ==

'''S:''' We are joined now by Adam Russell. Adam, welcome to the Skeptics' Guide.

'''AR:''' Hello there. Good to be here.

'''S:''' Adam, you are a musician, the bassist for the group Story of the Year. I also understand you have a Star Wars podcast called Thank the Maker, but we wanted to chat with you because you're going to be joining us at NOTACON, but tell us a little bit about yourself first. Tell us about your career.

'''AR:''' Yeah. I've been, we were just talking about this offline, I've been with this band and this group of guys the majority of my life, going back to the late 90s when I first started playing music. St. Louis is a small scene, so we all kind of played in bands together, ended up as this lineup plus one other who's no longer with us and released our first album in 2003. It's a big debut. It was the just like perfect alignment of stars. We were so lucky to have the success we had then and over these years, these 25 years almost since then, we're riding the wave of the 20-year cycle, the resurgence, and our music kind of came back into the public consciousness and we're on to another generation of fans and things are in a really fun, exciting place where we're lucky enough to have another chance. We've kind of threaded the needle down into this small group of bands who are still around and can still pull it off. I'm a lucky guy. I'm happy to be here.

'''S:''' Yeah, there's so many sub-sub-genres of music these days. You don't need to have, it's not like there's just this one bucket of musicians. You could survive in a really small niche.

'''AR:''' I mean, there's so, you look at that with anything, there's so many subcultures. You go onto social media and see people who have literally millions of followers that I've never heard of. I have no idea what they do. I bet they have these communities, whether it's just on social media or somebody on the reality TV or any kind of artist, and it's wild to think that there are that many people on earth that each of us can succeed well enough with our little niche.

'''S:''' Yeah, well, it's more than 8 billion people on the planet.

'''AR:''' Yeah, that'll do. That'll work.

'''J:''' Adam, what is the style of the band?

'''AR:''' I think we would describe ourselves most accurately as post-hardcore, a lot of punk influence, emo, I think is the most mainstream, most known title for this subgenre, but we have influence of just 90s rock, metal, punk, everything, good music, I'll call it good music.

'''E:''' It does touch on emo, although I would not necessarily peg it as such. However, in the early 2000s, that was kind of the wave that carried a lot of groups forward into the mainstream.

'''AR:''' For sure. If you know the Vans Warped Tour, that sort of moving window of that Venn diagram of genres, that's what we fit into.

'''E:''' Yeah, perfect.

'''J:''' How does skepticism and your music connect to each other?

'''AR:''' Science was my first passion. I grew up on science like any kid, pretty much. It was dinosaurs and then the space shuttle and everything in the 90s, especially. All of that was front and center. I went to space camp. I was always at the science center and stuff like that in St. Louis. Friendships were always kind of adjacent to those things. Music just happened to overlap, but our guitar player and I are big Star Wars nerds. We're all kind of into similar things and into science. I've always tried to make it part of anything that I do, whether it be like the Star Wars podcast or the band. On our third album, actually, we got pretty political and kind of got into social and other kind of topics in our second and third album, lyrically. We had a few songs that were inspired by Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot specifically. We ended up using an excerpt from the Pale Blue Dot as sort of an interlude, cut it together. It got the old audio tape and ran it into Pro Tools and chopped it up. We actually had to get permission from the estate, so Andrean had to approve it and sent us an email back, which I still have buried somewhere in an inbox. It was like the peak of my life. She wished us luck. She said, you know, I hope the album climbs the charts like a rocket into space or something like that. It was amazing. We've touched on that stuff here or there, but it's always been more like personal stuff that you try to inject wherever you can.

'''J:''' We've worked with her in the past and she is just amazingly generous that way, so I'm not surprised that you say that.

'''AR:''' Yeah. She's an angel.

'''E:''' How did you stumble across the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe?

'''AR:''' Like I said, I've always been into science, but when I really got into music in high school and went from being this fairly intelligent kid who kind of coasted through elementary school, got into high school, discovered music, and then my grades just tanked. I got so off track. Music was the only thing that mattered to me, but once that mission was sort of accomplished, we got signed and it was happening, I found myself with all this free time and the spark kind of reignited my passion for science. I just went headfirst into reading and finding podcasts and everything. It was also about the time that at the end of high school, around teenage years, I realized my beliefs didn't align with what I was raised on. I was raised Catholic and realized I didn't believe in God or any kind of metaphysical stuff like that. I leaned into science and then found, through the New Atheist Movement and those folks, many of which are questionable people at this point, but listening to Dawkins' interviews and things like that on Point of Inquiry and things like that, in discovering podcasts, found you guys. I want to say it was maybe less than a year after Perry died, I was working on a DVD that we were editing. I had this long process of censoring, had to go through frame by frame and do all this stuff. I spent a month solid at my desk with just visual stuff and I needed something to listen to. I ended up listening through your entire back catalog and got fully caught up. I don't think I've missed an episode since then, since 2007 probably.

