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 is 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

Lightening Rods (15:53)

S: There were two emails in response to Randi's somewhat off-the-cuff comment about lightning rods^{[link needed]}, and I had not realised that they were so controversial. The first one comes from Ashley Zinyk, who does not give a location, she writes:

Hi guys ("guys" is commonly used to address a mixed-gender group in Canada)

S: Thanks for that information, I'd asked about the use of 'guys' outside of New England, she wrote:

I think Randi made a mistake in Episode #61^{[link needed]}, with regard to lightning rods. He said that they don't conduct lightning "unless they're poorly grounded". I tentatively accepted that, and planned to look up further information later. The more I thought about it, though, the less it made sense. My previous idea of how lightning rods worked was that the current flowed harmlessly through a metal conductor instead of through something that might catch fire or explode. But how could a lightning rod work without conducting the lightning? Previous stories of lightning hitting the Sears Tower, the space shuttle, etc. agreed better with the conventional explanation.

S: She then said she looked it up and provided some references (see show notes). There was another email, this one from Glen Viller in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and he wrote a rather long email again, both of the entire content of both emails will be on our notes page, but just to hit the highlights, first he writes:

Greetings Mr Novella, gentleman and the lovely miss Watson,
I am a long=term listener and student of your podcast at the very least you and your cohorts have been the start of many quick searches for corroborating information. This letter is a result of one such search. I was very happy to hear that the Amazing Randi will once again be a regular on a podcast. During your September 20^th podcast, one things that caught my ear was Mr Randi's theory that a lightning rod, if properly grounded, would not attract a lightning strike, and that they leak off positive charges from the earth, which would neutralize the charges in the atmosphere. I attempted to find information on this over the internet, but was unable to find anything of the sort.

S: He's basically asking for a reference to support Randi's statement. Well, actually, at the time, what Randi said about lightning rods, again, that lightning rods are not meant to attract lightning, but to prevent lightning strikes by neutralizing the static charge in whatever they're attached to, that's exactly how I learnt it in high school, and that's how I always understood it as well. In addition to the fact that it was a common misunderstanding, or myth, that lightning rods were intended to attract lightning. But I did some digging, I wanted to go back to the original sources and see what the references say. I actually found- as the listeners may or may not know, I work at Yale, and Yale has the collection of Benjamin Franklin letters, but I was able to access an online store of all of Benjamin Franklin's letters, and I searched through them to find his discussions of lightning rods, because, you know, he invented the things, although he called them 'points'. Again, we'll have this reference, but quite clearly, Franklin did a number of experiments where he showed that if lightning rods come to a fine point, then what happens is that the chance of the structure to which they are attached being struck by an arc or a lightning discharge is decreased, and the strength of the strike is decreased. If, however, the lightning rods are blunted, then they do not serve that purpose, they do not function. More recently, and again I have some more recent physics links to go over this, the story's a little more complicated. So what happens is, if you have a lightning rod, which is basically a long metal or iron rod, attached to a building – usually it's at the top or above a building – and then through a conducting wire, like a copper wire, to a rod that's buried under the ground, then it actually serves both purposes. Again, the point does need to be fairly sharp, and what happens is, in a cloud you basically have a separation of positive and negative charge in the cloud, and you have a- so there's negative charge building up on the bottom of a cloud, there's positive static charge on the surface of the earth, and then there's a forceful, or sudden, discharge of electricity to neutralize these opposing static charges. What a lightning rod does is it allows that charge to leak off slowly over time and to disperse into the earth, which is why it does have to be properly grounded, and therefore that electrostatic pressure is relieved without a lightning strike. So that is exactly what Randi was saying, and that is what Benjamin Franklin studied, and that is correct. However, the newer resources said that if the lightning does strike anyway – because it doesn't reduce the chance of a strike to zero, it just reduces it to some degree – that the lightning will tend to strike the rod, and conduct its charge through the wire and into the ground, and the electricity will be dispersed into the ground instead of into the building that it strikes. So it reduces the chance of a strike, but if a strike does occur, it does attract it and disperse it into the ground. So kind of both answers, in the end, are correct. But that's actually consistent with what Randi was saying, and what I remember from my physics class. So that's the story of lightning rods. It's always more complicated than it at first seems. Science always seems to have that extra layer of complexity when you really dig down to it. But it's-

J: I always find it interesting when we stumble across something like this where it seems to me very obviously that a lightning rod gets hit by lightning, you see pictures of it, you know, it just-

S: One thing I always thought too, which I'm pretty sure is correct, is that if you've ever flown in a jet plane, they have these little lightning rods at the end of the wings. If the only purpose of lightning rods was to attract a strike, you certainly wouldn't put it on the wing of a jet plane. That's where they keep all their fuel, by the way. The fuel is usually stored inside the wing. The purpose of those is to bleed off static charge from the plane, so the plane does not attract lightning, it's to prevent strikes from occurring.

Psychic Astrology (22:07)

S: Alright, one more email before we go on to our interview. This one comes from Erich (pronounces 'Eritch') Meatleg, I thought that was an interesting last name, Meatleg, who gives his location as "an American living in Japan".

P: What's the guy's name?

E: Erich Meatleg

S: Erich - E-R-I-C-H, I don't know if that's 'Eric' or 'Eritch'. And his last name is Meatleg, meat-leg

P: (in disbelief) No it's not!

S: That's what he wrote! That's what he wrote, what can I tell you?

P: That's his handle

S: Maybe

P: Right, go ahead

S: Maybe

E: Maybe it's 'Me-at-leg'

P: (inaudible)

(laughter)

S: It's his nom-de-email. I'm not gonna read- he wrote a very long email, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, and again it will of course be on our notes page. He writes:

Hi guys and goddess!

S: Now, you know-

J: Aw, man

(general sounds of dismay)

E: Don't call Jay a goddess, please.

B: Yeah, please, don't

S: It's just embarrassing, it really is. Alright, listen, listen, guys. Rebecca's not on this show, so we can talk behind her back. Now, and I'm talking to all of our male listeners out there, we've gotta lighten up on the whole goddess business-

P: What's going on?

S: -with Rebecca, it's really getting out of control

J: Well, what we need to let them know, Steve, is she's intolerable as it is

(laughter)

J: Don't give her anything to make our lives more difficult.

P: It does also make you all look like a bunch of pathetic geeks

S: Well, that's more to my point. Now, Rebecca is the Skepchick, so she's pretty much the voice of female skeptics, you know, more or less.

B,J,E&P: Absolutely, absolutely

S: And quite honestly, her vision of the skeptical movement is that it's overpopulated with middle-aged, or older, pathetic, desperate, nerdy guys.

J: I'm totally resentful of that

S: And everyone of these emails just reinforces that stereotype, so I think we need to, er, start working to reverse that a little bit.

B: So what do you want them to do? You want them to write in and say "Hey guys, and whoever that broad is on the show"? or-

S: I don't know, maybe we could become a little bit more dapper, and-

P: Maybe we can reduce her to a demi-goddess

(laughter)

E: "Hi guys and doll" how's that?

B: Skeptical rogues and roguette?

S: Rogues and the roguettes? (laughs)

J: Steve, let's let the listeners come up with what they want, let's see what they do

S: Ok, alright, we'll see what we get. He writes:

First off, big fan of the show. I recently discovered it and have worked my way back to the BCER (Before the Common Era of Rebecca). I have been too busy with a major art project to write until now, so here are a couple of things.

S: I'm gonna skip to the question that I want to answer. He basically had an experience he wants us to think about. He writes:

I was a sophomore in college … and I began my sophomore year in January having sat out at the fall semester for financial reasons. I was attending Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, which is a small private school with a student body of about 550 students or less. Some of my fellow sophomore classmates had mentioned in passing the name of a freshmen girl that apparently had some kind of ESP related to astrology (a double-whammy of magic crap!). One day I met her at the local Quicktrip (a midwestern convenience store) and I decided to test her out. I had never spoken to her before, but I recognized her due to the size of the school and the fact that we had seen each other in the cafeteria almost every day. I clearly remember walking up to her (henceforth I will call her Jane) and our first conversation went something like this:

P: You Jane, me Meatleg

(laughter)

S: Is that how it goes?

