SGU Episode 865

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SGU Episode 865
February 5th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 864                      SGU 866
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Officials, educators, media personalities, and opinion makers must do everything they can to educate the public, assuage people’s fears, and show that the pandemic is being handled fairly and rationally. Lives and people's well-being are at stake, for years to come.
Nidhal Guessoum, Algerian astrophysicist
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Introduction

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, February 2^nd, 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: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Well it's Groundhog's Day again.

S: Groundhog's Day? Yep it's 2 two two zero two two.

E: And numerologists heads are exploding all over the planet.

S: Yeah February 22^nd will be the next date where it's all 2s and then I think that's the last time that happens this century, right?

E: Until the year 2202, so 20 000 years from now.

J: I didn't see any weirdness about it which was good, you know you figured somebody would have said something stupid.

S: Yeah it's true I even didn't, didn't know it was Groundhog's Day until Evan mentioned it right before.

E: You forgot?

C: So I have to tell you guys something fun that happened the other day.

E: Oh OK.

C: And by the other day I actually mean it happened in December and I've been trying to remember to tell you every week and every week I forget. So I'm very excited now. This past December I went to Vegas with a friend who is a physician and we attended a conference that was put on by the City of Hope here in Los Angeles about end-of-life stuff. Also went and gambled in between sessions and by the way here's my advice if you got to stay in Vegas stay in a hotel that doesn't have a casino it was so nice.

E: They have those?

C: Yeah the Waldorf doesn't have, I mean it's too expensive the only reason I was there because we had block deals for the conference but yeah no casino so no cigarette smoke no nothing like very clean, very nice.

B: Also no gambling.

C: No noise yeah but you just walk to the casino next door.

B: That's true.

C: Leave that behind. Anyway so we decided to go someplace off strip and we, we called it a Lyft and the Lyft picked us up we're in the lift we're talking talking talking in the back seat like you do, fully masked you know because this is height of the pandemic and the Lyft driver goes "Are you Cara Santa Maria?" and I was like yeees.

E: Maybe.

C: And he was like "I listen to you all the time on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" (laughs) and he recognized me by my voice because─

B: Wow.

C: I know he couldn't have seen my face I was like wearing a black mask and a black, it was cold too so I was wearing like a beanie and a─

E: All bundled up, yeah.

C: ─puffy jacket and stuff yeah and he─

B: Wow.

C: He could hear my voice and.

B: Is that what he said tell me all about Bob?

C: (laughs) He did I forgot about that Bob yes he did he did, he asked for a lock of your hair.

B: That's amazing though you're just your voice.

J: Did it creep you out at all?

C: No I loved it the guy was so sweet I asked him like what Vegas was like, he told me his whole story, he definitely was working in a in a kind of skeptic-y kind of a field you know, was kind of answering all my questions about what it's like being a local in Vegas, that must be kind of an interesting phenomenon right? Vegas is one of those cool cities where the population is relatively low but the floating population is very high.

S: Yeah the tourist population's high.

C: It's huge yeah and so just kind of what it's like being an insider in Vegas and everything and he was super sweet so shout out to Jonathan my Lyft driver.

E: Hey Joe.

C: Hopefully you're listening right now. You were very nice.

J: He's gonna drive off the road Cara.

(laughter)

S: We've all been recognized you know a couple of times, out in the wild you know, like not associated with a skeptical event or something where people are coming to see us but just like in the general po, gen pop you know and it's usually my voice.

B: Gen pop (laughs)

C: It's weird when it's by voice.

S: Because you think about it, you're you're more likely to attract attention that way, you know people will hear you know you hear a voice you recognize in an airport or a lobby or whatever.

B: Or a horror convention.

S: Yeah.

E: Especially when our medium is an audio based medium so.

C: But it's weird that sometimes they they say a lot like I didn't know what you looked like, so so for the vocal recognition to overpower any lack of visual recognition, is just that much more powerful.

E: Oh I could easily identify people if they were in the room just from their if they were radio personalities from you know─

C: Really?

E: ─from past 20 or 30 years absolutely I feel I could recognize them and pick them out of a crowd.

S: But think how much more weird that must be for them than for us right, so imagine you're a Lyft driver and you hear a voice you recognize. Yeah that that's, it's a much less likely event for them.

E: Right.

S: I so the first time that happened was in an airport you know, and it wasn't associated with it, it was like a vacation or something, there was no skeptical event and just some random person walked up to say "Are you Stephen Novella?". So I calculated what the odds of that would be, and it was it was very high because you think about the number of listeners we have versus the number of people in the country. You know it's order of magnitude about every 3 000 people you know there should be somebody in there who listens to us. And so I was in an airport with you know several thousand people someone in there probably was a listener of the show. So it wasn't that that big of a coincidence you know.

C: But being paired up with a with a driver.

S: That driver's a little bit more yeah.

C: Yeah that's that's funny.

S: Are you a, Cara you are but are you happy that this is a rare event or like how?

C: Oh for sure. I there there have been times in my life where I got recognized more often when I was on like bigger tv shows and actively on them. And I mean it never was huge I was always very lucky it was like minimal. And there have been times when I've been recognized for you know the podcast and for other work that I've done. But of course I've dated people and I've had dear friends in my life who have quite a bit of success and it's annoying to them. Like I feel kind of bad for them. I think there's a part of it that's exciting but there's also a part of it where they struggle to have privacy. Like they have to think about what they look like every time they leave the house. And they have to you know there have definitely been times when I've been out at dinner with somebody and people just walk up to the table and start talking to them and they're like "thank you so much but like i'm on a date".

J: Yeah sure.

B: Oh yeah.

C: You know can you give us a privacy?

E: Yeah.

S: Right.

C: That must be tough you know and even those people would say I'm lucky I don't have paparazzi waiting in my driveway for me to leave my house.

S: Yeah, there's different levels of fame, yeah.

E: That's right.

B: Yeah the upper levels.

C: Like I just get a good table at every restaurant but I don't have people like you know hounding me all the time.

B: Yeah there are certain levels that must be like totally life-changing, absolutely life-changing whether you can't go out in public and you you know you always have to think of you know boy what's going to happen today with the paparazzi. What are you, what are they going to you know they're going to catch me picking my nose in public again? Or or something worse far worse these poor people that are caught you know, getting out of a car I mean this is like oh come on really?

C: But not all of them are that's the other sad thing. Some people are famous because of something that happened to them because of a court case they were involved in right because.

S: Yeah this is you know part of a bigger issue of just privacy in general, just for regular citizens you know let alone you know the people who are famous. And we may have to figure out ways to carve out islands of privacy you know in the otherwise social media you know constant you know life where we at any point somebody could be filming us or taking our picture recording us or whatever.

B: It's just going to get, it's just going to get worse.

S: It's going to get worse.

B: Yeah imagine when there if there's when there's you know quintillions of particles of smart dust floating─

E: Oh forget it. Right, exactly.

B: ─everywhere each one is like a high-res video camera it could be anywhere.

C: Oh god stop.

E: You'll be breathing cameras into yourself.

C: You're so good at describing the most like dystopic scenarios.

B: Oh I got lots of them here's Bob's you-ula.

J: Cara, Bob likes it.

C: I know. It's utopic to him.

E: It's the Brave New World, right?

B: Yeah, yeah the tech is awesome but some of the downstream effects I'm sure won't be. But many of them will be, double-edged sword.

Quickie with Bob (7:57)

• Scientists Invent Flubber: UMass researchers create new material that can store and release 'enormous' amounts of energy

S: All right Bob you're actually going to start us off with a Quickie with Bob, and this Quickie I'm going to tell you what it's about because you stole my one of my science or fiction items.

E: Good, we'll only have two items to guess from tonight.

S: And you just tell me, tell me until right at the beginning of the show you were, you were late in telling me your topic for this so you're gonna tell us.

B: So now you're gonna...

S: I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal your thunder I'm gonna say you are gonna tell us about scientists who basically invented flubber.

E: Fiction.

B: Yes thank you Steve I knew you had your eye on me this this is your Quickie with Bob now gird your loins this one is cool.

C: Ugh.

B: That's an expression I don't know. That's a great expression.

C: What does gird mean, what does that verb mean?

E: You look at your loins and you're like grrrrd.

B: It's only you know it's only used in the context of gird your loins as far as I can tell.

C: I'm looking it up.

B: And I love it, please do. Okay while you do that, so teams a team of researchers from the university of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a new meta material, my third favorite material in the world, with properties not seen in nature. Which is kind of what meta materials are. So researchers compare it to a rubber band for example, a rubber band that you know, you can fling it across the room right? You pull it back you let go and you fling it across the room. But this one if you go with this analogy, this one if you stretch it past a certain point before letting it go it flies for a mile. So that gives you an example of kind of what they're talking about in a way. It's an elastic material with magnets embedded in it. It's elastomagnetic material that harnesses the energy released by phase shifts. Now think back 11^{th</supe>, 11<supe>th} grade physics. Phase shifts like when liquid turns into a gas, water turns into steam, releases energy right, there's a lot of energy that can be released in these types of phase shifts. Now there are some phase shifts though that happen when you go from one solid phase to another solid phase and but you still have this energy that's released. Now this phase energy if you will can be released or absorbed and the magnets can control when that happens. So what this could do then is this met- this elastomeric meta material can do then is allow a large amount of energy to be absorbed or it can be released quickly, very quickly for an explosive movement. So yes this is the path to a black panther suit. Clearly, because his suit if you remember the movie had two of those, had both of those properties but I'm sure they were you know well whatever. So until until that happens we may see it in robots to give them more power─

E: Oh yeah.

B: ─using it without using additional energy, conventional energy anyway. We'll see it in helmets and other protective materials which would be able to dissipate a lot of energy very quickly. So I have to keep this under a minute which I think I blew past. So now Cara loins ungirded this has been your Quickie with Bob I hope it was good for.

C: Bleh, it took on a whole new meeting with the girding and ungirding.

B: Yes it it seems especially good for this Quickie with Bob so I may keep it.

E: So the magnets retain the energy and you it can be released upon a trigger happening is that?

S: No the magnets are more about controlling the the the phase shift, the phase shift is what stores the energy so a phase shift is like going from liquid to ice you know but it could also be one state of matter to another state of matter and if one and if one of those states one of the configurations requires is a much greater higher energy state when you shift from the low energy state to the high energy state you absorb all that energy that's now being stored in the higher energy state. And if you go back it releases all of that energy so it's a you know it's a rapid energy storing system but that also because it's like a rubbery material it could be used as Bob said for armor or the soles of your shield so that you could dunk baskets.

B: Meta materials are endlessly fascinating because when because when you when you describe a material by invariably, this is a material that is not found in nature I mean it is do when you pattern things at the at the nano scale like like this like like they're doing with typical meta materials, it is amazing what they're accomplishing and I, I cannot wait to see you know what what other new materials are are coming out. It's it's like never ending there's like one new meta material after another. I've read about another one just today that the description of it was electro momentum, look it up, I mean it's just so fascinating and this is one that I just wouldn't have even imagined electro you know elastomagnetic meta material. Incredible. And and harnessing phase that you know the energy released by a phase change, my god, incredible. I think we're just scratching the surface with just with this specific meta material. Who knows where this could go.

Random Asides about English Words (12:44)

S: Bob I want you to imagine doing the following things let's say you're wearing a tunic that goes down to your ankles. You pick up the bottom of your tunic pull all the fabric above your knees.

B: Yep.

S: Now gather all the material in front of you right. So it's tight around your bottom but all the extra material is in front of you. Bring that material down between your legs to your backside.

B: Gotcha.

S: Then you grab each you know sort of half of the material bring it around to the front and tie a knot in it.

B: OK.

S: You have now girded your loins.

C: (laughs)

B: Nice.

C: Exactly, yeah, to encircle or bind and secure and yeah it has translated into we're girding for battle we're getting ready to action.

S: Yeah you couldn't fight or work with tunic going down to your ankles you had to gird your loins before you could go into battle.

C: And of course yeah what about the word girdle, yeah similar.

B: There you go there you go.

C: Also such a gross word. Girdle.

S: My girdle.

E: Girdle the turtle.

S: Girdle the turtle.

B: Is there, Steve and Cara, I haven't looked it up is there another give me a use of the word gird that that's you know that's viable.

C: Yeah I need to gird my sword to secure it with yeah.

B: It makes sense but nobody says it I, I think it's one of those words that really only remains in this one expression in English, gird your loins, otherwise.

S: The first definition is encircle a person or part of the body with a belt or band.

C: But interestingly Merriam-Webster actually lists that as the second definition and their first definition is to prepare yourself for action.

B: Yes that's it.

C: So they sort of seeing this as sort of Bob's way.

B: Yeah that's one of those words that just it's one of those words that when you think about it you're like yeah, I know this word it's in this expression I know it very well I've known it for decades. But that word is not used anywhere else. It's a remnant.

S: So like fell, like one fell swoop do you ever use the term fell as in one fell swoop in any other context?

B: Yeah.

S: You could.

C: Or like or like home in on or like a homing pigeon those are the only references you ever use the word home. But I guess it's more specific there I don't know. My favorite is once I had a friend ask me Cara define the word such and I was just stumped, couldn't do it.

J: I can't do it.

E: Such...

B: Wow it's a good one.

C: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

E: What part of speech is "such".

S: It's a and such.

J: Like similar to it was like.

C: The first definition in Merriam-Webster is "of a character of a kind or character to be indicated or suggested", what?

S: Yeah it's a weird, it's a weird one.

B: That must be a very hard word to learn, when you're learning English, how to use that word properly.

E: Or pronounce it, they all say suck.

C: I bet you interestingly I bet you a lot of people for whom English is not their first language unless they really are fluent they probably just don't use it because it's not really necessary.

S: Well I mean but there's something like if you say oh he is such a jerk how would you say that without?

C: He's a total jerk.

S: He's a yeah.

C: Yeah he is the jerkiest of all jerks. I think there are ways to work around it.

S: Yeah yeah.

B: There's a lot of ways, to of ways.

C: It's kind of like in Spanish if you don't know the if you can't conjugate in the future tense, you can just say "voy a" like "I'm going to". Just put that before everything and it's a crutch─

B: Voy a hablar conmigo.

C: ─and you see that a lot with people for whom English is not their first language they might use the same tense over and over because it's like why do I need to learn all these tenses I can just speak in the present tense.

S: I'm liking this very much.

C: Exactly, yeah right that's a function of language learning.

News Items

Machine Learning and Mental Health (16:32)

• Deploying machine learning to improve mental health

S: All right well Cara you're going to start us off with the use of machine learning and mental health.

C: Yes and spoiler alert─

B: Got my attention.

C: ─someone named Dr Steven Novella wrote about this today on Science-Based Medicine

B: Oh he's a punk.

C: I really like this story because it's not really about the background, I'll give you the background, it'll be quick and dirty. But really it's about it's, it's about the conversation that it opens up. So long story short a researcher from MIT and a researcher from Master General one of whom is a computer scientist or really an AI researcher who focuses on machine learning. The other of whom is a mental health researcher, you know behavioral health. Decided to join forces and try and see what happens when we collect data about mental illness and specifically they were looking at depressive disorders. Let's see what happens when we collect a whole bunch of data, about depressive disorders and feed it into a machine learning algorithm. And so we know that machine learning is like a kind of a sub type of, AI in which, and we talk about machine learning on the show all the time. We've actually dug really deep into the mechanisms of machine learning before on the show. Although it is to some extent still a black box. But the idea here is if you feed a machine learning program a bunch of information, like real world data it will then be able to categorize sort and start to make determinations based on that data. And like I said it's a bit of a black box we don't really know what the algorithm they're using are because it it's iterative. Or I should say recursive?

S: It's, it's both but yeah yeah, it was recursive because the other layer I would add there for this kind of machine learning is that there had the the program has to make some kind of determination.

C: Yeah.

S: And and then gets feedback, like it knows if it's correct or not. And that's.

C: Right right there has to be an external sort of validation to that.

S: Yeah, there's got to be some feedback, yeah.

C: Yeah and so the idea here is okay what are the determinants of a depression diagnosis. So some self-report stuff some assessment information and then also like what are some behaviors that are associated with depression. So they were looking at things like wearables which I mean we're going to talk about that in a second but they're looking at things like heart rate and skin conductance and blah blah and sleep and and activity level. But they were also like data mining with texts which I think is probably honestly the number one piece of data that's the most predictive. And and the self-report surveys of the individual saying you know this is how I feel you know let me rate my symptoms x to y. And then the idea is with external validation they wanted to first say okay does this comport with clinical diagnoses. I think that's like in in many ways the first step, right? Like does this work? Well we have to know and we need to externally validate it well what's the way to do that if these people sit down with a clinician is that clinician going to diagnose them with you know x disorder. People love to talk about this in a really saccharine way and say oh it could be great, it could be you know, it could blow the cover off of access to mental health treatment. And to some extent I feel very very hopeful about the democratization of the sort of "new self-help movement" I think because the "new self-help movement" in mental health is much more evidence-based. But there's always room for for quack technology and and and quack not technology but quack utilizations of the technology. And when I make that statement I want to caveat it. We are living in a culture and a society that is more obviously, has more access to to tools online than ever before. And a lot of mental health treatment is actually psycho-education. It's about learning about what a disorder is learning cognitive behavioral interventions tools and tricks to help understand our thought disturbances, and our thought distortions. And help correct some of these things that's not all of mental health treatment but it's an important part. And so whereas in the past, and still to a huge extent today, sadly people would think oh I want to better myself I'm going to read some like Tony Robbins. Now people do have access to reading legitimate literature about mental illness and they have access to evidence-based apps and evidence-based workbooks. Manuals that are used within mental health treatment. The problem is they're not guided by a clinician.

I think there's multiple things that are important to tease out here. The first one being and it's it's something that I don't think has been pointed too much in in the coverage of this, is that there's a big difference between having a diagnosable mental illness and experiencing "typical symptoms". Like there's a difference between having major depressive disorder and sometimes being depressed. And that difference is somewhat arbitrary because it's a construct right? It was invented by people but those people have all kind of come together to agree and publish standards. Those standards are constantly in flux but for the most part they publish standards about you know, these are the the sort of qualifications for somebody to have a diagnosable mental illness and maybe they need medication management or therapeutic management. Versus you know sometimes I get sad. And I think there's also a difference in how you approach the sometimes I get sads with the this is clinical depression that is interfering with this person's ability to function and potentially there are some like concerns around suicidality or concerns around you know really terrible dangerous outcomes. And and I think making that distinction is important when we talk about the use of these technologies in the future. And I think sometimes sadly they get lost in the shuffle. People love to talk about oh maybe you could send an alert you know their smart watch could send an alert to their physician to tell them that they're potentially suicidal. And I'm like first of all I don't I don't know if that's ever gonna happen. Maybe. But second of all that's a very different utilization of this technology than indicating to you you're feeling low maybe it's time to go on a walk.

S: Yeah there's definitely different levels there but it's sort of all the same idea that it's going to gather data, look for patterns, correlating your behaviors with your mood either self-reported or evaluated by your physician. And then when it starts to see the same pattern of behaviors happening again it tells you hey you're slipping into the same pattern maybe you should sleep more. Or get some more physical exercise get out of the house you know or whatever. But that is would would have to that's beyond the scope of the development of this technology.

C: For sure that's all in the discussion section.

S: Yeah now you're getting into clinical trials of applying this technology. Then again when I wrote about it as of my main fear is I mean the technology will work it will do what it's supposed to do. I mean these AI algorithms are way more powerful than need to be for something like this.

C: Yeah we know this from marketing data right like yeah like Facebook knows more about me in some, in some ways than I know about myself.

B: Yeah.

C: Like they know what I want to buy they know what I'm gonna click on just based on my patterns that I've never taken the time to introspect about and that's sort of what we're talking about.

S: That's kind of a deeper question of how predictable are humans. We like to think that we're all individual snowflakes (laughter) but psychological research is kind of based on the idea that people kind of do the same thing. At least 60-70% you know what I mean, like it's not never 100% but you can.

B: It's not a coin flip but yeah.

E: There are patterns that can be determined sure.

C: Yeah and a social social psychologist, you know think think Kahneman think these different researchers who have you know kind of joined this idea of economics with psychology. Yeah we can predict behavior pretty pretty well. You're right some people are going to be on the tails of that normal curve but, yeah, but there's a normal curve.

S: Yeah, but there's a normal curve. We're not all over the place. Richard Wiseman talks about this all the time that's what he researches his interest is in looking at how to predict how people will behave with very specific stimuli.

E: Isn't that what like mentalism is practically about?

'S: Yes, yes absolutely.

C: For sure.

S: Mentalism wouldn't work if people were unpredictable, magic wouldn't work if people weren't predictable you know absolutely. So it's partly based on that premise, that people are going to be fairly predictable although this could theoretically also individualize the basic pattern you know, it's looking for your patterns not just the patterns of depression.

C: Right.

S: But then figuring out how to use, it's going to be the tricky part. And you know it could be they they talked about in the article recommending changes but that could be flipping the direction of cause and effect. It's like you're not sleeping as much and you're depressed so sleep more. Or it could just be that not sleeping is not causing you to be depressed it's a result of you being depressed. Or they're both the result of something else happening like increased stress and just saying sleep more is like a facelift it doesn't really treat the underlying problem which is changing a marker so this is where this is where the clinical research has to come in.

C: Yeah. I think in some ways that's one of the biggest problems with CBT, I think that you know we have made this the gold standard because it easily can be utilized in randomized controlled trials it lends itself to scientific. Like the way that we test drugs we apply to these psychological interventions and CBT just is good at that because it's highly manualizable, it's highly consistent, you can sort of do the same intervention to different groups that are randomized. The problem is that very often what we're looking at is a very acute intervention for a very acute symptom. And we're not really looking necessarily at why is that person having the panic attack. Like we might be able to intervene and teach them really good tools to sort of get grounded again, to get their breath back and to feel calm and feel safe and sort of not not go into the throes of panic. But what we're not getting deep into is why panic attacks consistently happen in their lives.

S: Yeah and that's I don't think this tool is for that you know.

C: That's what mental health treatment is for.

S: I agree, I think this will this is obviously not going to replace mental health treatment this is one more tool that could be useful for gathering behavioral information about specific individuals. And then also maybe providing some useful feedback either to them or to their practitioner. And you know you could you can envision a lot of situations where somebody who has obsessive-compulsive disorder they're starting to get into more and more obsessive behavior. Or someone who's anxious, who's starting to get physiological signs of anxiety that's starting to ramp up.

C: That they may not now this right away.

S: Oh yeah or somebody with depression or yeah leaving the house as much as they did yeah whatever. They might not be consciously aware of it yeah until it gets more severe and it might just trigger and sort of a more of an early warning system. So it'll be useful I think. But but at the same time I mean I think it will be used appropriately. But it will also then be completely abused it will be like─

C: Absolutely.

S: Download this app and treat your depression with this individualized personalized AI powered algorithm that will find out what what's making you depressed, you know what I mean. It'll be─

C: Yeah. Traditional therapy is hard and expensive but you can do this in only five minutes a day.

J: While you're sleeping.

E: So it'll unfairly target those who can't afford otherwise, to get the right kind of.

