SGU Episode 886

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SGU Episode 886
July 2nd 2022
A polymetallic nodule
SGU 885                      SGU 887
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
Quotes of the Week
-- Healthy skepticism is the basis of all accurate observation. -- We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
first: Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer second: Carl Sagan, American astronomer
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Snake Rescue, Mice, Cats & Dogs

Voice-over: 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, June 29^th 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: And that's it. It's just the three of us.

B: What is happening now.

C: Weird.

S: Evan is on a scheduled break this week. Is doing something with his daughter I think. And Jay's traveling. So he's also. He was sick last week. Completely unrelated. He may or may not be here next week it depends on what his travel plans are. It's the summer. Summer's very disruptive. There's going to be a lot of swapping in over the next month or so. But first I want to tell you guys about a nature encounter I had recently. We like to tell about our nature encounters. And as Cara likes to say we live in the woods.

C: You do.

B: I guess.

S: There are woods near my house. Yeah. So anyway Sunday was like a beautiful day like. One of the first weekend days where we didn't have anything scheduled. So we're doing a lot of yard work. My wife says Autumn, it's our daughter, found a dead snake near the garden. Will you get rid of it for us. So I'm like hmm. I immediately knew what would happened. Because we have I have fencing around my garden and at one point I put up some like mesh fencing to keep little critters out. And then it didn't work out so I got rid of it but there was some left behind. I'm like I bet you that snake got caught in the mesh.

C: Oh no.

S: So I went. It was a rat snake which is was a black rat snake. Not that big probably a juvenile. It was absolutely completely entwined in the mesh. And it looked dead. And so I was getting ready to just cut it out and get rid of it and it starts to move. Like ooh this thing is not dead yet. Now my daughter is a budding herpetologist. She's the one who owns a Blue-tongued skink. Plus my wife is a softie. She's like oh she my wife is like deathly afraid of snakes but still she's like oh the poor thing. Free it.

C: Yeah. (laughs)

S: Free it? I mean it was so entangled in this mesh. This is like fine a very fine mesh of like plastic. It was also like grown into the ground and everything, you know I mean? It's been there for years. They talked me into like fine. The thing looks like it's still alive. I'll see what I could do. So I─

B: Yeah what's the strategy.

S: It took me like 20 minutes. I painstakingly cut that snake out of the mesh.

B: Do they bite? Do they bite?

S: So well it bit me. But I was wearing gloves.

C: Okay.

S: And they don't have fangs. They just have rows of tiny teeth. So it kind of like bit at my it snapped at my finger at one point which I didn't even feel it because I was wearing a glove. But it was like surgery. I had to get the scissor between the snake and the mesh. It was so tight in places it was constricting him, you know what I mean. I was digging into it and I wasn't sure like how healthy it was but then I had to have my daughter hold his head so he wouldn't keep snapping at me while I finished cutting it away.

B: Oh yeah that's a good strategy.

S: Yeah. So we did. We cut it away and as soon as it was totally free. After taking a picture. We released it and it slithered away really fast.

C: That's good.

S: So I think it was not moving mainly because it was probably painful for it to move. But we freed it quickly enough that it I don't think it was that harmed.

C: That's exciting.

B: Nice. Good job.

C: It's like a good deed for the weekend.

S: I know. It kind of felt good to freeing the creature. Plus it eats vermin. It eats mice and chipmunks which─

B: Oh god I wanna buy some.

S: ─we have a ton of in our property. And they of course are menace to my garden. So I'm like yeah black snake in the garden. Good. Eat all the mice. Get rid of them.

B: That's awesome.

S: Yeah they're just a menace.

B: Should have put them in my basement.

C: Oh no you have mice in your basement?

B: We did. It was bad. It was an infestation.

S: Yeah we did a couple of times. We've always been able to get rid of them but it's a constant thing. Like you have to constantly be on the lookout. And we've now we basically just have a service that just constantly keeps our house vermin free.

C: Interesting. We don't have basements here. And we didn't in Texas where I was growing up either. That's like not a concept I'm familiar with really.

B: That's sad.

C: Yeah. We have attics.

B: Nothing like a good basement.

S: Well they'll get into your house whether it's a basement or not. I mean again like if you if you live surrounded by wilderness mice will get into your stuff. That's just the way it is.

B: Basically nothing you could do.

S: There's nothing they're just constant fact of life. You just have to live with them or you got to be vigilant about keeping them out of your house. But part of it is covering all the entry points but they're very small and they're good at making entry points. So you can just minimize them but there's no way you could really keep them out.

B: Yeah they can know a way at most materials and they can get through so surprisingly small holes. So tiny you wouldn't believe that they could fit.

C: You should get a cat Bob.

B: Liz and I have a cat.

C: And she's not a good?

B: Oh yeah she's left a couple, not a lot, but she's left a couple of dead mice around which is kind of cool.

C: Interesting. I had a cat once. Here in California in my first apartment I lived in I had a cat and she was the sweetest thing ever and of course I didn't let my cat outside I live in an urban center and you shouldn't do that. But she really did like the outdoor. So she would hang out on my patio. Like on my balcony all the time. And one time I came home and she had gotten a bird. From my fourth floor balcony.

B: That's what they do.

C: And I was like wow okay we're gonna not do that anymore. It was amazing. I was like you are a hunter.

S: Oh yeah.

B: Yeah it's like a holocaust for the birds. The cats.

C: For sure. Especially the ones roaming the neighborhood. But I had no idea she was skilled enough to do it from like a six by six patio. Wow.

B: They're amazing. I have such love and respect for cats now. We never had cats growing up so there's always dogs. Always dogs. Always wanted a dog but now that I've gotten used to a cat the past four or five years. I got mad respect for their agility. Just astounds me all the time. It's so much. They're so much more three-dimensional than a dog.

C: Well they definitely more agile. I'll give you that. But they're also a lot easier. I loved having cats when I was in college because I could just leave for the weekend and they were fine. I could never do that to Killer. He would die.

B: That's huge. That's huge. That's huge. But so I will say of course coming home from whatever and having a dog run up to you and lick you all over to me that. I try to get my cat to do it and won't do it. Will not lick me.

S: The level of affection from a dog is like an order of magnitude than most cats.

B: Oh my god.

C: Oh yeah. But they're also an order of magnitude more needy.

S: Totally.

B: Absolutely. Yeah. Leaving for a day--no.

C: Oh leaving for three hours. My dog acts like I've been gone for a [inaudible].

B: Oh wow separation anxiety is a thing for sure.

S: All right so guys one other thing. Earlier this week I pre-recorded a talk that I'm giving for Skeptical 2022. This is virtual this year. It will be live July 16^th and 17^th but some of the bits are pre-recorded. Also Evan was on their skeptity this year with Bill Nye so Evan will be making an appearance as well. My talk was on when skeptics disagree. It was all the big issues over the last 30 years where there was significant disagreement within─

B: Oh wow.

S: ─the skeptical movement among skeptics.

B: Touchy.

S: And why I think caused them and how they what's the status of them were they resolved or not etc.

B: I wouldn't touch that with a 20-foot pole.

C: That's brave.

S: It was fun. So that'll be airing during the conference. Just like with NECSS which is also coming up. If you buy a ticket you'll be able to watch it whenever. You don't have to be watching it on the 16^th and 17^th. And then speaking of NECSS that's coming up as well. That is August 5^th and 6^th. Also a virtual conference. Also you'll have access to the whole conference for a long time once you purchase a ticket. So the full details are on necss.org just go there you'll see the updated list of all the speakers we're getting. That's gonna also be a lot of fun.

Quickie with Bob: Gamma Ray Burst (21:34)

• Gamma Ray Burst [link_URL TITLE]

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

Mining the Sea (24:33)

• Mining the Sea

osmolarity

Science of Pregnancy and Abortion (46:04)

• After Roe v. Wade: US researchers warn of what’s to come

More Galaxies (1:11:35)

• There are more galaxies in the Universe than even Carl Sagan ever imagined

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:21:44)

Email #1: Can Dogs Talk? ()

Before I started listening to the show, I heard about this woman who has taught her dog to speak in sentences. It played into my environmentalist and vegetarian biases, and I was totally taken in. Reviewing it again though, I think it is possible that this is a combination of facilitated communication (she takes big liberties in her interpretation of the sentences), the Clever Hans effect, and cherry picking (she probably only shares the really compelling examples, when there may be many more failures). Would love it if you could comment on the current status of communication with animals, and whether you think the Clever Hans effect is at play here. Thanks for all you do, and this is just one example of how my thinking has started to improve thanks to your work.

Sincerely,
Bart T. Cubrich

Science or Fiction (1:31:39)

Theme: Snakes Item #1: Brazil has the most number of identified snake species of any nation, currently totaling 412. Item #2: There were an estimated 1.2 million snake bite deaths in India between 2000 and 2020. Item #3: Cobras have extreme accuracy when spitting venom, able to hit there targets consistently at up to 30 feet.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Cobras' 30-foot range
Science	Brazil is most snaked
Science	1.2m snake bite deaths

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Bob	1.2m snake bite deaths
Cara	Cobras' 30-foot range

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quotes of the Week (1:41:01)

Healthy skepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.
– Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British writer

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
– Carl Sagan (1934-1996), American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator

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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