P: Sorry, guys, sorry

Me:Hi, how's it going?

Jane: Fine, how are you?

Me: Good. Nice eyebrows (she had dyed them a bright, unnatural yellow).

S: I guess she was going for that unnatural look

Jane:Thanks.

Then came the test time so I sprung the magic question.

Me: So, what is my sign?

Without hesitation, and true to school legend she immediately spit out "Virgo". Needless to say I was impressed, and as I said "Wow" and turned to walk away she blurted out "September 10th". THAT was the real shocker right there. On our first conversation and with limited exposure to my personality or any kind of real interaction with me Jane was able to deduce not only my astrological sign, but also my exact birthday. This was the rumor that other students had reported to me as a quick quirk of her character.

P: That's it Randi, get the check book out

S: That's it. He goes on, but that's the basic question, so what he basically wants to know is- he doesn't know what to make of this experience, he doesn't believe in the supernatural, but this was just an extraordinary experience he had in his life. What do you guys think about that?

J: Well I think obviously she found out that guy's birthday through one of his friends, or some channel, she found out what the date was. Of course.

P: Yeah, the thing that came to my mind is- remember, he said he saw her every day in the cafeteria, so somebody gave her the heads-up that this guy was skeptical of her abilities, and she did a quick study on him, or someone gave her the info, and bing, bang, boom!

E: He also gave her the info, as soon as she guessed Virgo, or whatever, he said "wow", obviously acknowledging that she is right, and then she says September 10th. You know, and the number 10 is interesting, because it's pretty much the middle of the month, which is I think an old trick of mentalists, right?

S: Yeah, cos that's likely to be as close to something

E: Right

S: Now, the other possibilities are that: one, she could've gotten lucky, there's only 365 days in a year, so it's not totally outrageous, and absolute lucky coincidences on that level should happen to us at some point in our lives, and this was his time, you know. So that's one possibility, I do agree that she was tipped off about him as a very, very likely possibility. It's also possible that she had this reputation because she had figured out some way of knowing her classmate's birthdays. Maybe people had IDs accessible, or something, or she was able to get that information easily.

P: Maybe she worked in the office

S: She could have worked in the office. It's also completely possible that she committed to memory the birthdates of all 550 of her classmates. That is not that extraordinary a feat, I know people who can do that. When we were younger, we took a memory course, there are pneumonic tools you can use where you can commit some kind of- especially some piece of finite information like birthdays, where you're dealing with months and days, and assigning that piece of information to 550 faces, actually would take someone probably a few hours, but is completely within human ability. It's certainly a more likely explanation than she's a psychic astrologer.

J: Yeah, I think we need to address the idea that it's much, much more likely that any of these took place, rather than her actually having psychic ability. And also, I'd like to add that if she really did have psychic ability, if she was that good, just look at someone and name their exact birthday-

E: Why isn't she guessing lottery numbers?

J: Yeah, you know, not even that, though Evan, let's just say that that's her magic thing, she can do that. Then where is she now? Why isn't she showing the world that she can do it. Who wouldn't show off if they could do that?

S: Yeah, she would've taken Randi for his million dollars.

J: Yeah

E: And more than that

P: Maybe she's like captain Healey, you know, has a genie but won't use the power

(laughter)

E: (sings "I dream of Jeannie" theme tune)

S: Well anyway, or she could be something that we haven't even thought of. It's obviously impossible for us to explain exactly how something was done in the past. We can't study, or scientifically investigate, a story about something that happened in the past. This guys memory of what happened is likely distorted by time. He may be leaving out or forgetting or distorting details that would be important in understanding the method that was used. All we can do is give alternative hypotheses, and employ Occam's razor. Alright, that's our email for this week, we have a very interesting interview coming up with Joe Nickell, so let's go to the interview now.

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.

Today I Learned...

• NASA study suggests the Earth is now warmer than it has been for 12,000 years (NASA link)
• A study of Titanium 44 found in meteorites indicates that solar activity has increased significantly during the 20th century, peaking around the 1960s and remaining very high (Press release)

References