S: Well I don't know I don't know about that I, because this these kinds of things tend to target the worried well people who have disposable income. In fact there was a recent study that's that showed that the advent of tele-health you know with the pandemic, decreased socioeconomic disparities in access to healthcare.

E: Cool.

C: For sure it did.

S: So it's good it's been a very positive thing.

C: Yeah and I think an app could do that too.

S: Sure.

C: Because I think what a lot of people, what's important to realize if you've never gone through a heavy course of mental health treatment or sort of peeled the curtain back behind this whole industry, is that you know I had a supervisor who said it really well recently. She always tells her patients at the beginning my goal is to make myself...

S: Irrelevant, redundant.

C: Yes thank you not irrelevant or redundant but like my goal is to make─

S: Unnecessary.

C: ─unnecessary, my goal is to help you become your own therapist.

S: Yeah and that goes beyond mental health Cara because, especially with the advent of smartphones and technology you know a lot of modern medicine is teaching patients to take care of themselves.

C: Yeah it's like preventive care.

S: Yeah. Like yeah you can't be looking over your shoulder. You're gonna treat your own diabetes or migraines or whatever it is I'm just going to give you the tools to do it and teach you how to do it, but you've got to do it day-to-day because you're the one living with yourself you know I can't be there─

C: Absolutely.

S: To monitor what you're eating and you give you your insulin or whatever you got to do that. So this that's these kind of apps I think will help with that paradigm where we are really helping patients manage themselves. Because now this becomes an extra tool.

E: Patients generally do bad poor managers of their own when left to their own devices?

S: They're all over the place there but there are patients who are excellent, who are you know just like almost too much, like they're so completely on to you know on top of things and at the other end of the spectrum there are people like they don't even know what medications they're taking.

C: Yeah.

S: You will see the full full spectrum.

C: This tool could be used for very nefarious purposes or incredibly beneficial purposes.

S: Yeah and it will be used for both.

C: And it will be used for both yeah yeah.

S: Totally.

Hardy Tardigrades (30:07)

• Living mysteries: Why teeny-weeny tardigrades are tough as nails

S: Yeah okay let's move on Jay you're going to tell us about how hardy tardigrades are. Hardy tardy.

E: Hardy tardy.

C: Party tardies.

J: So we've talked about tardigrades before many times, they come up on the show every once in a while I think Bob you love them, don't you?

B: Oh yeah they're so cool. I've been following them for many years.

J: In case you don't know, tardigrades are microscopic eight-legged micro animals. They're about the size of one grain of salt.

C: Animalcules.

J: They are they are. They were discovered in 1773, they like to live in moist places so you know dirt, damp, moss, lichen, underground.

C: Pods, right?

J: Yeah underwater sediment they love it. They're found all over the world, wherever these conditions exist and the most interesting attribute they have in my opinion is how tough they are. They're super tough, they have incredible fortitude or seemingly you know their fortitude is is incredibly high so the question is why?

S: It's so high Jay they have five etudes.

(laughter)

J: So why would this micro animal be so capable of extreme environments? So for example they can withstand 500 times as much radiation that would kill a human being. And this includes all types of radiation from gamma rays to x-rays so on top of that they can survive in extreme temperatures from -273°C which is -459°F to 180°C which is 330°F. That is a massive, massive temperature spectrum. Where humans can live where Steve? What would be your summary on human temperature?

S: I mean comfortably you know we like 70° but we could live in places that you know having average temperatures that are range from you know 0 to 100.

J: Not without special clothing though.

C: We also have like, we have like houses.

S: We have structural clothing, oh yeah totally. Think about how fastidious we are.

C: How quickly do people get hypothermia like what temperature?

J: Yeah, we're not we can't we're not even close to what what these tardigrades can do as far as temperature and pressure changes it's important─

S: You mean naked it's very narrow.

J: It's very narrow 75°.

E: Naked and afraid.

J: So it's it's important to note that that's colder that temperature -173°C that's colder than anywhere on Earth, right? Weird. Like what, so why would they why would they be able to withstand that type of temperature that doesn't exist on the planet that they're from. So we also mentioned previously on the show that they can actually survive in outer space, remember that article we talked about?

B: Yeah.

E: Yes, mhm.

J: They've been tested to survive up to 10 days in raw outer space they can be desiccated shrivel up and when put back in water you know they act like nothing happened. Which is amazing this this is truly amazing from an outside perspective you know scientists were saying things like, that's not like what the natural world does, like they shouldn't be able to do that because why would they be able to do that, right? Those these are the questions that scientists are asking. So when they shrivel up their their metabolism is stopped, right? When they're desiccated they have no metabolism that means they're not breathing that means they're not using oxygen anymore. But, it's still alive. There is still life there even though the metabolism isn't happening which is another thing which is incredible to think about, right? Because metabolism is life so it's suspended in some kind of stasis. Now by the way a human will die if we lose 30% of our water and in most cases that I've read about here with the tardigrades that they're losing you know north of 97% of water. You know which is almost 100% desiccation. So when a target is dried up it's called cryptobiosis which I love, I think that word is so cool. We know that most places often dry up at some point on Earth, right? You know it's not like it's wet all the time everywhere. So tardigrades in response to that they had to evolve to handle those dry spells. So they could do it for months and probably longer. This is an important piece of information, when you're deducing why tardigrades are so hardy it seems that being able to be desiccated, means your bodily tissues can withstand some serious extremes right, that's what it seems like on the surface. But let's dig a little deeper. A lot let me go into details of what happens when when when tissue is desiccated. So cells will shrink and then they'll eventually rupture or crack. You know they shrink down they'll look you know look like a raisin and then at some point you know the fissures will appear and you know the cells interiors interior will seep out which is very bad. Desiccation can also make proteins found in the cells unfold and stop functioning you know protein is no longer a protein at that point. And this is a very bad thing to happen because proteins do a lot of the things for your for the cell, right? The proteins are are a major major factor in the function of a cell. They control chemical reactions that cells need to metabolize food which is huge. Desiccation also causes the water and cells to break down, right? To break down the water breaks down it's no longer water it breaks down into hydrogen and hydroxyl. Once that water turns into hydrogen and hydroxyl those chemicals now let's call those chemicals they can damage the cell's DNA because they're considered free radicals. The DNA contains all the instructions to make all the needed proteins, right? So if your DNA gets damaged once that once it's damaged it's over that is the true end. Well our little buddy's DNA does actually get damaged when they dry out. So what's going on? They have evolved to withstand DNA breakages to a certain and certain and survivable degree. So right when your DNA starts to break down the strands fracture they disconnect and it just turns into a bunch of free-floating different kinds of proteins at that point. And as we know─

C: Nucleic acids.

J: ─yeah sorry nucleic acids. Right so it breaks down into into the base nucleic acids and then what?

C: Probably just becomes a waste product so I mean and really that's not even the dangerous part, right? It's not all the like bits of of not necessary DNA. It's the fact that you now no longer have this important coding.

J: Of course.

C: Or, it's broken so I mean this is cancer this is most diseases right it's DNA damage like this is very scary stuff.

J: Right like speaking of like DNA damage like we know radiation damages DNA, right? That we I already said it here and it's a big deal we don't that's why it's hard for humans to travel in outer space, you know because it the radiation is a huge problem. So this is why tardigrades can tolerate radiation. Because of their ability to be desiccated. In fact they've been observed to lose 24% of their DNA and still survive. And just so you know that's a lot yeah that is a lot. So scientists believe that tardigrades are probably able to repair their DNA somehow they're not sure but they're they're just assuming now if it gets damaged in some way, it's probably getting repaired because the the creature lives on. So the the strands we're going to have to reconnect somehow where the breaks occurred. But, Cara there's more because I figured you'd want to hear this. Another team of scientists found that there's a unique protein produced by tardigrades that attaches onto the dna strands, like a protective coating it's like armor. Now check this out those scientists took that special protein gene and inserted it into human cells to see what would happen. Of course they did of course.

C: Yeah that's what I would do.

J: Yes of course, yeah like why wouldn't you? So they have these they have these new cells that you know cells are reproducing in the dish. They they now insert the genes into these cells you know so the cell can make the protein themselves. And that one gene one gene was able to make the cells make the protein which is really cool. Then they expose the cells to a deadly amount of radiation WEEH right you turn that thing on. But the special protein was able to protect the DNA and the cells freaking survived.

B: Wow.

C: Oh this is, this could be a game changer.

S: You know what this means Jay?

J: What?

S: Means we're going to be inserting that gene into our astronauts, so they can survive the radiation of space.

J: Dude that's where this is heading, that's why they're studying, that's why we built her. So okay, so all in all they found five unique special proteins that help tardigrade sell to survive. I just explained one of them to you I'm not going to go into all of them but I'll give you a little more cool stuff. The tardigrade's ability to withstand drying out also likely explains why they can handle low temperatures and high temperatures, right? Because that that destroys the interior of cells as well. So as cells temperature drops for example water seeps out of the cells. The cells lose their shape and they crack this is what happens when human tissue go it gets you know very low temperature. Now tardigrades have a protein that helps maintain the shape of their cells. So check this out as the cell dries up this gooey protein becomes stiff and it turns into rods and those rods essentially hold the shape of the cells.

C: Well that right there is what's keeping them alive when they're metabolically inactive, right? Because really when our metabolism breaks down, that's what death is, when our metabolism breaks down are those phospholipid layers, those those cell membranes if they break apart we're done.

J: Yep.

C: Like it is what keeps us functional is to have these these boundaries. These boundaries between ions, these boundaries between molecules and you know very often when we experience trauma or when we experience a metabolic breakdown and those things fall apart - that's it. And then all the toxic crap leaks out then that's death that's decomposition and the fact that they can keep their cells intact is massive.

J: And it's not just that the you know so this gooey protein turns into rods that end up being like architecture inside, but then when water is reintroduced that protein turns back turns soft again it goes right back to where it was, right?

C: Right because it won't work if it's not.

E: Just add water.

J: So the scientists again tested these proteins in human cells and they were able to function and protect the cells. It's like what it's like─

B: Man I want some of that stuff.

J: ─we're getting handed this playbook you know like somebody this is this technology is is really well, I shouldn't call it technology it's evolution, you know these genes that produce these proteins the fact that they're testing them in other species cells and their functioning is incredible. And that they're seeing it you know they're actually doing it and seeing it work it's unreal. So other researchers have tested inserting these proteins into plants, right? Now follow this, they turn they put them in to plants to see if they could withstand more radiation right so or similar amounts of radiation found in space. And again the plants that had the added protein survive better than the non-treated plants. You know now again what you said Steve let's let's fully shift into that now. So now okay why do why do scientists study tardigrades? Who cares? Why do scientists study all sorts of weird things out there that may seem worthless?

E: Yeah right, who cares?

J: Right we stumble on these you eureka moments where we find something you know we discover something that has actually has an application and impact on future technology and future applications. So yes Steve it is possible that someday some version of this protein astronauts could be altered genetically and be able to withstand temperatures withstand radiation better. Who knows who knows where it could go?

S: Yeah.

C: Well and who knows how this would, how we could utilize this to fight against certain disease processes. I mean that to me is much more interesting than making super astronauts.

S: Or astronauts.

C: (laughs) right.

J: Cara I have to admit the sci-fi fan in me when I was reading this and you know, and I'm trying to read as much about it as I can all over the place and I got to a certain amount of data in my head and then it occurred to me. I'm like this I go we're the this is pretty amazing. Like maybe the the idea of mutants is ridiculous, right? That they could do all this crazy stuff you know Wolverine and all that. But the if there is any freakish thing that's going on in a good way that's going on in human cells it could be like this type of stuff like proteins that do specific things that are profoundly effective, that's almost like being a mutant. Imagine if we came up with hundreds of them or thousands of these improvements you could you know just think about the potential here of what proteins can do.

C: I just can't stop thinking about cancer.

S: If we if we did inject these protective proteins some into somebody would they grow four extra limbs?

J: Who knows man that's up to that's up to those people.

B: I'd be okay with that.

J: I am just a humble servant of science here. I just, I just wanna. I love finding out things like this because not only does it make me branch off and think of so many other things but just think you know this is where it all happens guys this is what one of the things that science does that is truly discovering the way that our universe works.

S: Yeah. The potential applications are huge. Of course, whenever you're talking about genetically modifying humans, that's a really high bar in terms of proving safety, but it's theoretically possible. And we may have to do it if we're really going to be a spacefaring race. But we'll see. Alright. Let's go on.

DNA Microfossils (43:29)

• DNA Microfossils and the Woolly Mammoth

S: Have you guys ever heard of DNA microfossils?

J: No.

Belief in the Paranormal and Credibility (54:55)

• Do Stormy Daniels' beliefs in the paranormal make her unfit to testify in lawsuit against her former attorney?

Tesla Robots (1:09:17)

• Can Elon Musk and Tesla really build a humanoid robot in 2022?

Who's That Noisy? (1:18:50)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Tonga volcano eruption

New Noisy (1:21:44)

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

really think about that one

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:23:48)

Email #1: Joe Rogan and Spotify

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_ with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Science or Fiction (1:34:36)

Theme: Materials science Item #1: For the first time scientists have been able to create a two-dimensional polymeric material, that is six times stronger than bullet-proof glass, and twice as strong as steel at one-sixth the density. Item #2: MIT engineers have created a biological “duct tape” that can be applied to internal organs, adhering in seconds and lasting for months. Item #3: Scientists have engineered a cultivar of cotton that creates fibers with almost the tensile strength of Kevlar.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Kevlar-strong cotton
Science	Super-strong 2D polymer
Science	Biological “duct tape”

Host	Result
'	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	Kevlar-strong cotton
Jay	Kevlar-strong cotton
Bob	Biological “duct tape”
Cara	Kevlar-strong cotton

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:53:56)

Officials, educators, media personalities, and opinion makers must do everything they can to educate the public, assuage people’s fears, and show that the pandemic is being handled fairly and rationally. Lives and people's well-being are at stake, for years to come.
– Nidhal Guessoum, Algerian astrophysicist

Signoff

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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