SGU Episode 879

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SGU Episode 879
May 14th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 878                      SGU 880
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
Quote of the Week
Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.
Lisa Randall, American theoretical physicist
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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 Thuesday, May 10^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 folks!

S: So how is everyone's. We're starting to finally get some spring weather. Not quite there yet.

C: Oh really? It's like it's been spring since January (laughs)

B: I hate you. Yeah we had a rough winter.

C: I'm sorry.

S: Well the winter wasn't bad. This year like the last two years it's been a mild winter but a cold long spring. And then it jumps right to summer. Like there's none of that cool. There's none of that like 60-70 weather. Goes right from 50 to 80.

B: Maybe you got less snow than we did we seem to be we hit with an amount of snow that needs to be shoveled more than usual.

S: (inaudible) nothing.

B: Yeah we got a little bit more than you I think.

Nostalgia at the End of iPod (1:10)

S: So it's the end of an era guys, did you hear this?

C: What era?

S: Apple is ending the iPod.

B: Wait is it that even still that was still a thing? Geez.

C: I love my, I'm so glad I still have one.

E: I still have one.

J: I still have mine too.

S: I have a few.

J: Why would they be killing it now? Do you know what's the deal?

C: Because probably nobody's buying them.

B: Yeah.

S: I mean most people I think just keep their music on their phone or their stream. They don't really have a separate dedicated device.

C: Yeah but it's just like on Spotify.

S: Who has one touch cameras anymore it's your phone that's your one touch camera.

C: But I will say the time, the only time I use my iPod, but I'm still glad I have it. Because I have the, is it the nano, the one that's ultra thin?

S: Yeah that's a small one.

C: Yeah, it's not the shuffle, not the teeny tiny one.

E: I have the shuffle.

C: You have the shuffle. It still has a screen but it's like crazy thin. It's like half the size of a credit card.

B: What's the capacity 50mb?

C: No it's big.

E: My shuffle is 2GB, which is not huge but.

C: Yeah and I was saying, so my nano is probably bigger than that. But I like it on planes. Because─

S: Yeah.

C: ─I don't have to if I'm not online I don't have access to my whole Spotify library because I don't have the whole thing downloaded to my phone. And then I don't have to think about it. I already have playlists curated. I have like an airplane playlist. I also have like a dentist's office playlist for when I'm getting my teeth drilled into.

B: You are crazy, wow.

S: Yeah that's exactly what I do. I have an iPod touch still and I use it really only when I'm on planes.

B: I actually have older phones that's got stuff that I never moved off. And I use that for like; I've got like some awesome podcasts that I've got saved on there. And some of my music. So when I need to listen to that I just grab the old phone and play that.

S: That original iPod when it came out that was a revolution.

B: Oh that was magical.

E: 2003?

S: 2001. So and it was the Sony Walkman of its (inaudible).

C: Oh the Walkman.

S: It was also a revolution when that came out.

B: You had portable private music. That's, that was nuts.

S: The original iPod could hold a thousand tracks of music.

C: That's funny that was a big deal.

E: Which back in the day it was huge.

S: That was a lot.

C: Bob I just looked it up. My iPod nano has 16GB.

B: Sweet.

C: So that's enough to hold a lot of music. It's 4 000 songs.

B: I'm sure they've been increasing it all these years. I just haven't been paying attention to anything about iPods.

J: If I'm remembering correctly like when you buy one today they look exactly like an iPhone, right?

C: Oh gosh hope not, that's enormous. Oh the touch? That's why I like my nano, it's teeny tiny.

J: Oh you know what Cara though? I couldn't. When I own things that small they get washed. (Cara laughs).

E: It's true.

J: I need it to be a device. It can't be like a little doodad.

C: I have my pair of like Bose over ear headphones that are like the most comfortable headphones I've ever owned. And they have a carrying case like a hard case. They fold up they get small and they fold up in it. And inside that case I have my iPod nano. And this thing called the iFly which is like the greatest invention ever. When you're on an airplane you plug it into the headphone jack and it turns it into a Bluetooth device so you don't have to be corded into your into the TV on the airplane.

E: You can go to the bathroom you still be listening to your music.

C: Yep. You don't get tangled up in the cord. You don't have to pull it and like fall over the person next to you. And so I just keep all those small airplaney devices all in one place─

E: Sure why not.

C: So they don't get lost.

E: Like many other medium when it comes to audio listening in 10 years apple can reintroduce it as the retro iPod and they'll sell another 15 billion dollars worth of that product. You know cassettes came back. Vinyl certainly made a huge comeback.

C: You know what I have? I have the at the re-release of the NES, the Nintendo.

E: Oh gosh.

C: It's great.

E: Does it have a bunch of pre-loaded games?

C: Yeah that's how it works. It looks exactly like the old one but it's like a quarter of the size. Because you don't have to put games in it. It's all digital.

E: Right.

J: Yeah well it has all the games already like loaded into it.

S: In the software, yeah. It's awesome.

E: It's what Atari did years ago with their console.

J: I'm looking at iPods right now and they look exactly like an iPhone. And you know the 219-300 bucks.

C: Yeah people probably just aren't buying them.

J: Yeah I mean because you do have; with streaming today I mean you basically have everything at your fingertips at this point. So having a dedicated music and app device doesn't seem; you know why would you have that and it doesn't have any of the things that the phone can do as far as calling people.

C: And it being the size of a phone it's like I don't wanna carry two phones. I know people like a lot of people I know have to carry two phones for work and it's annoying.

E: The iPod I think in a way relates a little bit to this show as well because of Apple's iTunes which came out when we were and then we came out.

S: Just before.

E: Yeah, right. iTunes had come out just before we started podcasting. And it, that was it. It was the iPods that people were listening to the Skeptic's Guide on earlier than you know using that portable player more than anything else. That was it.

C: Oh how funny.

E: There's definitely a nostalgia effect.

J: Without a doubt Evan. I totally agree. I mean I remember loading our podcast into my iPod and having it be like a huge thing. Like it was a monumental thing for me.

E: It was a moment definitely.

J: Yeah, definitely.

S: But now you could stream 90 million songs on Apple's streaming service.

C: Right right.

E: How far it's come oh my gosh.

S: But clearly it's like all the things you were talking about Cara. There's better technology. A better platform. People will move to it. But then there may be nostalgia for the older tech. And there may and people may say you know there was this one time when you can't stream and having my dedicated. So sometimes there's just there is a niche for the older tech. It doesn't completely go away and then people get (inaudible).

C: Totally agree. Totally agree. Like like my big ass over ear headphones. People make fun of me they're like why don't you just wear your air pods? And I'm like because they hurt my ears after a while. I mean I like them, I wear them for certain things but I don't wear them on 10-hour flights.

J: No way yeah. Forget it. It's got to be over your ear.

C: Gotta be.

S: Yeah it works better plus if you want like noise cancellation that works better over ear.

C: Exactly, yeah.

J: So I like the vintage looking one here like the fifth generation used vintage classic. It's the one that has the wheel.

S: Yeah.

C: Oh the wheel.

E: Makes that click noise. Click click click click.

J: Yeah I like that. I would definitely like to have one of those.

S: You can you can buy them on Amazon. I'm looking at one right now. Apple iPod classic 160GB, seventh generation. 300 bucks.

C: (inaudible)

E: 300! Yeah you know but then right I mean you know spending 300 bucks right now for an iPod?

C: I know. That's a luxury for sure.

E: That's a little tough.

S: Yes I don't know if I would buy one but I'm just sort of hanging on to my old ones until the batteries are gone.

C: Yes same.

B: Surprised they lasted this long.

C: Yeah mine's still going super strong. Yeah and I think that's part of it too. We don't use it that much.

S: And that's the other thing is that when you're on a long plane trip having a device; the more devices you have with the fully charged battery the better you'll be able to get through the flight. I don't necessarily I don't wanna drain my phone's battery just listening to music. I'll just use my iPod for that.

B: That's true.

Cara's Car, Interesting EV Features (8:40)

C: And I don't wanna have to keep it plugged in the whole time and have all those wires everywhere. I completely agree. Hey guess what?

S: What?

E: Tell us.

C: My car finally got to go back to the shop. You guys will be so excited for me. I don't know if you remember my saga of my car being in the shop for like two months. But when I got it out my charge port was broken.

J: How that happened?

C: It's sure happened while it was in the shop. I don't know. And I just didn't notice. And so I went to a different dealership because I was over that dealership. And I was like my charge port's broken and they're like we've seen this before. We have to order you a whole new charge port just because it wouldn't click into place so I can charge my car. And they're like they're back ordered it's like of course they are. So the for the past several weeks I've been driving only very short distances. And every time I drive somewhere I'm like oh no I'm losing mileage. And so I was really starting to get worrisomely low. And they called me yesterday night and said it's in you can bring your car in tomorrow morning. I was like yes.

E: Relief.

B: Oh my god.

S: That's interesting. That's something I didn't think about. One little piece of your electric car breaks you cannot use the car.

C: Yeah well and it's really just if that piece breaks. The piece that the charger connects into. But I have been driving electric for now 10 years and this is the first time this has ever happened.

E: My car works great I can't open the gas lid though.

C: Exactly. That's exactly the same thing.

S: Wonder if they will eventually put in like an emergency backup charging port. Even if it's smaller and it you can't charge as quickly but just something to use if (inaudible) is broken.

C: I know because it's all in one place. And the really annoying thing is the only thing that's broken about the port is this little metal clip. So the it's like the charger has to clip into place. And if it doesn't snap it doesn't recognize that it's there so the car doesn't start charging. And that little clippy thing just doesn't clip into place.

S: One little clip, the whole car.

C: And they have to replace the whole port. And the car's bricked. Exactly. So I'm like texting with the with the guy and I'm like hey I have to drive a lot tomorrow when you're done with the service can you plug it in for me because it's dead. He was like yeah I got you girl.

S: I'm loving our Tesla so far I mean it is great.

C: Yay I'm glad.

S: It's very nice you never have to go to a gas station like it says. The car is just always charged.

C: That's amazing.

S: Right, you just plug it in when you get home.

E: Where you're gonna to buy your egg salad sandwiches if you're not going to a gas station?

C: It's true. Frozen burritos.

S: You realize how how behaviorally programmed we get. Because even like when you're in that car. Like whenever you drive by a gas station there's one little part of your brain that goes what's my gas? Do I need to stop for gas?

C: You'll lose that.

S: Still happens.

C: How long have you been driving it now?

S: Well I you know it's not my primary car it's my wife's primary card so I only drive it occasionally.

C: That's why. So you're always going to have that until you go fully electric.

S: Until I go. Yeah.

E: Steve there's an upgrade for your car it will put in a fake gas gauge that will always show full. And you can put it on your display and satisfy that urge.

C: (laughs) That hilarious. Like a little sticker there.

J: Steve do you have trouble going from a gas pedal to the regenerative braking gas pedal?

S: No I mean it just took me a couple of times driving the car to get that module in my brain and now I click over immediately when I do it. Because what Jay's talking about is when you have the regenerative braking when there's an even point when you're pushing on the accelerator where you're not braking or accelerating. And then if you push it down you accelerate and when you let up you engage the regenerative braking.

C: Yeah your car straight up breaks.

S: So your car actually brakes.

C: When you take your foot off the accelerator.

S: It's very effective so you can't because like your initial instinct is to take your foot entirely off the accelerator and go for the brake. But if you do that like you stop short herky jerky. And so you have to learn to just ride the accelerator. You never like almost never apply the brake which is great it saves your brake pads.

C: I only break when somebody cuts me off it's like literally I one foot drive my car all the time.

S: And it's actually more it's more energy efficient to do that. You have much more control because you don't have to move your foot. There's no delay. You are right at that transition point. You can accelerate decelerate your car with much greater control so it's superior. But you gotta first of all learn how to do that. It doesn't take long and then it's like I'm going back and forth between a gas car and an electric. I have to just always click over to which one I'm doing.

C: I find that electric cars are so much more responsive.

S: Oh yeah my god.

C: Like the gas like I remember the first time I was driving the gas car again and I was like is it gonna break is it gonna stop oh my god. I was like scared because I had to push so hard on the brakes for things to happen.

B: Oh my god.

C: It felt so odd.

S: All right guys let's go on to our news items.

Dumbest Thing of the Week (13:35)

• Best UFO Picture

S: Evan you're actually going to start off with a Dumbest Thing of the Week.

E: Yep. Dumbest Thing of the Week. So just when you thought it was safe to go back in the waters of the internet. That digital ocean where hydrogen are ones and oxygen are zeros. Swirling with the salty brine of everything good bad and ugly about homo sapiens in one unfettered morass of information and disinformation of inflammation and incubation my fellow human beings of the English-speaking world I humbly present to you the SGU's Dumbest Thing of the Week. And this is where I sing the song it's the dumbest thing of the week, the dumbest thing that I speak, in a world full of fools, this story rules, the dumbest thing of the week. This week's honor goes to UAP Media UK. As in Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Media UK. May 6^th 2022 they lit up Twitter with the following tweet. This is all in caps by the way "NEW HIGH RESOLUTION SCAN OF “EXTRAORDINARY” UAP IMAGE - is this the most compelling image of UAP to date?". Yeeh when I say they lit up twitter it has about 126 retweets. But I think 125 of those retweets were from tabloid media. And now they took it on to a whole new level and it of course did go viral. A lot of people talking about it on the internet. So yeah is this the best UFO photo ever? That's the caption below the photo that they put up. Well, as you know there are dozens of UFO stories to read every day on the internet and as the old adage goes. Quality over quantity. It is not about quantity. It is about quality. The quality of UFO evidence since I'd say well the late 1940s is the very recipe for the modern day condiment better known as wheat sauce. And especially when it comes to the one of the main ingredients in that sauce photographic evidence. So when something's being touted as the single most compelling photo of a UFO or UAP or whatever you want to call it. It's worth pausing to see what they believe by their standards is the best photographic evidence to date of something genuinely they believe of extraterrestrial origin. So I took a look at the photo and I shared it with you guys. I hope you guys took a look too. And I'm sure we will link to it so that you can also take a look at the photo. The original photos from yeah from 1971, right? And it's a photo taken from a small propeller airplane with the camera pointing down to the Earth. It's at taken, they said at 10 000 foot elevation. It was for the National Geographic Institute of Costa Rica. They were studying the potential impact on surrounding land and water of a hydroelectric project. So in this photograph the image; what appears to be kind of this shiny metallic little disk on the right side of the photograph appears. And over the years the object size has been estimated by people looking at this to be between 120 and 220 feet in diameter. How they came up with that? Who knows.

C: Right or it could just be really close to the lens.

E: The reason this; now this is an old photo. 1971. But that's not why this is news right now per se. In fact this photo has been circulating for a while and been studied for a while. It's among the archives of UFO and UAP organizations and they deem the photo to be authentic. Okay fine. Well what's the news item? The news item is that they enhanced it. They get an enhancement of this photo newly released. If you want to download this photo now at its resolution that they enhanced it to 1.7 gigs. That's the size of the photo. So you can go ahead and take a look for yourself. Here are my first thoughts and then I'll give you a chance and you tell me what your thoughts are. Here's my very first thought when I saw this. I said where's the UFO? I mean really I had to look at the back. I looked at this shot and I'm looking around like okay I'm not seeing it immediately. It doesn't stand out. It's not like something where it's so obvious. You find it off to sort of the either which way it's framed. Either the very right or very left side of the photo. Okay once I found it my second thought was it looks like a crash symbol on a drum kit. It's the way I kind of described it but I guess I've been going to too many concerts with Rachel lately.

S: It could absolutely be a symbol. It could be a hubcap.

E: Right, exactly.

S: It could be nothing.

C: It looked like a symbol to me, that's the first thing I thought.

E: Right because of the how it's the lighting hits it and everything. My third thought was is this it? I mean is that the picture that's supposed to represent the highest quality photo ever taken of a UFO? And then right on the heels of that my fourth thought was is this a joke? I thought maybe someone was trying to Poe us here, right? Poe's law? We've talked about that before. Something's apparent like parody something so ridiculous that it can be mistaken as some as something real but it's actually kind of a joke. It was someone playing a prank on the meteors? I went and did some research to see if that was the case and it's not. these people are serious. This is all real. So they are not pulling a Poe. So that's kind of what I was left with my first four initial thoughts on this thing. What did you guys think when you saw it?

C: Yeah it looks like a look I guess somebody threw a symbol up in the air.

J: Yeah I mean basically196

B: Looks a little fake to me.

J: ─we have to default to all the other things that could have produced a picture like this, right? It's just a picture. It's valueless when it comes down to what it is and what it's representing because there's no proof behind it.

B: Has anyone done and like a forensic analysis of the original image?

E: Yes, UFO organizations and these people affiliated with these groups claim that they have. That they've seen the negative.

S: But technical analyses are always crap. Like I have seen so many. Like we did a forensic technical analysis of this video or this picture. And they come out with the most bizarre ridiculous conclusions. They have no idea what they're doing. They have no idea what they're talking about. It's just all motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. It's worthless. This is a dot. This could be anything. You have no frame of reference. You have no reference for size or distance. You have no idea what that is on this two-dimensional image at all. And there is no details. There are no details to this to distinguish this from again like as you say a symbol. It could be just it's just a little piece of metal. It could be anything.

E: It could be anything. Jay you hit on it. It could have been faked. I mean certainly that's always the case somebody could have doctored this.

S: And even if the photo itself is real it could have been something like fell off the plane.

E: Absolutely Imean you got to think about it. A camera shooting down from the bottom. Supposedly the bottom of the aircraft because the aircraft's designed to be taking these photographs. It has other layers of clear plastic or whatever it is in front of it. I mean gee whiz we already know what just the camera lens on its own will do. You start introducing more elements between the camera, the imaging block of the camera and the image is trying to shoot you can come up with all sorts of artifacts, reflections of of something else, picking up dust particles or water droplets there's or so many other different things.

C: That's like every ghost ever photographed.

E: I mean so so they took blobsquatch which is what we commonly referred to these things as. And they made it high resolution blobsquatch is effectively what it really comes down to. Also they said that this thing was if it's flying. If it really was flying craft of some sort. And they got it that clear. What does that tell you? Does that mean that that thing was in motion and how was that determined? If it was; that means it was also moving at the exact same speed of the aircraft itself for it to have remained in that crystal clear focus? And also in this in the same direction. There's no streaking, there's no...

C: Yeah it's like just it's like completely static.

E: Right. Exactly. Which lends you to believe that it's some kind of artifact happening at that point of the lens.

S: Totally. If the ground is in focus it would be very difficult for whatever that is to be in focus.

E: And I'm no expert on lighting patterns okay? But I know a couple, I know a little bit about lighting and I know about lighting and how it hits surfaces and the direction of lighting and things. You would see there's no way that the sunlight hitting that object. Assuming in sunlight and assuming that is an object actually floating out there. Would have come through in that photograph that way. Sorry it wouldn't have. That thing would have been hitting. The Sun would have been hitting that metal object and blaring back at that lens and probably blown out the image that you would see absolutely no detail. But instead it has these subtle shadows and it looks like light coming in from from one particular direction sort of split across the disc and into in two ways. As if it were if you were to hold up a metal disc. If you have a symbol or drum kit at home which I do and you hold it up and you look at it how the light's reflecting off of it that's what you would see. Is that sort of interior controlled environment situation of lighting that would be playing off of that particular object.

S: Also if I'm seeing the photograph correctly it looks like the shadows are going in the wrong direction.

E: Yeah it looks like that to me as well.

S: Looks like it should be lit from the opposite side that it is apparently lit from.

E: Correct because you can tell by the shadows from the trees on the ground which direction the Sun. Right and the Sun's on what the other side. How does that square?

S: Yeah it does

E: And it doesn't. And when I went to look to see what Mick West has to say because you know we've had Mick on the show before and we've talked about UFO and analyzing photos and video footage before with him. And he's basically essentially asking the same questions that we're asking here. He says this is supposedly an object viewed from directly above, this is directly from his tweet, illuminated by direct sunlight from the top right direction. What shape/material could make such a pattern of light. So he's basically asked the same questions that I thought of that you guys also thought of. And this is the best. They're saying this is the photo to end all photos that they've got of for UFO.

S: I'll give them that. This is the best UFO photo I've ever seen because they're all equally crap.

E: All equally zero. That's right the sum of evidence is zero.

S: Right. All right thanks Evan.

E: All right.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

AI Artist (24:03)

• Dalle-2, the Artificial Intelligence that draws anything you ask of it

Molten Salt Battery (39:21)

• Rechargeable Molten Salt Battery Freezes Energy in Place for Long-Term Storage

Trolling Science Journalism (53:33)

• Trolling Is Taking a Toll on Science Journalism

Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen Production (1:14:49)

• System and technoeconomic analysis of solar thermochemical hydrogen production

Who's That Noisy? (1:23:48)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Cargo train passing directly in front of a car

New Noisy (1:27:16)

[chirping birds sound]

J: Hmm. What could that be?! If you guys think your know what this week's Noisy is, you can email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:29:57)

S: We have a deceptively interesting question. A few people wrote in to ask this.

Followup #1: Action Bias vs. Omission Bias

S: Here's one: "Just a quick question. I have heard several times on this show ...

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_
with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Science or Fiction (1:35:00)

Item #1: In a recent study subjects were 30% less likely to choose a chocolate chip cookie that was described as "scientifically developed." Item #2: An examination of eye control of fruit flies in flight follows a similar scheme as eye control in primates, suggesting convergent evolution across phyla. Item #3: Astronomers report that for the first time they have examined a star with spectroscopy and identified every known stable element within it.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Every stable element in a star
Science	Scientifically developed cookie
Science	Eye's convergent evolution

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	Scientifically developed cookie
Cara	Every stable element in a star
Bob	Every stable element in a star
Jay	Every stable element in a star

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:57:36)

Scientific research involves going beyond the well-trodden and well-tested ideas and theories that form the core of scientific knowledge. During the time scientists are working things out, some results will be right, and others will be wrong. Over time, the right results will emerge.
– Lisa Randall, American theoretical physicist

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

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary