SGU Episode 245

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SGU Episode 245
25th March 2010
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 244                      SGU 246
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
My brain is the key that sets my mind free
Harry Houdini
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Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday March 25^th 2010 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

B: Hey Everybody.

S: Jay Novella.

J: Hey Guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening, good evening. How is everyone.

ALL: Great.

J: How you doing Ev.

B: Oh, you're talking to us? Oh, we're good.

E: I'm talking to the wall.

S: Rebecca is off this week but it is not her fault. What happened was the power supply decided to short circuit for some reason and I was without a computer for a couple of days we had to delay, at the last minute we had to delay the recording date and Rebecca had a previous engagement, something to do with liable reform in the UK. So unfortunately she can't make it today.

J: Steve did you see and smell smoke?

S: I did and I heard that sound that you would hear on a soundtrack: this is the sound of electronics frying. That (zzzz, zzz, zzz) you know (sound effects) (laughter). It was literally and you know the lights on my computer were sort of flashing in time with the noise

J: Oh no.

S: Yeah.

B: So two days without a computer did you get like the DT's?

S: It was rough, it was rough. Then I had to hook everything back I have such a tangle behind my computer and of course I find a power supply that's hooked up to nothing and I have no memory of.

E: A power cord hooked up to...

S: Yeah, it's like it's plugged in and there's an end that should plug into something else but I have no idea...

J: What was it, like a camera or something? How many years ago did you use that thing?

S: or an old hard drive or something I don't know.

B: Maybe it was cloaked, you just couldn't see it.

S: Right.

E: It was connected to the could obviously.

J: You're lucky, your house could have caught on fire.

S: Yeah, It's a good thing I was at my computer when it happened so that I could unplug it right away

E: so we're back up and running.

S: back up and running. Tell us what's special about today Evan.

This Day in Skepticism ()

E: Well it was 1903 and the Times newspaper, it doesn't say what country though, maybe there's a Times newspaper in France because it was reported that French physicists Pierre Curie assisted by Madame Curie communicated to the academy of sciences that recently discovered radium, and I'm quoting now: "possesses the extraordinary property of continuously emitting heat without combustion, without chemical change of any kind and without any change to it's molecular structure which remains spectroscopicaly identical after many months of continuous emission of heat such that the pure radium salt would melt more that it's own weight of ice every hour. A small tube containing Radium if kept in contact with the skin for some hours produces an open sore by destroying the epidermis and the true skin beneath and the cause of death of living things who's nerve centres do not lie deep enough to be shielded from their influence.

J: Oh man that, that's scary.

E: Radiation baby.

S: Radiation.

B: Wow.

J: It's just weird to hear someone describe radiation that way.

S: Right, like they had no idea what it is.

E: Right, just kinda describing kinda what it does and, could cause death...

J: So do you guys think if you were exposed to enough radiation in order for it to do that to your skin could that give you cancer and kill you as well?

S: Oh yeah.

B: I think it depends on the radiation but yeah, my guess would be yeah.

S: It would certainly be a risk factor for cancer.

J: Oh man.

E: Radium, I mean, I'm no chemist but I understand that's pretty radioactive.

J: And sadly she died of radiation poisoning.

B: Yeah.

S: Yes, took one for the team.

E: Or how about those women who used to paint the phosphorous numbers on, what was it, watches or some sort of devices and they would lick the tips of their brushes as they dip it in the phosphorous, they paint it on and they got poisoned.

J: Oh yeah. How about that guy, Steve, was it the guy who was selling radioactive water when they thought radiation was nifty and you know like sci fi.

S: Well there was like a mussel man who was a shill for radioactive tonic which he drank and eventually his jaw was eaten away by radioactivity and he suffered horribly from it.

J: And didn't they remove his bottom jaw?

S: Yeah.

J: Or it fell off.

B: Ouch.

J: can you imagine.

B: how does one acquire radioactive liquid?

S: what they would do is they would literally have like a vase made out of radium

B: Oh

S: and the instructions were to put water in it over night and then drink water from the basin or vase or whatever that's how they would do it.

E: Come a long way in a hundred and ten years

S: Yeah (laughter). One quick announcement before we get on to the news items. April 17th Saturday 10AM New York City the NECSS con The North East Conference of Science and Skepticism you can go to the necsscon.org and register for the event get tickets while some are left. The speakers this year include James Randi, DJ Grothe, Jamy Ian Swiss, George Hrab, Steve Mirsky, David Gorski, Val Jones, John Snyder, Kimball Atwood, Julia Galef and the entire cast of the SGU. It's going to be a lot of fun you can also register for a speakers dinner where you get to sit down and have dinner with all of the speakers. So please check it out and register it's coming up pretty quickly.

News Items

Rise of the Dinosaurs (5:36)

S: So Bob tell us about the rise of the dinosaurs.

E: Oh no where! Oh you mean Oh, OK.

B: Yeah this was a pretty cool story um news item. Any fifth grader can probably tell you how the reign of the dinosaurs ended: the aliens came down, they seeded the earth with human DNA then ate all the dinosaurs. Wait, wait that's not the consensus yet. But you know what it is well if you ask the same kid how began their dominance you'd probably get a puzzled look more than anything else. So it's a bit ironic that just last month scientists made their most definitive statement yet about the fate of dinosaurs, that they almost certainly died from an asteroid and not from volcanism. Now an international team led by Brown university palaeobiologist Jessica Witeside They concluded that the other end of the dinosaur reign namely when they took over was caused almost certainly from volcanism and not an asteroid. The opposite. S: Right.

J: Bob so when you say volcanism what do you mean specifically.

B: you know Vulcans come. No Volcanoes, Volcanoes Jay just volcanoes and.

S: I'm just asking...

B: just volcanoes and vents in the earth that release lava, you know.

S: and gases.

B: Yeah gases.

J: gases.

B: 200 million years ago the earth was a bit different than it is today right. Most of the land masses...

S: That's what I hear.

B: Yeah, most of the land masses were smushed together into a super continent called...

J: Pangea.

B: Pangea, thank you which was actually, very good Jay, which was just actually starting to break up actually about 200 million years ago. It had been together for quite some time.

J: Well all relationships end at some point Bob.

B: But also at that time 200 million years ago crurotarsans ruled the planet crurotarsans were a branch of reptiles distinct from dinosaurs. You don't really hear too much about these guys they actually co-existed with dinosaurs and early proto dinosaurs for 30 million years but the early dinos were probably second class reptiles back then crurotarsans were the biggest most dominant animals during the Triassic period even in terms of sheer diversity they were ahead of their reptile cousins. The something happened, one of the great mass extinctions of all time occurred which ended the Triassic and ushered in the Jurassic and the scientists now believe that as the north American plate separated from the Africa plate, imagine these two plates have been together for quite some time and they start separating because the tectonic plates are, you know, slowly moving. So their slowly separating and it creates a basin, there's a basin that is created between them and which would later become the Atlantic ocean. In this basin there were fissures which released greenhouse gasses that wiped out half the plant species on the planet and many animals including most of the crurotarsans. So that pretty much what they think happened. But like any mass die off this opened up tons of ecological niches ripe for the dinosaurs to spread into and eventually led to their world domination for about, what, 200 million years. It was an amazing run that they had. So all of this started then not necessarily because they were inherently superior as many people believe but essentially they were really just lucky.

S: Yeah.

B: I'll give you a quote from Jessica Witeside she's the assistant professor of geological sciences. She says "They had the blind luck of being unwittingly adapted to get through that climate catastrophe. How they did it is quite difficult to explain." So that little bit of luck paved the way for world dominance for millions of years but we all know eventually right they all met a similar fate to the crurotarsans. They were wiped out 65 million years ago leaving only modern day birds in their wake. the crurotarsans left a legacy as well. Can you guys guess what their legacy is?

E: Um

J: twenty- nine

B: Close. You're very close Jay. No, actually you're not, you're so far away I don't know what to say. Their legacy is the twenty-three species of crocodiles, alligators and gharials that exist today. And even the number twenty-three surprised me there is actually 23. You think crocodile, Alligator there's actually 23 species of those guys so there's a lot and buy they were much more diverse 200 million years ago. Imagine if they weren't wiped out the species that they would have evolved into. Perhaps in tens of millions of years from now only a small residue of mammals will be left around. My sinical side guesses that that residue will probably consist of robotic terminators looking for that last bit of biology to wipe out.

S: Right. Now Bob this a consensus that's been building for a while because we, I think we talked about this like a year ago. The fact that the dinosaurs were just lucky,

B: Right.

S:In terms of beating the crurotarsans out. Right.

References