SGU Episode 1031

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SGU Episode 1031
April 12th 2025
"Majestic wolves blend seamlessly into their snowy surroundings, embodying nature's beauty and grace."
SGU 1030                      SGU 1032
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
"Science is not just a collection of techniques or strategies for producing knowledge, it is an ethical stance of commitment to the truth. The good scientist knows that honestly following the evidence is a form of respect for nature, and honestly communicating one’s findings is a form of respect for others."
- Michael Anderson
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SGU Forum

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 Wednesday, April 9th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Cara Santa Maria.

C: Howdy.

S: J Novella, Hey guys. And Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening, folks.

S: Evan, you're one week away from being out of tax hell.

E: I'm so looking forward to that moment. It's a great.

C: Is any of this even going to matter? Didn't they just fire the IRS of it?

E: Maybe 25%, but no, it's causing problems. It's going to be, yeah. So maybe another time we can talk a little bit more about it in detail when we see what really the final fallout of this is. But look, it's two things. Generally speaking, yes, there's gonna be fewer employees at the IRS, which means things like audits will go down, enforcement will go down, among other things, which, hey, that sounds great, right? Yeah. But what that also means is that, OK, there's going to be less revenue. Yeah. We need that money. And the people and, and it's, and it kind of shifts the burden unfairly to those who are, you know, doing what they're supposed to be doing and playing by the law and versus those who are going to skirt the law with these holes that are going to open up. So it's it's a problem overall.

C: Well, I have decided to dissociate completely and leave the country for a month. Bye bye. Bye. See you because I'm in between, right? As you guys know, I recently finished all of the requirement. I finished my fellowship and I finished all the requirements towards licensure. And I can't get hired now by the hospital until the license comes in and until all these other kind of pieces come into place credentialing all that good stuff. So yeah, so I'm traveling a little bit.

E: Oh, where are you? Are you in San Diego? Are you in?

C: 1000 hoax? I'm in Hong Kong right now.

E: Hong Kong. I'm in Hong Kong, California.

C: To Hong Kong. Oh, I don't want to get too political here. Well, Special Administrative Region of China.

E: District maybe?

C: The little thing I think I'm supposed to say. Yeah. So that's that's contentious. No, but I'm in Hong Kong right now. And then I go to mainland China and then I go to Vietnam. So you will be hearing from me from different parts of the world over the next several weeks. Neat. And let me say, the Internet here in Hong Kong is fast. Let me see where I'm at. One of will, will you guys do a speed test where you're at so we can compare? I just did one. I'm 624 megs down and 501 megs up.

S: Whoa, I'm a gig down and a gig up, but I have fiber optic.

E: You're a gig up, right?

C: Yeah. See, I'm not at home when I'm even if I'm like 900 megs down, I'm barely 100 megs up. Like it's so throttled.

E: I'm on the T6 backbone so mine's infinitely fast. No, I'm not.

C: Like I I fiber optic at home too but I feel like the companies just throttle the upload speeds like crazy am I wrong?

J: Yeah, fiber optic doesn't have that problem though.

C: Yeah, but I thought I was also on fiber.

B: I'm at I'm at 155 megabit per second down and looks like under 20 megabit per second up.

C: Yeah, that's a.

B: That's kind of shit, but I don't really need a big upload but.

C: Well, but it's, it is annoying when we finish a record, you know, like a file. We just want to get it up and it's just taking ages. But yeah, it's true, most people are not uploading like a lot of data regularly. Most people are streaming, right? They're downloading data.

E: Should we invite the listeners to send us their upload and download speeds so we can get 24,000?

C: But yeah, I am slightly concerned about when I am in mainland China right about the great firewall. But I do have I have a VPN. I'm wondering should I be more concerned about my data or should I be more concerned about the massive mounting trade war and getting stuck in? The middle of that, that's hard to know. We're in uncharted territory. We really are. I think the good news, and I didn't do this intentionally and maybe it doesn't really matter, is that my portion of the trip where I'm in China is not buttressed by travel back home. You know what I mean? So like I'm going to China from Hong Kong and I'm going to Vietnam from China. So like my in and out of the US will not be to or from China. I don't know if that matters. Now, does that matter? I.

E: Don't know. Carrie, it was not lost on me that you mentioned the Great Firewall of China.

C: Yeah. It is what they call it.

B: I'm actually quite jealous. Not only you are you going to be visiting some beautiful countries, but you two of those countries that you will be in have a Disney park. That's on my bucket list. Oh my gosh. I'm so I'm. Hong Kong Disney.

C: And I probably Hong Kong go to either.

B: No, Nope. But. But I will someday.

C: But maybe I can find, I could probably find some trinkets here, Some Disney, not products. Yeah, merch. There's a word though, some licensed characters and things like that that are Hong Kong or China specific. Yeah, probably. Also where I'm going in China, Sichuan region A, the food is amazing, but it's also home to pandas so I definitely need. To go to some pandas. Awesome. Yeah, that would be really great.

E: Sneezing Pandas.

S: You're going to see him, Kira.

C: I hope so I should I should go attempt to.

S: You probably have to go to see them, right? They're not going to be like wandering on the side of the. St.

C: No, but there may be some, you know, wildlife reserves or something where I can go. Yeah. Observe them in their natural environment, not just like in a zoo. So that's pretty cool. And then I'll eat my body weight in hot pot. Yeah. Heck yeah.

E: Is that a weakness?

C: Is that? What you think? Oh, my hot pot is such a weakness of mine. It's hot pot is where my friends and I go in LA after a breakup, when somebody is ill, when somebody has a loss in their life. It's like a bonding kind of very emotional meal for us. I just love it so much. It's also first thing in the morning here, so you guys get me fresh as a Daisy.

S: Nice.

E: Yeah.

C: Yeah.

E: You're a day ahead of us.

S: So we did our we did our live stream today, our Wednesday live stream Bob is joining us for that was being Bob and Jay.

From TikTok: Flat Earthers (06:22)

S: And one of the things we did was we go over some tech doc videos, and I wanted to talk about a couple of them here. There was a real crop of crazy nonsense for this.

E: Crop of crap.

S: It was, yeah, it's amazing TikTok.

E: Never, but there's.

S: Two in particular I want to talk about they're astronomically related, both by different two different people. I think Now The thing is this is a Rick a running thing for TikTok videos. It's the PO or no Is it? Is this guy for real or is this all performance And it's, you can't tell? It's indistinguishable, right? I mean, you can't know if the person actually believes what they're saying or if they're just playing a character. Sometimes there's a tell, but often there isn't. But if you read the comments, I think most of the people in the comments think it's real. So I did whatever it doesn't, right? So there were two that were in shape. Both had to do with Venus. One guy you know was saying that if Mercury and Venus are between the Earth and the Sun, how come they never cause an eclipse? How come we never they never block out even part of the sun by passing in front of it do?

C: They mean transiting.

US#04: Yeah, they mean transiting transit of Venus.

S: You didn't. Yeah, they do transit.

US#04: We've talked about that, of course.

S: I think tiny.

C: They realize they're tiny, right? Like, comparatively like or not tiny far away, yeah.

S: Again, taking this guy at face value, I think he doesn't. He has a massive misconception of scale, I think. I think he looks at those, like, maps of the solar system and thinks it's to scale right or something. I don't know. But it's like, yeah, like it wasn't that long ago. Yeah. I mean, it's probably 10 years ago now. Whatever. The last time Venus, like, transited in front of the sun that you could see it. I remember doing it with my daughters. We got out the little pinhole things and you could see.

C: Yeah.

S: It is crossing over the face of the sun. It does block out the sun. Just a really tiny piece of it.

C: Yeah. And now you can. Yeah. There there are just literally images taken from telescopes online. You can look at them. There's some beautiful ones where like the ISS is also transiting at the same time or like, you know, like cool things and the pictures.

S: You also said how can we see Venus or Mercury if at night, the night side of the Earth, you know, these Venus and Mercury should be blocked by the Earth itself. So again, just missing the point that you know, as you learn is in grade school, you know that you can see Mercury and Venus only right before sunset it right after sun and right right before sunrise because they they basically cling to the sun, right? They hover around the sun because they are closer to the sun than we are right? Yes, but you can't see what make.

C: Wait, what's? What's the argument? Is he saying they're not real?

S: That no, the earth is flat. That's the the globe. The Flat Earth, the globe, the globe is don't know what they're talking about. I mean we. Should you? Know if the globe model is correct? You know, the other guy showed a picture of the moon. Now it was a Crescent moon with earthshine sort of faintly illuminating the rest of the moon. Yeah.

C: Wait, wait, did you just say Earthshine?

S: Yeah, yeah. That's what it's.

C: Called. No, no, I know. But it sounded like you said Earthstein, Earth, Earthshine.

S: Earthshine.

E: Veltstein.

S: Frankenstein. So he, he was saying this is a picture of the moon and then there's a, there's a bright dot, you know, in front of the moon, he said. Why is Venus in front of the moon? Either the Moon is transparent and you're seeing Venus behind the Moon, or Venus is in front of the Moon.

B: And very, very. Small.

S: Those are the only two options he gave.

B: Yeah, dude, the false dichotomy dichotomy alert. Yeah.

S: So like, no, there's a third option. There's actually a fourth option to the third option is that's not Venus, it's something else where the fourth option is that's a fake picture. It's a Photoshop or whatever but it's probably was just like the ISS or something bright or passing the front of the moon.

E: Heck, it could, right? It could have been an airplane that with the sun hitting the airplane.

S: Like why is nobody talking about this? Because you're an idiot. That's.

E: Why is nobody talking about this? Yeah.

S: But then the comments always fill up with these flat earthers or just have a very distorted view of reality. Let me just say that it is unbelievable.

E: We could come up with, we could come up with better fake examples of things that would be a little more convincing than that. That could get the flat earthers going, but we don't do that.

S: No, we don't do fakes.

B: Here's an example 423 of what Musk could do with his money much better than what he's doing with it now. I would. I would. If I had $400 billion, I would at least consider they're renting out a plane and taking plane loads or boatloads of people, flat earthers where I need, where I need to go in the Antarctica, whatever to prove to them. And over the course of like, say maybe five years, you could basically decimate the flat earther population because for, I mean, I'm sure there'd be a bunch of them that even wouldn't believe it if they would see it with their, you know, their, their, their eyes. This recently happened where a couple of famous flat earthers, right, were brought down and they saw, they saw the 24 hour sun, which is basically refutes most, you know, most versions of atherism that I'm aware of. If the sun just doesn't set, then you got, you know, your whole idea is kind of messed up. Imagine getting rid of flat eartherism. And I know they're kind of goofy and harmless. And if you you know the money could be put to much better use. But imagine just getting rid of like 90 and 9% of flat earthers because you proved to all of them that it's baloney.

E: Well, just last week, what there was the, the, the, the Dragon spacecraft went up and they were taking photos and videos of, of the Earth. And here's the headline from last week. Flat earthers in shambles after astronauts released new footage of our planet, you know, clearly showing the curvature of the Earth.

B: Well, I'm skeptical that any of them were in shambles, but yeah. All evidence is is fake. That's all. They just declare it fake.

E: Well, that's the whole point of that movement, isn't it? Is it's just anti authoritarianism. And yes, you know, you can't trust anyone for anything. And. Yeah.

S: It's the ultimate conspiracy theory. If that's fake, then everybody is fake, Yeah.

E: Yeah.

S: Which is what they want.

J: And they certainly seem to love their position too.

B: It's comforting. They're special. They're in on the big secret. They're in on it and everyone and most of the the entirety of the human population are just being duped. But they see past it. So they're very special. They're very special.

S: They are very special. We could say.

E: Oh, they're special.

S: Agree with that.

News Items

De-Extincting the Dire Wolf (13:03)

• De-extincting the Dire Wolf - NeuroLogica Blog 

S: All right, so we got about 1,000,000 emails to asking us to talk about de extincting the direwolf. Yes, three of the rogues asked to take the lead on this news item. I did.

E: That means that was my get. Cara asked first.

S: So, Cara, go.

C: That means I expect all of you to contribute to this. Yes. Not just got to be. Yeah, the only one talking about this. OK, I'll.

E: Start Voofi.

C: So as everyone has seen all over the news right now, headlines everywhere from the return of the direwolf 12,000 years later, direwolves are back. Game of Thrones just got real. Scientists brought back actual direwolves using ancient DNA.

E: How could you not bring Game of Thrones?

C: Yeah, I have to say I'm struggling with the media coverage of this, so I'm excited to dive into it in in a nice skeptical manner. So. So there's a company called Colossal Biosciences. Some of you may have heard of one of its Co founders, the one and only George Church, who is often in the news, a preeminent geneticist who's often in the news talking about de extinction, something he's been very interested in for for a long time. So Colossal Biosciences, Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences primarily does focus on de extinction conservation biotechnology, and they have multiple species that are they sort of have zeroed in on as points of interest for them. The woolly mammoth, the thylacine, the dodo and the dire wolf. And you guys may remember only just a few weeks ago coverage of the woolly mouse, which was a mouse that had woolly mammoth DNA inserted into it. So the, the, the big news here is exactly what I said. A lot of these media outlets are saying the dire wolf is backed, the dire wolf has been brought back, the direwolf is now de extinct. And what really happened is that Colossal Biosciences, so they were able to take DNA from a tooth that's 13,000 years old and a skull that is 72,000 years old. And they basically engineered this DNA across 14 different genes. They picked 20 different low side different sites across these genes. They emptied out the nucleus of of a cell. They injected this DNA with these, with these engineer changes into that cell and they used a dog as a surrogate. They did this twice. So the first time they made twins, I guess you could call them, they made two males, Romulus and Remus. And then the second time they produced a female named Khaleesi. And the Romulus and Remus are six months old. Actually, Romulus and Remus is quite clever as well. The naming is a bit clever, but Romulus and Remus are now six months old. Khaleesi is now three months old and they are kept in a wildlife reserve. And if you go to colossal.com where you can learn about this research, they do talk quite a lot about the welfare, the animal welfare and sort of the their goal goals and how they're caring for these animals and what they hope to do in the future. So let's talk a little bit about the difference between oh, yeah, because did I say that? I probably didn't even say that. I said that they were the surrogate was a dog, a modern dog, obviously, but that the the DNA from these dire wolves, this genetically engineered DNA was added to the genome of a Gray wolf, right, A modern living Gray wolf. So Gray wolves are Canis lupus dire wolves. I wrote down the pronunciation Enoch ion. Enoch ion dyrus when extinct. I don't know the actual date of the last one, but they were Pleistocene, early Holocene. So 125,000 to 10,000 years ago, give or take. How old was the tooth? 7000, no 13,013. OK. Yeah. 13,000 when? 25 to 10,000 years ago is when these animals lived. If you, you've probably, or you may have seen a direwolf if you visited a museum that has collections from Most of them come from the La Brea Tar Pits, which is literally down the street from where where I live. They have a very recognizable coloring to the bones because they were preserved in tar. So that bones are really, really dark brown. And there's this gorgeous installation. If you ever visit LA, I highly recommend you go to the La Brea Tar Pits. There's a gorgeous installation in one of the halls of direwolf skulls, and they're all sort of mounted on this large orange wall that's backlit. And so you can see, because there's so many preserved specimens, you can see all of the morphologic variation amongst the different skulls, you know, different sizes and shapes which.

S: Is they have it at the the Peabody in New Haven. Switch.

C: Oh, fun. OK, that's great. Yeah. So. So these would have lived contemporaneously with some horses, some pronghorns, those giant ground slots, bison, camels, the tar pits also features some of our, you know, like woolly mammoths, Saber toothed cats, like some of these different species that are I guess, more recent, like we're contemporaneous with human beings but are still long, long extinct. Do you know off the top of your head Steve, how big like a a modern Ray Wolf is compared to?

S: The die rolls are 20%. Baker is what I. Heard 20%.

C: OK, All right, great. Yeah. And so I think what they did is they made sure that the surrogate was just a really, really large dog just to make sure. And obviously we see this a lot. I mean, and this is where this conversation is really going. And the back and forth that I would like to have with you guys and that I hope the listeners have as well is what is a species? How do we define it? Are we categorizing the this de extinction appropriately, like when we think about modern dogs, right? And modern dogs can technically breed with wolves and they are because they have a subspecies as well, right? So they are canis familiaris or canis lupus familiaris, whereas obviously a Gray wolf, as I mentioned before, is canis lupus. Think about the massive morphological variation in a modern dog. Think about the tiniest Chihuahua you've ever seen and like a Newfoundland, like, that's technically the same species, right? So when we think about the historical way that we define species, which was purely based on morphology, you know, like a hip shape or size or different kinds of measurements, that has drastically changed, obviously, with the advent of modern genetic techniques. And so now, yes. It is still a categorization issue. Yes, a lot of these lines between this species versus that species are wiggly. But can you guys think of some of the ways that we now define species? Like how different does something have to be to be considered a different species? What's 1 of the ways that?

B: We they can't interbreed.

C: Right, right. So can they breed?

B: Right.

C: Yeah. Or or if they can breed, can they produce viable offspring or or? Fertile, fertile. Fertile. Thank you. Fertile offspring. The question here is if you take an extinct animal that is not only a different genus but also, or sorry, not only different species but also a different genus, and you insert that DNA into the functional genome of again, a different genus and species, they're only the same. Once we get up to the family level, they are both family Canidae. Is that is de extinction an appropriate term to be using? Can we say the dire wolf was brought back? Because that is the headline.

E: Version of the Dire Wolf.

C: Is it a version of the dire wolf or is it a version of the Gray wolf?

E: No, right?

C: Because did we take dire wolf DNA and insert a few Gray wolf genes or did we take Gray wolf DNA and insert a few dire wolf genes?

J: I thought they modified the Gray warmer the. Latter.

C: So they modified a Gray wolf to give it some dire wolf morphologic features, and they specifically focused on things that would make it look like a dire wolf, right? They specifically chose these gene loci to change the size, the shape, the coat, the coloring, all of that.

S: I think the best way to characterize it is as to hybrid. Right.

C: And that's how some people are. Yeah, some people are called.

S: Between a Gray wolf and A and a dire wolf. But it's a genetically engineered hybrid and they, as you say, they tried to make it look as much like a dire wolf as they could given the the technology. It's not perfect, but it's.

E: Is it technically de extinction I?

C: Mean, yeah. Is it technically de extinction? Did they technically bring back the diet?

S: Because it depends on what you how many characteristics.

C: You bring back and here's a question and I think this this might clarify or maybe it just confuses more when you think about the woolly mouse, right? The one that was, yeah, that was shown just several weeks ago. Would you call that a hybrid?

S: It's a genetically engineered Organism.

C: So, but they did the exact same thing.

S: But they just did 1 gene, right?

C: I don't think so. I don't think that was they.

S: Just put the I think it was just a proof of concept of the wool.

C: It was a proof of concept.

S: Yeah, they told them to know if they could make a wool and a mammal woolly.

C: 8 genetic alterations spread across 7 genes. So it's not that different. If we think about it, it's really not that different. It's just that because they put it in a source Organism that is wildly different. It's so obvious to us, Oh, they made this mouse woolly. Why did they not make this Gray wolf diary? Why is that not the same?

S: Thing I mean, it's semantics. It's semantics.

C: It it's semantics, but semantics matter.

S: But sometimes it's arbitrary and it's arbitrary. The the line between it's, I mean, I think it is a hybrid. You have two closely related species, even though they're in different genuses, they could interbreed. And you're basically doing it through genetic engineering. You're putting it was 14 genes, 20 loci. You know from one to the other and you get something which is part Gray wolf and part dire wolf. It may be mostly Gray wolf, although Gray wolves and diarals are 99.5% genetically identical.

C: And we actually know that because of interesting research that Colossal did. Yeah.

S: So that's where we're starting.

C: From Yeah, so there is a really interesting publication where they sequenced that gene, right. I guess there's an interesting quote in a, in a Scientific American article that covered this somewhat skeptically, where they they cited both Shapiro, who is a scientist speaking for Colossal for Colossal, saying if, if we can look at this animal and see what it's doing and it looks like a direwolf and it acts like a direwolf, I'm going to call it a direwolf. But then they quote a researcher who is not involved in the research, Jacqueline Gill of the University of Maine. And she said I have more than 14 Neanderthal genes in me. We wouldn't call me a Neanderthal.

S: Yeah, right. Yeah, but but modern Homo sapiens are a hybrid between ancient humans and ancient Neanderthals.

C: Yeah right.

S: But we cope you but anyway, it's it's all fuzzy. That's my point. And and then.

C: That's my point too.

S: They. Bring they bring up a good point. This is that was about what I was. What I was going to say is are you saying is it genetically a direwolf? Is it morphologically a direwolf? Is it behaviorally A direwolf? Will it fill the direwolf niche in the environment that that's those are different questions that are all related. It's it's clearly not 100% like cloned from 100% ancient DNA. This.

E: Isn't Dolly the. Sheep.

S: Yeah, this right. This is not the dire wolves that were running around 13,000 years ago, but it this is as close as we can currently get to a morphological and maybe behaviorally direwolf.

C: Well, and some people argue that that may not be the case at all. And I think this is an interesting side note that I do want to bring up because I would be remiss if I left it out. So we talked about the Colossal research, but there was, so Beth Shapiro, the one who I referenced, the evolutionary biologist co-authored a study in 2021 where they sequenced the complete genome of the Dyer wolf from, from some newly analyzed DNA used that that research right to engineer Romulus Remus and Khaleesi or her team's research contradicts a study, a 2021 genetic analysis that was published in Nature, where the researchers claim that based on their genetic analysis, the direwolf may not have even been a wolf. Because when they started to dig deep into the genetic sequence, it looked like it was more closely related to the African Jackal and it may have looked more like a giant kind of red coyote. And so there's still some controversy within scientific circles about whether dire wolves and Gray wolves do share 99.5% of their DNA, which is that the newest claim from Colossal, which, you know, we need to replicate these findings. But the thing that's important is the company hasn't published these findings. Nothing that the company is presenting is peer reviewed. And that is that right there gives me massive cause for just taking a breath. It doesn't mean I believe that there's fraud involved. It doesn't mean I believe that they're lying it.

S: Just means they did what they said they did.

C: Totally, but they need to publish.

S: Yeah, I agree.

C: And they need to end part of the publishing process, which I know becomes difficult when you are a private company, that it has commercial interests. But part of the publishing process is giving people access to your data so that they can then use that data and see if they get the same results. Other people need to be able to do what Colossal did to make sure that Colossal did what Colossal is saying that they did. Because right now we do have to take their word for it. And yes, we see the proof. We see these really cute kind of white fuzzy canines, but we don't know that those are dire wolves.

S: Yeah, what's funny is this is all this is all covered in the Jurassic Park movies. It really was, especially at the later movies where they like.

E: Everything I know about.

S: They said these are not the dinosaurs that were running around 65,000,000 years ago.

E: They used frogs.

S: Yeah, they, these are dinosaur ish. They're, they're the pieces of the dyno DNA that we put in and yeah, modern genomes to get close to what they were, but they're different. That was also how they explained away why they didn't have feathers. You know why, why Velociraptor didn't have feathers. Like these are not the same Velociraptors as we're. We're running around 65,000,000 years ago.

E: Fair enough.

C: Yeah, they wanted them to be. We wanted them to be scarier. No, yeah, that's right. I agree. The problem is I don't think that that is Colossal's language. When I look at their website, I don't think that they are as careful as they could be. And I definitely think that the media coverage then took that and ran with it.

S: As always, and which we've discussed before too often, that the hype begins at the the scientist or the the media outlet, the media, the PR, the PR office.

E: Thrones into this thing. I mean, come on.

S: And then and then. The media runs wild with the worst possible version of of.

C: Course, and it's not and it's not like an example of, oh, I was misquoted. Oh, the media, you know, didn't understand what I was saying. Like go, go to Colossal's website. Yeah, it's it's polished. I agree.

S: But if but if you, I'm just so used to ignoring the hype and seeing what actually happened, I just went straight to that. Like what actually?

C: Yeah, totally.

S: And the hype didn't bother me as much 'cause I'm just so used to it. But.

C: Yeah, and what happened is fundamentally interesting. And I do think we're going to see continued work in this area. I think my guess is that thylacines are going to be next. Thylacines and dodos From a lot of the media coverage, the skeptical media coverage that I've been reading, thylacines and dodos from a kind of ethical perspective, it do appear to be #1 ecologically more feasible, but also went extinct more recently.

S: And due to people.

C: And due to people, directly due to people, yeah. And so, you know, is there a moral or an ethical obligation to undo some of that damage? Or have we kind of engineered the planet now into a place where there is no more an ecological niche? Because I think that that's an interesting question. Where are they gonna?

US#01: Thylocines again.

S: Thylocines were in Tasmania.

C: Right Tasmanian tigers.

S: So my understanding is from just watching lost Tasmania, you know, but you know, whatever that Tasmania is still mostly like wild and the, the, you know, there's plenty of, there's plenty of spaces there that's the same ecosystem as was 100 years ago. And same thing with Mauritia, which is the island that the dodos come from. It's mostly wild and like this the the human populations are concentrated. Well I think you might need to do is what what they did in New Zealand with the Zealandia is create an eco sanctuary and then put them in the eco sanctuary so that are the rats and stuff. Don't kill them.

C: Yeah, when we talk about wild spaces on the planet, that is kind of a misnomer. And I'm not saying that there aren't places where there is a lot of range for organisms, but the larger the charismatic megafauna, the more critically endangered, the more likely it is that there are teams of people who know the name of that Organism. That Organism is tagged and collared. It's range is well established. We do not have that much Earth left that is not actively managed, if at all. We manage wildlife actively and so when we talk about Tasmania having like a really good range, that's wonderful. It would be actively managed.

S: Pristine Preno.

C: There's no this idea of like. There's not much of the world. That big wild spaces, yeah, that's, it's a myth. That's a myth. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

E: Plus, what doesn't have plastic in it? Right things.

C: Well, there's that too.

E: Come into effect.

C: As an ecologic and conservation effort, there are so many incredible people who are dedicated to maintaining that important balance, right? And you know, so that question of what would we do with these organisms? To me, that's a less interesting question. It's an interesting question if we're talking about like a woolly mammoth, for example, where they have the potential to drastically change the landscape, or if we're talking about large numbers of these species. But to me it's it's a less interesting question only because we're already doing it.

S: But an eco sanctuary goes beyond a managed area to like an isolated area where you literally wall it off so like no invasive species can get in.

C: Yeah, And so, well, the climate is now different. So if these organisms were adapted to an earlier climate. But then again, we're not actually talking about pure de extinction. This is not a dire wolf come back from the dead. This is a hybrid, as you mentioned, of a Gray wolf, which is adapted to our environment right now. And so it may have a better chance at survival, but we don't know without management. We don't know if this would become an invasive species. We don't know if this would become a pest. We don't know. I don't.

S: Think anyone's talking about releasing the Dire Wolf? Into the wild?

C: Yeah, exactly.

S: That's not going to happen. Dodo sure. The dire wolf, I don't see that happening. I think the best use of this technology is probably increasing and they've done this increasing the genetic diversity in endangered. Species or even.

C: Yeah, yeah, or even species that just have pressure on them. I think about the Florida Panther, for example. I think about subpopulations of organisms that have been cut off due to human behavior, like, you know, building freeways and and urban areas. And then there's all this intermixing and they start to get really, really sick. And that threatens the species. Yeah. If you can increase genetic diversity or think about this, there are species that are not extinct but only exist in sanctuaries and zoos right now.

B: Oh yeah, that's so sad.

C: We could proliferate those species, we could do more, but the problem is we we already have the technology to do that and we're not really doing that.

J: But I I questioned the whole premise, like, yeah, I would love to see these extinct animals and all that, but what I don't think we should bring them back.

C: And why do you think that that is? Because that's a common argument. And I'm not saying you're wrong because I think that there's a lot of value in having these real conversations. But I guess my question is, is it a knee jerk reaction because it just doesn't feel right? Or do you think that there is a a valid argument there for for this being an, I don't know, unethical or immoral act?

S: It's complicated, but I mean, the first of all, you know, what would their habitat be? What would they displace? Again, like the dire wolf, there's no, I don't think there's any plan to, to put them anywhere. They're right now they're in a sanctuary like a 2000 or 200 acre sanctuary. That's what they're going to be in spaces like that. They're going to be in protected spaces where they could be researched and and people. Could I read an article?

J: You know guys, of course the Internet is full of BS but somebody was saying that like the ultra rich could buy these creatures.

S: Well, that probably need regulation to keep that from. Yeah, because then what happens?

C: Like the tiger thing?

S: Yeah, kind. Of stuff, yeah. Like the Tiger King thing? Yeah.

C: Yeah. I mean people, yeah, people who people are going to do what people do. And yeah, we got to, we got to be smart about that. But the idea here, and I guess we didn't mention this, Steve, is that yes, they are, they are in a reserve right now and they want to produce more of these organisms so that they can study PAC behavior, which is interesting. But I guess every article that I've read always has that same kind of cautionary tale of like, just because we can, should we, right. And is the knowledge that we gain from it, like what's what's the risk benefit analysis? That's really what all of this comes down to.

S: I think it's worth it plus even just to just to perfect the technology because we can't put the technology to good use. This may not be the optimal use of that technology, but the technology itself is important.

B: Plus, I want to go to AD Extinction park. I need to go I want to go to one that I mean, sure, they needed to be taken care of and and their habitats need to be, you know, obviously not like a cage, but that how I would love to see animals that I never could see otherwise. I mean, isn't that part of the attraction here is is to be able to just see a living creature that. Have disappeared.

C: You know, there are people who really struggle with the idea of zoos, legitimate animal ethicists who really.

E: Like the idea though, that if the science helps keep existing and helps to keep existing animals who are endangered alive longer, then that's good. I.

S: Want to say two more things before we move on? One, did you guys see pictures of the puppies? They are freaking adorable. Yeah, they are adorable.

E: No. They're not AI pictures, right? We're sure. No, they're tough.

S: Yeah, yeah, no, they're all over the world from the company. And the second thing, if you're going to name one of them after the Game of Thrones, because that's where the direwolves are, why would you name it Khaleesi? That character has nothing to do with how Stark or direwolves. Why not name it after one of the actual direwolves? In the book. Yes, there were. There were multiple male and multiple female direwolves, all of which had names and anyway.

C: Well, and that's why I do like the, the Romulus and Remus names, I think.

S: Yeah, Yeah. That was yeah, yeah.

B: The Khaleesi one was kind of like, wait. Scratch.

C: Do you think it's just because that's the most recognizable?

S: Yeah, Yeah, that's probably why.

J: OK, Jay, tell us what experts really think about AI.

What Experts Really Think About AI (37:10)

• Will AI improve your life? Here’s what 4,000 researchers think 

US#01: Oh boy, another AI talk.

J: Well, I'm curious, Yeah. I mean, Bob, it's like, you know, it is the hottest technology out there. Endless stream of stuff happening. I mean, you love AI.

US#01: Yeah, use it every day, man. We talk about it a lot.

J: We talk. About it every. Day we do. So what do you guys think about artificial intelligence in the sense that is it a net positive or net negative for for humanity?

C: That's we. We can't know that. Yeah. Yeah. How?

E: About that too early.

J: I think that's probably the best answer, yeah, yeah. But there are a lot of people online who, you know, they're saying that it's horrible, right? Yeah. Look, and I'm not even going to disagree at this point. You know, unregulated technology, you know, incredibly fast changes. It's, it's a scary environment. But, you know, this, this study that was done is finding out what, what the researchers and the developers, you know, what do they think about it? What, What's their opinion? So there was a new study out of the University College London, and they came up with a detailed look into what over 4000 AI researchers think about the future of their own field, which is a lot of people. I was really surprised to see that they came, they were able to find that many. I guess there's a ton of AI researchers out there.

B: Did they classify them because AI is such a broad broad term? These days, yeah, it's like any computer scientist. Right. Are they under? They all like language, you know, large language model AI guys, they're.

J: Calling them researchers, Bob, which I think it's, you know, rando people in the field. Like it doesn't necessarily specifically mean developers or analysts or anything. It's just people that are in the field that are working on developing AI. There's probably dozens and dozens of job titles that go into that. OK, so according to the survey, 80 per 780 per seven guys.

E: Adding that to the list. That's a new number.

J: 80 per seven. Oh my God, that's notable. All right, let's start again. I love that though. All right, so 87% of AI researchers say AIS benefits outweigh or balance the risks that AI presents. 57% of the UK public who were who were quizzed agree with the AI researchers that that, you know, AI benefits are, are going to outweigh any, any of the risks that would come with it. So that means guys that about 43% of the public disagree with researchers, you know, with their overall optimism and nearly 1/3, about 30% believe that a eyes risks outweigh its benefits compared to 9% of the researchers. Now, I was surprised to read this stat that only 30% believe that the risks are going to outweigh its benefits because that's doesn't, that doesn't track with what I'm reading online and my, you know, my anecdotal experience with talking to people and everything. I thought that the the risks were much, much more feared by much more people. Now, this isn't just technologists that are cheerleading their own work, of course, right? You know, of course they're going to do that. But they, you know, these researchers expressed their deep concerns about this information cybercrime, which AI is just the beginnings of it are happening and it's and it's going to be a big problem. Also, the unauthorized use of personal data, that's a big deal. Concerns that, you know, that align closely with people like us, right? I don't want AI to run rampant with my personal data. I already feel like it's happening and I feel like it's something that's getting worse and worse as time goes on. And AI is going to make the use, the gathering of it, the cross of databases to figure out even more information and the use of that and the selling of that. It's already crazy and it's going to get orders of magnitude worse with AI making it much easier now. Also, 29% of reachers researchers think AI should be developed as fast as possible, which I think is interesting when you think that, you know, these are the people that are getting paid to do this and they, most of them don't agree that it should be done as fast as possible. You know, and of course, you talk to people, you know, that own these companies in Silicon Valley. You know, their narrative is extraordinary urgencies and massive inevitability. You know, there are other countries that are competing against us and whoever gets that brass ring first is going to have the prize. So how about that? You know, the researchers are not as jazzed as their bosses are about developing this at breakneck speeds. Of course, I I agree with that. But I also do understand that, you know, there's a other countries out there that are competing with each other. And if anybody wants to stay relevant or be at the front of that pack, they have to. They have to spend the billions of dollars of investment money they're getting. Also, AI researchers are split on the future of artificial general intelligence. Now, this is something we've talked about a lot. I'll give you a quick brief on what it is. This is the idea that machines could one day match or surpass human cognitive abilities. I think also to add to that definition, that they would think like people, that they would have human qualities. It's not just a narrow AI that can do a handful of things really well. It's it's almost like a real brain there. Right?

B: Yeah. The versatility of a human brain that's not specialized.

J: And possibly achieve consciousness. You know, we just don't know. We don't know what that's going to bring. So half the researchers think that AGI is likely to happen eventually, but only one in five are confident that it's inevitable, which I think you know, when you this and this was taken right from the study. And I think that's a little vague. I mean, half the researchers think AGI is likely to happen.

US#01: Yeah, what the hell?

J: But then one in five are saying it's absolutely going to happen. OK. I mean, I guess so I guess there's a slight difference there in, you know, in the way you define that and who thinks what. Among those who believe that AGI is coming, most place their trust in scientists and private companies to manage the risks that it will bring. In contrast to that, researchers who are skeptical about AGI's future, they're more likely to support independent regulators and stronger public oversight. Now this is another thing, guys, I actually don't know. What do you guys think? I just don't know what the right way to handle that is. I, you know, my opinion on the government in the last like 10 years of my adult life is they can't handle this. They not only do they move glacially slow, but they've shown 0 interest in really getting involved on the for the most part. And they're just not intelligent enough. You know, the people who I think could handle making these decisions would be the scientists. But then they have, they're compromised because they're involved with these companies. They're getting paid to do this. I just don't know. What do you guys think?

C: Well, it's also not their area of expertise either. I think it's the ethicists, right? I guess that's the consultants. That's who has to weigh in on this. But we can't self regulate. I mean we we should always self regulate but there also have to be laws.

J: I guess there'd have to be a combination of the two and then there'd have to be like an extraordinary level of this department in the government is going to be very well funded and it's going to be filled with really smart people. They're not going to have a dual interest here. Like their job is only to be critical and, and to make the best decisions that they can about how to regulate this stuff. I don't know. So what I'm what as I read between the lines here, I'm seeing that AGI, it's still very poorly defined. Nobody knows what it's going to be, how it's going to roll out, what are the first, you know, evidence that it's, it's starting to happen, going to be. Nobody really can wrap their head around this. So it's all speculation and very little actual evidence. So, you know, it's hard to discuss because we're just essentially making guesses, which is troubling. But, you know, I hope that we're 50 to 100 years away from AGI, you know that that's my hope, just to save humanity, you know, which shouldn't happen soon or that would be devastating if it happened within the next 1520 years. I want to say it. The researchers were more aligned with their opinions about data privacy. This is fantastic to hear. So fewer than 25% support the idea that AI companies, you know, the they should be able to scrape publicly available content without permission. Nearly half of the developers think that people should have to explicitly opt in. So there's a few things going on here, right? One of them is should AI just have free access Willy nilly to use anything that's on the web and Co opt it in any way it sees fit? And then there is the sharing of data. You know, people should say, I I could opt in. I could say, hey, I don't mind if this company, you know, reads all of the SDU podcasts back catalog and uses the data for XY and Z. Beyond that, no good. But here's what I'm allowing, right? I don't think we're ever going to get that level of granularity. I think that is is just a complete pipe dream. I think they're going to keep doing what they're doing and people, because they're lazy and they want convenience, they're just not going to push hard enough to make anything change about all of those privacy issues.

S: Yeah, I mean, I've, you know, read and heard several interviews recently with tech, Silicon Valley, CE, OS and, and bigwigs and I was not impressed, man. My overall impression is these guys are full of it, man. They are, they are full of themselves. They are, they think that they're, they they want no regulation. They think that they could, they could be trusted to do whatever they think is best. And the only thing that matters is that they have unfettered opportunity to innovate and without any consideration. These are not a group of people in my opinion. And I would feel comfortable with this kind of technology like the the move fast break things is now culture like that is now embedded culture in my opinion and not in a good way, in a very bad way.

J: You know, Steve, in Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum's character straight up said it. Yeah, they were so, so patting themselves on the back so hard, celebrating what they could do that they never thought, should we do it?

C: Should we do it? Yeah. And this directly relates to the conversation we just had about the extension. Box, Yeah.

J: And Karen, This is why all of the guys on this podcast desperately want you to. To. Sink deep into science fiction because. I'm. Serious in a in a way, you know, Of course, I would love to discuss Star Wars in detail with you at, but the idea is that there is a lot of philosophy happening in science fiction that talks about a lot of this stuff. That's why to some of us, Carrie, you might not feel this, but I'll guarantee you that the rest of us do. We've already lived through this. We've already.

S: It's a giant thought experiment, right?

C: Yeah.

S: And none of this is new.

C: And that is why I sometimes I do enjoy aspects of sci-fi. I'm about to read an Octavia, my first Octavia Butler book. But I think about the type of sci-fi that really grapples with these like social justice issues and these like larger issues. I just struggle with sci-fi that feels very like gadgety, like look at these gadgets and like I struggle with the world building. Anyway, that's yeah, that's a non sequitur.

J: So the final thing I'll say here is, yeah, the final thing I'll say about this guys is the idea of should the public be involved in regulation and the policies and everything? So the AI researchers in the survey, they support public involvement in shaping AI, but they only think that the public should be involved in the late stages of development. So about 80% believe the public should have his say in the regulations of policy, but only 30% support involving the public in early development. This is like decisions about training the data and the model design and all that.

S: They want to wait until it's too late.

J: I guess so. I mean, it's complicated again, because you know what, what is the average person going to really understand about this stuff? I mean, I, I watched videos about artificial intelligence and how how the software functions and it lost me at the the one minute mark. It's super complicated. This is like.

S: Listen. But yeah, so is IVF, right? I mean, if you get down to the real technical details. So I listen, I get it. I'm a technophile and I don't like people pushing back against technology simply because it sounds scary and icky or whatever, which happens a lot in biology, you know, no animal proteins in people. Like every major innovation in medicine has been met with people with placards saying this is not natural and we shouldn't do it. So I'm not I'm not that person, right? But but I do think we need to think about like cloning people, is this something that we should do? Genetically modifying, you know, genes that will get out into the population are some things that we need to have a conversation about and not just do it, not just trust companies to to do it right.

C: Yeah. And AI is no different.

S: AI is, is scary powerful in a great way and a scary way. And you know, for even things that seem innocuous, again, you could, you could rewind the clock 20 years and make all these same statements about social media. And but nobody perceived the risk. And so we just did it. We just let companies do social media without really any oversight. And I don't think anyone anticipated the consequences of what happened. And I don't know that anybody really wants it except for the people who are making billions of dollars off of it. I think we're facing the same thing with AI where and but now, like people are saying, you know, this could completely destroy any notion of fact or truth. And this is gonna happen really quickly and it's going to destroy democracy. We need to take that seriously and think very carefully about it, about how we want to proceed, not to slow down the progress or retard progress, but to just proceed in a thoughtful way. And I do think that the unfortunately what we need are educated regulators and I don't know that we have that.

C: Well, and, and I mean, we need a little bit of deep futurism here. Like there's some stuff that's just unknowable and we talked about it often in a silo, like how is this going to affect democracy? Or how is this going to affect, but it affects us, It affects identity, it affects psychology like the social fabric of our existence. And social media does too. Like the Gen. alpha kids are just they're fundamentally different because of how what, because of their exposures, right. And definitely, Can you imagine the next like Gen., beta Gen., I don't know, like being exposed to powerful AI from the time they're born?

E: Gosh, Yeah, yeah, there's people will be born, are born now and that's all they will know is the.

C: AI world that's.

S: All well, just like there are people the generation as care is saying you only know the social media world. I just wrote about this on science based medicine. A recent, you know, studied basically finding that the the youngest generation are more gullible. They are less able to identify true from fake headlines compared to the age.

E: Of when compared to prior studies of the same age groups. They're living well.

S: This. I don't know how old this model has been around.

C: Well, but we used to think it was always like the oldest of adults that were the most gullible, but it's just that's not the case anymore, no.

S: Yeah, no, no, they're living in, they're living in a post truth world, you know, where it's just truth is, you know, it's what it's whatever it clicks, you know it's that.

C: So scary.

S: Yeah, it is scary. All right, let's move on.

Planned Obsolescence (52:45)

• Is Planned Obsolescence Real - NeuroLogica Blog 

S: All right, guys. So what do you think about planned obsolescence? I think it absolutely sucks. It's. Fashion theory it.

B: Needs good planning.

S: So personally, you think it's real? Do you really? Do you think that it actually exists as?

J: AI think it exists.

S: Discrete.

C: I think it. Exists.

J: Of course it does, Steve. They used to make refrigerators in the 40s that still operate today. So you think that stuff was built better in the past? Yes.

C: Well, but also I think that there is a probably cognitive error that's happening here, where as things become more complicated, things are more likely to break. And that's why you can drive an old, old car where everything was mechanical and it can still be working right now. But a lot of things in newer cars, because they are so much more sophisticated, don't last as long.

S: One potential feature is complexity. Jay, why do you think things don't last as long today as they did before?

J: Well, personally.

S: Experience, you know, but I mean, why, why do you think that that the industry does that?

J: To make more money, money to resell you the same product over. And look at how how quickly we cycle through iPhones, you know, like the shiny new one and everything. You know, you get it and it doesn't, you know, other than maybe the camera being better. It's like, you know, it's not like a it's not worth another thousand 1500 bucks. I bought a Samsung refrigerator. It was the biggest POS of any kitchen appliance. That's.

S: A bad brand? That's a. That's a particularly notoriously bad.

J: Yeah, well, I mean they make good electronics, but do not buy any of the kitchen stuff. Like nothing from them that in that way. And they have terrible customer support. I mean, you know it. There was a time when customer support in general and my opinion, used to be a lot better than it is now.

S: So it sounds like you're better.

J: Well, I mean, you know, combining that with the fact that a third of my retirement is gone, yeah, I'm freaking bitter.

S: So there is a, there was a study and since you bring up refrigerators that's very apropos because it was a study of large appliances, large home appliances. And the question was, is the lifespan of large home appliances decreasing over time, let's say starting in the 1950s, and what do you think they found?

J: I mean, you know, I think I know where you're going with this and I, I call bullshit.

E: You're you're pre bullshitting and even before I find the. Results for. You have to answer Steve's question, Jay.

J: I mean, OK, I mean, I got to be honest to myself, I think that they found that that planned obsolescence is happening that overall quality in in many different types of of items that are purchased is definitely is definitely lower.

S: All right, so I think they, a lot of people share your attitude. Now just keep in mind no one is saying that planned obsolescence doesn't exist and sometimes isn't a specifically designed feature in order to maximize profit that exists. The the most notorious example of it goes back to 1924. There was literally an international meeting of light bulb manufacturers, right of incandescent light bulb manufacturers and they decided what the lifespan of light bulbs would be. They.

E: Got a bright idea?

S: 1000 hours and because you as you know, as you may know like there are, there are incandescent bulbs that are still around from 100 years ago still still light burning. You. You basically can design the bulb to last as long as you want to, but of course that affects what one of the things that determines that is how bright it is, right? The brighter you want it, the shorter its lifespan is going to be. But they basically decided we're going to engineer these things to a 1000 hour lifespan and everyone was going to do the same thing. So they've kind of fixing the quality which which is an.

E: They call that.

S: Collusion, an anti competitive kind of behavior and that was just and the reason they came up with that is because that would be about what customers would would be OK with replacing. You know what I mean? They would replace the bulbs on a constantly replace the bulbs, but that would be something they would accept. That artificial limitation didn't end until CFLS and LED light bulbs essentially replaced incandescent bulbs.

US#01: Wow man, I love. My. LEDs.

S: But let's get back now to this study, right? This is a study that was done. It was a Norwegian study, which I don't think matters, but they what they found was for most large appliances, there was no decrease in lifespan over the time period from the 1950s to 2020. So over that 70 year period there was no decrease in lifespan for large appliances. However, there were two exceptions, and one of them was not the refrigerator, washing machine, washing machines, and ovens. Those are the 2 exceptions.

C: That's interesting. So it's like a gas oven?

S: For wash or could be electric, but yes so for washing machines. The researchers found that the lifespan decreased from 19.2 years to 10.6 years, a decrease of 45%. However, they also.

E: Loads number of watches.

S: Yes, exactly, Evan. However, they also found that over that same period of time, the average number of of loads per for a household of four people increased from 2 per week to 8 per week.

E: There it is. That's a. There's your difference.

S: So if you think about the lifespan in terms of number of loads, it actually doubled double the number of loads even though it was 45% decrease in the number of years. So that seems like an adequate explanation for that. What I suspect happened is that if you go back to 1950, you know, people weren't used to having washing machines. They were used to not doing laundry any more often than they absolutely had to because it was the worst possible drudgery in of housework that had to be done and right. I mean, it was, it was horrible. They spent most of their time doing laundry and it was terrible. So they didn't do it any more often than they had to. But then once they got used to the convenience of a washing machine, then our threshold for doing laundry went down over time, right? You would wear a shirt a couple of times instead of two weeks or whatever. You wear much, you would wash it much more quickly because it's, you're just throwing it in the wash. You're not like we're using a washing board and scrubbing it and whatever. So that seems to be the explanation there. So again, not really a decrease in lifespan if you're going by number of loads, yeah.

E: Yeah, you can't judge it by years. You judge it by. For that particular apply. Operations. Number of operations.

S: Now for the oven, they found that the answer was probably more complicated than that. But one of the things they found was what you said, Cara, is that ovens have become a lot more complex over the decades. A 1950s oven was really a very simple piece of machinery and.

C: It's just a heat box.

S: It's just a heat box.

C: Yeah, Yeah.

S: It's like an ice box, you know, but this is a heat box. But yeah, but now we have all kinds of. Infection and yeah, and.

E: Timing mechanism.

S: Cleaning mechanism, yeah, self cleaning and all the electronics and everything. So and of course, you know, complex, you could be simple and durable or complex and fragile, right? And so that's a tradeoff. And that really gets to I think how we should be thinking about plant obsolescence. It's not, it's not, it's sometimes it is like the light bulbs, but it's often not a deliberate money grab. It's often a deliberate engineering trade off decision. That's that's completely rational. So for example, you talk about iPhones.

C: Yeah, that's the big.

S: One, yeah. So if any technology where there is expected to be a, you know, progress in that technology where you think, all right, the average users going to want to upgrade after maybe four years, let's say. So why engineer the device to last longer than the average user is going to want to use it? You're going to make it unnecessarily expensive, right? Or you could say we're going to engineer it to last as long as people are are going to use it and then they'll upgrade. Or if like, you know, there's a limiting factor like battery life, why engineer the rest of the phone to to last 10 times longer than the the thing that's going to make you replace it anyway. Now, you know, there's a lot of complexity in there. We talked about the replaceability of batteries. You know, the right to repair all that kind of stuff comes into it as well. But essentially companies design products to last as long as it makes sense from a mark, from a marketing point of view, from a you end user point of view to last not longer, right? There's no reason to make something last super long. Let's take, let's go back to refrigerators, for example. There's an advantage to upgrading your technology. There's a lot of advantages, but one advantage is energy efficiency. And if the energy efficiency experts, I mean, the modern appliances are way more energy efficient than older ones. You probably should upgrade your refrigerator every 10 years. If you don't, you are probably using a very an energy hog and you are wasting a lot of electricity. So that's another factor that has to be taken into account. It's also like driving a car at some point as the car gets older and older, it's a, it's a, you know, a gas guzzler compared to newer, newer vehicles at the same size. We have to say that. So engineering a car to last longer than the person should use it you know is is another way to look at it or longer than most people are going to use it. Although cars actually do last long time, the average life's like the average age of a car is 11 years on the.

C: Well, the road that also makes me wonder like, are we, what parameters are we calculating in? You know, we talk a lot about like externalized costs, like OK, a 15 year old refrigerator is like a massive energy suck, but how bad for the environment is it to actually build and then dispose of?

S: AI know, I know. When I was writing about this, I'm like, that's another rabbit hole entirely. Where's the payback line of replacement versus using the old clunker And that's.

C: And can we do better at like our our stream where we take those parts and reuse them or change? Exactly.

S: If, if, if, if we have more of a circular economy where we're recycling better, then that lowers the environmental and material cost for replacing, upgrading, better technology, more energy efficient, whatever. So we have to think about all those things. So I think we can't think of plant obsolescence in isolation, and we certainly shouldn't look at it through the solo lens of this is just companies making stuff cheap so they could make more money. I really do strongly disagree with that. It's part of a complex web of decisions about how the technology is meant to be used, how how long it is likely to be used and not over engineering or making something more expensive than it has to be or than it should be. And it's it's, it's a, it's really a one of many trade-offs. That's the best way to look at it. And again, our gut feeling about things like, Oh yeah, the, you know, big appliances in the past lasted forever. It's actually not true. A lot of the a lot of that subjective perception is not true. And the ones where it was true, like in this study had had interesting and complicated explanations for and that had nothing to do with just making things cheaper today than they were made in the past. So anyway, it's it's it's one of the I love this topic because it's a great example of the maxim in skepticism of it's more complicated than you think it is. And just don't fall for a simplistic narrative because that simplistic narratives are almost never true, right? It is helpful to step back and think of things in a more complicated way.

Lifelike VR Touch Sensors (1:04:46)

• Tiny wearable for VR feels lifelike when touching things 

S: All right, let's move on. Bob, tell us about lifelike virtual reality touch sensors.

B: Oh boy, haptics in the news, people. This is a new, an improved type of wearables that have been created that canmore realistically create the sense of touch on, on human skin. This could finally bring the the sense of touch in virtual reality up to par with the other senses that are well covered already, like like, you know, imagery and, and the sound. And there's and there's potentially many more applications for this type of technology as well. If you want to read about this, this was recently published in the journal Science. The title of the paper is Full freedom of motion actuators as Advanced haptic interfaces. I'm going to start by discussing the distinction between the words haptic and tactile, which I thought were rough, you know, quite similar, but they're not. Haptic feedback provides sensations that simulate touch related experience. So that's, that's what haptic is. Tactile feedback is more related to the real physical touch experiences like like buttons. So if you were designing the interior of a car and what people actually touched inside the car, you'd be more working on tactile design and not really haptics. OK, so that was an interesting distinction I wanted to talk about. So this news item obviously deals with haptics and haptics is used a lot. This was surprising. Over a billion devices each year are made with haptics, with haptics and associated technology that goes along with it. I read an estimate that the haptics industry was estimated to be be around to $20 billion this year. So yeah, this, you know, 20 billion is a lot, but there's other industries far, far bigger. But I think this is probably going up and I think if this tech pans out, I think it could go way up. So I'm curious, So guys, what are your, what, what are your experiences with haptics and, and technology in, you know, the past few years? What? What's? What do you? Experience most often with haptics.

S: Myself, my VR controllers had haptic feedback in them.

B: Yeah, but you are you asking the quality of the haptics? Well, yeah, but what just. When do we have it? Yeah, like what kind in what? In what technology are you using that has the haptics? Yeah, I agree. So vibrations on the phone, self game controllers, VR game controller. Yeah, Steve, what kind of so you just get getting like kind of like vibration feedback and stuff?

S: Yeah, they just vibrate. But the vibration also could give you resistance to movement, right? Because like if you have anything, if you have a rotating or a vibrating piece in there, when you try to move it or rotate it, it actually gives you resistance. And so that actually combined with what you're seeing, you know, happening in the game world can be fairly convincing. As for terms of sensory feedback, can make you feel like you're actually moving something with weight and heft to it.

B: Yeah, that's pretty cool there. For me it's mostly vibrations, phone and smartwatch even even car steering wheels and vibrations are fine. I mean it's it's been only vibrations really for the most part. The vast majority I think of the of a haptic feedback is going to be this vibration based stuff. And that's sure that's changing and it will improve, but it's still I think it's primarily that's the vibration aspect. Vibration activate primarily only one of the mecano receptors in your skin though until you might be asking.

C: What are Mecano receptors?

B: Oh, thanks for asking. Care. Yeah, these are these are not only is this a great word, but these are specialized cells, mechanoreceptors, specialized cells in your skin and throughout your body, organs and everything. And the, the, the receptors near the surface of your skin tell your brain what your skin is, is experiencing essentially as it interacts with the, the many surfaces and things around it. It starts with a mechanical stimulus to your skin. This is purely mechanical. And so it, it, it, you know, you basically press on the skin, move the skin and that's going to, that's going to stretch or change the, the, the, the mechanoreceptor within the skin, right? And that skin movement that moves the receptor will then 'cause the receptor to send an electrical signal to the brain to interpret. And BAM, you've got, you've got your, your, your perception of, you know what, what your skin is dealing with here. So we got 4 main receptor types in our hands and, and feet, many in our feet as well. There's Merkel's discs, which detect sustained pressure. These are best for determining your shape and texture of objects. Here's one that that I was familiar with Meissner's corpuscles. They, these corpuscles sense movement between the skin and another surface. So this also tells us about texture, but it also lets us know if an object is sliding past the skin, which is critical for what maintaining grip right things it's your, your brain can instantly detect when something is sliding across your skin like that and losing your grip, which is something you often do not want to lose at all. Then there's Pacinian corpuscles and these are these are specialized in detecting vibrations. And these are the ones that I think most of these haptic devices are are engaging is these Pacinian corpuscles. We think perhaps the vibrations are they're caused when the hand grasps objects and we think that it might be important for tool use. So that's why these are these evolve to do what they're with what they what they do. And then finally there's Ruffini's endings. What odd name. I wonder why they call them endings. I'm sure some guy Ruffini discovered them. But these receptors are poorly understood, but they seem to respond to skin stretching caused by finger movement. So they think, I think that perhaps this helps us determine finger and or hand orientation, right proprioception of the hands, which you know what directions and, and based on this stretching, you know where the fingers are pointed without even looking at it. So like I said, these, the typical haptic devices that you encounter today activates primarily these Pacinian corpuscles, it seems to me. And you know that we can have vibrations with different patterns and intensities, but it's been the goal for years for haptics to activate not just one or two receptors, but all of the receptors that are that are under under the skin is specifically, of course, the hands. And they're also at various depths as as the researchers from the Northwestern University in Everson say in their paper, they say an unfulfilled challenge lies in haptic interface technologies that can engage all the various mechanoreceptors in a programmable spatiotemporal fashion across large areas of the body. So, yeah, so that's basically what I was, what I was saying that they, they want a way to to gauge all of these receptors in the skin in a way that can be controlled by a computer. And that's, and that seems to be what they, this is what they at least claim that they have created. Specifically, they created these wearables for your fingers. They slide onto your fingers. They got batteries in them and they're based on a new type of actuator. It has full freedom of of motion. It's as Bluetooth connectivity and an accelerometer. So it knows how fast your hands or your your fingers are moving depending on where the accelerometers are. So with it, they say they can simulate not only complex vibrations, but also stretching, pressure, sliding, twisting, basically all the movements that it can engage the 1234 different receptors that that are that are found under the skin, specifically in your hands and feet. All right, so John A Rogers describes what they did in a better way than I did. He's a professor of material science and engineering at the university who led the device design. He said almost all haptic actuators really just poke at the skin, but skin is receptive to much more sophisticated senses of touch. We built a tiny actuator that can push the skin in any direction and in any combination of directions. With it, we can finally control the complex sensation of touch in a fully programmable way. I I cannot wait to test. This. That's amazing. Sounds so freaking cool. Alright, So what are the applications now? The no brainer, of course, is this, you know, could give us a much more immersive experience haptically in virtual reality and and augmented reality. To me, there's always seem to be a major flaw in immersive VR, right? You know, for games, the visuals and the sound effects are obviously the most important most of the time, right, that that's the key stuff you got. If you don't, if you don't nail the visuals and the sound in a VR game, then you then you've got nothing. It's just like what? Don't even market that crap. So those are those are absolutely the low hanging fruit. But but when to, you know, but for a non game virtual reality or AR application, I think haptics would be critically important. And I mean, it's just imagine having a touch sensation in VR that's just as as advanced as the high res visuals that you're seeing and the high fidelity sound that you're hearing. Those the three working together. I think it's going to be such a a next level of VR Arkansas. I really hope I get to see something like that soon.

S: But Bob, I think you're missing the most obvious application though of this.

B: Teledildonics What? What are you talking? About.

S: The Orgasmatron.

B: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, there there was no talk about that in the any of the research I did unfortunately.

S: Talk about science fiction anticipation.

E: You didn't go deep enough, Bob.

B: Yeah, it's so. So what are some of the novel applications? John A Rogers again says describes this. He said if you run your fingers along a piece of silk, it will have less friction and slide faster than when touching corduroy or burlap. You can imagine shopping for clothes or fabric online and wanting to feel the texture. So that's really cool. I mean, I've bought a lot of, you know, a decent amount of clothing online here and there, mainly just T-shirts. But I could see how adding this, you know, this haptic feedback online when purchasing a shirt. I could see how that would definitely make make it, you know, could make the decision if you if you really wanted to buy it. I don't know, I think for for lots of other purchases, perhaps you the haptics could be could be helpful. Oh, this one was even more interesting. They stay described another example where the Sound of Music was converted into something that could be touched so the user could feel the music and distinguish between the tones and the instruments by the directions of the of the vibrations. So that sounded really, really interesting. There's also there were so many other possibilities for medical simulations for, you know, rehabilitation tools, remote surgery and just a lots of different options. And and I'm sure there's things that we're just not even really even thinking about now. So I'm really excited to try this. I hope this this does, you know, become available. Even if it's just a demo, I'd love to just experience it. I remember my first experience in VR and just being just blown away. I would love to add this haptic aspect to it. So I'll leave you with my quote. Feel the future people. And you notice how I put a pause between future and people because feel the future people. This doesn't sound right. When you shit together, you don't want to feel future people. But yeah, so this is cool. Check it out online. Cool read.

J: Thanks, Bob.

Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:16:00)

J: Jay, it's who's that noisy time? All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

US#05: It's like something being shrink wrapped or something right as a elasticity sound to it Quality.

J: So I, I have been sent in this noisy several times, you know, I would say on average probably once every other month for the last like five years. I usually wait, you know, like I, I try to do some timely noisies that I hear, you know, that are kind of trending just because they're fun. People are, are talking about it. And I also try to do noisies that people want to hear, but I wait till they become kind of like fall out of out of it people's minds and everything. So there can still be a challenge. But this one, I was like thinking to myself, I'm going to get like 50 people guessing this correctly and and nobody guessed it correctly. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. So let me read to you some of the guesses, Stavis Maples wrote in said. Love you all. Props from Memphis. This week's noisy sounds like a pressure relief valve for a steam engine. I thought that was a really good guess. I mean, I can kind of hear that in there. That's not correct, but definitely, definitely landed on something close to that sound, A listener named Sharon Tender wrote in. I'm very confident on this guess. It sounds like what you would hear if you had a microphone set close to a record player needle on a spinning dusty record that is also warped. Very specific. I, I can't say I've ever heard that. I've definitely heard the sound that the needle makes without amplification. You could hear a record being played if you have the if the speakers are turned off but the turntable is spinning you can actually hear the music and it has a real tinny sound to it. A listener named Zachary Dormus wrote in and said I hear the Star Wars laser noises you get from throwing her ice onto a frozen lake, but I believe that's already been a previous noisy so I'll guess it is the noise of drilling an ice hole into a frozen lake and that is not correct. Listener named Scott Wesley wrote in saying recording of an icebreaker vessel but from under the water they call.

E: You an ice hole.

J: Anybody that that had ice in there, guess you, you were on to something. But this is the sound that's made when you take say a steel ball bearing and you heat it up till it's red hot and then you put one or or many of them into a block of ice.

E: Yes.

J: Let me play.

E: Oh, I've seen that video. I've seen it. Sure.

J: Yeah, many. Yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how many people have sent this in to me. Listen again and tell me what you think. There's a little bit of everything, the sizzle, the crack, the pop. What a cool sound. There's so many layers to that sound. It's like I really have to humble myself to the fact that my guessing after like commandeering this from Evan all those years ago and you know me, you know, I've really learned a lot throughout the years of doing this and I've come to recognize lots of sounds and everything. I, I can't guess what people are going to do. I can't guess what noises are going to pop, which ones are. I mean, I think I have a better understanding than most people, but it really, it's still kind of random noise to me. So anyway, let's get to the new noisy this week. The new Noisy was sent in by a listener named Hunter Richards.

Voice-over: Assess our social requirements and what we can do about them through our present machinery or other similar to it. Gordon stressed the need for a reconstruction of society as a basic cause.

J: If you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, please e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Stevie, we got not a con coming up. Let me see. Check the date. By the time you guys hear this, we're going to be just about a month away. Yeah, a month and a few days away. I can't believe it. Still not too late. We would really love it if you came because we're going to have a wonderful conference. It's going to be really, really awesome. I mean, with all the different things that we're doing this year, I think I think it could be a lot more fun than last time. But who knows? I could be wrong, right? Because I don't know anything about who's that noisy.

US#04: There's only one way to know though. You have to show up and experiencing.

J: Yeah, I mean, in the end, it's a great place to meet people. There's a lot of time for socializing, way more time than your average conference. There's going to be just a ton of different things that we're going to be doing on stage that are going to be a lot of fun and entertaining. You'll have time to hang out. We're going to sign books. We'll have a bunch of swag. There's going to be laughing and George playing music and people singing, and Steve's going to get wasted on Saturday night. You can't. Miss it? Carrie, you're always good for that laugh. Thank you.

S: So much because you know there's not going to happen.

J: It's not a con 2025. You can go to notaconcon.com or you can go to theskepticsguide.org. Both of those have information that you want. And you know the homepage on the Skeptics guide has a button there you can click. It'll take you to nauticoncon.com that all roads lead to the same place.

S: Thanks, Jay.

Emails (1:21:31)

S: One super quick e-mail. We got a number of emails actually responding to Cara's discussion of 23andMe. Just want to make one clarification and that is the distinction between different types of genetic testing that you can get done.

C: So yeah, I, I got 2 specific emails talking about the differences between Snips and sequencing Snips, single nucleotide polymorphisms versus like whole genome sequencing. And I did I think erroneously say that 23andMe specifically does sequence the whole genome. They do now offer a whole, I don't want to say whole, but exome sequencing, which is much more inclusive than simply focusing on the Snips, but they do. Even the the snips that they sequence are not only the snips that are then mapped to the analysis of those snips. There's a lot more raw data that 23andMe can give you than they actually use in their analytics telling you you're likely to have a widow's peak or you're likely to snore or you know whatever they tell you or like this is, you know where your ancestry is from. But of course they do use Snips for their main sequencing technology and then there is an exome option. So, so it is important to to remember that it's, it's not your entire genome that they do give you, but the raw data does include significantly more Snips that can be then used with other software programs to determine like ancestry or or phenotype across different gene loci.

S: Yeah. And just to summarize, so yeah, the, the Snips are single mutations, basically single nucleotide polymorphisms, polymorphisms. And so just mapping those out can tell you what which Snips you share with other populations and therefore what popular what your populations are likely to be in your ancestry. The the exome sequencing just looks at the genes and the genome sequencing looks at the non coding DNA as well. That's everything.

C: Yeah, exomes is just the code portion.

S: That's really just for research.

C: Right.

S: Yeah. And we, we do exome, you know, sequencing even clinically just for like, yeah, we, we have patients with some mystery genetic disease, like let's just do an exome, you know, just see if there's anything that, you know, that that we could find. It's like a fishing expedition. But we never do the whole genome because, you know, it's.

C: Just right, Yeah, because there's no reason. And I, the point I was trying to make when I was saying things like they have all your genetic material or they've got your genome, is that if you want to delete this information from 23andMe before it is sold off, download it. And it takes a while, but like get access you, you paid for this. So download everything that they have because they don't just have the snips that directly map to the handful of features that they tell you about on the site. There's a lot more data there than is actively being used. Like they're using it for research right now. Get your data. Yeah, even if it's not your entire genome. Right, right.

S: All right, thanks.

Science or Fiction (1:24:47)

Theme: None Item #1: A recent study finds that, unlike modern rhinos which are mostly solitary, a North American species of rhinoceros from 12 million years ago (Teleoceras major) lived in vast herds. Item #2: Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli. Item #3: A study of over 1,700 people found a correlation between moderate, heavy, or former drinking, a type of brain damage called arteriolosclerosis, and impaired cognitive ability.

Answer	RevealItem
Fiction	Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli.
Science	A recent study finds that, unlike modern rhinos which are mostly solitary, a North American species of rhinoceros from 12 million years ago (Teleoceras major) lived in vast herds.
Science	A study of over 1,700 people found a correlation between moderate, heavy, or former drinking, a type of brain damage called arteriolosclerosis, and impaired cognitive ability.

Host	RevealResult
Steve	swept

Rogue	RevealGuess
Bob	Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli.
Jay	Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli.
Evan	Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli.
Cara	Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli.

S: All right, guys, let's move on with science or fiction.

C: It's time for.

US#07: Science. Or. Fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake. And I challenged my panel of skeptics. Tell me which one is the fake. You got 3 News items this week. You guys ready? You're ready to go. Item number one. A recent study finds that unlike modern rhinos, which are mostly solitary. A North American species of rhinoceros from 12:12 million years ago, Teleoceros major lived in vast herds. Eye #2 Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain, which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli and eye #3 A study of over 1700 people found a correlation between moderate, heavy or former drinking, a type of brain damage called arteriolosclerosis, and impaired cognitive ability. Just to clarify that one, they correlated on the one hand either moderate, heavy or former drinking. So all of those correlated with this type of brain damage and impaired cognitive ability. Bob, go first. You.

B: Bastard. Every 4th week, Bob. Let's see, yeah.

E: Roughly.

B: Yeah, very roughly. All right, so we got some modern, right? So North American rhinos for millions of years ago. We're in big herds, man. Imagine that. I'd love to see that. We need to de extinct a herd of them. So I could see that. Then we got the second one here, using AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain predicting responses from novel stimuli. Complete, huh. I don't know about that one. Let's see, we got a study of over 1700 people, found a core at BLAU. I'm not even going to worry about 3. It's just two, a complete digital twin of a mouse brain. I think it's a little bit much. I would think that even though there's small brains, still a complete duplicate. I don't think we're there yet. I hope we are. I hope I'm wrong here. I just think that's a little bit much for right now. So I'll say that one is fiction.

S: All right, Jay.

J: I tend to agree with Bob about the the complete digital mouse brain. You were quite perspicacious, Jay. Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain which is able to predict responses to novel stimulate. I can't imagine that that's true. I can't imagine it that says brains are we. We don't even understand how brains fully function. Let me Bob, there might be tricky words in here. Hold on. Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twins. A twin like a mirror version of the mouse brain Bob. That's how I'm interpreting the word twin. That's got to be the fiction. I'd even put money on it.

C: Oh, money.

J: OK, Evan.

E: Oh boy. Well, I'm inclined certainly to agree. Have we talked about brains and like digital brains and how it's we're so far away from that this, if this happened now, wouldn't this have been like some major, major piece of news right now? Now, I know we've talked about that being a fallacy in its own right, OK, But still, this, that is huge.

B: Well, mouse brains are are small, to be fair. Well. Definitely sure.

E: Maybe if you went with fruit fly or something to fruit. Fly brains. But yeah, I'll, I'll.

B: Just got like what, 13 neurons?

E: I'll join the guys and say that one's fiction. OK. And Cara.

C: Well, yeah, I guess I can't go alone now. I mean the arteriosclerosis 1 is interesting, the correlation between moderate heavy or former drinking and arteriosclerosis.

S: Arteriolosclerosis.

C: Oh, sorry, arterioliosclerosis. I can imagine. So it's the arterioles, not the arteries, right? Is what this the? Small.

S: It's the small ones.

C: Yeah, the small ones, I can imagine that that is true that like not any amount, but that moderate drinking plus would increase your risk, I suppose. But I I would also imagine that there is a dose response in there. But that's not what you said here. But you also did not say that that's not true. The rhinos, well, yeah, they're probably wildly different. The North American rhinos, it's like our camels, like they're probably completely different organisms. So sure, their behavior might have been different. That one doesn't bother me that much. And the digital mouse brain, it actually doesn't bother with me that much either. So I guess my assumption here, because I know that we have a mouse connectome, I think that we have largely kind of mapped the mouse brain in all the different ways that we know how at this point. So it's really just a function then of sort of coding it. But maybe we don't have the whole mouse brain. That would be my guess. Maybe we only have one level of the mouse brain coded, because usually you do say, you know, this is the fiction, but the real headlight. So I'm curious if there's something in there where we did do something really cool with a digital twin, but it's maybe not a complete brain or something. Or maybe with that you, Evan, that said, maybe it was the fruit fly.

E: Yes, that was a suggestion.

C: Yeah. Maybe it was a different Organism. So I'll go with the guys and say that that's the fiction.

S: All right, let's take these in order. We'll start with #1A recent study finds that unlike modern rhinos, which are mostly solitary North American species of rhinoceros from 12 million years ago, Telioceras major lived in vast herds. You guys all think this one is science and this one is science. This one is science. I heard, yeah. So no reaction, Evan, No.

US#01: No, the audience is laughing. I know.

S: That you How did they, how did they figure this out, you might ask. How could they know?

US#01: Herd Prince.

S: But Prince is a good guess. So this is there. There was a find a while ago of essentially 100 of these things that were killed pretty much at the same time, not necessarily the same instant, but over a very short period of time due to a volcanic eruption. Probably they breathed in the ash and they died of starvation and dehydration. So maybe over a matter of days. So, you know, finding 100 like you would never find 100 rhinoceroses in one spot, you know, so they, they thinking is, well, maybe they, they, this was A1 herd, you know, or, or a part of a, of even bigger herd, but it was near a watering hole. So the alternative hypothesis was, well, maybe they were just congregating here at the water hole, right. So how did they distinguish those two situations? They looked at the bones, they looked at the isotopes, the isotopes in different layers of different bones in order to the ratios of isotopes in order to figure out where they were moving over time. Because you can map out the different isotope ratios based upon where they would have been feeding, right? Because the soil from like one region to the next has different isotopes of minerals. And they could look at the pattern of isotopes, say, OK, this they were feeding and this fairly precise location in in order to have like at this layer of whatever of bone that was being laid down. They basically found that these rhinos were not moving, They were not migrating seasonally, and they were not real. They were basically staying in this one place the whole time. So that means this was one vast herd of rhinoceroses. They weren't just congregating here. It seemed pretty rigorous, the study, but they get into a lot of super technical details that I didn't quite grasp. So, you know, we'll see, you know how well it holds up. I mean, it was peer reviewed, but you know, these things have to go through the meat grinder of having a bunch of experts pick over it. But it seemed pretty solid from what I was reading. But again, it's inferential, right? This was the hypothesis was if this was 1 herd, the evidence should be that they don't migrate. And that would that's what the evidence showed. OK, let's go to #2 Scientists have used AI to develop a complete digital twin of a mouse brain which is able to predict responses to novel stimuli. You guys all think this one is the fiction because you think we aren't there yet. But the critical new bit here guys is using AI. You know? You know how they did it. So this is science.

B: I didn't say that. I'm just. Care. I don't care. You're not going to make a digital twin. I mean, how are you going to map?

C: Yeah, you are.

B: All of those connections for a specific, not a generic mouse, but a specific mouse and make that twin.

S: They, they, well, I'll tell you what they did. They used a large language model and, and they fed it data essentially from looking at a mouse brain functioning. And then, so they basically trained the the large language model type of AI on data from mouse brain activity and it was able to predict the response to novel stimuli, right. So it basically, in other words, they was able to predict what the mouse brain's response would would be to a new stimuli that it wasn't trained on.

US#04: That's a twin.

S: Yeah, that's a digital twin. It's it's twinning the activity of the MASH brain. However, the.

C: Digital version of a real brain.

S: This is a fiction because they only did the visual cortex.

C: Oh OK, so that but they did do a part of the. Brain, they did.

S: Part of the brain, that's what.

E: You said Cara.

S: Yeah.

C: And is it, is it, are they doing a lot of reliability testing on it? Yeah, like so far it seems to work.

S: I think I think they're going to get to a whole mash brain pretty quickly.

C: I think so too. Yeah, they have the doing. Today, my friend.

S: Not, but not today. Yeah, I saw I was. The thing is, a lot of the headlines didn't quite distinguish those things. I was hoping I was going to get somebody on the headlines. I didn't even know There's a digital twin of mass brain. But it's like when you read, it's like, oh, it was only, it was the visual cortex only, which makes sense because then of course, the stimuli was visual stimuli. So previous iterations of this, they would make a digital twin of the visual cortex, but it only worked on this stimuli it was trained on. So that's why now they're using AI. And yeah, once it was trained on enough data, it was like able to predict responses to stimuli it wasn't explicitly trained on. So it's basically functioning like the visual cortex of the mouse brain. So I think you start with the visual cortex because it's the easiest one to test, right? You giving give it visual stimuli, but this basically is a proof of concept for this method, right?

B: You know, it's pretty slick, but what kind of testing, you know, would you have to do to be confident that you you could then reproduce a novel, You know, you could mimic a novel. Stimuli.

S: But if it's behaving exactly like the mouse brain behaves.

B: Yeah. But you, you have to train it though, right? Yeah. How many data points do you need to train a visual cortex in order to do that? That's my question a lot. It seems like you would need to do a lot of training, yeah.

C: But that's what AI is.

S: That's what that's the exact. Very large, yeah.

B: Right. So, so I'm just, I'm just thinking, you know.

S: Let's say how much training do you need to do on an LLM to get chat GPTA? Shit ton.

B: A shit ton, yeah. So, so the question is, you said the the vision, of course the visual cortex is a low hanging fruit.

S: But alright, so you want here's here's what they did they.

B: What about the other pieces of the brain? Wouldn't that be exponentially harder?

S: Why would it be exponentially harder?

B: Because it's easy to to to.

S: Not so, you see.

B: So here to do the visual cortex, 'cause you're just like, hey, hey, mouse, look over here, look at this.

S: It is a little bit of low, low hanging fruit, but yeah, you're right. But we'll see. So what they they actually explained how much training they did. 900 minutes of brain activity from 8 mice watching clips of action-packed movies such as Mad Max. That was the, that was the training data. What the hell is that?

US#05: Mad Max?

B: Really. But yeah, wait, so this is not a twin. It's this is a amalgam of nine mice.

S: Yeah, of course it is. Thought it was.

C: One yeah, that's always a twin is never going to be of a single yeah it's. Always a. Digital Twin, It's going to be of a mob.

S: I got news for you, Bob. That's all F MRI data, right? That's you're not looking at an individual brain, it's always aggregated data.

C: Yeah.

S: Yeah.

C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it wouldn't be useful. It wouldn't be useful to twin a single brain because there would be no reliability there that just tell you what this one Organism would do that's.

S: Not what they're after anyway. They want after a generic mouse brain.

C: Yeah, they want to know how the mouse brain works. They don't want to know how Joe works.

E: How long there for before we have the the human? I don't know. Oh, a human brain.

C: I mean at.

E: At at this. I would say a couple of starting. This is as the slope. How? How far into?

S: The it's still a long way off, but not nearly as long as I thought it was before this started happening.

E: Oh, interesting, because yeah, you've talked about this being like in distant.

S: I think, I think we've gone from decades to maybe a single decade or years. Well, I mean to a certain again, it's A to a certain level of resolution. I can't trust you anymore. You know, because this again, AI is really good at analyzing massive amounts of data and, and finding patterns and, and replicating it. It's like how close are we to being able to make an AI generated movie? You can't tell from the real thing.

E: Not too far.

S: Well, how much data is in that? You know, So I, I don't know, obviously, I'm just saying it's, it's not as long as I, I've revised my estimate based upon this using a, this type of AI technology in neuroscience with our, our modern mechanisms of, of, of imaging brain activity. And this is, this is ahead of schedule guys. You know, I would not have imagined this five years ago, but.

C: But we don't have, I mean, I'm curious your take on this, Steve. We don't have a full human connectome yet.

S: No, we don't.

C: So. But don't we need that before we can?

S: That's a good question.

C: Yeah.

S: You know, I don't know because I think this is partly doing that. If it's not creating the connectome, it's twinning it, right? It's replicating.

C: Yeah, but I think.

S: Because we already should have the connectome.

C: But I think because we already have a mouse connectome, structurally, yeah it's easier than to twin function. I could be wrong, I could be talking out of my ass, but. No, it's an interesting question. I think I would have to do it deeper. Reason I doubt, yeah.

E: Maybe the AIO will help fill in those blanks for us.

C: Maybe. But yeah, I think we're still pretty far away and.

E: Boom.

S: So The thing is, the AI is accelerating the connectome projects too.

C: Yeah. That's true.

S: So it's how long until we do have a full human connectome and then how long before that connectome is a functional digital twin of a human brain, right? I don't know, but it's the, but the progress has accelerated significantly once you threw AI into the mix. Let me just say that. So we'll see. You know, it wouldn't surprise me. Like I know I'm just throwing numbers out there. We five years ago, if you asked me, I probably would have said that 50 years. Now I might say, I don't know 1020 years. You know it's not a.

E: Thought it was beyond our lifetime.

S: Yeah, cool. All right, let's go on #3A study of over 1700 people found a correlation being moderate, heavy or former drinking, a type of brain damage called arteriolosclerosis, and impaired cognitive ability. This, of course, is science. So again, I thought that some of you might think, oh, I thought moderate alcohol use wasn't bad, but in no this. Yeah. So moderate in this study was one to seven drinks per week. So it could be as little as one drink per week. Heavy was 8 or more per week.

C: Right, so drinking more than one drink every day.

S: Yeah, and this is compared to non drinkers, right? So non drinkers, moderate drinkers, heavy drinkers and former drinkers. The former drinkers also had the damage. Now the the most damage was in the heavy drinker group. It was a dose response Cara not that huge though. It was, it was.

E: Wow, what? The. Hell yeah it. Doesn't take much. Huh.

S: Yeah, yeah. So just the regular alcohol use at least again, this is they're they're keen to point out this is a correlational study. That's why I said correlate. This doesn't prove cause and effect. This is a autopsy study, right. So these were just, they looked, they did the autopsied and the brains of people who died and then got this data historically from the family and then looked to see if they had signs of damage. So that then that they were actually the other type of damage they were looking for is neurofibrillary tangles, which is an age-related Alzheimer's type of thing that we see. And then also this damage to the small arteries, the arterioles, they basically clawed off and that causes, you know, brain damage. So anyway, so this isn't a perfect study, but it was, you know, it was the study they were able to do. It is a very interesting data. It does strongly suggest that you know regular alcohol use over years is not good for the brain.

C: Can I ask though, Stephen, you may not be able to answer because I don't know how in depth you went, but the non drinkers like clearly there was a significant difference there, but it's not like they didn't have any age-related damage, right?

S: They had, of course, yeah, absolutely. They didn't have pristine brains. It was just, there was it was increased. It was just increased.

C: OK, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think sometimes we, not, we like you, but like we as science communicators have to be careful when we talk about things like correlational studies or even causative studies that what we're talking about are differences and not, I don't know. I, I feel like there's an assumption sometimes when we talk about these things that it's like, oh, these were pristine and those were diseased or these were pristine and those were damaged and it's like, but no brain is pristine, no. Right.

S: Well, yeah, mostly, no, There are, there are super agers whose brains look great. They just don't develop tangles and plaques and stuff as they get older. It's like one 2% of the population. That's just all genetic, you know. So if you had somebody who was like, oh, my grandmother was sharp at 100, good for you. You probably got those good genes. Yeah, I know that's like my mother. My that's my my wife's family. Her mother is 98 and working and, you know, she's definitely showing her age, but she is sharp as a tack for a 98 year old. She's a super ager 100%. And that's her whole side of the family. They're all in late 90s, early hundreds, you know.

US#01: That's nuts, man. Wow.

S: Yeah, they also just one other little note here. They said that the impaired cognitive abilities was fully mediated by the arteriolosclerosis. So those in other words, that marker of brain injury explained any observed decline in cognitive ability.

U: Oh, OK.

S: Wow, that's interesting. That's good to know.

C: Yeah.

S: That's actually maybe one of the more interesting outcomes, I think. Yeah, yeah, that's why I brought it up. All right, good job. Everyone three weeks in a row. Thought I was going to get somebody this week on that tricky, the tricky one.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:44:58)

"Science is not just a collection of techniques or strategies for producing knowledge, it is an ethical stance of commitment to the truth. The good scientist knows that honestly following the evidence is a form of respect for nature, and honestly communicating one’s findings is a form of respect for others."  – - Michael Anderson, (description of author)

S: All right, Evan, give us a quote.

E: All right, this week's quote was suggested by listener. Ethan doesn't say where Ethan is from. But Ethan, thank you for suggesting this quote. Science is not just a collection of techniques or strategies for producing knowledge, it is an ethical stance of commitment to the truth. The good scientists knows that honestly following the evidence is a form of respect for nature, and honestly communicating one's findings is a form of respect for others. And that's a quote by Santiago Ramon. Icajal.

S: That's interesting timing on that quote, purely by coincidence, because I was just, you know, in the comments to my blog this week talking about that very thing in meaning the idea that there is no system so robust that it is completely independent from the people who are operating it, right. You know, you still need good people acting in good faith. No system can completely control for that. You know what I'm saying?

US#10: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like it's ordered.

S: That's the whole in order for the forest to be green, all the trees need to be green. In order for science to function for it to be honest, right, the scientists have to be honest. The people have to be honest and operating in good faith, and the same is true, I think, of any institution. It's only as good as the people in it.

E: They're here. I agree with that.

S: Well, thank you guys for joining me this week. Drive to that see Steve. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.