SGU Episode 1066
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| SGU Episode 1066 |
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| December 13th 2025 |
"Futuristic airlines navigating through a cosmic storm of electrifying skies." |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?” |
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| Show Notes |
| SGU Forum |
Intro
Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
S: Hello, and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday, December 9th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
E: Hey everybody.
S: Cara, Santa Maria. Howdy, Jay Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein.
E: Good evening everyone.
S: How's everyone doing? You guys ready for the holidays?
E: Getting down there. Getting. There.
S: The.
E: Decoration.
S: It's a lot of work, man.
C: You guys decorate?
B: I did that last year. Oh yeah, man, sure.
C: Yeah, you got kids, so that I get. But you guys, everybody else decorates.
B: My kids in Alaska. Man, I still decorate the crap out of this house.
S: I got you in the holiday spirit, I guess you don't decorate at all.
B: Bob, we're talking about.
S: Put a candle in the window. Put a.
C: Well, yeah, so my door, I do something minimal. I always get like a little tree from Trader Joe's, like a little tabletop tree. And I put on my dining table and then that's where I throw all the gifts that I'm giving to people. But that's basically the extent of my decoration.
E: That's OK because then I don't have to do much cleanup. That is the point, the cleanup.
S: Do you like even like watch holiday movies or anything?
E: No, really, what was the last holiday movie you think you.
C: I'd say Elf is the only holiday movie I really watch. But.
S: You don't watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or.
E: Miracle on 34th St. The old Classics.
S: The heat miser. I mean, come on, heat miser.
E: Right the heat miser. Christmas Carol.
S: Wow, Santa Claus is coming to town.
E: Wait the heat, miser. Yeah, but.
S: You have no cultural miser, cold miser, and the heat miser.
E: Wasn't it freeze miser?
S: Snow Miser, Cold Miser, One of those.
C: Ice Miser, what is happening?
J: It's it's, it's, it's one of those shows like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, where they have puppets and they animate them.
C: Oh, oh, do you guys. It is the Snow Miser.
E: It is Snow Miser.
C: OK, I don't.
E: Yeah. You see, that's how long it's been for me.
C: I thought it was Freeze Miser, but that's that's you guys remember when we did one of our skeptical extravaganzas and there was a reference to some character from those old claymation movies and I was like, what is this? Were it was. I don't I like it when we're playing those games and I'm like, that is a completely foreign. It's like Quidditch. One time was one of the references and I was like I don't know what that is the. Burger Meister.
S: Meister Burger.
J: You know what? Quidditch is now though, right?
C: Now I do. I've been educated. But you know what?
E: A Charlie in the Box is tough.
C: What? It's happening. Oh.
S: Careful, did you have a childhood Karen, or were you deprived because you were Mormon? They didn't let you watch any of.
C: These, I think I had a childhood a little later than you.
E: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly what it is. We had a childhood where there was a television set that had three channels that functioned all the time and maybe 5 that you could get. And this was on television. You had no other real choice to watch something other than this in the 70s.
S: But I showed these kids. I showed these shows to my kids.
C: Right, but my parents didn't.
S: Yeah, So you just had neglectful parents. We.
E: It's yeah, it was a matter of of scarcity of resources, as it were.
S: It was the year without a Santa Claus 1974, the Burger Meister Meister Burger.
B: Voiced by the iconic Paul Freeze, who you may know from the Disney's Haunted Mansion host voice. Yeah, that's Paul Freeze is. Wonderful.
C: Wait, his last name is Freeze?
B: That's crazy. Yes, Yeah.
E: Okay, well, Diehard is still the best Christmas movie out there. Perhaps.
S: It's yeah.
C: Does this mean that next week is our year in review already?
S: Yes, we are recording the year in review on the 17th. So if you're if you're listening to the show soon after it comes out, you still have a few days to e-mail us your votes for best of favorite, this Skeptical hero, skeptical Jackass, the favorite design and Memoriam anything you want us to talk about that reviews 2025, the SGU, etcetera.
C: So many to choose from this year, Jackass, is that it?
S: I mean, there's one clear winner which we'll talk about, but. Only we have we have to talk. About runner UPS because otherwise there's only you know.
C: We there's plenty of runner UPS.
E: For which?
S: Category Skeptical Jackass of the Year? Oh my, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
E: But no, we're teasing full week.
S: Before we have to do the review show.
E: Yeah.
S: All right, let's get down to this episode.
News Items
Young Cancer (04:35)
S: Cara, you're gonna start start us off talking about a light hearted topic, childhood cancer.
C: No, it's not childhood. Sorry, it's young people. But maybe it's like not childhood.
S: Okay, young people, but not children. That's okay then.
C: So no, actually this, this is slightly lighter hearted than than you would expect. So there, there's a new article in the New York Times. It was just published yesterday as of this recording. And the title really caught me. And so I was like, Oh, I what's going on here? And then I was like, oh, yes, this debate. It's, it's an important debate that I've been hearing a lot about. So the, the title of this article is why some doctors say they're cancers that shouldn't be treated, which like, that's a big gotcha headline for an article. So statistics show and there's a clear and kind of irrefutable trend. Now we don't we can argue and actually I want to have a conversation about why the numbers look like this. But statistics are showing that across 8 different cancers, there is a massive increase among younger people. But the question now is, A, what is causing this and, B, should we be doing something about it, which sounds like a duh question, especially if you're a person who is dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Like, it can be really hard to hear somebody say, I wonder if we should have even caught that or I wonder if we should actually try and treat that if you're somebody who has faced cancer before. But let's hear out the experts. So these 8 diagnosis are these eight different cancers, thyroid cancer, kidney cancer, cancer of the anus, the small intestine, colorectal, endometrial cancer and pancreatic cancer. So those are solid cancers. And then also myeloma, which is a blood cancer are on the rise since 1992 and in a pretty significant way. We're also seeing other types like breast cancer that are increasing. But we're not talking about breast cancer in this particular conversation. We're talking about those eight previous that I mentioned this, there's been this sharp uptick and specifically for people under the age of 50. So that's what they mean by young Steve or younger. Yeah. And so why are we seeing a sharp uptick? Well, you're seeing a big division among the experts. But I will say that when you sort of dig into it, what I'm seeing is that a lot of the people who are concerned from an environmental perspective tend to have more epidemiological expertise. But a lot of people who are in the trenches, you know, oncologists who are in the trenches treating cancer have a different view altogether. So I don't want to say there's this like false dichotomy or this war out there of like these people are saying this is the reason and these people, that's the reason is both probably. And there are plenty of rational people who are saying, yes, it's both. But what do you think the two main camps are right now? What do you think is the reason that we're seeing a a very sharp uptick in, in eight different cancers among patients under 50?
E: Well, better, no better. No way we're detecting it.
C: There you go. That's like what everybody said first, right? Like because we are checking for them and we are doing that in a better way. So that's what a lot of oncologists are saying. No, no, we're just detecting these things better. We have better resolution. We're doing more screenings than we ever used to do. But there are, you know, epidemiologists and oncologists and and other experts were saying, but even beyond that, what if there is an environmental factor? We do see obesity on the rise. We are seeing more obviously environmental pollutants than we've ever seen before. Climate changes on the rise, like more kind of, you know, some people are blaming like processed food, which I don't think there's a lot of good evidence to support that. But but you know, a lot of people are saying we don't know, but we need to figure this out and we need to research this more. But let's now get down into the trend. So this is the bulk of the reporting here is based on an article that was published in JAMA Internal Medicine by a team out of Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard and then Dell Medical School in Austin, TX. And so they wrote a special communication entitled The rise in early onset cancer in the US population more apparent than real. So right there, that gives a little bit away. And they're saying that these 8 cancers with the fastest rising incidents, the ones that I mentioned previously, they they seem to have doubled in incidents since 1992. But what hasn't gone up? So more people are being diagnosed, but what are more people not doing? Death rate, dying. Yeah. And so they argue because the incidence rate has increased, but the death rate has stayed flat. This is probably a diagnostic issue more than anything else. More things are being uncovered, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these cancers were deadly or even dangerous. Now there are people who are still counter arguing with that within the, you know, population of experts saying well, we also have better treatment than we ever had before. So of course mortality is not going to rise in lockstep with incidents because as we're finding more cancers, we're also getting better at people not dying from cancer. And there there is an argument to be said there. That's why this is really, really complicated. But here's an example they discussed in the write up in the New York Times. They said, for example, colorectal deaths are up by .5% a year, but their incidence is increasing by 2%. So there's a mismatch there. Whereas endometrial cancer is in lockstep. We're actually seeing a 2% increase in both the incidence rate and the death rate. So it's it's very likely the case that we can't lump all these 8 cancers together either. We might be seeing different things happening with these different cancers, but one of the big questions is, and, and this is a question that a lot of oncologists are asking, should we be doing the screenings that we're doing as intensely, especially since we're using CT, ultrasound and MRI's that are increasingly more sensitive, We're using them more frequently. We're doing a lot of blood tests and we're finding a lot of cancers via happenstance that previously were not part of routine cancer screening. They say in this article that that there are cancers that will spontaneously go away. There are cancers that will start growing and then just stop and never become a problem. There are a lot of early, early stage cancers that are never symptomatic. And I remember and I don't know if you guys have ever heard this, but when my dad got prostate cancer and he had pretty early stage prostate cancer was so he was able to undergo, you know, aggressive treatment, but he was, you know, he was, I think in his early 70s when he had the treatment. So it may not even be considered aggressive early on, catch it before it spread. There doesn't appear to any be any risk. But I remember his physician said to him at the time, a lot of people will not die from prostate cancer. Some will, but a lot won't. But I will tell you that a lot of people who die will have prostate cancer on autopsy. Does that make sense to you guys?
E: Yeah. But so does that mean we should continue to screen at the levels we have been screening or we are over screening?
C: Well, I think my I don't think that's the either of those questions is the conclusion based on what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that in people my father's age, a lot of men have prostate cancer, and they will die from something else first because it's so slow growing. But there are other people who will get prostate cancer. It will grow very quickly, and it will be the cause of a lot of disability and pain and potentially death. And the problem is, right now, we don't know. We just don't know who is going to have a cancer that grows really quickly and who is going to have a cancer that actually never causes them a problem.
E: Is family history a determinant?
C: They're hugely yeah. But The thing is, you almost have to set that aside because people who have heavy family histories are already getting screened. Usually the recommendation is to screen those individuals. So. So now there's this question, right? Are we at this tipping point with diagnostic medicine where an asymptomatic patient who has a small abnormality that has no, you know, previously identified clinical relevance, something is caught on a screen, we might go in and biopsy it. We might end up doing aggressive treatment on this patient that can be painful, that can cause disability. And should we have done that? Would this patient, because there's no way to know after the fact, right? There's a huge bias after the fact. The cancer might be gone. Well, is it gone because of the treatment or is it become because it was going to go away anyway or because it wasn't ever going to grow? And so this is a, this is a big, I think, conundrum in clinical oncology right now. We're seeing certain physicians, I mean, really respected physicians. Timothy Rebik is an epidemiologist and geneticist at Dana Farber, which is, you know, really reputable Cancer Center and a Co chair of the American Association of Cancer Research and or of the conference of the American Association of Cancer Research. And he said something very interesting is going on here and it's not good. This is very and another Doctor Who is the chief medical officer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology. That's Doctor Julie Grallo, I think is how you pronounce it. She said the surge in cases is of grave concern. I'm saying this is real and it is dangerous or I'm sorry and it is serious and we need to understand why. But then you have other researchers saying, I don't want to treat a patient that doesn't need to be treated. And I am really concerned about the level of screening that we're doing right now and the level of cancers that we're finding that they may lead to overtreatment. We have examples of when this happened in the past. Steve, you remember when PSA tests came on the scene?
S: Yeah, there's been a huge for, you know, first they did them and, and prostate cancer incidents jumped because now we're testing or screening for it. Then they, they decided we're screening for it too much, doing unnecessary procedures, let's stop doing it. And then the the incidents plummeted because they stopped doing this, that screening test, you know, again in asymptomatic individuals.
C: And that's the thing, during that time a lot of men had their prostates taken out and had to undergo some treatments that probably really affect to their quality of lives, but then they wouldn't have needed to.
S: You know, the the burden of of actual, you know, prostate cancer increased. So now they kind of found a middle ground I. Think middle ground exactly. So it's, again, it's something you got to tweak. You got to find the sweet spot. It's all, again, risk versus benefit, right? So if you screen too much, you end up causing more harm than good. You find cases that are too benign, that don't need to be treated and you end up causing unnecessary procedures. If you don't screen enough, you miss early treatable this illness. You know that that progresses. So there's always those lines crossed at some point. You always look like for.
C: That point, the question is where is that sweet spot? And I think I think one of the ways to approach this that I didn't really think about, I mean I guess I thought about it, but not in this clear of a way until after I read up on this is that you've got sort of that, you know, under screening over screening question. You've got that incidence versus, you know, mortality question. But you've also got the question of individual patients and epidemiological population wide measurements. And I think that is a question that we're really juggling with here, right? Because as an individual, I can tell you, you find a cancer in my body, I want it out of me, right? And like there's a screening test available to me that I could find something early. I want that. But at the, and it's so hard for an individual to think at a population level because they know that at the population level, any measure we're talking about means some people died. And so it's, it's where is that balance between the two, right between what is best for the everyone without leaving out the few. But also we have to remember when it comes to risk and benefit, it's not just about a surgery you might not have needed. Some chemos can cause other cancers, right? Radiation is not without its risks. Cancer treatment, it can be very aggressive and it is 100% necessary when it is 100% necessary. But if, if it is not necessary, I do not want to undergo chemotherapy or radiation. And that's the question. And I think we don't really know the answer yet of that line in the sand of when it's necessary and when it's not. And that's what we're trying to figure out.
S: Right. But it's just good to be thoughtful about it.
C: Absolutely, And that's where things Evan like family history, genetic testing, you know, there are a lot of other parts of the algorithm that you can bring into play. But what we don't want to do is cast such a wide at this, we pick up something and then say, oh, look at this thing we picked up that we never would have picked up before. Just to be safe, let's do a pretty aggressive treatment that could have negative consequences downstream for somebody's health and Wellness.
S: OK. Thanks, Cara. Yep, Jay.
Adapting to Modern Life (18:11)
S: So tell me about this study into how humans are adapting to modern life.
J: Steve, let me ask you a question. How attached are you to your toilet?
S: I'm not attached to it at the moment. Yeah.
J: But it's something you like. Right.
S: I would. I would find life without it challenging.
J: Alright, so obviously I'm kidding, but the question is not totally irrelevant. A better question is how much do you guys think the modern world is, you know, relatively healthy for humans?
E: Compared to.
J: Not.
C: That's a hard question. Like, in some ways it's way more healthy because we have modern medicine and, you know, we have all these tools that allows 100 years.
E: Yeah, right.
C: But in other ways, it's way worse because we have climate change and pollution and, you know, trade forever.
B: Chemicals and yes, vaccines are going to be kind of illegal before too long.
C: Yeah, there's stuff in our blood right now that didn't exist 50 years ago.
B: A lot of plastic that's.
J: Yeah, the one that got me is the plastic, the microplastic in my brain. That blows my mind. All right, let's get.
E: Into the brain.
J: So we will, we'll look back on human history and, you know, people lived in the natural world among natural materials and features, landscapes that were shaped by geology or the climate and ecology. They were using tools made out of stone, wood and bone. You know, their shelters were super simple, probably temporary and of course, dependent on whatever local materials that they can find. An analysis by evolutionary anthropologist Colin Shaw at the University of Zurich and Daniel Longman at Lot Borough University. They asked a very simple, but, you know, I think a lot of people who read this found it to be a little uncomfortable. They a question that they they put up. They said, have humans changed their habits so fast that our biology can't keep up with it? And is that now eroding our ability to survive and reproduce over the long run? And that is a question that, you know, I think is a legitimate one to ask because there's lots of things that we can point at that. You know, potentially could be doing us harm. And what, what is that harm and what does that harm, you know, long term? What would it do? So they, the authors created the timeline and they said, you know, about 5 million years ago, hominins lived in environments like I was saying before, made of soil, plants, animals, water, rock. And even after the agricultural revolution, people were still mostly in, you know, what we'd call these classic natural settings. But when industrialization started in the late 1700s, and then particularly this crazy rapid acceleration in the mid, you know, the 20th century, human environments have obviously changed, and they've changed significantly. Now we have fossil fuel use, we have industrial agriculture, we have plastics and microplastics. We have explosive urban growth. And what we've done is we've turned much of the planet into what they call an industrial continuum where even like the most natural places now contain microplastic fragments and other pollutants. By 2018, more than half of humanity already lives in cities, right? If you look at if you look at where the population centers are, it's in the cities, of course. And people in other countries like the United States and Canada and the United Kingdom, they, they spend about 93% of their time in doors that that's really when you hear that number and you compare it to your lifestyle, I'm sure a lot of you out there would say, Nope, that's not me. I'm sure a lot of you guys out there would say, yeah, that sounds about right. How much time do you guys spend outdoors when you have a full time job and you have kids and you have to make dinner and you have to get them up in the morning? And then on weekends you're super busy 'cause you got to visit people that, you know, like, are we really spending as much time outdoors as we should be?
E: I. Try so hard to get outside because of those things, Jay. I make a concerted effort to do it as opposed to being locked in my office at a desk, especially during long hours. I try to get outside as much as.
J: Possible, of course. I mean, I think inherently most people would just agree with that. Yeah, I should be out more. I should get some sunlight. You know, I need some exercise. But that's not what's happening. And it's not just happening in the country that you happen to live in. It's happening pretty much everywhere. So in effect, we've become these indoor urban creatures, right? And, you know, we we are daily experience is utterly dominated by artificial materials, artificial light, industrial noises, you know, all these things, you know, interacting with our computers. And a big one here guys, is just polluted air. Like, you know, most houses that that we all live in, like, you know, the air inside of our houses isn't a great thing to breathe in. Like you need to air out your house. You know, if you have a gas stove, you're definitely putting a lot of pollutants into the air that could cause you harm. You know, there's just a lot of reasons by living in the structures that we do and in the environments that we've constructed over the last, you know, 100 years, they're not healthy for us. As as hokey as this sounds, you know, we truly did evolve to live in outdoor environments, not in the indoor environments that we are completely surrounded by today. And the core of the paper asks whether this new environment that I'm talking about is undermining these 4 biological systems that directly support evolutionary fitness. And here's what they had to say about this. They said reproductive function comes first. So global fertility is falling, and social factors clearly matter. Here, the authors point to a long list of industrial contaminants that plausibly impair the ability to produce an abundance of offspring. Air pollution is associated with lower sperm concentration and total sperm number. You know, they have poorer mobility. There's a higher risk of pregnancy loss. Pesticides and herbicides can reduce sperm quality and testosterone and are linked to preterm birth and birth defects. Microplastics and nanoplastics accumulate in tissue, triggering oxidative stress, DNA damage, epigenetic changes that can harm male and female fertility, endocrine disrupting chemicals like phthalates, right? These are chemicals that are added to plastics to make them flexible and softer or durable. And some flame retardants interfere with hormone systems that regulate reproduction. So all of these things in combination with each other, you know, there is a measurable effect and, and lots of scientists are finding, you know, finding that they're, they're seeing trends now that weren't there or weren't as obvious, you know, going back even 30 years. The authors, they tie all of this to two mechanisms. 1 is reduced exposure to the diverse environmental microbes that help train our immune systems. The other is direct damage from air, noise and light pollution that disrupts immune cell function and circadian rhythms. Right. So it seems to be that they found some some legitimate evidence and patterns here that we can no longer ignore. And we have to, we have to pay some real consideration to it.
S: Yeah, it depends on where you live. I mean, if you live in a city that has bad air quality going outside, it's not going to help. That's not going to really do much for you. I mean, there's a lot of speculation mixed in here. Like not everything they're talking about is like there there has been any clear research showing that there's a specific health effect there. There are the ones that I think are the most solid. I mean, clearly air pollution has a massive negative health effect, especially for respiratory illnesses, but but for other illnesses as well. And that's, again, that's one of the biggest things about burning fossil fuels. I mean, it, it costs in the US alone, I think it figures like $100 million a year and increased health care costs just from, you know, again, burning fossil fuels itself. The light, the light is interesting as well, because I treat a lot of patients with poor sleep in modern life. A lot of people, they go all day with the same light level right up to the moment they want to go to sleep, right? Because they're, they're, they're, you have bright lights on, you're looking at electronic devices, you know, and they, they're, they never get any variability in their light level exposure. It's like, well, we, we did not evolve in that environment. You know, you should get outside during the day and then turn down the lights, get some, some dim light at night time. Let your brain know that it's night.
J: Steve, I think I told you guys this, You know, I was in a physical with my doctor a few years ago and he's like, you know, after dinner you got, you know, six o'clock 7:00 you turn the lights down, you sit down, you start to slow down, you relax and everything. And I'm, as I'm listening to him, I'm like, I'm shaking my head like, okay, sounds great. And I go, hey, I have two kids. They are bouncing off the walls after bedtime. Not even. Like, it's not like, hey, guys, it's bedtime, Go to bed. Yeah. And I get to, like, hang out with my wife for 20 minutes before we both pass out from exhaustion. Like there is no winding down in our culture, Steve. Yeah, particularly.
C: If you should be.
E: Yeah, well, right, they're supposed to be. They were working on the farm all day. They'd be exhausted.
J: But that's the problem. That's the problem. It's a systemic problem. You can't just fix it.
C: Yeah, no, you can't. And like, you have to make like there are cultural issues that you're not going to change, right. If you go out to dinner at night, maybe if you're lucky and you have money and you're in a nice restaurant, the lights are going to be low. But if you are at McDonald's for dinner, because that's what you can afford, you're going to be in, like, fluorescent lighting. Like there are like systemic things. But like in my home, my lights are dim after the sunsets. I never have bright lights on in my house after the sunset. Yeah.
S: It's a good idea.
C: Yeah, and it's partially because we know it's good for us, but partially because it feels cozier. I don't ever have the big light on. You know, the big light is evil. It's always like the little lights around the house. And that's the thing. I'm not saying turning on dimmer lights is going to cure any of your kids like, you know, ADHD or bouncing off the walls, but like starting to kind of curate or foster a calmer environment at home. Your kids might calm down a little, they may not, but it can't hurt.
J: Yeah, but you know, they're, they crave screens and you know that stimulation as well. And kids are you it? I can, as an adult control myself to a certain degree. But kids, you know, no, not so much. And I just think, you know, we're training them to, you know, generationally like they're, they're screen users.
C: Yeah, and becoming a part of.
J: The way they interact with reality.
C: That's a hard thing too, because that's like a foot down. Like learn good at home hygiene now because you're not going to get it in your school training or your work training. You're only going to get it at home. You know rules about when the screens are off and you know all my screens are pre loaded with with software that darkens them over the course of the night and turns them more and more red.
S: But I think part of it is there's only so much you could do, as we're saying, on an individual level. Part of it's also just being, you know, politically active, advocating for better air quality laws, better light pollution laws, better, you know, decibel level noise laws, things like that to make the environment a little bit more wholesome, a little bit less stressful with with less pollution. That's really the only big solution here. He's only so much you could do around the edges.
C: Well, and so much of this is a function of income inequality to, like, study after study shows that there's more tree cover in rich neighborhoods.
S: Yeah, yeah.
C: And just like when you're when you're poorer, you're more inner city, it's more hot, hot concrete, you know, that acts as like a heat sink and, and, and also like bounces it back to you and less tree cover. And it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's devastating.
S: All right. Thanks, Jay. Yep. Well, if you want, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Aura.
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S: OK guys, let's get back to the show.
Safety of mRNA Vaccines (31:29)
S: So guys, I want to talk to you about mRNA vaccines for COVID, the story that just doesn't go away.
C: Oh my God, we're still talking about this?
S: We're still talking about this and this is still an issue like this is still on social media and politically there is this is still a big issue and there are still a lot of people acting as if there's some controversy over the mRNA vaccines. It's amazing to, you know, what's there's been again, there's been an anti vaccine movement as long as there's been vaccines. But what COVID did in the United States at least was turn the anti vaccine movement because it used to be very bipartisan. We track a lot of these issues like which ones are left, which ones are right, which ones are bipartisan and sort of both sides kind of had their reasons where, you know, if you were an anti vaxxer and you happened to be liberal, you would find liberal reasons to be anti vaxxer. And and same thing with conservative. But with COVID, it really made it into a right wing issue, you know, and it had and so it became very political. It became very, you know, left, right. And so that and we're still dealing with that. So what I want to talk about is a new study. This comes out of France. It was just published and it it so this is a post marketing like what we would call in the USA phase four study, right? So this very quickly, you know, when we look at the safety and efficacy of treatments like vaccines, you do the basic science research, right, the preclinical stuff, animal studies, etc. And then you do preliminary studies like just you want to look at healthy individuals just to screen for any potential risk. Then you do some preliminary efficacy trials. Those are phase true. Then you do if if everything's looking fine, you do the definitive phase three trials, which are the ones that you used to get FDA approval, right. But then there is something that's there's a post marketing phase four trial where you want to look at at what's happening out in the real world, you know, once the drug is is getting used. And that's important because while the double-blind placebo-controlled trial is absolutely necessary to establish efficacy, it also has its weakness, right? That that kind of reap the problem with that kind of research. One, it's hard to get big, big numbers of people, you know, like doing a big study could be hundreds of, of, of people, maybe 1002 thousand. That's a massive clinical trial, right? But even then, if you, let's say you do a clinical trial, 3 or 4 clinical trials that cumulatively have 1000 subjects in it, that would be, that's way more than enough to get like FDA approval. But what if there's a side effect? That's one in 10,000 people, right? Chances are you're going to miss it in the study only looking at 1000 people. So, but also the controlled trials are very controlled, right? So you're controlling for as many confounding factors as possible and you're randomizing, you know, people to either treatment or not being treated. And therefore you're, there's a lot of inclusionary and exclusionary criteria. So you want to look at, you know, fairly uncomplicated group of people to make sure that nothing is going to interfere with the signal that you're looking for. So that means it may not be, it may be difficult to then generalize from that study to the general population. So that's why it's good to, you know, there's a complementary type of research where now you're looking, it's observational, but you could look at 10s of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people out in the real world. And where there are factors that don't come in with a clinical trial, like are people not taking the drug because it's too expensive or are they deciding that it's too inconvenient or whatever. There are things that can come into play that usually be controlled for in a controlled clinical trial. All right, So this is a basically a postmark cutting phase four trial of the mRNA, any mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 based upon France's public health database, right? So one of the advantages of, you know, having socialized medicine or living in one of those countries is that they have these complete databases. So this is the French National Health data system, right? They looked for the French population aged 18 to 59 who were alive on November 1st, 2021, and they divided them into two groups, people who had received at least one dose of an mRNA, that COVID-19 vaccine, and those who had not. Guess how many people were included in this study?
J: All of them. Gosh.
C: Yeah, hundreds of thousands.
S: 28 million.
C: Oh my. God.
S: So this is.
J: A robust.
S: This is a robust study. 28 + 1,000,000 people, 22 million plus vaccinated, 5.9 million unvaccinated individuals. So that's statistically massively robust, right? That's the advantage of this kind of observational study. Again, the, the, the downside is it's not controlled, right? People are deciding whether or not to get vaccinated. You're not randomizing them to be vaccinated or not.
C: So this is the whole population of not the whole population, but this is a huge sample of what country?
S: France.
C: I'm surprised there are that many unvaccinated people.
S: Yeah, it's a lot. But this is over that period of time, you know, so there are what we call right, confounding factors. Confounding factors are things other than the variables that you're interested in that could be affecting the outcome. So they're they controlled for the obvious ones, the ones that you have to control for in a study like those. Otherwise it's worthless, right? So one is socio demographic characteristics. You can't compare 20 year old healthy people to 60 year old unhealthy people, right? That would be not be a meaningful comparison. So they control for the for like age, sex rates, all that stuff. And then also 41 comorbidities. If you have diabetes or do you not have diabetes, you're obese, so you're not obese. So they controlled for all of that. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not still missing something. And the thing that's the hardest to control for. What would you guys think in a study like this? People who choose to get vaccinated versus people who chose not to get vaccinated, What do you think might be a confounding factor? That's not a comorbidity, meaning it's not a disease and it's not a demographic feature, but that's something that's more behavioral that might be influencing the outcome.
C: Why they chose to get Yeah, why they chose not to. Was it a religious exemption? Was it a?
S: Yeah, there's something called the healthy user effect, right? Which means that people who choose to do this are also choosing other healthy things to do.
C: Of course. Yeah, we see that a lot.
S: Yeah, it's a generic healthy user effect here. So people, there's something different about people who chose to get vaccinated and chose not to get vaccinated in terms of their how well they take care of themselves, right. People who choose to get vaccinated may just basically take better care of themselves than people who did not. Again, we don't know that, but I'm saying that's certainly a possibility here that there's no way to really control for. But given that they did the best job they could to control for comorbidities, they wanted to see what was there any difference in mortality over a four year period. So this is the longest duration observational study now. And also it's just a very massive 1. So what they found, unsurprisingly, they found that in the vaccinated group over that four year period, they were 74% less likely to die from severe Covic 19 than the unvaccinated group. Wow, that is probably due to a direct protective effect of the vaccine, right? That is the most plausible because that's due to a specific cause and there's a mechanism there. The vaccine would protect you from that cause. And we know from other research that the vaccine does prevent, yeah, reduce your risk of dying from COVID, right? That's the the primary benefit of the vaccine.
C: It was designed to do that, and it's been proven to do that. This this.
S: Further supports that you were 74% less likely to die from COVID if you were vaccinated than I'm vaccinated. But they also found over that four year period, the vaccinated group had a 25% lower risk of all 'cause mortality.
C: Yeah, I could see that.
S: Even when you eliminate death from COVID. So that's not all. Just not dying from COVID.
C: Yeah, but they didn't eliminate COVID infection, did they? Because if somebody gets sick from COVID and then they later die of pneumonia, correct? Yeah, yeah.
S: So, So what are the possible causes here? You I think hit upon probably the most likely 1. So 1 is what I've said already. There could be a healthy user effect going on here.
C: Sure, sure. Sure. 2 is your people, yeah.
S: Having less severe Covic, even if you don't die from Covic, right? Having severe COVID that you don't die from may set you up for long COVID or for other infections or for having a heart attack more, you know, at a younger age, whatever. So it's possible that severe COVID causes other ways of increasing your mortality other than dying from COVID, right? But there also may be other protective effects of getting vaccinated that are go beyond COVID. That's another possibility.
C: Yeah, like we know that one of the common colds is caused by a coronavirus. Like I wonder if there's any transferable protection to other coronavirus?
S: So that's one or one possibility that maybe may be providing just other, yeah, crossover protection, you know, probably marginal, but it might be in the numbers there. But also there was a recent study that we wrote about on science based medicine where they found that the COVID vaccines actually made cancer treatment more effective and actually your immune system against against cancer. Again, that's preliminary evidence. We can't say that that's absolutely established at this point, but it raises that possible mechanism there. There may be, again, other benefits to your immune system that may even go beyond infections, right? That might even be helping things like cancer. So yeah, it might quote UN quote, sensitize cancer to immunotherapy. So we'll see, you know, if that's if that pans out, but that's another, you know, potential potential mechanism. And there may be other benefits as well. But we The thing is, we just can't say about that group that 25% lower risk of all cars mortality. There's, there's lots of possibilities and this data, because it's not controlled, does not allow for us to disentangle, you know, those, those potential effects. But the researchers didn't really even, you know, focus on that because they were the purpose of the study to see was the COVID vaccine safe and effective. So what they concluded was it was effective in preventing death from COVID-19. And there's no evidence of any increased risk, right? So unlike what many of the anti vaxxers are saying or, or they're trying to argue that like people are more likely to die if they get vaccinated, this showed that that was not the case. You know, there was a 25% lower mortality, all cause mortality if you were vaccinated. So that just shows you there's no increase.
J: And.
S: We can't say the vaccine caused the decrease. It was associated with a decrease, but it was not. It doesn't appear to be any signal in here that there was any increase in mortality from the vaccine.
C: And I'm curious, my guess is that they didn't look at this. And my guess is that even if they did look at this, they wouldn't find it. But was there an attempt to see if in the vaccinated group there was an increased risk of something, anything like did the vaccinated group have more of some negative health consequence than the UNVAC they. Did look at that?
S: Because they looked at all they looked at, you know?
C: They looked at all costs, but what did they?
S: Did they did look at specific causes? As well that's.
C: Good.
S: There was number signal there as well. So good. And we're seeing that over and over again, even for the things that we know the COVID vaccine caused, you know, so.
C: COVID causes it more. COVID causes it more. That's exactly correct.
S: So like we know that like, OK, there was some cases of myocarditis, you know, yeah, it was cardioma. Yeah, you had some some people got inflammation of the heart with after the vaccine. It's still very rare, 101 in 100,000 to one in a million, something like that. But The thing is your risk of having that was much higher from COVID if you were not vaccinated. So again, the risk versus benefits still massively favors the vaccine. So, and that makes sense too, when you think about it, anything that the vaccine would cause the infection would cause worse, you know, having a an actual infection raging throughout your body rather than a controlled immune response specifically targeted, you know, against, you know, one of the proteins.
C: Well, and from a statistical perspective now, Steve, I feel like you can no longer be one of these denialists who claims, yeah, but the risk is even lower if I just don't get vaccinated or get Covic. But I don't know if statistically anybody has not had, right, You know what I mean? Like at this point, it's so prevalent that you have, if you've never had Covic, either you just didn't detect it or you have some sort of genetic anomaly that allowed you to, like, I don't know, be immune to it because most people at this point have been exposed to COVID. Yeah.
S: And you've had a self clinical infection. It's hard to see you guys when you're living in the woods, like if you're never exposed to it.
C: So there's not even an argument there. It's like there's basically only two groups. Either you're vaccinated and exposed or you're unvaccinated and exposed. You can't be unvaccinated and outrun this disease.
S: At this point, it's very.
C: Exactly, Yeah.
S: It's, I mean, there's probably some people out there, but it's not sure, not enough to work.
C: But not statistically important. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S: Not statistically important. It's a good way to put it. Here's the other one last thing observation here, because the only real wiggle room for Pete, for anti vaxxers here is to say, well, it could be all the healthy user effect, right? I mean, they, they, you really can't argue about the reduced death from COVID. That's I think is pretty solid in this study. But the other 25% lower all 'cause mortality. But OK, you're right, it could all be the healthy user of food.
C: Why are they healthy?
S: That's the thing why are they healthier? Why are the people who That's not a good argument for being an anti vaxxer. You're you're admitting that anti vaxxers are make bad health choices overall. That's that's a pretty weak to fast.
C: Right, 'cause it's probably the case across all vaccines, yes. Right.
J: That's that's just kind of awesome right there.
S: That's the other thing, that people who get the COVID vaccine are probably more likely to be compliant with other vaccines.
J: And that's the exact type of logic they won't understand, right?
S: The healthy user effect equals the unhealthy non user. Effect.
C: Yeah, that's the other part of that equation.
E: It's not dark when the lights go on.
Cosmic Rays Ground Aircraft (46:58)
S: All right, Bob, tell us how cosmic rays grounded aircraft.
B: Yeah, this is really cool. 6000, yes, 6000 aircraft, about half the global A320 Airbus family fleet had to be held on the ground for an urgent software fix because of get this space radiation. So this of course, I dove into this like I got to get more details on this. So this started the day before Halloween, which is I guess what, 123, October 30th. This year. This year when an Airbus A320 suddenly dropped an altitude while flying from Cancun, which is in Mexico, to Newark, NJ in the United States. Some people, one to three people, it's unclear how many had head lacerations and at least 15 people were taken to the hospital after the flight which had to land in Tampa. I believe with non life threatening injury injuries. No major injuries, but they still felt somebody felt it was prudent for these fifteen people to go to the hospital after this. So Airbus fairly quickly determined that that one of the Airbuses computers that control the movable, the movable parts of the wings, right? And then the, the tail caused the problem, right? They further concluded that the malfunction was likely triggered by cosmic radiation that often interacts with our atmosphere. So that's that's what they concluded fairly quickly, I think. So let's see then the next big point here was that the European Union's Aviation Safety Agency, which is ESA EASA, released an emergency airworthiness directive on November 28th of 2025, this year, an emergency airworthiness directive. So here's a quote from that directive. An Airbus A320 airplane recently experienced an uncommanded and limited pitched down event, a limited pitch down event. The autopilot remained engaged throughout the event with a brief and limited loss of altitude, and the rest of the flight was uneventful. Preliminary technical assessment done by Airbus identified a malfunction of the affected ELAC as possible contributing factor. Now ELAC stands for elevator aileron computer. So that's the computer that controls the aileron. So if you, if you look at, if you like looking out of the window when flying like me, you've probably seen aileron many times, there are those hinged flaps on the trailing edge of an airplane's wing, right? So the computer that controls them had a problem and that's what caused this was their conclusion, as they, as they're now saying, or they said in the emergency airworthiness directive. The directive concluded, well, at least my collection of quotes concludes here, with This condition, if not corrected, could lead in the worst case scenario to an uncommanded elevator movement that may result in exceeding the aircraft's structural capability.
J: That's not good.
B: Clearly not good. And that's that's really saying something though, isn't it? Because modern commercial aircraft, they have amazing structural capability. I've seen, you know, like granted it was many years ago, but it was in 747 with its wings flapping like a bird, essentially under like the extreme stress and it was still holding together. So I got to imagine that they, you know, structurally they're they're pretty, pretty solid. But man, this thing could fail given a worst case scenario here, the United States FAA or Federal Aid Aviation Administration. They also released a similarly worded emergency airworthiness directive. So luckily though the delays and the cancelled flights weren't as horrible as they could have been. Some airports had had basically negligible impact, other ones had definitely more than negligible. There were flight cancellations and delays and stuff, but it could have been far, far far worse than that. And I think this is mainly due to the fact that about over 5000 of those planes, all they needed was just a softer update. And that can happened pretty fast. I think many planes were completed within within hours. I wasn't sure how how many planes they had done in just a few hours. But yeah, this is this is can be done fairly quick, as evidenced by the fact that there weren't that many delays and cancellations. The rest of the planes, though, close to 1000, they used older Elacs, you know, these computers and they had, they have to be manually replaced. And I'm not even sure if that's even done at this point. But that's obviously much more time consuming to to manually replace these these specific computers. So how did this happen? The most likely culprit here is almost certainly cosmic rays. We remember those guys, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, no, OK, wait. Let me explain them again. Cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are energetic particles emitted by the sun, and they're also extremely energetic particles emitted from supernovae and even more energetic events that are out there. These cosmic rays aren't rays, but are for the most part accelerated cores of atoms that have had their electrons stripped away, right? So such of these are atomic cores, for the most part protons, but you can also get, you know, multi particle nuclear core, atomic cores as well. But that's, that's, that's the 9099 percenter, you know, is these cores and and primarily protons in that group. So the atmosphere protects us from these. But when they hit our atmosphere, some stuff happens, right? And it's fascinating what happens. So these, these cosmic rays come flying in at, at, you know, near the speed of light and they obliterate atoms. So which two atoms in the atmosphere do you think are hit the most?
E: Nitrogen.
B: And.
E: Oxygen.
B: Very good. Well done. Well done guys.
E: Want to know how we knew that?
B: I'm just so I'm just ecstatic that you're, you're paying attention. To that question, I got you I. Got you, bud. This, this obliteration creates secondary energetic particles that rain downwards. And 11A website was telling me that some of them go back out into space. But so if that's true, some of them go down, some of them go go back out into space. But we're concerned about what's going down here, right? So these secondary energetic particles rain downwards and they're further interacting with the atmosphere. They're interacting with each other. Some of these are also decaying into other particles. So all of this creates a zoo of secondary and even tertiary generations of particles and electromagnetic radiation that this initial impact from the cosmic, the energetic cosmic rays causes when it hits the the upper atmosphere. OK, they call this an air shower. This is an air shower and it continues until the atmosphere absorbs all of it, right? Because because you're losing energy as you're going through the atmosphere and stages, right, creating these first generation of particles, second generation of particles, third generation. So you're losing energy as it's being absorbed. So sometimes it's fully absorbed by the atmosphere, but other times some of the some of these secondary particles and tertiary or whatever make it to the ground. And I think muons are, is the one that I'm aware of that actually makes it to the ground. But it's still very safe to fly through all this crazy crap that's happening in the atmosphere with this air shower. It's still safe to fly through this. In fact, at cruising altitude, you are basically constantly flying through overlapping air showers. So you're going through it the the entire time, as far as I could tell, you're going through these air showers. It's just a normal part of the radiation background. You know, not a huge deal. Even crews that have been studied, these are these are, you know, crews that that's their job. They're on a plane at high altitude for hours and hours like every day, right? That's how that's how it works. And when they have been studied, typically the the increase in lifetime risk of cancer is just a little bit. It's, you know, it's, you know, it's just not a bit, not that big of a deal. I mean, sure, any increase sucks, but it's it's a minimal, it's a minimal increase, right? So it's not like you're just being irradiated, you know, horribly every time you you're flying in a plane. It's it's pretty small, OK. But The thing is with airline altitudes where, where these commercial air jets fly, it also happens to be near the sweet spot for some of these secondary particles, particularly like neutrons. That that's where you're going to run into a lot a lot of neutrons at these at these airline altitudes maybe a little bit higher than what's typical. But there's still there's a high neutron flux where airlines, you know, consistently traveled, you know with when they're cruising. And it's because of this high neutron flux from these air showers that cause many scientists to think that neutrons are likely the ultimate culprit here of that the the secondary particle part of the air shower created by the cosmic rays, It's the neutrons. And that's what they think caused the problem with this, this Airbus that left from Cancun now. So ultimately, though, ultimately, ultimately a new Tron is likely to have caused what they say is they describe it as a single event upset. And that showed up as a bit flip in a critical memory cell. So that's, that's the, the bottom line right there. But so let's unpack that a little bit. You guys have heard of bit flips, right? That's when a binary digit in a computer memory sometimes unexpectedly flips from A1 to A0 or A0 to A1. And of course, that could be very problematic, especially if it's a critical bit right in the critical part of of your hardware. So yeah, so that's, so that's a that's a bit flip. And we, that's, I'm not, I'm not even sure if we even mentioned that more than once or twice on this show over the years, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a common term that a lot of people are aware of. But now the a bit flip though, can be caused by many different things. It could be radiation, but it could also be electrical noise. It can be manufacturing defects. So there's it's kind of a generic term for this bit flip that could be caused by many different things. But when experts describe what happened here in this scenario with the Airbus, they, they typically will use a better term and that's a single event upset or a single event error. This term is used by engineers that work with radiation effects, right? Their job is to work with radiation and the effects of radiation. They will often use that term of a single event upset or a single event error. But also you hear that term a lot when you're when people when experts anyway, when experts are discussing avionics reliability, you'll hear about this. So a single event upset means specifically that a charge from radiation caused the bit flip, right? So when you hear single event upset, you immediately think, oh, it's radiation that caused it. It's not, It's not electrical noise. It's not a manufacturing defect. This is specifically caused by radiation. So now, if you're paying attention, and I know there's at least a few of you out there that actually are, you might be thinking, you might be thinking, how can a neutron deposit a charge if it's neutral? And that was. That was right. That was I was thinking, well, wait, wait, second, how does, how does this work? It does this by smashing into an atom, right? You get, you have the you have the, the cosmic ray causes secondary particles, creates neutrons that smash into the atom of the computer in the silicon right in the chip. They so it crashes into an atom in the computer and that collision releases charged particles like protons. And it's that charge, it's the secondary charge caused by the neutron hitting part of the computer. That's it's that charge that gets dumped into this tiny region of the computer chip and that causes the single event upset, which causes the bit flip, as our dad used to say. Jane, Steve, you follow me.
E: So we need planes that can filter out the neutrons.
B: Yes. Filter neutrons, baby. So you guys, we got to remember. And of course, this news item made me think of the time Rebecca was trying to make a state show with us and her flight got cancelled due to a volcano, which at the time, at the time I said was an awesome reason to to miss your flight because of a volcano. So getting getting your flight cancelled stinks. But I'd love to be able to say in this case, yeah, my flight got cancelled because of cosmic rays. I think that might be even better than a volcano. But I hope, I still hope it never happens.
S: They're both kind of cool.
B: Yes, both are as long.
E: As your flight.
B: Yeah, I might actually. Yeah, I don't want to head laceration in a plane. But the the big take away though from that is if you're seated on a plane, buckle up. Buckle. Up because you ever see those videos of people's basically flying up into the ceiling because of a wicked turbulence or maybe or maybe a cosmic ray induced elevation loss? Yeah, that that doesn't look like fun. So always break. It up. Please.
Reverse Aging Claim (59:27)
S: All right. Thanks, Bob. All right, Evan, tell us about Simon Cowell's claim that he is aging backwards.
E: What's the curious case of Simon Cowell Benjamin Button Disease? Nice. Boy, if does anyone not know who Simon Cowell is, I guess I have to give you 2 sentences on him. A British television producer and talent show judge best known for his well, sharp and often blunt critiques on shows like American Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent. He's pretty widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in modern reality TV and the music industry. So he's he's big time. Simon Cowell is 66 years old and he claims he is aging backwards. Now this was I read this over at an AOL article, AOL online, where Cal attributes his rejuvenation to a treatment he's been getting at a high end Wellness clinic. He will not specify exactly clinic that.
S: Much I just threw up in my mouth.
E: The The procedure involves removing his blood quote, cleansing it, and then putting it back into his body.
C: Nope.
E: Well, let me read the quote. Let me let me say it. And should I affect an accent now? I won't. I'll save the embarrassment. I go to this place, this Wellness clinic where they actually take your blood, they rinse it, they filter it, and then they put it back in your body. Then you do all these tests and they tell you your age. So I've actually aged backwards by eating better, more exercise, less stress in certain supplements, he adds, he said.
C: They they, they rinse it, they rinse your blood.
E: Yeah, that's stuck out to me too. Right. And oh gosh, so OK, according to the celebrities with their anti aging hacks, I mean, my gosh, how many of these do we really need? But they happen and they happen with high profile people like this blood removal. What's this all about? What exactly is he describing? Well, Simon doesn't name the exact procedure, but based on how it's described, you know, blood being taken out, filtered and reinfused, it is likely he's referring to apheresis or one of its Wellness branded derivatives, A pheresis that is, well, it's not new, it's not mysterious. It's a legitimate medical procedure that is used for very specific conditions, including removing harmful antibodies in autoimmune diseases, treating certain blood disorders, or removing excess cholesterol in people with familial hypercholesterolemia. Right. So too much cholesterol that you otherwise can't get rid of. Yeah.
C: But they're not just rinsing the blood.
E: No, no, no. And this is where I So the first thing that came to my mind is like, is this a form of dialysis? Because isn't that really what dialysis is? But dialysis and apheresis are two different things. I I looked. But in any case, that's this is how he just, this is how Cal describes it, right? Take the blood, take the blood, circulate it outside the body. You pass it through a machine that separates plasma from the blood cells. It removes whatever targeted components you know your doctors are going after. And then you return the remaining blood to the patient.
C: But they're probably doing literally nothing at this clinic. They're probably just taking out his blood and putting it right back in it, I would think.
S: So they could be, but even if they are doing what they're saying they're doing, it's all bullshit, right? So they're just, they're oxygenating it, which is ridiculous because your blood has the maximum amount of oxygen it can possibly have that, you know, I mean, like when it gets exposed to oxygen, it absorbs up to its maximal capacity to absorb oxygen, and then they're exposing it to ozone. Which is.
C: That's not good.
S: Right, which is supposed to induce oxidative stress.
C: Yeah, you don't want that.
S: Yeah, but they say, Oh yeah. But that's, it's like hormesis, right? It's it'll make your body defend itself from oxidative stress.
C: You know that's a. Pump your blood full of free radicals. That's a terrible idea then.
S: The filtering it like you know what? What are they filtering it of? You know if your kidneys are working, you don't need your blood filter.
C: And here's the thing, like, it's not just that. It's like, oh, you don't need it because everything works. It's it's harmful to take out too many minerals. It's harmful.
S: Yeah, free procedure.
B: No, and the risks that are there are a little scary. They're, you know, it's like this could be bad for like organ failure type stuff.
C: For sure, because your blood has the right amount of like salt and the right pH and the right amount of water. You go messing with somebody's osmolarity or they're, you know, pH like you can kill them.
S: We're also going to be taking out proteins. So when we do like this kind of pheresis, you have to put back albumin, right? Because then you're taking out all the antibodies. That's the main primary reason why we use this kind of, I don't know if they're doing that kind of pheresis, but if they if they are filtering out the proteins that would suppress your immune system and want to do that.
C: That's why I think they're just taking his blood out and putting it right back in them. They might and they're going. It's better we waved a magnet over. It.
J: But I think it's all bullshit too. I think they're just saying stuff.
C: Yeah, but I mean, physically he's watching his blood go into a tube and then come back in, so it's literally like they're just taking his blood out to turn around and put it back inside of him.
B: Yeah.
C: Yes, and even that is not without risk. You guys, I get iron infusions because I'm anemic. I got a blood clot from an iron infusion like and and it's likely that it wasn't the iron itself, just the physical act of getting an IV place like don't I'm not saying be scared of getting an IV. Like if you need an IV, get an IV, but don't get one if you don't need one.
E: But Cara, he claims it's reversing his aging though, because they're take because they're giving him tests that tell him, tests that tell him look how healthy you look. You're 66, but you have whatever metabolism or whatever markers of a 50 year old person.
B: Well, this quote though, but this quote in isolation here actually caught my attention. This is this is the quote from the article. It's he says, Evan you it says you do all these tests and they tell you your age. So I've actually aged backwards by eating better, more exercise. And. Less. Stress and of course, and. Supplements. But wait a second. Yes, that would actually work by by less stress, more exercise, and eating better. Yes, you will by many measures be aging backwards. Because that's what you should be goddamn doing anyway.
E: No, it's like Lucky Charms with the exactly with the complete whatever healthy charms part of a nutritious breakfast when taken with part of a new when taken with a nutritious breakfast, right?
B: Exactly. So forget all the crazy shit, just eat better, exercise and reduce your stress and that will Bobby that will do more than almost anything else you can possibly do.
C: So he's paying for potential risk of, you know, an injection, an IV puncture site and, you know, contamination because he's not doing this in a hospital. And and I mean, those risks exist anyway. So he's paying a lot of money for potential risk and for someone to literally say, oh, looky, your output is that you are you have a blood age of 50. Like that's like.
S: That's bullshit too.
E: Yeah, a Ouija board or something, one of those booze where the, where the there's a statue of a, you know, a fortune teller. You spit out a card to tell you. Oh, the, the, the, the dummy told me my fortune. It's so stupid, it's ridiculous. But look, this is a we've, we've seen this before. There's a lot of what like billionaires that go through these kinds of procedures and stuff. So it's a very trendy, high end wealthy person fad kind of thing that sounds.
S: If you have money to burn crap and you're afraid because you're old, you are prime target for this kind of thing.
C: But if you're going to get your blood taken out of you, at least get like the blood of, you know, the youth put back into you. I'm like, come on, jeez.
B: And then you start and. Some people are doing that, no? I know, I know. Wait, wasn't there some interesting test results from that? From that? I mean, I'm not kidding. I'm saying mice, mice results, Bob may not.
C: It may or may not work, but at least there's like some plausible reasons it could. This is straight up where does the myth come from?
E: Part of the hype comes from parabiosis studies in mice where young and old mice share a blood circulation, and some experiments showed partial rejuvenation effects of the older mice.
C: But yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying it works. I'm just saying if you're gonna go through the process, get some baby mouse blood. Baby mouse blood.
E: But they said there's even problems with the mice studies that don't even, you know, I mean, please, before you even start to talk about humans with this stuff.
S: You'd have more luck getting Borg nanoprobes.
C: Do that then instead. Come on, rich people, Let's get more creative than this at least, right?
E: Something that lights up and it's flashy.
S: Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about one of our sponsors this week, Quince.
J: Guys, we've talked about Quince many times. In my opinion, with my experience with them, they are an awesome brand. They have great clothes. But that's not what I'm going to tell you about right now real quick. This is a very reputable company with awesome customer service. My wife, I bought my wife a pair of Quince earrings. She lost one of them. She contacted Quince and they sent her a replacement pair. She had to send back the one and they sent her back the whole thing. Who does that in in 2025? What an awesome company.
C: Quince does that. And what time of year is it right now? It's the holiday season, of course. So not just Jay's wife's earrings, but down jackets, wool coats, leather styles. We're talking quality, quality, like the same quality as luxury brands, but really it's a fraction of the price because they cut out that middleman. There are no traditional markups.
B: Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quints. Don't wait. Go to quints.com/SGU for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QUINC. e.com/SGU Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com/SG You.
S: All right, guys, let's get back to the show.
Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:09:52)
S: All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy? Time.
J: All right guys, last week I played this. Noisy what? Do you think?
E: Yes, I have a guess. I think it is the audio representation of the air showers that Bob was talking about on board an airplane. Thank you. Excellent.
C: It just sounds like a creepy soundtrack to like a Steven Soderbergh film or something.
J: That's that's legit.
C: You know, like it's like, oh, it's like creepy walking down a hallway.
J: But what makes that noise?
C: The mental spaces, Cara, you know, Oh, like a, like a didgeridoo. You're so cute.
J: No, you could, I bet you, you could get something kind of like that. With enough effects, you could get something similar to that. Not completely, but yeah, I can see that. All right, well, a lot of people guessed, A listener named Matt Soskin said it's a water powered organ and definitely not a bird. Yeah, this is, there is no bird that makes that noise. We all have to establish that amongst ourselves. It's not a water powered organ and now I want to hear what one of those sounds like, but that's definitely not it. Andy Barrett, Ronan said. Hey Jay, Andy from Cheshire in the UK here. Second time guessing, hopefully better than the first. I believe this is the sound of lightning being captured on the surface of Mars. That's not correct, but that's.
E: Cool. He brought that up, Jay. I think because there's recent footage captured by one of the Rovers of lightning strikes striking the ground on Mars. It was pretty darn cool.
J: Yeah, I I read about that too. Yeah, it's a good guess, but not correct, Cooper Parrish wrote in and said. Howdy, I think we're hearing elevator hoist ropes being played by someone in the machine room or shaft.
C: Oh, weird.
J: Yeah. So shaft, yeah, these steel cables are under tension and you could vibrate them and they can get that echoey sound in there. And it's quite a bit of space to reverberate. That's a really, really interesting and fun guess, but you are not correct. A listener named Steven Badham wrote in and said, I think this is a bowed metal plate being played in a reverberation chamber. Sometimes these sounds are used in soundscapes for theater or in movies to create a creepy atmosphere. This was a close guess, not completely there. And then we will move on to, you know, a couple of winners. Listener named Matthew Bush was the first one to guess correctly. He said, hi, folks. I think this week's noisy is a large orchestral gong, or Tam Tam being bowed by a percussionist. He's mostly correct. And we have another listener named Ben Romney who wrote in. Hey guys, love your show. You bring Sandy and Reason to an increasingly insane world. Keep up the good work. I think I've heard this week's noisy from a video circulating online. It sounds like the 60 inch Sean Aceto gong. And this clay, in this case, played by the amazing skill of Bear love, flew me. So Matthew guessed first, and it was a really good guess. He was a little bit off because it's not being bowed, it's being hammered by like a gong hammer. So Ben did get it completely correct. I see. So this is a 60 inch Sean Aceto gong. Like I said, there's a woman playing it who's wearing a black shirt and she has the word gong in large print on her T-shirt, which which is pretty funny. Let me play it for you again. Now, this isn't like someone smashing it with the hammer, right? This is someone who's like rubbing it kind of. It's a very, very large gong. How cool is that?
S: Cool.
J: Very cool.
S: For the record, Jay, if you exposed A lyrebird to that sound, they could make that sound.
J: If you think so, Yeah, I do. They don't have the. They don't have the hardware to make that basic. I don't know.
S: It's amazing what they could do.
J: We'll have to. We'll have to find one of those birds, Steve, and we'll see what we could do. All right, so this noisy was sent in by me and I'm going to play it for you immediately. If you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve Jay, we have tickets still available for our show in Seattle, right? We'll be in Seattle, WA. This will be on the January 10th. We're going to be doing a private show. This is a live podcast recording with all all five of us there and George Robb and if you care, Ian will also be there, but he won't be performing. He'll be working, which is him performing, I guess in a way. Anyway, we'll be doing a private show. Plus this is a three hour show, so we would do a live recording of the show and then for at least an hour mixed in, we do other fun things with the audience. If you've been to 1, you know what we different types of things that we do, but no two shows are the same. We just keep changing it up. And also that night, this is also on January 10th, we will be doing a Skeptical Extravaganza stage show. This is our show where we, we have a theme in this show which is you cannot trust your senses. And we will show you all the ways that you cannot trust your senses. It's also very fun, lots of laughter, lots of crazy stuff going on. Hosted by George Robb. If you're interested in either of these, you can go to theskepticsguide.org. There's buttons on there for those shows. We also have shows that are going to happen in Wisconsin. So if you're interested, we'll be in Madison, WI on May 1516, so go to the website.
S: So, Jay, people are asking about Australia next year. I guess the tickets are not up yet. They're not on the website yet.
J: They will be up probably within the next few days. Ian and I are working with the web developer for the Australian Skeptics and we're finalizing everything.
S: By some officials. We will be in LA on July 18th, 2026 for an extravaganza and private show. Then we'll be in Sydney, Australia July 22nd, 2026 for an extravaganza and then Nauticon Australia July 23rd to 25th. And then we'll be in Christchurch, New Zealand on July 30th for an extravaganza, and then for the New Zealand Skeptical Conference on July 31st and August 1st.
US#03: Cool.
S: Right, but then those tickets will be up sometime soon.
US#03: They're. Very soon. They're, they're coming.
S: They're coming, all right. So is Christmas.
US#03: With Christmas. Coming home.
C: There it.
Emails (1:17:06)
S: Is all right, let's do a couple of questions and emails. So I was corrected by a few people on the pronunciation of Ralph Fiennes you.
Who Am I (1:17:17)
None
C: Just did it wrong again his.
S: Name is spelled Ralph, right? That's Ralph, but it's pronounced in the old English way, Rafe.
J: Yeah, According to who, though?
S: According to. Him, According to him, although he said he kind of gave up correcting people because it's a lost cause because people are pronouncing it the way it's spelled. But the old English pronunciation is Rafe. So his name is Rafe Fines, which is interesting because I always either thought he was Ray Fines or Ralph Fines. And I think for a long time, until now, really, I didn't realize that I was remembering both versions of his name, but just at different times. I don't think about him that often. And sometimes he's Ray Fines, sometimes he's Ralph Fines. And I don't really remember. But now the only two people on the planet.
C: Yeah, both times you're.
J: Wrong on the planet calling him Rafe is himself and his mom.
C: That's not. True, everyone calls him Ray. Fine. Bullshit. They do every reporter, every time you hear anybody talk about him on TV, every time he's referred to.
J: Wait, so is his last name Ines?
S: Is it Rafe Ines?
C: No, this is the problem with. Having a name. That ends an F and a name that starts an F.
S: But here, so he's how many of those people in their heads are saying Ray fines and this sounds like Ray fines. Yeah. His mental There's no difference between Ray fines and Ray and Ray fines. There's no difference.
B: You know if. He wants to be called Ray. That's fine. My question. Is that's good one, Bob? Who did? Is this something that his parents gave him Ralph Rafe or did he did he like stings Come, come to the you know, the conclusion during his life, I want to be called this. My name is now pronounced this. Way Bob is. What is it? Did he come up with it or his parents?
E: Bob is basically asking who's to blame here.
B: Well, yeah, you can think of it. You can think of it that way, but I'm I'm just curious like where that came from.
E: His middle name is 55, by the way.
S: Right.
C: Right.
E: Well, it's not as bad as what that guy named NVIDIA, right?
S: Well, that's another thing, Cara.
C: Well.
S: It's funny, when you were doing it, I'm like, it's NVIDIA, but I just didn't bother correcting you.
C: But and in my head, like I'll tell you this, I knew this. Like I knew that I had done a story on them previously. And I was like, I think I pronounced that name wrong. I need to look it up. So I look it up.
J: It's wrong.
C: I said NVIDIA, yeah, because it's spelled NVIDIA. So I was like, OK, NVIDIA and then I looked it up and it was like, it's pronounced NVIDIA and I was like NVIDIA, NVIDIA, NVIDIA so NVIDIA like and I don't it's because if they want it to be pronounced NVIDIA, they should spell it NVIDIA, right Rafe?
J: Yeah.
C: That's different. They just made this name up whole cloth. Rafe's parents just went back to the old way that that name was always said.
J: I don't like any of it.
C: I don't either. Here's the kid. Here's the kid.
J: Pronounce shit anyway, right? So. So you throw a name like Rafe at him and his last name is Fines? What the hell? Who? Who thinks that this is going to work? Out.
C: But here's the thing, right? Like there are names from other cultures and other languages that are hard for English speakers to pronounce, and that's fine. This is an English we learned. This is, yes, OK, but it's Old English. That's not actually Old English, But like, if you just make up a name, just spell it in a way that people aren't going to have a hard time pronouncing it. Yeah, like, that's the annoying thing because I looked it up and apparently NVIDIA, which I'm going to say NVIDIA, NVIDIA is based on the Latin word NVIDIA, which is spelled with a freaking I at the beginning. Oh, there.
J: You go.
C: That's what they're basing it on. So just call your company NVIDIA.
J: I know it has to be NVIDIA.
S: Because that's not even the same thing. If you have to explain how your name is pronounced, that's a fail in my opinion.
C: And again, it's fine if it's because it's culturally or, you know, like linguistically from something else going on. But if you're like, oh, if I capitalize this one letter and then I hyphenate this thing, it's like Elon's kids, like nobody's ever going to be pronounce their names right.
J: Yeah, I agree with you. It's it's, it gets to the point where it gets to be a little too much.
C: It's. Annoying and so, but it's fine that we got literally, OK, not literally, I'm exaggerating, but a million emails about this that we're all like Cara, somebody needs to tell Cara that it's pronounced NVIDIA, it's the most important tech company on the planet and it's pronounced NVIDIA.
E: But got an e-mail that.
S: Said Here's the thing. How come when somebody has feedback for any of the guys, they say, Jay, this is the situation or Bob, you made this mistake. And when it's Cara, they say guys tell Cara.
C: Cara.
S: Why did they do that? It's.
J: Mostly. Everybody, it's Sophie. That's because everybody knows that until Cara has been with us for 15 years, she won't get a direct e-mail.
C: That's it. Yeah, that's the most charitable. It's because my lady brain couldn't handle the responsibility of also being. Here's the thing, when you guys e-mail plus, it goes to all of us. By the way, I read all of those emails about me in the third person. Yeah, don't write.
S: Don't write emails to all of us talking about Cara in the third person.
C: Yeah, don't think about.
J: This don't write emails to any of us complaining about Cara because if you think. The names. You know, it's like every once in a while on Reddit or whatever, I'm just like, Oh my God, the.
C: Life of a woman on the Internet, but but going back to the NVIDIA. NVIDIA, while I agree that it is a. Very shut up and. While I agree that it is important for us at whatever it's, it's not AB2B company like they do make consumer products. I hear you, but it's not a company that a lot of people like they make things that go in things. Does that mean it's a part? It's a part, yeah. So unless you're like component, you know, building your own computer or you're involved, which Which you guys do, Yeah, Yeah. Or you're involved in the tech industry. And yes, I think increasingly we are going to need to be aware of this company because it is. It is very important in the sector. I'll try, Madame, just to get it right. But I'm sorry. Every time I read the word, the word is screaming to be pronounced NVIDIA.
E: Do it. Do it. Cara just.
C: Isn't it? But look at that word and tell.
S: Me, I think I heard name before I saw it spelled, so I just.
C: Never had a problem.
S: Yeah, me too.
E: It's. Uncomfortable not having a vowel between the N and the V It just is.
C: Yeah. So you want to put one in there?
E: Yes. Row one in.
C: You want to say NVIDIA, not NVIDIA.
S: All right, ask.
E: Great.
S: That dead horse. Come on, we got another e-mail. This one comes from Barry Appleman.
C: I love that name.
E: Barry Yeah, but Steve deliberately pronounced.
S: It it could be Appelman, I don't know. It's AEPELMAN.
C: Oh, like Doctor Spacheman and Dirty Rock, but not a spaceman. But.
S: If I were Berry, I would be Apple Man, all right, Yes, he writes. European Union negotiators reached a deal on new rules for gene editing to help farmers produce healthier animals and crops. The new rules exempt gene edited plants and animals from the blocks regulations covering modified organisms because gene editing mimics the natural breeding process. Yes, the law still needs to be formally approved for the European Parliament and the EU Council to take effect. OK, so it goes a little bit more detail there. We'll have that in the show notes. But yeah, this is true. I've been following this and I looked it up just to see what the update is.
B: That sounds awesome, right?
S: Yeah, so they they made a new designation called New Genomic Techniques and GTS, and they're going to regulate them more like regular crops, not like GMO crops, because their GMO regulations are ridiculous and onerous. But they're saying, OK, so for things like, you know, CRISPR and other newer techniques, we'll just consider them not GMOs. They're genetic. They're new genomic techniques. It's gene editing, but not genetic modification. And what's the difference? The difference is, well, the GMOs make like significant changes to the to the genes, like introducing new genes that couldn't happen with breeding, whereas the gene editing is making the kind of gene edits that could happen potentially with traditional breeding techniques.
B: Yeah, just like a faster version of traditional techniques, right?
S: Yeah, but it's still it's a distinction without a difference in my opinion. They're splitting hair.
C: I hear you, but I I we've long made the distinction. I mean, this is what's always bothered me. I hear you. If you want to say this is a transgenic Organism versus a non transgenic Organism, like if you want to make that distinction in genetic research, fine. But like we already have a way to make that distinction. This is a trans gene. That's not that doesn't have a trans gene.
S: Yeah, but I would argue that there's nothing inherently rescue yet about putting a trans gene into an Organism.
C: No, I agree.
S: It's based on the, you know, this sort of essence appeal to nature kind of nonsense where it's like, oh, it, you know, a tomato gene is tomatoey and it doesn't belong in a banana plant. Whatever. It's like they're all.
C: Which is like every single fruit. Not every single, but most of the fruits you're eating and vegetables you're eating have already been bred with not the same species.
S: Right. And plants, all plants are going to share 70 plus percent of their genes. Already we share 60% of our genes with bananas. Humans do.
C: And bacteria swapping DNA in and out of us all the time.
S: So it's whatever, but the reason for this is pretty obvious because they realize that their onerous anti GMO regulations are causing a competitive disadvantage for EU farmers. And you know, there's lots of cool gene modifications coming down the Pike that are necessary to, you know, increase production, adapt plants to a warming climate, etcetera, etcetera. And like, well, yeah, we have to find some way to allow these new gene edited crops while still not looking like to the public like we're caving on GMOs. So this is their the compromise they came up with, which is fine that, you know, I still think it's like that they're making this this pseudo scientific distinction, splitting hairs between gene edited and GMOs. But at least they're allowing, they're making the exceptions for, you know, the newer technologies, which basically obviates a lot of their anti GMO regulations, which is good. All right. Evan. Yeah, Evan, you got a game for us called. Who said that?
E: Yes.
S: We've played this before.
E: We have played this before. Hey Steve, is it too late to change the name of the game?
S: No to your game called.
E: The game is called Who am I? Because when I told you in the name earlier, I had forgotten what the name of the game was and I went back and looked it up. Who am I? This.
S: Is Evan Bernstein.
E: Thank you. Next one in which I'm going to read a paragraph to you of somebody describing themselves and you have to guess who that person is. The person could be real or fictitious, but definitely has something to do with science or skepticism. OK, so it's not like going to be a baseball player, you know, something like that. Here's how it will work. I will start to read each of you. For each of these are allowed a guess. One guess. OK, if you know it, you will interrupt me by saying I know I will stop reading where I am and you will give your guess. I will tell you if you're right or wrong. If you're wrong, we keep going so the other players can play. Does everyone understand the rules of this so we don't blurt out the answer yourself? Correct, Do not out the answer. I would like to hear an I know. Nice and simple. OK, here we go. For most of my life, I've tried to make sense of a universe that refuses to give up its secrets easily. Singularities, the origins of time, and the strange fact that even a black hole isn't truly black if you look closely enough.
C: Carl Sagan, Jay.
E: Gets -1 for the breaking the rule and. You said I have to interrupt you.
C: Yeah, you interrupt by saying I know. You don't. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I said.
E: Jay, you're incorrect. I will continue to read and you're out of this and you're out of this 100, Steve.
S: Can I guess? Yes, I think it's Stephen Hawking's.
E: It is Stephen Hawking.
S: There we go.
E: Yep. OK, I'll read the rest of it through my voice. Eventually came the world, through a synthetic companion that never slowed my pursuit of answering the biggest cosmological questions. I spent decades perched in a motorized wheelchair, moving through the lecture halls instead of galaxies, but always with the same mission to show that the cosmos is not not just the domain of mathematicians and physicists, but something everyone can understand, even in a brief history. How's that?
C: I get it, Evan. So, like, the longer you talk, the more the more it gives it away. Yeah. Yeah.
E: All right, let's move on to the second one. I've spent my life listening to minds that behave a little differently. Patients who taste words hear colors.
C: I know, I know.
B: Oh, I know.
E: It was Cara, Oliver Sacks. Oliver Sacks.
B: Just after you do you.
E: Mean by a nanosecond. Or lose any sense of their own body, yet still reveals something profound about what it means to be human. I've chronicled these neurological adventures in books that blend science with storytelling, whether following a drummer who keeps time despite amnesia or a man who mistook one very unexpected thing for his wife's hat. When I wasn't writing, I was often on my motorcycle. I didn't know that swimming long distances or diving into music, which I consider as a diagnostic, as any medical test. So there you go, Oliver Sacks. Moving on. My life's work has revolved around understanding how the smallest forces in the universe can trigger outsized consequences. Gamma interactions. Energy thresholds. Cellular cascades. These were once purely academic curiosities, until an unexpected accident tied my Physiology to them in ways I'm still trying to unravel. Since then, I've kept to the margins, offering my expertise discreetly, careful to avoid stressors that could complicate things. Let's just say I've learned that emotional equilibrium is not merely a state of mind, but a matter of public safety. I prefer calm because the alternative can be overwhelmingly disruptive.
S: Could these be fantasy cut people?
E: I did say the yes that these could be either real or fictitious. All right, but having to do with science or skepticism?
S: Is that or? I'll take a guess, I know.
E: Go ahead, Steve.
S: Is that Bruce Banner?
E: That is Bruce Banner, very good. Yeah, that was a tricky 1 gamma interactions.
B: Oh, Jesus.
E: Careful to avoid stressors that could complicate things. Yeah, that was a tough one, but that was good.
B: Well done. No, it wasn't.
C: None of that would have helped me in.
B: In hindsight, it's goddamn easy.
C: Is it is. Is it Bob? Is it easy?
B: In hindsight, there are two more. We say Hindsight's 2010 here.
E: Here's the time to catch up, Bob. Two more most people come to me only after everyone else has failed, which is just the way I like it. Patterns hide inside symptoms the way secrets hide in people, and I've made a career out of prying both open, usually while limping through the hospital with a cane in one hand.
B: And I know.
E: Bob.
B: House.
E: Can I get a first name?
B: Doctor House is my aunt. Doctor. House Doctor. House.
E: Yes. Doctor House has a first name, too, if you want full credit.
C: Hugh Laurie.
E: Yeah, that's the actor who portrayed Dr. House. Yeah, it doesn't. And no one knows the.
S: I don't know his first name all.
E: Right. Then Bob, then Bob's going to get it. Bob will get it.
J: Wait, wait, hold on a second. You I got dinged for doing something wrong and Bob doesn't.
E: Why he? Didn't do anything wrong, he just gave a partial answer he gave.
J: The that's wrong.
S: It's funny, 'cause when you first said it, I'm thinking that's Sherlock Holmes.
US#00: I was too.
S: Then you did the medical thing. I'm like, no, it's the other guy who's supposed to be Sherlock Holmes, Bob. Bob chimed in first.
B: I think like in other game shows, I think that is plenty. Doctor Gregory. Not partial. Gregory did not know that. I never knew that. No, didn't know Gregory House.
E: OK.
B: Well, Bob. It was unreasonable to expect the. Let's give it to him.
E: Yes, I'm giving it to you, Bob.
B: I'm taking it you don't have to give it I.
E: Don't know? You're going to read the restroom. I'm going to go to the last one. Here we go one more. For years I wrestled with the heavens, convinced that the cosmos must be governed by elegant mathematical principles rather than perfect circles. Drawn out. Bob.
B: Is it Newton?
E: It is not Newton. OK.
B: Oh. God, what the hell is? This I think I know.
E: Rather than perfect circles drawn by ancient authority, working with meticulous observations from my colleagues, I found myself chasing patterns in the wanderings of Mars until its path finally surrendered its secrets. The planets travel in stretched curves, not circles.
S: I know.
E: Steve.
S: Johannes Kepler.
E: Johannes. Kepler. Kepler. Yes, Nice. Well. Done. Well done. Good job everyone. That was a lot of fun. That's good. I like.
S: I like how they get more. Of this game.
E: Yeah, yeah, the reveal. Yes, peel back layers as as we continue. So well played everyone. Jay you Jay, you played well too.
J: Hey, you know I try.
S: All right, well, let's go on with another game. Science or fiction?
Science or Fiction (1:35:41)
Theme: 1066
Item #1: After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the official language of England, and remained so until 1362.[6]
Item #2: The decisive technology of the Battle of Hasting was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry, but not yet in use by their Anglo Saxon counterparts.[7]
Item #3: Halley’s Comet appeared in the skies in 1066 and was thought to be a significant omen by both sides, and is even depicted in the famed Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Normal Conquest.[8]
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | The decisive technology of the Battle of Hasting was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry, but not yet in use by their Anglo Saxon counterparts. |
| Science | After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the official language of England, and remained so until 1362. |
| Science | Halley’s Comet appeared in the skies in 1066 and was thought to be a significant omen by both sides, and is even depicted in the famed Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Normal Conquest. |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve | win |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|---|
Evan | After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the official language of England, and remained so until 1362. |
Jay | After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the official language of England, and remained so until 1362. |
Bob | The decisive technology of the Battle of Hasting was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry, but not yet in use by their Anglo Saxon counterparts. |
Cara | The decisive technology of the Battle of Hasting was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry, but not yet in use by their Anglo Saxon counterparts. |
Voice-over: Woo Hoo, it's time for science or fiction.
S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake, and I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week to.
E: Hemi.
S: Anyone have a guess as to what the theme is?
E: Christmas it's gonna be. Yeah, it's gonna be.
S: I'll give you a couple of hints.
E: Reindeer.
S: One is I've been waiting years for this OK and 2 is which episode number is this?
J: Oh gosh, I don't know.
E: Yeah. No.
S: It's episode 1066.
E: 01066 The Battle of Hastings.
S: Exactly. That's we go.
E: There we go. Battle of Ages, everyone.
S: 1060.
C: 6 You've been waiting years.
S: For well, I realized at some point, like at some point we're going to have episode 1066, I have to make that the theme of science or fiction.
J: And Cara, this illustrates just how boring. You go back for. Me. For me it was episode 666 that got me. Excited.
S: Yeah. Well, after that, what's the next big thing coming up? This is it. All right.
US#00: In 100 years this have lagged even the Battle of Hastings. Sure. OK, here we go.
S: OK, here we go.
E: I know nothing about this Battle of Hastings.
S: But after the Norman Conquest of 1066, French became the official language of England and remained so until 1362. Item number 2. The decisive technology of the Battle of Hastings was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry but not yet in use by their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, and item number 3, Haley's Comet appeared in the skies in 1066 and was thought to be a significant omen by both sides and is even depicted in the famed Bayou Tapestry depicting the Norman Conquest. Evan, go first.
E: Do I get credit for knowing that this was the topic based?
S: On the yeah, you get to go first.
E: That counts as credit. OK, I'll take it.
C: Feels like a penalty.
E: All right, so the first one, did French become the official language of England and remained until 1362? First of all, I don't definitively know the answers to any of these, so it's this total guesswork. I am not drawing on any knowledge that I have. This one could be, you know, this is sort of the binary 1. So this has a 50% chance, you know, it's in a sense of being the fiction. So statistically, in a sense, without knowing really this fact that you, that this very well could be the fiction became the official language of England. Did it? Did it really? I have no recollection of it. I'm leaning towards that being the fiction. The second one about the technology, the Battle of Hastings, was the stirrup considered? Well, yeah, technologies, it's decisive technology. You know, we think of the weapons that they used to define sort of the technology anytime there's a battle. But the stirrup could have definitely been something that that that may have made a difference here. So, you know, where is my mind goes to armaments and stuff. This could wind up really being kind of the trick. One that winds up being correct. And then the last one about Halley's Comet appearing in the skies and the tapestry. Halley's Comet has been depicted in art, in tapestries, in, you know, paintings and many other things and across, you know, across many cultures, I believe as well. Did it happen in 1066? Was it the Battle of Hastings? I think it is. I'm going to go with my initial thought saying French did not become the official language of England. That one is the fiction.
J: Okay, Jay, I'm going to agree with Evan and say French did become the official language of England. No, he said. That's the fiction, correct? Actually, I'm going to agree with Evan that that is the fiction.
S: Okay, boom.
J: Just like that.
B: I believe that, yeah, some crazy stuff happened back then. I think French did become the official language of English. It was a crazy, it was a crazy time. And let's see the third one, Haley's Comet appeared in the skies in 1066. I'm not sure of all the the dates that appeared, but I think that's that's true as well. The second one though. The stirrup as this, this new invention, I think, I think there was something new that was used for the first time around that time, but I don't think it was the stirrup. So I'll say that that one is fiction.
S: OK. And Cara.
C: OK, so it's either that French was not the official language of England, which that one is so bizarre that I feel like that's probably science, or that the stirrup was not the decisive technology of the Battle of Hastings. Or that Halley's Comet did not actually appear in the skies and was not a significant omen and not depicted in a famous tapestry. I would think that if Halley's Comet did appear in the skies, it would be thought of as like a pretty big deal. And they probably, there probably would be art. So it's really a question of did it actually appear? I think the other stuff seems reasonable enough. And then the stirrup 1. I don't know, like, Evan, I thought you were going to pick this one because you were like, we usually think of it as like weapons. I think the decisive technology of any battle is whatever the weapons were. Or maybe the. Yeah. Or maybe the defense, you know, like maybe a shield or something that would either kill more people or prevent more people from being killed. And yes, I guess there could be an argument that a stirrup would help people stay on their horses better and therefore be more effective killers. But I also, it's possible, but I also feel like that kind of technology, it's a loop. Like really one side had it and the other side didn't. I feel like they could see it and go. That seems to be working. Let's make a bunch right now. Oh.
B: Wait. Oh wait, we're dead now.
C: True. But like, come on. I don't know, I feel like that one's the one that's bothered me because it's like, yeah, maybe the other side had some loops too to put their feet in.
S: So that's your fiction.
C: Yeah, I'm gonna go with Bob on that one.
E: All right, Steve, before you do the reveal. Oh, yeah. If I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, I think the technology, if it wasn't the stirrup, I think would the technology have been the Longbow? Maybe we'll find out.
S: That's Steve. Not a bad guess, Steve.
J: If I'm wrong.
S: Yeah.
J: I I want you to know I'm going to completely blame Evan, all right?
S: Noted. All right, so you all agree on the third one, so we'll start there. Haley's Comet appeared in the skies in 1066 and was thought to be a significant omen by both sides and is even depicted in the famed Bayou Tapestry depicting the Norman Conquest. You all think this one is science and this one is science. That is correct. It was there, they saw it. The, the, the Anglo Saxons were like, this is bad. And the Normans were like, this is good, especially after the fact. Yes, of course it foresaw our great victory or our humbling defeat.
B: Means whatever I wanted to mean.
C: OK, so you're saying the Normans won, so maybe French was the official language?
S: Yes, you didn't know the Normans won.
C: You know about this battle?
S: It's why it's called the Norman Conquest.
C: I don't know if you just made all of this up, Steve.
S: Oh my God.
C: I am I am not an English War history.
S: There is a.
E: Game of Thrones.
S: Historical drama on TV right now about the Norman Conquest. All right, so, but here's something.
B: I almost used this room.
S: See the thing? I I was kind of, I was assuming you guys had a basic knowledge of the Battle of Hastings.
B: I did wrote these.
S: And clearly that was incorrect. So have you ever seen the Bayou Tapestry though? Like it's.
B: No, never seen it.
E: I probably have but don't recognize it as such.
S: Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll go. With I almost use that one as the the fiction big in that the Bayou Tapestry is not a tapestry, it's an embroidery.
C: Bayou.
E: Embroidery.
S: Technically not a tapestry, it is an embroidery.
E: Does that mean it was knitted?
C: And then no it.
S: Means it was embroidered, Evan stitched.
E: I know.
J: OK, All right. Come on. We're boring. Move on. God.
E: Wow all.
S: Right, So we'll go. We'll go, I guess, backwards order. The decisive technology of the Battle of Hastings was the stirrup, used effectively by the Norman cavalry but not yet in use by their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, Bob and Kerry. You think this one is the fiction, Evan and Jay? You think this one is science? Now again, I was calibrating this to people who have some basic knowledge of. The Battle of Hastings. It is common knowledge, in my opinion, that the stirrup was the decisive technology of the Battle of Hastings.
B: But.
S: The yeah, the Northern Cavalry, they were able to stand up in the stirrups and brace themselves, put all their weight behind their lances, and they stayed in the saddles. They were more stable. They were able to stay in in the South of two nights on in horses going against each other. The one using the stirrup effectively has a massive advantage over the other one.
C: Wait, Steve, you actually thought I had this knowledge in my head?
S: Totally.
C: I did.
S: I did, yes.
C: Is this an example of like when you play poker with somebody who doesn't know what they're doing and then they win and it pisses you off 'cause they should have never been in the hand?
B: A better example would be Kirk beating Spock at 3 dimensional chess. But we get we get your example.
C: OK, no.
S: Carers example is better, so I disagree, but this is the fiction for two reasons.
E: Jay, don't hate me.
C: Yeah, Bob, thank you.
S: One noise, the. Stirrup was in use for 300 years. By 300, the Angle Saxons absolutely had stirrups, it just never occurred to them to use it in this way in combat. So the Normans used the stirrup way more effectively than the Anglo Saxons. But they had, they were using stirrups. They had stirrups.
C: That's extra dumb then. So not only did they see them with stirrups and not have to make their own, they saw them stand up and didn't think to do that too.
S: It was a technique. Well, again, they this is when they learned that, oh wow, they were really effective at using those stirrups. We hadn't thought of using them in that way. They were obviously trained to use them in a certain way that gave them a massive advantage. But it's also while that's the conventional wisdom, it is it is a controversial one role that actually played in the in the battle, like was it decisive? May probably not the you know. Was anything decisive? Yeah, the thing that probably did it that like changed the battle, was that what William the Conqueror did was he, they feigned a retreat. So you basically had the the the Anglo Saxons were relying on their shield wall and the Normans couldn't breakthrough the shield wall even with their stirrups, right. They couldn't breakthrough. So then they feigned a retreat some some of the people in the shield wall broke ranks to chase them, and then they wheeled around and attacked the weak point in the wall and broke.
B: That was the entire that was the entire battle right there.
S: It was brilliant. Yeah. I mean, so this is what we think, right? That this.
C: Is because this was an era of people literally just lining up in rows right? Like marching shield? Wall.
S: It was a huge shield.
C: Yeah.
S: It was a huge Steve technique, yeah.
C: Yeah.
S: Derived mainly from the Romans, by the way.
B: Yeah, So I'm familiar with this battle mainly because I listened to an audio book by David Mitchell of Mitchell and Webb called Unruly, The Ridiculous History of England, England's Kings and Queens. This, this. I mean, I'm not a big, I don't read history books really. I mean, focus more on whatever science and geeky stuff, but I'm not, I'm not a big science nerd. But I listened to it, didn't think I was going to like it. But this is David Mitchell. He made it hilarious and entertaining, which is so hard to pull off. And, and I if I didn't listen to that book, I might not have done as well tonight. So I mean, I'm just recommending it. If anyone likes David Mitchell, I mean you just. Have he's like total just. Humor, right? He is absolutely. And I'm not a big history guy and I loved it. So if you if you like or love history, I think you'll be nuts over this book. Unruly by David Mitchell. Just going to throw that out there. I loved it. He's trying to. Stir it as well.
C: There it is, thank. You all right?
S: Which means that after the Doorman conquest in 1066, French became the official language of England. That remains so until 1362 is science almost 300 years. And what that means is French was spoken by nobility. It was spoken in the court crazy. And it was a spoke in courtrooms, in not only the noble court, but in any legal proceeding. Latin was still spoken by the church and the common folk spoke English. But if everybody who was anybody spoke French for 300 years and there was a law passed in 1362 saying that all legal procedures had to be done in English, that's that's what ended that era.
C: So there must have been like a few decades after 1066 where people were like, I have no idea what anybody is saying.
S: But it was the nobility that took over England. That's like we're speaking. French, right?
C: That makes sense. That makes sense.
S: And it was, you know, they say it was Norman angle French, whatever, but it was still French. It was that whatever version of French and and French was actually the language of aristocracy in Europe into the like the early into the late 1800s. I think around that time. It it survived in a long time as the language of aristocracy. Alright, well, good job Bob and Cara, despite your relative lack of knowledge in the battle.
C: Of Hastings.
S: This is one of those things like I just grew up knowing this, right? To me, this is just like, everyone knows this, right?
C: It's just hard to.
S: Yeah, just.
B: Very, very short sighted of.
S: You it was, but still it was it was I wanted just wanted to talk about the Battle of Hastings and.
B: You. Got it now.
S: I'm glad you had fun.
B: You waited 20 plus years of.
S: This I'm agonizing over what I should make. I almost. The other thing I almost made it to fiction was the Battle of Hastings. Of course didn't take place in Hastings, right? That's true. Did not take place in Hastings. Of course it took place 7 miles away on a hill.
J: Hill, yeah.
S: Near a town, and the town today is called Battle. That's the name of the town.
J: Yeah. It's really interesting Shit. It was.
S: Named that after of course the battle, but by.
E: Some guy named Rafe.
S: Initially it was the battle near Hastings.
J: Yeah.
S: And then it morphed into the Battle of Hastings.
J: It's really cool if you, if you actually care about his.
S: I'm like, I could say the Battle of Hastings took place in York. Would they realize how far away Hastings is from York and how implausible that is?
E: Probably. To be a moron, to not know how far Hastings.
C: I don't know if I would have known it was in England before you started talking.
E: Norman is French.
C: What?
S: So if I said to.
B: You. I think I know what I'm getting you punks for, Chris.
S: Mercia, you have no idea what?
E: Mercia. Londonium.
B: Londonium. I love that Londonium. Wait, why did you say Londonium? Where did you get that?
E: I got that from the the what that movie, the guy the Guy Ritchie movie of King Arthur. What was it called? Because they called it Londonium in that movie.
B: That's hard because.
E: The Legend of the Legend of Excalibur or Legend of the Sword I.
B: Think it's called because I heard it. I heard it from a short audio story that has the best opening sentence of any short story I have ever read. And that line is, I knew when he walked into the barbershop that his beard was evil. And that's the opening line. And then the narration and the story are wonderful. It's just I wish I. Remember, that's a pretty good opening line. That's a great opening line and and he makes it work. And then the narrator is basically a God in this in this short voice. His voice is an instrument like few narrators I have ever. Ever. Heard before.
C: Steve, I googled it so now I know what it is. Can you name all 7 kingdoms?
S: Oh, I don't like Northumbria, Wessex. Mercia.
C: That's pretty freaking good.
J: He's looking at Chachi. I'm not.
C: He's Anglian.
S: I was watching the series. First of all, I watched The Last King.
E: Westeros.
S: Which is about also in the same era.
J: And now he role played this battle like 2000, right?
E: And he played right.
C: He played Call to Hastings Part 2, so you probably know that they called it the Heptarky.
E: No way. The hep.
C: Yeah, the Hep Turkey.
J: Karen, the thing you need to know about Steve is that he remembers almost everything that he reads.
C: Well, but here's the thing.
J: That's.
S: Not really true.
C: I remember a lot of things I read too I would never choose to read about. Oh, I love this kind of history. That's the difference. I love history too but I think I am just not an anglophile. Like I could care less about all the are you a frank white dudes fighting over land.
E: Oh, OK, yeah.
C: It's just not my area of history that interests me.
B: OK, before we go. I found the name of that awesome short story. It's it's from the it's from the podcast called Pod Castle episode 229. The name of the short story is the Tonsur S Son. Wonderful short story and narration.
S: Cool.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:53:35)
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?”
– ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, (description of author)
S: All right, Evan, give us a quote.
E: Before I do that, I want to note that we just set the record for the longest post.
B: Yeah. Oh, science.
E: Or fiction, You're right.
B: History.
E: It only took to episode 1066. Well, please.
B: This this was an extra fun episode that I think might go on my list for next.
E: Week This is a fun episode.
B: For recency bias, we just. Yeah, that's true. Absolutely.
C: He's just happy that we want science or fiction.
B: Yeah, that. Too. That too, but I think we're laughing more than usual.
E: Here's the quote. We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future? So wrote Carl Sagan in his book The Demon Haunted World. Science is a candle in the dark.
S: I remember that line.
E: And this is a question we talk about on the show. It does come up.
S: Yeah, it's a, it's a very interesting question. You know, to what extent do we judge people by the standards of their time versus our current standards? And it's it's complicated.
B: Not as often as we should. Yeah, it's definitely. Very complicated.
C: And also to what extent do we give people a pat? Like do we assume that the worst in people of the time was the standard of the time? Because there are always the people who weren't doing that.
S: Right.
C: Like any time we look in the past, there were always progressive and inclusive and yeah, but it's like, where was the.
S: Center of gravity and another standard. If you lived at that time, how would you be right? Because I think we all think, of course we would be the progressives of that time or we would be the people. The more modern thinking of that time now, chances are you as as Seinfeld said, you would have been goose stepping right along with all the other. Nazis.
C: Yeah. I mean, I disagree because we're living in this this time. We're living in this time. And I know where I stand on this political spectrum. That's true. You know, So I think we are living in. I don't mean you.
S: Specific care. I'm just saying like the general, like people.
C: Exactly. It's it's a bell curve I.
S: Mean it's a bell curve and and if you're in the middle of the bell curve of your time, you know.
C: How responsible are you? How are that?
S: Are we going to fault people for that versus? And that's the tough one, the language, our parents.
E: Use doing it.
C: Yeah, well, it's.
S: Easy to be where we are, especially if you're in the middle of the bell curve now and you're, you know, hating on people who were in the middle of the bell curve 200 years ago. That's what I'm saying. There's a little hypocrisy there.
C: Absolutely, Yeah, there's always a norm and we're always in history. So how do you, where are you relative to the norm right now?
S: Yeah, yeah.
C: Ask yourself that.
S: But it is interesting. I often think about like, how hard it is to get out of history and to look at something objectively. Like people don't know that they're in history. You know what I mean? If you look back at people, like, don't they know they're in the middle of the revolution? Like, whatever, they don't, they don't know that. I just watched Ken Burns American Revolution.
C: I'm watching that right now. It's.
S: Fantastic it is, but he's really good at continually reminding you that these people didn't know they were in the middle of the American Revolution.
C: They're just living their lives in the man. It's getting violent out.
S: Yeah, they're just doing what they're doing and even.
E: Aeons but.
S: But the way it, the way it unravels is just really interesting. It's like, yeah, they weren't planned. The thing was planned. It just sort of happened. In a lot of ways. It's very interesting. All right, enough of that. Don't forget to send us your choice for the best of everything for the neck for our year entry episode. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
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- ↑ www.nytimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/health/cancer-young-people-deaths.html
- ↑ www.sciencedaily.com: Humans are built for nature not modern life
- ↑ theness.com: New Study on the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines - NeuroLogica Blog
- ↑ www.bbc.com: Bit flips: How cosmic rays grounded a fleet of aircraft
- ↑ www.aol.com: Simon Cowell says he's ‘aging backwards’ thanks to controversial blood-rinsing procedure
- ↑ www.humanities.ox.ac.uk: In Medieval Britain, if you wanted to get ahead, you had to speak French
- ↑ www.history.com: How William the Conqueror Won the Battle of Hastings
- ↑ en.wikipedia.org: Halley's Comet - Wikipedia