SGU Episode 62

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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, September 27^th 2006, this is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, joining me this evening are Bob Novella

B: Hey everyone

S: Perry de Angelis

P: Right-o

S: Evan Bernstein

E: I'm under the weather, but I am here, my friends.

S: And Jay Novella

J: Hola

S: Rebecca is not with us this evening, she's having some difficulties with her apartment, something about the roof caving in

E: Or the floor bursting up

J: Her horrible landlord

S: She has a slum-lord, basically. Rebecca is in the process of moving to some new digs, so she was just too busy to join us this evening, but we wish her well in her move. The good news is she'll have a better place from which to record the program, so there'll be less street-noise in the background.

J: Yeah, so we haven't had a podcast that was just the boys in…months, months, months, right?

S: Yeah, a few months, since July.

E: She went to er… Europe

S: She was in Europe in July

P: Yeah

J: See how quick I forget?

S: We have an interview coming up a little bit later with Joe Nickell paranormal investigator, and our second instalment of Randi Speaks. But first, we'll start with some news items.

News Items

Follow up on Global Warming (1:24)

NASA: NASA Study Finds World Warmth Edging Ancient Levels

Astronomy & Astrophysics: Meteorites record past solar activity

S: There were a couple of global warming issues in the news this past week

E: Yeah

S: Global warming is one of those topics that's just not going away-

J: It's a hot topic

S: Every week there's something

B: It's not gonna go away for a century

S: The first one is from NASA, a NASA study finds that it's warmer than it has been for thousands of years, I've seen multiple figures now, but the one that's in their current- their article on their website says nearly 12,000 years. And if it gets just a little bit warmer, it'll be the warmest it's been in the last million years. So we're basically entering a phase where it's as warm as it's been in a very, very long time. Now, of course this doesn't say anything about what the cause of the warning is. This, I take it, is yet more confirmation that we are indeed experiencing a period of global warming. But the other question is 'what iss the cause of it?', of course that's the debate: to what degree is it man-made versus to what degree is it normal cycle, or due to external factors.

There was another item though, at the same time, that caught my attention. It's a little tangentially related to global warming, but I thought it was relevant to this. It was a study published looking at the degree of solar activity. This was a study called 'Meteorites record past solar activity', and using meteorites - this is very interesting actually, because meteorites are not contaminated by terrestrial factors, environmental factors, but they are objects in the solar system – they can use meteorites to investigate the degree of solar activity in the past. And what this was was a survey of meteorites over the last 250 years or so, and what it showed was that in the past century, there has been an increase in solar activity, and in fact it's been increased in the last half century. Now that caught my attention because it's like 'huh', you know? Now the scientists who found this result, are they claiming, or do they think that this would be an explanation for global warming? Since we're also getting- the Earth has been getting warmer over the last century, so I actually emailed the lead author on this study, this was a Finnish study, the lead author is Ilya Usoskin. And I basically asked Ilya what he thinks about the relationship between this data, his data, of solar activity and global warming, and this is what he wrote back:

Thank you for your interest.
As concerning your question, we did not concentrate on this topic in our study. However, what I can say is the following. Solar forcing is considered now as an important factor in global climate changes, although the quantitative level of the solar forcing is still debated. Anyhow, the solar activity was increasing since 1900s until 1950-1960, quite synchronously with many global warming records. However, the solar activity did not grow further since 1960s, remaining on a very high (exceptionally high for the last millennium). This implies that the solar forcing did not grow during the last few decades, and we may expect an essential decrease of the solar activity level in the forthcoming decades, which somehow reduces the solar contribution to the global warming.

My personal point of view is that it would be not correct to believe that the global climate is driven by one single external factor, whether anthropogenic or solar, but by a combination of all factors. And the recent fast warming can be an unfortunate sum of the two independent processes. However, while the solar forcing is constant over the last decades and is expected to decrease in the future, other factors can keep growing. So, measures should be undertaken to control the other factors even though the solar factor might give a short break in the global changes.

B: I wonder why he thinks this solar contribution's gonna decrease.

S: They're just predicting the trends in future solar activity, so the solar activity is reaching a peak, therefore, if it was increasing and now-

B: Right, maxing out

S: -it's peaking, maybe we're gonna see a down-turn. Which, either way, would be a good thing, to whatever degree it's contributing to global warming, or to whatever degree there is anthropogenic global warming, the fact that we're going to be having less and less of a contribution from the sun is a good thing. So at least, if anything, it might be counteracting the human factor instead of reinforcing it.

B: Right

J: So Steve, factors like the sun can actually change in a short amount of time?

S: Oh, over decades or centuries, sure.

J: That seems like a very short amount of time.

S: Well solar cycles have been known for a while, you know, sun spots and whatnot, the solar weather does affect Earth climate. And then those change over a matter of years.

E: How accurate is the data they collected from the early 1900s, compared to the data they're like collecting, like, today? You know, the instrumentation and stuff obviously is all changed, and I wonder how much reliance there is on that older data?

B: The thing is, though Evan, is that the data from the meteorites can tell them what the activity was, relatively reliably, at any of these times, so it's not like we just have data from the past 50 years. They probably gathered data for many, many decades based on these meteorites, the only restriction was that they needed to know precisely when the meteorite landed. So if we know that this meteor came down in 1900, this meteorite, then they know, ok, in 1900, this is pretty much what the solar activity was.

S: Right, and the same thing for global temperatures, we can use things like ice-cores, using basically a single modern technique to look back at historical temperatures. So we're not just relying upon what scientists from 100 years ago were telling us about what the temperature was 100 years ago.

B: Yeah, one of the important things about this study, that I see, is that their results run counter to a lot of the studies that I've read, that say that basically the sun hasn't significantly changed, and it's not having any impact. So when I read this article, it was a surprise to me that there may be some sort of solar contribution, which is actually kinda good news.

S: Which is why I wanted to follow up with him and see how he thought this fit into the whole picture. By the way, he did agree to be interviewed on our show at some point in the future-

B: Oh good

S: -we already had an interview for this week, but maybe we can talk to him directly about these issues. Very interesting, I think the whole science of global temperature and global warming is very fascinating. I regret the fact that it's so politicized, and an overall ideology-

E: Right

S: -but as a science, it's incredibly fascinating.

B: Now, Steve, one of the key things that we might need to talk about is actually how do these meteors reflect solar activity? And essentially, from reading the article right, is that the cosmic rays release this radioactive isotope, titanium 44-

S: Right

B: -while it's still in space, and then after it hits the ground of course that stops, because it's not really being bombarded by cosmic rays anymore-

S: That's right

B: -and then it stops, and they know what it was while it was in space.

S: Yeah, very interesting method

New Pictures of the Face on Mars (8:23)

European Space Agency: Mars Express - Cydonia - the face on Mars

S: We have two other news items this week, the next one is new images of the so-called 'face on Mars'. Now, briefly, since the, I believe it was the 1970s, when the first images came back of-

B: '76, yeah

S: '76, of the Cydonia region of Mars. There was one of the pictures, had a rough appearance of a human face, kind of a square-ish head, you basically see one eye, what looks like half a nose, half a mouth, and the other half was in shadow,

P: Emphasis on rough appearance

S: Very rough, in fact, there's a black hole where the nostril would be-

J: A black hole on Mars?

S: -that really enhances the illusion that it's a face. But that black hole is actually a dot of missing data from the photo, it's not actually a structure.

P: Yes, but how unusual that that missing data would be right where the nostril should've been

J: Plus, don't forget, guys, there was also a very good Kermit the frog image up there too, right?

S: Yeah, if you look around, you'll see lots of images, and again, as we've talked about this before, this is just pareidolia, just fitting faces and other familiar images to random data, like geological formations. This was a hot debate between skeptics and believers for many years, and both sides awaited the future Mars probes, and the taking of much more higher resolution pictures. In 1998, the Mars Global Surveyor took a picture of the same structure, and this picture clearly looks like just a mountain range-

P: A pile of rocks

S: A pile of rocks, basically, yeah, and it completely eliminated any notion that this was some kind of an ancient alien artefact on Mars, some kind of a structure-

P: I'm sure all the 'Face on Mars' people immediately retreated from their opinions.

S: Right, I mean, if they had any intellectual integrity whatsoever, they would have said 'Ok, we were wrong, let's move on', but of course, many of them clung to their 'Face on Mars' nonsense. Well now we have from the European Space Agency, they released a three-dimensional reconstruction based on the Cydonia region, and it creates a very nice three-dimensional map of that mountainside, and it is just a mountain, just a mesa, a kind of hill formation. That's clearly natural, it's eroded and natural, nothing artificial or manufactured about it, it doesn't look like a face at all, although you can kinda see where like the nose probably was, and one ridge which probably was the mouth, you know, but that's it. So, yep, one more nail in the coffin of the silly 'Face on Mars' nonsense.

E: Hoagland? Hoagland, where are you? Hoagland?

B: I did a search on Hoagland to see what kind of reaction he's had, and I'm sure he's going to have one, it might just be too soon for him to have-

J: Oh Bob, we got his official reaction, you didn't hear it?

B: No, no

J: Here's a recording of it … "OH YEAH?"

(laughter)

B: Well that's his best argument yet

S: I think you're giving him too much credit, Jay

P: Yeah, right

B: His biggest complaint from the late '90s was that the tweaking of the photograph actually manipulated it too much to get rid of the proof, the evidence that it was actually constructed by an intelligence, and this one I'm sure maybe he'll have a similar argument, that the photo's been doctored, or that the manipulation that they normally do to bring out the details ruined the effect and stuff, but this looks pretty convincing to me, this is quite a photograph.

S: Now what he's taking about, of course, is the raw processing of data that all pictures must undergo, if anybody out there has a digital camera, the camera will take the picture in a raw format and then process it to process that information into an actual picture that you can see as a picture. That's all it's doing. So he's saying 'oh look, it's processed', and yeah, it's just a generic processing that all digital pictures undergo, and also it's inconsistent, because the original photo that he was basing his original claims on was processed even more. So if he's going to discount pictures because of processing, the original photo is actually the most suspect. And also, it only makes sense that the higher resolution and photos would be better evidence, but he wants to rely upon the older, less detailed photo, because that's the one where you can end up seeing what you wanna see.

(laughter)

E: 'Back in the '70s'

S: Right

E: (singing) Hoagland

(laughter)

I have monkeys in my pants (13:11)

LoweringTheBar.net: Endangered Species Rescued from Smuggler's Pants

S: Well, one more news item, Perry, you have-

P: Indeed, indeed.

S: You wanted to talk about, you have some monkey-related news items

P: Of course. I have a bit of news here that I think will finally put to rest out on-going debate about who is tougher, birds or monkeys.

J: There was a debate?

P: Recently, a fella by the name of Robert Cusack, no relation to the actor, was stopped at Los Angeles airport, he was going through customs, he had just flown in from Thailand, when suddenly, a couple of birds of paradise escaped from his luggage and flew out over the heads of the customs agents. He was an animal smuggler, he was trying to smuggle them into the country, and, you know, of course the agents immediately grabbed him and they said 'Ok, buddy, do you have anything else to declare at this time?', and he said – and I quote - "I have monkeys in my pants"

(laughter)

P: Further investigation revealed that in fact, he had two loris pygmy monkeys in his underwear!

J: That sick, perverted bastard. Was there a lot of room in there?

P: Ok, here's what I wanted to point out-

S: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?

(laughter)

E: Oh!

P: Though sad, the birds of paradise which had escaped his luggage and got into the nice wide-open airport, unfortunately, all the birds of paradise died. They couldn't take it, their little feathery bodies, they perished in the airport. The monkeys survived a trip from Thailand to Los Angeles IN HIS UNDERWEAR! And continue to live to this day. Can you think of a more hostile environment?

(laughter)

P: Than these two monkeys survived in

S: Than a smuggler's pants?

P: And they did. Now, come on, this puts to rest any argument about who's tougher: little birds of paradise, or these monkeys?

S: Yeah, but birds of paradise are not raptors

P: Surviving in a man's crotch

S: These are not predators, these birds of paradise

P: Neither are these loris pygmy monkeys, you know! This isn't King Kong!

J: Evan, is he still talking?

(laughter)

P And they SURVIVED!

B: They must have been very little

P: Ok? Thank you!

J: fascinating news item, Perry, thank you

E: Thank you

P: End of story, so this should put this to rest

S: I'm sure there will be no further debate on the matter.

J: Absolutely

(laughter)

P: Of course not

E: Wait, I think Rebecca's trying to call in, can we take that call? No? Oh, alright

S: Unfortunately, we're out of time for the news, so let's move on to your emails and questions.

Questions and Emails (13:53)

Lightening Rods ( )

Ashley Zinyk

Psychic Astrology ( )

Erich Meatleg

Interview with Joe Nickell ( )

JoeNickell.com

Science or Fiction ( )

1. A newly published study shows that high levels of testosterone kills brain cells.
2. A newly published review of prior research shows that the most effective method for getting people to adopt healthful behavior, such as quitting smoking, it to use both fear and shame.
3. Researchers have discovered that tarantulas can produce silk from their feet.

Skeptical Puzzle ( )

A ash-bark perpetual motion machine was conceived a very long time ago.

Who proposed it?

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:16:43)

Pseudoscience is like a virus. At low levels, it's no big deal, but when it reaches a certain threshold it becomes sickening.

Phil Plait

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, 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.

References