SGU Episode 802

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SGU Episode 802
November 21st 2020
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 801                      SGU 803
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements, will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness.
Steve Allen, American television personality
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Show Notes
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Introduction

Voiceover: 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, November 18^th, 2020, 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 folks.

S: Alright guys, I want to get started with some good news. We've been talking about COVID all year and everyone's depressed. This is just a quick follow-up to a news item that we talked about a few weeks ago. This is the one that got Bob so upset, so I thought I would counteract a little bit. So remember, we talked about the fact that about 60% of the biodiversity has been lost over the last 50 years or so.

B: We're screwed. We're so screwed.

C: Oh, I remember this conversation.

E: I think we got an e-mail or 12 or whatever.

S: But a follow-up analysis found that –

E: 59%?

B: Scusi! Milli regretti!

S: So the question was, this is the problem with averages, right? That's the average biodiversity loss over the last 50 years. But they said, alright, is this like 60% across the board or is this decrease in biodiversity concentrated in a few extreme outliers? What they found was that it was basically concentrated in 1% of the species out there. If you take away the most extreme 1% of vertebrate species that are having a decrease in their population, the other 99% are basically unchanged. There's no trend overall in the other 99%.

C: That surprises me. I feel like we're going to get another follow-up study.

S: Maybe.

E: But that 1% drags everything to a 60% number?

S: Yeah. Yeah.

C: No, I mean that's not – Statistically, that's not what surprises me. It's like literally based on all of the conservation stuff that I read on a regular basis.

S: Well, they were saying that it's nice to know that all of the conservation efforts have not been wasted, that they're actually working to some extent. But when you think about it, there's a lot of disparity in the number of individuals in species, right? So if a few massively populated species like the buffalo, for example, lose a high number of individuals, that can drag down the average if you're looking at comparing it to lots of species that have relatively small populations at baseline. But in any case, it does mean that it's not a generalized biodiversity loss. It is being concentrated in a small percentage, 1% in this study of species and that many species are actually holding their own in terms of biodiversity. So okay, you're right. No one study is definitive, but this is putting another spin on that data. Just looking at the 60% figures clearly was not enough. You have to dive a little bit deeper. This may not be the final word, but at least it's more complex and it may not be as horrific as that one figure made it seem.

B: Yeah, but so did they do a press release and throw out that 60% figure and all the other stuff? And then later on, they're like, oh, wait, we took another look at this. And by the way, what?

S: No, this, I think, is a different group. It's not the same researchers. It's just a different group looking at the question. This is the McGill University team of biologists, and they published—it's in Nature, so this is like a high-profile journal that they published it in. So again, science is complicated. There's no one study definitive. This is often a conversation with back and forth and different groups weighing in in the literature. But it's just good to know that the story is more complicated and may not be as bad as we thought.

B: Yeah, why couldn't they just be very quickly definitive, like how the dinosaurs died? That was quick. Bam, bam. They knew that real quick.

C: What are you talking about?

B: Was there a controversy over that? Sorry.

C: No, and we've known for a long time that there's like local confusion, right? Like people get upset when they find out that elephants elephants are critically endangered. But then how are there too many elephants in Botswana right now, like that you see these like geographic differences. And also, I think the problem is that when we think about biodiversity, we think about animals. And when we think about animals, we think about mammals. When we think about mammals, we think about big, pretty, furry mammals. But like I've mentioned a lot of times on the show, frogs are declining at 35,000 times the background extinction rate.

J: Do we know why, Cara?

C: There's a lot of reasons. Frogs are a massive group.

B: Yeah, I saw some weird sign. It said, so long and thanks for all the flies.

C: So I do have a whole episode. I have a whole episode on Talk Nerdy about that where I talk to a frog researcher. There's obviously a lot of different research and probably some frogs are doing great. And that's really how this works.

S: And none of this is to suggest that there isn't an issue here that we have to deal with. There absolutely is in terms of habitat loss, etc. But it all may not be lost and conservation, what this means is that conservation efforts have a chance to work. So we need to double down on them.

COVID-19 Update (5:25)

S: All right. Some other good news.

B: Good news, everyone.

S: Moderna announced the preliminary data on a second COVID vaccine. So Moderna is another U.S. company. They're based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Again, same exact story pretty much as the Pfizer vaccine. They were in preliminary phase three results. They enrolled 30,000 patients. Remember, Pfizer was over 40,000. But so similar in size. It's also an mRNA vaccine. And they showed that with 94.5% reduction in COVID cases in the treatment group versus the placebo group. But also Pfizer completed their data analysis and they also now are claiming 95% efficacy. So the numbers-

C: And that was just today.

S: Yeah, that was just today. So now both vaccines. It makes sense. They're both mRNA. They both kind of work the same way. 95% efficacy thereabouts. That's fantastic. You know, we were hoping like 50 would be a minimum, 75 would be great. 95 is like really exceeds-

B: It's crazy. And in less than a year. Less than a year.

S: I know.

B: Amazing what you could do when you're really motivated.

C: Yeah. But it's also because it's an mRNA vaccine. That cuts the time down a lot.

S: That's part of it.

C: I mean, that's part of it. It's also because we put all of our efforts and all of this money into-

B: Really? So mRNA are faster?

C: Yeah, they're faster.

S: The other difference is Pfizer and BioNTech, I think is how you pronounce it, or BioNTech, whatever, they funded their own research and which to the tune of several billion dollars.

B: Wow.

S: But they did have a deal of like a pre-sales agreement with the US. Now the Moderna has not put, this is a new company, it was founded in 2010. It's an all mRNA therapeutics company. That's all they do. They specialize in mRNA. They have no approved therapeutics on the market.

C: Wow.

S: And so this vaccine will be their first.

C: That's crazy.

S: But they also, because of that, they didn't have a couple of billion dollars laying around like Pfizer did. So they did it with partnerships with other pharmaceutical companies as well. But Moderna got the warp speed grant from the NIH of two point whatever billion dollars.

B: Why? With no track record, why?

E: Because they were special [inaudible].

C: Because they probably had progress already. They had a good idea.

S: Yeah. They've been researching mRNA for 10 years. They're really sort of perfecting the basic mRNA technology. And yes, they've now, right there, they should be, again, be able to get emergency use authorization by the end of the year. They should have, they said, similar millions of 20 million or so doses available. So the similarities with the Pfizer vaccine, it's also mRNA. It's also two doses, roughly several weeks apart. One big difference. So remember the Pfizer vaccine has to be refrigerated at minus 70 degrees Celsius.

E: Freezing. Yeah. Way freezing.

J: And this one only needs to be at minus 69.

S: No, this is minus 20.

J: Oh, that's a big difference.

E: Minus 20?

S: That's a regular freezer. And it lasts longer. So Pfizer was-

B: 30 days in the fridge.

S: And then, yeah, in a refrigerator, it only lasts for a few days, which means there has to be a super freezer, what they call a cold chain of distribution. It has to be cold, minus 70 the whole way. Fortunately, dry ice will do it. And so they're developing a system of dry ice containers that will keep the vaccine at minus 70 until it gets to its destination. But then you've got three days to distribute it before it goes bad.

C: Or you just have to keep storing it. Yeah, you have to have the facility, the capability in your facility to have that deep free storage.

S: Right, right, right. But I think once you thaw it out, you got to use it. Now with the Moderna vaccine, it's just minus 20, which is a lot easier. And it could last for up to six months, they're saying, at minus 20. And it can last up to one month in a refrigerator.

B: Sweet.

E: Great.

C: That's huge.

S: So probably what they'll do is they'll distribute the Pfizer vaccine to big population centers where it will get used up quickly. And the Moderna vaccine will go to lower population density in rural areas.

B: That makes sense.

C: Oh, it sounds like you're saying that there will be some sort of national plan?

'S: Well, if we're going to plan this out, that would be one way to do it.

C: Right. If there's a national plan.

S: And they think they can get a billion doses made by the end of 2021. So not quite, but similar kind of production levels to Pfizer. So between the two of them, we should be able to vaccinate all of America and Europe and have plenty left over just to share around the world. Obviously, there's 17 mRNA vaccines in development. So I'm pretty sure by sometime in 2021, we're going to have other vaccines from China and Russia, et cetera. So these aren't going to be the only two. But having two highly effective vaccines with great data, the safety data is also really good. Although, again, safety data is always about time. You've got to give it time to see what emerges. But with good safety data for a couple of months in tens of thousands of subjects, that's great. That's pretty good.

C: I think AstraZeneca is pretty close too, right? Yeah. So yeah, there's just a lot.

S: So this is good. I mean, and the bottom line is, this is what people have been saying for a while. And now it looks like we're on track to meet those predictions. Life can get back to normal by the end of 2021. So that's what you should pretty much-

B: It's just in time for Halloween, my friends.

S: Yeah. So by the winter, the late fall maybe, or the winter 2021, if we get wide distribution of these two vaccines, life can theoretically get back to normal. So that's what you should be thinking about.

B: Even if we're at 80% normal, that would be awesome by then. That would be good too. It doesn't have to be 100% normal.

S: Right. It's going to be like flipping a switch. It's going to be ramping up the whole year, but we might get to the point where you don't have to wear a mask anymore and you could eat inside a restaurant. You can go to the movie theater, things that we haven't done in a year.

B: It's scary to contemplate.

S: I know. It'll be weird. Imagine sitting in a theater surrounded by strangers not wearing a mask. I mean, it's like you can't even imagine that.

B: And they're all breathing.

S: Yeah. That's one thing.

B: If they were all corpses, that'd actually feel better.

C: Yeah. But that also assumes compliance.

S: Yeah. It does.

C: And I think there's a real concern about vaccine compliance for multiple reasons right now. So I think that it's like best case scenario, these things get mass produced, they're, as we said, 95% effective, we don't see any problems, even though this is a really quick turnaround and the tests were short with a lot of people, but not the global population. And then that people actually get the vaccines. Those are pretty big assumptions.

J: Do you think, Steve, that the government is going to say you have to get it?

S: No. I don't think so. I don't think there's going to be-

C: I think it'll be state to state.

S: I don't think there's going to be any government mandate to get the vaccine, but there may be like your kids need to get it to go to school because they already-

E: Yeah. Well, that's already part of the deal.

S: Hospitals will probably require it for their workers and companies may require that everybody gets the vaccine in order to physically go into work. So I think that's the level where it's going to happen. I would be surprised if there was just like a law mandating the vaccine. And I think that probably would backfire, to be honest with you.

C: Yeah.

E: Oh, sure.

C: There'd be like this massive-

E: Just because.

