SGU Episode 349

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Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to the skeptics guide to the universe. Today is Wednesday March 21st 2012 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella;

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson;

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novella;

J: (Jewish Accent) What is this? Pod-casting?

(laughter)

S: ...and Evan Bernstein

E: Good evening ladies and gentleman, how's everyone?

J: Hola Evan.

R: Super.

S: Good, Fine and dandy.

E: Now this was some winter huh?

J: Oh, crazy right?

S: This is my kind of winter.

E: We barely had any snow this year in New England, it was in the 50s for a large part of the winter in southern New England which is unheard of.

S: I love the vernal equinox because it means the next six months the sun is in the upper half of its course through the sky.

B: I hope all of you have released your white owls.

S: Well anyway Rebecca, what else is special about this day?

This day in skepticism (0:58)

March 24, 1989: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Wikipedia:Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

R: Well, this day marks the anniversary of a quite horrific event, March 24th 1989 was the day that the Exxon Valdez spilled oil into Prince William Sound.

S: You just can't let it go can you Rebecca?

R: No, no me and the otters...

S: (laughs) the otters.

R: ...are really pissed about it still.

E: One drunk sea captain, you know, guides the boat into the low into the shoals and he pays for it for the rest of his life.

R: I think, apparently that's a... apparently that's a bit of a myth, the captain apparently was drunk but was not at the helm. The third mate was, and on the list of things, what went wrong, the biggest ones seems to be that the radar for detecting possible collisions had been broken for nearly a year. Also...

E: And the captain was too drunk to know it. Apparently.

S: We'll get to that eventually.

R: And apparently all of the crew was severely overworked and exhausted and had been for quite some time. So those were identified as being the main causes of why it ended up striking a reef and spilling up to possibly seven hundred fifty thousand barrels of oil. It's not however...

E: Think of all the cars and furnaces that it would have provided heat and energy for. It's very sad.

R: Yeah, despite how devastating that oil spill was, it's not even in the top ten worst oil spills of all time. It was though the worst one in the US up until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. But yeah it's kinda crazy to think that there are oils spills happening all the time and some of them are much much worse than the Exxon Valdez. Yeah, there's a happy thought for you. The ship itself was recently auctioned off, actually. Just the tanker, just this week it was sold for scrap so apparently it was renamed the "Oriental Nicety".

S: Mmm hmm?

B: For real?

R: I guess as some way to trick people into to thinking it was err...

E: Oh my gosh, you might as well call it the "Happy Ending".

S: (laughing) The little nicety?! That's odd. I've a funny Exxon Valdez story, I was in Epcot Centre in Disney World shortly after that oil spill and the dinosaur exhibit was, I guess, funded by Exxon and before you get to see the dinosaurs, there's essentially a big commercial for Exxon. At one point they have this aerial shot of an oil tanker going through a harbor and they go: "The beautiful Exxon Valdez..." 'Course everyone starts laughing 'cause this is like right after the disaster they hadn't updated the ride yet.

S: (laughs)

E: Time to update the rides...

B: D'OH!

R: That's a little embarrassing. Here's my question; I've always heard people call it the Exxon Val-deeze but I don't understand why they pronounce it Val-deeze, when it's obviously Valdez.

S: I don't know I'm just slavishly following what I hear.

R: Yeah I don't know, I think it's weird.

S: But at least we can have our super hero magical bracelets to make it all better right jay?

B: Nice segue.

R: That was a good segue Steve.

S: You know it kinda takes away from it when you say it's a good segue.

R: I know that's why it's funny, and every single time, Steve, you will never be able to do a segue without us calling attention to it.

S: (laughs) OK.

R: This is your curse.

News Items (4:39)

Superhero Pseudoscience

Colantotte.com

J: Steve jumped right into it, I wanted to loosen up a little bit before we say bad things about Marvel, to say some good things about Marvel like, you know I think that for their super hero movies they've done a great job. You know for the most part I've liked all of them, and you know, the Avengers movie is coming out and I'm really psyched to see it, its totally right in my sweet spot. I mean I love super heroes I love like you know science fictiony stuff like that. So it really was disappointing to find out that Marvel, and probably even more involved is the production company that they're using, the marketing company that they've hired for the Avengers film, sadly has, is selling some crazy wacky merchandise. So they are selling a magic bracelet a real magic bracelet. A-la Powerband type BS.

E: As opposed to those fake magic bracelets?

S: They're not a toy, they're making actual claims for it.

J: Yeah they are, here I'll get into some of the details here, the limited edition Magtitan Neo Legend has a carbon fibre surface finished with a coat of transparent resin that yields an attractive stylish design.

S: Oh I thought you were going to say transparent aluminum. That would have been impressive.

J: A 100 mT 1000 Gauss ferrite permanent magnets arranged in Colantotte's unique alternating north-south polarity orientation which is

B: Oooh

E: (laughs) *Sarcastic* unique!

J: They've trademarked A-N-S-P-O. ANSPO trademark.

R: I'm holding out for the east-west polarity.

E: Yeah I'm there too.

S: They're saying because they have alternating strips of magnets with the north-south polarity alternating, and that's supposed to be unique to this, that's exactly how you make a refrigerator magnet.

E: Now wait a minute, what are you accusing them of?

S: That's how the refrigerator magnets have a very you know, narrow, of depth but relatively strong for the power of the magnets used, attraction right? That's why like when you pull a refrigerator magnet off of the refrigerator it's really strong over a very short distance but they're very quickly gives way

J: Right, drops off.

S: That's because they have alternating strips of north and south, you know of poles in the magnet.

R: Yeah but Steve is a refrigerator magnet made of adimantium, I don't think so?

J: I don't think so, Steve come on.

S: A really good refrigerator magnet.

J: Steve you can say what you will, and put it down, but each 'limited edition Magtite Neo Legend comes in a special limited edition package commemorating Marvel's The Avengers movie'. So of course it's works, it works Steve you gotta buy this thing.

S: Because the Avengers are real.

J: Now I saw something I'm perusing the ah, website and I have to admit the design of it is pretty cool, but you know go around the website and I was nosing around the SGU forums and they were chit chatting about it and they came up with a couple of interesting things. Somebody on our forums said that this is basically proven to work in Japan, like they have real medical benefit in Japan. I couldn’t find any proof of that so if anybody does I'd be interested to read it for myself but what they do have on the website is of course they have first hand comments by professional athletes.

S: Oh here we go.

J: "The Magtite Neo Legend is Colantotte's finest gear, the combination of pure titanium and carbon fibre is great, plus it's been created specifically to commemorate Marvel's Avengers movie". Two things! Two comments, ready? One: That guy did not write that, he did not say that.

E: Oh no!

J: If that guy walks around talking like that, he needs help

S: Don't you love it when anecdotes like that are written in ad-copy?

J: Right.

S: It's so obviously written by some sales guy, and it's supposed to be a spontaneous endorsement or anecdote from somebody. You know what I mean, it's so transparent.

J: Steve, pretend I'm Rory McIlroy and ask me about that bracelet I'm wearing?

S: Hey can you tell me about that bracelet you're wearing?

J: "The Magtight Neo Legend is Colantotte's finest gear, the combination of pure titanium and carbon fibre is great". Yeah, right.

R: That's really natural.

E: I think Rory has a Scottish accent actually...

J: Don't even...

E: ...if memory serves.

J: (attempting Scottish accent) "The Magtight Neo Legend is Colantotte's finest gear".

R: What? What was that?

(laughter)

E: I'll take (unintelligible) for four hundred.

B: I think you just invented a new accent that's never been heard of before.

R: Yeah it think it was just shouting. It was like a Klingon variant.

(laughter)

J: So anyway the second thing from that guy's endorsement that makes me shudder is he says, "I can't wait to go see this movie with my mates to watch Colantotte's Magtite Neo Legend in action". Does this mean it's in the movie? Is it in the movie, Marvel?

E: Clearly.

J: Seriously

B: Oh god.

S: I guess so.

E: Someone had to pay for this movie.

S: You gotta give it to 'em, I mean it's pretty brilliant, having a magic bracelet be on a super hero I mean, right?

R: Yeaaah?

E: OK, yeah.

J: The marketing is good, the marketing idea is good, especially because most people will probably buy into it, even if it's just because it looks good but you know, it's very...

R: It's probably still better than those Green Lantern rings.

S: (laughs)

B: Ha!

E: I've got two of those.

J: It's a sad state of affairs when a company like Marvel a company which produces fantasy, you know, they're actually...

E: Oh yeah.

B: They're still doing it.

J: ...morphing into reality here, you know let's cash in on the fact that we write about magic and sell magic.

E: Yep.

J: So, I'm a little twigged at Marvel right now.

S: What has this world come to.

E: Payin' the bills, it's payin' the bills.

B: Jay, on the website it shows a picture of the bracelet and underneath it says: "The superhero's secret"

J: Yeah.

B: Oh wow really that's the secret huh? Two little magnets on their wrist, that's what it does it.

R: I thought it was leaking radiation, we should try that.

E: Bob, that's a secret

S: So you're saying it doesn't work, Jay?

E: Can we agree that DC maybe is taken a notch up due to this? And maybe...

J: Yeah absolutely,

E: ...and maybe Marvel have suffered a hit.

J: It comes out April first, I couldn't find any pricing, I bet you it's going to be in the 60 to 100 dollar range. (note, $199 as of 29/5/2012

S: April first really?

E: April first? Hmmm.

J: Well what do you think do you think the whole thing is a hoax?

E: Something hoaxy this way comes, no.

J: I don't think so and I'll tell you why, the company that produces the bracelet, I researched them, they make a lot of other BS stuff, the negative ion crap and all that stuff.

S: Yeah.

E: Of course.

High Altitude Skydiving (10:54)

BBC: Skydiver Felix Baumgartner on track for super jump

S: All right well let's move on, we have a bit of a follow-up to a previous discussion, we had Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay on the show a few weeks ago, we talked about the up-coming attempted world-record-breaking high skydive, high altitude sky dive from Felix Baumgartner. And there's a discussion and bit of a news update, the news update is that he completed a test jump recently. He jumped from 71,500 ft or 22 Km above New Mexico, landing safely 8 minutes later. Although this is only a test jump, that puts him in the top three! In terms of the highest altitude skydives ever. This is a preparation for his planned jump later this year in which he will break the world record. He's planning to jump from 120,000 feet, so the current record stands at 102,800 ft in 1960 by Joe Kittinger who was a US Air Force colonel at the time, when we were talking about Baumgartner's planned jump on the last episode we mentioned the fact that it's inherently dangerous to jump from such a high altitude because of the velocities involved and that Kittinger during his jump in 1960 actually spun out of control, blacked out, and didn't regain consciousness until after his chute had automatically deployed. So when I was researching this for this piece, I found out that that's sorta true but one thing we didn't mention is that was, that occurred on the first of Kittinger's three jumps this was the excelsior mission, is what it was called, there was excelsior one two and three.

J: Excelsior!

S: Yeah the third one was the one where he you know, is the record still stands now at 102,800 feet, it was the first one, excelsior one where he spun out of control, the reason he spun out of control didn't have anything to do with the conditions of the jump, the aerodynamics or the thin atmosphere, or the velocity, it had to do with the fact that his pilot chute deployed too early. He, in releasing you know from the gondola he had to yank on you know the cord a few times before it came loose but he actually started the timer on the first yank so the timer was going before he jumped off the gondola and then his pilot chute deployed too early so he wasn't going fast enough. Normally it'll only deploy after you get up sufficient speed that the aerodynamics are such that it will be you know pulled back away from you, but he was going too slow when it deployed and then therefore it flopped around more than it should have and it actually wrapped around his neck and this started him spinning. He basically got tangled up in the pilot chute, he started spinning out of control, they estimate I think 80 RPMs, and he blacked out. Then he fell all the way to 10,000 feet when the barometric release triggered his reserve parachute and this didn't, this got tangled too, but they had installed a backup contingency where the original chute would break away and that worked allowing the reserve chute to inflate at about 6000 feet. And he survived obviously and landed safely. So the spinning out itself was more of an equipment thing and didn't have anything to do with just the difficulty of dropping from such a high altitude. But this whole discussion started an email discussion with the listener who essentially said that this is his point, he said, if you jump at a very high altitude, the airody... the experience for the skydiver is the same because you're going to reach terminal velocity and terminal velocity is, by definition is the wind resistance is going to equal the acceleration due to gravity and therefore it doesn't really matter if it's a thin atmosphere and a high velocity or a thicker atmosphere at a lower velocity. The net resistance against the sky diver is the same so it feels the same to the sky diver. So I totally get that, and I see no problems with that line of logic. But here was my counter point. The difference here is that when you jump from very high where the atmosphere is thin, terminal velocity is a lot faster you're going to be going a lot faster and then you have to lose all of that extra velocity so when you get down into the thicker atmosphere you're not just approaching terminal velocity you're already exceeding the terminal velocity of the lower-down denser atmosphere and therefore the wind resistance has to actually decelerate you, it has to slow you down.

E: Drag, yeah.

S: Yeah so therefore the drag is greater than if you jumped at the lower altitude and were just getting up to terminal velocity. But he didn't agree with that point he thought, yeah but it depends on how, what the curve of the change in atmospheric density is but, I just don't buy it. For example it's estimated that during Kittinger's record-breaking jump he reached a maximum speed of 625 miles per hour. Terminal velocity at lower down, the normal altitudes that people sky dive from is somewhere between 117 and 125 miles per hour depending on, you know, your position and your size and whatnot, and in like a head-down bullet position it's about 210 miles per hour. So you figure Kittinger had to loose about 500 miles per hour of velocity when he descended into the lower atmosphere that's gotta be a lot of extra force from wind resistance that you wouldn't have on you if you were jumping from, you know say, 10,000 feet right? I tried to find, that's just my reasoning, I don't know what the final answer is I kinda propose it as an interesting physics question but no one has given me like a real definitive answer, what do you guys think about all that?

J: Steve I agree with you I think you know, correct me where I'm wrong here, from what you're saying, if you're in a thinner atmosphere, terminal velocity is going to be faster.

S: right, that we all agree on yep.

J: then the idea is that you will eventually stop accelerating and maintain a speed when you hit enough air molecules basically get piled up underneath you that pretty much matches what it would be like say jumping at 10,000 feet, right?

S: Yeah so it's thinner air but it's rushing past you faster and the net wind resistance is the same, that's right.

J: Yeah ok,

S: but the difference I'm saying is, yeah but then you descend into denser atmosphere where you have to, you're not just maintaining a terminal velocity you're actually significantly slowing down because the terminal velocity is getting lower as you descend into the thicker atmosphere, the other point I raised which no one's given me a good answer to is, all right so I understand the wind resistance will be the same but you still are going faster your velocity is greater so if you do spin out at a higher velocity, would there be the potential for the RPMs to be greater? Will you spin out faster? And that's the real risk, that you'll spin out so fast that you'll black out, right?

J: Right yeah so, in other words, so if you do a spin out, at say, 70 or 80 thousand feet, you might actually be going so fast that, you know, your blood pressure goes totally crazy, whereas maybe...

S: If you're going 500 miles an hour, and you spin out, is that more dangerous than when you're going at 120 miles an hour, that's the question. It's interesting, I posed it on my blog, but nobody really gave me a good answer. You know, Jay and I have been chatting about this and we asked a physics friend of ours who really didn't add anything to what we just said. So I dunno, it's an interesting thought experiment and we'll put it out there to our listeners to further the conversation. I still, it still seems to me that it would be more difficult and more risky to do the high sky dive because, it's the deceleration and the absolute velocity, how that translates into spin, those are the two points that I'd like to hear discussed. But Baumgartner is going to be making his next jump later this year where he's going to try and break the record and his one observation, I mean all the equipment tested out and worked fine but he said the cold was like really hard to handle. So before he goes...

B: His hands were actually sort of numb he could't use them.

S: Yeah so before he goes up higher, so his test dive was from 71,500 feet, he's going to 120,000 feet, that's going to be a lot thinner, a lot colder, so yeah I think they're going to have to tweak the spacesuit there that he has, if he's going to be able to tolerate the cold at that height.

B: So put those heat packets in the gloves that's all.

J: Yeah.

R: or those mittens that you put in the microwave.

S: There are those people who like go into like the minus 120 degree refrigerators for like ten seconds, you guys hear about that?

B: Yeah.

R: Why would you do that?

E: Wow.

S: 'cause why do you think? Because it's supposed to have some magical health benefit.

R: Oh yeah.

B: I think I read it's supposed to be invigorating.

S: Invigorating!

(laughter)

E: Invigorating? OK.

R: Yeah you know what else is? Cold shower.

S: They used to throw cold, wet blankets on psychotic patients to calm them down.

J: Yeah. A real calming effect. It's a good...

S: It would shock them, you know, they would be having you know whatever, they would be out of control, and that would shock them into just shutting down. You know that just that real sudden extreme cold.

J: Steve aren't you really just supposed to slap someone silly when they freak out like that?

E: Oh you know, an electrode that real electricity to...

S: That's about as scientifically valid.

J: Yeah according to like the fifties movies you know, all you got to do when someone's having a hissy fit you just smack 'em one and go you know...

R: Get yourself together man!

J: Get a hold of yourself woman you know something like that right?

E: Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about

(laughter)

Quickie with Bob: Designer Electrons (21:33)

ScienceDaily: Molecular Graphene Heralds New Era of 'Designer Electrons'

E: You know what I just read? Rebecca wants a quickie with Bob

S: (knowingly) Oooh.

R: That's true, that's true I do.

B: Oh sure Rebecca but will you hold me afterwards..

R: (thinking) Mehh..

B: Don't answer that question.

R: I'm not into that cuddly shit.

B: Ok this week's quickie with Bob...

(laughter)

B: For this week's quickie with Bob I've got a new era of designer electrons. Researchers at Stanford and the S.L.A.C national accelerator lab have learned how to control the behavior of electrons in such a way that we may see whole new classes of materials which in turn could comprise new and amazing electrical devices. Hari Manoharan who is associate professor of physics at Stanford who lead the research said: "The behavior of electrons in materials is at the heart of essentially all of today's technologies. We are now able to tune the fundamental properties of electrons so they behave in ways rarely seen in ordinary materials." So what they did was to use an STM. A scanning tunneling microscope to precisely position carbon monoxide molecules on a very, very smooth copper surface. So they did it in such a way so that electrons flowing over the surface are repelled by these molecules and they're forced into these patterns of flows that are identical to what their behaviors would be if there were a magnetic or electrical field present. Even though there were no such fields present at the time. So one example that they pulled off was that they were able to produce a flow of electrons that acted as if they were under the influence of a magnetic field of 60 Tesla. This is incredible because this is 30 percent more power than any field ever sustained by science. So these electrons were behaving in ways that there's probably no other way to make them behave 'cause science isn't even up to the take of creating a field and sustaining it that long. So who knows what kind of materials and devices this may lead to? Perhaps video displays and mobile phones and a host of other devices that we would hardly believe today. Do a Google search for designer electrons if you wanna read more about this.

S: Thanks Bob.

R: That's very satisfying.

J: Thank-you Bob.

New Hampshire Abortion Bill (23:31)

Women's Right to Know Act - January 3 2012

S: Rebecca,

R: Yo.

S: Tell us about the lovely science based laws that are, bills that are being proposed up in our neighboring state New Hampshire, or nearby state I should say.

R: Well, it's very, very exciting time to be a lady, in that it states, our listeners may be aware that right now in state legislatures around the US there's been this on going war on behalf of the religious right attempting to limit women's access to contraception, sexual health education and abortion in any way possible. And they can't just come out and make all that illegal, so much like the creationist, they have employed a wedge strategy of making life as difficult as possible for women who want control of their own reproductive health. Some of the bills that have been passing in the US have included those mandating that women be unnecessarily penetrated with an ultrasound wand prior to getting an abortion, some are allowing pharmacists and doctors to refuse to provide contraception based on religious convictions. And there are even some politicians that are trying to mandate that women need a signed permission slip from a man before getting an abortion. So that's just to give you like a slight context for those of you who maybe aren't in the US or aren't paying attention. Last week the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill that would require physicians to give certain materials to any woman seeking an abortion. Those materials are provided under the auspices of informed consent. You know we need to make sure women have as much information as possible before getting an abortion. The problem is that those materials include statements such as: "It is scientifically undisputed that full term pregnancy reduces a woman's lifetime risk of breast cancer. It is also undisputed that the earlier a woman has a first full-term pregnancy the lower her risk of breast cancer becomes because following a full term pregnancy the breast tissue exposed to estrogen through the menstrual cycle is more mature and cancer resistant. In fact for each year that a woman's first full-term pregnancy is delayed her risk of breast cancer rises three point five percent. The theory that there is a direct link between abortion and breast cancer builds upon this undisputed foundation."

E: Where do they pull that information from?

R: Their asses, actually.

(laughter)

E: (Sarcastically) Oh they're proctologists, I see.

(laughter)

R: Yeah ah, this particular bit of pseudoscience, the idea that abortion increases a woman's chance of breast cancer has been bandied about particularly in anti-choice circles for a number of years now. And In-fact up until into the mid 1990s there have only been a few small but heavily flawed studies that had been done on this particular topic, and a few of those studies did show that there might be a connection between breast cancer and abortions and miscarriages. However, in the past several decades we've seen several large-scale studies conducted that show absolutely no connection at all. The organizations like the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and even the Susan G. Komen Foundation,which is run by anti-choice fundamentalists, all stand by the fact that there's absolutely no link between abortion and breast cancer.

S: Yeah I did my own literature research, just to see what it was, not reading political sites, just look at the literature and see what it shows, if you go back into the 1980s it looks like there was some, you know debate about it actually, you could find articles that come to either conclusion. But then when you look at reviews that are written in the last few years, they all agree that there is absolutely no link, between abortions and the risk of breast cancer.

R: Right those papers that were done in the 80's and early 90's were very small, very small sample sizes, and have a lot of flaws in them.

E: So a coordinated disinformation campaign is underway.

S: Exactly

R: Well yeah now this is one of those things, another one I may have mentioned before on the show, definitely on skepchick though is, the idea that, one is the idea that abortion leads to depression, which is another thing that is absolutely not supported by the scientific evidence. And the other is that, that fetus, a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. This is a quote-unquote fact that is becoming commonplace in political discussions in the US these days and it's talked about as thought it's scientific fact, when in-fact it is not. The question of when a fetus can feel pain is actually still up for debate. And by no means is 20 weeks an actual medical diagnosis. you know, this is something that they've gone with that specific number because these politicians have an agenda, and that agenda is to outlaw abortion, and so they're using the idea of fetuses feeling pain at 20 weeks to convince courts to outlaw abortion at 20 weeks, despite the fact that it's unconstitutional.

S: Yeah and there's good reason to think that it's actually not possible for a fetus to perceive pain before 24 weeks of gestation just in terms of the development of the nervous system.

R: Right.

S: So that's probably, that's a better guess at this point. Getting back.. can I comment on the mental health aspect of it?

R: Yep.

S: 'Cause you guys, just again looking at the literature just to see what it says. There's a lot of complexities actually to the mental health issue, because as you might imagine, you could look at studies in a lot of different ways. Retrospectively vs prospectively, you know, you can pick out different sub-populations you know for example a correlation obviously, just saying that women who are getting abortions are more depressed for example; well, probably something to do with their life situation that lead them to the abortion that may have something to do with it, that's not the same thing as saying that abortion causes depression. And when you control for those factors, there really isn't any evidence that abortions are causally linked to any mental health problem at all. But again they're cherry picking and exploiting the complexities in that particular part of the research in order to make their case. And If you have your desired conclusion in mind, you get, you know there's enough studies out there, you can cherry pick, you could support almost any position you want. But the systematic reviews out there done by researchers who are trying to get to the bottom of it and know how to control for different variables, are all coming to the same conclusion that there is just no causal relationship between abortion and mental illness.

R: Right, and to get back to this particular bill in New Hampshire, the idea that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. So there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that's true. There is evidence to suggest that you, women who have children before the age of 30, do, they may have a decreased risk of breast cancer.

S: So there is a difference between the outcomes of prospective and retrospective studies. Retrospective basically means you take women who 'have' breast cancer and you ask them if they have had an abortion, and prospective means you follow women who have had an abortion and then you see what their risk of, is of developing breast cancer compared to other women you know in the same cohort or who didn't have an abortion. The retrospective studies did show a higher correlation with having had an abortion but the prospective studies didn't, and the likely interpretation there is that women who had breast cancer may have been more willing to disclose their prior history of abortion. We're relying upon women to disclose that information, when you follow them going forward, prospectively, there's no correlation. So prospective data is always better, it's always more reliable, because there isn't this recall bias, or maybe this willing to disclose bias that could alter the data. So the current consensus is that there's no correlation.

R: Right, and despite this fact this bill did pass through the house, and the way that the original bill passed was not just to declare that the doctors needed to give these particular pseudoscientific materials to women seeking abortions, but it also wrote down exactly how those doctors should be punished if they failed to follow through with that. And in the original bill they recommended class A felonies for any doctor who didn't abide by the law and that came with up to 15 years in prison for a doctor.

E: Ouch.

S: For telling the truth.

R: Yeah, yeah, basically for telling the truth, and luckily I guess that original bill that passed through the house was then reconsidered and went back through the house. The criminal Justice and public safety committee just barely voted in favor of recommending the removal of the class A felony part. Even if that happens though, the way this bill is written, doctors will still be open to malpractice law suits or disciplinary action by the New Hampshire state board of medicine if they do in fact tell women the truth about abortion and breast cancer.

S: Which means they can lose their license basically.

R: Yeah, so, you know, for those of you in New Hampshire you may want to contact your state representatives immediately. For those of you in the United States but not in New Hampshire you can't rest so easy because there are similar pseudoscientific bills exactly like this in several other states, and this is basically the religious right's standard operating procedure is to introduce the same or very similar bills simultaneously in many different states at once. So Kansas and Oklahoma, you have similar measures that have been proposed. So no matter where you are if you are in the US it might be a good idea to contact your local representatives and just let them know that you support science and reason.

S: You know the thing I hate you know I feel obligated to say; it's not like, we're not taking a political position on this show regarding the abortion debate, I mean this is, you know people have the right to come to different moral and ethical decisions, you know, obviously Rebecca you have a certain position on that.

R: I do have a certain position.

S: But the point is you can't lie about the science...

R: Yeah.

E: Yes right.

S: ... in order to make your political position, and not only lying about the science by trying to pass a law mandating that physicians make the same lie and and trying to punish them for not lying; That is such an abuse of not only professionalism but of science and reason, and that stands aside from the political debate about abortion.

R: Exactly yeah.

S: It's a completely separate issue yeah.

R: Yeah.

NDE and Lucid Dreams (34:53)

LiveScience.com: Near-Death Experiences are Lucid Dreams, Experiment Finds

S: Alright well lets move on, Bob you've got another item..

Designer Electrons ()

Science Daily: Molecular Graphene Heralds New Era of 'Designer Electrons'

Questions and Emails: Here Comes the Metric System ()

Just a quick question. I often wondered why America kept the Imperial system for measurements, miles, inches etc. Do you think it would be better (for science teaching in particular), if you switched to the metric system, and what problems do you think it would create? Thanks for the great show. Liz. Scotland

Name That Logical Fallacy ()

From the comments to NeuroLogica

"natural selection (or selection in general) explains how two horses can become all the different breeds we have today- including zebras. This is also how the finches of Darwin fame have longer beaks some years and shorter beaks other years… Everyone knows this happens. The question is this– does that explain how a single celled life form could become an elephant? Some question that it does. (I would be one who questions- BTW) This is called micro-evolution vs. macro-evolution– aka the development of species or kinds vs. the development of breeds. To make an analogy– Everyone knows you can make a ladder to the roof of the house. Does that mean you can make a ladder to the sun?"

Science or Fiction ()

• Item number 1: 'New measurements indicate that Venice continues to sink into the ocean, contradicting the prior conclusion that the city is stable'
• Item number 2: 'A new study finds that the whooping cough epidemic currently occurring in Australia is mostly due to a new strain of B. pertussis which is not well covered by the vaccine'
• Item number 3: 'A new survey finds that parents of children with cancer trust information they find on the internet as much or more than information from their health care provider'

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.

Bernhard Haisch

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