SGU Episode 50

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SGU Episode 50
July 5th 2006
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 49                      SGU 51
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
Guest
GP: Gerald Posner, American investigative journalist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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, July 5th 2006. This is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are...Bob Novella.

B: Good evening everyone.

S: ... Even Bernstein ...

E: Hello to my friends on planet Earth.

S: ... Perry DeAngelis ...

P: Good evening.

S: ... and Jay Novella ...

J: Hey guys, good to be here.

S: We have an all-testosterone show this week, which is the first time in quite a wile actually.

J: All-male-review.

S: Since Rebecca joined the crew. Rebecca is in Europe this week... and we couldn't get her onto the show from Europe, although she's actually going to be in Europe next week but promised she will try to get on the show next week so we will see. She says she can get access to the internet in England but not where she is now, where I think is in France.

P: We technically can barely get her on from Boston.

S: (laughs) That's true.

P: Be interesting to see if we can get her from Europe.

S: So it shouldn't really matter.

B: So this is our fiftieth podcast.

S: Yes. It is a bit of a milestone, this is number fifty, big five-oh. It seems like only a year ago we started doing this.

E: (laughs) At least, and thank you all of the listeners who have helped make this podcast very successful today.

J: Aboslutely.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Secondhand smoke warning (1:50)

• Surgeon General, Richard Carmona, warns against secondhand smoke
• Another article on secondhand smoke: Secondhand Smoke Study Raises Ire

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups

Email #1: Binaural beats (11:08)

Dear Skeptics, I am working my way through your podcasts; if you have covered this, I apologize. Clearly I have forgotten my critical thinking courses I took in college. There is a subject called "Binaural beats." Though it sounds wonderful, that is just it: it sounds wonderful. Rather than try to describe and misrepresent it, I will defer to the plethora of info out there. If you Google it, there are a couple of other names for it too. Here are a couple of links:

http://web-us.com/thescience.htm http://www.pzizz.com http://www.centerpointe.com/

– Christopher Lund, United Social Agnostics

Email #2: Aubrey de Grey (16:21)

I have a suggestion for a topic. There is scientist by the name of Aubrey de Grey. His shtick is proclaiming that through the application of science we can extend human life by several thousand years. His ideas are an amalgam of nano-technology, molecular biology, biomechanics, etc. He seems like such a nut that it amazes me that anyone takes him seriously. And yet, he seems to be routinely written up in popular magazines such as Technology Review (MIT) and Fortune. I do not know whether you would call what he preaches pseudo-science; he is different from your run of the mill crackpot. But his ideas are so out there that he seems nuts. And yet, as I mentioned, he gets a lot of popular press. Anyway, I enjoy your podcast, and I think the ideas discussed are quite valuable.

– Regards,
Mike Fattori

Review articles: http://www.technologyreview.com/sens/

Interview with Gerald Posner (24:34)

• Investigative journalist and author, Gerald Posner, has written some of the definitive histories of recent epic events in American history. Posner was educated at the University of California at Berkeley (1975) and Hastings Law School (1978).

His books include:

Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK (1993)

Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (1998)

Why America Slept: the Failure to Prevent 9/11 (2003)

Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection (2005)

Science or Fiction (1:09:13)

S: So we're out of time, so we're going to just do a quick Science of Fiction, and we'll, actually we need to give the answer to last week's puzzle, as well, and I do have a new puzzle for this week. So we'll do that quickly, let's go on to Science or Fiction.

(intro) It's time for Science or Fiction

S: Every week I come up with three science news items or facts, two are genuine, one is factious, and then I challenge my esteemed panel of skeptics to figure out which one is the fake. And of course, you at home can play along. There is a theme for this week, the theme is neurobiology.

P: I happen to be an expert in neurobiology.

S: You guys read?

J: Yes.