'''E:''' Yeah, 2007, yeah, that's when Perry left us.

'''AR:''' Yeah. That was the beginning.

'''J:''' That's amazing. You must experience this. When you find out that people are into the work that you create and then they sustain it, like what you just said, it really surprises me that people can do that with podcasts because they can go on for a very long time, which at this point, there's a lot of them out there. It means a lot to me to think that people are just into the show to the point where they're going to keep going with us.

'''AR:''' Like we were saying before we started, what you guys feel about what you've accomplished with your podcast, I feel so similarly about our music and our band. I feel very lucky to have people still with us after all these years.

'''S:''' Adam, have you ever been to a live skeptical conference before?

'''AR:''' Not a conference, but pardon the pun. I was at one of the live recordings in, what was it, Phoenix?

'''E:''' Phoenix.

'''B:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''AR:''' That's about as close as I've come.

'''J:''' Well, you're not going to get laid-

'''AR:''' Well, my wife's going to be there, so, I mean-

'''C:''' Jay, that's none of your business whether or not you get laid.

'''S:''' Adam, tell us about L.A. Strikes Back.

'''AR:''' Yes, L.A. Strikes Back is a fundraising initiative to support victims of the L.A. fires. Started with a handful of other folks who I know through the Star Wars community, Mike Forrester, one of the co-hosts of Thank the Maker, and some other prop makers and folks who are members of the 501st Legion, the costuming group. A few of the folks live in L.A. and have been directly affected by the fires. Actually, our producer and editor, Jason, he and his wife are living in a rental house right now. They were in Altadena. They didn't lose their house, but the whole place is uninhabitable. We have a direct connection to people in L.A. who have been affected, and we, of course, as we like to do in the community, in the Star Wars community, has banded together to try to help folks out. We're combining Star Wars and music. I'm kind of bringing in the music side of it, trying to get donations from friends. It's a lot of custom-designed helmets and different props and things and collectibles, anything we can put on auction to raise money. I'm donating a bass, some old Star Wars figures that I have from years ago, some kind of rare collectibles.

'''E:''' The original Kenner Boba Fett, maybe?

'''AR:''' I don't have that, unfortunately.

'''B:''' What's that worth?

'''E:''' Oh, it's too bad.

'''B:''' What's that worth these days?

'''E:''' Is that a million bucks?

'''J:''' Well, there's different kinds. The one that's super expensive...

'''E:''' The prototype?

'''J:''' Yeah, it was just a prototype that shot a little red missile out of the back. If you get one of those, you have a lot of money on your hands.

'''E:''' I'm sorry. I digressed.

'''AR:''' Harmful if swallowed, the rocket.

'''E:''' That's right. Always.

'''AR:''' It's mostly props and things because, again, 501st Legion and other makers are contributing some really, really cool stuff. We're doing the auction at the end of March. We pushed it back a little bit because we just want to give it some more time, but it's already going very well. The stuff we have lined up, I think it's going to pull some considerable funds. Obviously, we're not going to solve the problem, but we're going to do our part.

'''E:''' You mentioned Thank the Maker podcasts. How did that come about, and what is that about?

'''AR:''' It was a pandemic project. We were all... Actually, Ryan Key, the singer of Yellow Card, and I... Yellow Card and Story of the Year have toured together off and on for years. We connected over Star Wars, and at some point, I realized I wanted to do a podcast. I've been listening to you guys forever. I've listened to so many podcasts. I wanted to do something, and I was thinking a movie podcast, kind of a pop culture thing, do all the classics that we grew up on. Then literally the night before we were about to record our first episode, Ryan and I, he said and called me up and said, look, man, you're going to kill me, but I have an idea. I kind of want to change up this idea. What if it's just about Star Wars? I was skeptical at first, but we ended up going with it. It ended up being perfect because there's a built-in listening base, and it ended up being something that we could find the slice of the Venn diagram where people who grew up on our music and people who grew up on Star Wars, especially the prequels, that actually lines up perfectly. We just crossed 250 episodes recently, our fifth anniversary. It's not our full-time job, but it's a paid hobby that works, and it's worth our time. The main thing is that we've created this community around what we love about Star Wars.

