SGU Episode 767

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SGU Episode 767
March 21th 2020
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 766                      SGU 768
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
Quote of the Week
What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.
David Eagleman, American neuroscientist and science communicator
Links
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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

"5 to 10 Years" ()

• Arsenic Based Life: National Geographic: Arsenic-Life Discovery Debunked—But "Alien" Organism Still Odd

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Hoarders of the Pandemic ()

• Discover Magazine: Why Coronavirus Is Turning People Into Hoarders: A Q&A on the Psychology of Pandemics

Evolution of Anxiety ()

• National Geographic: Coronavirus is spreading panic. Here’s the science behind why.

Extreme Depth of Focus Lens ()

• Neurologica: Extreme Depth of Focus Lens

Predicting the Present ()

• Medical Xpress: What you're seeing right now is the past, so your brain is predicting the present

Who's That Noisy? ()

• Answer to last week’s Noisy: _brief_description_perhaps_with_link_

New Noisy ()

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups ()

Question #1: Vitamin K for Newborns ()

Thought this would be a good topic. New York Review of Books: Among the Vitamin K ‘Anti-Vaxxers’ Didn’t know about this craziness. Mark Gregor-Pearse, Chicago

Science or Fiction ()

Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Theme: Pandemics
Item #1: Although the flu strain that caused the 1918 pandemic was particularly virulent, it was likely secondary bacterial infections that caused most deaths, not the virus itself.
Item #2: The Bubonic Plague is still the deadliest in history, with between 75 and 200 million deaths.
Item #3: There have been more cholera pandemics than any other type of organism.

Steve Explains Item #1

Answer	Item
Fiction	More cholera
Science	{{{science1}}}

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Bob	Bacterial infections
Jay	More cholera
Cara	More cholera

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.
– David Eagleman, American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator

Signoff/Announcements ()

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

Today I Learned

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary