SGU Episode 874

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SGU Episode 874
April 9th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 873                      SGU 875
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
I simply wish that, in a matter which so closely concerns the wellbeing of the human race, no decision shall be made without all the knowledge which a little analysis and calculation can provide.
Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and physicist (Use a first reference to an article attached to the quote. The second article reference is in the QoW section. See Episode 762 for an example.) -->
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Show Notes
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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 Tuesday, April 5^th, 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: Good evening everyone!

S: How are you guys doing?

J: Good.

E: Not too bad.

J: Pretty good.

S: This is our first show recorded in April.

Declining April Fools' jokes (0:34)

S: We kind of blew by April 1^st this year. I don't know if you guys noticed, like April Fool's Day it's not really a thing anymore. Have you noticed that? Is it just us?

C: Well the one thing that's not fun about it is, I want to say, so April 1^{st what day of the week was that?}

E: Friday.

J: Monday I thought.

E: April fool's!

C: It was Friday? So I was in Mexico this past weekend. Like the second half of the week and the weekend. And they had their daylight saving and no one told us.

E: Oh no. (Cara laughs)

C: So we just like lost an hour one night and we're so confused as to why the flight times didn't line up on the way there versus on the way back. They were like, so that's kind of an April fool's joke but not.

S: I've come to the conclusion, just, as one of my life, you know, lesson things, is that yeah you know, fooling people is fun for you and never fun for the other people. And it's kind of a dick move.

C: It is a dick move.

E: Yeah.

S: Isn't it? It's just, kind of lost all desire to do it.

C: And it's either like not funny or yeah it's kind of sad. Like my friend and I drink a very similar pourover coffee, I think I might have had you guys try it once when we were traveling together. And they did, the company did like an April fool's e-mail. But they didn't, obviously mark it as an April fool's e-mail, so they were like 'you asked and we delivered - shrimp lattes are now available' and they did a whole thing about these shrimp lattes and then at the end they were like 'only today'. And my friend sent it to me and they were like this is so gross why would they do this and I was like because it's April fool's idiot. But just like did not even register.

E: On a certain level there's so many weird things that go on in the world it seems nowadays it's almost─

S: It's redundant.

E: ─right, it gets lost.

C: It gets lost, it's like an Onion article.

E: Right, I mean, you can look at something any day on the internet and think it's April fool's day. It's all blended together now.

Completion of the Human Genome (2:24)

S: So I read an article recently and Cara you independently found the same article. We've finally completed the human genome!

E: No no no. No that happened in 2003.

S: Yeah, like wait, did that happen in 2003?

B: I found the article too. It was too boring to mention. (laughter)

S: It was a little interesting.

C: It's a big deal. Just doesn't feel like it.

S: When they sequenced the genome they didn't just sequence the exome, you know, which is just the parts of the genes that get made into proteins. Although like if you get like a genetic sequence now, that's what they're doing, just the exome. They're not bothering to do all the other stuff. And if you do like the swab analysis to the companies for 300 bucks, they're just doing a snip analysis, they're not even sequencing your exome, they're just looking at little markers. But anyway, but no, I thought, I thought they did pretty much the whole genome. But there was pieces that they never got to because they were hard. Mainly the centromeres and the telomeres.

C: Yeah, those are pretty important. And I mean, I think didn't it account for something like 8% overall?

S: Yeah, yeah.

C: That's a lot.

E: So they lied to us 20 years ago.

J: Yeah what's the deal with that?

C: They round it up. (laughs)

E: I feel a little cheated.

B: If you've read the details, you'd know.

S: Yeah we get to that third or fourth paragraph, you know, where they're getting into the details, there's always that little caveat, although it was only 92% of the actual genome, whatever. They extrapolated the rest but now that they have it's helpful because we, you know, we it's good to know how. Like the centromere is like the middle of the chromosome and that's very important for lining them up and the cell division. And the telomeres across like the end caps that are, that are important for longevity, you know, they tend to shorten over our lifespan. And just knowing the structure of the DNA for for those, you know, anatomical features, you know, is helpful to understanding how they work.

B: But not dramatic.

C: But some of it is like legit coding. Like this what they're calling the satellite DNA the repetitive sequences that are really confusing and they weren't really able to figure out back then. Like I was reading like 50. like 50 genetic disorders are linked to variations in that satellite DNA over by the telomeres. Including Huntington's.

S: Yeah so it's not nothing.

C: Yeah it's not nothing. Like it it does something. And then there's these transposable ones, these like this DNA that can jump around and that wasn't all fully coded. And lots of mutations there underlie, you know, some genetic disorder. So they're, they're real biomedical consequences to this as well. Imagine you've got one of those genetic disorders and 20 years ago, like yes, we got the genome, like well, we didn't do your areas that you're focused on. Maybe in 20 years we'll get to it. 20 years.

J: Two weeks.

S: Almost 19 years ago. 19 years.

C: Yeah, that's amazing. I can't believe 2003 was 19 years ago. Stop.

More Phishing Emails (5:12)

S: I definitely have seen an uptick in phishing e-mails in the last few weeks, have you guys?

J: Few weeks oh my god.

B: For me texting Steve.

E: E-mails, text messages.

S: Yeah definitely but just, there's definitely a, I've gotten an uptick, that's all I'm saying, you know.

C: Oh, interesting.

J: What kind?

S: Well...

E: What are they selling you?

S: I'm getting bank. But I know they're fake. And, because you know it's saying stuff that I absolutely know is not true. And it's always be like 'you're about to overdraw, click now', you know. Like I know, I know I'm nowhere near that happening. And now I got one from Coinbase which is like 'somebody just tried to withdraw money from your thing' and 'click now to verify'. I'm like, you know.

C: Mine are always like 'you won a gift card'. Like yeah, I almost never get any from my bank, from like the fake bank.

E: Oh the virtual, I get the virtual currency ones regularly.

C: Wow.

S: Yeah the panic clicks, wait a minute, somebody bought something from my account, hold on now. DON'T CLICK NOTHING.

J: I don't know if you guys get the similar thing but I get a ton of emails that are all about like okay my bank, Amazon, Home Depot─

C: Home Depot! I always get the Home Depot gift card one.

J: ─Citibank and everything. But the thing is and it might be, it might be because like Gmail is is doing something to the e-mail. But it's like they spell out Home Depot home., I mean h.o., you know, like it's─

E: Yeah.

J: ─it's the title of the business with dots in between the letters.

E: Or lowercase h capital o.

C: Yeah they probably trying to get past filters.

J: Yeah I was thinking that, I was thinking that too but it's so obvious that it's fake.

C: I know, it's like they'll catch it in the next patch.

E: They only need to get, you know, a fraction of a percent of people to click on that thing to pay off. That's it.

B: It's the numbers game. I keep getting like for I've been getting, for me the uptick has been in text. Texting. And because I'm much, you know, I'm, I monitor my text much more closely than my damn e-mails because I get inundated with e-mails. But so here's a classic one I have just here: "Hey" it says "I changed my number. How are you doing, we haven't been in touch for a long time." That's it like oh yeah this is, yeah, I'm sure this is a friend who doesn't, he doesn't use my name.

C: I've never gotten one of those.

B: And part of me is like, I'd love to like explore it 'hey, how you doing', like either play a joke or just try to see what their end game is. When are they and how are they going to try to get my credit card number basically or bank information. That's got to be this, the scam but I'm just curious how they would do it. But it's just so frustrating, it's like really? How stupid do you think I am? I mean but I know there's people that fall for it and it's just like not stupid, it's just like like, my mom, if my mom saw a text like that, she would fall for that, it's just like, she's not used to it.

E: Elderly are the most common victims of this stuff.

C: I don't think I've ever gotten a scammy text before.

B: Yeah?

C: I think, I think the only ones that I get are marketing texts about like 'Do you want to sell your house?' and 'We can send you a good offer' like 'buy your mortgage'.

J: Cara is that what you think their voices are like? Do you want to sell your house?

C: Bopbropbop a mortgage (laughter) and I'm like, yeah okay. But I assume that those are just legit marketing. Somehow I ended up on a list somewhere.

E: Oh you're on many lists.

C: Yeah. But those are just marketing, I don't think they're trying to like. I mean, I've never clicked on them but I don't think they're gonna try and like steal all my info. I think they're literally like we would like to buy your house. Or we would like for you to refi your mortgage with us. And I'm like no thanks. It's so funny too, because everybody's offering these like mortgage deals right now. But have you noticed interest rates aren't as good as they were. So it makes me laugh, they're always like 'We can get you a 3.7%', I'm like that is not good compared to what I have, I don't want that. Stop trying to sell it to me.

S: All right well let's move on to some news items.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

Life on Europa (8:58)

• Europa Clipper Mission and Life on Europa

Ancient Skull Surgery (22:46)

• North America’s oldest skull surgery dates to at least 3,000 years ago

Artemis Stuck (30:11)

• Stuck valve stalls NASA's 2nd attempt to fuel giant Artemis 1 moon rocket

Most Distant Star (41:48)

• Hubble Telescope Spots the Most Distant Star Ever Detected in Outer Space

Fake News (54:15)

• I'm a fact-checker at Snopes, the internet's authority on viral hoaxes. Here's how I tell if news is fake.

Who's That Noisy? (1:02:09)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Sonification of a spider web

New Noisy (1:06:27)

[somewhat creepy beeps, chimes, and vibrating strings with intermittent whirs and synthesized chords]

J: ... Just go out there and tell me if you know what it is. And also...

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:12:54)

Email #1: Evolution & Racism

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_
with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Interview with John Kiss (1:17:34)

• John Kiss, Professor of Biology Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at UNC-Greensboro

Science or Fiction (1:33:16)

Theme: IPCC 2022 report Item #1: Carbon intensity (CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes per unit primary energy) decreased by 3% per year since 2010, mostly due to rapid increases in wind and solar energy. Item #2: In 2019 22% of worldwide GHG emissions came from agriculture and forestry, greater than the transportation sector at 15%. Item #3: 83% of cumulative CO2 emissions since 1850 were produced prior to 1990.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Carbon intensity decrease
Science	Agro & forestry > transpo
Science	83% emissions prior to 1990

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Evan	83% emissions prior to 1990
Bob	Agro & forestry > transpo
Cara	Agro & forestry > transpo
Jay	Carbon intensity decrease

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:48:15)

I simply wish that, in a matter which so closely concerns the wellbeing of the human race, no decision shall be made without all the knowledge which a little analysis and calculation can provide.
– Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), Swiss mathematician and physicist

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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