'''J:''' What do you think about Kathleen Kennedy supposedly not being a part of the brand anymore?

'''AR:''' I'm excited to see what the next chapter is going to be, but I'm already just worn out by all the bullshit negative celebration of her retirement. She's a legend. She's been producing some of the best films of all time literally our entire lives. We're all in our mid-40s, starting with Poltergeist and E.T. She's been at the helm of all these incredible films. Maybe she wasn't the best studio head, per se. Who can say? None of us have that skill set. Who are we to say that? She's a legend. She should be praised for her long, illustrious career. I have nothing but respect for her.

'''J:''' Yeah. I don't know if I agree with that. I can respect your perspective on it. I get the whole, let's not focus on the negativity, and I have done what I think you have, which is completely not be a part of any of it, because I don't want to focus on that. Without getting into the whole thing, because there's a lot to talk about, the bottom line is I'm an episode four, five, and six guy, and I probably won't be happy with much that comes after that. It is what it is. I liked a couple of the movies. I liked Andor, and that's good enough. I recommend to people, just watch the things that you like and let the other stuff, just ignore it.

'''AR:''' Exactly. Let people enjoy stuff. Just leave the negativity out of it. Yeah.

'''E:''' I agree as well. There shoulb be something someone can find somewhere in the Star Wars universe that they can enjoy and just concentrate on that for what it is.

'''AR:''' Absolutely.

'''C:''' Really? Really?

'''J:''' Except Cara.

'''AR:''' Everybody except Cara.

'''C:''' Except me. Yeah. I don't know.

'''J:''' Cara knows a little bit more about Star Wars now because of us.

'''C:''' I know a little bit more about Star Wars than I ever wanted to.

'''E:''' That's called osmosis.

'''C:''' See, but the difference is, I'm not one of these Star Wars fans that's obsessed with Star Wars and then just shits all over it. I just don't care about Star Wars. I feel like that's different.

'''AR:''' I much prefer that too.

'''C:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's a different take. We don't have to all be all about everything all the time.

'''J:''' Of course not. Of course not.

'''E:''' No. But again, Venn diagram, it's a good example. You know how science, skepticism, Star Wars, those three circles definitely are here in this family.

'''AR:''' Well, Jay, I'll re-ask you officially right now. I'll put you on the spot, on the air, so to speak. Would you like to join us on Thank the Maker, perhaps, for an episode?

'''J:''' Oh my God. How many times can I be on the show?

'''AR:''' All of them?

'''J:''' Yeah. A hundred percent. Just email me. I mean, I will make myself available. I would love to do that.

'''AR:''' Awesome. I have some ideas.

'''J:''' So you're going to come to NOTACON. You know, we've been very selective about who we let on that stage because we have a core group of people that we work with, that we love to work with. But I mean, it was a pretty easy decision to have you do it because, first of all, Evan came out swinging about how awesome you are. But I mean, after I found out about the Star Wars thing, I'm like, this guy's awesome. I got, you know, like, he's in, a hundred percent.

'''E:''' I cinched it.

'''J:''' Yeah. So we're going to have you join us for a few of the bits that we're doing. I will give you a couple of reveals right now. We haven't really gone into much detail. We're doing something, George changed the name, didn't he? We used to call it Woo Tank.

'''S:''' It's Pitching Woo.

'''J:''' Pitching Woo.

'''E:''' Pitching Woo.

'''J:''' Okay. So the idea is that we are going to have the audience pitch to us things that revolve around pseudoscience as if they're like, they could be products, it could be a, you know, a cult.

'''S:''' A pseudoscientific business. Yeah.

'''J:''' Yeah. And we're going to judge it on whether or not we think it would work and everything. Like, we're going to be very critical about it. And we think that this is going to be funny because, you know, the audience is going to come up with some really, really crazy stuff, I'm sure. So you know, there's going to be a lot of the judges talking to each other and we're going to be, you know, doing the whole thing that like the show does. I think that's going to be a lot of fun. And then we're going to do a bit called Never Seen It, which is a improv comedy bit where you find out movies that people haven't seen, that most people know about, and then you make them do a live read of a scene with somebody else.

