SGU Episode 902

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SGU Episode 902
October 22nd 2022
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SGU 901                      SGU 903
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
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Introduction

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

[00:09.280 --> 00:12.800] Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

[00:12.800 --> 00:18.840] Today is Thursday, October 20th, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

[00:18.840 --> 00:20.240] Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

[00:20.240 --> 00:21.240] Hey, everybody.

[00:21.240 --> 00:22.240] Kara Santamaria.

[00:22.240 --> 00:23.240] Howdy.

[00:23.240 --> 00:24.240] Jay Novella.

[00:24.240 --> 00:25.240] Hey, guys.

[00:25.240 --> 00:27.240] And Evan Bernstein.

[00:27.240 --> 00:28.240] Good evening, everyone.

[00:28.240 --> 00:36.440] So if you guys heard this, one of the last people who was the child of an enslaved American

[00:36.440 --> 00:39.040] just died at the age of 90.

[00:39.040 --> 00:40.040] Yeah.

[00:40.040 --> 00:46.000] Isn't that amazing, though, to think that somebody whose parents were slaves was still

[00:46.000 --> 00:47.000] alive?

[00:47.000 --> 00:49.240] And they said one of the last, so I guess there may be more that are still alive.

[00:49.240 --> 00:50.240] Yeah.

[00:50.240 --> 00:51.240] I mean, that doesn't...

[00:51.240 --> 00:52.240] She was.

[00:52.240 --> 00:53.240] Yeah.

[00:53.240 --> 00:54.240] It was not that long ago.

[00:54.240 --> 00:55.240] I mean, that is a long time ago.

[00:55.240 --> 00:57.240] That's 160 years ago.

[00:57.240 --> 00:58.240] Yeah.

[00:58.240 --> 00:59.240] How many generations?

[00:59.240 --> 01:02.440] It was roughly 25 years a generation, so eight generations ago.

[01:02.440 --> 01:03.440] But here's the thing.

[01:03.440 --> 01:06.840] He was born when his father was 70 years old, right?

[01:06.840 --> 01:07.840] And he lived to 90.

[01:07.840 --> 01:08.840] So that's 160 years.

[01:08.840 --> 01:09.840] Holy moly.

[01:09.840 --> 01:10.840] Yeah.

[01:10.840 --> 01:11.840] Right.

[01:11.840 --> 01:12.840] Yeah.

[01:12.840 --> 01:13.840] It'd have to be.

[01:13.840 --> 01:14.840] Right.

[01:14.840 --> 01:15.840] The edges.

[01:15.840 --> 01:16.840] Yeah.

[01:16.840 --> 01:17.840] But that's been that amazing.

[01:17.840 --> 01:20.040] It reminds me of, like, President Tyler's grandkids were alive until very recently.

[01:20.040 --> 01:25.080] They may still be alive because, again, he was old when he had a son, and his son was

[01:25.080 --> 01:27.320] old when he had his kids, so...

[01:27.320 --> 01:28.320] Right.

[01:28.320 --> 01:29.320] I always find that amazing.

[01:29.320 --> 01:30.320] Similar phenomenon.

[01:30.320 --> 01:31.320] Yeah.

[01:31.320 --> 01:32.320] Yeah.

[01:32.320 --> 01:33.320] An anomaly.

[01:33.320 --> 01:34.320] That's not normal.

[01:34.320 --> 01:39.040] I mean, having a kid at 70 and then living to 90, those two, you know, extreme things.

[01:39.040 --> 01:41.360] Speaking of birthdays, right?

[01:41.360 --> 01:42.360] Happy birthday, Kara.

[01:42.360 --> 01:43.360] You've elated.

[01:43.360 --> 01:44.360] Thanks.

[01:44.360 --> 01:45.360] Kara.

[01:45.360 --> 01:47.000] Kara, I understand you're almost 40.

[01:47.000 --> 01:48.000] Yeah.

[01:48.000 --> 01:49.000] I've got one year.

[01:49.000 --> 01:50.000] Here's the thing.

[01:50.000 --> 01:54.600] I feel like my 40th will be, okay, it'll be tough, fine, whatever, 40th is like a big

[01:54.600 --> 01:56.880] year for a lot of people, existential crisis time.

[01:56.880 --> 02:00.240] But I feel like 39 is almost weirdly tougher.

[02:00.240 --> 02:02.880] Did you guys have the same experience or no?

[02:02.880 --> 02:05.680] I stopped paying attention to that when I passed 30.

[02:05.680 --> 02:06.680] Really?

[02:06.680 --> 02:07.680] At 30?

[02:07.680 --> 02:10.600] When you were done with your 20s, you were like, I'm just old, I'm not going to pay attention

[02:10.600 --> 02:11.600] to my birthdays anymore.

[02:11.600 --> 02:12.600] I mean, I still pay attention to my birthday.

[02:12.600 --> 02:16.520] I just, I don't pay attention to boundaries, you know, just arbitrary numbers.

[02:16.520 --> 02:17.960] Oh, I see.

[02:17.960 --> 02:20.920] Those arbitrary kind of decades, yeah.

[02:20.920 --> 02:24.720] You say that, but like you, you guys also live a very different lifestyle.

[02:24.720 --> 02:25.720] Yeah.

[02:25.720 --> 02:26.720] What do you mean by that, Kara?

[02:26.720 --> 02:27.720] You need an explanation.

[02:27.720 --> 02:28.720] Yeah.

[02:28.720 --> 02:29.720] Explain yourself.

[02:29.720 --> 02:30.720] You got to explain that.

[02:30.720 --> 02:31.720] Yeah.

[02:31.720 --> 02:32.720] Well, so I'm-

[02:32.720 --> 02:33.720] In most ways, I would say.

[02:33.720 --> 02:35.520] I'm single and dating.

[02:35.520 --> 02:40.280] Like yeah, okay, when you're like, I'm married, I have a family, like whatever, 30, 35, 40,

[02:40.280 --> 02:47.600] 45, it's all the same, but like when you date, it's not, I disagree by the way with Steve's

[02:47.600 --> 02:48.600] characterization.

[02:48.600 --> 02:51.720] Like here's one of many examples.

[02:51.720 --> 02:56.760] When you are like on the apps, people set parameters and I think 40 is like a hard and

[02:56.760 --> 02:59.040] fast cutoff for some people.

[02:59.040 --> 03:00.040] Sure.

[03:00.040 --> 03:01.720] And that's weird to me.

[03:01.720 --> 03:02.720] Yeah.

[03:02.720 --> 03:06.600] When you get married, you could stop worrying about a lot of things, you know.

[03:06.600 --> 03:07.600] Yeah.

[03:07.600 --> 03:13.120] In Christ, I don't have to think about that anymore.

[03:13.120 --> 03:14.120] Like hygiene.

[03:14.120 --> 03:15.120] Yeah.

[03:15.120 --> 03:19.960] Kara, I was divorced and dating in my 50s, so-

[03:19.960 --> 03:20.960] Yeah, yeah.

[03:20.960 --> 03:21.960] And that's actually-

[03:21.960 --> 03:22.960] Yeah.

[03:22.960 --> 03:24.240] That's something that I see a lot on apps, which is really funny.

[03:24.240 --> 03:31.040] So yesterday or the day before I was 38, and I remember talking to friends and being like,

[03:31.040 --> 03:35.680] it's so interesting how there aren't that many people on the apps that are my age.

[03:35.680 --> 03:40.640] There are a lot of younger people and there are a lot of older people and like they're

[03:40.640 --> 03:44.200] just don't seem, and so I was like, maybe it's because they set their parameters differently.

[03:44.200 --> 03:49.640] Like I, you know, let's say I'm dating guys, then guys are like dating younger or, you

[03:49.640 --> 03:50.640] know, whatever.

[03:50.640 --> 03:53.960] And I was talking to a friend about it and he was like, no, it's because they're married.

[03:53.960 --> 03:57.000] He was like, they're not yet divorced.

[03:57.000 --> 03:58.000] Like wait a few years.

[03:58.000 --> 03:59.600] We're not yet divorced.

[03:59.600 --> 04:00.600] N.Y.D.

[04:00.600 --> 04:01.600] Right.

[04:01.600 --> 04:02.600] Yeah.

[04:02.600 --> 04:04.280] Like in the mid 40s, there'll be a whole new batch.

[04:04.280 --> 04:05.280] Don't worry.

[04:05.280 --> 04:08.000] Yeah, you're in the trough of a bimodal distribution.

[04:08.000 --> 04:09.000] Yes, exactly.

[04:09.000 --> 04:15.400] C.A.R.A., to make you feel better, though, you know, I was single in my 40s and I found

[04:15.400 --> 04:17.720] the best relationship of my life in my 40s.

[04:17.720 --> 04:23.360] I think that was largely due to the fact that I finally grew up.

[04:23.360 --> 04:27.020] So yeah, it does.

[04:27.020 --> 04:28.020] It does.

[04:28.020 --> 04:32.000] But I mean, also, you know, it's just you're in a different part of your life.

[04:32.000 --> 04:37.480] And I think the chances of you finding like the right person, as corny as that sounds.

[04:37.480 --> 04:39.240] I don't, that's not what I'm worried about, Jay.

[04:39.240 --> 04:40.240] You know, I'm a non-monogamist.

[04:40.240 --> 04:42.400] I don't, that's not a thing I'm trying to do.

[04:42.400 --> 04:43.440] I'm having lots of fun.

[04:43.440 --> 04:44.440] Don't worry.

[04:44.440 --> 04:45.440] You don't have to worry about me in this department.

[04:45.440 --> 04:46.440] Right, right.

[04:46.440 --> 04:48.880] You just want a bigger ocean to swim in.

[04:48.880 --> 04:50.720] I'm just talking about arbitrary cutoffs.

[04:50.720 --> 04:51.720] That's all.

[04:51.720 --> 04:55.680] I think the world sees 40 as something different than it sees in people in their 30s.

[04:55.680 --> 04:56.680] We're conditioned.

[04:56.680 --> 05:00.260] I think we're conditioned by a lot of our media and demographics and things that they,

[05:00.260 --> 05:01.720] you know, hold up.

[05:01.720 --> 05:07.440] People aged 18 to 39 fall into this category and 40 to 60, you know, 40 to 64, this category.

[05:07.440 --> 05:09.680] And that happens all over the place.

[05:09.680 --> 05:12.120] So in a way we're kind of conditioned to these numbers.

[05:12.120 --> 05:19.400] Don't you think culturally like the, it doesn't keep time with the changes to our actual demographics.

[05:19.400 --> 05:25.920] So it's like we are culturally induced to think about these things as like, oh, 40 is

[05:25.920 --> 05:30.940] middle age, but it's not really anymore because people live longer than that now.

[05:30.940 --> 05:34.680] Longer and more quality to a lot of those years that they do wind up living.

[05:34.680 --> 05:38.640] I think, you know, quality of years has a lot to do with it as well.

[05:38.640 --> 05:40.120] There's more quality years to be had.

[05:40.120 --> 05:41.720] 40 is the new 30.

[05:41.720 --> 05:42.720] Let me have this, you guys.

[05:42.720 --> 05:43.720] Let me have this.

[05:43.720 --> 05:47.040] Oh, no, no argument here.

[05:47.040 --> 05:48.040] Yeah.

[05:48.040 --> 05:49.680] And that carries through every decade.

[05:49.680 --> 05:50.680] Yeah.

[05:50.680 --> 05:51.680] I actually think it is too.

[05:51.680 --> 05:52.680] Yeah.

[05:52.680 --> 05:53.680] Yeah.

[05:53.680 --> 05:56.600] Like one of my best friends just had her first, likely only, I think, I don't think she wants

[05:56.600 --> 05:58.160] anymore, but her first kid at 40.

[05:58.160 --> 05:59.920] Like this is not uncommon now.

[05:59.920 --> 06:07.240] Karen, you can look up an old documentary series from the late 80s and early 90s called

[06:07.240 --> 06:11.240] 30 something and you can watch that documentary and learn a lot from it.

[06:11.240 --> 06:12.240] Will it make me sad?

[06:12.240 --> 06:13.240] Well, it's not a documentary.

[06:13.240 --> 06:14.240] It's a sitcom.

[06:14.240 --> 06:22.160] So no, it won't.

[06:22.160 --> 06:25.300] They're just tracking the baby boomers as we get older.

[06:25.300 --> 06:26.300] I think that's what that is.

[06:26.300 --> 06:30.720] It's just that the people who are like, yeah, in charge are like, we got to make another

[06:30.720 --> 06:31.720] show about us.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

anti-vaccine groups and Facebook (06:31)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[06:31.720 --> 06:37.520] All right, Jay, you're going to start us off with the news items with a quick one about

[06:37.520 --> 06:40.200] anti-vaccine groups and Facebook.

[06:40.200 --> 06:41.200] Yeah.

[06:41.200 --> 06:48.320] So Facebook has removed over 27 million pieces of content that violated their COVID-19 misinformation

[06:48.320 --> 06:49.320] policy.

[06:49.320 --> 06:53.240] I'm assuming that that is for all time and not 27 million a year.

[06:53.240 --> 06:57.560] But the point I'm making is that they're in a constant battle to find and remove, quote

[06:57.560 --> 06:59.280] unquote, dangerous content.

[06:59.280 --> 07:03.280] And Facebook, as you guys probably know, they have something called community standards.

[07:03.280 --> 07:06.800] These are the rules that people that start groups, they have to follow these rules.

[07:06.800 --> 07:11.120] Now, part of these standards say that Facebook will, and I'm quoting Facebook's webpage,

[07:11.120 --> 07:16.320] they'll remove information during public health emergencies when public health authorities

[07:16.320 --> 07:19.900] conclude that the information is false and likely to directly contribute to the risk

[07:19.900 --> 07:22.140] of imminent physical harm.

[07:22.140 --> 07:27.400] And Facebook also says that groups will be removed if they instruct or encourage users

[07:27.400 --> 07:32.700] to employ code words when discussing vaccines or COVID-19 to evade our detection.

[07:32.700 --> 07:36.840] But this rule does not specifically talk about the use of emojis and misinformation.

[07:36.840 --> 07:40.480] And I know that, you know, when you hear the word emojis, you probably just think, ah, it's

[07:40.480 --> 07:44.520] silly or whatever, you know, but it isn't actually the way that they're using them.

[07:44.520 --> 07:49.040] I never thought that people would use emojis for serious communication.

[07:49.040 --> 07:55.780] And it's legitimately them writing in code and the bots and or moderators that Facebook

[07:55.780 --> 08:01.440] uses can't pick them up, just can't pick up the encoded language that they're using.

[08:01.440 --> 08:05.340] There are groups right now on Facebook that are most definitely violating the rules, but

[08:05.340 --> 08:10.360] they remain in place specifically because of the coded language that they're using.

[08:10.360 --> 08:16.320] So Bloomberg reviewed six anti-vax Facebook groups, all of them created in the past year.

[08:16.320 --> 08:21.520] And I think they were they were viewing them for about a year and they commonly use emoji

[08:21.520 --> 08:26.240] peaches and apples to represent people being harmed by vaccines.

[08:26.240 --> 08:32.000] Now I know this to me, this seems so obvious when you read about these, you read the post

[08:32.000 --> 08:37.320] that you'd be like, yeah, they're clearly talking about people who are hurt by by vaccines,

[08:37.320 --> 08:42.800] but it's not that easy for the artificial intelligence or the moderators to pick pick

[08:42.800 --> 08:43.800] them up.

[08:43.800 --> 08:47.880] And then, you know, we also have to to factor in the huge volume of of stuff that needs

[08:47.880 --> 08:48.880] to be moderated.

[08:48.880 --> 08:49.880] Right.

[08:49.880 --> 08:52.400] So this slips below Facebook's radar.

[08:52.400 --> 08:57.120] And these groups easily go on to create brand new Facebook groups.

[08:57.120 --> 09:00.440] If there's any heat at all, they just you know, they just jump from one group to the

[09:00.440 --> 09:01.440] next.

[09:01.440 --> 09:03.440] They use different names.

[09:03.440 --> 09:08.060] You know, if they if they get banned or not, they just pop up the very same day in another

[09:08.060 --> 09:10.560] group and there's no way to like have continuity.

[09:10.560 --> 09:12.380] You know, it's complicated.

[09:12.380 --> 09:14.280] It seems that Facebook just can't keep up with it.

[09:14.280 --> 09:15.280] Right.

[09:15.280 --> 09:17.960] And I think they have an issue with the detect with detection.

[09:17.960 --> 09:21.560] And like I said, you know, this this could be a problem with their artificial intelligence

[09:21.560 --> 09:23.480] apps that's that's doing moderation.

[09:23.480 --> 09:25.360] Like that's the first line of defense.

[09:25.360 --> 09:27.180] Now, of course, this isn't limited.

[09:27.180 --> 09:32.800] This coded language thing isn't limited to just anti Vaxxers, many pseudosciences and

[09:32.800 --> 09:36.920] of course, all sorts of other different types of groups that could be anything that they've

[09:36.920 --> 09:40.200] created their own emoji codes to avoid detection deliberately.

[09:40.200 --> 09:42.520] Right, you know, they're doing this all deliberately.

[09:42.520 --> 09:46.880] So in the legal realm, law enforcement and courts don't know how to handle the use of

[09:46.880 --> 09:50.160] emojis when it comes to incriminating evidence.

[09:50.160 --> 09:51.160] It's complicated there.

[09:51.160 --> 09:52.160] Right.

[09:52.160 --> 09:57.000] You can imagine, you know, this guy put typed in an apple and it means this and that, you

[09:57.000 --> 10:00.200] know, you know, how do you prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt?

[10:00.200 --> 10:05.260] You know, it's a it's a little gray and that's why, you know, legally nothing has really

[10:05.260 --> 10:06.260] happened yet.

[10:06.260 --> 10:10.440] So social media platforms are easily being played here and they obviously need to change

[10:10.440 --> 10:13.640] their policies to include coded speech, all coded speech.

[10:13.640 --> 10:17.000] And this is a good example of people being clever, which they are.

[10:17.000 --> 10:21.380] You know, we keep seeing pseudoscientists being pretty clever, you know, and how they

[10:21.380 --> 10:25.640] do what they do and how they get around the quote unquote rules that everyone has to deal

[10:25.640 --> 10:26.640] with.

[10:26.640 --> 10:28.960] You know, they're inventing workarounds.

[10:28.960 --> 10:30.360] So I have a few questions for you guys.

[10:30.360 --> 10:32.680] I thought this was really provocative.

[10:32.680 --> 10:36.840] So first off, what do you guys in general think of this, the coded language thing?

[10:36.840 --> 10:38.680] Well, I think this kind of thing was inevitable.

[10:38.680 --> 10:39.680] Right.

[10:39.680 --> 10:41.920] I mean, you knew this was going to happen.

[10:41.920 --> 10:44.280] And it's not, you know, it's not always a bad thing.

[10:44.280 --> 10:50.160] We know that, for example, like Chinese dissidents will often use coded language in order to

[10:50.160 --> 10:53.260] evade government censorship or government crackdown.

[10:53.260 --> 10:56.960] So, you know, it could cut both ways.

[10:56.960 --> 11:02.260] But what I wonder, though, is, you know, if you have to use coded language to spread your

[11:02.260 --> 11:05.520] misinformation, does that limit its reach to some extent?

[11:05.520 --> 11:09.000] Because like you have to already be in the know to understand what's being said.

[11:09.000 --> 11:11.560] Yeah, that's my first thought is that it would it would limit it.

[11:11.560 --> 11:16.880] You know, I just think that people will always somehow find a way to be one step ahead.

[11:16.880 --> 11:19.240] You know, there is always a workaround.

[11:19.240 --> 11:20.760] Nothing ever gets locked down.

[11:20.760 --> 11:23.160] And misinformation, you know, this is a huge deal.

[11:23.160 --> 11:29.360] This is misinformation is playing out on the global stage in a profound way.

[11:29.360 --> 11:34.980] And social media seems to be like the thing that misinformation kind of circles this drain.

[11:34.980 --> 11:36.880] It's coming from these platforms.

[11:36.880 --> 11:38.060] It's a great question.

[11:38.060 --> 11:39.060] What do you do?

[11:39.060 --> 11:40.060] What should they do?

[11:40.060 --> 11:42.960] What should our legal systems ask them to do?

[11:42.960 --> 11:45.360] And is it technologically within their grasp?

[11:45.360 --> 11:47.080] I don't know.

[11:47.080 --> 11:48.080] It's one of those things.

[11:48.080 --> 11:54.320] You know, like, I would love to hear someone who is in this space talk about this and really

[11:54.320 --> 11:56.480] wrap our head around, like, what's going on?

[11:56.480 --> 11:58.000] Because it is a problem right now.

The Electric Universe (11:58)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[11:58.000 --> 11:59.320] So let me ask you guys a question.

[11:59.320 --> 12:02.280] Have you ever heard of the Electric Universe?

[12:02.280 --> 12:04.240] Is that a dance craze?

[12:04.240 --> 12:06.800] Yeah, it's the one that came after the Electric Slide, right?

[12:06.800 --> 12:07.800] How about you, Carrie?

[12:07.800 --> 12:09.360] Have you ever heard of the Electric Universe?

[12:09.360 --> 12:11.520] I know that you wrote about it this week.

[12:11.520 --> 12:12.520] Yeah, before.

[12:12.520 --> 12:13.520] I heard about it then.

[12:13.520 --> 12:17.680] So yeah, this is an interesting pseudoscience.

[12:17.680 --> 12:19.840] It's not one, I think, of the more popular ones.

[12:19.840 --> 12:21.080] It kind of flies under the radar.

[12:21.080 --> 12:23.960] It's not like astrology or homeopathy or anything.

[12:23.960 --> 12:24.960] But it's big.

[12:24.960 --> 12:26.160] It's been around for a while.

[12:26.160 --> 12:28.760] It's actually a set of beliefs.

[12:28.760 --> 12:30.880] It's a category of beliefs.

[12:30.880 --> 12:33.040] It's not one specific theory.

[12:33.040 --> 12:35.920] That way, you know, it's often hard to nail it down.

[12:35.920 --> 12:42.760] But basically, the Electric Universe is the idea that at cosmological scales, electromagnetism

[12:42.760 --> 12:47.220] is the dominant force, not gravity.

[12:47.220 --> 12:54.800] So it basically replaces gravity as the force that determines the general structure and

[12:54.800 --> 12:58.240] movement and stuff in the universe.

[12:58.240 --> 13:01.720] Part of the reason why I wrote about it and I wanted to talk about it was because some

[13:01.720 --> 13:08.680] EU proponents, Electric Universe proponents, were infiltrating my blog, you know, and writing

[13:08.680 --> 13:10.120] about it and promoting it.

[13:10.120 --> 13:12.680] And it's interesting, you know.

[13:12.680 --> 13:16.800] It's an interesting pseudoscience, and it's maybe a little bit more complicated than a

[13:16.800 --> 13:21.320] lot out there because it kind of exists at a physics level.

[13:21.320 --> 13:24.840] And some of the proponents, you know, have science degrees.

[13:24.840 --> 13:29.600] So it's maybe hard for the layperson to immediately recognize how ridiculous it is.

[13:29.600 --> 13:32.020] It's not overtly magical.

[13:32.020 --> 13:37.440] It's not saying really crazy stuff, at least it doesn't sound that way unless you have

[13:37.440 --> 13:42.760] a basic working knowledge of some cosmology, astronomy, physics, whatever.

[13:42.760 --> 13:44.880] So it kind of can slip under the radar.

[13:44.880 --> 13:51.900] It's also what I call a crank pseudoscience because it is, again, it's not magic per se.

[13:51.900 --> 13:56.840] It is trying to just say, oh, it's an alternate theory of physics, right?

[13:56.840 --> 13:59.600] And you should be open minded to this new alternate theory.

[13:59.600 --> 14:03.800] And so, you know, people can fall down this rabbit hole very easily.

[14:03.800 --> 14:10.240] You read, watch a YouTube video, read a book or a series of articles, all promoting this

[14:10.240 --> 14:16.720] one idea, and people find it compelling because, you know, if you're marshaling all of the

[14:16.720 --> 14:23.280] arguments just for one perspective all at once, then that could be overwhelming, especially

[14:23.280 --> 14:26.540] if you don't already know why it's BS.

[14:26.540 --> 14:33.380] And then once you get invested into it, then, you know, you start to defend that position

[14:33.380 --> 14:35.240] and it could be hard to get out of it, right?

[14:35.240 --> 14:38.400] Especially then you start to get into the conspiracy mindset and you're being closed

[14:38.400 --> 14:44.880] minded, you know, you start to replicate all of the things that pseudoscientists do.

[14:44.880 --> 14:50.960] To get into a little bit more detail, I mean, they make some really, really far out claims.

[14:50.960 --> 14:56.440] One of which, for example, is that, well, if gravity isn't the dominant force at astronomical

[14:56.440 --> 15:04.120] cosmological scales, the stars, you know, like the sun, is not primarily fueled by gravity,

[15:04.120 --> 15:10.360] meaning that astronomers and astrophysicists have pretty much worked out the stellar lifecycle.

[15:10.360 --> 15:16.400] Stars burn fusion at their core, and the reason they can do that is because the gravity, the

[15:16.400 --> 15:22.640] immense gravity of their mass squeezes the hydrogen in their core to such temperatures

[15:22.640 --> 15:26.440] and pressures that it can sustain fusion.

[15:26.440 --> 15:30.760] And then the bigger the star, the heavier the elements they can ultimately fuse in their

[15:30.760 --> 15:35.600] core all the way up until you produce iron, and then you can't get energy out of fusing

[15:35.600 --> 15:39.840] iron, so that's when the process stops, no matter how big the star is, right?

[15:39.840 --> 15:45.160] So most of the time, most stars are fusing hydrogen into helium, and that's fueled, it's

[15:45.160 --> 15:50.520] powered, if you will, by the gravity, the intense force of the gravity pushing in.

[15:50.520 --> 15:54.440] But if they say that gravity either doesn't exist, you know, at the extreme end, again,

[15:54.440 --> 15:58.800] it's multiple theories, it's not just one specific set of beliefs, it's multiple ideas

[15:58.800 --> 16:02.080] within this umbrella of electricity being dominant.

[16:02.080 --> 16:05.700] So if gravity either doesn't exist or it's a minor player, then that means there's no

[16:05.700 --> 16:08.120] fusion in the core of the sun.

[16:08.120 --> 16:13.320] And if there's no fusion in the core of the sun, why is it burning so brightly?

[16:13.320 --> 16:15.960] What is fueling the sun?

[16:15.960 --> 16:21.200] So guess what they say, like what is, what's their answer to that question?

[16:21.200 --> 16:22.200] Their batteries?

[16:22.200 --> 16:23.200] They're plugged in.

[16:23.200 --> 16:24.200] Their batteries.

[16:24.200 --> 16:25.520] Very long extension cords.

[16:25.520 --> 16:29.760] That's basically right, they say that the stars are cathodes, galactic cathodes.

[16:29.760 --> 16:34.520] Yeah, that they're pumping energy from the galactic electric energy source.

[16:34.520 --> 16:35.520] Oh, that's right.

[16:35.520 --> 16:36.520] The galactic electric power source?

[16:36.520 --> 16:37.520] Oh, that's right.

[16:37.520 --> 16:38.520] The galactic electric power source?

[16:38.520 --> 16:39.520] The GEPs.

[16:39.520 --> 16:40.520] G-E-P-S.

[16:40.520 --> 16:41.520] We've never detected.

[16:41.520 --> 16:42.520] The GEPs.

[16:42.520 --> 16:43.520] It's always the GEPs.

[16:43.520 --> 16:46.960] And you know the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies?

[16:46.960 --> 16:47.960] They don't exist.

[16:47.960 --> 16:48.960] They just to say that, yeah, they don't exist.

[16:48.960 --> 16:49.960] You know those things?

[16:49.960 --> 16:50.960] They're not real.

[16:50.960 --> 16:54.520] And then they say that, so what's the solar wind?

[16:54.520 --> 16:58.200] Well they, if the sun is a cathode, right, that's positively charged particles.

[16:58.200 --> 16:59.440] Oh, like sitting in front of a television.

[16:59.440 --> 17:03.000] The solar wind is negatively charged particles.

[17:03.000 --> 17:05.840] It's like, wait a minute.

[17:05.840 --> 17:10.800] So they would be attracted to the positively charged particles, not repelled by them.

[17:10.800 --> 17:14.840] So they think, this doesn't make even basic electromagnetic sense.

[17:14.840 --> 17:18.320] You know, at the macroscopic scale, negative charged things and positively charged things

[17:18.320 --> 17:21.200] are attracted to each other and they cancel each other out.

[17:21.200 --> 17:25.780] So anything big, basically, you know, the positive and negative stuff will cancel each

[17:25.780 --> 17:26.780] other out.

[17:26.780 --> 17:27.780] Right?

[17:27.780 --> 17:32.200] So big things are electrically neutral, generally, unless there's some active process like a

[17:32.200 --> 17:37.440] Van de Graaff generator or some active process separating out the charges.

[17:37.440 --> 17:42.680] You know, the earth has a magnetic field because there's a magnetic dynamo in our core.

[17:42.680 --> 17:45.360] There's got to be something powering it.

[17:45.360 --> 17:49.400] Also the solar wind, not for nothing, is both positive and negative particles, right?

[17:49.400 --> 17:50.760] It's protons and electrons.

[17:50.760 --> 17:54.120] So they're both, you know, it's stupid and they're factually wrong.

[17:54.120 --> 17:55.120] All right.

[17:55.120 --> 17:59.000] So let's talk about the fact that there is no evidence for any of this, right?

[17:59.000 --> 18:03.020] Any of these claims that the Electric Universe is making, but also they're sort of undoing

[18:03.020 --> 18:04.440] things that we've already explained.

[18:04.440 --> 18:05.920] They're unexplaining things.

[18:05.920 --> 18:11.800] Like we know that fusion is happening in the sun, partly because of the neutrinos that

[18:11.800 --> 18:15.640] are streaming at us from the sun and from every star.

[18:15.640 --> 18:19.900] In fact, neutrinos are created by the process of fusion.

[18:19.900 --> 18:26.560] So they would have to explain where these neutrinos are coming from if there's no fusion

[18:26.560 --> 18:28.320] happening at the core of the sun.

[18:28.320 --> 18:37.080] So some of them have said, well, maybe there's a layer of fusion on the outside of the sun,

[18:37.080 --> 18:40.960] like in the atmosphere of the sun, because, you know, it is really hot there.

[18:40.960 --> 18:42.840] The atmosphere of the sun is very, very hot.

[18:42.840 --> 18:44.440] Maybe that's where the fusion is happening.

[18:44.440 --> 18:49.280] So first of all, no, those conditions are not amenable to fusion, cannot happen.

[18:49.280 --> 18:54.400] But second, if it were happening, we would be fried by gamma rays because fusion also

[18:54.400 --> 18:55.920] creates gamma rays.

[18:55.920 --> 19:02.820] The reason why the fusion at the core isn't frying us is because the mass of the sun filters

[19:02.820 --> 19:05.240] and attenuates the gamma rays.

[19:05.240 --> 19:08.760] So there's only a small amount leaking out from the surface of the sun.

[19:08.760 --> 19:14.760] But if the fusion were happening on the outside, they wouldn't be filtered and basically all

[19:14.760 --> 19:16.680] life on earth would be fried.

[19:16.680 --> 19:22.640] So these are non-trivial problems with their theory, and they don't have answers to these

[19:22.640 --> 19:23.640] things.

[19:23.640 --> 19:24.640] That's the thing.

[19:24.640 --> 19:25.640] They don't really explain anything.

[19:25.640 --> 19:26.900] They don't predict anything.

[19:26.900 --> 19:31.360] They can't answer fundamental fatal flaws with their ideas.

[19:31.360 --> 19:35.160] It is such transparent nonsense.

[19:35.160 --> 19:37.440] They can't explain the life cycle of stars.

[19:37.440 --> 19:44.040] They have no explanation for it, whereas the standard model of stellar astronomy has a

[19:44.040 --> 19:54.280] very thorough and well-supported, mountain-of-evidence-supported model of the entire life cycle of stars.

[19:54.280 --> 19:57.800] And obviously there's lots of out there that we can observe.

[19:57.800 --> 20:02.600] This is a rock-solid theory at this point in time.

[20:02.600 --> 20:06.260] They're replacing it with something unnecessarily.

[20:06.260 --> 20:13.640] They're fixing a non-problem and creating massive fatal problems in its stead.

[20:13.640 --> 20:19.040] Why do you think that it has, I mean, I've never heard of it, but why does it have staying

[20:19.040 --> 20:20.040] power?

[20:20.040 --> 20:26.760] Well, at the core of this, there are pseudoscientists who are making a lot of money selling stuff

[20:26.760 --> 20:27.760] to rubes.

[20:27.760 --> 20:28.760] Right?

[20:28.760 --> 20:29.760] That makes sense.

[20:29.760 --> 20:30.760] That tracks.

[20:30.760 --> 20:32.560] There's a huge financial incentive here.

[20:32.560 --> 20:33.560] They're giving lectures.

[20:33.560 --> 20:34.560] They're selling books.

[20:34.560 --> 20:36.060] They're holding conferences.

[20:36.060 --> 20:41.920] And why would somebody who has training in science go into this?

[20:41.920 --> 20:46.400] Well, maybe they like being a big fish in a small pond.

[20:46.400 --> 20:49.520] They like the attention, the money.

[20:49.520 --> 20:51.040] It's interesting.

[20:51.040 --> 20:52.040] It's exciting.

[20:52.040 --> 20:56.520] Maybe, and again, you can't really read people's minds as we say, maybe they've fallen down

[20:56.520 --> 20:58.360] their own rabbit hole.

[20:58.360 --> 21:00.920] They're just really bad at science.

[21:00.920 --> 21:01.920] Of course.

[21:01.920 --> 21:04.360] And then why do people believe it?

[21:04.360 --> 21:05.560] Because it's interesting.

[21:05.560 --> 21:06.560] It's different.

[21:06.560 --> 21:07.560] Like you're in the know.

[21:07.560 --> 21:13.120] Like you're one of the few people who understand something that the rest of the world doesn't

[21:13.120 --> 21:14.120] understand.

[21:14.120 --> 21:18.480] Everyone else is being deceived by the mainstream and you're on the inside.

[21:18.480 --> 21:20.960] So you know something special.

[21:20.960 --> 21:26.440] Now one of the patinas that they use to convince the rubes that they're doing real science

[21:26.440 --> 21:29.560] is something called the Sapphire Project.

[21:29.560 --> 21:33.840] And essentially this is an experiment in plasma, right?

[21:33.840 --> 21:35.760] They're doing stuff with plasma.

[21:35.760 --> 21:40.520] And then they're saying this is going to prove that the sun really is electric, you know,

[21:40.520 --> 21:44.000] in nature and not being caused by fusion.

[21:44.000 --> 21:50.320] Now none of the people who are doing the Sapphire Project are plasma physicists.

[21:50.320 --> 21:52.220] None of them have any idea what they're doing.

[21:52.220 --> 21:56.520] There was one guy who was an actual plasma physicist that was hired.

[21:56.520 --> 22:00.520] They paid him money to basically help them make this experiment work.

[22:00.520 --> 22:03.280] And he said, he was doing it straight up for the money.

[22:03.280 --> 22:07.160] And he said that these people have no idea what they're doing.

[22:07.160 --> 22:11.320] They refused to let me educate them about plasma physics.

[22:11.320 --> 22:14.520] They had never had any idea what they were doing.

[22:14.520 --> 22:18.600] And they're not really proving or predicting or doing any experiments.

[22:18.600 --> 22:21.720] They're just seeing what's happening.

[22:21.720 --> 22:28.400] And then they make superficial analogies to stuff that astronomers see when we look out

[22:28.400 --> 22:29.400] into the universe, right?

[22:29.400 --> 22:34.000] So they're saying, oh, look, here's a pattern, and we see a similar-looking pattern in gas

[22:34.000 --> 22:36.640] clouds, you know, in space, in nebula.

[22:36.640 --> 22:39.960] Therefore the Electric Universe, you know, it makes no sense.

[22:39.960 --> 22:45.000] And again, the resemblances that they're doing are not exact or precise.

[22:45.000 --> 22:49.000] They don't predict that they're coming from the same phenomenon.

[22:49.000 --> 22:51.520] They're just very, very superficial.

[22:51.520 --> 22:56.360] You know, it's like analogy versus homology in evolution, right?

[22:56.360 --> 23:03.240] Do these two features, these two anatomical structures or whatever, do they look similar

[23:03.240 --> 23:07.320] because they have a similar function, or do they look similar because they evolved from

[23:07.320 --> 23:08.960] a common ancestor?

[23:08.960 --> 23:10.120] How do you know the difference?

[23:10.120 --> 23:16.720] Well, if you have a common ancestor, then there should be similarities in details, in

[23:16.720 --> 23:21.320] little details, especially those that are not critical to function.

[23:21.320 --> 23:25.040] The only reason, way you could explain those similarities is because they must have shared

[23:25.040 --> 23:26.720] a common ancestor.

[23:26.720 --> 23:28.840] So they do similar kind of things.

[23:28.840 --> 23:29.840] It's like the pyramids, right?

[23:29.840 --> 23:32.440] There are people saying, oh, there are pyramids all over the world.

[23:32.440 --> 23:36.960] What are the odds, you know, that different cultures would come up with the exact same

[23:36.960 --> 23:37.960] building designs?

[23:37.960 --> 23:40.600] Well, first of all, they're not exactly the same, right?

[23:40.600 --> 23:47.040] You have ziggurats like in South America, and you have pyramids in Egypt, and you have

[23:47.040 --> 23:49.040] some pyramids that have four sides, some have three sides.

[23:49.040 --> 23:55.800] So what are the odds that people would have stacked stones in progressively smaller layers

[23:55.800 --> 23:57.640] because of gravity?

[23:57.640 --> 23:59.600] That's just basic construction.

[23:59.600 --> 24:05.200] So for example, we talked, was it last week or the week before, about the concentric rings

[24:05.200 --> 24:12.240] around that binary star system, and it was discovered that this is probably because the

[24:12.240 --> 24:17.600] two stars are revolving around each other very, very quickly, and their solar winds

[24:17.600 --> 24:22.040] are interacting and it's pumping out these concentric rings of dust, right?

[24:22.040 --> 24:23.040] So they saw that picture.

[24:23.040 --> 24:25.880] This is actually what caused them to infiltrate my blog because I blogged about it.

[24:25.880 --> 24:28.780] They saw that picture and they go, look, concentric rings.

[24:28.780 --> 24:33.920] We see concentric rings around the plasma in the SAFIRE project, and it's like, therefore,

[24:33.920 --> 24:34.920] Electric Universe.

[24:34.920 --> 24:38.160] It's like, well, yes, but then they say things like they look exactly the same.

[24:38.160 --> 24:39.160] It's like, no, they don't.

[24:39.160 --> 24:41.440] They're not perfect concentric rings.

[24:41.440 --> 24:42.680] They're imperfect.

[24:42.680 --> 24:48.040] And the imperfections are clues as to what the mechanism of them are.

[24:48.040 --> 24:53.200] We know that they're coming from the period of revolution of these binary stars because

[24:53.200 --> 24:56.600] of the specific details of those rings.

[24:56.600 --> 25:01.680] And again, the idea that, like, what are the odds that we would see concentric rings out

[25:01.680 --> 25:03.880] there in space somewhere?

[25:03.880 --> 25:09.880] And as if that would be a rare phenomenon in nature, it's like there's lots of things

[25:09.880 --> 25:12.060] that can create concentric rings.

[25:12.060 --> 25:14.920] It's not that unusual a pattern.

[25:14.920 --> 25:17.200] Tree rings are concentric rings.

[25:17.200 --> 25:21.480] You know, the waves in water can be concentric rings, anything like that.

[25:21.480 --> 25:22.800] It's not that big a deal.

[25:22.800 --> 25:24.920] It proves nothing.

[25:24.920 --> 25:28.280] And the SAFIRE project predicted nothing.

[25:28.280 --> 25:34.240] They didn't predict anything specific, just we're going to be able to find superficial

[25:34.240 --> 25:37.400] resemblances in clouds and dust and whatever.

[25:37.400 --> 25:41.080] And then it is classic pseudoscience.

[25:41.080 --> 25:43.440] They're not doing actual science.

[25:43.440 --> 25:47.040] They are just doing something that very superficially resembles science.

[25:47.040 --> 25:52.320] So does it boil down to these are like some of the most self-deluded people out there?

[25:52.320 --> 25:57.160] Well, I mean, there is certainly dumber stuff out there, more magical, you know, more far

[25:57.160 --> 25:58.160] off stuff.

[25:58.160 --> 25:59.280] But this is pretty bad.

[25:59.280 --> 26:01.120] You know where this comes from, by the way?

[26:01.120 --> 26:05.080] This all derives ultimately from Velikovsky.

[26:05.080 --> 26:06.640] Remember that guy?

[26:06.640 --> 26:07.640] That was the guy.

[26:07.640 --> 26:08.640] Oh, my God.

[26:08.640 --> 26:09.640] Wow.

[26:09.640 --> 26:14.840] That was the guy who said that like Venus was spat out by Jupiter and fell into its

[26:14.840 --> 26:15.840] current orbit.

[26:15.840 --> 26:21.840] Wait, why don't I know that started a lot of the Electric Universe stuff.

[26:21.840 --> 26:26.720] So, yeah, so it goes back to him and there's definitely some cult like religious belief

[26:26.720 --> 26:29.800] type stuff, you know, within the Electric Universe.

[26:29.800 --> 26:32.280] Here's another really out there belief of theirs.

[26:32.280 --> 26:39.560] They believe in space lightning, like there's just into this interplanetary massive discharge

[26:39.560 --> 26:44.540] of electricity, which we've never seen before, which there is zero evidence.

[26:44.540 --> 26:49.920] But they conjure this up in order to explain things again that are already explained, like

[26:49.920 --> 26:50.920] impact craters.

[26:50.920 --> 26:52.800] Oh, those aren't actually impact craters.

[26:52.800 --> 26:54.640] Those are lightning strikes.

[26:54.640 --> 26:58.120] And then they'll say, oh, I know the the Valles Marineris on Mars.

[26:58.120 --> 26:59.120] That was space lightning.

[26:59.120 --> 27:00.120] Well, how do you know that?

[27:00.120 --> 27:01.880] Well, we don't know because it is.

[27:01.880 --> 27:04.560] And even the Grand Canyon on Earth, they say, was space lightning.

[27:04.560 --> 27:07.520] And we don't observe this today anywhere in the universe.