S: Yeah, it'll become political. We don't want to make, we want to depoliticize this. We don't want to do anything to make it even more political. The hope is that post-Trump, healthcare will be less political, like just not making other people sick and trying to stop a pandemic won't be as politicized. We'll see. Nobody really knows what that world's going to look like.

C: Has there been any conversation around cost?

S: So yeah, there has been. Because Moderna basically developed this with the funding from the NIH, the cost is going to be very low. I think even the Pfizer vaccine, they were talking about something like $36 for a course of the vaccine, I think for both doses. So it's not going to be like a break the bank kind of thing.

C: Yeah.

E: And most insurance would cover that, right?

C: Probably. And Medicaid would probably cover it.

S: Of course insurance is going to cover it. Of course. It would be massively cost-effective for them not to have to pay for their people to be on a ventilator in an ICU, right? That pays for, I know many vaccines, that would pay for thousands of vaccines. So it's totally, totally cost-effective for them.

E: And I imagine there'll be other programs for people who don't have insurance who can still get it as a subsidy and have it paid for.

S: Absolutely. It's a public health measure. You're going to get the vaccine. I don't think it's going to be like, you can't get it because you can't afford it. I don't think that's going to be an issue, to be honest with you. Very quickly, again, we don't like to get political on the show, but the thing is, there is a massive conspiracy theory forming in real time right in front of us. I just want to make mention of it. The US election happened, Joe Biden won. He won definitively. Statistically, the probability of recounts or any kind of irregularities overturning even a single state is approaching zero, let alone the three states he would need to win. Yeah, it is a close margin if you take the three closest states needed, the minimum number of states needed to overturn the electoral vote. It's actually only about 40,500 votes, which is a little interesting to think about. But still, even that is orders of magnitude more than there's any reason to suspect is going to change. And there's zero evidence of any widespread irregularities, let alone a coordinated effort of fraud or anything.

C: Right. I've been reading that this was like the safest, most secure.

S: It was the most secure election in American history. And the guy who said that was promptly fired by Trump.

C: Of course.

S: That's true. But the thing is, it's amazing that there is now a massive conspiracy theory that this election was rigged and was stolen. And it's happening in real time.

B: It's disgusting. It's horrible.

C: And it's a beautiful example of conspiracy theories that are born out of a single author, a single person planting a seed, and then the people around them supporting it, and then it growing and growing and growing. As opposed to what I think a lot of people like to think of as this organic, oh, it's just the conclusion that a lot of people came to, and then they've met each other and it developed. It's like, no, this was orchestrated.

S: This is engineered. This is engineered.

C: Purely propaganda.

B: And the evidence against it is clear and obvious. It's more obvious than usual for these types of things.

C: Right. But that evidence is being disseminated by individuals that are in direct contradiction to the conspiracy thinkers' ideology. It's people they don't trust.

B: Yeah. But even the Trump-appointed judges, why wouldn't they be trusted? You'd think they'd tend to trust them a little bit more.

S: Courts of law have rules of evidence, right? That's why the claims are being laughed out of court, because like—

B: Literally, mocked.

C: But then Trump has some sort of answer. He disavows them. People he can't fire, he figures out how to make ad hominem attacks against. And it works.

S: But it does show you—the primary reason why I'm bringing it up, because, again, we do talk about conspiracies as a matter of course and skepticism, is the what's the harm kind of argument, because people say, ah, what's the harm of people believing in nonsense? It's literally, it's literally threatening to destroy the most stable democracy in the world.

C: Right.

S: Right?

B: Just, that's all.

S: I mean, and that's no joke. That's no hyperbole to say that. There is literally a serious effort to overturn the democratic outcome of this election through fiat, through legislative fiat. It's not going anywhere. It's not going to work. But there are people in power seriously trying to do it.

C: Oh, and his entire party is looking the other way. That's the really scary thing. That we're not seeing a concerted effort within the Republican Party to say, okay, enough's enough. Democracy matters more.

S: 90% are not, have not recognized the outcome of the election. So, yeah, with their silence, they're allowing it to happen. So it's this is why we need critical thinking. This is why people need to understand about conspiracy thinking. It undermines democracy. In a very serious way. Democracy is really, it's anathema to democracy. You can't have democracy when we can't agree upon what a fact is and a process that we can mutually trust. You know, at the end of the day, one side wins, one side loses, and you move on. You may not like it. You may, whatever, you may resist, whatever. But you accept it and you move on. You don't deny the very legitimacy of the other person.

B: Right. And Steve, I mean you could laugh at flat earthers. You can laugh at moon hoaxers. But this, this specific one is the most egregiously harmful, potentially harmful conspiracy theory of all time. Think about it. What other conspiracy theory could even remotely, you know-

S: The anti-vaxxers.

B: Okay, there you go.

C: It just depends on how you define [inaudible].

B: But this, I would argue, is potentially even worse in terms of, I mean, think about it. Worst case scenario is pretty bad.

S: If the will of the voters were overturned, we're actually no longer living in a democracy. And don't get me this, we're really in a republic thing, whatever. That's irrelevant to the point. Yes, it's a republic, but still.

C: It's a democratic republic.

S: Yeah, it's a democratic republic. Right. And there is a method for electing the president. And that method was followed. It was followed very well with very minimal irregularities that are well below, just noise in the background that has no ability to change the outcome.

B: And amazingly well considering, hey, it's 2020, right? Amazingly well considering.

S: In the middle of a pandemic with more voters than any other previous election. We really have to hand it to the election workers. They did a fantastic job.

B: Yes.

S: And the idea that they're being gratuitously accused of fraud is also really disheartening. But anyway, conspiracies are bad. Critical thinking is necessary for a democracy to thrive and to exist. Clearly, clearly. All right, let's go on with some news items.

News Items

Resisting Facial Recognition (20:04)

• Resisting the rise of facial recognition

S: Jay, you're going to start us off by talking about public resistance to facial recognition technology. Tell us about this.

J: Yeah, and this in a way dovetails nicely from what we were just talking about. And you'll see where. So the use of facial recognition software, or I'll be referring to it as FRT, it continues to expand. And we're still faced with the same questions of privacy versus security. But some of the obvious uses for facial recognition are pretty powerful. So let's go through a quick list. I picked some of my favorite ones or the ones I thought were the most relevant. First and foremost, of course, would be law enforcement. It's right out of a sci-fi movie. The police are looking for a criminal and a camera identifies the guy in the crowd. Doo, doo, doo. You know, that whole bit.

S: Minority Report, you're looking at eyeball.

J: Absolutely. Minority Report has a couple of really good examples of it. Another use could be to help identify unidentified victims. Let's say there was a horrible disaster, hurricane, tornado, whatever. Sharks walking around.

S: Shark dinos.

J: Yeah, they can identify people who are unconscious or corpses or whatever, which is horrible, but it's still very useful. It could be used for marketing. Again, Minority Report, we know when the main character walks into a shop, the marketing software was able to identify him. It was something about the jeans he bought last time he was looking at it or whatever. I'm sure that we'll see some version of that either way. Or let's say you're going to board an airplane or go to a festival where you have to go through security and all that stuff. This would make it faster. And then other things like preventing known criminals or unrecognized faces from going somewhere like not letting a shoplifter into your shop or not letting unknown faces into a school as an example. And I'm not saying any of these are good or bad or indifferent. I'm just listening to them, listing them so we could talk about it. But I will remind you that most of us have facial recognition in our hands because of our cell phones. And it works pretty damn well. You know, like when they first came out with it, it was like one in a million likelihood of it being correct. And I would just imagine it's getting better all the time because the software keeps getting better.

B: But it can't recognize me with my face mask on.

J: That's true. I wish that they let you have more than one face. You know, I wonder if they could have one where it sees your mask, but it's really looking at your eyes. You know, that would be, that'd be smart.

B: But maybe then your eyes are like a fingerprint anyway. Don't need anything more.

J: Yeah. But I think the current software needs to see all of your, what do you call the measurements on your bio what?

B: Biometrics.

J: Biometrics. Yeah. Probably you need your nose and your mouth and all that stuff.

B: Yeah. That's how, yeah, that's how one form of biometrics works for sure. But your eye is more distinct than your DNA.

C: Right. But you would require like a retinal scanner.

B: No, not your retina. I'm talking about your...

C: Your iris?

B: Your... Yeah. The colored portion.

C: But even that, you would need a scanner to get to that level of detail. I think they just don't have that resolution in most of these facial recognitions. Larger patterns.

B: Yeah. You probably would need pretty solid resolution.

C: You have to like put your eye right up to like a camera or something.

B: ut how far away are we from that? Can't be too far away.

J: All of these things sound good, but what are the downsides? One problem right now is the lack of accuracy. I was, you know...

B: Privacy?

J: Remember when I first heard about this lack of accuracy, I was really surprised at what was happening. These statistics are available. There's a lot of different studies. You know, one study at MIT found that 35% of dark-skinned women were misidentified. A different study found higher rates of a false positive for African Americans and Asian faces compared to Caucasians. The statistics are showing a clear racial bias, and I don't mean that there was negative intent. I can make a couple of assumptions. One, they probably were testing it mostly for Caucasians for some reason.

C: You've just got to be really careful. Like, it's not about being overt. This is a systemic racism problem, meaning that the algorithm is not even including diversity.

J: Yeah.

C: That's the problem.

J: Yeah, you're right.

C: That when people think of what is normal, they think of these people as normal, and they think of other people as other, when actually all people are normal and should be tested within the sample.

J: Yeah, the big miscalculation that they're having is dark-skinned women. So that does track with what you're saying. So, okay, so FRT could, and in some places, is being used by governments to inhibit political opposition. And this is the one that I think freaks me out the most. So it's used to identify protesters, restrict people's freedoms. It's happening today in over 100 cities in China. And it's also being used to enforce pandemic rules. So this oppressive thing that I just mentioned about governments using facial recognition, it is not a small thing to consider. This is actually the big, incredibly bad thing that this software can do. And literally just read some science fiction and you'll learn everything you need to know about why this is a bad idea. And I am throwing in my personal opinion here. I do think that facial recognition could very well be a very, very bad thing if we don't regulate the shit out of it. So anyway, continuing on. So another issue in general, I said, is general privacy of citizens. And there's a growing pushback against this technology. The US and Europe are currently considering regulating facial recognition technology. And many people who warn against FRT say that it's not ultimately inevitable. And I understand why they're saying that, because it just seems like one of those things. I've even said this, we'll have it someday. There's nothing, you can't stop it. It's going to happen. But we have to intelligently regulate the technology. I'm not against facial recognition technology in general. I'm just against it being used by governments to the slippery slope of oppression, which we just have to be smart about. But the world is filled with bad actors. And when given access to technology like this, and it will come easier like not too long from now, you're going to be able to use your phone to do, if it could tap into a facial recognition database, it will be able to do it. If not right now it's really just the databases that are the most important thing. So in 2019, 64 countries were currently using FRT in surveillance. And experts say that evidence shows FRT does not reduce crime more than ordinary video cameras. I was very surprised to hear that. And the technology is too new. And that historically, law enforcement has overstated the effectiveness of new technology, because there really isn't enough data out there to really prove if anything, the data is showing the opposite of what law enforcement is saying. So again, got to be careful. Something I found disturbing is that that came out of researchers at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. They said in 2016, they calculated that about half of all American citizens were in a law enforcement face recognition database already. This is due to many states allowing law enforcement to pull data from driver's license databases, which includes your picture. A software company called Clearwater in New York City used billions of images from social media. And they went on, they scraped it, and they created their own facial recognition database. And they are now selling the use of that data. A couple of social media companies were like, hey, you can't use our data for that or whatever. I have no idea how they'd police that.

C: Yeah, and also, is that legal or is it not?

J: Yeah, the laws don't exist yet. It's a new technology. So as, like I said, as the technology progresses, it's all going to become easier. It's going to be the kind of things that, it's not going to have to be run by a huge computer or lots of, the processing can and will be done on cell phones eventually. And keep in mind, this is a big deal. The databases really can't be stopped. You can't stop a company from accessing easily accessible images on social media, which doesn't seem to be going away at all, right? So those images are available and companies could just do it. Be based in other countries that don't have laws that care about this and still sell the product. So what do we do and what is the right way to handle this? And that's where I wanted to say to you guys, what do you think? First off, I'd like to hear what you think. And I'll leave you with this. Right now, San Francisco in the United States and a couple of other cities in the United States have banned facial recognition software. So I'd like to hear what you say, what you have to think about that point. And in general, what do you think of facial recognition software?

C: Well, what does that mean? They've banned the software.

J: That you can't basically scan the public with cameras all over the city. They're banning that.

C: They're banning it at a municipal level. The government can't use it.

J: Right.

C: Okay.

J: Nothing saying that. Yeah, that's right. I think a company can still do it. I don't think they went that far with it. But still, again, what if you're paying this company Clearwater to tap into their database and you access it on your cell phone or laptop computer and it has the ability to do it? What should we do, if anything, about this? Do you feel threatened by it in any way?

C: Well, I'm most threatened by the advertising side of it. I understand why people would absolutely feel threatened by law enforcement use. It's just another tool to target vulnerable people. And I totally understand why that's a massive concern. I have the privilege to not have to worry about that that much. But I think that a lot of people in our country and across the globe don't have that privilege. And that horrifies me from, obviously, a humanitarian, a human, a social justice perspective. For me personally, the idea that large corporations make money off of my habits already makes me very angry. And so that this is just another way to do that. And you're right. It's going to be normalized the same way that targeted ads are normalized now. When I go on Instagram, obviously, I'm being sold things that I probably would already want. Because they know my habits and they know who I am. They know a lot about me. And this is just going to contribute to that, like you said, in minority report. And I watch films where somebody is walking down the street and they're getting digital displayed billboards that are customized to them. And it's like the most horrific, dystopian world I don't want to live in.

J: Yeah.

E: I'm looking at a book on my shelf right now called The Merchant's War. And that's exactly what that book is about. In a dystopian future in which you walk past, you're walking down the street. All of a sudden, advertisements are being beamed into your head, left, right, and center. And you have no control. You've got no way to stop it.

J: I just find it to be this amazing, slippery slope of danger. It just seems like so many science fiction movies have warned us and science fiction novels have warned us about this in particular. The Big Brother thing, it really is scary when you think about how fast and furious this software can basically be in anybody's hands.

S: But the thing is, it always comes down to, will people accept a little bit of loss of freedom for a little bit of convenience? And the answer always seems to be yes.

C: Yeah, so far. I think I've mentioned it on the show. There's a great documentary called Terms and Conditions May Apply, which is absolutely about that, the difference between privacy and convenience and where we fall on that scale. And yeah, it's like, ooh.

E: Doesn't happen overnight. Chip, chip, chip, drip, drip, drip.

S: Exactly.

E: It happens a little bit this year.

S: If it becomes normal, then you do one more step and that becomes normal. Absolutely.

Farming Mars (31:57)

• Farming on Mars will be a lot harder than ‘The Martian’ made it seem

S: All right, Cara.

C: Yes, sir.

S: So are we going to be farming on Mars anytime soon?

C: I love that.

E: Cara hopes not.

C: I know, right? I love that Steve gave me a space story. But I'm also super scared to see what everybody says. So this one interests me because I do think that sometimes on the show, I have to throw the wettest of blankets over the techno-optimism that I hear when we have conversations about these things. And this is just a very small study that gives us a little bit more insight. Actually, two studies were covered in this right around. There's a journal called Icarus. And in the January 15, 2021 issue, two studies will be published. They're already in preprint online. And they are about Martian soil and whether or not we can grow plants in it. And I think both probably in the press release, maybe not, I don't know, but definitely in the popular write-arounds and even in the studies themselves, there are these nods to the book and the film The Martian.

E: Of course.

C: Because we all saw The Martian.

E: It's become the go-to.

C: Yeah, it's the go-to. That's what we kind of have a popular understanding of, so why not just compare to that and use that as our benchmark? And in The Martian, do you guys remember how he grew his potatoes?

J: Yes. He used the bacteria from the poop.

C: Right. So he fertilized them with poop, but he basically just used the soil composition that was already present, right? So it was like Martian soil, add some poop. Look at that. The potatoes are growing. And of course, he did do it inside an enclosure because we all know what happened when the enclosure exploded. So he was keeping the temperature constant. He was keeping the humidity where it needed to be. And so what these researchers decided to do is they said, okay, I don't have Martian soil in front of me, but I do know an awful lot about Martian soil based on readings from a bunch of different spacecrafts that have looked at Martian soil. So not just the rovers that are actively on Mars right now, but also some different satellites and different sources of this information.

E: Cool. Which means they can make it in the lab, right?

C: Yeah. So they're like, how can we figure out how to try to approximate the geochemistry of these Martian soils? And they approached it a few different ways. One of them they just built straight from scratch, based on information from spectroscopy. They have a very good idea of what's in the Martian soil and what the percentages are. And because it's our solar system, so none of these are exotic geochemicals. These are things we know we have here. We know how to make. And then the other two, they were like, why don't we actually find sources on Earth that are pretty close already and then supplement them? So they have a Mojave Desert sample. They have a Hawaiian mined sample. And then they made one from scratch using components from volcanic rock, clay, salts, and other ingredients that have been observed on Mars. And then they said, okay, in these three different synthetic dirts, controlling for temperature and controlling for humidity, we're going to try and grow two different crops. We're going to grow lettuce, and we're going to grow Arabidopsis thaliana. And that's like a common laboratory organism. It's a model organism that you see a lot in botany and biology. So they tried to grow all three, and they found that none of them could grow unless they supplemented with fertilizer. Not really that surprising, right? Just like in the Martian, put the poop on. So they made their own fertilizers, and they supplemented. Because, of course, there wasn't really any organic matter in these simulated soils. And what they found after they fertilized it was that seeds of both of the species were able to sprout and continue to grow in both the Hawaiian and the Mojave Desert mix. So they added nitrogen, potassium, calcium, a bunch of other stuff, and they were able to get them to grow. But they couldn't even germinate anything in the synthetic mix. So even when they gave it fertilizer, they couldn't grow. They decided, okay, what if we actually grow them under hydroponic conditions, and then we just transfer them to that soil after they've already germinated? But then they just died. So then they realized, okay, when you add all of these different chemicals together that appear on the Martian surface, the pH is like bananas. It's like a 9.5 when most of the earth's soil that's natural has a pH around 7. So they're like, okay, this is way too alkaline. We need to add some acid. So when they treated it with sulfuric acid to bring the pH down, they were actually able to get an extra week of growth, but then they still ultimately died. And so they're like, okay, we got to figure this out. They also left out one of the biggest problems in this study, which is that apparently about 2% of the Martian surface is made up of something called calcium perchlorate. And calcium perchlorate is a really toxic salt.

S: It's nasty business, yeah.

C: Yeah, it kills anything that you try to grow in it. And so they're like, this is a big problem. We don't even have a solution to this problem yet. The good news is there are microbes on earth that actually utilize, like they metabolize perchlorates. So there may be a microbial solution to that. But of course, it would require that we bring a lot of earth microbes to the Martian surface, which I think at that point, if we're already completely terraforming, would be like less of a concern.

S: We're going to need soil bacteria. If we're farming Mars, we're bringing our microorganisms there. If we're living there, we're bringing our microorganisms there.

C: So the issue, Evan, is that bringing just loads and loads of dirt just doesn't seem reasonable from a payload perspective.

E: Sure.

C: So the idea was, well, how can we maybe just transform the dirt that's already there and make it work for us? But so far, it's like this first study, that's the one I was describing. They're like, yeah, it's not as easy as it looked on the Martian. In a different study that was published in the same journal, they decided to actually make a bunch of recipes. So they used even more specific readings from like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, from the Mars Global Survey or spacecraft. They made these simulants, and then they actually analyzed them using x-ray diffraction, x-ray fluorescence, and two different types of spectroscopy to make sure that they actually were similar to what's been observed on Mars. So this study was a little bit more specific in terms of the soil used. And they were able to grow something called a moth bean, which is a legume that's kind of similar to a soybean, but has some drought-resistant properties. So they were able to actually grow them, but they didn't grow in a healthy way. There was obviously something like not right about it, and they're saying that that would not be a sustainable food source at that level. But at least there's sort of a seed, no pun intended, of improvement there. So I think the big takeaway here is that a lot of geoscience has to be done in order to utilize Martian regolith as an actual substrate to be able to grow food crops. But it doesn't seem completely out of reach. It's just not within reach right now. This is not something we're going to solve tomorrow. It's something that we need to spend a lot more work on to get it where it needs to be. And honestly, it's probably going to have to be iterated on Mars if and when this becomes an issue that is realistically needing to be solved. Because these readings are based on, kind of like what Steve was talking about earlier, they're based on averages. We can fly around Mars and go, this is what the soil looks like. But of course, it's going to be different in that part of the planet versus that part of the planet based on the sunlight and based on the weather and based on whether or not you're in a little crater. And what used to be there? Was this where water used to be? What's the salt content like? So it's going to have to iterate even once we're there on the surface of Mars. But there's still a lot more work to do in the lab here at home.

E: If we had an actual sample, how much easier would that make the work?

C: Oh, probably a hell of a lot easier.

E: So that's what we need to do. We just mine some material off of an asteroid. We've got to send more missions like that to Mars to grab some of the soil.

S: The problem is bringing it back.

C: Yeah, bringing it back.

E: Well, I get that.

C: Bringing it back safely too.

E: I mean, is it an easier solution to bring soil back so that we can test it rather than starting doing this all from scratch?

C: I think it's both.

E: With just Earth materials.

S: I think it's easier to test it there, test it on Mars.

C: Could test it on Mars.

S: Than bring back a sample.

C: Once we do get a sample, you'd have to build your lab to have the same atmospheric parameters as Mars. But I mean, I think all those things are reasonable for sure.

S: Let me make a few comments, Cara. So I think everything sounds fine. But there are other studies which gave different results. So in 2019, there was a study using simulated Martian and lunar soil that found that crops grew just fine. But again, it's all how do you simulate the soil?

C: And what did they add? What did they supplement it with?

S: They didn't put perchlorates in there.

C: All right. So then they actually weren't simulating the soil.

S: Well, but as you say, simulating Martian soil where? Not all Martian soil necessarily has the same composition. So we may be able to find some soil that's better than others.

C: Sure. But I still think you're going to have some perchlorates in all the soil. At least that's based on what I'm reading.

S: But how hard is it to remove?

C: Right. That's the real question. And that's what they're basically saying. In order to do this, we have to add a bunch of stuff. And we have to remove stuff. It's the only way it's going to work.

S: Seems solvable. The other question I had was maybe lunar soil is a lot better than Martian soil. And it's a lot cheaper to bring lunar soil to Mars than Earth's soil.

E: That's interesting.

S: Because it's already out of our big gravity well. So it's a lot cheaper. And the other question is, once you get it going, once you have a little bed, like you don't need to bring that much soil there, then the plants could generate more soil. And you get composting going and everything. It could be a generative bed for more and more soil.

C: Right. You would just want to make sure you had the building blocks available regardless.

S: Yeah, yeah. But you may just need to extract some substrates from the Martian soil, leaving behind the ones you don't want. And you may have to add a lot of stuff to it. But yeah, it's not going to be poop and water. It's going to be a lot more complicated than that. But it does sound solvable.

C: Yeah. It's just not solvable right this minute. We've got to keep working at it.

S: Oh, sure. Absolutely. It's going to take time. And I also wonder what role GMO is going to play. We genetically engineer crops to handle the Martian soil. I think it's going to be damn hard.

C: It's going to be really hard.

S: For me, though, that is a good thing. I think it's good for us to do things that are really hard.

C: Oh, right.

S: Once we know that there's no native life on Mars, I think that building a colony there and figuring out how to grow crops there and everything, I think we should do. It is one of those things, part of me, it is partly romantic and partly we should do it because it's there and why not do it? But I do think it's good for humanity. And it's good for our progress. It also is good just psychologically for the planet. I think enough positive things would come out of it that it's worth doing, in my opinion. But a lot of those are soft benefits. You can't put a number on.

C: And I just think that although I agree with all of those things, honestly, if there is no native life there, I completely agree with this idea that just because something's hard doesn't mean we should do it. We should do it because it's hard. I actually do think that we have the capability and the ingenuity and the will to do it. My biggest concern always comes back to how we treat our own planet and the juxtaposition there, the paradox of wanting to completely transform a planet that's already barren when we're not even willing to do a lot of basic things here at home to make our planet more lush, more biodiverse, healthier. We're actively poisoning our own planet and then romanticizing turning a toxic planet into an oasis. And to me, the psychology of that is really interesting.

S: Yeah, but it's hard to know how that's going to play out. I think it's interesting too. I think we should do both. We should preserve our own planet and terraform Mars. But imagine in learning how toxic Mars is and how difficult it is to scratch out an existence on Mars. Maybe it will give us a greater appreciation for what we have on Earth.

C: Yeah, and some tools, some actual useful tools to help undo some of the damage that we've done here. I'm hoping that that's the big takeaway.

S: Yeah, hope me too. I hope that's it.

Sound Beaming (45:12)

• New device puts music in your head — no headphones required

S: All right, Evan, what is sound beaming? Okay, so sound beaming, this is pretty incredible. Where a device can project audio into a space, say in the room, in which the person hearing it needs to wear no device, no headphones, no receiver, no wearable, nothing in order to hear what's being beamed. And I'm not talking about like a PA system, obviously, or a speaker system. It's specifically defined to a space that if you're in the space, you're going to hear it. And if you step out of the space, you're not going to hear it. So that's what sound beaming is. And it's a concept that's been around and talked about for a few years now. However, there's a company in Israel, and this is where the news is this week, and the name is Noveto Systems. They developed a device that beams sound to a person's ears specifically. And that sound or that bubble of sound basically that it creates will follow the person. If they turn their head, if they move to the left or the right, it becomes targeted and linked in with the person themselves.

S: Yeah, that would be necessary, I think, for this to work. Because otherwise, you're like, imagine how annoying it would be, like you can't move your head around too much.

C: Right, you're like a human antenna. You're like right there.

J: So it couldn't track you? It doesn't track your head?

S: Oh, it does.

E: It would. And that's the point is that before you had this generic technology in which you could get it done, but you couldn't link it to a specific person. It would just be the space in the room, basically. If you entered it, you heard it. And if you walked out of it, you didn't. But now they can link it to a person in which it creates sound pockets or sound bubbles, as they describe it, right near the ears of the person, of a targeted person. And as that person moves, the bubbles of sound move with that person.

B: So there'd be multiple emitters then hitting both ears at the same time, right?

E: Yeah, apparently. It's at least a pair of emitters. And the tech on this still is a little bit of a black box. They haven't released much. They haven't released specifications on this. But they did have a demonstration last Friday, Friday, November 13th, for the first time to the media and select members of the public, in which they proved that they had it down. And it did work from the reports. AP did a report on it, and some other news organizations reported on it as well.

B: Did they go into the actual technique of how this is created? Because I think I talked about this about, geez, a decade ago. And the idea was that what they did was to use ultrasound. They use ultrasound, which you can beam with much less disbursement than regular sound. And what they did was you actually tweak the ultrasound in such a way that it creates regular sound with it, so that's how the beaming technology works. I wonder if this is just an extension of that technology. Or did they come up with a completely new method to do that? I suspect that they're using ultrasound.

E: It is ultrasonic waves, Bob.

B: OK, so that's what they're doing. That's how it's working.

E: And from the visual graphic that I saw, because you can see some of these videos online, it aims towards the subject's head. And they sort of use the head itself in a certain way, in which the waves sort of wrap around the head, yet a pocket or a bubble forms right at the two ears of the person. At least that's what the graphic showed you, conceptually, how it works.

S: And the other aspect of this is that it's three-dimensional sound.

E: Right, three-dimensional sound.

S: So it's like the experience, it's not just like you're wearing headphones without the headphones. It's better than stereo. It's actually surround sound, where you can get a feel for where the sound appears to be coming from in three dimensions around your head. And so that experience can be specifically designed for whatever it is that's happening. I'm always a little suspicious when a company is selling their own tech. You never know how much of a positive spin they're putting on it and how much they're glossing over downsides. So it always waits until it gets in the hands of skeptical users. Or there's actually a product on the market that's getting reviewed. That's when you really know how well it's working. Because you wonder, how good is the head tracking? And when you turn your head, are you just going about your life? But if it works, it could be interesting. Then you also always have to consider, even if it works as advertised, are people going to want it? You know, that's always the tricky part. People might find it annoying.

C: Yeah, like, are we solving a problem that doesn't exist?

B: Well, there is a problem. Because if you have headphones on, you are really in your own bubble. And you could not hear important sounds. With this, presumably, you can hear sounds that you need to hear in your environment.

E: That's right.

C: The headphones have all improved that now. Like, my AirPods have an enhanced outside sound setting. You can also wear bone conduction headphones that aren't even on your ears.

S: So there are other solutions. It is a problem. But there are other solutions to it.

C: That already exist on the market.

S: So it might just be like, we're doing it this way because we can. But it's not inherently better. And it may be more expensive. And so it may just be a gimmick and not really a useful technology. But if it does create a comfortable and superior listening experience, then it may be worth the time.

E: People might want it.

S: But the other thing is, so just forget about just sitting at your computer, like, doing like we're all doing and just listening to something. Imagine the applications of this technology out in the world.

B: Advertising and weapons.

E: Cara, you think it's bad now with targeted advertising?

B: You could weaponize this.

S: You get targeted with, obviously, advertising. But also think about this as a weapon.

B: Absolutely.

S: Imagine if you could target one person and target them with any sound you want. How loud could it be? You could make them think they're hearing voices.

C: Yeah, you could totally gaslight people with this. You could troll people. You could bully people.

B: You could disable them.

C: In an unbelievable way.

B: Absolutely. Disable or harm them.

S: You may need to have anti-technology that can protect you from it.

E: A blocker. You might be able to block. I would think that based on what they're describing, there would be ways you could block this, probably without too much difficulty. It wouldn't necessarily be high tech.

C: And now you're back to just wearing headphones all the time.

E: Well, you're right. Bob, in your Halloween maze, could you imagine using this technology so as people walk by a certain area, all of a sudden a scream happens that comes out of nowhere?

J: You see, now that alone would be a reason to make it.

B: Well, yeah, but the problem with that is that you want other people in the haunt to hear the screams ahead of them or behind them because it gets them.

E: But they'll be the ones doing the screaming.

S: Imagine a ghostly voice that follows you through part or all of the haunt and it's whispering in your left ear, then it moves behind you and whispers in your right ear. And then imagine what you could engineer for that. It could be really, really freaky.

B: Well, the big benefit would be like the person telling his buddy, did you hear that? And everyone's like, no, we didn't hear anything. What are you talking about? That's the real benefit there.

S: There could be different people in the same group could get targeted with different sounds.

C: That was a mindfuck.

S: Yeah, so it's interesting to see how this will play out. And so, Jay, we combine this with facial recognition. So you walk into a store and they say, hello, Jay Novella. I noticed that you purchased this two weeks ago. Would you be interested? Whatever, personalized ads based on their facial recognition of you walking into the store.

J: I so think that that's going to happen. I just don't see any way it's going to happen.

S: It's going to happen? Totally.

E: You may have to stop walking into stores.

S: Well, that's true. We might be like walking into a store. What are you talking about?

E: What year is this? Is this 2004? What is going on?

Hydrogen from Ammonia (53:25)

• New technique seamlessly converts ammonia to green hydrogen

S: All right, guys. So you know that I'm very interested in our energy infrastructure, right? And transportation.

J: Absolutely.

S: And the question that I'm fascinated with is like, what is our transportation and energy infrastructure going to look like in 20 years, in 50 years, and beyond?

E: George Jetson.

S: Because there's a lot of competing sort of technologies. And one thing I've been keeping an eye on really for the last 20 years is all electric vehicles versus hydrogen fuel cell.

E: The hydrogen economy.

S: Yeah, so 20 years ago, people were predicting a hydrogen economy. That didn't happen. And I think all technologies took longer to really come into their own than people were predicting, which is usually the case. But now, the electric cars are definitely winning the race in battery technology. But we can't count hydrogen out yet. I'll tell you why I think that battery and electric cars are definitely going to win this race. But there's a news item. There's definitely research still going on. People are not giving up on the idea of hydrogen. Hydrogen has a few advantages. Theoretically, you could more quickly fill up your car, just sort of gas up with hydrogen, rather than having to charge your battery. It burns totally clean. The only waste product is water. But hydrogen, just to remind you, is not an energy source. It's an energy storage medium, because there's no free hydrogen significantly on the Earth. So you either have to make it from water or make it from some other molecule that has hydrogen in it. You could make it from petrochemicals, but that seems like it's pointless to do that. I mean, the whole point is to replace fossil fuels, so making hydrogen from fossil fuels is not a good idea. But there's a recent study looking at ammonia as a source for hydrogen. So that's interesting. I hadn't really read a lot about that. I went down that rabbit hole. There's actually a lot of research going on here. So ammonia is NH3, a nitrogen with three hydrogens. And what the study is, they developed a process for stripping hydrogen off of the nitrogen, freeing the hydrogen from the ammonia, so it could then be used to fill up your car, let's say. The advantage of the new process is that it occurs at a lower temperature, about 250 degrees Celsius, compared to 500 to 600 degrees for previous methods. This is a huge difference of the high temperatures where a lot of the energy cost of making hydrogen comes from. And the other advantage is, because the temperature is so much lower, you can use things like solar power to drive it. You won't need to burn gas to heat the ammonia hot enough to make the hydrogen. So again, if you're burning gas to make it, it kind of defeats the purpose. And so this could be much better. So this is a much more efficient, lower temperature process for making hydrogen from ammonia.

B: Well, what about the access to ammonia itself then?

S: Yeah, so that's a great question. That's, of course, then where do you get the ammonia from? The good thing about ammonia is that it's easier to store as a liquid, it's easier to transport, and there's already an ammonia infrastructure that exists because ammonia is a main fertilizer, right? So we already have industrial processes for making ammonia as a fertilizer and for distributing it. And so that could just be adapted to a hydrogen infrastructure. The ammonia could theoretically be stored on site and converted to hydrogen at like the gas station, ready to fuel up your car. At least theoretically, that's one way to do it. So yes, so it could be scaled like that. So you could basically, rather than distributing hydrogen, you distribute ammonia and then you just split the hydrogen off the ammonia closer to the point of use of refilling your hydrogen fuel cell car.

B: So the byproduct's nitrogen then?

S: Yeah, which is like 70% of the atmosphere.

B: Yeah, so that's not bad.

S: Yeah, right. That's where the nitrogen came from in the first place. You took it from the atmosphere to make the ammonia, right? Now we're just stripping the hydrogen back off of it.

J: But Steve, you're okay with this?

S: No, I don't think this is going to happen. Personally, I don't think this is where we're going to end up in 20 years or so, where we're going to be driving hydrogen fuel cell cars based upon the ammonia infrastructure. But there are people who are developing this technology and they think that it will. Now, here's the primary reason why I don't think it's going to happen. And this is sort of always the case with hydrogen and why, at least in our current technology, I don't think it's going to lose the fight with electric. And that is round-trip efficiency, right? The overall efficiency of making electricity, charging your electric car, and driving your electric car is between 70% and 90%, obviously depending on the details of where the electricity is coming from. But electric cars are actually very efficient at translating the power in the battery to forward momentum.

C: Yeah. And they can utilize that capacitative braking to keep heating back into it, which helps.

S: Yes, regenerative braking. Right. So even in a hydrogen fuel cell car, you're probably going to have a battery for that. So you're going to have both. You'll have a battery for that, but a low-capacity battery. And they're kind of assuming that in all of the analyses. They say you have a low-capacity battery, whereas in electric vehicle, you have a high-capacity battery. And of course, once we get more green energy in the infrastructure, then that becomes better. But that's 70% to 90%, depending on those variables. Now, for a hydrogen car, it's 25% to 35%. It's much lower because you have to create the hydrogen. Then you have to store the hydrogen. You have to transport the hydrogen. You have to fill the car with it. And then the fuel cells are not as efficient as generating power as electric batteries are. And so there's a big loss there as well. And so I just don't see how we're going to have an infrastructure at 25% to 35% efficiency when we can have one that's 70% to 90%. Now, if we talk about ammonia, we're not just catalyzing or electrolyzing water to make hydrogen. We're making ammonia and then stripping the hydrogen off the ammonia. So now we have to throw in the energy used to make the ammonia. It's even less efficient. Absolutely. We may pick up some efficiency in transportation, et cetera, or storing. So maybe even if it's a wash, we're still in the 25% to 35% range. I just think it's a deal killer in terms of widespread use.

B: But what if we use electric cars to transport it? Would that make it more efficient?

S: But here's where I think the technology may have a life. And that is in certain applications. I don't think our cars are going to be hydrogen. Because I think that the electricity is going to win. I think hydrogen cars is like Betamax. It's just going to lose out to VHS. But what about planes? Remember the problem with an all-electric plane was that the batteries are too heavy and all of the electrical gear is too heavy. But a hydrogen fuel cell has greater energy density. And for a plane, that overcomes the inefficiency. So we may have hydrogen fuel celled airplanes and jets, et cetera. And that may be more efficient overall than all-electric if we're trying to get away from burning fossil fuel.

B: Jets?

S: Yeah. And there may be applications like that where the energy density is worth it.

B: Yeah. But aren't jet fuels even higher energy density?

S: Of course. Absolutely.

B: So then why would they even go to hydrogen?

S: I'm saying if your goal is to get off of fossil fuels.

B: Gotcha.

S: You may not be able to go to all-electric, but maybe you can go to hydrogen fuel cell. And you'll take the hit in efficiency because you don't have to lift a huge battery and all of the electrical components that go along with it in order to achieve the power output that you want. You can get more power out of the hydrogen than you can a battery. Does it make any difference for a car? Because the batteries are fine for cars. But it might if you're trying to have a fossil fuel-free jet. So I think that's a more plausible scenario. I just don't see an ammonia to hydrogen to your car economy displacing an electric battery powered car. You know what I mean? I just don't see it. But one other footnote to this. When I was doing my research, I found a number of studies looking at ammonia-fueled cars, like bypassing the whole hydrogen thing, just using ammonia as the fuel directly. So that technology exists. And they're working on that. Still, I think we have all the problems that I stated. But you might be bypassing one step. But ammonia does not have the energy density that gasoline has. And so that may be the limiting factor there is that it just doesn't have the energy density. But there are people working on that technology. Again, maybe it'll work for certain, like maybe trucks or whatever. Like there might be some, again, some small application where all of the different factors balance out well for ammonia fuel. But I don't know. I'm not holding my breath for that. I still think in 20 years, we're going to be driving electric cars with batteries. That's what I think.

C: Woo-hoo. Join me.

S: Yeah. I'm ready. I think our next car is going to be all electric, Cara. That's our next purchase. Because it's already cheaper. If you look at the lifetime of the car, it's cheaper. If you can afford it up front, you make money in the long run.

C: And you'll be excited to know that my car, the Bolt, they're coming out with an SUV version, I think, next year.

S: Yeah, there we go. There we go.

Who's That Noisy? (1:03:18)

• Answer to last week’s Noisy: _brief_description_perhaps_with_link_

S: All right, Jay, who's that noisy time.

J: All right, guys, last week, I played this noisy. [plays Noisy] Now, if you remember, I said to you last week that that was two examples of the same thing happening, right? Because there's two different things going on. So before I move into the listener feedback, do you guys have any guesses?

C: Literally no idea.

S: I would take it as a machine.

J: I mean, no.

E: Well, an organic body is kind of a machine. So is it organic?

C: Yeah, right. Is it a molecular machine?

J: The molecular man. All right, I'm going to get into this. Visto Tutti wrote in and said, this week's noisy sounds like brakes on trains. The first one, friction brakes. The second, electrical regenerative brakes. I'm sorry, you're wrong.

C: But that's two things at the same time. I like it.

J: Yeah, he did. I like that he had two different things there. That is not correct, though. So we move on. Paul Hargrove wrote in and said, hi, Jay. Hi, from Christchurch, New Zealand. You said to go for the first thing I heard. I think this is a lathe doing two different cuts. The first is a cut. The second is facing. And apparently, that is two different types of cutting that you would do on a lathe. Paul, thanks for sending that in. But that is not correct. I'm sorry. No soup for you this week, I guess. Try again next week. Next one, Joss L. They wrote in, found purely off of your hand. Go with your gut. I'm saying it's the sound of digestion. I can't say what or how. I'm just going with the gut.

C: Love that.

J: I like that one, too. There's another listener named Brian wrote in, coffee grinding? Not a bad guess. Not really. That's not a bad guess at all, actually. The only thing that I think would make this not an excellent guess is that second half of the noisy was too high-pitched for coffee grinding that I've ever heard. But still, not a bad guess. All right, we're getting very close to the end here. So Alexander Freshy, hi, Jay. The first thing that comes to mind is a water jet etching onto metal.

C: The water jets are so cool.

J: Yeah, they're very... I mean, every time I see one, I'm like, don't put your hand in there. It's so scary. The first sound would be the water jet getting up to pressure and possible piercing the metal before going through the cut path rapidly. And he said, or she said that they have a couple of these machines at work. And I noticed that they did not say, don't put your hand in the machine. I don't know why you would say that. All right. So guess what? Nobody got it.

S: Oh, boy.

J: Nobody got it. There was one last guess by Bryce Faldelici. And he said, is that molten glass being dropped in water. I thought that was a very good guess because I've heard that. But let me tell you what this is, guys. This is something called the real-time sound of dendritic ice crystals. These are ice crystals growing. In real-time at speed, very fast ice crystal growing. Let me play it again now. Then they're forming. So it's basically a Petri dish of some liquid, I'm assuming water. And then instantly it freezes like that. So listen. [plays Noisy]

B: Wow.

E: It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that Mr. Freeze in the Batman movie.

J: Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. You should take a look at it. Look it up. It's dendritic, D-E-N-D-R-I-T-I-C. Dendritic ice crystals growing. It's really cool because they grow very fast. And the idea that they're making that noise. Do snowflakes make an audible noise when they're forming? If you were up in the atmosphere where they were, would you hear all the tinkling around you?

E: aybe not with the human ear.

J: Yeah, probably not. You're right, Ev. But anyway, very interesting. Very cool to look at. So okay, the guy said here, it's dendritic growth of water ice crystals from super cooled liquid. No, that's a note that I wrote myself last week.

C: The guy, Jay, says right here.

J: Yeah, the guy, me. I wrote that last week myself. I time traveled. Yeah, but I guess, okay. It's just super cooled liquid, probably water, but who knows what the hell it is. Very cool. Very cool noisy. Now, before I go on to next week's noisy, a listener sent something in that I absolutely could not pass by because I heard this myself. This was sent in by a listener named Juan Diagalo. He said that he accidentally slowed the podcast down to half speed and heard something very funny. He said, it sounded like we were drunk. But I want to play this one in particular for you because it just is hysterical. Just listen.

S: He was classy.

C: He was so classy. He was a total skeptic. He was brilliant and really, I think, respected and honored. Science, reason, knowledge. It was an amazing quote.

E: How great is that?

C: Generally inspired so many people to want to know things.

S: Are there any other game show hosts who are respected?

J: Oh, my God.

B: What if you're drunk when you're recording this?

C: Oh, that's Trebek. You're right. It wasn't Randy. It was Alex Trebek. And you know what's funny, Jay? Is that people say all the time that they're used to listening to podcasts at one and a half speed. So when they actually listen to it at regular speed, we sound drunk.

J: Yes.

S: Yeah, you adapt.

J: But the thing that I noticed with this, what was so unbelievable is, I think when you're drunk, it's more about the speed that you're talking and not so much the slurring of words. Because if you listen to, like, Steve and Cara sounded drunk. Like, that's what drunk people sound like. So I don't know.

C: When you're speaking clearly, yeah.

J: But that is, yeah, just slowed down, clear speaking. So I just find that fascinating. Because I guess when you're drunk, like, the big effect is the slowness of your talking. I can't even copy it. I can't pretend that sound. But then when you kept throwing out single words, Cara. Oh, my God. I'd been in a room with a girl talking to me that's been that drunk. And you're like, what are they talking about? Anyway, I love it. I love it. Thanks, Juan. It was a great laugh. But anyway, let me get on to this week's noisy. This noisy.

E: James Mason.

J: James Mason. I'm the man who's going to destroy you. Okay, so that will never get old, ever.

B: Never.

J: That was Ernest Goes to Jail.

S: And that guy was a good actor.

J: He was great.

B: Awesome.

J: You want to get freaked out? I don't know if you know who we're talking about, Cara. He's a guy from the 80s.

C: Ernest? I know Ernest. Yeah.

J: All right. So Ernest was a brilliant actor. I saw him do Shakespeare.

C: Oh, nice.

J: And you would be like, what? You know, like, in order for him to be that good of a character actor, he had to have acting chops. But he really was real. He was a real, honest to goodness, like, very trained, awesome, respectable actor. I just love him 10 times more because of that. Anyway, okay. Here we go. All right, guys. This week's noisy was sent in by a listener named Dennis Verhaaf. I think I just channeled George there for a second.

S: Yeah, a little bit.

New Noisy ()

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

J: And here is the noisy. [plays Noisy] So do you think you need any hints?

S: No.

B: I think it's ice unmelting.

J: It's the machine that makes dendritic crystals. All right. So if you think you know what this week's noisy is, or if you heard something cool, you can email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

Announcements (1:12:14)

J: So Steve, we had some fun. We had some fun over the weekend. We started the reshaping of our studio for the 12 hour show.

C: Oh, wow.

J: And we are converting our studio into a green screen studio for a lot of reasons. Like, this has been coming for a long time. We have not fully committed to throwing away any of our practical set. But we want the ability to have a very immersive green screen studio, because we have many projects that require it, right? So we learned a big lesson with NECSS this year. For the 12 hour show, we were talking about expanding the type of things that we do, which the green screen could help out a lot. And it gives us more flexibility. So we're working it. And I have some pictures I'll be uploading to the discord, the patron discord. So those guys can check it out, see what we're doing. But it's fun. It's a lot of work. I'm intimidated, because COVID is riding along with the prep. Right, Steve?

S: Yeah. But we got plans. It was like, we have the worst case scenario way we're going to run the 12 hour show, and the best case scenario, and everything in between. It'll work no matter what.

J: So I talked to George today.

S: Yeah.

J: George, fully committed. His response when I was telling him about this was an absolute yes, whatever you guys need. I'll be there. If you want me up the whole day, I'll be there. If you want me up for an hour, I'll come up. He's just-

E: Good man.

J: You know, he knows that it's going to be a lot of fun. He wants to join us. So we have and then we were chitchatting about like ideas and everything. And of course, George came up with a ton of fun things, you know.

S: Yeah. Richard Wiseman is confirmed that he's available. He's always good. And we have other irons in the fire that we'll let you know about when they confirm.

J: Yeah. So we're going to do, I talked to George about this. Steve and I have been talking about it. Everybody we've all basically discussed the basic schedule. And we're starting to fill things in. But we want to do that taste test challenge thing again, like way better than we did it at NECSS.

S: That will depend on how many of us could be physically together. That we may have to put that off if we're in worst case scenario mode. But yeah, if we can be together, then yeah, I'd like to do a more thorough taste test part of it. That'd be fun.

J: So one idea I came up with today was that we could actually give the audience the list of things that we're going to test ahead of time. And they can join us. Like they could go out and buy the stuff themselves.

C: Oh, that'd be fun.

J: Yeah. So instead of them watching us do this and say to themselves over and over and over again, I would have been able to guess that.

C: Right, because you don't know until you try.

J: And the one that freaked me out was regular Coke and Coke Zero. Oh my God. I'm still angry.

E: Yeah, close.

C: I didn't do that one. The one that freaked me out was the milks. I can't get over the fact that the milks all tasted the same.

J: Yep.

B: Yep.

J: Ridiculous.

B: That shocked me as well.

J: Ridiculous.

C: Yeah.

J: So we'll do that and more pandemic permitting. So right now it'll be me, Bob, Evan, and Steve in the studio with Cara remote. You know, we're trying to, I'm going to, when I say we're going, we're trying to, I haven't talked to Cara yet, but I'm going to try to upgrade her set up, help her with lighting, possibly put a green screen behind her so we can, you know.

C: I have all these things, Jay.

J: Well...

S: I got her a new camera.

J: We'll talk.

C: Yeah. Yeah, I have a green screen. I have a new light. I have a camera. We should be okay.

J: All right. Good. Then all we got to do is just yell action and we're ready to go.

C: Exactly.

J: I'm excited. It's going to be a great show. I think it's going to be really it's going to be an involved version of these stamina shows that we do, because we're going to be doing some different stuff, some new stuff. And I just hope you join us. So this is January 23rd from 11 a.m. Eastern to 11 p.m. Eastern. Yep. All because of our patrons, all because of the people who are supporting us. We thank you and unbelievably appreciate your support. And this is one of the many ways that we are going to show you that we care and we love our community. Steve said something about him dancing. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

S: I don't remember that.

E: I think it was Danzig or something.

J: Oh, that's right. He said, I'll be Danzig.

S: Yeah. Whatever that is.

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_ with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Question #1: Rankine Scale (1:16:22)

S: So one question, one question I got, a number of people wrote in. Because I mentioned, we were talking about the, I mentioned that the Kelvin is the only absolute temperature scale, right? Where like two degrees is twice as hot as one degree, right? You can't say that about Celsius or Fahrenheit. And a number of people wrote in to go, well, actually, there is another absolute temperature scale called the Rankine scale. And that-

J: Is that Al Rankine?

E: Bass Rankine?

C: It's the other Rankine.

E: Rankine Bass.

S: It's a Scottish guy from 18 something that came up with this.

C: The scientist Rankine.

J: Rankine.

S: It's basically, as Kelvin is to Celsius, Rankine is to Fahrenheit. So it's the Fahrenheit scale, but with absolute zero being zero, right? That's it. So it is an absolute temperature scale. But my question was, because I had some vague memory of it of the Rankine scale. But from what I knew, it was like no longer being used. And I think that's still generally the case. But when I tried to verify, like just to ask the question, ask Google, is anyone still using the Rankine scale of temperature? And I couldn't get any absolute verification that it's still being used today. Although I did read some accounts of it being used as of the 2006, the 2000s kind of thing. It may still be in use today. But the reason that it might be is because it's kind of baked into the aerospace industry. Including software. They're like, it's easier just to stick with it, even though it's archaic, rather than update everything to Kelvin and Celsius. Which I think seems kind of silly at this point. I think they should just standardize to the rest of the world for industry. Remember the whole Mars satellite where we actually crashed the probe?

B: Yeah.

E: The metric mix.

C: Is that an O-ring?

S: No.

C: But that was also a metric conversion, wasn't it?

S: No, that was not.

C: Oh, it was just a failover, right?

B: It was a stupidity.

S: They just, they knew it was a problem and they just-

E: They ignored the warnings.

B: They rolled the dice.

S: They didn't ignore it. It was like, yeah, but we got to keep on schedule. Like, okay.

E: Risk went up a hundred.

C: Why am I remembering though that there was a metric to English system conversion issue in like the 80s as well?

E: In the 90s.

S: That was just the Mars probe.

E: With the Mars probe, yeah.

C: Oh, okay. All right, all right.

S: But there may have been other instances. That was the famous one that I'm aware of. I don't think it had anything to do with the shuttle though. But anyway, so the Rankin scale may still be used in some aerospace industry. If anybody out there listening to the show knows for a fact whether or not the Rankin scale is actual in use in the real world anywhere, let me know. If it is, it's very very niche.

Name That Logical Fallacy (1:19:05)

S: Okay, we're going to do a name that logical fallacy. This comes from Ben Brown from Arab, Alabama. Jay, did you know that there was an Arab Alabama?

J: No, I had no idea.

