SGU Episode 802

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SGU Episode 802
November 21st 2020
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 801                      SGU 803
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements, will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness.
Steve Allen, American television personality
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

Voiceover: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

News Items

S:

B:

J:

E:

C:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Resisting Facial Recognition ()

• Resisting the rise of facial recognition

Farming Mars ()

• Farming on Mars will be a lot harder than ‘The Martian’ made it seem

Sound Beaming ()

• New device puts music in your head — no headphones required

Hydrogen from Ammonia ()

• New technique seamlessly converts ammonia to green hydrogen

Who's That Noisy? ()

• Answer to last week’s Noisy: _brief_description_perhaps_with_link_

New Noisy ()

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups ()

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_ with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Science or Fiction ()

Answer	Item
Fiction	Coherent AI sentences
Science	Crispr vs cancer cells
Science	Fast-forming diamonds

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Cara	Fast-forming diamonds
Bob	Coherent AI sentences
Jay	Coherent AI sentences
Evan	Coherent AI sentences

Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Item #1: A study in mice uses a new CRISPR technique called CRISPR-LNP for “lipid nanoparticle” to attack cancer cells, increasing survival by 30% in glioblastoma and 80% in ovarian cancer.
Item #2: A recent test of AI natural language processing (NLP) was able to generate coherent sentences from a list of common nouns and verbs that could not be distinguished from human-generated sentences by test subjects.
Item #3: Scientists report a new technique for forming regular gem diamonds at room temperature in only minutes.

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

One reason we must have a moral regard for the idea of reasonable communication is that caring passionately about truth, about accuracy, and about the proper relationships of statements, will diminish errors and ignorance and other kinds of foolishness.
– Steve Allen (1921-2000), American television personality

Signoff/Announcements ()

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

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• Fact/Description
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References

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