SGU Episode 871

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SGU Episode 871
March 19th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 870                      SGU 872
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
MCL: Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, Executive Director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education
Quote of the Week
But my experience has taught me two lessons: first, that things are seen plainer after the events have occurred; second, that the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.
Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. president
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Ides, Smells, Caffeine OD

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. (applause) Today is Tuesday, March 15^th, 2022, 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: Is today the Ides of march is that what?

J: Yes it sure is.

S: We are recording on the Ides of March.

E: So what does that mean like something bad is going to happen?

S: No, it means no absolutely nothing.

J: It does sound a little foreboding though doesn't it Evan?

C: It's the day after pie day, that's a thing.

S: It's a good time to remember that every breath you take has molecules from Caesar's last fart as well.

E: Is that what I'm tasting?

B: I love that could.

J: Could you imagine if your sense of smell was so good that you could detect everything.

S: It would just be overwhelming because you're breathing.

C: Mine's pretty good and my life kind of sucks because of it. I don't wanna say my life sucks, my life's awesome.

E: Nose of a dog, you know nose dog.

S: You can smell a lot of stuff.

C: I smell a lot of stuff and I'm constantly like "oh, what is that?" and people are like "really Cara?".

E: Are you a super-smeller?

C: It's horrible, I can't even, I don't like the way people's refrigerators smelled, it freaks me out. Opening refrigerator doors.

S: Refrigerators, they can smell a little rank.

E: Oh yeah absolutely, you have to clean them.

C: They can, and I like, I notice the first little change. I'm always like oh what is that, what is that.

S: Yeah, I'm fairly sensitive as well. Usually like I will detect rancidity in food way before my wife does. Like no, no, I don't think so. She's like, that's fine.

E: All right, question for you guys does this tie into your super taster sensations?

C: Probably separate but I'm sure they play off of each other.

S: It's distinct. My "supertasting" it's not so super by the way, it sucks, but I just basically taste bitter a lot of stuff. That's it. I just taste a lot more things are bitter to me than people who don't have those.

C: Yeah.

B: That's the lamest superpower.

S: It is.

C: It's horrible. It just makes food not as good.

J: But it means you're less likely to get poisoned that's good.

E: Maybe.

C: Maybe in the past probably.

B: It's a huge concern these days.

C: If we were hunter gatherers maybe.

E: Or more false positives, right? Like mm-hmm poison, no not poison.

S: In modern society it's basically all false positives. Like a lot of things taste like poison to me that are perfectly fine.

C: Kale!

B: I like my superpowers so much better. I could drink a pot of coffee at midnight and go right to bed.

C: Bob! Did you see, did you see the guy OD'd on caffeine and died?

B: What!?

C: Yeah that that news article has been been cycling around─

B: No way.

C: I don't think, I think it was like caffeine tablets or something.

B: Yeah oh yeah man yeah then like two cups of, two cups of caffeine you know per pill. I remember from the old days when I actually thought they helped me. But yeah if you pop like 30 of those, that'll mess you up if you're not a superhuman like me.

C: He drank, actually, so it was drinks. It was a caffeine powder. And he drank the equivalent of 200 cups of coffee.

B: Oh!

S: 200. That will do it.

B: 200!

C: He miscalculated the dosage.

S: Like two orders of magnitude?

C: So sad.

J: That is, what did that person think, like what what was going through their mind. Like I'm drinking 200 cups of coffee.

C: No no no, he didn't realize that, I think he was trying to drink 20 cups. But even that seems a bit intense.

E: But how did you not know upon the first taste that was wrong?

S: See, math illiteracy will kill you.

C: It's sad.

B: There you go.

S: Math will save your life.

J: So Cara, did he have a heart attack?

S: That'd be my guess.

C: I would assume so. I know he had to be, they attempted resuscitation but couldn't.

S: You can get a heart attack due to spasm of the muscle.

C: That's probably what happens.

S: Spasm of the artery, you get like arterial vasospasm in the heart. I had a patient that that happened to them because they were taking a supplement that they weren't aware had a caffeine analog in it. And they took a massive dose of this stimulant. And they had a heart attack you know. They went to the emergency room and they were fine and everything, but it was again, they have no atherosclerosis, it wasn't a pardoning of the artery or a clot. It was just the vessel went into vasospasm.

C: Yeah, that's what it sounds like. He, his chest, he had really immediate chest pain and tachycardia. And then it says he sadly started foaming at the mouth. She called the ambulance. But get this, the coroner found that his, the caffeine level in his blood was 392 mg/L. And the typical level after a cup of coffee is 2-4 mg/L.

B: Oh!

S: Hundred times.

E: So 100 times, 100x.

B: Killed by coffee man.

E: Death by coffee.

C: Careful with that dosage.

J: Bob, at least he died doing something that he loves, you know. (Bob laughs)

C: Is that how you want to go Bob?

S: Small comfort.

J: Death by coffee?

B: I want to go when I'm bored with life after many millennia. Then, then I'll just pilot a ship into the sun.

J: Bob doesn't want to die until he's universe-weary. (Cara laughs)

B: Yeah. But even better, even better. Try that, just fly at ultra relativistic speeds for so far and so long, that you basically see that the end of the universe in trillions of years.

E: Die of boredom?

B: I'm working on that, I'm working on that.

News Items

Why Is Life Symmetrical (12:21)

• Why Is Life Symmetrical

Evolution of Language (29:45)

• Language was born in the hands

Moon Rocks (41:32)

• NASA Studies 50-Year-Old Lunar Sample to Prep for Return to Moon

Plasma Lens (51:43)

• Holographic plasma lenses for ultra-high-power lasers

International Paranormal Conference (1:02:37)

• Rice hosts conference on paranomal [sic] phenomena

Who's That Noisy? (1:08:45)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Pair of Tasmanian devils

New Noisy (1:13:41)

[building up and loud, echoey cracking and popping]

J:... If you have any ideas what that noise is, or if you heard something cool – it could have happened at home, at work, while you were shopping, I actually don't care – but if you heard something cool, you send it in, and I'll play it.

Interview with Michelle Ciulla Lipkin (1:14:40)

• Michelle Ciulla Lipkin is the Executive Director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)

Science or Fiction (1:38:14)

Item #1: Researchers identify two genes that allow people to have full sleep benefits from only 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and as a bonus, protect against the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. Item #2: Scientists have developed a tiny EMP protection device that can shunt electricity at up to 6,400 volts in a few billionths of a second. Item #3: A reexamination of data demonstrates that as many as 20% of exoplanets previously validated through the transmit method are instead small stars.

Answer	Item
Fiction	20% of exoplanets are stars!
Science	Tiny E.M.P. protection device
Science	Genes for full sleep benefits

Host	Result
Steve	swept

Rogue	Guess
Bob	20% of exoplanets are stars!
Jay	20% of exoplanets are stars!
Cara	20% of exoplanets are stars!
Evan	20% of exoplanets are stars!

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:50:27)

But my experience has taught me two lessons: first, that things are seen plainer after the events have occurred; second, that the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.
– Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), 18th president of USA

Signoff (1:51:24)

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

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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Today I Learned

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References

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