S: Yeah, it's a town in Alabama, Arab. He writes, I have had many conversations with friends and family, and I have run into the same issues on many occasions. Someone will disregard a piece of information based solely on this source. CNN said this, so it must be fake. Or it was on Fox, so I don't believe it. I hear this from both my red and blue friends. My response is to explain what I call the Hitler weatherman fallacy. If Hitler comes on TV and says it is raining, and it is in fact raining outside, you would be foolish to leave your umbrella at home solely based on the source. Believing Hitler that it is raining doesn't make you a Nazi. Sometimes the bad guy can give a correct piece of information, and it is okay to evaluate and accept it without endorsing their entire worldview. I am sure I have stolen the logic from an existing logical fallacy and just applied my own label to it. Can you tell me which logical fallacy I have ripped off? And is there a less clunky way to explain it? Love the show. Thanks for everything.

J: Is that kind of an ad hom?

C: Yeah, it sounds like it. You're just not believing somebody because you don't like them.

Ss: It depends on exact. So again, these are informal logical fallacies. It kind of depends on how you're using it. But the Hitler weatherman fallacy is an instance of an ad hominem type of fallacy where you reject a claim because of the person making the claim rather than the claim itself. It also can be framed as a poisoning the well kind of fallacy. Will Hitler believe that? Fox also claims this. So are you going to believe them about this other thing? But there is some legitimacy to consider how reliable a source is, of course.

C: Of course. I'm going to believe more things that are printed in the New York Times than that Alex Jones says on his show.

S: Yeah.

C: It doesn't mean I believe everything the New York Times prints, but I'm not going to go into it. But I don't have to go into it with my baloney detector on such high alert.

S: Exactly. But the question is how you're framing it. If you say, well, Alex Jones said it. Therefore, it's not true. That's a logical fallacy. If you say Alex Jones said it, he's not a trustworthy source. So I'm not going to believe it just because he said it. I will have to independently evaluate it.

E: That's reasonable.

S: And accept or reject it based upon that independent evaluation. Now, that's a lot to say every time you're like, I don't trust that source. But that's what you should mean when you say that.

C: Right. You don't have to say it out loud. That's the process if you were to write down the proof.

S: Right. But saying like CNN said it, so it must be fake. That's a logical fallacy.

C: Absolutely.

S: But saying like this source said it, and I'm skeptical of that source because they haven't been reliable in the past, means I'm reserving judgment until I independently evaluate it. So that's, I think, where the skeptical, the critical thinking approach is.

C: And I think that the concern is that it can move into sea lioning territory. Because there is a point where in terms of just daily, functional daily living, you have to say, it's not worth my time to investigate that claim. Because it's so often nonsense that's coming from that source.

S: Well, yeah, that's true. I mean, you could say Alex Jones is wrong like 99% of the time.

C: Right. What are the odds?

S: I'm not going to waste my time with the things that he says. That's reasonable. Like there's not enough hours in the day. I'm not going to recall everything. Yeah, that's where I am.

C: It's highly likely it's not true because the source of information is generally untrue. Not because he's an asshole. Like that's the difference.

S: Right. But the thing is, it's also, it's because the information he's giving is not organic. Meaning it's not, like he doesn't have some kind of process where he comes up with the claims that he actually believes in. It's we have reason to believe that Alex Jones is lying. You know, that he is saying things that he doesn't believe in order to sell his stuff. You know, this is like designed to be wrong. And therefore, as a first approximation, saying that it's probably wrong is actually legitimate. Because you have a positive reason to conclude that as a source of information, it's an inherently deceptive source of information. Whereas other outlets, like news outlets that may have an editorial policy you don't agree with, they will often say true things. It's just they're biased about which true things they say-

C: Or how they contextualize them.

S: -in a certain way. How they frame it. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the facts themselves are incorrect. Usually what I find is that from biased sources, you're just getting an incomplete picture or you're getting assertions but that doesn't necessarily mean the facts are incorrect. All right, guys, let's go on with science or fiction.

Science or Fiction (1:24:14)

Answer	Item
Fiction	Coherent AI sentences
Science	Crispr vs cancer cells
Science	Fast-forming diamonds

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Cara	Fast-forming diamonds
Bob	Coherent AI sentences
Jay	Coherent AI sentences
Evan	Coherent AI sentences

Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Item #1: A study in mice uses a new CRISPR technique called CRISPR-LNP for “lipid nanoparticle” to attack cancer cells, increasing survival by 30% in glioblastoma and 80% in ovarian cancer.
Item #2: A recent test of AI natural language processing (NLP) was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human-generated sentences by test subjects.
Item #3: Scientists report a new technique for forming regular gem diamonds at room temperature in only minutes.

S: Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. And I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. I've got three news items, three regular news items. You guys ready?

J: Yes.

S: All right. Item number one, a study in mice uses a new CRISPR technique called CRISPR-LNP for a lipid nanoparticle to attack cancer cells, increasing survival by 30% in glioblastoma and 80% in ovarian cancer. Item number two, a recent test of AI natural language processing, NLP, was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human generated sentences by test subjects. And item number three, scientists report a new technique for forming regular gem diamonds at room temperature in only minutes. All right, Cara, go first.

Cara's Response

C: Okay, so we've got CRISPR-LNP, lipid nanoparticle attacking cancer cells. I hope this is true. I'm going to go with hope on the first one. Natural language processing, NLP, not to be confused with neuro linguistic processing, womp womp.

S: Programming, yeah.

C: Yeah, or programming, you're right, NLP, was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human generated sentences. Whoa. It's kind of like that. Have you guys seen like the Deepak Chopra simulator?

E: Oh, yes.

C: That one works really well. So I don't know. It seems like we could probably do that with an AI that specifically has been trained to do that. Like the parameters are such that they're really only saying, does that sound real or does that sound like roboty? And improving it over and over based on that. New technique for forming regular gem diamonds.

S: In other words, like the kind you would have in a diamond ring, not industrial diamonds.

C: Oh, gotcha. Okay. So like jewelry diamonds.

S: Jewelry diamonds.

C: Room temperature in only minutes forming them, like forming them from carbon, like carbon in another form. That sounds... Okay. Room temperature in only minutes. I mean, is it like in 9,000 minutes or do you mean like just a few? I don't know. That one sounds like the fiction. It's the most vague, sadly. So it might still be true because there's a lot of things that could be wrong in the other two that would make them the fiction. But I don't know. I'm going to say the diamonds. That sounds... That sounds bananas to me. So I'm going to say that's the fiction.

S: Okay, Bob.

Bob's Response

B: I'm going to say CRISPR. Yeah, I got... CRISPR is just so amazing. This would be an amazing advance. And these are nasty. Glioblastoma and ovarian cancer. I mean, those are big boys. Amazing improvements. Yeah, I want that to be true. And I don't see... Yeah, I don't see why that... CRISPR couldn't handle that task. So I'm going to say that that one's probably... Hopefully, probably science. The regular gem diamonds. We're going to jump to the third one. Yeah, that's just kind of out there and wacky. I think Steve wants us to bite on that one. And so the AI, natural language processing. Yeah, I think AI is still a little bit too brittle and lacking just the foundation of common sense enough to do something like that at this point. We will get there, but that's probably a little premature. I'll say that's fiction.

S: Okay, Jay.

Jay's Response

J: All right. So I'm going to agree with Bob on the first one. Like, yeah, sure. I think CRISPR seems to be perfect to be doing exactly what this item is saying, like attacking cancer cells. So the second one here about the AI basically being able to fool people into thinking that it's a real person saying the sentences. That doesn't really surprise me either. This last one, though, I think it's the speed part that's bothering me. Room temperature. I don't know. The temperature doesn't have any bearing on this for me, but it's just the speed, like making diamonds in meds. But when you say gem diamonds, Steve, what do you mean gem diamonds?

S: There's a regular diamond, like the kind. It's not the other kind of diamond. But it's also that there's actually a different structure. There's a different type of diamond. Remember the impact diamond?

E: Yes. I got screwed on that one.

S: It's the same structure as a diamond that you would have like in jewelry.

C: A pretty diamond.

B: Industrial diamonds are hard and useful, but not pretty.

S: The other ones are harder, but not pretty, right?

J: I guess what I'm asking here is, is it making like a big diamond that you would wear on a ring?

S: Well, I didn't say that. The size was not stated.

J: All right. I think this one is the fake. Wait. No, I'm sorry. I got to change my mind. Because you didn't say size, I'm agreeing with it, that it could be science. Because I could see-

C: Gotcha.

J: Sure. They can make small diamonds, whatever the hell they're doing.

B: So what's fiction?

J: I'm going to say the second one about the coherent sentences.

B: GWB.

C: GWB.

J: I'm going with Bob all the way.

S: And Evan.

Evan's Response

E: I'll go with Bob as well. Oh my gosh. Could not be distinguished from human-generated sentences by test subjects. Could not be distinguished. You know, I mean, you're talking super AI at that point. Boy, that's a hell of an achievement. I just don't think we're there yet.

B: Let me throw in a little extra. I mean, what needs to be fleshed out in that second one is you got a list of common nouns and verbs. What does it know about those common nouns and verbs? Because if it's using the technology, and the term is escaping me right now, where basically the AI or the deep learning statistically knows what kinds of, how to construct sentences in such a way that they seem completely coherent. What is that called? That can definitely create coherent sentences. Like you, I mean, like essentially indistinguishable in many ways. They don't necessarily always make sense, but they can make sense. But it's just, it's all statistics. It's creating sentence flow and structure. And this word follows this word 70% of the time, right? That I believe. But if it's just like, it knows the definition, no.

C: They just said it can generate coherent sentences.

S: Well, why don't we get there when we get there?

E: We've laid our new crystal.

B: No, it's leaving out details. That's a critical detail.

C: I'm alone here.

E: No. I've been there.

S: Definitely alone this week.

E: Many times.

Steve Explains Item #1

S: Well, let's start with number one. A study in mice uses a new CRISPR technique called CRISPR-LNP for lipid nanoparticle to attack cancer cells, increasing survival by 30% in glioblastoma and 80% in ovarian cancer. You all just are suckers for the CRISPR technology.

J: Yes, we are.

E: And the word nanoparticle.

S: And this one is science.

J: Yes.

S: Guys, this is awesome.

B: This is awesome.

E: Mice everywhere are celebrating this.

S: I got a little verklempt when I read this item, because-

B: I was reading this, I think, when you guys were going off on that letter. And I wanted to tell everybody, like, holy crap. Holy crap. I'm glad I didn't. This is it, baby. Go ahead. Go, Steve.

S: Yes, it's in mice. It's a preliminary study. It needs to be tested to death. And again, I remember the exciting new technologies from 20 years ago that I heard about are the ones that are just coming into clinical use today. So if that puts things into perspective, it may be 10 or 20 years before this is being in clinical use. But it may be quicker, because I think things are moving faster these days.

