SGU Episode 349

<Transcription currently in Progress by TimM>

Links

• Show Notes
• Podcast
• Forum Topic

Skeptical Rogues

• S: Steven Novella
• B: Bob Novella
• R: Rebecca Watson
• J: Jay Novella
• E: Evan Bernstein

Introduction

(0:00)

S: Hello and welcome to the skeptics guide to the universe. Today is wednesday march 21st 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella;

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson;

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novella;

J: *Jewish Accent* What is this? Pod-casting?

S: ...and Evan Bernstein

E: Good evening ladies and gentleman, how's everyone?

R: *Unintelligble*

S: Good, Fine and dandy.

E: Now this was some winter huh?

S: This is my kind of winter.

E: We barely had 'any' snow this year in New England, it was in the 50's for a large part of the winter in southern New England which is unheard of.

S: I love the vernal equinox becase it means the next six months the sun is in the upper half of it's course through the sky.

?B: I hope all of you have released your white owls.

S: Well anyway rebecca what else is special about this day?

Segment 1: This day in skepticism

(0:58)

March 24, 1989: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

[1]

R: Well, this day marks the anniversary of a quite horrific and march 24th 1989 was the day that the Exxon Valdex spilled oil into prince williams sow.

S: You just can't let it go can you Rebecca?

R: No, no me and the otters... pretty pissed about it still.

?E: One drunk sea captain, it helps(you know?), guides the boat into the low into the shoals and he pays for it for the rest of his life.

R: I think, apparently that's a... apparently that's a bit of a myth, the captain apparently was drunk but was not at the helm. The third mate was, and on the list of things what went wrong the biggest ones seems to be that the radar for detecting possible collisions had been broken for nearly a year. Also...

?J: And the captain was too drunk to know it. Apparently.

S: We'll get to that eventually.

R: And apparently all of the crew was severely overworked and exhausted and had been for quite some time. So those were identified as being the main causes why it ended up striking a reef and spilling up to possibly seven hundred and fifty thousand barrels of oil. It's not however...

E: Think of all the cars and furnaces that it would have provided heat and energy for. It's very sad.

R: Yeah, despite how devastating that oil spill was, it's not even in the top ten worst oil spills of all time. It 'was' the worst one in the US up until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. But yeah it's kinda crazy to think that there are oils spills happening all the time and some of them are much much worse than the Exxon Valdex. Yeah, there's a happy thought for you. The ship itself was recently auctioned off, actually. Just the tanker, just this week it was sold for scrap so apparently it was renamed the "Oriental Niceity"

S: Mmm hmm?

R: I guess as some way to trick people into to thinking it was err...

?B: For real? Oh my gosh.

?J: Might as well call it the happy xxx, what the hell?

S: The little nicenty?! That's odd. I've a funny Exxon Valdex story, i was in Epcot Centre in Disney world shortly after that oil spill and to the dinosaur exhibit was, I guess, funded by Exxon and before you get to see the dinosaurs, there's essentially a big commercial for Exxon. At one point they have this aerial shot of an oil tanker going through a harbor and they go: "The beautiful Exxon Valdex..." 'Course everyone starts laughing 'cause this is like right after the disaster they hadn't updated the ride yet.

?E: Time to update the rides...

?: DOH

R: A little embarrassing. Here's my question; I've always heard people call it the Exxon Val-deese but I don't understand why they pronounce it Val-deese, when it's obviously Valdez.

S: I don't know I'm just slavishly following what I hear.

R: Yeah I don't know, I think it's weird.

S: But at least we can have our super hero magical bracelets to make it all better right jay?

Segment 2: News Items

(4:25)

Superhero Pseudoscience

[2] ?B: Nice segway

R: That was a good segway Steve.

S: You know It kinda takes away from it when you say it's a good segway.

R: I know that's why it's funny, and every single time, Steve, you will never be able to do a segway without us calling attention to it. This is your curse.

?J: Steve jumped right into it, I wanted to loosen up a little bit before we say bad things about Marvel, 'cause there's some good things about Marvel like, you know i think that for super hero movies they've done a great job you know for the most part I've liked all of them and you know the Avengers movie is coming out and I'm really psyched to see it, its totally right in my sweet spot. I mean I love super heroes i love like you know science fictiony stuff like that. So it really was disappointing to find out that marvel and probably even more involved is the production company that they're using, the marketing company that they've hired for the averngers film, is sadly has, is selling some crazy wacky merchandise. So they're selling a magic bracelet a 'real' magic bracelet. Ala Powerband type BS.

?B: As oppossed to those fake magic bracelets?

S: They're not a toy, they're making actual claims for it.

?J: Yeah they are, here i'll get into some of the details here, the limited edition mag-tiggt neolegend has a carbon fibre surface finished with a coat of transparent resin that yields and attractive stylish design.

S: I thought you were going to say transparent aluminum. That would have been impressive.

?J: A hundred