'''AR:''' Yes.

'''J:''' And you have to, you know, you have to be-

'''S:''' But no context.

'''J:''' No context, but you have to be 100% committed. Like you're doing this as if you're in the movie. You have to be dramatic and you have to have total buy-in.

'''AR:''' Oh, I love this. I love this so much.

'''J:''' I think that one is going to be, people are going to really love it because it's going to go off the rails immediately.

'''E:''' Oh gosh. Hilarity will ensue.

'''AR:''' Yes. This is great.

'''J:''' Yeah. So Adam, I think you're going to love this stuff. We're going to have a great time. You know, I'm really happy to welcome you to White Plains, New York. I mean, God, this is one of the cultural hubs of the United States.

'''E:''' Adam's familiar with many, many White Plains-ish types of towns throughout America.

'''AR:''' Yeah.

'''S:''' Basically, it's an airport, a train station, and some hotels.

'''J:''' And a huge mall. One of the biggest malls.

'''E:''' That is a big mall.

'''AR:''' Hey, I'm a child of the 80s and 90s. I love malls.

'''J:''' Yeah. We did the food court last time and it was great. So we did the 2023 NOTACON there. It was awesome. The hotel was awesome. We basically took over the entire hotel. So I think this year is going to be even better than last time. So we're really excited that you're coming. And I just want you to be prepared because you're going to have to do improv comedy with us.

'''AR:''' I'm ready. I'm prepared.

'''S:''' All right.

'''E:''' Adam tell us where we can find you and all your endeavors that you do so our audience can easily find you?

'''AR:''' Yeah. Find the band at Story of the Year on all the socials. I think we're still on Twitter, X, whatever that was called, unfortunately. Thank the Maker Pod at Thank the Maker Pod on Instagram, TikTok for now, Blue Sky, I think we're on there maybe. At Adam the Skull on all the things, Thank the MakerPod.com, StoryoftheYear.net and so on and so forth.

'''S:''' All right. We look forward to seeing you in May, Adam.

'''AR:''' Same to you guys. Thanks again for having me.

'''S:''' Yep.

'''J:''' You got it, man.

'''C:''' Good night.

{{anchor|theme}}
{{anchor|theme}}
== Science or Fiction (1:39:31) ==
{{SOFinfo
|theme = None
|hiddentheme =

|item1 = Researchers successfully used mRNA which produces a tardigrade protein to protect surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment.
|link1web = https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01360-5
|link1title = Radioprotection of healthy tissue via nanoparticle-delivered mRNA encoding for a damage-suppressor protein found in tardigrades | Nature Biomedical Engineering
|link1pub = www.nature.com

|item2 = Studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct diel classification (what time of day they are active).
|link2web = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado3843
|link2title = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado3843
|link2pub = www.science.org

|item3 = A new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars.
|link3web = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu6058
|link3title = https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu6058
|link3pub = www.science.org

|}}
{{SOFResults

|science1 = Researchers successfully used mRNA which produces a tardigrade protein to protect surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment.

|science2 = Studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct diel classification (what time of day they are active).

|fiction = A new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars.

|rogue1 = Jay
|answer1 = Studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct diel classification (what time of day they are active).

|rogue2 = Evan
|answer2 = Researchers successfully used mRNA which produces a tardigrade protein to protect surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment.

|rogue3 = Bob
|answer3 = Studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct diel classification (what time of day they are active).

|rogue4 = Cara
|answer4 = A new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars.

|host = Steve
|sweep =
|clever = y
|win =
|swept =
}}

''Voice-over: 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 then I challenge my panelk of skeptics, that's you guys, to tell me which one is the fake. I've got three exciting news items this week. You ready?

'''J:''' Yes.

'''E:''' Mm-hmm.

'''S:''' Okay. Here we go. Item number one, researchers successfully used mRNA, which produces a tardigrade protein to protect surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment. Item number two, studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct Diel classification, what time of day they are active. And item number three, a new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars. Jay made a noise. Jay did. Jay gets to go first.

'''J:''' All right. The first one here, these researchers, they successfully used mRNA, which produces a tardigrade protein to protect surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment. I have a lot to say about that one, Steve, because I remember I did specifically, I did a news item where they tracked tardigrades that were attached to rockets that went into outer space.

'''E:''' I remember that news item.

'''J:''' Yeah, me too. And I remember talking about this protein that they have that's covering their DNA and protects it from radiation coming in and messing it up. And this is exactly the kind of thing that I think you would make up. And man, if we could do that, though, they successfully used mRNA to produce, but who did they successfully use it on, Steve?

'''S:''' Well, since you're going first, I'll tell you. This is a mouse study, not that it matters.

'''J:''' Wait. So there are anti-radiation mice running around this planet now?

'''E:''' Well, not running around a laboratory.

'''S:''' And of course, the cancer treatment is radiation therapy, right? I hope that was obvious.

'''J:''' All right. So this is how supervillains are made, by the way. Okay. So I'm going to put that one on the back burner for a second. The second one here, you're saying studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct deal classification, what time of day they are active. So only 39% were correct in saying when they're active during the day.

'''S:''' Yeah. So in other words, like if an animal is categorized as nocturnal, this study found that 61% of the time they were not nocturnal.

'''J:''' That's crazy. If that's real, if that's legitimate, then it really, you know, what are these scientists and researchers doing? Like they're falling asleep at the wheel here while they're doing... They made 8.9 million observations of 445 species and 39, they were that wrong? That's a big mistake there, right? That's bad. I don't like that and I hope that one is not science. The last one, a new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars. Okay. I mean, I just...

'''B:''' Could you expand on that one, Steve?

'''S:''' A little. So you know what a rogue planet...

'''J:''' Rogue? Yeah, of course.

'''E:''' Yes.

'''S:''' It's roaming between the stars. It's not in orbit around a star. Right. So rogue planetary mass objects, right? So these are not stars. They're big, but they're planetary mass, they're not stars. And so the question is, do these planetary mass objects that are rogue, do they form as failed stars or do they form as planets that then get ejected from their solar system? This analysis says that most of them are ejected planets, not failed stars.

'''B:''' But you said they're planetary mass, so by definition, they would have to be planetary and not stellar.

'''S:''' No, because they're ...

'''B:''' Why?

'''S:''' Planetary mass objects...

'''C:''' I think that's a mass of planets.

'''S:''' They're big, but they're not stars, right? So are they too small to be a star or are they just big planets?

'''B:''' Okay. So you're talking like Neptune type, Jupiter gas giants?

'''E:''' Yeah, Jupiter.

'''S:''' Even bigger than Jupiter, but just not bigger than Jupiter.

'''E:''' Jupiter's a failed star.

'''B:''' Okay.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' But not in orbit.

'''S:''' They're rogue. Yeah, they're floating around.

'''J:''' So the question is, how does a planet get out of its own solar system, right? That's because it needs to be... I think the planets need to be around a star to form or at least that's... Oh boy, this is not an easy one, Steve. Nothing is sticking out. I am going to say, the first one about the mRNA that produces the tardigrade protein, this is exactly what we were saying we hoped would happen, right? And I could see them doing this. It makes sense. So I'm going to say that one is science. I'm going to say that the 39% here, the 8.9 million observations that were made of these 445 mammalian species, if they were that wrong, then something is really wrong. I don't think the number is 39%. I think it's a lot lower than that.

'''S:''' Or you mean higher.

'''J:''' You know what I'm talking about.

'''S:''' Yeah. I know what you're talking about.

'''J:''' That's the fiction.

'''S:''' Okay. Evan.

'''E:''' Oh boy, I don't want this tardigrade protein one to be science. Oh gosh. Right, Jay?

'''J:''' Of course.

'''E:''' I mean, this is too good. Tardigrades are amazing little buggers, aren't they? Can't kill them.

'''C:''' Animalcules. Steve's favorite word.

'''E:''' Again, that's the one that can trap you, right? You want it to be true. You don't kind of care, but at the same time, you'll lose the game. And then the 445 mammalian species, 39% correct deal classification, I suppose that could be right. It's more refined. Make observations and over time, you make more and more and more observations and you start concentrating on you can realize you were pretty far off the mark to begin with. I don't think there's a problem with that one per se. The last one about the rogue planetary mass objects, the rogue ones, ejected planets rather than failed stars. Okay. I believe that. Oh, what the heck. I'll go with the tardigrade one as the fiction because when it's not, if it turns out to be science, then my sadness from losing the game will be overridden by my happiness in that it was a fact.

'''S:''' All right, Bob.

'''C:''' Yeah, Bob's going before me.

'''B:''' I was hoping you'd go before me. Jesus. Tardigrade protein, huh? I guess. Why wouldn't they use the code from, what's the name of that bacteria, radiodurans? This is a bacteria that could have its genome obliterated by radiation and then it just like puts itself back together. I think it's even heartier than even a tardigrade. But tardigrades have some amazing, famously amazing resilience. So sure, I want that to be true too so badly. Let's see. So 8.9 million observations of only 445 species. That's 20,000 observations per species. That's a lot. And they still were that wrong? That's pretty dramatic. Wow.

'''S:''' That's the database they used to figure out that the older classifications were wrong, right?

'''B:''' Right.

'''S:''' You understand what that says?

'''B:''' I think so.

'''S:''' Yeah, you made it sound like, and they're still wrong after 8, no, 8.9 million observations is what led them to, you know, based upon those observations, the existing deal classifications were only correct 39% of the time.

'''B:''' All right. That's not encouraging. Let me look at this third one here. All right. So this one's interesting. So you've got, I mean we've, Steve, we've believed for years that there's more rogue planets ejected from solar systems than there are planets in orbit around a star, right? Isn't that kind of like many billions of these rogue planets. For years, that's kind of been the consensus. He's not even, you're not agreeing with me, but I know you would agree with me.

'''C:''' He's not done it.

'''B:''' So you're saying here that potentially these, some of these could be failed stars. I don't like, I don't like that. I like the idea of these, these rogue planets just like, you know, I don't need a star, you know, screw.

'''S:''' It says they're ejected planets, not rogue stars, not failed stars.

'''B:''' Just the idea of potentially thinking that these were failed stars is like, I like the idea of the rogue planets. It makes sense. It's like, you know, screw those billionaire stars. I don't need them. I'm out on my own. I don't need those guys. And imagine the life forms that could have evolved on an exoplanet with no star, with no stellar-

'''C:''' In what universe could anything live off of a, okay, sorry.

'''B:''' Plenty. Plenty. First off, you've got, you know, microbes living under the ground because of the heat of nuclear decay. That's, that's like, yeah, that absolutely can happen. But yeah, surface life, yeah, that's going to be, that's going to be difficult for sure. But there still could definitely be life on those. I mean, you know, there's still plenty of heat inside the earth. So this one, that one makes sense to me. All right. I'm going to say that the 39% correct one, something, yeah, I'll just, whatever, throw my coin down on that and say that's fiction. I don't know. Any of these could potentially be, except the third one.

'''C:''' Wait. So the brothers are saying it's the mammalian classification.

'''S:''' Evan, the tardigrade.

'''E:''' Yeah. I went with tardigrades for my own selfish purpose.

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''C:''' Who do I go with?

'''S:''' All right, Cara.

'''B:''' Don't. Just try to suss it out.

'''E:''' Or the rogue planets. You could do the rogue planets.

'''C:''' I could?

'''B:''' Yeah.

'''E:''' Fun.

'''C:''' Let's see. The tardigrade one I think could be true. At least somebody probably researched that. They were like, oh, these are radiation resistant. Maybe we can take something from them and put it in tissue. And it doesn't say in people. It says in tissue. So this could have been in vitro.

'''S:''' I said it was in mice.

'''C:''' Oh, in mice. Yeah. Totally happened in mice. I don't know why everybody is as bothered by this database one, though. Like, I'm not bothered by any of them. Okay. So what you're saying is that a new database where they had tons of observations. What I'm reading this as, the first time they did a big data analysis of this, they realized that all of their boots-on-the-ground non-comparison data was kind of wrong. And naturalistic data is just, oh, I'm standing out in the forest and I'm writing down how many of these creatures I see. But if they were using camera traps or CCTV or some way or satellite footage or something.

'''E:''' Thermal imaging.

'''C:''' Yeah. Thermal imaging to get big data, I could see them being way off. Animals are famously very good at evading human observation. So this one doesn't bother me at all. Now, the rogue planet one, I have no idea.

'''E:''' That must be the fiction by process of elimination.

'''C:''' I want, I mean, the other two don't bother me. This one, but Bob says this one doesn't bother him. And I have to think Bob is a proxy for my own brain, which I don't know anything about. So okay. In an attempt not to sweep Steve, I'm going to be, I'm going to use strategery here and I'm going to say it was, it's that they're not rogue planetary or they're not ejected planets. They are failed stars or something different.

'''S:''' Just to screw me out of it. That's your strategy. Okay. All right. Well, you're spread out, which means I did my job this week and well, it means I take them in order. Take them in order.

'''B:''' But you didn't do the job as good as you could have.

'''S:''' Please. You guys were confused and befuddled. Here we go. Item number one, researchers successfully used mRNA, which produces a tardigrade protein to protect the surrounding tissue from radiation damage during cancer treatment. You all want this one to be correct, but Evan thinks it's the fiction.

'''E:''' And I still want it to be correct.

'''S:''' And this one is...

'''B:''' Say it.

'''S:''' Science.

'''E:''' Oh, yes.

'''S:''' This is super cool.

'''E:''' I lose.

'''S:''' Yeah. So...

'''B:''' Tell me about it.

'''S:''' Well, I'll tell you. So yeah. So it's pretty much what it says. They identify the protein that binds to DNA and protects the DNA from breaking apart due to radiation. They made the mRNA that produces that protein. They inject it into the tissue of mice. They then gave them radiation therapy for their cancer because they actually had cancer, the mice that they were studying. And the mRNA produced tardigrade protein protected the surrounding tissue from radiation damage. They did not get as much DNA damage from the radiation. The idea here is that the mRNA is only going to last for a short amount of time. So it'll produce a bunch of the tardigrade protein. You give the radiation therapy and then within a couple of weeks, it's gone, you know, so it doesn't have any long lasting effects. And that's basically what they found. So the research was successful. Obviously, this is a long way away from human treatments, you know, doing.

'''B:''' Yeah, but extrapolate that. That's pretty, could be potentially pretty awesome.

'''S:''' But it could be.

'''C:''' Hell yeah.

'''S:''' Absolutely. So this is a good proof of concept, you know, in an animal model and very, very encouraging. Radio protection of healthy tissue via nanoparticle delivered mRNA encoding for a damaged suppressor protein found in tardigrades. Cool study. All right, let's go on to number two, studying a new database of 8.9 million observations of 445 mammalian species found that only 39% had correct deal classification. What time of day they are active. Bob and Jay, you think this one is the fiction. Cara and Evan thinks this one is science. And this one is science. Sorry, guys. Cara's strategy, unfortunately, worked.

'''E:''' Oh, it worked. Yeah.

'''B:''' Failed stars. That sucks.

'''S:''' Hang on, Bob. Hang on. Hold your horses.

'''E:''' Hold your fire.

'''S:''' So...

'''B:''' Hurry up.

'''E:''' Yeah, yeah. Mammals next.

'''S:''' Cara, you pretty much are correct. You know, a lot of the classifications were based on field observations, and a lot of them were just too few field observations.

'''C:''' Nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular, and the one I don't know, either crepuscular?

'''S:''' Cathemeral.

'''C:''' Is that the opposite? One's done, one's does?

'''B:''' I never heard of that one.

'''S:''' Cathemeral means that they're active during multiple phases throughout the day.

'''C:''' Oh, okay. Okay. So it's a catch-all.

'''S:''' Yeah, it's kind of a catch-all. And what they found was a couple of things. One was that a lot of the classifications that we had were not correct, but also that there's a lot more variability than we previously assumed. So in other words, like a quote-unquote nocturnal animal is active during the day quite a bit. So a lot more of the animals were cathemeral than strictly nocturnal or strictly diurnal.

'''B:''' Oh, that makes more sense.

'''C:''' That doesn't surprise me.

'''S:''' Yeah, but it's interesting, and it was a massive database, which of course, as Cara was saying, of course they would revise the less accurate information. This was a global network representing 38 countries, leveraged 8.9 million observations. So they updated our deal classifications. Quite a deal.

'''B:''' Nice.

'''S:''' Okay. That means that a new analysis finds that the vast majority of rogue planetary mass objects form as ejected planets rather than failed stars is the fiction.

'''B:''' Wow.

'''S:''' But they're not failed stars either. This is kind of a trick. It's neither.

'''C:''' Oh.

'''B:''' What?

'''J:''' What are we talking about?

'''C:''' So what are they?

'''B:''' Okay. Specify, please.

'''C:''' What else is there? Are they comets? I'm confused.

'''S:''' Right. So basically, there's two main ways that stuff gets made, right? You either get made as a star, meaning a collapsing disk of material, or you form as a planet, which is an accretion of material around a star, right? Those are the two basic ways that worlds get made. And the question was always for these rogue planetary mass objects, which PMOs are generally like bigger than Jupiter, but not big enough to become a star, right? And there's a lot of them out there. And Bob, you're right, there's probably more rogue planets than there are planets around stars.

'''B:''' Oh, they still believe that?

'''S:''' Oh, yeah. This does not impact that. Because these are not just anything that's a planet. This is the planetary mass objects are a specific range. Again, they tend to be large, but not suns. What they found was that they form by a third newly discovered mechanism that's neither like stars or planets. And it's complicated. But what they found was they found a bunch of them forming in the same location. What seems to be happening is that it's an interaction between two planetary disks that are forming these like a tidal bridge, as they say, there's like a tidal bridge between these two encountering circumstellar disks that then produce these highly productive clusters of material that spits out these PMOs, these free-floating-

'''E:''' Oh, like a baseball going through a pitching machine kind of thing. You got these two wheels that send the thing going.

'''S:''' Yeah, that's a good analogy, I guess.

'''B:''' Two circumstellar disks around one star.

'''S:''' No, I think, no, in a cluster, like in a cloud, a star forming region.

'''E:''' Neat.

'''S:''' Yeah.

'''B:''' But if it's a circumstellar disk, then there is a star there already, right?

'''S:''' But it's not around a star. It's not in orbit around a star. It's a young star cluster, right?

'''B:''' So is it like a binary system? I'm confused.

'''E:''' Proto star?

'''S:''' No, no, it's, so you have a star, a cluster of stars, right? So a star forming cluster. So there's a lot of young stars forming in this one region because there's a giant cloud of gas there, and lots of stars are forming. But in that cloud, there can also be these circumstellar disks that are forming stars. But if they get close together, they form these tidal bridges that then spit out a bunch of these PMOs. Does that make sense?

'''B:''' Fascinating, yeah.

'''S:''' Yeah, so it's-

'''B:''' Yeah, but I think circumstellar is kind of just not a good word for this.

'''S:''' That's the name of the disks. But that's the- So this would be a-

'''B:''' I don't like them.

'''S:''' This is a new mechanism by which these kinds of objects can be formed. It's not formed as a sun or as a planet. It's its own thing, which is weird. But cool.

'''E:''' Bob, we learned something here.

'''S:''' You did.

'''B:''' Yeah, that's really a third way. It sounds, that's really cool. I want to read up on that one. That's fascinating.

'''E:''' And Cara figured it all out.

'''C:''' Sure thing.

'''E:''' Without AI.

'''C:''' I'm totally not still confused.

'''E:''' No, no, no, no. She took the reins and commanded her way to victory.

{{anchor|qow}}

== Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:54:43) ==
{{qow
|text = "One of the few universal characteristics is a healthy skepticism toward unverified speculations. These are regarded as topics for conversation until tests can be devised. Only then do they attain the dignity of subjects for investigation."
|author = Edwin Hubbel, The Realm of the Nebulae (Yale University Press: 1936)
|lived =
|desc =
}}
'''S:''' All right, Evan, give us a quote.

'''E:''' "One of the few universal characteristics is a healthy skepticism towards unverified speculations. These are regarded as topics for conversation until tests can be devised. Only then do they attain the dignity of subjects for investigation." That was written by Edwin Hubble in an article called The Realm of the Nebula. 1936. Edwin Hubble, right? He's one of the-

'''S:''' I've heard of him.

'''B:''' He was awesome, man.

'''C:''' I saw his locker.

'''E:''' No.

'''C:''' Yeah, it's here at Mount Wilson. Yeah, if you go and observe at the telescope at Mount Wilson, Hubble's locker is still down in the bottom.

'''E:''' Holy moly. Steve, you were actually there.

'''S:''' I was there. Yeah, I saw it. There was also his telescope, his microscope or something that was there. I don't know.

'''E:''' And his lunch. It's kind of old now.

'''C:''' Yeah, there's some stuff inside of his locker. Yeah, it's like an old apple.

'''S:''' All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

'''B:''' Sure, man.

'''J:''' Got it.

'''C:''' Thanks, Steve.

'''E:''' Thanks doctor.

== Signoff ==
'''S:''' —and until next week, this is your {{SGU}}.
{{Outro664}}{{top}}

{{Navigation}}