B: I think it'll be quicker than 10 or 20. But 10, 10 cells, you know.

S: But this is awesome. So CRISPR, they're using CRISPR to target changes in the DNA that make cells cancerous. And the trick was figuring out how to get the CRISPR into the cells, and that's where the lipid nanoparticles come in. So that's the carrier. So now they can get the CRISPR into the cells, and then they'll target only the cancer cells, because by definition, those are the ones with the genetic change. And they snip them so the cells can't reproduce. So now your cancer cells can't reproduce. They're not cancer anymore. They're dead.

C: Yeah, that's it. That's amazing.

S: It's amazing.

C: It's just about making sure that you get them all. And that's the hard part of cancer treatment as it is. It's always about trying to get them all.

S: Right. Now, none of these are cures. Like all the time, every time I read about something that sounds like it should cure cancer, it never does. But it always is a great treatment that just pushes the ball forward. And I think that's what's going to happen here.

B: 80% in ovarian cancer, that translates to humans?

C: The real question is, is there any toxicity from this? Because if there's not, I mean, oh my gosh, that's a game changer.

S: They said zero. And there's zero.

C: Yeah, it's cancer drugs. Part of the problem with cancer and its recurrence is that each time you do a first line treatment, you kind of decrease your body's ability to keep going. So it's like you've done one type of chemo. Now you're trying another. But each of those have so many things about them that damage your body.

B: Yeah. This article specifically says this is not chemotherapy. There are no side effects.

C: So chemo's a really broad term.

S: There's off-target. We know that CRISPR has off-target effects. So it may not be zero.

B: Much less than they initially thought, though.

S: But yeah, but nothing that they could detect in these mice. We'll see when we get it into people. But they chose glioblastoma and ovarian cancer for a reason.

B: They're the worst.

S: They're the worst. Glioblastoma is probably the worst in terms of-

B: 15 months on diagnosis.

S: Yeah, and treatments, there's just no way to treat it.

B: 3% survival rate after five years.

S: The problem with ovarian cancer is not that it's so hard to treat. It's that because of the location, it's usually asymptomatic until it's advanced. So ovarian cancer usually presents when it's too late to cure. So they chose two very bad, solid tumors. And they're going to test them next in some bloodborne tumors like leukemia, which already is sort of more responsive to standard treatment. But I hope this is a new paradigm of cancer treatment that is just going to take off.

B: Oh, my God. This is going to be one of those rare, I think, hopefully, one of those not incremental, like triple incremental, you know? Right? You know what I mean?

S: Right.

C: Kind of like when we started developing targeted cancer drugs, when we found receptors on cancer cells that we could target. That was a game changer. I know so many people who just take a pill every day.

S: Yeah. Now we have the CAR-T therapy, the immunotherapy. Again, those are the ones like I heard about theoretically 20 years ago. And now they're being used. And they're great. They're not cures. But you know, they are great treatments.

C: But they're life changing.

S: And all these things cumulatively are why cancer survival is steadily increasing. So I'm looking forward to this working out. And if it does, if it really, if the hope of this treatment pans out, this really is a significant advance. I agree. I was very excited to read about this. But gotta be gotta be cautious optimism. Cautious optimism.

Steve Explains Item #2

S: All right, let's go on to number two. A recent test of AI natural language processing was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human-generated sentences by test subjects. Cara thinks this one is perfectly cromulent. The guys think that AI is just not quite there yet. And this one is the fiction.

C: Shit.

J: Oh, well, you'll get it.

E: I wasn't going to get screwed with diamonds like two weeks in a row.

S: So...

E: Seriously.

C: I still think there are some test subjects out there that you could fool.

E: Yeah, that's true. I'll give you that, Cara. I'll give you that. Not all test subjects are the same.

S: All right, Cara. So Bob totally zeroed in on what the issue is here. What they found was, so all you're doing is giving the AI the words and you're telling it, make a sentence out of these words. The AI was able to make a grammatically correct sentence that makes sense grammatically. But-

J: Unlike your sentence.

S: But the AI doesn't have common sense, meaning exactly what Bob said. It doesn't have this background knowledge of what is plausible.

E: The ice cream cone drove the car down the road.

B: Like the mother was younger than the daughter. Like, no, it doesn't work that way.

C: I think I was making the assumption that with a lot of AIs, the way they iterate is that they let them loose and then they box them back in and they let them loose and they box them back in.

S: You're right. You have to train. You have to train the natural language processing on the context. But if you just say from a list of common nouns and verbs, they couldn't do it. So they gave the AI these four words, dog, frisbee, throw, catch. And this is the sentence it generated. Two dogs are throwing frisbees at each other.

E: Okay. Could be a cartoon.

B: Were they uplifted dogs?

S: Rather than a person throws a frisbee and a dog catches it or throws a frisbee to a dog, you know. So they didn't understand the context or the idea that two dogs throwing frisbees at each other makes no sense in the world.

C: It's ridiculous.

S: It's ridiculous. Yeah. So they were grammatically correct, but incoherent was the way they described it.

C: And it makes sense why the Deepak Chopra...

S: Because he's incoherent.

C: Because it doesn't make sense anyway.

B: Right. Exactly. He's got nonsense.

S: That's the whole point. He is incoherent and it works for Deepak Chopra.

Steve Explains Item #3

S: All right. All of this means that scientists report a new technique for forming regular gem diamonds at room temperature in only minutes is science and Jay's gut feeling is correct. These are nanodiamonds. They're...

J: Nanodiamonds.

B: In this case, the nano is not there.

E: Honey, I got you a nanodiamond. Here's a microscope so you can look at it.

S: But this is still a significant progress. So they actually were able to make both types of diamonds with this technique. The other type of diamond, a Lonsdaleite diamond. Lonsdaleite. After Lonsdale, who is a female researcher who discovered them. And it is a different allotrope of carbon than regular diamonds. And it makes a diamond-like substance that's harder than actual gem diamonds. It's kind of diamond you would have in a ring. This was able to make both out of carbon substrate. Now, the thing that they learned in this study is because you can make artificial diamonds with pressure and temperature, but they were able to do it at room temperature, still with high pressure, though, right? I didn't mention that bit. It's still under very high pressure. But the thing that they added was torque. If you like twist it or shear, like if you provide a shear force to the carbon as you're compressing it, that allows the carbon atoms to slide into place and form the crystalline diamond structure quickly, in minutes, they said. And so that is the new bit. That is the thing they discovered. Adding shear force allows the crystal to form. And so this may be a revolution in artificial gem making, not just diamonds. And again, but mostly this would be used, I think, to make industrial diamonds. But who knows if they could adapt the process to make them big enough, you could use it to make jewelry diamonds. So that was the advance. Pretty cool. Yeah. So good job, guys. Cara, this was a tricky one for you, and you went first.

C: All good. I've been kicking ass and taking names.

S: You have been.

C: I know.

E: You've been blazing the trail.

S: A little bit of regression to the mean.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:40:10)

One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements, will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness.
– Steve Allen (1921-2000), American television personality

S: All right, Evan, give us a quote.

E: "One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness." And that was spoken by Steve Allen, the late, great Steve Allen.

S: Great skeptic.

E: Yep. Good skeptic. Great, obviously, entertainer and missed, very much so.

S: So I don't know if you chose that quote because I was just talking about this. I remember it was on the last week, or it was on the Friday live stream, that the bottom line is if you don't care about things like being correct, being accurate, believing things that are true, all the critical thinking in the world doesn't help you.

E: There you go.

S: Right? You just marshal any knowledge you have about science, about critical thinking, about the media. Well, you will just marshal that in order to serve your narrative or your motivated reasoning. You have to actually care first and foremost about being correct. And I think that's exactly what he's saying.

E: Absolutely.

S: All right. Thank you guys for joining me this week.

E: Thanks, Steve.

C: Thanks, Steve.

J: You got it, brother.

S: Next Thursday, the Thursday after the show comes out is Thanksgiving. So the next episode will be after that. And this is the first Thanksgiving in my life that I'm not going to be spending it with family and or friends.

E: Extended family, right.

C: Well, you're spending it with your immediate family.

S: Other than my immediate family. It'll be three of us. That's the smallest Thanksgiving that we've ever had.

E: Same here. It'll be three of us.

C: I'm legit doing Thanksgiving with my dog. So and I think a lot of people are in the same boat.

E: I'll call you, Cara. We'll chit chat.

C: Cool.

S: I mean, we're going to have to do the Skype thing or the Zoom. I'll have to have it be a Zoom Thanksgiving.

E: Yep. Zoom giving.

J: I mean, guys, it's exactly what we should be doing. It's like one of the most important. These next two holidays are going to be the big sacrifice.

S: I have to do this. I mean, cases are spiking at the hospital and I'm inpatient for two weeks right before Thanksgiving. I can't get together with other people.

B: How often are you being tested, Steve?

S: They're only testing symptomatic right now. I have to check to see if I can request it just at the end of my stint.

C: But they test. I mean, at our hospital, they test patients.

S: Yeah. Every patient. Every single patient.

C: So you got to remember that. Like they're in an isolation ward.

S: Well, so we'll have our COVID Thanksgiving. So for all of our American listeners out there, do whatever you can to enjoy your Thanksgiving, but please do it safely. It's just we have to just suck it up this year. Because COVID is spiking. It's out of control. We didn't mention at the top of the show, but the number of new cases per day is higher than it's ever been. 150,000 a day. I mean, it's crazy. It's obviously still location dependent, but even in the not as affected areas, it's still high. It's still like spring level high.

C: And our death toll has already surpassed what Fauci thought it would be.

S: Yeah. 250. Yeah. It's huge. And people are just not as careful as they used to be. You know, the pandemic fatigue is definitely set in. And the evidence is showing that's why it's spreading. It's because people are not being compliant.

C: So the thing about Thanksgiving is that it's in the title, right? It's a day of gratitude. It's a day to give thanks. And I think we can all give thanks for the fact that it's within our power to stop this spread. So that's what we all need to be doing.

S: Yeah. Think about it this way. We're in the home stretch. Just knuckle down. And if you just keep from getting it and spreading it for a few more months, two vaccines are coming. That's your light at the end of the tunnel.

B: Right. In the meantime, wear a mask and get a cool mask. I'm still wearing my jack-o'-lantern mask, and I love it. Find something that you love, something that you're passionate about on your mask. And you'll enjoy wearing it. You may even wear it when you're in your house just walking around.

S: Yeah, maybe. All right. Thank you all for joining me this week.

E: Thanks, Steve.

J: You got it, brother.

C: Thanks.

Signoff

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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