[27:07.520 --> 27:11.680] Like we could look out in the universe and see anything because it's a you know, it's

[27:11.680 --> 27:13.600] we have a huge theater.

[27:13.600 --> 27:17.500] We could look at billions of galaxies, billions of stars.

[27:17.500 --> 27:22.520] We could see extremely rare events because the universe is a big place.

[27:22.520 --> 27:26.400] We could look back in time, billions of years.

[27:26.400 --> 27:33.160] We've never seen space lightning or the evidence of it or any whatever it is.

[27:33.160 --> 27:36.560] They're just making stuff up a whole cloth there.

[27:36.560 --> 27:41.440] And that's why I say, I mean, like how how how deep is the self delusion here?

[27:41.440 --> 27:45.600] It seems pretty deep because deep, baby, because they're not, you know, I'm trying to think

[27:45.600 --> 27:49.960] about why they really are doing this and so and so devoted to it, Steve.

[27:49.960 --> 27:54.400] I know you mentioned it earlier about, you know, in the context of why the Flat Earthers

[27:54.400 --> 27:57.080] kind of are the way they are as well for this.

[27:57.080 --> 28:00.600] But you know, I mean, OK, so they want to sell some books or they want to, you know,

[28:00.600 --> 28:04.920] get clicks on their on their site or something, you know, but there's got to be something

[28:04.920 --> 28:05.920] more to it.

[28:05.920 --> 28:07.400] I know it's hard to believe that's it.

[28:07.400 --> 28:08.800] Their brains are not working.

[28:08.800 --> 28:10.160] Their brains are not working correctly.

[28:10.160 --> 28:11.160] That's the thing.

[28:11.160 --> 28:12.160] There doesn't.

[28:12.160 --> 28:14.560] I don't think there has to be anything more to it.

[28:14.560 --> 28:20.040] You know, as Perry used to love to say, you know, people are living lives of quiet desperation.

[28:20.040 --> 28:21.040] Right.

[28:21.040 --> 28:26.160] And what that means is they will latch on to anything that distracts them or elevates

[28:26.160 --> 28:32.440] them from that, you know, the everyday mundane drudgery of life.

[28:32.440 --> 28:35.440] And it's entertainment at the end of the day.

[28:35.440 --> 28:39.740] And again, you're part of this click that knows something that most people don't know.

[28:39.740 --> 28:45.200] And it's just the idea that the mainstream science could be so profoundly wrong for so

[28:45.200 --> 28:47.000] long is fascinating.

[28:47.000 --> 28:51.560] If you think that you have evidence of that, then the world suddenly becomes a much more

[28:51.560 --> 28:53.960] interesting, I guess, place.

[28:53.960 --> 28:55.680] To me, that would make it a much more scary place.

[28:55.680 --> 28:56.960] But that's it.

[28:56.960 --> 28:58.440] That's all you really need to explain.

[28:58.440 --> 29:00.680] You don't there doesn't need to be anything more than that.

[29:00.680 --> 29:05.000] And then, of course, people will who are just trying to make money will attach themselves

[29:05.000 --> 29:08.960] to any phenomenon like that, because people who believe in nonsense and pseudoscience

[29:08.960 --> 29:11.520] are really easy marks.

[29:11.520 --> 29:15.760] So then that becomes self-reinforcing as well.

[29:15.760 --> 29:18.500] You know, you mentioned the Flat Earthers, by the way.

[29:18.500 --> 29:22.900] They like the Electric Universe theory because the Flat Earth can't deal with gravity.

[29:22.900 --> 29:24.760] The EU theory gets rid of gravity.

[29:24.760 --> 29:30.120] So there's a synergy between the Flat Earthers and the Electric Universe believers as well.

[29:30.120 --> 29:32.280] So sometimes that kind of thing is going on.

[29:32.280 --> 29:33.600] Yeah, it's fascinating.

[29:33.600 --> 29:39.040] And then it becomes dangerous when they start trying to sell us free energy stuff, you know,

[29:39.040 --> 29:42.600] vitamin supplements and anti-vaccination propaganda.

[29:42.600 --> 29:44.240] That's when it starts to turn nefarious.

[29:44.240 --> 29:50.320] Yeah, clearly some pseudosciences have more pragmatic implications than others.

[29:50.320 --> 29:53.160] You know, some have caused direct harm.

[29:53.160 --> 29:59.560] But even things like this that are more abstract, it still indoctrinates people into pseudoscience

[29:59.560 --> 30:00.880] and conspiracy thinking.

[30:00.880 --> 30:01.880] Yep.

[30:01.880 --> 30:02.880] Conditions them in a way.

[30:02.880 --> 30:05.520] Yeah, you know, that has a danger unto itself.

[30:05.520 --> 30:09.960] So anyway, if you want to learn more about this, I wrote a blog about it at Neurologica.

[30:09.960 --> 30:15.280] I linked to two really well-produced videos that go rapid fire through like tons of problems

[30:15.280 --> 30:18.960] with the Electric Universe theory and give you a lot of information.

[30:18.960 --> 30:24.000] Jay, you've got to kill your meatball universe theory right now before Steve takes you apart

[30:24.000 --> 30:25.160] online, okay?

[30:25.160 --> 30:29.000] I know enough, Ev, not to really talk about it, you know.

[30:29.000 --> 30:30.000] Okay.

[30:30.000 --> 30:31.000] Well, wait.

[30:31.000 --> 30:32.000] Wait till enough people...

[30:32.000 --> 30:34.840] No, you don't get to learn about that until you get to level six.

[30:34.840 --> 30:37.800] And how much does that cost me?

[30:37.800 --> 30:38.800] Right.

The First Neanderthal Family (30:38)

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[30:38.800 --> 30:44.160] All right, Kara, tell us about the first Neanderthal family.

[30:44.160 --> 30:45.160] Yeah.

[30:45.160 --> 30:48.320] Do you guys remember, was it just last week or was it two weeks ago when we talked about

[30:48.320 --> 30:49.320] the Nobel Prizes?

[30:49.320 --> 30:50.320] Mm-hmm.

[30:50.320 --> 30:51.320] Two weeks.

[30:51.320 --> 30:52.320] Two.

[30:52.320 --> 30:56.320] So Professor Pabo, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, who I talked

[30:56.320 --> 31:02.880] about, Svante Pabo, the Swedish geneticist who, oh my gosh, like sequenced the Neanderthal

[31:02.880 --> 31:03.880] genome.

[31:03.880 --> 31:04.880] This is cool.

[31:04.880 --> 31:07.800] So there's a new study that was published literally yesterday, and he was one of the

[31:07.800 --> 31:08.800] authors of it.

[31:08.800 --> 31:09.800] He wasn't the lead author.

[31:09.800 --> 31:18.060] The lead author was Laura Scoff, and it's the same group of specimens, Neanderthal specimens,

[31:18.060 --> 31:23.680] that his team has been working on for some time, led us to some new insights about how

[31:23.680 --> 31:25.240] Neanderthals lived.

[31:25.240 --> 31:29.520] And I love stories like this where we're looking at the genetics, but the genetics are telling

[31:29.520 --> 31:35.960] us a little bit more about behavior and kinship and family dynamics than we previously knew.

[31:35.960 --> 31:45.360] So there is a cave in eastern Siberia, basically the farthest east that we know that their

[31:45.360 --> 31:50.380] home range was, called Chagorskaya Cave.

[31:50.380 --> 31:51.940] I hope I'm saying that well.

[31:51.940 --> 31:57.120] It's like southern Siberia, and it's really close to Denisova Cave.

[31:57.120 --> 32:05.040] And researchers have found just like a treasure trove of specimens in there, lots of tools,

[32:05.040 --> 32:10.800] like lots and lots of stone tools, and then also I think 90,000 stone tools so far in

[32:10.800 --> 32:14.080] the cave, a bunch of butchered bison bones.

[32:14.080 --> 32:22.760] And in this study, they looked at fragments, mostly teeth, some bones of individuals, and

[32:22.760 --> 32:27.680] they tried to kind of sort out how many people we got here that are all in the same level,

[32:27.680 --> 32:29.240] all in the same layer of sediment.

[32:29.240 --> 32:32.780] How many people we got here, what can we find out about them?

[32:32.780 --> 32:37.240] And so they looked through these different fragments, and they started sequencing, sequencing,

[32:37.240 --> 32:39.920] sequencing and saying, okay, what's going on?

[32:39.920 --> 32:42.520] Is this individual male or female?

[32:42.520 --> 32:43.520] How old is this individual?

[32:43.520 --> 32:46.140] Like, what can we glean from this?

[32:46.140 --> 32:49.920] And they found some really cool stuff.

[32:49.920 --> 32:53.360] So one of the first things, I don't know what order they found them in, but one of the first

[32:53.360 --> 32:58.980] things I'll list is, okay, so these are 11 different individuals that they were able

[32:58.980 --> 32:59.980] to identify.

[32:59.980 --> 33:05.080] There were two more in a nearby cave, Okhladnikov, but that's like kind of a separate story.

[33:05.080 --> 33:12.680] So in Chagorskaya Cave, they found 11 individuals, and they found a pair of individuals that

[33:12.680 --> 33:18.160] were so closely related, they were like, it must be a father-daughter or a brother-sister.

[33:18.160 --> 33:21.400] But they knew that the male was older than the female.

[33:21.400 --> 33:25.000] So they were like, hmm, how can we tell if it's a father-daughter or brother-sister?

[33:25.000 --> 33:29.580] Let's not just look at, let's look at the mitochondrial DNA and compare that to these

[33:29.580 --> 33:31.600] Y chromosome sequences.

[33:31.600 --> 33:35.000] And they found that they had different mitochondrial DNA, which would only happen in a father and

[33:35.000 --> 33:36.000] daughter.

[33:36.000 --> 33:39.600] If it was brother and sister, they would have both gotten mitochondrial DNA from mom, right?

[33:39.600 --> 33:44.340] So they were able to identify, and I think this might be the first time ever, like we

[33:44.340 --> 33:49.240] have a father and a daughter in the same cave that are both Neanderthal, that are super

[33:49.240 --> 33:52.360] old, and they're next to each other.

[33:52.360 --> 33:57.440] They also found another pair of second-degree relatives, so likely cousins, that were related

[33:57.440 --> 34:00.040] to that same father.

[34:00.040 --> 34:01.800] And so they're like, ooh, this is cool.

[34:01.800 --> 34:05.040] So we know now that these individuals were living together.

[34:05.040 --> 34:07.840] We don't know where mom is, but they think they might still be able to find mom because

[34:07.840 --> 34:10.800] they haven't sequenced everything that they found in the cave yet.

[34:10.800 --> 34:13.520] And then they're like, what else is going on here?

[34:13.520 --> 34:20.440] Well, up to a third of the genomes of the individuals had super long segments of homozygosity.

[34:20.440 --> 34:26.120] So they're like, there's a lot of genetic similarity within this group, which makes

[34:26.120 --> 34:29.600] us think that these were very small communities.

[34:29.600 --> 34:35.400] And they likened it unto mountain gorillas who are endangered, that these were really,

[34:35.400 --> 34:39.920] really small groups that were traveling in these super small bands or potentially staying

[34:39.920 --> 34:40.920] put in this cave.

[34:40.920 --> 34:43.720] Because that's the other thing that they realized that was kind of strange.

[34:43.720 --> 34:49.640] We think of Neanderthals as like purely hunter-gatherers, but there's a chance that a lot of these

[34:49.640 --> 34:52.240] related individuals were not there at the same time.

[34:52.240 --> 34:53.240] There's a chance they were.

[34:53.240 --> 34:55.840] There's a chance that they all died in the same event.

[34:55.840 --> 34:58.800] And the scientists say maybe it was a mass starvation event.

[34:58.800 --> 35:01.160] But there's also a chance that they were leaving and coming back, leaving and coming

[35:01.160 --> 35:07.960] back, because it's kind of impossible to know granularly exactly what year they died.

[35:07.960 --> 35:10.840] We're talking about bands of like hundreds or thousands of years.

[35:10.840 --> 35:13.880] But here's something else that's kind of interesting.

[35:13.880 --> 35:18.360] When they looked globally at the 11 or actually at the 13 specimens that they had across two

[35:18.360 --> 35:25.840] different caves, they found that there was a lot of variation within the mitochondrial

[35:25.840 --> 35:32.960] DNA and very little diversity within the Y chromosome genetics.

[35:32.960 --> 35:36.280] It was an order of magnitude less diverse.

[35:36.280 --> 35:39.960] So anybody but Steve, what does that tell you?

[35:39.960 --> 35:46.640] Yeah, so they traveled, so then the women like left their families and met up with

[35:46.640 --> 35:47.640] strange men.

[35:47.640 --> 35:48.640] And that's what they think.

[35:48.640 --> 35:53.000] They think, like many other species throughout kind of the animal kingdom, that it was the

[35:53.000 --> 36:00.000] females of the species that would leave the home group and travel into other groups and

[36:00.000 --> 36:01.820] mix.

[36:01.820 --> 36:06.960] And it was the males that would kind of tend to stay put in the basic group.

[36:06.960 --> 36:13.000] And the interesting thing is that would then lead us to believe that most of the admixture

[36:13.000 --> 36:18.200] that we now have today that was Neanderthal human and even some of the Neanderthal Denisovan

[36:18.200 --> 36:27.680] might likely have been due to the females of the species going out and finding new groups

[36:27.680 --> 36:34.000] and their genetic material being spread far and wide and not the males of the species.

[36:34.000 --> 36:35.220] So it's kind of interesting.

[36:35.220 --> 36:37.360] Like this is something that we just didn't know before.

[36:37.360 --> 36:39.520] Yeah, like the men are the home bodies.

[36:39.520 --> 36:44.480] Yeah, and it's all based on looking at their DNA and comparing different types of DNA,

[36:44.480 --> 36:47.640] nuclear DNA to mitochondrial DNA, which is pretty cool.

[36:47.640 --> 36:49.980] There's a lot of other cool stuff from this group.

[36:49.980 --> 36:56.040] Like you can read other studies that have come out from the similar group.

[36:56.040 --> 37:04.440] Like we know, for example, that the Neanderthals in this cave are more similar to Neanderthals

[37:04.440 --> 37:10.720] in other parts of Europe than to the Neanderthals in the very, very nearby Denisovan cave.

[37:10.720 --> 37:15.180] And so what that tells us is that it's very likely that there were two massive waves of

[37:15.180 --> 37:19.440] Neanderthal migration east across Eurasia.

[37:19.440 --> 37:24.420] And they just both happened to settle in this far eastern portion that may have just been

[37:24.420 --> 37:29.520] so severe because we're talking like deep, deep Siberia that they couldn't go any farther

[37:29.520 --> 37:32.460] and then settled into these caves.

[37:32.460 --> 37:36.980] One thing that some researchers caution though is to not make wide sweeping generalizations

[37:36.980 --> 37:41.300] about Neanderthal culture as a whole based on our findings from these caves because these

[37:41.300 --> 37:45.440] might have been, as I mentioned, very severe places.

[37:45.440 --> 37:48.920] And so their communities may have been small simply for that reason.

[37:48.920 --> 37:52.020] Some of the things that we're saying, oh, this is how Neanderthals were, well, it might

[37:52.020 --> 37:54.040] just be how Neanderthals were there.

[37:54.040 --> 37:55.240] And we have to remember that as well.

[37:55.240 --> 37:56.240] Yeah.

[37:56.240 --> 38:00.600] I always find it fascinating when we find a snapshot like that, like frozen in time,

[38:00.600 --> 38:01.600] we see an event.

[38:01.600 --> 38:02.600] Yeah.

[38:02.600 --> 38:06.220] Like I think that it seems more likely from reading this that the father and the daughter

[38:06.220 --> 38:07.640] were killed at the same time.

[38:07.640 --> 38:09.880] You would think because they're not, they're contemporaries.

[38:09.880 --> 38:10.880] She wouldn't be a teenager.

[38:10.880 --> 38:11.880] Yeah.

[38:11.880 --> 38:15.380] You wouldn't have, and it could be that all of these individuals were killed in the same

[38:15.380 --> 38:16.380] event.

[38:16.380 --> 38:20.160] And they think because there's no evidence of any like violence or like, I guess there

[38:20.160 --> 38:23.880] are historical sites where like roofs caved in and they were able to say, wow, these people

[38:23.880 --> 38:25.080] were crushed to death.

[38:25.080 --> 38:26.920] But in this case, they didn't have any evidence like that.

[38:26.920 --> 38:31.280] So they're like, maybe it was just a bad hunt year and they couldn't get enough food or

[38:31.280 --> 38:32.920] they froze to death, something like that.

[38:32.920 --> 38:33.920] Yeah.

[38:33.920 --> 38:34.920] Pretty cool.

[38:34.920 --> 38:35.920] All right.

[38:35.920 --> 38:36.920] Thanks, Kara.

[38:36.920 --> 38:37.920] Yeah, really cool.

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[38:40.260 --> 38:46.860] this week, Chemists in the Kitchen by LabX, a YouTube video series spotlighting the power

[38:46.860 --> 38:50.560] of chemistry and how science and food can bring people together.

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[39:25.880 --> 39:27.880] All right, guys, let's get back to the show.

Chimpanzees and Gorillas Socializing (39:27)

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[39:27.880 --> 39:30.680] Jay, you're going to give us this next news item.

[39:30.680 --> 39:31.680] It's somewhat related.

[39:31.680 --> 39:32.880] It's at least about primates.

[39:32.880 --> 39:36.660] You're going to tell us about gorillas and chimps being friends.

[39:36.660 --> 39:38.000] This one is fascinating.

[39:38.000 --> 39:41.440] It really it's really, really fun.

[39:41.440 --> 39:47.360] Scientists have to observe chimpanzees and gorillas in a park in the Republic of Congo

[39:47.360 --> 39:52.060] cavorting together, cavorting the yeah, they're socializing.

[39:52.060 --> 39:53.340] They were eating together.

[39:53.340 --> 39:54.340] They're playing together.

[39:54.340 --> 39:58.860] You know, historically, it's been it's been thought that chimps and gorillas were competitive

[39:58.860 --> 39:59.940] with each other.

[39:59.940 --> 40:04.120] They largely avoided one another, you know, and if they if they didn't, there was conflict.

[40:04.120 --> 40:09.240] But an anthropologist researcher named Cricket Sands at Washington University in St. Louis

[40:09.240 --> 40:15.060] and her colleagues, they spent 20 years observing and compiling information.

[40:15.060 --> 40:19.540] They witnessed multi year relationships between chimps and gorillas.

[40:19.540 --> 40:24.680] This research in the Congo is focusing on an area known as the Gulagu Triangle.

[40:24.680 --> 40:29.240] And so over the past 20 years, since 1999, the researchers followed the chimps on their

[40:29.240 --> 40:36.760] daily routine and they witnessed and logged 285 interactions between chimps and gorillas.

[40:36.760 --> 40:40.100] And these interactions lasted a minute to over eight hours.

[40:40.100 --> 40:42.180] That's longer than a D&D session.

[40:42.180 --> 40:47.420] So a typical situation, a typical situation was that a group of chimps became excited

[40:47.420 --> 40:53.040] when they found edible fruit and the sounds of the chimps would attract a family of gorillas.

[40:53.040 --> 40:59.740] And 34% of the time, the gorillas would join in on the meal in the same tree right next

[40:59.740 --> 41:00.740] to each other.

[41:00.740 --> 41:04.100] They'd also look for varieties of foods together as well.

[41:04.100 --> 41:05.100] Right.

[41:05.100 --> 41:06.100] So that's another thing.

[41:06.100 --> 41:07.920] They're not just, you know, sharing that one tree.

[41:07.920 --> 41:11.040] They would then go off and look for more food together.

[41:11.040 --> 41:14.800] Adult female chimps that had their young with them actually tolerated gorillas being around

[41:14.800 --> 41:17.880] their young, you know, as they were all socializing.

[41:17.880 --> 41:22.380] And the socialization also showed the researchers that individual chimps and gorillas recognized

[41:22.380 --> 41:26.340] each other and made friends like they were acting like they were friends.

[41:26.340 --> 41:30.860] They knew this because they would prefer to socialize with specific individuals.

[41:30.860 --> 41:35.900] So a chimp and a gorilla would look for each other and they'd go and find each other.

[41:35.900 --> 41:36.900] And they were friends.

[41:36.900 --> 41:37.900] Yeah.

[41:37.900 --> 41:43.600] So they they're they paired off and their interactions included playtime, like chasing and wrestling.

[41:43.600 --> 41:48.200] And if there was any tension at all, it never escalated just beyond yelling.

[41:48.200 --> 41:51.880] You know, they would yell at each other, which, you know, that's pretty human of them.

[41:51.880 --> 41:55.600] They they would have regular interactions.

[41:55.600 --> 41:59.520] And these friendly interactions benefited both species, you know, because they would

[41:59.520 --> 42:04.900] alert each other of feeding spots, but they would develop friendships while the feeding

[42:04.900 --> 42:05.900] was happening.

[42:05.900 --> 42:09.480] That's very, you know, that's very human bonding.

[42:09.480 --> 42:10.480] Yeah.

[42:10.480 --> 42:13.880] So now fast forward five to 10 years and these individuals came to know each other.

[42:13.880 --> 42:14.880] Right.

[42:14.880 --> 42:15.880] So first they're feeding with each other.

[42:15.880 --> 42:19.360] They're hanging out there playing and they're, you know, then they slowly over time developed

[42:19.360 --> 42:20.360] a relationship.

[42:20.360 --> 42:21.360] Now they know each other.

[42:21.360 --> 42:27.200] Some actually even grew up together as they shared resource resources and had these regular

[42:27.200 --> 42:28.200] interactions.

[42:28.200 --> 42:31.440] So this research has implications for human evolutionary history as well.

[42:31.440 --> 42:35.480] It's you know, it's commonly thought that hominins competed with each other.

[42:35.480 --> 42:39.840] And this research asked the question of whether, you know, early man had friendly interactions

[42:39.840 --> 42:41.080] with others from different species.

[42:41.080 --> 42:46.360] I mean, we know that there was interbreeding, but oh, yeah, you know, it could it could

[42:46.360 --> 42:49.880] be like, yeah, maybe maybe there was a lot more friendly interaction going on.

[42:49.880 --> 42:53.960] And it wasn't all just, you know, movie like wars and everything, you know.

[42:53.960 --> 42:54.960] It makes sense.

[42:54.960 --> 42:58.560] And it shows another example of, you know, we have this assumption that evolution is

[42:58.560 --> 42:59.560] always competitive.

[42:59.560 --> 43:05.440] Like we're always fighting over stuff, fighting over resources, but actually cooperation is

[43:05.440 --> 43:08.940] hugely evolutionarily advantageous, advantageous.

[43:08.940 --> 43:12.520] And so it's not surprising that it would happen across species.

[43:12.520 --> 43:17.480] Of course, it's always something adorable about it, you know, the dog befriended a duck

[43:17.480 --> 43:18.480] or whatever.

[43:18.480 --> 43:21.840] It's always you see like a chimp and a gorilla palling around together.

[43:21.840 --> 43:22.840] I don't know.

[43:22.840 --> 43:24.320] For some reason, I always find that totally adorable.

[43:24.320 --> 43:26.880] But from an evolutionary point of view, it makes sense.

[43:26.880 --> 43:32.080] And it is this is partly why we evolved species in the wild to challenge our assumptions about

[43:32.080 --> 43:33.080] what's happening out there.

[43:33.080 --> 43:34.760] I mean, they're different, but they're similar.

[43:34.760 --> 43:35.760] Yeah.

[43:35.760 --> 43:36.760] We're all similar, though.

[43:36.760 --> 43:39.040] I mean, you know, they're really similar.

[43:39.040 --> 43:41.640] Yeah, without a doubt, without a question.

[43:41.640 --> 43:42.640] It does.

[43:42.640 --> 43:45.560] It seems to make more sense than them just warring with each other.

[43:45.560 --> 43:48.360] You know, like it just feels right on it also.

[43:48.360 --> 43:51.700] There's a warm and fuzzy here that I just really enjoyed, you know, reading, reading

[43:51.700 --> 43:52.700] about this.

[43:52.700 --> 43:53.700] And I'm like, oh, they're friends.

The Biggest Gamma Ray Burst Ever (44:00)

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[43:53.700 --> 44:00.480] You know, it's like, all right, thanks, Jay, Bob, you're going to tell us about the biggest

[44:00.480 --> 44:02.480] gamma ray burst ever.

[44:02.480 --> 44:05.120] Yeah, this was quite striking.

[44:05.120 --> 44:09.660] Recently, our solar system was hit by the most powerful and brightest gamma ray burst

[44:09.660 --> 44:13.000] ever detected, even from billions of light years away.

[44:13.000 --> 44:15.640] It had a detectable impact on our atmosphere.

[44:15.640 --> 44:16.760] I felt nothing.

[44:16.760 --> 44:19.920] So this was no surprise there.

[44:19.920 --> 44:22.080] This was actually pretty exciting news for me.

[44:22.080 --> 44:23.560] And I wish I knew when it was happening.

[44:23.560 --> 44:27.200] I think it would have been kind of fun to look up and say, we're getting hit by a huge

[44:27.200 --> 44:29.600] gamma ray burst right now.

[44:29.600 --> 44:30.600] And I'm still alive.

[44:30.600 --> 44:31.600] All right.

[44:31.600 --> 44:33.520] So the date I'm referring to is October 9th.

[44:33.520 --> 44:35.840] This is October 9th, 2022.

[44:35.840 --> 44:41.680] Very recently, it was detected by X-ray and gamma ray space telescopes.

[44:41.680 --> 44:48.640] The gamma ray burst was called GRB 221009A, which is basically the first gamma ray burst

[44:48.640 --> 44:53.640] of 2022.

[44:53.640 --> 44:54.640] That they've detected.

[44:54.640 --> 44:55.640] Yeah.

[44:55.640 --> 44:56.640] On 10-9.

[44:56.640 --> 44:57.640] Yeah.

[44:57.640 --> 44:58.640] So if they had two in one day, then it would have been 10-09B.

[44:58.640 --> 44:59.640] All right.

[44:59.640 --> 45:03.300] So and astronomers all over the world were obviously really excited.

[45:03.300 --> 45:07.720] They all jumped on their telescopes, those that could, to see and study what was being

[45:07.720 --> 45:09.280] called the boat.

[45:09.280 --> 45:11.080] You've all heard of the goat.

[45:11.080 --> 45:14.760] This is the boat for the brightest of all time.

[45:14.760 --> 45:16.120] And it is by far.

[45:16.120 --> 45:21.660] So gamma ray bursts are definitely on my top three coolest shit in the universe in terms

[45:21.660 --> 45:22.660] of big explosions.

[45:22.660 --> 45:24.060] It's really top three.

[45:24.060 --> 45:25.060] Top three.

[45:25.060 --> 45:29.520] They're the brightest events we know of with peak luminosity near 100 billion, billion

[45:29.520 --> 45:30.520] suns.

[45:30.520 --> 45:34.440] And there's two kinds, there's summer short bursts.

[45:34.440 --> 45:37.460] They last less than two seconds and they're probably caused by something like colliding

[45:37.460 --> 45:39.660] black holes or colliding neutron stars.

[45:39.660 --> 45:44.900] This one was a long gamma ray burst, which can last as many seconds to over a minute.

[45:44.900 --> 45:47.200] And this one was fairly long.

[45:47.200 --> 45:51.200] They are thought to be the result of the most extreme supernovae.

[45:51.200 --> 45:53.320] We've talked about supernovae many, many times.

[45:53.320 --> 45:57.140] That's when the most massive stars at the end of their lives run out of fuel and basically

[45:57.140 --> 46:00.760] collapse into black holes and explode at the same time.

[46:00.760 --> 46:05.900] The supernovae that can create these long gamma ray bursts, though, are so extreme.

[46:05.900 --> 46:10.840] They're such at the far end of the spectrum, if you will, that they're called hypernovae

[46:10.840 --> 46:15.960] with 10 times the kinetic energy and luminosity of your more typical supernovae.

[46:15.960 --> 46:20.520] So these are, I mean, these are the ultimate in terms of supernovae that can create these.

[46:20.520 --> 46:25.820] So it is thought that some of the collapsing gas at the end of the life of this massive

[46:25.820 --> 46:32.880] star rebounds off of a gas shell that's already surrounding the new black hole.

[46:32.880 --> 46:38.200] And then that rebound creates jets that fly through other collapsing gases, and then it

[46:38.200 --> 46:44.040] emerges and evolves into a collimated beam of gamma radiation, the most intense radiation

[46:44.040 --> 46:45.040] that exists.

[46:45.040 --> 46:49.040] That's kind of like the birth of a gamma ray burst.

[46:49.040 --> 46:52.560] This is the most intense release of energy known after the Big Bang itself.

[46:52.560 --> 46:57.680] And that one that happened on October 9th takes the cake above and beyond all the thousands

[46:57.680 --> 47:00.520] of other gamma ray bursts that have ever been detected.

[47:00.520 --> 47:05.200] Part of that, of course, is that it's closer, but it was still 2.4 billion light years away.

[47:05.200 --> 47:08.120] I was kind of surprised that that was the closest that we've ever found.

[47:08.120 --> 47:11.560] I thought there would have been some that were closer than that.

[47:11.560 --> 47:16.960] But if you look at just the absolute amount of energy that was released, it is record

[47:16.960 --> 47:18.920] breakingly huge.

[47:18.920 --> 47:19.920] Incredible.

[47:19.920 --> 47:24.040] Andrew Levin at Red Baud University in the Netherlands said, we don't know exactly

[47:24.040 --> 47:28.280] how powerful this burst is, though, despite the fact that many telescopes around the world

[47:28.280 --> 47:29.540] are looking at it.

[47:29.540 --> 47:34.040] That is partially because it's so bright that it saturates the detectors of gamma ray

[47:34.040 --> 47:35.040] telescopes.

[47:35.040 --> 47:37.700] So all they see are completely white pixels with no detail.

[47:37.700 --> 47:40.560] If you had gamma ray eyes, you'd be blinded.

[47:40.560 --> 47:42.640] And of course, I love that last line.

[47:42.640 --> 47:45.240] So how huge was it then?

[47:45.240 --> 47:48.760] Even though they're not certain, they can give, you know, they can give error bars.

[47:48.760 --> 47:53.040] So here comes the part where Bob mentions insanely large numbers that almost nobody

[47:53.040 --> 47:55.000] has ever heard about before.

[47:55.000 --> 47:59.200] Estimates put the energy release of the gamma ray burst between 10 to the 54 and 10 to

[47:59.200 --> 48:01.040] the 55 ergs.

[48:01.040 --> 48:03.840] So 10 to the 54, 10 to the 54.

[48:03.840 --> 48:04.840] That's septendecillion.

[48:04.840 --> 48:05.840] Yeah.

[48:05.840 --> 48:06.840] Which is.

[48:06.840 --> 48:07.840] That's right.

[48:07.840 --> 48:08.840] Yes.

[48:08.840 --> 48:09.840] Thank you.

[48:09.840 --> 48:10.840] Thank you, Evan.

[48:10.840 --> 48:12.380] And which is also a quintillion, quintillion, quintillion.

[48:12.380 --> 48:15.480] So this is an amazingly huge number.

[48:15.480 --> 48:17.120] But the other end of that is ergs.

[48:17.120 --> 48:21.060] We I don't think we've really mentioned ergs before and you really don't need to know too

[48:21.060 --> 48:22.060] much about it.

[48:22.060 --> 48:25.400] Other than that, it's a very tiny unit of energy or work.

[48:25.400 --> 48:30.000] It's equal to about 10 to the minus seven joules, 100 nanojoules.

[48:30.000 --> 48:31.000] Really tiny.

[48:31.000 --> 48:36.980] You would have to you would have to use 13.5 million ergs to move a pound weight one foot.

[48:36.980 --> 48:39.080] So they're tiny, like I said.

[48:39.080 --> 48:45.360] But this gamma ray burst spit out 10 to the 54 of them, 10 to the 54 of anything.

[48:45.360 --> 48:47.800] Even ergs is just stupidly huge.

[48:47.800 --> 48:50.960] So I was trying to think, how could you wrap your head around a number that big?

[48:50.960 --> 48:56.040] You can't just say, oh, it's sub 10, sub 10 decillion quintillion, quintillion, quintillion.

[48:56.040 --> 48:57.320] That really does not help.

[48:57.320 --> 48:59.520] Even though I love those I love those words.

[48:59.520 --> 49:00.600] It doesn't really help.

[49:00.600 --> 49:02.240] So how about this?

[49:02.240 --> 49:08.160] The amount of energy contained in that gamma ray burst was the entirety of our sun's energy

[49:08.160 --> 49:12.480] output over 10 billion years times a thousand.

[49:12.480 --> 49:13.480] That's a lot.

[49:13.480 --> 49:18.860] So even even so, but even the tiniest components of that energy beam, the individual photons

[49:18.860 --> 49:22.120] of gamma rays themselves are they're breaking records.

[49:22.120 --> 49:24.480] Some are 18 TeV.

[49:24.480 --> 49:29.720] You should be impressed 18 trillion electron volts, which may in fact require revisions

[49:29.720 --> 49:31.800] to our understanding of physics itself.

[49:31.800 --> 49:37.400] If it's true, it's such a huge amount of energy that it's kind of hard to figure out exactly

[49:37.400 --> 49:41.120] how it could be accelerated to that to that level.

[49:41.120 --> 49:46.820] It's much more powerful than anything created in the Large Hadron Collider, I mean immense.

[49:46.820 --> 49:52.400] So now you would think that anything that happens 2.4 billion light years away couldn't

[49:52.400 --> 49:58.640] physically impact the Earth, except maybe vacuum decay or J before gas X was invented.

[49:58.640 --> 50:02.000] Well, I really, I really, I've really worked on that sentence.

[50:02.000 --> 50:06.680] I had I reformulated it to make it easier to understand the most.

[50:06.680 --> 50:12.080] So this this gamma ray burst actually had a tangible impact on Earth's atmosphere.

[50:12.080 --> 50:16.960] Sunwave radio transmissions in Earth's ionosphere were actually disrupted to a certain extent,

[50:16.960 --> 50:21.520] not a huge amount, but they were, they were disrupted and it was detectable by an event

[50:21.520 --> 50:25.640] that happened 2.4 billion years ago.

[50:25.640 --> 50:26.640] Incredible.

[50:26.640 --> 50:29.680] So this then leads to the question, what question does this lead to?

[50:29.680 --> 50:32.660] What would happen if such a gamma ray burst was closer?

[50:32.660 --> 50:34.960] What if it could impact our atmosphere?

[50:34.960 --> 50:37.320] What would happen if we're a lot, lot closer?

[50:37.320 --> 50:41.960] It's kind of hard to find scientists really speculating in the detail that I would love

[50:41.960 --> 50:47.840] to, to, to, to read about, but if it were thousands of light years away, such a gamma

[50:47.840 --> 50:52.960] ray burst would basically destroy a good chunk apparently of our atmosphere, including our

[50:52.960 --> 50:55.720] protective ozone layer, which you don't want to destroy.

[50:55.720 --> 50:57.640] You don't want to destroy that ozone layer.

[50:57.640 --> 51:01.220] It's the only thing, you know, it's the main thing preventing you from getting a tan,

[51:01.220 --> 51:05.320] a deadly tan and very quickly with that will lead to cancer.

[51:05.320 --> 51:11.120] But the direct radiation blast and the lack of protection for years would cause mass extinction.

[51:11.120 --> 51:15.320] So, I mean, first off you have that, that gamma ray pulse that would basically wipe

[51:15.320 --> 51:16.440] out a lot.

[51:16.440 --> 51:20.800] And then it would take earth probably, I don't know how long would it take to rebuild our

[51:20.800 --> 51:24.920] ozone layer decades to centuries or millennia who know, I don't know.

[51:24.920 --> 51:30.400] Did you know, did you know that the Ordovician extinction 450 million years ago is thought

[51:30.400 --> 51:35.640] to maybe be caused by a gamma ray burst when they're not sure, but some scientists think

[51:35.640 --> 51:37.520] that it could have been caused by a gamma ray burst.

[51:37.520 --> 51:40.080] So that's how, that's how deadly they can be.

[51:40.080 --> 51:45.760] Now if we had a direct head closer, you know, if we were right in the bull's eye and it

[51:45.760 --> 51:50.640] hit the earth from, from much closer, I mean, say it, say a hundred light years or 50 or

[51:50.640 --> 51:55.680] 40, 30 light years, really, really close, then basically that would sterilize the surface

[51:55.680 --> 51:56.840] of the earth.

[51:56.840 --> 51:59.960] Ultimately, perhaps only back only bacteria.

[51:59.960 --> 52:02.280] I was trying to think what would happen, especially when I'm on the earth.

[52:02.280 --> 52:07.080] I mean, it only lasts about, it could last a minute, you know, if it were, if it were

[52:07.080 --> 52:09.440] a long rate, a long gamma ray burst.

[52:09.440 --> 52:14.060] So only one side of the earth would be, would be like demolished that would be completely

[52:14.060 --> 52:17.140] and utterly sterilized by, by such a beam.

[52:17.140 --> 52:20.440] So what would that, what would that do to the other half of the planet where there's,

[52:20.440 --> 52:21.680] you know, lots of living creatures?

[52:21.680 --> 52:26.360] I would, I would think that they would just slowly just become extinct because of the

[52:26.360 --> 52:31.020] disruption to the ozone disruption to the atmosphere itself.

[52:31.020 --> 52:35.680] So I think it would probably probably wipe out pretty much everything except maybe maybe

[52:35.680 --> 52:36.920] some bacteria would survive.

[52:36.920 --> 52:39.240] I mean, cause there's bacteria deep underground.

[52:39.240 --> 52:43.880] I mean, I think they would be fairly protected, but at some point a gamma ray burst would

[52:43.880 --> 52:44.880] be so close.

[52:44.880 --> 52:48.200] I mean, nothing would, nothing would make it, but that would be, I want to see that

[52:48.200 --> 52:49.200] in a movie.

[52:49.200 --> 52:52.640] I want to see, I want to see a gamma ray burst take out a planet and, huh?

[52:52.640 --> 52:54.320] But the bottom line is distance matters.

[52:54.320 --> 52:55.320] Yeah.

[52:55.320 --> 52:56.320] Yeah.

[52:56.320 --> 52:57.320] Distance.

[52:57.320 --> 53:01.840] And we would have to be, have exquisite bad luck to be in the cross hairs of such a thing.

[53:01.840 --> 53:03.720] So it's, so don't worry about it.

[53:03.720 --> 53:08.440] It's amazingly unlikely and it would have to be, you know, not only pretty intense,

[53:08.440 --> 53:10.000] but very, very close.

[53:10.000 --> 53:14.480] And there's, there's none that are, that are that close to us that we're really worried.

[53:14.480 --> 53:17.600] Hypernova events shouldn't be happening close to us.

[53:17.600 --> 53:18.720] This one was special.

[53:18.720 --> 53:24.960] We may, we may not see another gamma ray burst like this for, for centuries or a thousand

[53:24.960 --> 53:25.960] years.

[53:25.960 --> 53:28.120] So this is probably our only chance.

[53:28.120 --> 53:32.040] We got lucky to see such, such an amazing event and hopefully some good science will

[53:32.040 --> 53:33.040] come out of it.

[53:33.040 --> 53:34.040] Does it have a cool name?

[53:34.040 --> 53:35.040] Like the Carrington event?

[53:35.040 --> 53:36.040] Anything like that?

[53:36.040 --> 53:37.040] Oh, it was.

[53:37.040 --> 53:38.040] The Thanos snap?

[53:38.040 --> 53:39.040] Yeah.

[53:39.040 --> 53:40.660] CrB, 2-2-1-0-0-9-a.

[53:40.660 --> 53:42.640] Parabey 22 1009a.

[53:42.640 --> 53:43.640] Very cool.

[53:43.640 --> 53:44.640] Very cool.

[53:44.640 --> 53:45.640] No, no Boddy McBoat face.

[53:45.640 --> 53:46.640] Okay.

[53:46.640 --> 53:47.640] Great.

[53:47.640 --> 53:48.640] It should.

[53:48.640 --> 53:49.640] It should.

[53:49.640 --> 53:50.640] It may be one will, you know, organically evolved because because we're not going to

[53:50.640 --> 53:51.640] see this again.

[53:51.640 --> 53:54.640] So I think it should, it deserves a name.

[53:54.640 --> 53:55.640] Yeah.

[53:55.640 --> 53:56.640] The Babanink.

[53:56.640 --> 53:57.640] It's the Babanink.

[53:57.640 --> 53:58.640] The Babanink.

[53:58.640 --> 53:59.640] I'll take it like that.

[53:59.640 --> 54:00.640] I'll take all of it.

[54:00.640 --> 54:01.640] Any, of those are good.

[54:01.640 --> 54:02.640] Thank you.

Cheating Scandals (54:03)

• [link_URL TITLE]

[54:02.640 --> 54:03.640] All right.

[54:03.640 --> 54:04.580] Evan, tell us about this recent rash of cheating scandals.

[54:04.920 --> 54:05.240] Yeah.

[54:05.240 --> 54:07.760] I can't, I can't get away from these stories for some reason.

[54:06.960 --> 54:07.960] Okay.

[54:07.960 --> 54:10.680] Maybe it's because science and gaming,

[54:10.680 --> 54:13.240] these are two circles on my Venn diagram.

[54:13.240 --> 54:15.240] They overlap pretty well together,

[54:15.240 --> 54:17.480] and anyone who knows me knows this.

[54:17.480 --> 54:19.880] So anytime a news item about gaming,

[54:19.880 --> 54:21.640] especially one that comes from

[54:21.640 --> 54:24.060] an online science magazine, arrives,

[54:24.060 --> 54:26.580] well, you're hitting my sweet notes right there.

[54:26.580 --> 54:29.860] All right, ZME Science, it's a great website.

[54:29.860 --> 54:31.720] Headline, bizarre cheating scandals

[54:31.720 --> 54:33.920] are rocking the world of chess, poker, fishing,

[54:33.920 --> 54:35.840] and tap dancing.

[54:35.840 --> 54:37.340] Mm-hmm.

[54:37.340 --> 54:38.180] All right.

[54:38.180 --> 54:39.000] No way.

[54:39.000 --> 54:42.760] And the article starts out with this.

[54:42.760 --> 54:47.040] It's a tweet from Fabiano Carana,

[54:47.040 --> 54:50.000] in which they say poker imitates chess, question mark.

[54:50.000 --> 54:54.960] And so you have to know, and I think you do know,

[54:54.960 --> 54:56.640] what's been going on in the professional world

[54:56.640 --> 54:57.660] of chess lately.

[54:57.660 --> 55:00.760] We touched on it a few episodes ago.

[55:00.760 --> 55:03.040] We didn't do a deep dive, but enough of a discussion

[55:03.040 --> 55:05.380] where we also had to do some follow-up

[55:05.380 --> 55:07.760] on the next episode in regards to that news.

[55:07.760 --> 55:10.200] This was back in September during a chess tournament

[55:10.200 --> 55:11.160] in St. Louis, Missouri.

[55:11.160 --> 55:14.040] Magnus Carlsen, top-ranked chess player in the world,

[55:14.040 --> 55:18.200] lost a chess game to an unlikely opponent, Hans Niemann,

[55:18.200 --> 55:21.400] who was a late wildcard entry into the tournament.

[55:21.400 --> 55:25.820] So Hans beat the top-ranked player, Magnus.

[55:25.820 --> 55:27.360] And I won't go into the finer details.

[55:27.360 --> 55:28.760] We've already discussed some of those,

[55:28.760 --> 55:30.680] but I wanted to give a little perspective

[55:30.680 --> 55:32.920] and then kind of blend this in with the other stories

[55:32.920 --> 55:35.240] that are going on on this news item.

[55:35.240 --> 55:38.480] Just so you know, chess has rating systems for players,

[55:38.480 --> 55:42.480] various ones, but there's a rapid system,

[55:42.480 --> 55:44.320] and they have something called the standard system.

[55:44.320 --> 55:46.020] They've got something else called the blitz system,

[55:46.020 --> 55:47.680] but they all kind of parallel each other.

[55:47.680 --> 55:48.680] If you look at them on a chart,

[55:48.680 --> 55:51.560] they basically ride the same kinds of waves.

[55:51.560 --> 55:54.520] So generally speaking, for perspective,

[55:54.520 --> 55:57.600] when you have a score, when you're rated at 2,100,

[55:57.600 --> 56:01.240] if you're looking at the standard deviation chart,

[56:01.240 --> 56:05.360] 2,100, that puts you in the 99.8 percentile, right?

[56:05.360 --> 56:08.120] So you are way far over to the right side

[56:08.120 --> 56:12.000] of that standard deviation curve, 2,100, okay?

[56:12.000 --> 56:13.940] At the time of the controversy,

[56:13.940 --> 56:17.760] Niemann was ranked at about 2530,

[56:17.760 --> 56:21.940] and Magnus was ranked 2850, okay?

[56:21.940 --> 56:23.040] Which may, you know,

[56:23.040 --> 56:24.360] obviously we're talking about extremes here,

[56:24.360 --> 56:26.400] but when you focus in and zoom down to that level,

[56:26.400 --> 56:28.880] there is an enormous difference between a player

[56:28.880 --> 56:32.440] who is ranked at 2530 versus 2847.

[56:32.440 --> 56:34.480] Also for comparison, Deep Blue,

[56:34.480 --> 56:36.800] remember the chess AI program, Deep Blue?

[56:36.800 --> 56:38.880] 2,700 was its rating, right?

[56:38.880 --> 56:42.400] So at the very high end of professional chess players,

[56:42.400 --> 56:43.960] Magnus still beats Deep Blue.

[56:43.960 --> 56:46.360] But Alpha Blue, Alpha Blue,

[56:46.360 --> 56:49.720] the next generation of AI chess, 4650.

[56:49.720 --> 56:53.440] So yeah, that kind of blows away

[56:53.440 --> 56:57.020] even the potential of a human really achieving that.

[56:57.020 --> 56:58.840] So that gives you kind of a scale

[56:58.840 --> 57:00.560] of what we're talking about here.

[57:00.560 --> 57:05.560] Magnus, after the loss, he withdrew from the tournament,

[57:05.680 --> 57:06.720] sent a cryptic tweet,

[57:06.720 --> 57:08.520] effectively accusing Niemann of cheating

[57:08.520 --> 57:10.720] without directly saying so, but he did it.

[57:10.720 --> 57:12.440] And he eventually followed up with it

[57:12.440 --> 57:15.640] and basically said, yeah, I think he was cheating.

[57:15.640 --> 57:18.000] Now, when we did our quick follow-up on the SGU

[57:18.000 --> 57:20.120] after the story kicked in

[57:20.120 --> 57:22.120] and it was one of the opening banters on our show,

[57:22.120 --> 57:24.400] but I did some research for the follow-up of it,

[57:24.400 --> 57:26.940] and I looked into the work of Kenneth Regan.

[57:26.940 --> 57:28.640] He's also a grandmaster at chess.

[57:28.640 --> 57:31.260] He's a professor of theoretical sciences

[57:31.260 --> 57:32.760] at the University of Buffalo,

[57:32.760 --> 57:34.120] and he's highly regarded

[57:34.120 --> 57:38.280] as one of the world's leading chess cheating analysts.

[57:38.280 --> 57:41.040] He's designed programs and analysis

[57:41.040 --> 57:43.520] that are regarded as some of the best

[57:43.520 --> 57:45.600] absolutely in the world at detecting.

[57:45.600 --> 57:49.280] His systems detect unusual patterns in a player's play,

[57:49.280 --> 57:52.080] and he analyzes it on a game-per-game basis.

[57:52.080 --> 57:56.760] His system doesn't use chess knowledge specifically,

[57:56.760 --> 57:58.840] he says, it's all based on the quantitative data

[57:58.840 --> 58:03.600] from computers evaluations of moves that they are making.

[58:03.600 --> 58:06.040] So the data reveals patterns,

[58:06.040 --> 58:08.580] and where the patterns show deviation of unusual things,

[58:08.580 --> 58:12.120] then the chances of the cheat wind up going way up,

[58:12.120 --> 58:13.680] and that has to be considered.

[58:13.680 --> 58:16.120] So he analyzed the Carlson versus Nielsen game,

[58:16.120 --> 58:17.520] and according to his analytics,

[58:17.520 --> 58:18.780] nothing stood out so much

[58:18.780 --> 58:21.680] that could have been called obvious cheating.

[58:21.680 --> 58:23.920] So it didn't have those markers.

[58:23.920 --> 58:27.040] However, the story actually has more depth to it.

[58:27.040 --> 58:29.680] Nielsen had admitted to cheating in the past

[58:29.680 --> 58:30.880] on two different occasions,

[58:30.880 --> 58:32.640] and then chess.com,

[58:32.640 --> 58:36.440] who's the world's top online chess site, right?

[58:36.440 --> 58:38.640] For both professional and amateur players,

[58:38.640 --> 58:40.280] they released a couple weeks ago,

[58:40.280 --> 58:42.680] just two weeks ago, something called the Nieman Report,

[58:42.680 --> 58:44.360] in which they explained their reasons

[58:44.360 --> 58:46.720] for banning Nieman from chess.com,

[58:46.720 --> 58:48.840] and overall, basically what they said,

[58:48.840 --> 58:53.200] they have 100 instances, 100 online chess games,

[58:53.200 --> 58:55.980] in which they do have statistical analysis

[58:55.980 --> 58:58.560] that says he likely cheated,

[58:58.560 --> 59:00.260] and in some of those cases,

[59:00.260 --> 59:04.200] they're using the fella, Ken Regan,

[59:04.200 --> 59:08.000] his data to support their findings,

[59:08.000 --> 59:12.040] two specific instances in 2015 and 2017.

[59:12.040 --> 59:13.760] Also, if you want another update on this,

[59:13.760 --> 59:16.640] just today, just hours ago,

[59:16.640 --> 59:19.840] Nielsen has filed a lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen

[59:19.840 --> 59:22.120] for defamation, $100 million lawsuit

[59:22.120 --> 59:25.440] is coming Magnus' and chess.com,

[59:25.440 --> 59:28.440] I believe, both of their ways for defamation.

[59:28.440 --> 59:29.700] So that's the latest on that.

[59:29.700 --> 59:31.840] So all while this has been going on

[59:31.840 --> 59:33.840] in the world of chess and cheating,

[59:33.840 --> 59:36.680] there have actually been other professional games

[59:36.680 --> 59:41.240] and leisure activities that have also involved cheating

[59:41.240 --> 59:43.400] on a very high profile.

[59:43.400 --> 59:47.760] This one was about, as the first sentence in the article says,

[59:47.760 --> 59:49.180] tells us poker.

[59:49.180 --> 59:52.060] Kara, you're a poker player.

[59:52.060 --> 59:52.900] I am.

[59:52.900 --> 59:54.880] Did you happen to hear about this one?

[59:54.880 --> 59:55.720] I did not.

[59:55.720 --> 59:57.520] I don't really follow the poker news.

[59:57.520 --> 01:00:00.640] But people cheat in poker all the time, don't they?

[01:00:00.640 --> 01:00:02.600] Maybe not in professional games.

[01:00:02.600 --> 01:00:03.440] But, right.

[01:00:03.440 --> 01:00:06.000] Because there's like sanctioned poker cheating,

[01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:08.520] and then there's like unsanctioned poker cheating.

[01:00:08.520 --> 01:00:09.960] You can lie all you want, you just can't lie.

[01:00:09.960 --> 01:00:12.840] And this is a live televised event.

[01:00:12.840 --> 01:00:13.680] Yikes.

[01:00:13.680 --> 01:00:15.000] September 29th.

[01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:17.480] Pro poker rocked by alleged cheating scandal

[01:00:17.480 --> 01:00:21.720] where the winner repaid $269,000 to the loser,

[01:00:21.720 --> 01:00:23.740] or the person who felt they were cheated.

[01:00:23.740 --> 01:00:24.580] Oh, interesting.

[01:00:24.580 --> 01:00:28.700] Yeah, so we've got Robbie Jade Liu is her name.

[01:00:28.700 --> 01:00:32.720] And she's a social influencer of some repute,

[01:00:32.720 --> 01:00:35.400] but turned professional poker player.

[01:00:35.400 --> 01:00:39.760] And the other person involved is Garrett Adelstein,

[01:00:39.760 --> 01:00:42.760] who was a one-time contestant on Survivor.

[01:00:42.760 --> 01:00:45.200] That's his kind of claim to fame, I suppose.

[01:00:45.200 --> 01:00:49.120] But he's also gone into the professional poker circuit.

[01:00:49.120 --> 01:00:50.560] And the game they play, of course,

[01:00:50.560 --> 01:00:52.480] is called Texas Hold'em No Limit.

[01:00:52.480 --> 01:00:54.120] And for those of you not familiar with it,

[01:00:54.120 --> 01:00:58.200] you play with a standard 52-card deck of cards.

[01:00:58.200 --> 01:01:00.240] You're dealt two cards face down,

[01:01:00.240 --> 01:01:02.200] and then three community cards go face up.

[01:01:02.200 --> 01:01:03.360] You make a round of bets.

[01:01:03.360 --> 01:01:04.880] A fourth card goes face up.

[01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:07.120] Then you bet again based on what you've got.

[01:01:07.120 --> 01:01:08.900] And a fifth card eventually is turned up.

[01:01:08.900 --> 01:01:09.880] Final bets are made.

[01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:12.720] And those five cards in the middle are community cards.

[01:01:12.720 --> 01:01:15.040] Yes, I'm sorry, there's a pre-final bet as well.

[01:01:15.040 --> 01:01:16.280] Thank you, Kara, there is.

[01:01:16.280 --> 01:01:17.760] So you get your two cards, you make a bet,

[01:01:17.760 --> 01:01:20.360] and then as more community cards are revealed,

[01:01:20.360 --> 01:01:21.480] you make the best hand possible.

[01:01:21.480 --> 01:01:22.560] It's pretty simple.

[01:01:22.560 --> 01:01:25.720] At any point during this game, a player can go all in,

[01:01:25.720 --> 01:01:28.220] which means they're gonna bet everything they've got.

[01:01:28.220 --> 01:01:30.480] All their chips, they push them all into the center.

[01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:32.400] It's the most daring move at the table,

[01:01:32.400 --> 01:01:34.900] and it's often done out of, well, desperation.

[01:01:34.900 --> 01:01:36.340] When a player is so far behind,

[01:01:36.340 --> 01:01:39.000] they basically are gonna statistically

[01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:40.280] be likely to lose anyways.

[01:01:40.280 --> 01:01:42.280] They might as well wait for two cards

[01:01:42.280 --> 01:01:43.840] that give them the best odds of winning

[01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:45.940] and a hand before going all in.

[01:01:45.940 --> 01:01:48.240] Well, it's a power move to try and double

[01:01:48.240 --> 01:01:49.320] and triple and quadruple up.

[01:01:49.320 --> 01:01:51.680] Or a power move, right, in which you try

[01:01:51.680 --> 01:01:54.080] to overpower basically your opponent

[01:01:54.080 --> 01:01:56.640] when you know you've got a good, you know.

[01:01:56.640 --> 01:01:57.520] The nut.

[01:01:57.520 --> 01:02:00.440] Yeah, when you know you've got something really good.

[01:02:00.440 --> 01:02:03.480] In this game, it was Garrett who goes all in

[01:02:03.480 --> 01:02:06.360] after the fourth card is revealed, all right?

[01:02:06.360 --> 01:02:10.140] And then Robbie Lou, she has to call the bet.

[01:02:10.140 --> 01:02:12.260] She has to say whether she's gonna fold at that point

[01:02:12.260 --> 01:02:14.120] or go all in, and she goes all in.

[01:02:14.120 --> 01:02:16.760] Okay, so this is unusual because in her hand

[01:02:16.760 --> 01:02:19.160] was a jack and four off suit.

[01:02:19.160 --> 01:02:22.160] That is a lousy pair of cards to win with.

[01:02:22.160 --> 01:02:24.280] That depends on what the flop was.

[01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:27.640] Right, and the flop did not help at all.

[01:02:27.640 --> 01:02:29.020] It was a pair of tens, basically,

[01:02:29.020 --> 01:02:30.800] which, you know, is basically the same

[01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:33.180] for both, and both players get to benefit from that.

[01:02:33.180 --> 01:02:34.060] So no help at all.

[01:02:34.060 --> 01:02:35.400] There's nothing helping the jack.

[01:02:35.400 --> 01:02:38.540] There's nothing helping the four in her hand.

[01:02:38.540 --> 01:02:41.640] Now, normally, your two cards on all in bets,

[01:02:41.640 --> 01:02:42.680] you associate them.

[01:02:42.680 --> 01:02:44.560] Either you've got pairs, right,

[01:02:44.560 --> 01:02:47.260] or you've got two of the same suit,

[01:02:47.260 --> 01:02:49.040] or you have two cards in a series

[01:02:49.040 --> 01:02:50.960] in which you're going for a straight.

[01:02:50.960 --> 01:02:52.700] So jack, clubs, and four in hearts,

[01:02:52.700 --> 01:02:55.040] that's practically a useless hand,

[01:02:55.040 --> 01:02:59.640] especially when you're using it in an all in bet.

[01:02:59.640 --> 01:03:00.680] So it's one thing to bluff.

[01:03:00.680 --> 01:03:02.120] If you've got it and you're calling it

[01:03:02.120 --> 01:03:04.080] and you're trying to bluff your opponent, you might do it.

[01:03:04.080 --> 01:03:07.440] But when you're answering a bluff, you don't do this.

[01:03:07.440 --> 01:03:11.200] There's no instance statistically that will help you.

[01:03:11.200 --> 01:03:15.400] You have to have amazing luck, basically, in order to win.

[01:03:15.400 --> 01:03:16.240] There's so many questions

[01:03:16.240 --> 01:03:17.120] and it's probably not that important,

[01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:22.120] but how in were they before the first person pushed?

[01:03:22.920 --> 01:03:25.080] Like, was she super pot committed at this point?

[01:03:25.080 --> 01:03:28.640] No, she only had about maybe 20%,

[01:03:28.640 --> 01:03:31.440] maybe 15% of her money in front of her,

[01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:34.680] about 130,000 she had in front of her.

[01:03:34.680 --> 01:03:37.920] And he had about 800 something thousand on his own.

[01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:39.000] That's bananas.

[01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:39.840] Right, right.

[01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:42.400] So statistically speaking, it's a terrible thing to do,

[01:03:42.400 --> 01:03:44.320] is to call when you've got this hand.

[01:03:44.320 --> 01:03:45.440] She calls.

[01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:47.960] And it turns out her jack is the highest card in play.

[01:03:47.960 --> 01:03:51.640] Garrett's hand is eight clubs, seven of clubs.

[01:03:51.640 --> 01:03:53.920] Oh, that's so brutal.

[01:03:53.920 --> 01:03:55.240] On the table in front of him

[01:03:55.240 --> 01:03:56.520] are 10 of clubs and nine of clubs.

[01:03:56.520 --> 01:03:58.760] So you could see why he would want to go in.

[01:03:58.760 --> 01:04:00.160] He's hoping for the straight at least.

[01:04:00.160 --> 01:04:03.160] If not, the straight flush to come with the river card.

[01:04:03.160 --> 01:04:05.000] And it doesn't happen.

[01:04:05.000 --> 01:04:08.760] There's a rule in poker that when you have an all in bet,

[01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:12.120] if the players agree, the final cards that come out,

[01:04:12.120 --> 01:04:13.960] you can play them twice and split the hand.

[01:04:13.960 --> 01:04:15.600] Something I didn't really know about before,

[01:04:15.600 --> 01:04:17.120] but apparently it happened in this case.

[01:04:17.120 --> 01:04:18.760] You can do pretty much whatever you want

[01:04:18.760 --> 01:04:20.080] if there's only two people in a hand.

[01:04:20.080 --> 01:04:20.920] Right, right.

[01:04:20.920 --> 01:04:22.520] Like there's a lot of things you can do, yeah.

[01:04:22.520 --> 01:04:26.920] So the first final card comes up, boom, it's garbage,

[01:04:26.920 --> 01:04:29.520] and she wins half the pot for that one.

[01:04:29.520 --> 01:04:31.120] And then the second time that they play

[01:04:31.120 --> 01:04:33.280] at the ace of spades comes up, helps no one,

[01:04:33.280 --> 01:04:34.440] she also wins that.

[01:04:34.440 --> 01:04:37.880] Well, at that moment, Adelson says,

[01:04:37.880 --> 01:04:40.960] basically, something's really not right here.

[01:04:40.960 --> 01:04:43.520] You know, he basically, he effectively lost his cool

[01:04:43.520 --> 01:04:44.440] without losing his cool.

[01:04:44.440 --> 01:04:46.080] He gave her the death stare,

[01:04:46.080 --> 01:04:47.640] is basically what they called it.

[01:04:47.640 --> 01:04:48.920] It was all caught on camera.

[01:04:48.920 --> 01:04:52.960] It was really fascinating, in a way fascinating to watch.

[01:04:52.960 --> 01:04:54.640] But it's what happened afterwards

[01:04:54.640 --> 01:04:56.280] that took place that made the news,

[01:04:56.280 --> 01:04:59.920] because Lou, she has claimed that she was pulled out

[01:04:59.920 --> 01:05:03.320] of the game and forced to speak to him in a dark hallway.

[01:05:03.320 --> 01:05:06.040] She said, he cornered me and threatened me.

[01:05:06.040 --> 01:05:08.760] Garrett denies that this version of events happened,

[01:05:08.760 --> 01:05:11.680] but Lou, in any case, felt threatened

[01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:13.880] and offered to give him the money.

[01:05:13.880 --> 01:05:14.720] And she did.

[01:05:14.720 --> 01:05:16.640] All of it or half of it?

[01:05:16.640 --> 01:05:18.280] That pot, $269,000.

[01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:20.960] That's the entire pot though, not just half of it, okay.

[01:05:20.960 --> 01:05:24.920] Right, right, the amount that she pulled in

[01:05:24.920 --> 01:05:26.720] for the win from that pot.

[01:05:26.720 --> 01:05:29.800] So there have been now, so this is blown up, right?

[01:05:29.800 --> 01:05:32.080] There's accusations basically on both sides.

[01:05:32.080 --> 01:05:35.000] He says she's definitely had to have been cheating.

[01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:36.920] There's no other way she could have possibly known.

[01:05:36.920 --> 01:05:41.520] And she suggested maybe she hid a vibrating device on her,

[01:05:41.520 --> 01:05:43.360] which goes back to the original chess story,

[01:05:43.360 --> 01:05:46.360] which also had early accusations that Hans Niemann

[01:05:46.360 --> 01:05:49.560] had perhaps had some kind of vibrating device on him

[01:05:49.560 --> 01:05:53.000] to help him cheat at chess.

[01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:53.960] So here we go.

[01:05:53.960 --> 01:05:54.840] Jesus.

[01:05:54.840 --> 01:05:57.720] We've got, oh my gosh, so it is, it's terrible.

[01:05:57.720 --> 01:06:00.120] And now you've got these two factions in the world of poker,

[01:06:00.120 --> 01:06:03.120] some who agree on one side and others who are saying

[01:06:03.120 --> 01:06:04.160] systematically on the other side.

[01:06:04.160 --> 01:06:05.920] No, it had nothing to do with cheating.

[01:06:05.920 --> 01:06:07.280] And there's big inner conflict.

[01:06:07.280 --> 01:06:09.920] So that's resolving itself all at the same time

[01:06:09.920 --> 01:06:11.120] in the world of.

[01:06:11.120 --> 01:06:13.480] It's just such a leap to be like, oh, she was cheating

[01:06:13.480 --> 01:06:15.120] because she should have never been in that hand.

[01:06:15.120 --> 01:06:15.960] Right.

[01:06:15.960 --> 01:06:17.680] People suck out on people.

[01:06:17.680 --> 01:06:19.360] People play poker crazy.

[01:06:19.360 --> 01:06:21.800] Like that's the thing about poker.

[01:06:21.800 --> 01:06:23.600] People play donkey hands.

[01:06:23.600 --> 01:06:25.360] They're in hands they should never be in.

[01:06:25.360 --> 01:06:29.000] It's what makes the game dynamic and interesting and nuts.

[01:06:29.000 --> 01:06:29.840] Right.

[01:06:29.840 --> 01:06:30.840] And yeah, she should have never been in that hand,

[01:06:30.840 --> 01:06:33.080] but just because somebody doesn't play by the book

[01:06:33.080 --> 01:06:34.440] or play how they should be playing

[01:06:34.440 --> 01:06:36.960] doesn't automatically mean they were cheating.

[01:06:36.960 --> 01:06:39.640] And some people have pointed to her erratic style

[01:06:39.640 --> 01:06:42.760] of playing that she supposedly undertakes at times.

[01:06:42.760 --> 01:06:45.800] She's made other also bad choices apparently.

[01:06:45.800 --> 01:06:48.160] And if she was like, he could be bluffing

[01:06:48.160 --> 01:06:49.880] and I'm calling his bluff.

[01:06:49.880 --> 01:06:50.840] Yes, yeah.

[01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:53.520] Except apparently, and again, it goes into the depth.

[01:06:53.520 --> 01:06:55.440] I know she had a bad hand, I get it.

[01:06:55.440 --> 01:06:57.720] But she's also apparently changed,

[01:06:57.720 --> 01:06:59.720] supposedly has changed her story

[01:06:59.720 --> 01:07:02.560] about what she was thinking at the time.

[01:07:02.560 --> 01:07:04.400] Like she thought, yeah, at one point,

[01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:06.000] like, yeah, I thought you were bluffing.

[01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:07.720] But then at another point, she kind of said,

[01:07:07.720 --> 01:07:10.800] I knew you absolutely didn't have it.

[01:07:10.800 --> 01:07:15.000] I knew you had total crap and therefore not a bluff.

[01:07:15.000 --> 01:07:16.440] But that's the same story.

[01:07:16.440 --> 01:07:17.280] I thought you were bluffing

[01:07:17.280 --> 01:07:20.520] and I knew you didn't have a hand is the same exact thing.

[01:07:20.520 --> 01:07:22.760] At one point, she also said she thought

[01:07:22.760 --> 01:07:24.800] that she had a different card in her hand.

[01:07:24.800 --> 01:07:26.320] She said, oh, I thought I had jack three

[01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:29.120] because there was a three up on the face of the table.

[01:07:29.120 --> 01:07:31.680] Instead she had jack four and she said,

[01:07:31.680 --> 01:07:34.080] oh, I kind of forgot what I had.

[01:07:34.080 --> 01:07:36.520] I really didn't understand what I had in my hand.

[01:07:36.520 --> 01:07:38.520] So she said that at a certain point.

[01:07:38.520 --> 01:07:40.840] Right, so what it is doing,

[01:07:40.840 --> 01:07:43.320] it's feeding the people who are accusing her of cheating,

[01:07:43.320 --> 01:07:45.840] of giving them a sort of this kind of ammunition,

[01:07:45.840 --> 01:07:48.040] which is baseless as far as I'm concerned.

[01:07:48.040 --> 01:07:49.240] I think you're right, Kara.

[01:07:49.240 --> 01:07:51.640] She stumbled into a victory

[01:07:51.640 --> 01:07:53.160] that she shouldn't have had statistically,

[01:07:53.160 --> 01:07:54.000] but it wasn't a zero chance.

[01:07:54.000 --> 01:07:54.840] Yeah, but she lucked out.

[01:07:54.840 --> 01:07:55.680] That's the game.

[01:07:55.680 --> 01:07:56.520] Yeah, she lucked out.

[01:07:56.520 --> 01:07:59.760] Luck happens in these kinds of games.

[01:07:59.760 --> 01:08:01.960] But she's got a sketchy story now, you know?

[01:08:01.960 --> 01:08:03.040] Because she's even saying

[01:08:03.040 --> 01:08:05.000] she might have had a device on her.

[01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:05.840] Like, what the hell?

[01:08:05.840 --> 01:08:06.680] No, he's saying that.

[01:08:06.680 --> 01:08:07.520] No, they're accusing her.

[01:08:07.520 --> 01:08:08.360] Right.

[01:08:08.360 --> 01:08:09.200] He's accusing her of that.

[01:08:09.200 --> 01:08:10.960] The person who's accusing her of cheating is saying,

[01:08:10.960 --> 01:08:13.960] oh, perhaps she had a vibrating device on her.

[01:08:13.960 --> 01:08:14.800] And when you are playing.

[01:08:14.800 --> 01:08:15.640] She's just defending herself.

[01:08:15.640 --> 01:08:16.480] Yeah.

[01:08:16.480 --> 01:08:17.320] Yeah.

[01:08:17.320 --> 01:08:18.680] And when you're playing on something

[01:08:18.680 --> 01:08:23.520] that is being somehow either broadcast in some capacity,

[01:08:23.520 --> 01:08:24.760] somebody could be looking there

[01:08:24.760 --> 01:08:27.080] because they can see what the other player has.

[01:08:27.080 --> 01:08:29.000] They broadcast it right up there on the screen.

[01:08:29.000 --> 01:08:30.800] You can know what everybody's hand is.

[01:08:30.800 --> 01:08:32.600] But here's another thing about poker.

[01:08:32.600 --> 01:08:34.840] Yes, yes, somebody can look at the pocket cam

[01:08:34.840 --> 01:08:36.760] and go, oh, he's bluffing.

[01:08:36.760 --> 01:08:38.640] Like, he doesn't have anything.

[01:08:38.640 --> 01:08:39.480] They don't know what she,

[01:08:39.480 --> 01:08:40.640] well, I guess they know what she has too.

[01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:42.720] So like, you're actually in the clear here.

[01:08:42.720 --> 01:08:43.560] That's right.

[01:08:43.560 --> 01:08:45.360] Knowing that it's a dynamic game

[01:08:45.360 --> 01:08:46.520] and he could still suck out.

[01:08:46.520 --> 01:08:50.280] But regardless, she could have also just seen his cards.

[01:08:50.280 --> 01:08:51.120] And that does happen in poker.

[01:08:51.120 --> 01:08:52.040] That's the other thing, yep.

[01:08:52.040 --> 01:08:54.360] And that's not technically cheating.

[01:08:54.360 --> 01:08:55.200] No, it's not, right.

[01:08:55.200 --> 01:08:56.800] If somebody flashes their cards.

[01:08:56.800 --> 01:08:57.640] Yeah, right.

[01:08:57.640 --> 01:09:02.200] Bad, bad card hygiene at the table basically

[01:09:02.200 --> 01:09:03.760] is what it comes down to.

[01:09:03.760 --> 01:09:04.920] Protect your hand.

[01:09:04.920 --> 01:09:07.760] It's your responsibility to protect your cards, definitely.

[01:09:07.760 --> 01:09:09.440] So that's all playing at the same time.

[01:09:09.440 --> 01:09:10.680] And then two more quick things

[01:09:10.680 --> 01:09:12.480] about fishing and tap dancing

[01:09:12.480 --> 01:09:14.260] because these are crazy things.

[01:09:15.600 --> 01:09:17.520] You may have heard about the pro fishers

[01:09:17.520 --> 01:09:19.880] who were caught putting weights into fish

[01:09:19.880 --> 01:09:20.840] in fishing tournaments.

[01:09:20.840 --> 01:09:22.640] They're doing that weight.

[01:09:22.640 --> 01:09:24.600] Oh my gosh.

[01:09:24.600 --> 01:09:29.160] Jake Runyon, Chase Kaminsky illegally stacked

[01:09:29.160 --> 01:09:31.680] the deck in their favor according to officials in Ohio.

[01:09:31.680 --> 01:09:34.440] They're now been indicted on three felony charges.

[01:09:34.440 --> 01:09:36.260] So this has gotten serious here.

[01:09:37.120 --> 01:09:39.500] Charges of cheating, attempted grand theft

[01:09:39.500 --> 01:09:41.960] and possessing criminal tools

[01:09:41.960 --> 01:09:44.720] are the fifth degree felonies.

[01:09:44.720 --> 01:09:46.600] They could bring punishment up to 12 months in prison

[01:09:46.600 --> 01:09:48.760] and $2,500 in fines.

[01:09:48.760 --> 01:09:50.360] And they were absolutely caught.

[01:09:50.360 --> 01:09:54.240] They had weights that they were stuffing into the fish.

[01:09:54.240 --> 01:09:56.500] Couldn't the fish have eaten the weights?

[01:09:56.500 --> 01:09:58.300] Yeah, right.

[01:09:58.300 --> 01:10:00.480] What are the odds?

[01:10:00.480 --> 01:10:02.960] And then migrate out of the stomach.

[01:10:04.440 --> 01:10:06.780] You know, and these are, I guess in the fishing world,

[01:10:06.780 --> 01:10:07.960] these are known people.

[01:10:07.960 --> 01:10:10.240] You know, they're not some fly by night,

[01:10:10.240 --> 01:10:11.960] someone who kind of just walked in off the street.

[01:10:11.960 --> 01:10:13.200] These are known people.

[01:10:13.200 --> 01:10:15.360] They were gearing up,

[01:10:15.360 --> 01:10:18.360] they were gonna be crowned team of the year apparently

[01:10:18.360 --> 01:10:21.200] from their record hauls that they, you know,

[01:10:21.200 --> 01:10:24.560] or championship winning fishing that they did this year.

[01:10:24.560 --> 01:10:27.160] You know, they were gonna win the year end event.

[01:10:27.160 --> 01:10:29.520] But now a big investigation's gone in

[01:10:29.520 --> 01:10:33.000] onto against these people to see, okay, they cheated here.

[01:10:33.000 --> 01:10:34.960] What else have they been cheating at?

[01:10:34.960 --> 01:10:38.800] It's such a stupid thing when people cheat to be the best.

[01:10:38.800 --> 01:10:41.520] I'm always like, you should cheat to like be in the money,

[01:10:41.520 --> 01:10:43.080] but not at the top.

[01:10:44.040 --> 01:10:47.320] It just feels like don't cheat and then win everything.

[01:10:47.320 --> 01:10:48.880] It's too obvious.

[01:10:48.880 --> 01:10:51.120] Or they got away with something for so long

[01:10:51.120 --> 01:10:52.360] and they felt, all right, we've got to,

[01:10:52.360 --> 01:10:56.600] our system is down and, you know, but I don't know.

[01:10:56.600 --> 01:10:57.600] It's, it's-

[01:10:57.600 --> 01:10:59.400] These fishing guys were caught red handed.

[01:10:59.400 --> 01:11:01.200] I mean, there's like solid evidence.

[01:11:01.200 --> 01:11:03.280] Yeah, there's not, they've got them on video, yep.

[01:11:03.280 --> 01:11:05.960] The other cases, like the chess and the poker case,

[01:11:05.960 --> 01:11:07.360] it's just circumstantial evidence.

[01:11:07.360 --> 01:11:09.920] You know, people are just assuming things

[01:11:09.920 --> 01:11:13.360] based upon indirect evidence and supposition.

[01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:18.360] They really don't have anything solid or firm there at all.

[01:11:18.440 --> 01:11:19.820] All right, thanks Evan.

[01:11:19.820 --> 01:11:21.360] Yeah, we'll have to keep an eye out, you know,

[01:11:21.360 --> 01:11:22.840] for these dirty cheaters.

Who's That Noisy? (01:11:23)

Answer to previous Noisy:

_brief_description_of_answer_ _perhaps_with_a_link_

[01:11:23.960 --> 01:11:27.000] All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time.

[01:11:27.000 --> 01:11:30.160] All right guys, last time I played this noisy.

[01:11:30.160 --> 01:11:35.160] All right, anybody have any guesses?

[01:11:35.160 --> 01:11:40.160] It sounds like a large crowd of some kind of animal.

[01:11:40.160 --> 01:11:42.160] I was going to say, it has kind of like a South Park,

[01:11:42.160 --> 01:11:45.160] like rubble, rubble, rubble vibe to it.

[01:11:45.160 --> 01:11:47.160] It's a crowd of something.

[01:11:47.160 --> 01:11:50.160] Yeah, there's definitely a crowd of something, sure.

[01:11:50.160 --> 01:11:52.160] Well, Rick Wilson wrote in, said,

[01:11:52.160 --> 01:11:54.160] you may want to smack me for saying this,

[01:11:54.160 --> 01:11:56.160] but that's not the case.

[01:11:56.160 --> 01:11:57.160] That's not the case.

[01:11:57.160 --> 01:11:58.160] That's not the case.

[01:11:58.160 --> 01:11:59.160] That's not the case.

[01:11:59.160 --> 01:12:00.160] That's not the case.

[01:12:00.160 --> 01:12:01.160] That's not the case.

[01:12:01.160 --> 01:12:02.160] That's not the case.

[01:12:02.160 --> 01:12:03.160] That's not the case.

[01:12:03.160 --> 01:12:05.160] You may want to smack me for saying this,

[01:12:05.160 --> 01:12:08.160] but that sounds like a recording that Art Bell played

[01:12:08.160 --> 01:12:11.160] on Coast to Coast, supposedly some Russian group

[01:12:11.160 --> 01:12:13.160] drilled several miles into the Earth's crust,

[01:12:13.160 --> 01:12:14.160] sent down a microphone.

[01:12:14.160 --> 01:12:15.160] Yes.

[01:12:15.160 --> 01:12:16.160] Yes.

[01:12:16.160 --> 01:12:17.160] I know about this.

[01:12:17.160 --> 01:12:21.160] And got back these, quote unquote, sounds of hell.

[01:12:21.160 --> 01:12:23.160] That's a real news item, by the way.

[01:12:23.160 --> 01:12:24.160] It is a thing.

[01:12:24.160 --> 01:12:25.160] Yes, it is.

[01:12:25.160 --> 01:12:26.160] Sounds of hell.

[01:12:26.160 --> 01:12:27.160] I'm going to tell you, Rich,

[01:12:27.160 --> 01:12:29.160] I think you're partially correct,

[01:12:29.160 --> 01:12:33.160] because the sounds of hell were obviously stolen

[01:12:33.160 --> 01:12:35.160] from somewhere else because they didn't actually,

[01:12:35.160 --> 01:12:38.160] no sound engineer put together this cool sound

[01:12:38.160 --> 01:12:39.160] of what hell would sound like.

[01:12:39.160 --> 01:12:41.160] They just found a noise and thought it was provocative

[01:12:41.160 --> 01:12:43.160] and said, let's use this.

[01:12:43.160 --> 01:12:44.160] I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

[01:12:44.160 --> 01:12:46.160] Anyway, another listener named Ben wrote in, said,

[01:12:46.160 --> 01:12:48.160] hi, Ben here from Japan.

[01:12:48.160 --> 01:12:51.160] Is it the sound from the deepest borehole in Siberia,

[01:12:51.160 --> 01:12:54.160] allegedly recording the 70s series?

[01:12:54.160 --> 01:12:57.160] Multiple people are writing in about this hell sound.

[01:12:57.160 --> 01:12:58.160] Cool.

[01:12:58.160 --> 01:13:00.160] There's like six or seven people that were keyed in on that.

[01:13:00.160 --> 01:13:02.160] I love it.

[01:13:02.160 --> 01:13:03.160] So thank you both.

[01:13:03.160 --> 01:13:05.160] That was like a, I liked remembering that,

[01:13:05.160 --> 01:13:07.160] because that was a long time ago.

[01:13:07.160 --> 01:13:09.160] Another listener wrote in, Shane Hillier,

[01:13:09.160 --> 01:13:13.160] hey, Jay, was this week about 10,000 flamingos?

[01:13:13.160 --> 01:13:14.160] Oh, neat.

[01:13:14.160 --> 01:13:15.160] Yeah.

[01:13:15.160 --> 01:13:18.160] That actually kind of does sound like a bunch

[01:13:18.160 --> 01:13:20.160] of like large bird type animals.

[01:13:20.160 --> 01:13:22.160] That's not correct, but that's a really,

[01:13:22.160 --> 01:13:23.160] that's a good guess.

[01:13:23.160 --> 01:13:28.160] Another listener named George Marquesine, Marquesinus,

[01:13:28.160 --> 01:13:31.160] Marquesinus, my God.

[01:13:31.160 --> 01:13:33.160] Marquesinus.

[01:13:33.160 --> 01:13:34.160] Marquesinus.

[01:13:34.160 --> 01:13:35.160] Thank you.

[01:13:35.160 --> 01:13:36.160] George Marquesinus.

[01:13:36.160 --> 01:13:37.160] Hi, Jay.

[01:13:37.160 --> 01:13:38.160] I reckon I have it this time.

[01:13:38.160 --> 01:13:40.160] I think this week's noisy is a colony of penguins

[01:13:40.160 --> 01:13:41.160] in Antarctic.

[01:13:41.160 --> 01:13:44.160] If I had to guess specifically, I'd guess emperor penguins.

[01:13:44.160 --> 01:13:46.160] Another is a good guess.

[01:13:46.160 --> 01:13:48.160] You know, a whole bunch, you know,

[01:13:48.160 --> 01:13:50.160] what do you call a bunch of penguins, guys?

[01:13:50.160 --> 01:13:51.160] Anybody know?

[01:13:51.160 --> 01:13:52.160] Oh, a waddle.

[01:13:52.160 --> 01:13:53.160] A waddle.

[01:13:53.160 --> 01:13:55.160] A waddle would be good.

[01:13:55.160 --> 01:13:56.160] A huddle?

[01:13:56.160 --> 01:13:57.160] We'll go with that for the night.

[01:13:57.160 --> 01:13:58.160] A waddle of penguins.

[01:13:58.160 --> 01:13:59.160] Yeah, a waddle of penguins.

[01:13:59.160 --> 01:14:00.160] Let's go with that.

[01:14:00.160 --> 01:14:01.160] It is not.

[01:14:01.160 --> 01:14:04.160] I have a close guess this week.

[01:14:04.160 --> 01:14:06.160] Max Westman wrote in, hi, Jay.

[01:14:06.160 --> 01:14:08.160] My guess for this week's episode 901 noisy

[01:14:08.160 --> 01:14:11.160] is some kind of husky convention.

[01:14:11.160 --> 01:14:14.160] It sounds like hundreds of disgruntled huskies

[01:14:14.160 --> 01:14:15.160] in a big room.

[01:14:15.160 --> 01:14:17.160] Love the show, been listening for years.

[01:14:17.160 --> 01:14:19.160] That's a really good guess, Max,

[01:14:19.160 --> 01:14:24.160] because the actual answer is that this is a pack

[01:14:24.160 --> 01:14:28.160] of Iberian wolves all howling together.

[01:14:28.160 --> 01:14:29.160] Oh, cool.

[01:14:29.160 --> 01:14:30.160] Yeah.

[01:14:30.160 --> 01:14:31.160] Oh, wow.

[01:14:31.160 --> 01:14:32.160] A pack.

[01:14:32.160 --> 01:14:35.160] So there was probably a dozen or so.

[01:14:35.160 --> 01:14:36.160] I got to interject for a second.

[01:14:36.160 --> 01:14:38.160] So yeah, pack of wolves.

[01:14:38.160 --> 01:14:39.160] Evan was right.

[01:14:39.160 --> 01:14:40.160] Waddle of penguins.

[01:14:40.160 --> 01:14:41.160] Yes.

[01:14:41.160 --> 01:14:42.160] Thank you.

[01:14:42.160 --> 01:14:44.160] And flamboyance of flamingos.

[01:14:44.160 --> 01:14:45.160] Oh, that's perfect.

[01:14:45.160 --> 01:14:46.160] Nice.

[01:14:46.160 --> 01:14:47.160] That's pretty good.

[01:14:47.160 --> 01:14:51.160] So what these wolves do, according to the internet,

[01:14:51.160 --> 01:14:55.160] is that they do this right before they're

[01:14:55.160 --> 01:15:00.160] about to start hunting to disorient and scare their prey.

[01:15:00.160 --> 01:15:02.160] So it's very coordinated.

[01:15:02.160 --> 01:15:04.160] And they all just start doing it.

[01:15:04.160 --> 01:15:08.160] And it's pretty interesting and also a little bit terrifying

[01:15:08.160 --> 01:15:09.160] if you heard this.

[01:15:09.160 --> 01:15:11.160] I mean, imagine hearing that close to you

[01:15:11.160 --> 01:15:13.160] while you were out camping, as an example.

[01:15:13.160 --> 01:15:16.160] That would not be a good sound, right?

[01:15:16.160 --> 01:15:17.160] Any campers out there?

[01:15:17.160 --> 01:15:20.160] You've clearly never camped in a national park in Africa.

[01:15:20.160 --> 01:15:22.160] Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

[01:15:22.160 --> 01:15:25.160] Yeah, there's lots of groups of animals making lots of sounds.

[01:15:25.160 --> 01:15:28.160] So anyway, thank you so much, David, for sending that in.

[01:15:28.160 --> 01:15:30.160] That was a really fun noisy.

[01:15:30.160 --> 01:15:32.160] I have a new noisy for you guys this week.

[01:15:32.160 --> 01:15:34.160] And this noisy was sent in by a listener

[01:15:34.160 --> 01:15:37.160] from Poland named John Pedraza.

[01:15:37.160 --> 01:15:38.160] And I will say this.

[01:15:38.160 --> 01:15:40.160] John says he's a 12-year listener.

[01:15:40.160 --> 01:15:42.160] He was finally able to hear something

[01:15:42.160 --> 01:15:44.160] that he thought sounded cool enough.

[01:15:44.160 --> 01:15:47.160] And then he said, I am out in Poland feeding soldiers

[01:15:47.160 --> 01:15:49.160] in the Ukrainian conflict.

[01:15:49.160 --> 01:15:51.160] Oh, wow.

[01:15:51.160 --> 01:15:55.160] Which is very commendable, very awesome thing to do

[01:15:55.160 --> 01:15:58.160] because the world needs people that are on the good side

[01:15:58.160 --> 01:15:59.160] for crying out loud.

[01:15:59.160 --> 01:16:03.160] And he says, also for Bob, my friggin' birthday is Halloween.

[01:16:03.160 --> 01:16:05.160] Ah, what a good birthday.

[01:16:05.160 --> 01:16:06.160] Lucky bastard, that's awesome.

[01:16:06.160 --> 01:16:07.160] Yeah.

[01:16:07.160 --> 01:16:10.160] Yeah, that's a great birthday.

[01:16:10.160 --> 01:16:12.160] OK, so let's do this.

[01:16:12.160 --> 01:16:15.160] All right, I admit this week's noisy

[01:16:15.160 --> 01:16:17.160] is going to be very difficult to guess.

[01:16:17.160 --> 01:16:19.160] It was such a cool, interesting sound.

[01:16:19.160 --> 01:16:20.160] I wanted to play it.

[01:16:20.160 --> 01:16:21.160] All right, ready?

[01:16:21.160 --> 01:16:32.160] So if you think you know what the sound is

[01:16:32.160 --> 01:16:34.160] or you heard something really cool this week,

[01:16:34.160 --> 01:16:36.160] you can email me directly.

[01:16:36.160 --> 01:16:38.160] You could send files to this email address.

[01:16:38.160 --> 01:16:40.160] You could attach files.

[01:16:40.160 --> 01:16:42.160] It's better than going through the website,

[01:16:42.160 --> 01:16:46.160] wtn at theskepticsguide.org.

New Noisy ()

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

short_text_from_transcript

Announcements (01:16:46)

[01:16:46.160 --> 01:16:49.160] Steve, we have some great stuff coming up.

[01:16:49.160 --> 01:16:53.160] I have been working on the extravaganzas

[01:16:53.160 --> 01:16:56.160] because these are holiday-themed extravaganzas.

[01:16:56.160 --> 01:17:00.160] These may very well be the very last holiday-themed ones we do

[01:17:00.160 --> 01:17:02.160] and the very first because it just happens

[01:17:02.160 --> 01:17:04.160] that we're doing this right before Christmas,

[01:17:04.160 --> 01:17:06.160] and this has never happened before,

[01:17:06.160 --> 01:17:07.160] and I probably won't let it happen again

[01:17:07.160 --> 01:17:09.160] just because it's complicated.

[01:17:09.160 --> 01:17:11.160] But anyway, we're having fun.

[01:17:11.160 --> 01:17:13.160] There's lots of things that are going into this

[01:17:13.160 --> 01:17:16.160] that make this holiday-themed, so please do join us.

[01:17:16.160 --> 01:17:20.160] We also have two SGU podcast recordings, right?

[01:17:20.160 --> 01:17:23.160] So each one of these is going to be happening in Phoenix

[01:17:23.160 --> 01:17:25.160] and one is going to be happening in Tucson,

[01:17:25.160 --> 01:17:27.160] just like the extravaganza shows.

[01:17:27.160 --> 01:17:28.160] And people ask, well, I'll point out,

[01:17:28.160 --> 01:17:30.160] these are two completely different shows.

[01:17:30.160 --> 01:17:33.160] The SGU Plus shows are different episodes.

[01:17:33.160 --> 01:17:37.160] But also, this is really an expanded show.

[01:17:37.160 --> 01:17:40.160] We're doing not just a live recording of the show.

[01:17:40.160 --> 01:17:43.160] We're going to be doing interactive stuff with the audience,

[01:17:43.160 --> 01:17:45.160] interactive games or segments or whatever.

[01:17:45.160 --> 01:17:48.160] It's going to really be a much bigger thing

[01:17:48.160 --> 01:17:50.160] than just watching the recording.

[01:17:50.160 --> 01:17:53.160] And of course, we'll have plenty of time to hang out

[01:17:53.160 --> 01:17:55.160] and sign books and take photographs

[01:17:55.160 --> 01:17:57.160] and answer questions and do other stuff.

[01:17:57.160 --> 01:18:01.160] So we really are trying to build this out into a much bigger thing,

[01:18:01.160 --> 01:18:05.160] well beyond just the private recording.

[01:18:05.160 --> 01:18:06.160] All right, thank you, Jay.

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups ()

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_
with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Question_Email_Correction #1: _brief_description_ ()

[01:18:06.160 --> 01:18:07.160] So we have one email this week.

[01:18:07.160 --> 01:18:12.160] This comes from Corey Meyer from Holland, Michigan.

[01:18:12.160 --> 01:18:14.160] And Corey writes,

[01:18:14.160 --> 01:18:17.160] I have seen reports of an increased rate of Bell's palsy

[01:18:17.160 --> 01:18:20.160] in people who have gotten a COVID vaccine or booster.

[01:18:20.160 --> 01:18:22.160] I've also heard that COVID, the disease,

[01:18:22.160 --> 01:18:24.160] has a higher risk of causing Bell's palsy

[01:18:24.160 --> 01:18:26.160] and that it is only temporary if it occurs.

[01:18:26.160 --> 01:18:28.160] Should I be concerned about this?

[01:18:28.160 --> 01:18:30.160] And if it were to happen, what is the prognosis?

[01:18:30.160 --> 01:18:32.160] Thanks. Love the show.

[01:18:32.160 --> 01:18:34.160] That's actually a great question, Corey.

[01:18:34.160 --> 01:18:37.160] Yeah, this has been coming up a lot, this question of,

[01:18:37.160 --> 01:18:40.160] is there an association or correlation between Bell's palsy

[01:18:40.160 --> 01:18:42.160] and either COVID or the COVID vaccine?

[01:18:42.160 --> 01:18:43.160] First, for some background.

[01:18:43.160 --> 01:18:48.160] So Bell's palsy is paralysis of one of the facial nerves,

[01:18:48.160 --> 01:18:50.160] which is either the left side of your face

[01:18:50.160 --> 01:18:53.160] or the right side of your face gets weak and it droops,

[01:18:53.160 --> 01:18:55.160] and it's both the forehead and the lower face,

[01:18:55.160 --> 01:18:57.160] both upper and lower.

[01:18:57.160 --> 01:18:59.160] And technically, it's anything that happens

[01:18:59.160 --> 01:19:03.160] from the facial nerve nucleus and the brainstem outward,

[01:19:03.160 --> 01:19:04.160] like including the nerve.

[01:19:04.160 --> 01:19:07.160] But most of the time, it's in the nerve itself,

[01:19:07.160 --> 01:19:10.160] and it's specifically in the facial canal,

[01:19:10.160 --> 01:19:14.160] which is a bony canal where the nerve exits through the skull.

[01:19:14.160 --> 01:19:16.160] The reason why it happens there is because there's no room

[01:19:16.160 --> 01:19:19.160] for the nerve to expand, so if you get a viral infection

[01:19:19.160 --> 01:19:21.160] that happens to affect the nerve at that point,

[01:19:21.160 --> 01:19:25.160] the nerve swells, it gets crushed in the bony canal,

[01:19:25.160 --> 01:19:27.160] and that's where the damage occurs.

[01:19:27.160 --> 01:19:31.160] The prognosis for this is pretty good.

[01:19:31.160 --> 01:19:36.160] Most people recover well, although recovery can be partial,

[01:19:36.160 --> 01:19:39.160] meaning you get most of your strength back,

[01:19:39.160 --> 01:19:42.160] but you may be left with a little bit of asymmetry,

[01:19:42.160 --> 01:19:45.160] like the one side of the face is just a little bit weak.

[01:19:45.160 --> 01:19:48.160] We usually characterize it as like,

[01:19:48.160 --> 01:19:50.160] is this something that a neurologist will notice

[01:19:50.160 --> 01:19:53.160] on a very careful, exquisite neurological exam?

[01:19:53.160 --> 01:19:55.160] Is it something that the patient notices

[01:19:55.160 --> 01:19:57.160] when they look at themselves in the mirror?

[01:19:57.160 --> 01:20:00.160] Or is this something that another person would notice

[01:20:00.160 --> 01:20:01.160] looking at them?

[01:20:01.160 --> 01:20:05.160] And then beyond that, is there any functional limitation?

[01:20:05.160 --> 01:20:07.160] Do people have trouble eating because they're drooling

[01:20:07.160 --> 01:20:08.160] out that side of their face?

[01:20:08.160 --> 01:20:10.160] Do they have trouble fully closing their eyes at night

[01:20:10.160 --> 01:20:13.160] so their eyes are dry in the morning, et cetera?

[01:20:13.160 --> 01:20:14.160] So that's it.

[01:20:14.160 --> 01:20:19.160] In rare cases, people can have permanent severe paralysis.

[01:20:19.160 --> 01:20:22.160] It really doesn't recover at all.

[01:20:22.160 --> 01:20:25.160] And in most cases, people have pretty good recovery

[01:20:25.160 --> 01:20:28.160] but may be left with some slight residual.

[01:20:28.160 --> 01:20:31.160] So this is usually caused by a virus, again,

[01:20:31.160 --> 01:20:33.160] about, I think, a third of the time or so.

[01:20:33.160 --> 01:20:34.160] It's a herpes virus.

[01:20:34.160 --> 01:20:37.160] So typically, we give steroids to reduce the swelling

[01:20:37.160 --> 01:20:40.160] and we give an antiviral medication

[01:20:40.160 --> 01:20:44.160] to treat the herpes viruses just in case that's effective.

[01:20:44.160 --> 01:20:46.160] And we check for things like Lyme disease

[01:20:46.160 --> 01:20:49.160] because this can also be a symptom of Lyme disease.

[01:20:49.160 --> 01:20:51.160] So we want to make sure that we check for that

[01:20:51.160 --> 01:20:54.160] so that we could treat it if that's what's going on.

[01:20:54.160 --> 01:20:56.160] Now, there is a potential association

[01:20:56.160 --> 01:21:00.160] between vaccines and autoimmune,

[01:21:00.160 --> 01:21:03.160] like acute autoimmune diseases

[01:21:03.160 --> 01:21:05.160] because you're stimulating the immune system.

[01:21:05.160 --> 01:21:07.160] That's always the fear.

[01:21:07.160 --> 01:21:12.160] Generally speaking, generally, the incidence of that is very low,

[01:21:12.160 --> 01:21:15.160] like at the million-to-one magnitude.

[01:21:15.160 --> 01:21:20.160] But with each new vaccine, we like to monitor that.

[01:21:20.160 --> 01:21:24.160] In this case, there have been a lot of case reports

[01:21:24.160 --> 01:21:27.160] about Bell's Palsy happening after the vaccines,

[01:21:27.160 --> 01:21:29.160] but of course, those are case reports.

[01:21:29.160 --> 01:21:30.160] That's anecdotal.

[01:21:30.160 --> 01:21:33.160] What we need to do is compare the background rate

[01:21:33.160 --> 01:21:36.160] of these events, like Bell's Palsy,

[01:21:36.160 --> 01:21:40.160] with a cohort of people who are within 30 to 45 days

[01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:42.160] after getting the vaccine.

[01:21:42.160 --> 01:21:44.160] And we want to see if there's an increase

[01:21:44.160 --> 01:21:45.160] above the background rate.

[01:21:45.160 --> 01:21:46.160] That's what you need to see,

[01:21:46.160 --> 01:21:48.160] an increase above the background rate.

[01:21:48.160 --> 01:21:51.160] So the data for the last couple of years

[01:21:51.160 --> 01:21:53.160] has been somewhat complicated for Bell's Palsy,

[01:21:53.160 --> 01:21:56.160] but the most recent, most thorough study,

[01:21:56.160 --> 01:21:59.160] involving millions of subjects,

[01:21:59.160 --> 01:22:02.160] this was done in the UK and Spain,

[01:22:02.160 --> 01:22:05.160] and involved one viral, like killed virus vaccine

[01:22:05.160 --> 01:22:07.160] and one mRNA vaccine,

[01:22:07.160 --> 01:22:09.160] so the two main types of vaccines,

[01:22:09.160 --> 01:22:14.160] found zero signals, zero bump

[01:22:14.160 --> 01:22:18.160] in the incidence of Bell's Palsy above the background rate.

[01:22:18.160 --> 01:22:21.160] So I think right now, the best answer we have is that

[01:22:21.160 --> 01:22:24.160] there isn't a huge correlation here.

[01:22:24.160 --> 01:22:26.160] It's either zero or it's really tiny,

[01:22:26.160 --> 01:22:28.160] like less than a million to one.

[01:22:28.160 --> 01:22:31.160] Too tiny to have been picked up statistically

[01:22:31.160 --> 01:22:34.160] against the background rate.

[01:22:34.160 --> 01:22:38.160] However, there is a solid association correlation

[01:22:38.160 --> 01:22:40.160] with getting COVID itself.

[01:22:40.160 --> 01:22:42.160] So the risk of getting Bell's Palsy is actually

[01:22:42.160 --> 01:22:47.160] not low, it's pretty high with COVID.

[01:22:47.160 --> 01:22:51.160] So even if there is a tiny risk from the vaccine

[01:22:51.160 --> 01:22:53.160] that we're missing in the big data,

[01:22:53.160 --> 01:22:56.160] your risk of getting Bell's Palsy is much greater

[01:22:56.160 --> 01:22:58.160] if you don't get vaccinated because of the increased risk

[01:22:58.160 --> 01:23:01.160] from getting COVID than if you do get vaccinated

[01:23:01.160 --> 01:23:03.160] because the risk is small to none.

[01:23:03.160 --> 01:23:06.160] So that's setting the bottom line answer is

[01:23:06.160 --> 01:23:08.160] you really basically shouldn't worry about it,

[01:23:08.160 --> 01:23:11.160] just get vaccinated against COVID.

[01:23:11.160 --> 01:23:14.160] The risk versus benefit definitely favors

[01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:15.160] getting the vaccine.

Science or Fiction (01:23:15)

Item #1: _item_text_from_show_notes_ Item #2: _item_text_from_show_notes_ Item #3: _item_text_from_show_notes_ Item #4: (_item_text_from_show_notes_)

Answer	Item
Fiction
Science

Host	Result
Steve

Rogue	Guess

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

(Steve Explains Item #_n_)

[01:23:15.160 --> 01:23:20.160] All right guys, it is time for science or fiction.

[01:23:23.160 --> 01:23:28.160] It's time for science or fiction.

[01:23:33.160 --> 01:23:35.160] Each week I come up with three science news items

[01:23:35.160 --> 01:23:38.160] or facts, two real and one fake.

[01:23:38.160 --> 01:23:40.160] And then I challenge my panel of skeptics

[01:23:40.160 --> 01:23:42.160] to tell me which one is the fake.

[01:23:42.160 --> 01:23:44.160] We have a theme this week.

[01:23:44.160 --> 01:23:49.160] The theme is 19th century pseudoscience.

[01:23:49.160 --> 01:23:50.160] Weird stuff from the 1800s.

[01:23:50.160 --> 01:23:51.160] All right, here we go.

[01:23:51.160 --> 01:23:52.160] You guys ready?

[01:23:52.160 --> 01:23:53.160] Yes.

[01:23:53.160 --> 01:23:54.160] No.

[01:23:54.160 --> 01:23:58.160] Item number one, nipple piercing was popular

[01:23:58.160 --> 01:24:01.160] among Victorian upper class women as it was believed

[01:24:01.160 --> 01:24:05.160] to suppress sexual desire and prevent pregnancy

[01:24:05.160 --> 01:24:07.160] if the former function failed.

[01:24:07.160 --> 01:24:10.160] Item number two, there was widespread belief

[01:24:10.160 --> 01:24:12.160] that the speed and constant rattling noise

[01:24:12.160 --> 01:24:16.160] of passenger trains caused people to go insane,

[01:24:16.160 --> 01:24:19.160] resulting in violent outbursts.

[01:24:19.160 --> 01:24:22.160] And item number three, tobacco smoke enemas,

[01:24:22.160 --> 01:24:25.160] literally blowing smoke up someone's ass,

[01:24:25.160 --> 01:24:28.160] were popular mainstream treatments for multiple ailments

[01:24:28.160 --> 01:24:31.160] from cholera to drowning.

[01:24:31.160 --> 01:24:33.160] Okay, Evan, you go first.

[01:24:33.160 --> 01:24:37.160] Nipple piercing, popular among Victorian upper class women,

[01:24:37.160 --> 01:24:41.160] believed to suppress sexual desire and prevent pregnancy

[01:24:41.160 --> 01:24:44.160] if the former function failed.

[01:24:44.160 --> 01:24:45.160] Suppress?

[01:24:45.160 --> 01:24:46.160] Oh, I see.

[01:24:46.160 --> 01:24:47.160] Right.

[01:24:47.160 --> 01:24:48.160] If you didn't, right.

[01:24:48.160 --> 01:24:50.160] Oh, gosh.

[01:24:50.160 --> 01:24:54.160] So quackery and women's health are like crazy.

[01:24:54.160 --> 01:24:59.160] You know, hysteria, that whole thing.

[01:24:59.160 --> 01:25:03.160] And, you know, having these women, you know,

[01:25:03.160 --> 01:25:05.160] like electrocuting these women basically.

[01:25:05.160 --> 01:25:08.160] You know, electroshock therapy and stuff.

[01:25:08.160 --> 01:25:09.160] Oh, my gosh.

[01:25:09.160 --> 01:25:11.160] As if it's not hard enough.

[01:25:11.160 --> 01:25:12.160] Oh, yeah.

[01:25:12.160 --> 01:25:15.160] Which means that if you're a Victorian upper class woman

[01:25:15.160 --> 01:25:18.160] of this area and you were, I suppose,

[01:25:18.160 --> 01:25:22.160] trying to suppress your sexual desire or your husband

[01:25:22.160 --> 01:25:24.160] was imposing that on you or something,

[01:25:24.160 --> 01:25:28.160] then nipple piercing doesn't seem to be something

[01:25:28.160 --> 01:25:31.160] that was so out of line with all the other horrors

[01:25:31.160 --> 01:25:34.160] that people were putting women through in that time.

[01:25:34.160 --> 01:25:38.160] The second one about the speed and constant rattling noise

[01:25:38.160 --> 01:25:41.160] of the passenger trains caused people to go insane,

[01:25:41.160 --> 01:25:44.160] resulting in violent outbursts.

[01:25:44.160 --> 01:25:46.160] Speed and constant rattling noise.

[01:25:46.160 --> 01:25:48.160] So these are passengers on the train

[01:25:48.160 --> 01:25:51.160] and they were resulting in violent outbursts.

[01:25:51.160 --> 01:25:54.160] Well, you know, certainly that's never portrayed

[01:25:54.160 --> 01:25:57.160] in any of the old movies or TV shows and things.

[01:25:57.160 --> 01:26:00.160] I don't know or can't recall that that's ever been the case.

[01:26:00.160 --> 01:26:03.160] But not that that's truth anyways.

[01:26:03.160 --> 01:26:07.160] Resulting in violent outbursts, going insane.

[01:26:07.160 --> 01:26:09.160] I mean, these are, this one's weird.

[01:26:09.160 --> 01:26:10.160] This one's very weird.

[01:26:10.160 --> 01:26:13.160] The last one is even weirder, but who knows.

[01:26:13.160 --> 01:26:17.160] Tobacco smoke enemas, popular mainstream treatments.

[01:26:17.160 --> 01:26:21.160] Oh, gosh, it's so ridiculous that, yeah,

[01:26:21.160 --> 01:26:26.160] people were doing lots of different things to themselves

[01:26:26.160 --> 01:26:28.160] that were crazy.

[01:26:28.160 --> 01:26:32.160] And, you know, tobacco smoke and smoking was not,

[01:26:32.160 --> 01:26:35.160] you know, obviously the dangers weren't known

[01:26:35.160 --> 01:26:36.160] at the time about that.

[01:26:36.160 --> 01:26:39.160] It wasn't considered a health hazard.

[01:26:39.160 --> 01:26:44.160] It was considered a health treatment in some cases.

[01:26:44.160 --> 01:26:47.160] So to just turn it into something that you go in rectally,

[01:26:47.160 --> 01:26:50.160] they were putting other things up there too.

[01:26:50.160 --> 01:26:54.160] So the one that stands out to me is, I guess,

[01:26:54.160 --> 01:26:56.160] being the most fictiony of these is the train one,

[01:26:56.160 --> 01:27:00.160] the rattling of the trains causing people to go insane.

[01:27:00.160 --> 01:27:02.160] Gosh, that would be a lot of insane people

[01:27:02.160 --> 01:27:05.160] riding those trains and things and violent outbursts.

[01:27:05.160 --> 01:27:07.160] I don't think so, fiction.

[01:27:07.160 --> 01:27:08.160] Okay, Kara.

[01:27:08.160 --> 01:27:11.160] That's so funny because I was coming to the same conclusion,

[01:27:11.160 --> 01:27:13.160] but for a wildly different reason than Evan

[01:27:13.160 --> 01:27:16.160] because I think the, like, people riding trains

[01:27:16.160 --> 01:27:18.160] and, like, going postal or whatever,

[01:27:18.160 --> 01:27:20.160] that that was, like, cromulent.

[01:27:20.160 --> 01:27:22.160] And I was like, it's almost too cromulent.

[01:27:22.160 --> 01:27:24.160] Like, Steve might have made this up.

[01:27:24.160 --> 01:27:27.160] And the other two were, like, so ridiculous to me.

[01:27:27.160 --> 01:27:29.160] I am struggling with the nipple-piercing one.

[01:27:29.160 --> 01:27:31.160] So for me, it's between the nipple-piercing one

[01:27:31.160 --> 01:27:32.160] and the train one.

[01:27:32.160 --> 01:27:35.160] I love the tobacco smoke enema story,

[01:27:35.160 --> 01:27:37.160] and I think, like, you know,

[01:27:37.160 --> 01:27:40.160] we have these things in our common language,

[01:27:40.160 --> 01:27:42.160] like, are you blowing smoke up my ass?

[01:27:42.160 --> 01:27:45.160] And I'm like, maybe that's where that came from, you know?

[01:27:45.160 --> 01:27:47.160] Could have been.

[01:27:47.160 --> 01:27:50.160] So I kind of feel like that one could be science.

[01:27:50.160 --> 01:27:52.160] I'm going to say that one's science.

[01:27:52.160 --> 01:27:55.160] So, yeah, is it that people, you know,

[01:27:55.160 --> 01:28:00.160] there is a consistent rate of mental illness among,

[01:28:00.160 --> 01:28:02.160] you know, there's a background rate,

[01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:04.160] and people are trying to understand

[01:28:04.160 --> 01:28:08.160] why this person has, like, psychosis

[01:28:08.160 --> 01:28:11.160] and that person doesn't experience, you know, psychosis.

[01:28:11.160 --> 01:28:14.160] And then people grasp at straws, and they try to go,

[01:28:14.160 --> 01:28:16.160] okay, what's this person doing?

[01:28:16.160 --> 01:28:17.160] Well, they ride the train a lot.

[01:28:17.160 --> 01:28:18.160] I don't know.

[01:28:18.160 --> 01:28:19.160] That could be why.

[01:28:19.160 --> 01:28:21.160] And then the whole nipple-piercing thing,

[01:28:21.160 --> 01:28:22.160] you would think that,

[01:28:22.160 --> 01:28:24.160] but that's the thing about pseudoscience.

[01:28:24.160 --> 01:28:26.160] You would think that after, like, the fifth or sixth go

[01:28:26.160 --> 01:28:28.160] at nipple-piercing, when the ladies are like,

[01:28:28.160 --> 01:28:31.160] kind of dig this, this is working for me,

[01:28:31.160 --> 01:28:34.160] that they would realize that this was not going to help

[01:28:34.160 --> 01:28:38.160] with the wilding, but maybe not.

[01:28:38.160 --> 01:28:40.160] So both of these are a little bit silly,

[01:28:40.160 --> 01:28:44.160] but I feel like men also just didn't listen to women.

[01:28:44.160 --> 01:28:47.160] Remember, there was, didn't doctors literally, like,

[01:28:47.160 --> 01:28:50.160] the first vibrators were medical devices

[01:28:50.160 --> 01:28:53.160] used on women to try and help them with their hysteria.

[01:28:53.160 --> 01:28:54.160] Yeah, exactly.

[01:28:54.160 --> 01:28:57.160] And they were like, sure, I'll get treatment.

[01:28:57.160 --> 01:28:58.160] This is great.

[01:28:58.160 --> 01:29:00.160] I love going to the doctor.

[01:29:00.160 --> 01:29:01.160] Turned out to be something else.

[01:29:01.160 --> 01:29:02.160] Right.

[01:29:02.160 --> 01:29:04.160] So I'm like, maybe the nipple clamps or the nipple piercings

[01:29:04.160 --> 01:29:05.160] or whatever are the same thing.

[01:29:05.160 --> 01:29:06.160] So I don't know.

[01:29:06.160 --> 01:29:08.160] And Victorian, it's like, don't show your ankle,

[01:29:08.160 --> 01:29:10.160] but who knows what's going on underneath there.

[01:29:10.160 --> 01:29:12.160] So I'm going to go with the train like Evan

[01:29:12.160 --> 01:29:14.160] and say that that one's the fiction

[01:29:14.160 --> 01:29:19.160] because it's the least offensive.

[01:29:19.160 --> 01:29:20.160] Okay, Bob.

[01:29:20.160 --> 01:29:24.160] Yeah, I mean, it's just so hard to de-logic these

[01:29:24.160 --> 01:29:26.160] and try to figure out what makes sense.

[01:29:26.160 --> 01:29:29.160] Just roll the dice, you know?

[01:29:29.160 --> 01:29:33.160] It's just like, you know, maybe I'm just feeling so crap

[01:29:33.160 --> 01:29:37.160] because I think my record's shit this year.

[01:29:37.160 --> 01:29:38.160] And maybe for that reason,

[01:29:38.160 --> 01:29:41.160] I should just go against my initial impulse.

[01:29:41.160 --> 01:29:44.160] And my initial impulse was that at that time,

[01:29:44.160 --> 01:29:49.160] such a nipple piercing would just be too abhorrent, I think.

[01:29:49.160 --> 01:29:50.160] I don't know.

[01:29:50.160 --> 01:29:54.160] It just seems like that wouldn't be something that they would do,

[01:29:54.160 --> 01:29:57.160] especially for that end result.

[01:29:57.160 --> 01:29:58.160] So what the hell?

[01:29:58.160 --> 01:29:59.160] I'll say that's fiction.

[01:29:59.160 --> 01:30:00.160] And Jay.

[01:30:00.160 --> 01:30:02.160] Yeah, I'm going to go with Bob.

[01:30:02.160 --> 01:30:04.160] I think the nipple piercing one,

[01:30:04.160 --> 01:30:07.160] this doesn't seem like there is absolutely no reason

[01:30:07.160 --> 01:30:09.160] to think that under any circumstance.

[01:30:09.160 --> 01:30:12.160] I can't make an interpretation of that that even makes sense,

[01:30:12.160 --> 01:30:14.160] so I'm going to go with that.

[01:30:14.160 --> 01:30:15.160] You and me, Bob.

[01:30:15.160 --> 01:30:16.160] All right, Jay.

[01:30:16.160 --> 01:30:17.160] All right, you all agree with number three,

[01:30:17.160 --> 01:30:18.160] so let's start there.

[01:30:18.160 --> 01:30:22.160] Tobacco smoke enemas literally blowing smoke up someone's ass

[01:30:22.160 --> 01:30:25.160] were popular mainstream treatments for multiple ailments

[01:30:25.160 --> 01:30:26.160] from cholera to drowning.

[01:30:26.160 --> 01:30:28.160] You all think that one is science,

[01:30:28.160 --> 01:30:30.160] meaning that it's pseudoscience,

[01:30:30.160 --> 01:30:34.160] and that one is science, meaning that it's pseudoscience.

[01:30:34.160 --> 01:30:37.160] Yeah, so at the time, tobacco,

[01:30:37.160 --> 01:30:39.160] not only did they not know about the dangers of tobacco,

[01:30:39.160 --> 01:30:43.160] but it was used by the Native Americans as a medicinal

[01:30:43.160 --> 01:30:45.160] and it ran for other things,

[01:30:45.160 --> 01:30:49.160] and that was taken up by Europeans when they went there.

[01:30:49.160 --> 01:30:52.160] And so tobacco for a while was thought to be, you know,

[01:30:52.160 --> 01:30:53.160] a medicinal treatment.

[01:30:53.160 --> 01:30:55.160] It was used for lots of different things,

[01:30:55.160 --> 01:30:58.160] and also enemas were not uncommon treatment modality,

[01:30:58.160 --> 01:31:00.160] so tobacco smoke enemas.

[01:31:00.160 --> 01:31:02.160] Yeah, so they thought it did a couple of things.

[01:31:02.160 --> 01:31:04.160] First of all, let's say, for example, if you drowned,

[01:31:04.160 --> 01:31:06.160] it would warm up your body because of the heat of the smoke.

[01:31:06.160 --> 01:31:09.160] The nicotine would stimulate your heart,

[01:31:09.160 --> 01:31:12.160] and it would displace the water out of your body.

[01:31:12.160 --> 01:31:15.160] Now, the problem with that idea is that the water is in the lungs,

[01:31:15.160 --> 01:31:17.160] and so blowing smoke into somebody's intestines

[01:31:17.160 --> 01:31:19.160] is not going to do anything about it,

[01:31:19.160 --> 01:31:24.160] so that was not a very physiologically valid thinking.

[01:31:24.160 --> 01:31:26.160] But yeah, that was definitely a thing,

[01:31:26.160 --> 01:31:30.160] and yes, the term blowing smoke up someone's ass

[01:31:30.160 --> 01:31:31.160] comes from this practice.

[01:31:31.160 --> 01:31:33.160] That is actually true.

[01:31:33.160 --> 01:31:34.160] That's not right.

[01:31:38.160 --> 01:31:40.160] All right, let's go back to number one.

[01:31:40.160 --> 01:31:44.160] Nipple piercing was popular among Victorian upper class women

[01:31:44.160 --> 01:31:46.160] as it was believed to suppress sexual desire

[01:31:46.160 --> 01:31:49.160] and prevent pregnancy if the former function failed.

[01:31:49.160 --> 01:31:52.160] Bob and Jay, you think this one is a fiction.

[01:31:52.160 --> 01:31:56.160] Kara and Evan, you think this one is science slash pseudoscience.

[01:31:56.160 --> 01:31:59.160] And this one is science.

[01:31:59.160 --> 01:32:00.160] Oh, good job, guys.

[01:32:00.160 --> 01:32:01.160] Yeah, congrats, guys.

[01:32:01.160 --> 01:32:02.160] Nice, Jay.

[01:32:02.160 --> 01:32:03.160] I knew it.

[01:32:03.160 --> 01:32:06.160] But the question is which part of this is wrong

[01:32:06.160 --> 01:32:11.160] because nipple piercing was popular among Victorian women.

[01:32:11.160 --> 01:32:12.160] Really?

[01:32:12.160 --> 01:32:15.160] But they did it because they liked it.

[01:32:15.160 --> 01:32:19.160] They did it because they thought it made them more attractive.

[01:32:19.160 --> 01:32:20.160] Damn.

[01:32:20.160 --> 01:32:22.160] Same reason people do it today.

[01:32:22.160 --> 01:32:24.160] And it felt good.

[01:32:24.160 --> 01:32:28.160] Also, genital piercings of other types are also popular.

[01:32:28.160 --> 01:32:32.160] But they did it also as a display of wealth and power,

[01:32:32.160 --> 01:32:36.160] and the reason for that is because having your nipples

[01:32:36.160 --> 01:32:41.160] or your genitals pierced requires impeccable hygiene, right?

[01:32:41.160 --> 01:32:43.160] It was really something that was only practical

[01:32:43.160 --> 01:32:45.160] for the higher socioeconomic classes.

[01:32:45.160 --> 01:32:47.160] You could take a bath every single day.

[01:32:47.160 --> 01:32:49.160] Yeah, you got to be able to take a bath every day.

[01:32:49.160 --> 01:32:51.160] You got to keep that stuff clean.

[01:32:51.160 --> 01:32:53.160] You got to trust who's doing the piercing.

[01:32:53.160 --> 01:32:56.160] You got to have high-quality jewelry that you're putting in there.

[01:32:56.160 --> 01:32:59.160] It really wasn't practical for the lower socioeconomic classes,

[01:32:59.160 --> 01:33:04.160] so it became a way of distinguishing and displaying their wealth.

[01:33:04.160 --> 01:33:10.160] Of course, that eventually flipped as it became more and more possible

[01:33:10.160 --> 01:33:14.160] to have good hygiene, regular hygiene, and to have this be safe

[01:33:14.160 --> 01:33:16.160] and not cause infections, et cetera.

[01:33:16.160 --> 01:33:21.160] It proliferated to the lower socioeconomic classes,

[01:33:21.160 --> 01:33:27.160] and then eventually having lots of body piercings, kind of like tattoos,

[01:33:27.160 --> 01:33:31.160] became associated culturally with lower socioeconomic classes

[01:33:31.160 --> 01:33:33.160] and not upper classes.

[01:33:33.160 --> 01:33:36.160] So I guess it's kind of like the Sneetches.

[01:33:36.160 --> 01:33:38.160] Stars on Thars.

[01:33:38.160 --> 01:33:41.160] Then the other people did, so then they took it off.

[01:33:41.160 --> 01:33:43.160] That's crazy.

[01:33:43.160 --> 01:33:45.160] Then it all got jumbled up.

[01:33:45.160 --> 01:33:47.160] I think that's eventually what happened as well,

[01:33:47.160 --> 01:33:52.160] is that after the status flipped so that it became not desirable

[01:33:52.160 --> 01:33:56.160] for the upper classes, then eventually I think now it doesn't really matter.

[01:33:56.160 --> 01:34:00.160] I think anybody can get it of any class, and it's all just acceptable.

[01:34:00.160 --> 01:34:02.160] Everyone's got stars on their bellies now.

[01:34:02.160 --> 01:34:06.160] It's funny because I wasn't even thinking in terms of piercings versus non-piercings,

[01:34:06.160 --> 01:34:08.160] which of course that is the news item,

[01:34:08.160 --> 01:34:12.160] but I was thinking in terms of sexuality versus chasteness,

[01:34:12.160 --> 01:34:15.160] and of course it makes sense because when you're elite,

[01:34:15.160 --> 01:34:17.160] you don't have to do what everybody else does.

[01:34:17.160 --> 01:34:20.160] The rules didn't apply to you the same way they apply to everybody else.

[01:34:20.160 --> 01:34:24.160] So yes, the Victorian era we think of as being really chaste and prude,

[01:34:24.160 --> 01:34:29.160] but elites were, watch any period piece,

[01:34:29.160 --> 01:34:33.160] where they're talking about what goes on behind closed doors.

[01:34:33.160 --> 01:34:36.160] As inspired as any other human being.

[01:34:36.160 --> 01:34:41.160] Yeah, and they didn't think that it prevented pregnancy or reduced desire.

[01:34:41.160 --> 01:34:43.160] I just totally made that part up.

[01:34:43.160 --> 01:34:46.160] Okay, all of this means that there was widespread belief

[01:34:46.160 --> 01:34:49.160] that the speed and constant rattling noise of passenger trains

[01:34:49.160 --> 01:34:53.160] caused people to go insane, resulting in violent outbursts,

[01:34:53.160 --> 01:34:56.160] is science, meaning that it's a pseudoscience.

[01:34:56.160 --> 01:34:59.160] So yeah, that was a widespread belief.

[01:34:59.160 --> 01:35:02.160] People were afraid of the speed of trains.

[01:35:02.160 --> 01:35:05.160] At first they thought it would be physically dangerous,

[01:35:05.160 --> 01:35:08.160] like your organs would be crushed up against your spine,

[01:35:08.160 --> 01:35:12.160] because 28 miles an hour was just crazy fast and the human body couldn't take it.

[01:35:12.160 --> 01:35:15.160] Obviously we survived going 28 miles an hour.

[01:35:15.160 --> 01:35:19.160] So then they thought, this emerged because there were cases

[01:35:19.160 --> 01:35:24.160] of people who apparently had some kind of nervous breakdown

[01:35:24.160 --> 01:35:27.160] or something on a train, and they thought maybe it was the rattling

[01:35:27.160 --> 01:35:30.160] and the speed of the train that provoked it that actually caused it,

[01:35:30.160 --> 01:35:34.160] not just irritated them, but actually caused them to become insane,

[01:35:34.160 --> 01:35:38.160] like a cause of insanity, which of course is silly in retrospect,

[01:35:38.160 --> 01:35:39.160] thinking back on this.

[01:35:39.160 --> 01:35:43.160] And this is one of those beliefs that then confirmation bias kicks in.

[01:35:43.160 --> 01:35:46.160] So then every time anything weird happened on a train,

[01:35:46.160 --> 01:35:51.160] it was blamed on this phenomenon, and people started looking for it,

[01:35:51.160 --> 01:35:53.160] and stories would spread about it.

[01:35:53.160 --> 01:35:56.160] It just became like any other cultural mythology,

[01:35:56.160 --> 01:35:59.160] like the Korean fan death or whatever, anything like that.

[01:35:59.160 --> 01:36:02.160] It was like, yeah, trains make people go insane.

[01:36:02.160 --> 01:36:07.160] And that belief persisted for a long time in the 1800s,

[01:36:07.160 --> 01:36:10.160] because let's face it, at that time, they had no idea.

[01:36:10.160 --> 01:36:15.160] They had no idea about mental health and anything like that.

[01:36:15.160 --> 01:36:17.160] They were really just grasping at any straw.

[01:36:17.160 --> 01:36:19.160] All right, good job, Bob and Jay.

[01:36:19.160 --> 01:36:20.160] Thank you.

[01:36:20.160 --> 01:36:21.160] Good job, guys.

[01:36:21.160 --> 01:36:22.160] Yeah, yeah.

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

TEXT
– AUTHOR (YYYY-YYYY), _short_description_

[01:36:22.160 --> 01:36:24.160] Okay, Evan, give us a quote.

[01:36:24.160 --> 01:36:28.160] In a way, everyone in this story is seeing Jesus in the toast.

[01:36:28.160 --> 01:36:31.160] We all want to see what we want to see.

[01:36:31.160 --> 01:36:33.160] We are projecting our own selves.

[01:36:33.160 --> 01:36:35.160] That's what we do as humans.

[01:36:35.160 --> 01:36:38.160] We look to make connections between different things,

[01:36:38.160 --> 01:36:44.160] and sometimes when those things align, we declare those connections truth.

[01:36:44.160 --> 01:36:50.160] Jeffrey Gray, the author of Skyjack, The Hunt for D.B. Cooper.

[01:36:50.160 --> 01:36:55.160] And I bring up this quote because I watched on Netflix.

[01:36:55.160 --> 01:36:57.160] What is this show called?

[01:36:57.160 --> 01:37:00.160] It's Who is D.B. Cooper?

[01:37:00.160 --> 01:37:04.160] They have a mini-doc on D.B. Cooper,

[01:37:04.160 --> 01:37:08.160] and D.B. Cooper has always been a fascination to me.

[01:37:08.160 --> 01:37:09.160] I don't know about you guys.

[01:37:09.160 --> 01:37:13.160] I mean, yes, there have been multiple movies made on D.B. Cooper.

[01:37:13.160 --> 01:37:16.160] Kerry, are you familiar with the story of D.B. Cooper?

[01:37:16.160 --> 01:37:17.160] Oh, yeah.

[01:37:17.160 --> 01:37:18.160] Okay, good.

[01:37:18.160 --> 01:37:21.160] So transcends generations, which is nice.

[01:37:21.160 --> 01:37:24.160] It is still the only skyjacking in history that has not been solved,

[01:37:24.160 --> 01:37:27.160] according to the producers of the show.

[01:37:27.160 --> 01:37:33.160] And there's an entire cult phenomenon that surrounds everybody's opinions

[01:37:33.160 --> 01:37:37.160] and beliefs on who D.B. Cooper was, still alive, still dead,

[01:37:37.160 --> 01:37:40.160] what ultimately became of him.

[01:37:40.160 --> 01:37:44.160] Again, this took place in, what was it, 1979?

[01:37:44.160 --> 01:37:53.160] He hijacked an airplane, had a briefcase on board with a bomb in it, supposedly,

[01:37:53.160 --> 01:37:55.160] ordered the plane to land.

[01:37:55.160 --> 01:37:56.160] They landed the plane.

[01:37:56.160 --> 01:37:57.160] Passengers all got out.

[01:37:57.160 --> 01:38:00.160] They loaded 200 grand in cash onto the plane along with some parachutes.

[01:38:00.160 --> 01:38:04.160] The plane took off again with just the crew and D.B. Cooper in there.

[01:38:04.160 --> 01:38:08.160] He took the 200 grand, strapped on one of the parachutes,

[01:38:08.160 --> 01:38:14.160] jumped out somewhere over the wilderness of southern Washington

[01:38:14.160 --> 01:38:19.160] and northern Oregon area and was disappeared.

[01:38:19.160 --> 01:38:23.160] Only clues and crumbs have been left in his wake.

[01:38:23.160 --> 01:38:27.160] Some of his money has been discovered here and there over the years, over time.

[01:38:27.160 --> 01:38:32.160] There's all sorts of eyewitness accounts, but it's not been solved.

[01:38:32.160 --> 01:38:36.160] It is the cold case of cold cases, they said.

[01:38:36.160 --> 01:38:42.160] But that doesn't stop people from pursuing the hunt and having their own theories.

[01:38:42.160 --> 01:38:45.160] And to this day, there is still plenty of people hunting

[01:38:45.160 --> 01:38:47.160] or trying to figure out what happened to D.B. Cooper.

[01:38:47.160 --> 01:38:49.160] All right, thank you, Evan.

Signoff/Announcements ()

[01:38:49.160 --> 01:38:51.160] And thank you all for joining me this week.

[01:38:51.160 --> 01:38:52.160] Thanks, guys.

[01:38:52.160 --> 01:38:53.160] You got it, Steve.

[01:38:53.160 --> 01:38:54.160] Thanks, Steve.

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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