S: Number one, wearing a hat or helmet lined with aluminum foil reduces the frequency of seizures in certain epileptics. Item number two, a new study shows a link between gum disease and carotid atheromas, which are a significant risk for stroke. Item number three, a man has recently recovered from a 19 year coma, and evidence shows that his brain actually repaired and regrew over this time. So, does aluminum foil lining reduce the frequency of seizures in epilepsy? Does gum disease give you strokes? Or did a man's brain repair itself after 19 years and it allowed him to wake up from a coma? Evan, why don't you start off?

E: Number one is fiction.

S: Okay.

E: There you have it.

S: Alrighty. Jay?

J: Okay well, the whole aluminum foil thing, off the cuff sounds really, really really fake. And it's one of those things that where I have to question whether or not you would throw, you would sit there and make up something so unbelievably cheesy. It just kind of reminds me of that guy you see out, that wears a triangle on his head, you ever see those people?

B: Just last week I did.

E: Oh they're not ridiculous.

B: It was funny.

J: I see that guy at Costco all the time.

P: Total fruit loop.

B: Yeah! That's where I saw him Jay.

S: Is that a pyramid thing though?

J: Yes, yeah. Blocking your head from alien transmissions or whatever, I'm n...but I'm going to go with number three, because I distinctly remember telling me at one point that brain tissue doesn't regrow. Like you can't damage it, it's unlike other tissue in the body, once it's damaged, your brain will re-map things and use other parts of the brain to pick up slack. But re-growing brain tissue? No, I think that one's false.

P: Ummmm, yeah. The third one is believable. The second one seems reasonable. The first one, you know, I had a UFO protection foil hat for 30 years.

E: Its worked so far right?

P: Yeah, but now, I didn't realize it had this other benefit. But I mean 30 years, and I find that not to be true. The first one's fake.

S: Alrighty. Bob?

B: Oh man. Number three, I believe that's correct. You might be subtly changing this, I do believe that happened. The gum disease link, that just seems to coincide with other things that I've learned about that. The helmet one is just so obviously, you know...

P: ((laughs))

B: ...bologna, and I think maybe that's what you're hoping we're going to think. Or, or maybe you were hoping we were gonna hope and...

S: That's right, cause you know that I know that you know!

B: So uh...

E: Don't spend an hour over-thinking this.

B: I know, so I'm gonna have to, I'll go with one. I'll just go with one because...

S: ((laughing)) Okay.

B: ...it's ridiculous, and I can't imagine how this tinfoil is going to interact, except for a placebo effect, I don't know how it's going to react, interact, with anything about brain activity, outside your head. Go.

P: You obviously haven't trained your brainwaves.

S: That's right. Well let's start with number three...

J: And the answer is...

S: ...Man recovers from a 19 year coma with evidence of brain repair and regrowth. This one is...science. This has been in the news, I'm not surprised if you guys had heard about this.

B: His name's Terry, isn't it?

S: Yeah, right Terry, his name is Terry...

P: Hey how 'bout that.

S: ...it's a male Terry. Not to be confused with Terri Schiavo.

P: No, no, no.

S: There's a critical difference between this case, and the Terri Schiavo case, and other cases of people in a "coma" and coma isn't really a precise neurological term, and often I think that's where people get confused. This guys was in a minimally conscious state. So his brain was actually able to generate some level of consciousness, but not enough for him to like move and talk.

J: Ooooh. What a nightmare that would've been.

P: So he was locked-in Steve?

E: Yeah, gee.

S: No, locked-in is different, locked-in means you're fully awake, but you're just paralyzed from the eyes down...

P: That's worse.

S: ...This guy, probably has done a m...he has no memories of this period of time...

J: Oh that's good.

S: ...Maybe like, again, it's minimally conscious. But, after 19 years he crossed some threshold where he was able to speak and move. He's not fully neurologically functional, but he crossed this threshold. And this definitely has happened before. It's these kind of cases that sort of lead people to think that somebody can "come out of a coma", but these cases cannot be compared to cases, say, like Terri Schiavo, where she was in a persistent vegetative state.

P: Totally different.

S: Totally different. People do not come out of persistent vegetative states. That's why they're...persistent.

P: Well Steve, to the best of your knowledge in what you know about this case, when you say "cross a threshold", was even that, and they put it very specifically from what I recall, but are we talking about at 5 PM Tuesday he didn't have these abilities, and at 5 PM Wednesday he did?

S: Yeah, usually there's just like one day where they wake up from a sleep cycle, and they have a little bit more function than they did the day before...

P: That's amazing.

S: ...It's some threshold where somebody notices he's different. It may be over a couple of days they start to talk more, and starts to do more.

J: Steve this guy's brain tissue grew back though?

S: Yeah, the new bit here is that studying this guy's brain they believe they've documented actual increase in neuronal tissue over this period of time. They think the brain was slowly repairing itself, and Jay you are somewhat correct in that the brain certainly, and especially as we get older, has a very limited capacity to regrow new neurons. Although, we use to think that it couldn't, and it's actually only been recently in the last 10 years or so that we've accumulated evidence that new neurons can in fact be made in the brain.

J: Neurogenesis.

S: Yeah so this is more evidence to support that that can actually take place. But let's move on to, let's work our way back we'll just go to number two. This was, very quickly, this was a dental study actually was looking at dental x-rays and comparing the amount of gum disease with the carotid hardening of the arteries, atheromas that you can see on those x-rays. This is purely a study associating the two, linking gum disease with atheromas, it says nothing about a causal relationship between the two. There are a number of theoretical connections that could be made, one could just be people who take better care of themselves have both fewer cavities and less arterialsclerosis. It could also be that you get more bacteria in your blood if you have a lot of gum disease, and maybe that's playing a role in the acceleration of atheromas, so. Anyway, this study didn't even explore that, this' just counting gum disease, how many cavities compared to how much blockage. Which means that number one, aluminum foil reducing the frequency of seizures in certain epileptics is fiction.

P: Yay.

J: Ohhh...

B: Two in a row.

S: Now. Yeah, you guys are right, the aluminum foil hat thing is kind of a classic..

P: ((laughs))

S: ...silly thing, and I thought I'd change things up a little bit and throw, make the fiction one sound...

J: Sounds awful.

S: ...sound really ridiculous and not be too predictable.

P: But we knew that you knew!

((laughter))

S: I wanted to see if I could lure any of you...

B: Almost! You almost got me Steve.

S: I got Jay! I got Jay. But yeah I know, you guys almost over thought it, I wanted to see if I could lure anyone into actually thinking that aluminum foil helmets stopped seizures.

P: Of course.

E: I believe I gave the answer in about one second...

S: Yeah you did.

E: ...Told you exactly what it was.

J: You're so smart Evan.

S: Well done, well done.

P: It's true, it's true, it's true.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Aluminum foil hat
Science	Brain repair
Science	Gum disease & atheromas

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	Aluminum foil hat
Jay	Brain repair
Perry	Aluminum foil hat
Bob	Aluminum foil hat

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

Theme: Neurobiology Item #1: New study shows that wearing a hat or helmet lined with aluminum foil reduces the frequency of seizures in certain epileptics. Item #2: New study shows a link between gum disease and carotid atheromas (a significant risk for stroke). Item #3: Man recovers from 19 year coma with evidence of brain repair and regrowth.

Skeptical Puzzle (1:18:28)

Last Week's puzzle:

In the old game show, Let's Make A Deal, contestants were asked to pick which of three doors they thought contained a valuable prize. Once the contestant picked a door, the host, Monty Hall, would often open one of the two doors not chosen and then ask the contestant if they would like to change their pick to the other door left unopened. The question is, should a contestant stick with their original choice, change to the other door, or there is no difference statistically?

Answer: The contestant should change her pick to the other door. If she sticks with her first pick her chances of winning is 1/3, if she changes her pick her chances of winning is 2/3.

New Puzzle (1:21:57)

Name the medical pseudoscience that, although now is thoroughly disproved and rejected by mainstream science, at its inception was on the correct side of a major scientific debate of the time.

Signoff/Announcements (1:22:51)

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

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society. For information on this and other podcasts, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

Today I Learned

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary