SGU Episode 216

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SGU Episode 216
9th September 2009
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 1                      SGU 300
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Death is an engineering problem.
Bart Kosko
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Introduction

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

s: Today is Sunday September something - I think it is 6th and this is your host Steven Novella Joining me as always are Rebeca Watson, Jay Novella, and Evan Burnstein.
r:Hello
e:Can we help you?
r: You gotta love Dragon Con
e: Its Adam Savage
s: The q and a is at the end of this show
r: can someone come here and help me out?
<laughing>
<bob arrives 1:25>
b: I have a speech.
s: and apparently bob novella
e: Hey Bob
b: Ohoy you chumy skummy bilge rats (in a pirate accent)
s: Bob has always wants to say that
r: I thought we above gimmick
j: Rebeca - this isn't a gimmick - he is always wearing that
s: well welcome to Dragon con.
r: Look at you. Don't touch me.
s: Bob is in his un-dead pirate costume for the listeners that are not here
r: it works really well as a pod cast
s: Oh yeah. Oh Yeah So you gotta love dragon con. 2:21
s: first of all I want to thank Derek and Swoopy for getting skepticism and science and pod-casting in to a huge convention like this so thank-you Derrek this is only our second year but all ready we love coming here. I mean how often do you get to have your picture taken with Alex from a clockwork orange?
r: I'm hiding under the table. Not in a sexy way
s: apparently Andy McDowell has done some other minor roles but we know what he was. But jay keeps calling him Roddy McDowell
r: Yeah jay comes over to me and is like we met Roddy McDowell. Oh holly crap what did he look like.
j: shut up
<laughing>
s: and it is also great because we get to meet a lot of our skeptical friends from around the world that we only have a virtual relationship with and which we don't get to see in person very often. We just met for the first time Dr Rachel Dunlop from Australia. And of course many old friends now. s: Now I guess you are probably wondering why this picture is up there for. We've definitely noticed however that the skeptics are not in costume and it is starting to feel a little...
b: <murmurs>
s: ... most of the skeptics are not in costume. actually the four guys had a plan for a lame costume for dragon con. We were all going to grow goatees and come as our mirror image evil selves. But we failed but we could not grow decent goatees.
r: George Rhab grew one over night
s: It was pathetic. But here is the lovely Sheryl Loxten who was exploring steam punk as a possible skeptical costume. And I think she pulls it off very well. But we had to replicate this experiment. So.
<some picture is shown>
r: you are really making that work
s: so you can see Rebeca looking on adoringly from the sidelines
j/b: It is not adoringly Steve. As I was talking to her <unintelligible> 4:43
s: Don't brush my melon
r: Don't take my catch phrase
?: thats yours?
r: Well technically its don't <unintelligible>
j/b: This picture is George (Rhab) with his incredibly large invisible girlfriend
<picture>
s: I love taking pictures of George Rhab because he is always the sharpest dressed guy in the room. Which I suspect is why he likes hanging out with skeptics
j/b: we make him look good
s: Yeah we lower the bar a little bit. Here we see that jay finally perfected that shrink ray he was working on.
<picture>
j: That was one hell of a night guys.
s: Though he insists that not everything shrunk equally.
s: wait for it.
s: Last night at 12 o'clock when everyone is partying I am saying like we have to prep the show. We have to have to have a show tomorrow. This is Rebecca's response.
<picture>
r: you have no way of knowing

News Items

s: so we have a few news items that we are going to cover and then we are going to leave most of the show to some live questions - that is always our favorite part

Item 1 (Google and UFOs)

s: So yesterday we were looking through some news items and Rebecca found this one. 6:31

r: I did. I get a google alert on the most ridiculous things and one of them is UFOs. And the Internet went crazy yesterday because google mysteriously put up a UFO logo and nobody could explain why. And normal people would be like oh Ok there's a UFO on Google. Thats great. Not normal people flood the internet with comments like the one you see on the screen there which I'll read in the style in which it is written.
r: You won't believe it. I got a video that is showing a ufo. This could be most scaryiest video ever reported except look it up.
r: And you know we got a chuckle out of this because what is it with Caps Lock and crazy people? Why?
j/b: But Rebecca people use caps lock so much now we need something past that. So I was thinking we need super caps lock. It needs to be like twice as big and it needs to make noize.
s: or yeah and it needs to be blinking.
r: for when caps lock isn't crazy enough for you.
r: But the best theory thought for it I saw for it was that yesterday in New Hampshire there was a UFO festival. So maybe thats why. Maybe because of Dragon Con. Who cares. The Internet cares obviously.
<banter>

Item 2 (Mongolian death worm)

s: So here we are looking at a picture of the Mongolian death worm. 8:14
s: You have to say it like that or it does not mean the same thing
r: you use super caps lock
j/b: And this is clearly out of a D and D book
S: right. The only thing more fierce than this is the Alaskan bull worm. And all you parents out there might get that reference. But other wise no - not so much.
r: no no.
s: I thought I had heard of everything but even Joe Nickle a famous cryptozoologist and sceptic had not heard of the mongolian death worm.
r: I've heard of the mongolian death worm. I love the mongolian death worm.
e: YOu thought is was a dance though.
r: It is part of my ?? voice style
j/b: That mouth obviously does detend (sic) damage.
<banter>
r: I love the mongolian death worm because take a creature that is not at all frightening - its just a worm - and yet somehow ... It like that thing from Tremors - is Tremors that one from Kevin Bacon? -
s: Yes.
s: And so yeah but to make is scary they say that it spits acid and farts lightning. (9:38)
e: why are we talking about this
s: we are talking about this because some guy called Richard Freeman - which I thought was the guy from halflife right -
r: The nerd jokes are coming fast and furious now right
s: we have got our nerd game up.
s: So he thinks he found it right. He's launched a mission into the Gobi desert and said we are gonna find the Mongolian death worm or the things that sounds that and hes now got his press releases out saying after his expedition he doesn't have the actual worm. Right. But he says the worm certainly exists . When we talked to people in Mongolia they were all quite certain about that. They did not believe that it spits electricity but they did believe that it was venomous.
<laughing about some joke unclear to us>
s: They are very afraid of it. A whole family packed up their hut and moved when they heard of sightings of the worm. So we launched a scientific expedition into Mongolia and came back with anecdotes. That's research money well spent.
b/j: Rebecca could you please read the first two sentences with cap locks. <10:47>
r: the worms really exists we are quite certain of that.
<banter> 11:00

Item 3 (Chupacabra)

s: Since we are on Cryptozoology - do you guys know what this is? audience: its a dog
r: obviously it's not a dog. It's Chupacabra

References