SGU Episode 379
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| SGU Episode 379 |
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| 20th October 2012 |
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| (brief caption for the episode icon) |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
R: Rebecca Watson |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Guest |
JIS: Jamy Ian Swiss |
| Quote of the Week |
You can do magic with science, but you can't do science with magic." - |
Erica Dunning (Brian Dunning's daughter) |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| SGU Podcast archive |
| 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 Monday, October 15th, 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: Hey, guys.
S: And Evan Bernstein.
E: Oh, good evening, my friends. How are all of you?
J: Good, what's up?
R: Super!
S: Quite well.
This Day in Skepticism (0:31)
- October 20, 1970: Norman Borlaug wins Nobel Peace prize for Green Revolution
R: So, the day that this podcast goes out, October 20th, marks a very important date in science history. So in 1970, a scientist received the Nobel Peace Prize. Can any of you guess who it was?
E: A scientist received the Nobel 'Peace' Prize.
S: Was that Linus Pauling, right?
R: Nope.
S: He got the Peace Prize.
R: Any other guesses?
J: I have no idea.
E: 1970.
J: Isaac Newton.
R: (laughs) They don't award them posthumously, so... no.
E: Yeah, right.
R: Okay, time is up.
E: (disappointed) Aww!
R: On October 20th, 1970, the Nobel Peace Prize went to Norman Borlaug.
E: Yes!
B: Oh!
R: For his contribution to the 'green revolution'...
B: Norman!
R: Which increased grain production throughout the third world. Yeah, he is responsible for possibly saving millions of lives.
B: Oh, how awesome is that? What a legacy!
E: Borlaug?
J: Cool!
R: Yeah, just for coming up with ways to grow crops that was more efficient, that produced more yields, particularly in Pakistan and India, during times when they had severe shortages of food, and even drops from the US weren't enough to protect people from starvation, so, yeah, his research went into saving many, many people. So, yeah, he has the Nobel Peace Prize, he has the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honor, and he's in the United States National Wrestling Hall of Fame!
B: Wrestling!? (laughs) What!? Didn't see that coming!
R: Yeah.
E: Wrestling with tough ideas!
J: What has he got? What'd he do?
R: He was a wrestler.
B: Oh my god!
R: I don't know, he was really into it.
B: What a Renaissance Man.
R: Yeah, in high school, apparently, he played several sports, but he was particularly into wrestling, and he was on the team at University of Minnesota. He was in the Big Ten semifinals, he introduced the sport to Minnesota high schools by putting on exhibition matches around the state. So, Wrestling Hall of Fame, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Who knew?
J: That's awesome!
E: And the Peace Prize winner, cool!
R: Norman Borlaug.
S: And he lived to 95. It's a good run.
R: (agreeing) Mm-hm!
B: Oh, wow!
News Items
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2:48)
S: Well, we have one Nobel science prize left over from last week that we didn't talk about, the Nobel Prize for 2012 in Chemistry. This one goes to two scientists, Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka, for their discovery and description of G-protein-coupled receptors. You guys familiar with that?
E: It's a rap artist!
R: Nope!
S: So, I mean, they're huge. G-protein-coupled receptors - they're present on -
B: They're really small.
S: On many cells, and they are responsible for cell signaling, essentially how cells can sense their environment and react to things like hormones. It's estimated that half of the drugs that are on the market have their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors.
E: That's a lot.
B: Wow!
S: That's a lot. Definitely a breakthrough in our understanding of cell physiology and biochemistry, so it's hard - it's one of those things where it's fundamental, it's not really the kind of thing that penetrates to public consciousness, cause it's kind of technical and wonky, you know, G-protein-coupled receptors.
E: Obscure.
S: But they're really fundamental to cell function and just - was a tremendous breakthrough that gave us a lot of - had a lot of applications. Now you take it for granted, we hear about them all the time.
B: Yeah!
S: You just take it for granted. This is how different drugs work, etc., how different signals work.
E: But they figured it out.
B: So when was this breakthrough?
S: Definitely worthwhile. So Lefkowitz started the research in 1968, using radioactivity to trace cells' receptors, and then Kobilka joined the team later and discovered the genes, the first G-protein-coupled receptor gene. Now there's something like over a thousand different genes, it's a huge family of genes. They control - these receptors are involved with perception of light, flavor, odor, response to adrenaline, histamine, dopamine, serotonin.
B: Flavor?
S: Yeah, obviously very fundamental to neurological function as well.
E: Do you think they stumbled on this accidentally, Steve, or do you think they were looking -
S: Oh no! He was looking for it. This is a very specific program of research that paid off very, very well.
B: So, what took so long to give them the prize?
S: I don't know, this is pretty par for the course for the Nobel Prize. They definitely like to wait a while to see the implications of researches - they have the luxury of giving it 20 years or so to really see how scientific discovery pays off.
R: Whether or not it's debunked.
E: (laugh) Yeah.
S: Yeah.
E: Or, say, whoops, this discovery causes mutations in all sorts of people, we shouldn't be tooling with this stuff.
S: Some monsterism.
DNA Half Life (5:39)
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Simulated Universe (12:15)
Supersonic Jump (27:41)
Russian Geoglyph (36:10)
Who's That Noisy? (41:38)
- Answer to last week: Hulda Clarke
Interview with Jamy Ian Swiss (44:37)
Science or Fiction (1:02:15)
S: Item number one. The 1926 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Johannes Fibiger for his discovery of "a cure for cancer." Item number two. The New York Times announced that the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics was to be shared by Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, but they never received the award, it is rumored because neither man would consent to share the award with the other. And item number three. The 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine was shared by Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz for the development of the frontal lobotomy.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:15:07)
You can do magic with science, but you can't do science with magic.
Erica Dunning (Brian Dunning's daughter)
References
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