SGU Episode 1067
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| SGU Episode 1067 |
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| December 20th 2025 |
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A majestic bear stands tall amid the lush greenery of its natural habitat. |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
“The time is coming when people won't listen to good teaching. Instead, they will look for teachers who will please them by telling them only what they are itching to hear. They will turn from the truth and eagerly listen to senseless stories.” |
Christian Bible. 2 Timothy Chapter 4, verses 3-4 (from the Contemporary English Version) |
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| Show Notes |
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Intro
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday, December 15th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
B: Hey everybody.
S: Cara Santa Maria Howdy and Evan Bernstein.
B: Good evening, folks.
S: Jay is sick this week. He thinks he has the flu, could just be a bad cold. But his his daughter was sick. And you know, kids are basically Petri dishes. They're just vectors for communicable diseases.
C: I hope Jay got his flu shot already.
S: He didn't dressed him down about but you know, he he said he did. He went to get his his flu shot OK, and it was not available. They were out out. So then he went to CVS and they were out of Sedak. Well, he tried then he basically forgot. Then he dropped the ball, but he wasn't persistent enough and now he's paying the price.
C: I had the weirdest experience. Tell me if this has ever happened to you. This year I got my flu shot at work because I, I, I started my job back again and they, they require a flu shot if you work in the hospital, but my hospital has stopped requiring that you get annual Covids. You have to have had a certain number of shots. I see. But you don't, you're not like required to keep getting the booster every time. But I wanted to get the booster And so I went to CVS like that same day and I got my COVID booster and I had them do it in the same arm because, you know. I don't want. Too sore shoulders and my arm lumped up in a way it had never done it before They.
E: Gave you steroids.
C: I was like, what happened? And I don't know. I remember her getting confused at CVS. She was like, and I was like, do you want me to take the Band-Aid off? And she was like, that's right where I need to give you the shot. So I took the Band-Aid off from the old shot and I'm like, did she stick it in the same hole? Wow, what happened because my arm was not happy.
S: But I've got them in different arms, it's not a big deal.
C: Yeah, maybe I should. I've gotten them together before, but it's usually the same person that does them and I guess they stuck them in far enough apart. You think it's just like I had a local reaction?
S: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. You had a double local reactions. You got the two shots, not a big deal, but yes.
C: No, no, no. I mean I had I think 8 vaccines in one sitting before when I went to a travel clinic before I traveled to.
S: You got super autism then?
C: African boom and that woman was in. I was like, how did you do that? She was like, I do this all day, every day. It was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I didn't even feel it.
B: Amazing some. People say you shouldn't get like the flu and COVID shot at the same day. You can, I did absolutely you can, you absolutely can. I did once and it was definitely a much bigger wallop than I'm used to either getting just one on its own. So that's just one day to.
C: But when you say wallop, you mean like your arm hurt or like you got sick?
B: It will. It hurt. And I, I felt, yeah, I felt sick the next.
C: 'Cause I haven't felt sick with COVID boosters in a while.
S: Yeah, the first couple were bad, and then after that it hasn't been.
C: Bad, Yeah.
B: Yeah, it's never been bad for me, but I that one time I I did the double, it was it was the worst that I had experienced.
C: It's never been bad for you. You're so lucky. Oh yeah, I had the flu for days the first time I got a COVID vaccine. No, the second one. The first. Time 1 was the worst, Yeah.
S: It was basically one bad night. You know, like we just lose one way to sleep. But even me this year, I don't think I just had a sore arm for a day. That was it.
C: Yeah, same.
E: I got my shingles shot today. First of two, good for you because I was reading up on shingles and horror stories that people go through.
S: Definitely get your shingles.
C: Shot When is it recommended again?
E: After age 5050.
C: You should lower that. My kid sister got shingles and COVID at the same time and she's like 38.
S: Yeah, you could get it if one of my got got that shingles in this 30s.
B: I was in my 40s and it and I, I think I got super lucky because it wasn't bad at all. And I keep hearing horror stories like wait, shingles, is that bad? Like holy crap, I I must have looked.
S: To roll the dice. So it's, you know, it's a reactivation of the chicken pox virus that is dormant in the sensory nuclei in your spinal cord basically. And then if it reactivates, it goes out to the skin and back to the spinal cord, right? So you get the rash, the vesicles, but then also it could cause the nerves to be painful. And the worst is when you get post herpetic neuralgia. So it's not just the pain of the rash and of the acute flare. You can have years of burning pain in the distribution of where you had the shingles, and that's the roll of the dice, right? That's what you don't want to get. But that could be terrible. And that it's treatable. I've treated many patients with it, you know, but it's not not. Fun.
C: I had patients who got shingles in the mid middle of their cancer treatment and these are patients with severe disease and intense chemotherapy and radiation and they were like, the shingles is by far the worst part of what I'm dealing with right now. Oh.
E: Boy, God, yeah, this is. What scared? Me and saying, yeah, I've put it off too long, I've just got to get this done.
S: Yeah, no, your risk, your risk of getting shingles is greater if you are in any way under stress. Yeah, you know, so getting chemo's huge risk of doing that. You can get it when you're not under stress, but I'm just your risk of getting it goes up.
B: For me, I remember the only thing I really remember is this weird tickle itch in my back, like, whoa, what's that? I never felt that before, but it was not bad at all. It's just weird. They could, yeah.
S: He's got lucky.
C: I feel like at this point they should just let us all get the vaccine because anybody might age. Kids start getting vaccinated against chicken pox. Chicken pox.
E: I never had a vaccination for chicken. Pox No, none of us did I. Contracted. I had chicken. Pox. I had it in 1981. Yeah, it was when I I was 11 years old.
C: Right, but you guys are older than me. I'm saying younger people than me, not that much younger, all got the chicken pox vaccine. So.
S: 1970s well, that's when it was developed. 1995 is when it was approved.
C: That's it. OK. So, so kids, people who were kids in 95 or later, they're all vaccinated already. So I feel like I'm the kind of in that last lost generation and I'm only 42. Just let me get the shingles vaccine now. Just let anybody who is not vaccinated. Yeah, I just don't know if I mean, I'll probably have to pay for it out of pocket. Damn you managed care.
B: Right. How bad could that be though?
C: Yeah, it's just weird. Like it's the same thing with the. I mean, we've talked about this before, but when Gardasil first came on the scene, people in my generation just kept getting skipped over because it wasn't approved for us right away. It was only approved for younger adults. And then they would like extend the coverage to be older and older and older. And finally we were in the cohort. We were able to get it and it be paid for, but it was so silly that a lot of people just got skipped when the vaccine came out. You can still get it though everyone I think up to age 45.
S: Yeah, so there are reasons not to get the vaccine early, Cara. One of the reasons is that they don't know how long it lasts. And so you want it to last when you're vulnerable, you know, when you're older. So when you get it, when you're younger, when you don't really, when the risk of shingles is much lower, it's kind of a waste.
C: It's not really a waste though if you can just revaccinate every however. You know like tetanus right? You just get it again every 10 years or.
S: And they said the side effects are stronger the younger you are.
C: That's so the case with a lot of things. It's really.
S: Interesting because your immune system is more robust, so you.
C: Yeah, chemo too. Yeah, yeah.
E: Well, you know us here. We're sticklers for vaccines.
C: Hello. It's a good jab, Evans. Yeah.
S: All right.
News Items
Animals Adapting to Humans (07:44)
S: Well, let's go straight into some news items saying OK. OK, I'm. Going to talk to you guys about domesticating animals, not necessarily domestication, but the whole, you know, it's a continuum and this is based, I want to talk about it because of a recent study. So this is a study looking at brown bears in a specific region of Italy. Now, these brown bears, this population has been isolated, genetically isolated from other populations of brown bears for a couple of 1000 years. And they're pretty distinctive. You could you could tell from looking at them, right? They look a little different. Their faces look different than a typical brown bear. But there's something else about these bears so that this population has been living in close proximity to humans, right, to like urbanized areas and and suburban areas. So the researchers wanted to know, you know, if they had adapted at all to being in such close proximity. And they, you know, they did a genetic analysis for genes that known to be associated with aggressiveness. And, you know, they're all genes that affect brain development, you know, and they had many genes that are associated with reduced aggressiveness. These are some of the same genes that you would see in domesticated animals.
E: Oh, this is like the Fox experiment.
S: It's like the foxes. Yeah. So even with the Russian fox experiment, where they, again, they selected foxes for these are the silver foxes. They selected them for being less aggressive, less nasty, more calm, more friendly.
C: Only to humans too, which was really interesting.
S: Yeah, to to humans.
C: And, and we forget, they also bred the most aggressive things together.
S: They bred the most aggressive and the least aggressive. They created 2 populations. Then they compared their genes and they identified the genes again for brain development that were associated with sort of domestication versus being very aggressive.
B: Such a great experiment.
S: And it really was just a few generations that you could start to see some significant differences.
C: Oh yeah, and now they're pets all over the world.
S: Yeah. And because when they selected for the behavior, but a lot of the physical characteristics was they were not specifically selecting for came along for the ride. Floppy ears, spotted coat.
C: Spots, yeah.
S: Yeah, so they looked cuter, you know, and.
C: The problem is they also they have that thing like excited urination or whatever or they just pee when they see people. Happy pee. Yeah, happy pee.
S: Mike Dachshund had Happy.
B: Pee, Yeah, he whenever, whenever I would see that dog, he'd run over to me and be just Yep, Happy Pee's comment. Just expected it. He just. Loved me too much, too much I.
S: Miss Murray, So what he was, he was an adorable dog. All right. So it's interesting to think about though, you know, there's lots of instances where just because, you know, the human population is so big and we've taken over so much of the Earth that animals are basically forced to adapt to living side by side with humans. And one of the ways that they adapt is to become less aggressive. So, and we've seen that, you know, the historically, obviously, probably most famously with wolves evolving into dogs, most of that domestication, you know, experts now believe was probably self domestication by the wolves. Like it wasn't due to human selective pressures. We weren't breeding them. They were self selecting. There was a selective pressure there to become more docile and that was primarily the availability of food at the edges of human, you know, civilization, habitation. And so the so less aggressive also means less high strung and a little bit more willing to get closer to people. And to that would be that would provide a huge calorie source that gave a selective advantage. And so the wolves that were better able to be around people, you know, were able to get more access to food, but it also meant that they were less dependent on hunting. And so over time, the selective pressures for being mean and muscular and aggressive reduced, and the selective pressures for being cute and cuddly and friendly increased and.
C: That's how you get a Chihuahua.
S: It was working both ways, yeah. And so until you get basically dogs from wolves, and then once people really took them in, then we, of course started breeding them ourselves as well. But they basically were domesticated by the time that happened. And now this has happened putting in other species as well. There's like different species all along this continuum. So there's the golden jackals of Israel. You guys heard of them? No, so they're like halfway there. They're they've been again, living in close proximity to human civilization for long, very long time. And they are becoming less and less aggressive. And they are because they're getting access to food, you know, even if people aren't directly feeding them, they're finding food. But there's another layer to this as well, and that is humans do provide a selective pressure, even if they're not breeding them. We kill aggressive animals right of.
B: Course we.
J: Do yeah.
S: So if yeah, if you're what if you're a wolf or a Jackal or a bear or whatever and you're very aggressive and mean, yeah, we might just kill you, you know, just to protect our, our people, our pets, our livestock.
E: But that also helps these more friendly versions of these.
S: Yeah, it's open to other selective pressure, right. So not only are they self selective, but then we are killing the the aggressive ones if they get too close. So there's a double selective pressure there as well.
C: You definitely see that here in LA with our coyote population.
S: Oh yeah.
C: Some coyotes get killed. The ones that don't bother anybody live among us now. Like they're fully just walking down the street near us.
S: They're probably also breeding with dogs and.
C: That and they could be breeding with dogs as well.
S: Yeah, I know the Eastern coyote is part wolf, part coyote and part dog, and they are. So I don't know if the wolf and the dog parts are fighting with each other, I guess, but they're they're not friendly. I mean, they're, they're wild animals.
C: Yeah, ours are wild too, but they are definitely garbage dump hypothesis. You know, they're doing it now. They're like right there along with people. Most people just don't bother them and they don't bother us. And I, I get, I have coyote sightings weekly in my neighborhood.
S: Yeah. Well, that's part just like just staying away from humans is one of the selective, you know, pathways that you could take. You don't have to be friendly with them, you could just know how to stay out of their way.
C: Yeah, just don't bother them and eat their garbage and right.
S: Yeah, I wonder how mountain lions will adapt, because they're very popular in the Western.
C: Part they are, but the problem with mountain lions is they will hunt livestock and they will get killed and it happens over and over and over. Actually, sadly, this is neither here nor there, but the biggest selection pressure, the second biggest cause of death among mountain lions other than other mountain lions, is cars. Yeah.
S: So that's another thing I was going to bring up is that a lot of animals, like in the eastern half of the US, car strikes are a huge problem with deer. So will deer evolve behavior that makes them less likely to be struck by a vehicle?
C: God, I wish they would.
S: Or would would squirrels will their behavior change?
C: Aren't deer also the most deadly animal to humans because of that? Yeah, absolutely. In the US, yeah. Yeah, I. Don't know if more than most.
E: But non insect animal.
C: No, no, I think in the US they are more, they're more deadly than mosquitoes.
S: They are very deadly in the US. And in fact, I know that because I've read that that article that said, hey, if if mountain lions were introduced in the East or if they migrate naturally to the east, even if they kill a couple people a year, they're going to save lives from controlling the deer population, which is now totally out of control. Over here. It's different to be think about eaten by a lion versus hitting a deer in your car, right? But exactly.
C: And mountain lions are so rare, it just doesn't happen. They don't.
S: Want it's very rare, like 12 in the last 100 years. Like, literally.
C: And they still aren't like eating the people like that's, I think that's pretty. I don't think they're like, I'm hungry. I'm going to eat a whole human. They might be attacking them, but that's different.
B: I I hit it, I hit a deer at highway speeds, Yeah, that's.
C: Yeah, that's scary. You could have died.
E: Oh gosh, I've seen horrible.
B: That was like, I guess I got I got lucky. I mean, it was, you know, it was nasty. I mean it was like fur and blood on my cars, $3000 worth of damage. But you know, killing something like that, it's just like it's horrible. It's just just a big Beautiful Creatures. It was so sad, but damn, man, just like all of a sudden, Yep, there's a deer and that's happened to me on back roads at three other times, like there's there's no breaking or I mean, you could you should be looking out in certain areas, but all of a sudden, Yep, there's a deer right in front of my car. I have Oh I have no time to react.
E: You'll see the signs here, the road signs, the warning signs, deer crossing and then that's, Oh yeah, in Connecticut.
S: Coming all over the country. In Australia it's Kangaroos. You basically you have to have like a kangaroo rack on the front of your vehicle if you're. Driving.
E: But the best ones maybe New Zealand, where they encourage you, they have signs encouraging you, these the possum.
S: He's killed the possum and the rats.
E: Yeah, right. If you see them strike them, that is. That blew, that blew my mind. That was like. Well, well, they're invasive, that. I get it, I just didn't expect to see Rd. signs encouraging you to drive your car into them.
C: Hey, man, all hands on deck there, OK?
E: That's right, almost hit.
C: Population as well.
E: It was, it was close, but the buck stopped here.
C: Just waiting for that. I looked it up, it's 150 to 440 deaths a year and that's actually makes it the deadliest animal in the US, but like 10s of thousands of injuries.
S: Yeah, lots of injuries. Lots of you have vehicle damage as well. Could totally your car easily.
E: Oh, absolutely. I've seen it.
S: So the other thing is that, you know, humans have to adapt to animals as well, but our adaptation is more cultural than evolutionary, right? We just basically have to learn the rules. Remember that time I, you know, we had a bear in my backyard and I called the animal control people and they're basically like, stay out of his way. This is what you should do. Yeah, just.
E: Bad luck for you pal.
S: So you're, you're, you're in his territory. So you have to stay out of his way. So, you know, you learn like we have to bring the, the bird seat and you can't leave that outside. You shouldn't leave your garbage out overnight. You know, you got to, if you have anything in the garage that's edible, you got to keep your garage doors closed. We have to have like a a neighbor warning system where we text each other when we cite bears and in the neighborhood.
E: It's a neighborhood watch.
S: Yeah, it is. You can bring your pets in, etc. Because our population is growing so much and because we're restricting their territory so much, we are getting more and more crossover, you know, between animal and human living spaces. And they're adapting to us. We're adapting to them. You all got to get along. You know what? I.
C: Mean, yeah, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does raise interesting questions about domestication, kind of classic domestication, like pets, right? I I definitely see arguments online or people kind of arguing for why don't we keep raccoons as pets? Raccoons are, you know, really interesting animals that have basically domesticated them.
S: Yeah, they make terrible pets. I mean, I would love if, if raccoons could be a pet. I would be interested in it because they are fascinating. They're I think.
B: They're smart.
S: They're smart, they're cute.
B: They're ronal density, man.
S: There's a couple of problems with raccoons. 1 is.
B: They're assholes.
S: Biting is their go to move. They bite.
C: Have you ever met a cat?
S: No, no, they way more than cats. Way more.
C: Than cats cause cats can be very bitey.
S: No, yeah, no, raccoons are. That's what they do. They. Bite they're. Off the hook, bitey and they also will wreck your furniture and pee everywhere.
E: Yeah.
C: Have you ever met cats?
S: They have.
E: Can't. House break you. Cannot house break a break?
C: I think a lot of this is cultural. It's we decided that that is a, you know, acceptable risk for that animal.
E: Yeah, they bring the cows inside the house.
C: Exactly, Yeah.
E: And that's often bite. My cat has never.
C: A lot of cats are very bitey and a lot of cats will destroy your furniture too.
E: Your dog bite.
C: And some dogs, you know, don't ever get house broken. In Sweden, a startup built these devices. They almost look like ATMs. And what they do is they trade little pellets of food for cigarette butt litter. And all of the crows have learned no to clean up the cigarette butts, deposit them in this little machine, and then they get food in exchange for it.
B: That is awesome. I. Know. What the hell?
C: Man, because that's just something cigarette butts are impossible to clean up. And they said it's, it's, yeah, it's reducing like billions of cigarettes butts, cigarette butts that are thrown out each year, but.
E: The cancer rate in one crows has grown.
C: Fascinating So.
S: One reason among many white smoking is a disgusting habit.
E: Yeah, I'm into.
S: That All right, let's move on.
Pig Organ Transplants (20:50)
- Putting pig organs in people is OK in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not – why is that? [2]
S: Karen. It's another animal related item. You're going to talk? Tell us about pig organ transplants.
C: Yeah. So it help me remember, but you know, earlier this year there was a trending story about a patient basically part of a a new clinical trial where a genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into this patient. That's correct. Yeah, we talked about this in October, I think. Yeah. And we've talked about xenotransplantation in the past. We've talked about this idea of sort of a human animal transplantation, whether we're talking about specific valves in a heart maybe, or skin grafts or different organs. And you know, there are some transplants that we can do directly from an animal, like utilizing their tissue and using enough drugs and different mechanisms to reduce rejection. And then there's the big difficult ones, whole organ transplantation. So this pig to human kidney transplant, do you guys remember the kidney? Was it pig or human?
S: It was pig. It was a genetically modified pig.
C: Yes, it was a genetically modified pig kidney that was modified to sort of mimic human tissue, mostly around rejection, right? It was modified to have a lesser chance of rejection. Why was it not a human kidney that was grown in a pig? Does anybody but Steve know?
B: Would it even work? Would it? Would it have some some rejection issues?
C: Of course all even even you know a human kidney has rejection issues that goes into another human.
B: Right, so then is that? That's not the answer though.
C: That's not the answer.
E: Well, something advantageous about a pig kidney that a human kidney doesn't have, maybe.
C: Nope. It's probably too. Big.
B: Too big.
C: Yeah. Yeah, it probably would be better to grow a human kidney inside of a pig, but we're not allowed to.
E: Oh, ethics, I see. Oh, it is, yeah.
C: Yeah, so that's what this article that was recently written in The Conversation is all about. It was written by Monica Piotrowska, who's an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Albany, State University of New York. And I love just the headline of this. Putting pig organs in people is OK in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not. Why is that? And really, that's the question she's posing. Why is that? It seems that the answer comes down. Yeah. It seems that the answer comes down to the NIH guidelines for human stem cell research in 2015. They. Well, I should say, I shouldn't say they outlawed it. They paused funding for work on growing human organs inside of animals, specifically inside of pigs. They pause that funding in 2015. And the argument here came back to the NIH guidelines for human stem cell research. So when you look at some of the FAQ, you know, they talk about potential benefits of the research funding that could happen in the future. What is their policy on this research? And basically they said we can't move forward with this because it is falling underneath. There's a moratorium that falls underneath the purview of of the stem cell guidelines due to public outcry and due to some concerns from, you know, scientists from individual experts working in this field. But this is one of those really interesting topics that we sometimes get to discuss on the SGU where 99.9% of scientists don't agree, right? Like there's actually quite a bit of debate within these fields themselves about whether or not this ethical consideration is appropriate and the kind of the extreme step of putting a moratorium. And can you really call it a moratorium if it was put into effect 10 years ago? Is that still a moratorium, or is that it for all intents and purposes, a ban?
S: It's a de facto ban.
C: Right. And so here's, here's something that's interesting, right? So we've got this new clinical trial where basically researchers are trying to sidestep the regulation. Not sidestep isn't really the appropriate term because they're not breaking with regulation. They're trying to do everything they can and still follow the rules. And in doing that, they're having to go through quite a few hoops, you know, OK, instead of growing a human kidney inside of a pig, which nobody's done before, by the way, but when the moratorium was put into place, they had shown proof of concept by growing, I think, a mouse pancreas inside of a rat, which I know sounds like, oh, it's mouse to rat. It's basically the same. It's not the same. Those are two different species, and so they were showing proof of concept there and they were able to do that successfully. And that's sort of when all the research stopped. So we know that it could potentially work, but we don't know if it can work because we haven't been able to figure out if it works. So instead of growing these kidneys, these human kidneys, and when we say human kidneys, we don't mean like generic of the human ilk, we mean kidneys grown from the genetic information of the actual recipient. That's the right. That's the goal here from. Cells. From human cells, but not just human cells, the recipients cells. The the individual. Yeah, the individual, the idea here would be that they would be a match to not just their blood type, but all of the different factors that they're coding for that would promote, or I should say, decrease the chance of rejection because the recipient would recognize this cell or this organ as its own. That's the hope. What they're having to do right now is they're having to use different genetic modification techniques to sort of trick the recipients immune system into thinking that the organ is not a threat, into thinking that the organ is human, or maybe even into thinking that the organ is the recipients. And it kind of works. And that's what we talked about a few months ago when we described this. If you guys remember, ultimately these recipients are having to have these organs removed. There was one example, 271 days was the length of time that the New Hampshire man who was on the transplant list was able to keep the pig kidney. I shouldn't say was able to survive with it because he didn't die. He just had it removed and then went back into dialysis. And then that was after, you know, an Alabama woman's pig kidney lasted 130 days. And we've had some other examples in the past, but we have to remember that the transplant list is long and it's growing there. There are over 100,000 people on the transplant list in the US, and most of those are for kidney transplants. Actually, you, you would think it's mostly, you know, heart, but it's not. It's still mostly kidney transplant that's needed. I know, right, Because heart is by far the the most difficult. And you can't donate a heart, obviously. And the rules are much, much stricter. But yeah, most people who need an Oregon need a kidney and there just aren't enough. There aren't enough donors. And so we are, or should say were on track. I'm not saying it was there yet and I'm not saying it was perfect, but on track to be able to. And you can read some really, you know, fascinating articles from 5/10/15 years ago about growing human organs in animal hosts and specifically pig. Pig is usually the one that's used. But where are the ethical concerns? Like I, I do think it's important to highlight both sides of this debate. What do you think that the largest ethical concerns are? Why would it be? Why would people not be OK with growing a human kidney inside of a pig?
B: So, So what are they inserting? They're not, they're not, they're not inserting stem cells. I mean they are that this. It's.
E: So it's the general stem cell argument.
C: Human stem cells into animal embryos but but be even beyond the general kind of like.
B: The fear, the fear of, you know, chimeras like that's a. Yeah, So what do you? Think some people.
C: What's the main fear of chimeras?
B: That chimeras are going to vote Democratic? I mean no.
C: Well, but it's it's funny you say that. I mean, that's actually obviously really funny, but it's that the pig would be more human and how human is too human and that is a right and.
E: Making a new human human type of species here is only playing God that kind.
C: Of like the NIH literally use this quote. They were concerned of possible quote alterations of the animal's cognitive state.
B: Yeah, it's ridiculous.
C: They were concerned that putting kidney human stem cells that you know, will ultimately code for a human kidney into an embryonic pig could somehow those cells could migrate to neural tissue.
B: Was that the real fear or was that was it the fear that this is the slippery slope and this is the first step that will lead to like neural?
E: Transit a panel of people, doctors and things and they have to placate a couple of them who are fringe on the panel it by saying something like this.
C: What's the ultimate reason? I don't know if anybody really knows. And and Bob, I think that's an interesting question. We can only go off of what's published, and what they published is a warning of possible alterations of of the animal's cognitive state. Now, you do see animal rights activist groups or animal advocacy organizations arguing against sentience or awareness or, you know, whatever kind of terminology they want to use. Not sentient sapiens. Sorry. Animals are already sentient, they can feel pain and pleasure. But arguing against a fear of sapiens? And you're right, I think a distinction needs to be made between a slippery slope of what happens if we try or we get to a point where we have the technology and the know how to insert human stem cells into a pig's brain. For example, intentionally to try and grow a human like brain in a pig. That's very different than a concern that a few cells might migrate into the brain of a pig when the intention with a lot of.
E: Safeguards.
C: Safeguards, yes, is is to prevent that from happening. And I think also it shows just like a general lack of understanding of how this kind of scientific research happens. You don't just throw some cells in an animal and see what what sticks. It's really hard to make this work really hard. It's hard enough.
E: Something like that actually happening? I don't think so.
C: No, no, I'm saying it's hard enough just to make growing a kidney work.
E: Right, right. Let alone worrying about.
C: The brain.
E: Developing of yes.
C: Kind of nuke as some sort of random oopsies and you know, this bioethicist, or philosopher I should say, who who obviously specializes in bioethics. Their argument in their article about the flawed logic of the ban, as they call it, is that in practice they're saying it's not about the concept of self consciousness at all, It's about species membership, membership and sort of human exceptionalism. They're saying that if, if, and this is a direct quote, if certain cognitive capacity such as self consciousness conferred higher moral status, then it follows that regulators would be equally concerned about inserting dolphin or primate cells into pigs as they are about inserting human cells. But they are not. They are not equally concerned about that. It's specific to humans, this idea of human to non human chimeras.
E: We're responsible for it all, I suppose. You know, whereas a Dolphins not.
C: True, true. And I think that's that is an important argument. But I think there's also this concern of like, where is the cut off? And this is something that we've talked about a lot on the show. And I know I'll probably get feedback from people, you know, arguing against certain stances on eating meat or arguing for veganism. And I think that these are all valid arguments, but there's always a line in the sand at which a decision has to be made, whether it's personally or collectively, you know, from a policy standpoint that says what is, you know, at what level is this ethical? And is it not? Because I, I think we often forget that fruit flies are animals. We often forget that, you know, fish can feel pain.
S: It's a continuum. Yeah, I think they're worried about the island of Doctor Moreau based on that.
E: I think that's. What came to my head?
S: Too, It's a, it's a slippery slope. I think at the end of the day, it was like, well, we have a, a pig with human parts. You know, they're thinking like human parts, like how many part eventually, like the end of that is a basically a human being with a pig brain or you have a pig with a human brain. And I think either of those are abominations that people would recoil at. And so they don't want to go in that direction. Whereas if you're genetically modifying a pig, it's still a pig. It's just genes or I guess that's a little bit more easy to take. I don't think there's a rational science based or even really ethically based distinction there. You know, growing a human kidney in a pig versus a genetically modified pig kidney to look more human to be functional.
C: Right, because either way, the pig is they host. Yeah, well, and not just is it still a pig, it's still a host. We're still harvesting the organ and sacrificing that pig so that the human may live. If that's the argument, if that's the concern, that we don't want these pig farms, which is a valid concern, right, That like we don't want to like use animals just for our health, health purposes just to slaughter them. At the end of the day. It's a valid concern, but it doesn't hold water here because we're already doing that.
S: It's not it's not the distinction that.
C: They're making the distinction that they're making is this idea of a human chimera, and at what point is that animal, should that animal have similar rights to the to human beings due to its makeup being some percent human? But I would make a huge distinction between neural tissue and everything else.
B: Of course. And everything else, it's like, come on, yeah.
S: But we're, but we're seeing this with a lot of technologies. We just talked last week about the fact that they're they're making the European Union's make it a distinction being genetically modified and genetically altered, genetically engineered. That's really, you know, splitting hairs. And, you know, if you remember back in 2001 with President Bush's ban on stem cell research on you harvesting any new lines, eventually they worked around it. They found a way to make, you know, to make cell lines that did not have to be harvested. And it basically made the made the law obsolete. I see they're kind of doing that in this case, but it is holding back the research which.
C: Is oh, it's absolutely, which is a problem. Back the research. Yeah, it, it's, I mean, hopefully it works as well as, you know, the, the false start that we had. But I just, I see there being sort of a, a line where we go, we just can't go any further without this organ being of human origin. Like we just can't. And I guess I'll close with another quote from the article because I mean, she says it better than than we could. If a pig embryo infused with human cells truly became something close enough to count as a member of the human species, then current research regulations would dictate its owed human level regard. But the mere presence of human cells doesn't make pigs human. And Steve, you made this point. Then she goes on to say the pigs engineered for kidney transplants already carry human genes, but they aren't called half human beings. When a person donates a kidney, the recipient doesn't become part of the donor's family. Yet current research policies treat a pig with a human kidney as if it might.
S: Yeah, I think it's scientifically incoherent.
C: Yeah, yeah. And it's holding back research in a major way.
S: Which we need because again, you said it's a massive shortage in organ transplantation, especially kidneys.
C: Yeah.
S: All right. Thanks, Cara. Bob, you're gonna talk about another cutting edge high tech issue here.
Japan Plans to Beam Energy from Space (38:10)
S: Japanese plan to beam energy from space.
B: Yeah, Japan is about to test for the first time solar power beam from space. Guys, this is it's a Ohi sama project. And it will soon launch a satellite to collect solar energy, beam it down to Earth as microwaves to be turned into electricity. Enough to run a toaster, I hear. So we've touched on this before here and there, right, Steve? Our reaction has always been something like, oh, this is such cool idea, but give me a break. It's way too expensive compared to simple ground based solar power collection. I mean, how was this even a discussion? So that's basically what what how we've been dealing with this. I think, I mean, at least in talk Steve, you and I've had it's like, oh, it's cool, but come on, it's just way too it's ridiculously expensive. What why, why is that even on the table? So let's let's revisit this a little bit. Space based solar power SBSP first proposed by aerospace engineer Peter Glaser. And when do you think, what year do you think that was? This was proposed this idea guys. CA yeah. You bastard. Whatever. You should have. Just 1860.
E: Eight Wow, space travel long. Time.
B: Yeah. So. I mean, there's so, but there's so many benefits to collecting solar energy and space. It's easy to get a little entranced by it. Just the benefits are just like, oh, man, they're just so wonderful. So traditional solar farms on the ground, they've got the classic disadvantage right at night, the Earth gets in the way of the sun. It's like the damn Earth. There it is. It's blocking the sun. So yeah, nighttime really sucks for solar that it's, you know, it's like half the time it's not. You can't, you can't by definition use it. And then of course, even when the sun's shining, there's cloud cover. Then you got to deal with the, you know, limited, limited area and even just respect for the environment. It's like, Oh my God, you know? Some of the seasonality. Some of these installations can be so big and there's always concern there. But now the orbital solar collectors in, say, geosynchronous orbit, Now that's, you know. Geostationary right, Bob. Yeah, right. There's that whole thing. It's, it's in, it would be in the geosynchronous orbit, but it would be in the specific type of geosynchronous orbit, which is geostationary, so that it's in one spot, right, right. So if you've got it getting me off on a save. Your emails. But it's geostationary, so it's basically hovering in one spot, whereas a generic geosynchronous doesn't have to be in one spot. It could move a little bit. All right, So when you're in, when you're in this orbit, sunny 24/7, Earth is no longer in your way at night, there's no weather, right, Especially the clouds don't get in the way you are. Also, here's an interesting angle. You avoid most common forms of wear because you're not like on the planet dealing with a weather. So, so many types of wear won't won't be happening that you would see on the ground. And the environmental impact is it is basically non existent except for some of the collectors, but nothing compared to the big solar arrays. So it's just like, it's like so many interesting advantages to solar, orbital solar collectors. And we all know how much energy is hitting, is hitting the Earth. I mean, if you look at here's a, here's a stat I found interesting. Our deserts absorb in one day all the energy humans use in a year. And as great as that is, space is even better. It's it's even better. Sunlight in orbit is approximately, it's like 144 or 150% stronger than the ground. And with, if you factor in no night time or weather, orbital systems can yield 40 times the total output over time. So yeah, it's just an amazing place for this to happen. So now to transmit the power home efficiently, my first thought would be, let's use lasers, right? Why don't we use lasers? But they can, they can cause issues due to, you know, interference with the atmosphere. The atmosphere can be problematic for lasers in in this scenario to a certain extent. So for decades, many decades, and most recently in 2008, it's been shown that power beaming with the microwaves would be much better. It just slides through the atmosphere almost effortlessly. It's really microwaves are great for this application. So there we go microwave. So this is what Japan is going to going to test and microwave beams. You know, it sounds like, oh boy, this is what's happening in my microwave that's heating food. It's safe. It's very safe for for us and for wildlife. The energy density is not anything that we would really need to worry about here, but here. But this is the process. If we, if this worked, the process would happen this way with just a generic solar installation in space so that the solar, the solar panels intercept the solar radiation and they convert that to DC direct current. That DC powers the microwave generator that sends the signal to Earth, right, Converting the microwaves into electricity on the ground. For me, that's, that was the real slick part of this tech because I didn't really understand how how that worked. How were you taking microwaves and producing, you know, usable electricity from that? So to deal with this, they have special antennas. These are called rectifying antennas or rectennas. Have you guys heard about rectennas or rectifying circuits? Yeah, they're, they're fascinating. I didn't really have a full grasp of how they actually did their work. So it's basically a 2 devices in one this rectenna, hence the portmanteau, right? Rectifying antenna, you know, rectifying circuit and antenna rectenna. So the antenna part of this device is just a, I think their antenna, but it's designed to harvest microwaves instead of say, you know, remember Steve, our old school TV signals where, which were our radio waves on our, on the roof of our house. Now microwaves, by the way, are really just energetic radio waves. So they're just basically, I think technically they are radio waves, but they're just just, you know, they're at the far end there. So now you got the antenna. The antenna is grabbing onto these microwaves. The microwaves Dr. the electrons back and forth in the in the antenna, right? Imagine the antenna at the, the microwaves are hitting it. It's driving electrons back and forth. This is basically alternating current. This is AC right here that we're dealing with. The rectifier takes this back and forth of the of the electrons and blocks the backward part, right? So the current mostly goes in One Direction instead of both directions. It's just going in in this One Direction and then you're basically done. The only thing that you need to do additionally here is that a filter will take that kind of bumpy direct current and make it into a smooth direct current that that that we can that we normally use in our everyday lives. So that's what's happening. This rectifier takes some of that, that back and forth of the electrons and makes it makes the current go in One Direction. And that's what that's what it's doing to turn microwaves into direct current. But O he's some of the project is going to launch a £400 washing machine sized satellite into low Earth orbit about 400 kilometers above Earth. It's a 2 square meter solar panel that's going to collect the solar power and it's going to beam it down in the microwaves to a, to an array, a ground, a 13 antenna ground away that that's array. That's the plan. And the test is designed to validate 2 things. They want to make sure that the accuracy of the microwave to ground targeting is is spot on and that the efficiency of the wireless energy reception on Earth is also good. I mean, if it's not efficient and not accurate, this is not going to work. I think this is going to work for them. I think when they finally get this up here, probably I would guess they keep saying the end of 2025 and we're getting damn close to that. I assume it's going to be, it's going to be the like the first quarter of 2026 that they're they're going to launch this and they'll do a test. I don't think this is, I think this will, this will work fine. This very narrow specific test because this mainly because this isn't the hard part, scaling this up cheaply that that's the hard part. You know, it's the steps that come after this that are really get kind of rough. And it boils down to what, what does it boil down to? Is this worth the extra expense of launching this entire system into space? Right. Why would Japan even consider this? And it's kind of obvious if you think about Japan. Japan imports something like, I've heard numbers from 90 to 97% of their energy. Any country should consider that untenable. Long terms like this is ridiculous. I mean, we can't be how do we survive long term if we're if we're importing almost all of our energy like that? So, yeah, so they're looking at this hard and they've been, they've been working on this specific technology for decades. This has been a priority for them. Well, look, look more Japan, the a ground based solar array that's very limited in Japan. There's limited space, right? In Japan, the terrain is difficult. There's a lot of people in in a tiny area. So yeah. So ground based solar arrays are not going to really do that much, let's say nuclear energy. That's a tough sell, right? Fukushima. I mean, that's, I think that's something that they, they're not, they're trying not to focus on too, too much. I just think that the gut reaction to people over there, it's just like obviously pretty tainted. Geothermal isn't much of an option in Japan. There, there is some geothermal activity there, but either they can't use it where it is or it's being used for like hot, hot baths and stuff. And they don't want to start a huge construction thing there where tourists go and whatever. Offshore wind farms, I think that's pretty viable. They've got a lot of coastline, but I think that that this is going to need to be kind of a scenario where they do different things, including a wind farm and maybe, you know, maybe some space based solar, I don't know. But let's see how much more expensive this this could be. So I found a NASA study that's only, I think it's only a couple years old, so it's pretty new. They looked at 2 designs. Each design would add 2 gigawatts to the grid. So that's that's pretty intense right there. Japan is only imagining A1 GW solar array up in space. So they NASA was thinking about two gigawatts. And what would this cost? They calculated the cost of electricity comes to about $0.61 USD, $0.61 per kWh for one design. And their other design was $1.59 per kWh. And Steve, what do you know? The latest ground solar is like $0.04 per kWh, something like that. So it's, yeah. So clearly this is going to be more expensive. Duh. That's that's.
S: Kind of, Bob, because I was looking at that too. I was very interested. The relative cost that NASA study, which I also came upon, is at the very high end of estimates. I've read other estimates that put it as low as like 10 to 20 billion for A1 GW system, where NASA is like 250 billion for the two GW system. So NASA's estimates is 10 times more than some other estimates. There are even super optimistic estimates that put it at 1 to $2 billion. I think that's pie in the sky. But if they could get the cost down to 10 billion for A1 GW system, that's that's in the cost range for a nuclear reactor that's now as expensive as nuclear and that is totally doable.
B: Best case scenario is interesting. I mean they, they did conclude that space based solar power would cost either 12 to 31 times higher for their one for one design or 32 to 80 times as much as the other. So I didn't really focus on the dollars. If I focus on how much more expensive would it be because of the, the launch? And, and of course, it's, it's mostly launch costs. Remember, we're talking thousands of launches, right? To get this into space with thousands of launches they're predicting. So NASA says 70 to 80% of the lifecycle cost is just launching. But then if you keep reading, it says that best case scenario, if there's multiple major improvements made, like say that the launch is even cheaper, it gets, it's more efficient and this and that. So if you have multiple stacking major improvements, they say the cost could drop drama dramatically, even down to get this single digit cents per kWh. So that that would mean instead of four 4 pennies per kWh now on the ground, they're saying space based could eventually be something like 9-9 cents per kWh. That would be like, Oh my God, no, that'd be a no brainer. Who knows? There's so many complex variables interplaying here, who knows what it's going to be. So what's the take away? I'm not sure. Generally I think the take away is this. It's too expensive now, but it it will get better and perhaps it will could get way better potentially. I don't know. But I think if we just wait, it's going to get better. Just wait a little while. It's going to get better. I'm not sure, you know, when we might see a GW class instrument deployed, you know, very complex instrument deployed into space. I don't know, you know, if when we're if we're going to see that that still could be 20-30, forty years away. I don't know. I think if Japan figures that that their cost is at the lower end of the estimate, they may go ahead and and try to and try to do this and launched their planned GW system into space. But one problem with that is that some people are saying that this is going to be, this is going to require an international effort like the Large Hadron Collider. You know, it's just like. It's just too big. For one country to do it. But the problem is what other countries are going to put all the millions of millions of dollars mill, you know, millions of whatever and whatever currency they use into this project and their F and their time and their their smartest people. And if it only benefits Japan, I mean, I mean the Large Hadron Collider, I mean, this data is available for everyone, but for this is like, why would why would Germany then spend so millions on something that is directly just for Japan? I mean, the technology that you come away with maybe maybe that that kind of joint intellectual property would be would make it worth it. I. Don't know.
S: I think the idea is that you is that the advances reduce the cost until it gets down into the range where it's viable for the EU or for the United States, for other countries to do this. So what's interesting though, you have to think about how expensive something is. That's a that depends on the country, right? It depends on the use case. Japan is kind of unique in that it is they have their landlocked, they have a severe land restriction, you know, so this only needs to come down to the relative cost of nuclear, doesn't need to come down to the cost of ground based solar because they don't have a land for ground based solar. So it's not a really an option for them.
B: They are absolutely a special case and I think we'll see it with them before any other country. Essentially they they they are more motivated. Than yeah, they could be and they should be.
S: They could push this forward, but they could be, you know, if that R&D brings it down because there's other things you didn't talk about that really could affect the price.
B: It's so, yeah, it's so complicated. One aspect. What else?
S: How are they going to be constructed in space, right? Are you going to send up individual units that will that are built on Earth and then unfold in orbit or are you going to have robots assembling a massive multi kilometer array in orbit? We don't have the technology to do that right now. So a lot depends on how we develop that technology and if that we can get that. So that's reliable and it's cheap, you know, Then it changes the equation further.
B: Yeah, NASA's, NASA's study went through a lot of the different types of types of technologies that, you know, the, the ways and, and different methods and ideas, just that super high level, you know, what are they going to construct up there like you mentioned? So maybe we should, we'll put the link to that PDF on on the site. I wish I had time to, to read every, every word of it. It was kind of big, but yeah, a lot to digest there. But so, yeah, interesting topic. I think we'll probably be talking about this again maybe once it launches, but we'll see how it goes. I think it's going to go well. It's what happens afterwards that really matters, so we'll see.
S: Now, old Musk would have just invested $100 billion in this and made it happen and made it be. Cool.
B: Right.
S: Tesla space or whatever, You know what I. Mean force. All right. Thanks, Bob. Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week or our frames.
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S: All right guys, let's get back to the show.
Ant Yogurt (55:28)
S: All right, Evan, tell us about this anti yoga yogurt. Sounds yummy.
E: Yeah, sounds yummy. Maybe I had no, I had an aunt yogurt. She was wonderful. And I have a question. All right, wait, Bob, I know you can you have you have expressed your concern about aging. But I think we all have you know, maybe to some degree, right.
B: Sure.
E: We slow down we lose our vitality so forth. Would you consider sucking on a straw that had ants crawled all crawled all over it to get benefits of of helping with that aging issue? Would you do that?
B: Depends on the extent of help.
E: I suppose it would. This is an actual folk practice that existed in parts of Europe as something I had never heard about before. Are any of you familiar with this, or have you heard this in any machination? Ants straws sucking.
B: Astra nothing like.
E: That ants used to be.
C: I don't understand what you're saying. Is it a such straw full of ants?
E: It's it's a straw that ants were at. It's it's a little unclear but that ants had crawled onto. Oh, well, that wouldn't bother me.
C: I mean, it sounds like it wouldn't do anything either, but it wouldn't bother me.
E: But what it but how it's described is that if you then, you know, drink something through it, you'll get this taste that's almost like a little bitter, maybe sour taste. And that relates to some kind of health benefit, right? Sounds kind of crazy, but a lot of these stories from antiquity are, you know, we've heard crazier stories than that. And this turns out to be an actual practice that existed in parts of Europe. Joe Schwarz over at McGill at the McGill Office for Science and Society wrote an article about this recently. But according to the story, children would place a straw into an anthill, wait for the ants to climb up it, and then they would suck on the straw to get that sour taste, supposedly absorbing the ants vitality and improving their their own health. And someone wrote to Joe saying, talking about this and claimed that it may have contributed to someone in their family living to the age of 93.
C: Right.
E: OK, so first of all, that's wrong. One thing has nothing to do with the other. So that the fact that somebody lived to age 93 and sucked on a straw that an ants one crawled on, that's not anything, right? So we already know that part. But underneath that folklore, there appears to be maybe something real, which is cool stuff when it comes to science. So it's a general, when you talk about these things, generally the category that anthropologists term, the term they use is sympathetic magic. So the idea that you can absorb the qualities of something by contact or consumption. You know, ants are energetic, resilient. So if you ingest something associated with ants, maybe you get some of those benefits as well, right? Eating animal organs for strength, wearing animal skins for power, bloodletting, you know, the humors. So many different things in, in our history have pointed in that, in that direction. And they're all wrong, of course, but now that we know that. But this was a time before really science and medicine came together. So wait, why would the straws taste sour in the 1st place? That's, that's a good question. There is a scientific explanation for that. Ants, ants produce, right formic acid, which is responsible for the sharp acidic sensation like when you're bitten or stung. So that sour taste that children would have is, is real. It's, it's a real phenomenon, but there's no evidence that ingesting those tiny amounts of formic acid would do anything beneficial for your health. So, you know, strike, strike one there. But in some regions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, people didn't just suck on the Astros. What they did is they would add ants to warm milk, allow it to ferment, and that produced a yogurt like food. So it's a, it's a form of fermentation. The ants carried lactic acid bacteria on their bodies. Those bacteria can lower the pH of the milk, cause it to curdle, producing something, you know, yogurt or yogurt like. And so the ants become the delivery system for this particular bacteria. And there could be some narrow but but some health benefits that could be derived from a product like that. If you isolated that bacteria and cultured it directly, you would really get the same results and you wouldn't even need the ants at that point, so. Does that mean we should all go out and start sticking ants into our foods and, you know, getting those benefits? No, it's not, Not that at all. But you can kind of get the sense of where this came from, the ancient folklore behind it, and how it's sort of translated through time up to the point where we now are able to sort of isolate it and figure out, OK, this is really what they were talking about. In a real scientific sense. Fermented foods, including yogurt, can have modest health benefits. Can we say certain, maybe certain strains of bacteria might help with lactose digestion, help prevent antibiotic associated diarrhea? This is according to what the American Gastroenterological Association, the Aga, and the world gastroenterology organization, the WGO.
S: It's all pretty thin, so if you it's there's a number of articles on science based medicine about it. The evidence only supports the highest count. You know, colony count probiotics, and only if you take them before you initiate antibiotics. So like in the most favorable situation, maybe there's a little bit of a benefit. That's about all you could say. But like using it routinely, no. Using anything other than the highest colony counts, no. You for any other conditions or general gut health, no.
E: And they do say it has extremely narrow and specific potential in, in, in those, in those particular cases. Steve, that's, that's right. They, they, they are not saying this is a, you know, a general practice for, for, for overall health. Very, very and the end, you know, it's strain specific, condition specific with small effects. So yes, there's something there, but it, you know, it's kind of interesting how we look into these stories. And frankly, this is 1 I had never heard of before. Maybe our listeners in Europe are a little more familiar with it, something their grandparents or great grandparents handed down to them. It's in their culture, it's in, in their history. And but this was something, you know, I mean, we've come across so many things over our, you know, 20-30 years of, of being exposed to this. And I had never heard of this before. So any time I I find something new like this, I become really interested in in how it went from its original its origins to to where we are today understanding it.
B: I mean, I'd do it to grow an exoskeleton, that'd be cool.
E: Well, yeah, if it would, if it would do something like that. You know, Vladimir Putin is said to bathe in reindeer blood, reindeer antler blood. We've talked about that on the show before. Same idea, you know, Exactly. Pretty much the exact same idea. That's Siberian culture with, you know, roots and they're folklore essentially, but no basis whatsoever. There's no evidence that it that it does anything. Yet there is there's, you know, one of the most, you know, infamous people right now on the planet who's doing it. And you know, who knows who else is doing it on TikTok, let's say?
S: God and Evan in this case, think of the poor Ant they didn't ask to be sucked out. That's.
E: True. That is absolutely true. We don't think of them, not nearly enough.
First Evidence of Fire Making (1:03:20)
S: All right, guys, I want to finish up with just a quick, quick news item here. How far back in time do you think evidence for fire use by hominids goes?
E: Oh, I don't know, 400,000 years? 150,000 would have been my guess.
S: So you're incorrect. Bob goes back about one and a half million. Years.
E: Oh see, I'm way long.
B: I'm way that's what I meant to say.
S: Did it go 400,000 that you're citing? I know you were trying to do to me what I did to you, but you?
B: I did and I failed.
S: So. You have to make a distinction between evidence for fire use, which is what I said, versus evidence for fire making. Which is meaning starting like starting your. Own fire, actually starting your own fire. So there's.
B: 400,000.
S: So there. So the evidence for fire use goes back to probably Homo erectus. And essentially there you could see evidence of fire pits with animals that they were eating, like the bones were charred, right. So we. Were look at the bones. They cooked the food that they were eating multiple times at that site. So that's clear evidence of fire use. But that doesn't mean they made the fire. You guys remember the movie Quest for Fire?
E: I do lightning baby. 1981.
S: Yeah, so that movie wasn't really accurate. I'm not citing this right?
E: No.
B: But Steve, I remember we were in Italy in. Italy. 80 what, 281 or three? Yeah, we're in Italy and I'm. And we're. And I see the sign and I had read about it and I'm like wait, I know there's no language in this movie and we're in Italy. We could still watch it because it's not going. To be right it. Was just grunt. Just grunt, right? That was awesome.
S: So they, but they were two basically different humanoid species there and one had fire but didn't make it. They had to protect the fire, right, The keeper of the fire and the other more advanced species could make fire. And so that's the distinction we're talking about here. Of course, because we don't have evidence that Homo erectus or early Homo neotelensis or whatever that they couldn't make fire. That doesn't mean they couldn't, right? Just means we haven't been able to prove that they could. We knew they were using it, but it could have been opportunistic, like lightning strikes, etcetera, and maybe they were able to keep the flame going for a while. But the earliest evidence for making fires goes back about 50,000 years to humans. Until of course, this new study which was just published. It comes from a site in eastern England and this is a site that was occupied by Neanderthals and is 400,000 years old that.
B: Has the number.
S: Pretty, yeah, That's where you got the number. Pretty convincing evidence of fire making, not just fire use. What do you think that might be? What would be the evidence that they were making the fire, not just using?
E: They were scraping the rocks together or something. What? Rocks there's.
B: A Flint, right?
S: Flint. Yeah, exactly.
B: A lot of Flint baby.
S: So Flint and and what else? Flint and.
E: Charcoal.
S: Nope.
B: And lasers.
E: No Quartz, No.
S: Pyrite, iron pyrite. So Flint and pyrite will spark together and.
B: What are pirates doing here and now? Oh wait, sorry, I misheard.
S: So they found both pyrite and Flint and there's two, but OK, so there's Flint and pyrite at the site and they were cooking it. They were using fire at the site and burned bones. The the clay was subjected to high temperatures over a long period of time.
B: Well, is it a little circumstantial at this point?
S: What was pretty solid, you tell me.
B: So what are the other options?
S: So one is there were flints there that were heat shattered, right. So there was Flint which is used to make fire and it was in the fire, right. So that's that is circumstantial, but that's pretty good.
B: Is that a technique to make it a better tool?
S: No, it just means they were using it and some of it ended up in a fire at some point they were doing. It for decades true. Hundreds of years, maybe, but the pyrite? Here's the thing. The pyrite is not local. The most local source of pyrite was 40 miles away, so they brought the pyrite to their campsite.
C: How did they know?
E: How did they know?
S: Because.
C: They learned from somebody else.
S: How did they figure it out?
C: Yeah, that was 40 miles away.
S: And you know, you're, if you have a rock making culture, figuring out that these two particular rocks spark, it's probably not that unusual.
E: But but to the point where they travelled with the pyrite 40 miles. In other words, why weren't they building fires at the pyrite site?
S: Or that because this was a watering hole where they were hunting game.
C: So we. Also don't we also don't have every site fossil Like yeah, we don't, We don't have.
E: Discovered sites. Of course, Exactly. Yes.
S: Yeah. So they, you know, this was this site was good for them to camp at. They needed pyrite. It was 40 miles away, so they brought it from there. So clearly was important to them. It's probably not a coincidence they had both Flint and pyrite where they were using fire and it was definitely exposed to the fire. So it's, again, it's not direct, direct evidence, but that's pretty darn good, I think.
E: That's the. What other right?
S: That's the simplest explanation for all those pieces of information. I think they make a very strong case that those Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were making fire. And again, it may go back long before then. It's just things are always older than our earliest evidence for them, right? Because chances are pretty low that we found the very first fire used starter. You know what I mean? Ever in the history of the world that we have caught it in the act. So we're always, we're always only going to see evidence later than when it really starts.
E: So does that also push anything else on the timeline into a different, you know, error? I mean 50,000 compared to 400 thousands a long time like two other tool making and things like do they have to move anything else as a result of discovering this I.
S: Know we knew that again, we knew that fire use goes back to one and a half million years or so or 2 million years, something like that. And so it's not a big it's not a not a stretch. And then we also suspected this was going to be the case that really the only trick was how do we prove it right? How do we find evidence for fire starting? Extensive fire use does imply that at some point in time they figured out how to make fire, although not again, not necessarily because they could have just been very good at finding it when it occurred naturally holding on to it. But also if you think of you could estimate how common it was, but how easy it is to find, right? So, but unfortunately now we just have, we have an end of one, right? One instance of over a long period of time, but one location where there's evidence of fire use 400,000 years ago. But still that, you know, it was pretty hard to put these pieces together. It doesn't mean that it wasn't common. It could have been common knowledge among human ancestors at that time.
B: It's amazing just to think that something that people were doing hundreds of thousands or over a million years ago is is discernible now. So, yeah, I mean, talk about a cold, a cold case. I mean, it's ridiculous that this stuff would be something that we could figure out kind of these details. It just blows my mind sometimes. It's like you, you imagine, you know, in a million years this is not going to be a trace of us. At all.
E: Sure there will be.
B: They're not the the the robot.
E: I mean something I built those roads they say will last a very long.
S: Time, you can't say a trace. There'll be, you know, people with fillings in their teeth and stuff like that.
B: There'll be, there'll be some, there'll be some technical.
E: There'll be, there'll be the plastic layer in the in the in the surface that to be discovered, you know?
B: But nothing we do is going to be there around.
E: Now Rushmore, they think, they say it was going to be one of the last things.
B: By we I mean many. Hundreds of thousands. Of you by me, I'm talking about US 4.
S: Oh, the four of us.
E: Yeah, well, OK, we'll work on that, Bob. Let's let's put a time capsule of something together.
S: We have to record all of our podcasts in the most adorable medium possible, and then we have to put it someplace where it's going to be preserved.
B: Well, I've read a news item that that engraved information onto these glass discs for billions of years. So that's what. I'm that's what we need to do.
S: Billions of years. That's good.
E: Yeah, billions work on that.
S: But all right, so it's supposed to exist. No. Who's that noisy this week as Jay?
E: Is who's the winner though?
S: He'll he'll he'll get us updated next week, which will be the year in review show, but he'll do the like I guess a that noisy review either that will reveal in for the first show in January.
Emails (1:12:05)
S: But we are going to do a couple of emails couple of quick emails. The first one is I set this article a couple months back as a suggested suggestion for a segment. I am resending it because of the science or fiction last week. It is about mercury in lakes in Minnesota. They are bioengineering fish to get rid of it. So yeah, so mercury is a in fish is a problem. That's one of the avenues that mercury, especially the methyl mercury that's very, very toxic gets to people, right, is through fish. That's because the bacteria alter the mercury into the methyl mercury toxic form and then a bio accumulates up the chain, up the food chain, right? And so then when you have the fish that eat the fish that eat the fish that eat the whatever they eat, the plankton eat. The bacteria, we eat it. Then right they hit they have bio accumulated a lot of this mercury. So this is a problem in many of the lakes like it's pretty rampant in the lakes of Minnesota. They have to, you know, have an alert as to like, you know, warn people like don't eat fish from these lakes is basically most of them isn't.
C: It a problem in the ocean too.
S: Yeah. Oh yeah.
C: Absolutely.
S: But it's just, it happens to be an area of high concentration, you know where most of the mercury in civilized areas comes from. And it's naturally occurring in the soil. There's going to be a certain amount of it. But vaccines, no coal-fired plants, right? Any fossil fuel, but especially coal and especially certain types of coal is is very dirty. Coal has a lot of mercury in it as well. It's radioactivity and other stuff so that you know, mercury from coal gets into the ecosystem, it gets into the water, the bacteria convert it, then it goes concentrates up the food chain. Then you have fish that are kind of at the top of the food chain, ones that are popular to fish and to eat. And they can have mercury levels that are higher than the cut offs of recommended cut offs, sometimes 10 to 15 times as much as the upper limit of what is considered generally safe. So they're obviously interested in ways of reducing the amount of mercury that makes its way into the food chain and these lakes. And so one would obviously be releasing less, you know, less mercury into the air. And you could do that by burning less coal, but also by having better standards of capturing, you know, the pollution at the at the the coal power factories, power plants. But there's another way. And that they're that they're investigating. And then remember, we talked about this as a scientific about some plants and plankton have a pathway that allows them to convert the methyl mercury to the non-toxic form and then into the gaseous mercury and release it back into the atmosphere. Well, they're taking those same genes and they're they're putting them in the fish in into some specific fish to see if that can reduce the burden of mercury in the fish in the lakes. So they're targeting that.
C: Minnows.
S: Minnows. Minnows. Good job, Yeah.
B: ESS Minnow. S S Minnow, yeah.
S: So, so yeah, they're they're what they want to do is make genetically modified minnows, which are small fish that the fish, the game fish eat right when are.
B: There any human components in that in that?
S: No, no human components, just plant genes that will allow them to get rid of their mercury. So it's not bio accumulating. And then their hope is that that would reduce the mercury burden all the way up the food chain because now the fish that eat them will be also getting less mercury because they're the ones that's where they get their mercury from, right?
B: Right.
S: So we'll see how it all works out, but that's what they're doing that and hopefully that will work basically cut off the the chain of accumulation of mercury in the system. Genetic engineering is has tremendous potential. You know putting a plant gene into a fish, this would be a trans gene, right?
J: Ethical Considerations.
S: Not in my opinion.
J: Yeah, right.
S: OK, one more, this one comes from Guy Henry and he writes long time listener, one time helper of Steve for his son runs solar panels. You guys remember that saga?
E: Yeah. Oh yeah. Listen, you had to call and. Saga.
S: Oh God. Anyway, yeah, he helped me because I had to get my solar panels, take it off the roof to repair the chimney and put back on the roof. And they I couldn't get them put back, but he made it happen. The company was in transition, blah, blah, blah. It was a big yeah. So thanks for that guy. So he writes a strip mall right near my house has a quote UN quote compounding pharmacy. I've never heard of such a thing and haven't heard it mentioned on the show. I knew it had to be BS and apparently it's an alternative medicine that is not regulated. I'm wondering if you've talked about this on the show, and if not, it might be worth a segment. Thanks for all you do. So what do you guys know about compounding pharmacies?
E: Don't they take medicines? Put them into candies and stuff that.
C: Kind of. I mean, guys, compounding pharmacies are real.
E: Yes, I know they're real.
C: They're so basically there are drugs that are developed by drug companies and those drugs are produced, but there are certain instances when drugs need to be combined or they need to be offered in a different formula. And that's what compounding pharmacies do. They're run by pharmacists. They also do retail stuff like they might add multiple derma drugs to like a skin cream and then sell that as like a combination dermatological topical treatment or something. But these are all RPH like they're. Pharmacy, they're legit. They're legit.
S: They are regulated. The idea that they're not regulated by the FDA or by state boards is not correct.
C: No, it's just that the the compounds that they offer are not FDA approved.
S: Yes, the specific a specific compound, it has not itself been FDA approved, but the components are FDA approved and they they either are they have to be approved in one way or another. Either they are an approved drug or they are part of the FDA's approved bulk pharmacy list, which is the, you know, the bulk drugs are the ones are ones that they would use to as their compounding right. And they are also regulated by the state boards of pharmacy which oversee their daily operations and force guidelines, you know, of purity and cleanliness and all that kind of stuff. They can't just put whatever they want in there, right there. The ingredients all have to be approved on some level, right? Yeah, they have to have proper labeling all you know, etcetera, etcetera. They're accredited. So they're they are, they're legitimate. They are regulated. They're just differently regulated than just like a specific drug that's like you have one drug, so many milligrams. I would order them all the time and most of the time I would order them. It was for the creams as you say, care like I. Want to?
C: Yeah, there's a lot of derma I use.
S: It with a 1% this 2% that blah blah blah. I would use it for patients who have like posteropetic neuralgia. If you know ironically which came up previously, you know where you eat. It's a topical treatment for neuropathic pain thing, you know, for that is 111 use that I would frequently order it for. And yeah, so they're they're legit. Now, whether there are pharmacies playing hinky alternative medicine stuff, I can't tell you that regular pharmacies do that too. They sell. Homeopathy, exactly.
C: Yeah, homeopathy's on the shelves at CVS and Walgreens.
S: Yeah, so I'm sure there are compounding pharmacies also selling bullshit too, but.
C: You know what we what a common one that I shouldn't say common, it's very, very rare. But what I know them best for now in my work is that medical aid and dying drugs have to come from a compounding pharmacy because it's a it's all these different powders that are mixed together. It's like grams and grams of material. And so of course you're not going to buy all the pills individually and mix them together that they compound it for you. Yeah. They compound it for you. Yeah.
B: How do you know if a pharmacy is a compounding pharmacy? They say.
C: It says it in the title, yeah.
B: So like the storefront compounding? Pharmacy you have to order.
C: It Yeah, it does.
S: With like I had to get a like each compounding pharmacy used had their own order form that I had to fill in order to order like the specific thing that I wanted.
C: Like you're saying as a provider, yeah, like as a physician, yeah.
S: So you don't write a script, you fill out a compounded form.
C: Right. And like as a, as a consumer, your provider will tell you, oh, this specific thing that I, you know, that I'm recommending can only come from the compounding pharmacy. Here's their number. Or lots of times they're like mail order now and you can do it all online.
S: Yeah, I told some pages. Just find a compounding pharmacy near you, send me their form, and I'll fill it out for you. Yeah.
E: Yep, compounding is interesting.
S: Yeah, hi.
C: Yo.
S: That was better than your other one which?
E: I've had like 5 which one keep going? You just keep throwing a bunch of crap the. One that had more growth.
C: Some of it sticks.
S: That's the buck stops here. That was a bad.
C: That one was not good. We'll get the most.
E: Emails on that one.
From TikTok: Inventor of the Diesel Engine (1:21:41)
https://www.tiktok.com/@ak5528861/video/7577842291453234462?_r=1&_t=ZP-92668NlVOAx
S: All right, 11 from TikTok TikTok is an endless source.
E: Of Oh my God.
S: What do you guys know about the inventor of the diesel engine?
E: He died of Muyter.
S: Died of Muyter? No, that's the controversy of it. That is the actual issue at stake here. So that was Rudolf Diesel. It was the guy's name.
J: Rudolf. Diesel.
S: He was a German engineer. He developed the concept in the 1890s. Do you guys know? I mean, this is like an engine wonky engineering thing, but do any of you know what a diesel engine is? What makes a diesel engine a diesel engine?
B: It's a It's a compression scenario.
S: Yes. So instead of instead of igniting the fuel with a spark plug, it compresses it so that it heats up and ignites spontaneously.
C: Oh I know you need something called like Adblue right? Isn't that a common you need like additives when you run a diesel engine?
S: Well, diesel engine, so what's the advantage slash disadvantage? The advantages of the diesel engine primarily are that it's more efficient, it's more energy efficient. The disadvantages, when they were first invented, they were huge. They actually were too. Big. For a car, you know. So they were used in trains and ships.
B: Yeah.
S: Trains, you know, or or as generators, right? So that's like their initial use, generators, ships and trains, you know?
B: Things not good for airplanes and.
S: Then in the in the 1920s, other people came up with smaller, you know, versions of them. Then they sort of were usable in trucks and it wasn't till the 1930s that the first car like diesel engine car was on the market all right. But so the diesel engines were initially used basically in ships and as power generators. And so this is now in the lead up to World War One, Germany was using the diesel engine in its Navy and Rudolph Diesel was visiting England and he vanished from the ship that he was on and was later found drowned floating in the water. So there are three hypothesis as to what happened. And this, so the TikTok video that I was responding to about this is a Joe Rogan interview where he's interviewing with some guy who's basically touting one of these three hypothesis, right? So the one that historians think is most likely is that he died by suicide, right? That he his he jumped overboard.
C: What was going on in his life?
B: That's what his two biographers conclude. So, you know, I'm kind of leaning towards the two biographers.
C: Was he dealing with like money problems? He. Had gone bankrupt.
S: OK, what money he had he left in the bag for his wife. That's kind of like you're giving stuff.
C: Away. That's a big test, Yeah.
B: That's a tough yeah.
S: And there's no evidence that anything else happened, right? But there's two other hypothesis, both involve Moida, right Evan, so one.
C: What about the an accident? Why can't he have accidentally fallen overboard?
S: I guess so in the.
C: 30s that happened.
E: Got drunk, nobody thinks.
S: Yeah, that's not usually proposed as one of them, but I guess that's.
C: Interesting. OK. All right. Sorry.
S: He also kind of left a note. So anyway, so one hypothesis is that Germany hadn't killed because they were afraid he was going to give the diesel technology to to England and that that would beef up their Navy and have it and so that it would compete with Germany's. And this is in rising tensions prior to the First World War. So that one at least it's I think plausible that that could happen. Again, there's no evidence that it did happen, but the idea that, you know, Germany would assassinate this engineer who was about to sell his patents to an enemy, you know, that that they might be going to war with soon, that could actually affect the balance of power. Again, at least you know, I don't think it's that plausible, but at least it's semi plausible, right?
C: I think it's plausible.
S: Yeah, right. I mean, it's not crazy. No, if the evidence supported that, sure, you know, but then but but the Rogan interview was touting the third hypothesis. Anybody want to guess what that was?
C: Oh gosh, aliens.
B: No, crazy that. That he's still alive.
E: No.
B: Or that he did. He didn't. He faked his death.
S: No, that he was killed. That he was murdered.
E: Someone's.
B: Who is he moided by?
S: By Rockefeller What? Because in order to protect his oil interests.
E: Oh, I see.
S: Now, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So first of all, I wonder on TikTok, All right, So the only sort of kernel here where you could at least there's a threat to pull on is that the diesel engine is a flex fuel engine. You could burn anything, anything.
B: It doesn't have to be gasoline.
S: So the thinking is Rockefeller was trying to protect his gasoline interests against this flex fuel engine. So we tried to have you know, you had diesel killed, you know, in in 1913, but it's ridiculous because first of all, you'll notice that we still have diesel engines, right? I mean, killing the inventor of an invention that's already out there doesn't do anything Rockefeller would was not a dumb guy. He probably would not have I I want to kill the diesel engine by killing Rudolph diesel. That'll. Do it. You know, if he did, obviously it completely failed. But it's dumb. Like they that's not how you silence an invention. First of all, you can't like the idea of we're going to use compression to whatever somebody was going to come up with that at some point. He was just the first guy to come up. And it's not like you can kill an idea, you know what I mean? So it's just stupid. That whole idea that all these peep, these brilliant inventors get killed by people trying to suppress their inventions. It's dumb. It's not how it works, right? It's not how technology works or how advancement works. You can't just kill one guy and then you think forever we're going to silence this idea. And again, if anything, the diesel is a counterexample because the diesel engine is still around today, 100 years later. Also, as I said, there was no diesel car engine at the time. It was still 20 years away, which means they didn't have any idea if it would ever be developed, so it wasn't competing with car. Engines and and it may never have. And the third may never have. And the third thing is there was no infrastructure of any alternative oil that could compete with gasoline. It's not like there was a peanut oil magnet out there who was going to take over, you know, the oil industry by running diesel engines on peanut oil. Like there was nothing like that. Rockefeller had nothing to worry about in terms of, and of course he didn't, right, Because the diesel engine had its, you know, its niche in technology. It didn't do anything to decrease the, the, you know, fossil fuels and diesel engines run on fossil fuel. You know what I mean? It's not. Like we're also. Running them on peanut oil, we.
C: Had electric engines that were in practice prior to oil being prior to gasoline. So it's not like they're. Yeah, no way. Prior gasoline came after the electric car. Yeah, yeah, Gasoline, like you're right, not oil, but like refined oil, like gasoline as we know it came after steam and electric were like well on the scene. And so they clearly they had incentive to use these fossil fuels because they had alternative options available and people were choosing to use gasoline powered cars.
S: Yeah. It was two things that really this is a separate conversation, but very quickly we've wrote about this in our book. I've done extensive research on this very question, and no one knows for sure, but the two primary facts that come up 1 is infrastructure. He was just, you know, the infrastructure. This is something that Rockefeller did, right? Just had plenty of mechanisms to massively refine gasoline and distribute it everywhere, right? We were about 20 years behind the time on electrification. If we were 20 years ahead of where we were, the electric car might have won out or at least succeeded side by side with gasoline. You imagine the the steam engine, it was water like you had to replace the water frequently and there wasn't an infrastructure for refilling your tank with water to get from one city to the next. So it was mainly an infrastructure thing. But the other one is just quirky history. Ford planned on making a gasoline car and an electric car, and he just chose to do the gasoline one first. He was fully flipped.
C: Yeah. So it was mass produced early.
S: Yeah, so, but he had, he had designs for a mass produced electric car and Edison was going to build the batteries for him and it was going to be a nickel metal battery, nickel ion battery.
B: Issue there.
S: And then but, but, but, but his R&D was a little behind schedule, so he sent forward some lead acid batteries. Ford got pissed and cancelled the whole project. That was it. Wow, That was it. It was a quirky thing that did not have to go down that way.
C: We did not.
S: We could have had electric cars, I think is electric. The range was always going to be an issue but but you could have existed side by side for intra city driving or small commutes or whatever.
C: Yeah, because that's how most people drove.
S: Yeah, it's how exactly.
C: It's still how most people.
E: Drove. These were horse trails and stuff that people were driving on. They didn't want to go drive 40 miles. It was a bumpy as hell all ride.
C: Exactly. Their electric car looked exactly like a horse carriage.
E: Yes.
C: It just had a wheel instead of like Reigns, Yeah.
S: It was a horseless carriage.
C: Yeah, yeah.
E: Yeah, fascinating.
Science or Fiction (1:31:42)
Theme: Astronomy 2025
Item #1: Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named Teleios, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation.[6]
Item #2: Scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single-star system to Earth at just 6 light years.[7]
Item #3: NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids.[8]
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. |
| Science | Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named Teleios, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. |
| Science | Scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single-star system to Earth at just 6 light years. |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve | win |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|---|
Cara | Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named Teleios, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. |
Evan | NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. |
Bob | NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. |
S: All right, let's go on with science or fiction.
Voice-over: It's time for. Science or fiction?
S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts. 2 genuine, 1 pretentious. Then I challenge my panel and skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. There's a theme this week, Bob. This theme is for you. The theme is Astronomy News from 2025.
C: Oh geez.
S: We'll see if you caught these these news items, all right.
E: Last.
S: Item.
C: Number one last I know who's going first item.
S: Number one astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named Telios, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. Item number 2 Scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars sized planets orbiting Barnard Star, the closest single star system to Earth at just 6 light years. And eye #3 NASA's Curiosity Rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. Cara, go first.
C: Nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way named Telios, but they don't know why it formed.
S: You know what Telios, by the way, what that word means.
C: It's Greek.
S: Greek 4.
C: Perfect. Oh, like telestral, like Teelee? Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. That makes sense. Right, 'cause you've got the terrestrial. The terrestrial and the celestial kingdoms in the Mormon mythology. Yeah. Probably comes from that. No, I don't have an advantage. Let's see. So we've got that. I would think that a lot of things started spherically and then got weird. But it's within the Milky Way, so that's interesting. Then we've got the existence of four Mars sized planets orbiting Barnard Star. So that's the closest star system. So I mean, that wouldn't really surprise me because I know that we've we've found so many exoplanets at this point, most of them are probably gas giants. But I think that we're just getting better. So I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see like rocky looking things. Curiosity discovered complex organic chemistry including simple nucleic acids. I feel like I remember there being some stuff found but nucleic acids is getting me. Complex organic chemistry. SO12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. OK, so the two that I think that the four Mars sized planets orbiting Barnard star is science. So I'll throw that one out. So I think the two that are getting me are if Telios is this close, like is it here or is it really, really far away? I don't know. Is it super, super old? Not that the Milky Way is not old and they don't know why it looks the way it looks. Is that what you mean by that? Like they don't have an explanation. Yeah, like for why it's spherical. And then the other one is the curiosity. I don't think they found nucleic acids. Wouldn't we have been talking about that? I think that that's the fiction. Maybe they found some stuff, but not nucleic acids.
S: OK, Evan, I'm.
E: Going to start with the 4th one. Moving on. OK, the first one about Telios do not yet have an explanation for its formation. I don't know, Could that be the kink in that one? If that one is the fiction, maybe they do have an explanation for its formation. I don't know if you'd go that way with a science or fiction like that, though. But a nearly perfect spherical bubble. If you made this up, Steve, you did a good job naming it. I mean, I'll give you that, but I don't recall this news item at all. The second one about Barnard star. Certainly know about that one. The closest single star system to Earth. It's just 6 light years. So I guess what Centauri? Alpha Centauri must be a multi star system. I thought that one was closest, but in any case the existence.
B: Of system.
E: Yeah, that one's a system. OK, that's then that's.
B: Yeah, it's like a three stars.
E: So 6 light years away is the single star system that's our closest, the existence of four Mars sized planets orbiting. I agree with Cara. I think that one turns out to be science. And then this last one about NASA's Curiosity Rover. We've talked a lot this year about chemical analysis of you know what the Osiris Rex analysis among other things. Certainly what's going on on Mars we've talked about a lot. We didn't talk about this though. 12 carbon atoms and a simple nucleic acid. Simple nucleic acid. We I'll I'll bet it $5 we did not cover this. So if any one of these 3 is going to be the fiction, this one is probably as the highest probability of being the fiction. I'll join Cara and say it is the fiction.
S: OK, Bob.
B: Yeah, good choice, Steve. These are these are kind of obscure, but yeah, I'm going to go with the crew Nucleic acids on Mars. We would be talking about it bottom line for these. So yeah, I'll stop now all.
S: Right, All right, so let's take these in order. Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which is they named, which they named Telios, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. You all think this one is science and this one is science.
C: So good, he sounded really happy for him. He did that right.
S: I have. To throw you off. So, yeah. So, you know, they, they don't know why it formed. It probably is a supernova remnant, right? And the supernova explodes, sends out a bubble of energy. But but they very quickly get oddly shaped as they push up against different in different directions. They're going to have different pressures that they're pushing up against more or less concentration of hydrogen gas, you know. So what would keep this one perfectly spherical for so long that it could get so huge, right?
B: It's got to be weirdly uniform chunk of space. Yes.
S: And what would make? What would make it uniform?
B: A vacuum.
S: That it's very well that it's relatively empty.
B: Super low density, super density it's must.
S: Be just happening in a relatively empty part of the. Galaxy. So that there's nothing disrupt like the perfect sphere dark of the other super.
B: Other supernovas in the past could have cleared it out. Oh yeah.
C: I was like why would something be empty?
S: OK, well, remember, the Galaxy does have arms. And in between the arms, it's relatively empty, right? The Galaxy is not a uniform. We don't live in a globular cluster Galaxy like that's.
C: Yeah.
B: That's spiral.
S: Yeah, we lived in a spiral Galaxy. There are arms and then between the arms, but I don't know if that's where it is either. So there's no trying to sort it exactly why, but that's the current theory. All right, let's go on #2 Scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars sized planets orbiting Barnard Star, the closest single star system to Earth, at just 6 light years. You guys also all thinks think this one is science. This one is science. Good job guys.
C: No.
B: Way yeah man, I got to read more about this one. This is cool.
C: This did feel the most like science.
E: I know.
S: They just exoplash, but it's, you know, foreign art.
B: Star Man foreign art *6 light years away.
E: They caught the They have the image of it like one of our telescopes captured an image of it.
S: I thought that was.
E: I thought that. Was.
S: So this is the wobble method. This is all wobble method.
C: But The thing is, I feel like if we're going to detect something small, it's going to be to the closest *.
S: Right, yes, right. It's the second closest system like the the alpha system. Is right. 4 not years away, but that's a multi star system. This is a single *. System, yeah.
B: I mean, this is like in your back pocket, not even in your backyard.
S: Yeah, six years away, nothing. So yeah, this was, you know, the wobble method is that you could see the wobble in the orbit, the movement of the star, because it's being tugged a little bit by the planets orbiting it. And that works best for systems where we're looking at them face on, not edge.
B: On right.
S: More face on than edge on and also when they're close. So this is, you know, a perfect candidate for that as opposed to the transit method where you need to be looking at them edge on. But it's only going to be a certain number percentage of systems. All right, That means that NASA's Curiosity Rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids is the fiction. So this is an item that we just missed. I didn't miss it. I read the item at the time but it just never got it could fell between our weekly cycles, you know?
C: It happens sometimes.
S: Yeah, we just never reported on it. What they what NASA's Curiosity Rover found. Bob, do you remember?
B: Well, it. Was was it organic chemistry? It was organic chemistry, right? Just not. Not nucleic. Not so. You're right.
S: They did find carbon atoms that are 12 carbon atoms big. That's complex carbon based chemistry. But they did not find nucleic acids. We've never found nucleic acids on Mars. We recently found nucleic acids on asteroid Bennett.
B: Yeah, right. Yeah.
S: So hoping you would get that confused or at least think, well, we've found nucleic acids out there, so why not Mars? But we just, we just haven't. They may be on Mars, we just haven't discovered them yet.
B: Carbon based life baby, it's a way to go.
S: So it's not a proof that there was ever life on Mars. It is the simplest explanation though, and there's other evidence emerged this year.
C: Yeah. So it's not proof that there was life on Mars, but it is proof that there's ingredients for life on Mars.
S: And, and, and that there was ancient life on Mars is the simplest explanation for the evidence that we have so far, but it had, but it's not proof that there was life on Mars. So we haven't discovered life on Mars, but it's looking good that there was ancient life on. Mars evidence that there was right.
C: That's cool.
S: But there, there could still be extant life on Mars. We haven't ruled that out.
B: Look. Up please.
S: But what we have in.
C: Soil back to you, yeah. Deep in the soil. Yeah, exactly.
B: Yeah, man, got to get my hands on that stuff.
S: All right. Good job.
B: Everyone you do not.
E: Well, yeah, Bob, I mean.
B: Is, is it, does it have human like DNA? Did we seed it? Did it seed us or is it brand new? I'm I'm hoping for brand new.
E: It's an ancient relative of yours, Bob. Be kind to it.
B: Like a like a triple Helix or weird proteins.
S: But yeah, I'm assuming about what you mean you've got to get your hands on. You mean you want Earth scientists together? There. Good. Yeah, I thought you meant you physically.
E: I thought I. Thought that was obvious but yeah.
C: Bob, it was.
E: Not like going into the ball pit in McDonald's kind of thing, you know?
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:43:13)
“The time is coming when people won't listen to good teaching. Instead, they will look for teachers who will please them by telling them only what they are itching to hear. They will turn from the truth and eagerly listen to senseless stories.”
– Christian Bible. 2 Timothy Chapter 4, verses 3-4 (from the Contemporary English Version), (description of author)
S: All right, Evan, give us a quote.
E: This week's quote is suggested by Brad from Troy, OH, who sent this to us not too long ago said as a suggestion for a quote. Hi Evan, I have a suggestion for a skeptical quote of the week from an unlikely source, the Christian Bible. I've never read it specifically to Timothy chapter 4 verses 34. I didn't even know there was a Two Timothy, so that's new.
S: I mean you had to say reading from 2 Timothy chapter 4 verses.
E: Oh I see. Like they did in the right Monty Python in the Holy Grail.
S: Which is book about how they say it in church.
E: Please turn to page. Go ahead. Here's the quote. The time is coming when people won't listen to good teaching. Instead, they will look for teachers who will please them by telling them only what they are itching to hear. They will turn from the truth and eagerly listen to senseless stories. Yeah, and then Brad commented. Sometimes they are so. Close together. Like, yeah, there are little kernels like that in Scripture, right? Little Nuggets that you could put, but then they fail to, you know, bring it to its correct conclusion. The.
S: Christian Bible is based it's upon Greek enlightenment. You know it's not. It was.
E: So right.
S: The philosophy of the time. There's no reason, you know what I mean? It wasn't.
C: Yeah, but that does happen all the time. I see.
E: Things like this.
C: You guys have all done God awful movies, right? Yep, you've done it. At this point, I, I feel like whenever I'm on that show, at least once an episode, we're like, man, the point was right there. It just went right past it. You had it in your hands.
S: Like Theodoric of York.
B: Yeah. Thank you, Brad. What a great scene. I'm gonna watch that.
E: The Dork.
B: Steve Martin, baby.
S: Well, thank you guys for joining me for the last regular episode of 2025.
B: Oh boy.
E: Wow.
S: Next week we have the year in review. Hopefully Jay will be back to fighting Trim. He's basically lost his voice, like it really wasn't an option today, but hopefully he'll be back by Thursday when we record.
B: Which is 2 days from now.
S: Two days from now, yeah, I got to double up this week so that we're off, but Chris was coming at all.
E: Man, he was a. Program. Wait, wait, wait. He has access to a program that simulated your voice. Couldn't he just simulate his own? Music. Type it in what he's going to say.
S: He could He was bedridden, he was wiped out. He wasn't doing any work.
E: Feel better, Jay.
S: All right, well, until next week, this is your Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.
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- ↑ theness.com: Animals Adapting to Humans - NeuroLogica Blog
- ↑ theconversation.com: Putting pig organs in people is OK in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not – why is that?
- ↑ dailygalaxy.com: Japan to Beam Energy Down to Earth From Space in First Real Test of Orbital Power Transmission
- ↑ www.mcgill.ca: Antsy About Getting Old? How about Some Ant-Yogurt?
- ↑ www.nytimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/science/archaeology-humans-neanderthals-fire.html
- ↑ www.zmescience.com: Astronomers Found a Perfect Space Bubble Dozens of Light-Years Across and No One Knows How It Got There
- ↑ science.nasa.gov: Discovery Alert: Four Little Planets, One Big Step - NASA Science
- ↑ www.nasa.gov: NASA Says Mars Rover Discovered Potential Biosignature Last Year - NASA