SGU Episode 867

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SGU Episode 867
February 19th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 866                      SGU 868
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
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Introduction, Bread-making, Wordle

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, February 16^th 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening folks!

S: How are you all this lovely evening?

B: Doing well.

C: Doing well doing well.

E: Keeping it together.

S: This is that part of February where you're like, is it gonna be like another month of winter hell or you're gonna get an early spring.

E: Depends on the groundhog.

S: And it's all over the place.

C: Unless you live in LA.

J: As long as it's not slushy you know I don't mind it snowing and I don't mind it being like springtime, I just don't, I hate the slush.

S: Yeah.

J: (laughs) I hate that so much but listen guys I had a great week and a half because I started baking homemade bread.

S: Yeah?

C: You're late to the party.

J: Yeah I look I start, it's an adventure that I've been wanting to do for a while and I just said that's it I'm gonna, it's time you know some little check box got ticked in my head and I just said okay this is it I'm gonna start doing it. So I got very very lucky and on the fourth recipe I tried I hit the mother lode. And I you know last night I made three loaves and they all came out amazing. It was like real like rustic Italian style bread, flavor was incredible and I learned a lot you know just watching YouTube videos and reading about all sorts of things to do with yeast and flour. So I've just had so much fun and I loved seeing my wife and a couple of people that we had over and my mother-in-law like I love seeing them eating the bread and their reaction to it because everyone was really excited.

S: Nothing better than fresh baked bread. But bread is it's tricky I mean I got I got pretty good at making the sourdough bread. I was doing that for a while like the beginning of the pandemic, I do want to get back into it. I got a dutch oven so I want to use that to make some some bread in. But you got to really stick to the recipe, you know?

J: Yeah.

S: Baking's not like cooking. Cooking you could fart around do whatever you want and experiment, whatever. Baking is like chemistry you know like the exact stoichiometry you know is critical.

J: Stoic.

S: Stoichiometry.

C: Did you guys see that meme going around that was like wordle is the sourdough of 2022. And like it makes such sense but go back in time to like 2018 if somebody said that to you you'd be like what in the hell are you talking.

S: Today's word was hard cock.

C: Oh whatever this will be like a week late, right?

S: It won't matter.

C: Yeah it doesn't matter.

E: Oh you can't play prior words or it can't go back into the?

C: No it's one a day.

E: There's one a day.

C: But I did hear that the New York Times because you know New York Times bought it and they're folding it over some people are still on the old site and they have a different word.

E: Whoa double your word.

C: Yeah like until it switches over for you, you're you're on a slight, you're on a different word it's weird. Like that's not cool.

J: Well you'd figure that they would just forward the old address to the new one so anybody yeah I don't know it seems yeah but they're easy to do.

C: It's yeah I don't get it.

B: Well Jay I can't wait I mean I had I had Jay's bread the the first batch and it was real, I really liked it it had a nice crust it was nice and chewy and inside you know hearing him and his wife go off on this fourth batch was like the ultimate I can't wait to taste it Jay.

C: You gonna bring some to our show when you guys come to when we're all meeting up in New York?

J: Yeah if I have if I have any you know the thing is it it really does take a lot of time like you know this isn't, it's timely because there's a lot of like, do this for five minutes and then wait an hour, you know what I mean? So you're kind of tied to the kitchen which is fine you know like on a weekend when you're hanging out at home or whatever it's no big deal. But yeah right before we do those shows if I have time Cara I'd be so happy to make you a loaf.

S: Well Jay you'll have to have a bake off with our friend Bruce Press who basically became an expert bread baker over the pandemic.

E: Yeah oh an expert.

J: Yeah Bruce Bruce would destroy me Steve, he's like crazy.

S: But you're missing the point, that the rest of us get to eat all the bread.

E: Yeah but there'd be twice as much bread.

C: Exactly.

S: Either way whoever wins or loses we win.

J: With my bread you know my one loaf that I know how to do now.

E: Jay here's what you do show up with your own churned butter with your bread that'll put you over the top.

J: Well I lost my mind because I realized that my bread is absolutely the perfect companion to my meatballs, which I mean the two of them together, I don't know I might travel in time if I eat them both at the same time. I love it.

S: Are any of you into any other rustic skills like old-timey skills.

C: Oh I have so many you guys I knit oh god.

E: That's right.

C: I didn't say ing at the end I know now to not say that─

S: I'm knitting.

C: ─full frame (laughter) I know a lot of like craft kind of things you know that are helpful in the post-apocalyptic world.

J: Well I was gonna make a stone wall you know by hand but I got carpal tunnel instead so that project got delayed indefinitely.

E: Instead of a wall you got a tunnel.

B: Last year last October I made a big graveyard that's an old-timey skill for sure.

(laughter)

S: I garden I guess that's an old-timey skill. But I like think a lot about doing it it's just hard, I don't have the time to like really. I do the research like yeah this is a good thing wait one time at one point I'm like I wonder how hard it is to make cheese? I think that that would be fun, right? I mean─

E: Oh my gosh.

S: ─and it's you know so I learned all about how to make cheese it's like yeah I'll do that sometime and I never did it, you know but.

C: Yeah.

J: What kind of cheese would you make would it be like a blue cheese?

S: Well, so the the easiest cheese to make is the buffalo cheese which is basically mozzarella, right? So it's you get this whole milk it's overnight like the next day you have boots you know that's it it's very it's very easy. But in Parmesan you have to age for like six months.

C: Yeah any hard cheese would probably be really hard to do.

S: You gotta like keep it under a bowl in your refrigerator and just have to keep it moist and whatever. Any cheese makers out there let us know if you're doing it at home as a hobby let us know how it's going.

C: I once for my birthday my best friend and I emulated one of our favorite dishes from a very expensive nice like Michelin-starred restaurant here in LA, and we made our own sausage like we got all the different types of meat and all the spices and put it through the meat grinder.

S: Did you grind the meat three times?

C: Uh no.

E: Twice?

C: Were we supposed to?

S: Yeah.

C: We ground it as many times as the recipe told us to grind it.

S: You don't understand that reference anyone anyone?

C: I do not. Shit.

S: Grind the meat three times.

C: Eww, no.

S: That's from Sweeney Todd.

J: Oh yeah.

E: Oooh.

S: Gotta get all the the toenails out of the meat.

J: Oh my gosh.

E: So gross.

S: We have to keep up our rustic skills so that when the the zombie apocalypse happens─

C: Yeah for sure.

S: ─we'll be able to do things like you know bake our own bread and make our own cheese.

All right well let's move on with our actual show Jay you're going to do, I guess this is a new segment you're going to do a segment about something you learned today that is interesting.

Special Segment: Today Jay Learned (7:29)

• The first scientist

J: Yeah, I'm going to talk about who was the first scientist. And of course this is all up to opinion there you know, how do you define who the actual real first scientist was I mean you know it's really just you're it's up to you. But historians do tend to to agree on at least a few people who kind of you know fit the fit the mold here better than others. You know the history of science what goes back very very far depending on who you ask but I think a really good place to put the first flag would probably be ancient Egypt you know around 3000 BCE. Right the Egyptians created a numbering system, they had a methodology to their healing practices that included examination and diagnosis and treatment and prognosis. Like you know they had some stuff going on you know that was that was noteworthy. But you know we're gonna we're gonna zoom down first to Aristotle quickly. He was born in 384 BC in Greece you know you probably have heard of him he was the first to use logic the first human to use logic think about that. He also you know was heavily into observing right he was just he thought observation was very important. Inquiry and demonstration are also things that he is known for. And imagine being the first and only person guys to use you know methodological logic think about that.

S: Well we don't know that he was the first person to use logic, he was the first person to develop a system of logic.

J: Right that's what I mean.

S: Operationalizing.

J: That's that's what I mean.

S: I know that's what you mean but just to be clear because you know.

C: There were logical people prior to Aristotle.

J: But just imagine like and we think we have it bad today like imagine like I am the only person that uses logic oh my god.

E: Sometimes it feels like that.

J: Yeah right? So Aristotle took inspiration by observing the natural world. You know he at some point it occurred to him you know that there is a seeming order to things and and he wanted to understand how it worked. Now keep in mind, to be fair, most of what he concluded was wrong. Straight up wrong. Like the things that he said okay so if this then this then this and this is what I think and this is how I think it works most of those ideas were just factually wrong because you know he just didn't have a lot of ways to gain real information or very useful information that could give him the the you know a better truth than what he was thinking. But still you know it wasn't that's really not the point here. His curiosity about the natural world led him to want to understand how our reality worked and that's that's what's cool about what was going on in his head.

S: But again I feel the need to defend Aristotle a little bit here. So you're correct in terms of his conclusions about how the natural, the physical world works.

J: Yeah.

S: His philosophy was like he basically figured everything out like right at the beginning you know what I mean? In terms of the big ideas of philosophy and thought you know they they kind of worked out the basics you know right there at the very beginning of it all.

J: You know Socrates came to the conclusion that thinking was really the only way to understand reality and Aristotle straight up was like no observation is the way to to gain understanding about how the world worked. That's huge. Now how well he did that that's another thing to discuss.

S: Yeah.

J: So he was legitimately formulating theories based on observation that is remarkably close to the scientific method today, right? I mean it's a part of it, and it was there he he had the he had the bones of it. And as a quick example Aristotle observed that the mast of a ship was the first part of the ship that could be seen when it approached from the sea, right? So he was able to discover from that that the Earth was round and he said it the Earth was round because of that observation. Damn that's, good that's good man if I was with him I'd be like you're a smart guy dude you know what I mean like very good you know me of course you know thousands of years in the future with all the things that I got to learn. But the the point here is that you know there's a good, you can make a very good argument that he was the first scientist, right? You know not lab coat scientist but at least scientific thinker. Another person who I thought I should mention he's frequently considered the first scientist and his name was Ibn al-Haytham, have you guys heard of him of course you have. He was a Muslim Arab mathematician, astronomer and a physicist. And he was born in 965 AD. So he extensively studied light and vision which you know when you think about all the way back then he is spending his time trying to figure out like how does light work you know how how do we perceive things with our eyes. These are pretty profound questions. He's also thought to have invented the camera obscura as well as the pinhole camera. And if you're interested look those up and read about them because there's quite a bit of information about those. He conducted legitimate experiments with candles and described how an image is formed by rays of light, rays of light, that's cool as hell. Traveling in straight lines that's real legit right there and he was the first person to develop a hypothesis and then he tested it with verifiable experiments. So you know between those two they they were definitely people who who pushed the ball forward. Look like you know the truth is this guys it took thousands of people, you know you know undetermined amount of number of people but a lot of people to slowly push the concept of science forward you know enough to take the form that we understand it today. But you know there was there was landmark people in there that that came up with with very important concepts on their own and these two people were definitely in that list but there's more there's more moments in time and people that that were significant which is fun to read. One more quick fun thing Steve if you don't mind.

S: Go right ahead.

J: For your information the term scientist dates back to only 1834 a philosopher named William Whewell, right? W-h-e-w-e-l-l came up he came up with the word to include all practitioners of the ever-expanding fields of science.

S: What was science called before then?

E: Natural philosophy.

C: Yeah but I think scientists I think science is still older than what year did you say scientist was dubbed?

J: 1834.

C: Yeah science as a word is definitely older than.

J: Oh yeah yeah because he took that word and put 'tist' on the end of it.

S: We don't know who coined the term science but William Whewell was first one to coin the term scientist.

C: Yeah science is probably from the mid 14th century and yeah before that it was natural philosophy before that it was philosophy just like generally philosophy.

S: Part of philosophy.

C: Yeah, which is why you still get a PhD in science.

E: And before that it was religion.

C: It just was it was just looking around.

E: Religion and science were pretty much the one in the same, it wasn't good science but that's what it was.

News Items

S: All right. We're going to start off the News segment with a pair of astronomy news items.

Psyche May Not Be the Iron Giant (14:25)

• Psyche, the iron giant of asteroids, may be less iron than researchers thought

S: Bob, you're going to start us off by talking about Psyche, which is an asteroid, and what's it made of?

B: So guys, famous asteroid 16 Psyche has been reevaluated in terms of its composition and future belters the world over are in tears. So what the hell am I talking about? Well I'll tell you. This is (laughter) based on a study, this is based on a study published in Geophysical Research Letters and it's a classic example of how science can lead to disappointment no matter how much closer it gets to get you to the truth. It happens. Psyche in this context isn't that thing in your head that gets shattered by horrible science news. It's also not Psyche the Greek goddess of the soul who married Eros also known as Cupid. The Psyche I'm going to talk about was named after this classical Greek figure and is what I'm sure she'd consider an insult since it's a class M asteroid. Now this doesn't follow the Star Trek convention of class M planets being habitable come on it's an asteroid of course it's not habitable, but it's class M and in here it means that it has a higher proportion of metals I guess perhaps the M stands for metal, makes sense like iron and nickel. And it has more of those metals than most asteroids which contain mostly the more pedestrian silicate rocks. Its diameter is 220 km, 140 mi. Big, pretty dam the biggest class M asteroid out there. And basically you know about the size of the distance between Los Angeles and San Diego, Cara that was for you.

C: Wow that's really big.

B: Yeah and now M-class specifically refers to the spectra of an asteroid, that's what it's dealing with, and in this case it shows that there's a lot of exposed metals on the surface. Now based on that astronomers made reasonable extrapolations, you know based on the sheer immensity of this thing if the surface is metal then you know it's pretty much mostly metal probably. So they were saying things like oh it's 90 to 95 percent metal, making it the core of a planetesimal or protoplanet, a very early planet from billions of years ago. So that would have to mean then that it was likely produced from a titanic collision with another object that literally ripped away the crust and mantle leaving just this this exposed core of a planet. Now imagine that the exposed core of a planet from billions of years ago, you know the potential to learn about the early solar system and fill in a lot of blanks is huge, which is part of the reason why there was so much interest in this. But from an avaricious point of view think about it, a 220 kilometer block of mostly iron but also nickel, platinum and gold is a treasure pretty much beyond imagining. This could this could make everyone on earth a billionaire which really really realistically of course wouldn't happen since the gold market would collapse.

C: Yeah I was gonna say.

B: We'd have major financial instability and lots of other bad things but you know but the point remains the sheer quantity of wealth that we're talking about, Forbes put Psyche's worth at 10, wait for it, 10 quintillion dollars. 10 quintillion that's 10 billion billion, or, it's 10 times a million cubed. Or, it's a hundredth of a sextillion and I'll stop now.

E: (laughs)

C: Or it's the amount of money Elon Musk makes in a month.

B: Let's put it in this perspective then Cara, the global economy is 94 trillion, so Psyche, Psyche would be worth about a hundred and six thousand times the global economy.

C: That's insane.

B: So that's exciting right I mean NASA even created a mission specifically to visit Psyche, this mysterious asteroid with so much metal in it and you know it's leaving later this year. But but, Psyche gives us mixed signals, much like when Jay is on a diet and he's got 10 meatballs within easy reach.

E: It's pyrite it's not real gold.

B: So if you if you measure its mass, all about mass and density in this story, if you measure its mass and density based on its gravitational tug on nearby objects, it doesn't act like a gargantuan lump of metal. If it were mostly metal still it would have to be about 50% porous, 50% porous, which I guess is not impossible. So the good scientists like like all good scientists or most of them they ran models. And so these models were based on the known thermal properties of metallic iron, right, you'd kind of need to know that, to make these models work. And also what we knew about the early solar system. And so as the model of psyche evolved over time in the model they determined that such a lump for such a lump to remain porous it would have to cool down to below 800K fairly quickly. Otherwise right imagine if it if it cools down too slowly then that the weight the the sheer weight and gravitational pull of this of all that metal in, this porous malleable metal would collapse on into in itself. So, bottom line, there's no way Psyche cooled that fast, so that it could remain porous, even if the porosity was induced later in life later down the road by an impact for example. It can't be that porous. So then, what do we got left now? So the only reasonable option then is and the conclusion of the paper is that Psyche has a metallic surface right because the, it's class M it's got the you know, the spectrum says that this is this is a metal surface. But the core itself probably a metal as well but the interior, the mantle if you will, has got to be normal silicate rock like most other asteroids which and that is what's driving its density down. It's that. So so now I think you appreciate why future belters working in our main asteroid belt mining for precious metals are are very very upset because you know there's still of course there's still probably a lot of metal out there, even just on Psyche but nowhere near the amount that would that people have been talking about literally for years and would make these you know hundreds of belters trillionaires in the future. But there's more, there's more because this all begs the question, right? Why is the surface metal and the mantle is not? How did that, oh I dropped a robot okay never mind, moving forward.

(laughter)

E: That was not a non-sequitur either.

B: So why? Why? So then how did that happen? That's kind of you got a metal shell, what's going on? So one possibility is ferrovolcanism. Yes iron spewing volcanoes. So how cool is that? So we know of two volcano types, there's silicate volcanism and that's what we see all over the Earth and on other planets and other moons silicates, rocks, right? Just magma spewing out. Then there's cryovolcanism and we see that on Enceladus and Triton and maybe Europa and that's essentially magmas made of liquids and gases that would be otherwise frozen on the surface of the moon that we see this on. Okay that's cryovolcanism, now ferrovolcanism has never been observed but it seems like it probably has happened based on the surfaces of other of other bodies in this in the solar system. And what you would have you'd have flowing liquid metal instead of the more viscous rocky magma, right? Theoretically that could occur on all metal worlds or hybrid metal rocky worlds like six like 16 Psyche, how cool is that? Ferrovolcanism never heard of, that that's fascinating.

E: Something that small can have that can have a volcanic feature to it?

B: Yeah I mean yeah I mean it's dense, it's big enough and so sure I mean yeah I can see what I see what you mean that it doesn't seem like there'd be enough, I mean if this was the core of a planet then this was under a hell of a lot of pressure for a hell of a long period of time before that even happened, so that that heat just doesn't go away. So now the future of Psyche is now essentially in the hands of its NASA mission, which will launch this year and arrive in 2026. And of course you know we probably won't find a place reminiscent of that very cool Disney movie called Treasure Planet, seriously check it out, it's the best fusion of pirate and science fiction that I've ever seen a fun fun animated movie. But I'm sure that 16 Psyche is going to offer many many surprises and I really can't wait to see what happens when we get up close. Speaking though of science fiction and I will end with this. Now remember I said that the only reasonable option for a low density asteroid was that it had lower density rock inside? There's another slightly less reasonable possibility, that I would like to explore. I coincidentally finished a very very cool short story last night called Owner Space by Neal Asher, Owner Space really cool, he's got a few books off on that riffing off of that too which I recommend. So in the story in it was a moon that wasn't as dense as it should have been, similar to Psyche, right? In the end it's revealed to be a mind-bogglingly massive ship created by some superhuman whose name is the Owner. So NASA maybe when NASA gets there I'm just saying. (laughter) That's it. Just saying.

J: What are you saying?

E: Just saying.

S: So what's the new estimate of Psyche's value?

B: Oh I've, I people I think are just too depressed to calculate it. It's certainly not going to be uh 10 quintillion, but it you know it would be you know it could be many many trillions or you know or maybe even low quadrillions I don't know. But it was this was the crown jewel though you know I've seen these beautiful you know artists interpretations of what Psyche looks like and I don't know who drew the this his impression of Psyche but they they drew an amazing looking asteroid. Really funky and weird too because of all the metals that are on the surface. It's beautiful, and people have been talking about this for years of how you know can you imagine an asteroid that's all metal and now it's just like ah it's just you know it's it's just the surface really and and probably not the interior and it's not worth 10 quadrillion, it's just kind of a bummer. I mean because that industry will happen in the future right, I mean that's pretty almost guaranteed that we will have an industry in the asteroid belt that will have access to crazy amounts, crazy amounts like economy-ending amounts of materials like gold and platinum and iron.

C: And we are so stupid.

E: Well...

C: So stupid.

B: Well I mean I mean if you have if you have the if you have the resources and the wherewithal to get there and mine it and then bring you know you wouldn't be stupid about it you would bring it back judiciously, you'd bring it back in small amounts and you wouldn't flood the market. Especially with gold and platinum. The iron's a different story I mean you can come back you know you could still damage the economy if you came back with 10 mountains worth of iron. But the iron, iron, we need iron for steel and steel is still the man you know steel is still it.

E: Right Steve with our swords?

S: Absolutely.

E: I looked up a picture of the asteroid Psyche. All these pictures you know what they have in common they it's from the perspective of the two craters which look like two eyes, I mean we're so human when it comes to some things.

B: Yeah that crater looked cool.

E: It is but it but really I mean you know we couldn't see it from a different side, no we have to have the side which looks so it looks like a face.

B: And if you looked at what we actually can see it's like this blurry blob that's totally I mean it's all made up all those details. And when I first saw it I thought oh man that's a pretty damn good close-up. How did we get that?

E: Bob as we get closer what if it's more like a human skull in features.

B: Dude there is a there was a skull asteroid out there─

C: Yeah that was cool.

B: ─and from, in under certain lighting from a certain angle it looked absolutely you know like the top of the skull and it was so such an interesting picture.

S: Looked very good but you're right I mean it's incredibly, it even has like the the ridged middle of the nose.

B: Yeah it was really cool but of course you know just a trick of the light really, just like the face on Mars.

Possible Planet Around White Dwarf (26:20)

• Possible Planet Around White Dwarf

Falling Birds (43:04)

• Did a Flock of Birds Crash into the Ground in Mexico?

HIV Cure (55:07)

• A Woman Is Cured of H.I.V. Using a Novel Treatment

Who's That Noisy? (1:04:35)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Tiger "talking"

New Noisy (1:09:58)

[Male tenor voice reading an old or fictional language in an oratory style]

... what are we hearing right there?

Name That Logical Fallacy (1:12:42)

• Discussing formal vs. informal logical fallacies, Unstated Major Premise

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_ with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Science or Fiction (1:29:18)

Item #1: Surgeons successfully implanted the first wireless electrodes that bypass the retina and optic nerve and directly stimulate the visual cortex with information received from an external camera. Item #2: Scientist have used data from radio telescopes to finally shed light on an enduring mystery – what initiates a lightning strike – supporting the theory that it begins with propagating streamers of cold plasma. Item #3: Scientists have observed untrained orangutans in captivity that, when provided with a hammer and rock core, spontaneously used the hammer to create sharp rocks that they then used as a cutting tool.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Untrained orangutans
Science	First wireless electrodes
Science	What initiates lightning

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	Untrained orangutans
Bob	Untrained orangutans
Jay	First wireless electrodes
Cara	Untrained orangutans

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:49:25)

TEXT
– AUTHOR (YYYY-YYYY), _short_description_

Signoff (1:51:56)

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

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

References

Vocabulary