SGU Episode 761

This episode needs: proofreading, formatting, links, 'Today I Learned' list, categories, segment redirects. Please help out by contributing!

How to Contribute

SGU Episode 761
February 8th 2020
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 760                      SGU 762
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
GH: George Hrab
Quote of the Week
Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more computing power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the world today.
Ralph Merkle, American computer scientist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (applause). Today is Saturday, February 1^st, 2020, and this is your host, Steven Novella (applause). Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody! (applause)

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy. (applause)

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys. (applause)

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Hello, Philadelphia. (applause)

S: And our frequent guest and good friend, George Hrab.

G: E-A-G-L-E-S.

E: You are earning those SGU frequent flyers.

G: Seriously, man. I get the upgraded, like, the nuts and the warm nuts when we start the show and everything. It's great.

E: The hot towel.

G: The hot towel. The warm nuts. It's great. It's delicious.

S: So, as you might have guessed, we are in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We are here for, we're in the middle of our extravaganza tour, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and then Brooklyn. And we, like, we, our plan is to always hey, we're all together. We might as well record a live show. So thank you guys all in the audience for joining us for this. We really, always really appreciate to see our listeners come out. We're going to start with a few news items, and then we're going to go into some fun bits that we have specially planned for this show.

COVID-19 Update (1:33)

S: First Cara, you're going to get us updated on the coronavirus thing, right? There's a lot of, we've been talking about it on the show. We're going to continue to give the numbers as they move so quickly. I'll probably break in with some updated numbers on this episode, because it's going to be a week before this comes out. There's, and the, of course, the conspiracy theories and the misinformation is exploding as fast as the virus is, but give us the numbers. What's going on?

C: So I flew here and-

S: You have the flu?

C: No, I got my flu shot.

S: Your second one?

C: My maybe second flu shot of the year, because I forgot if I got it already, but I flew here and I would say at LAX, there was also a layover. I flew straight to Pittsburgh and there was a layover in Phoenix and between LAX and Phoenix, I would say probably 10% of the people in the airport were wearing masks probably. And they were all like young, healthy looking people who I would love to survey them and be like, how many of you got your flu shot this year?

B: Is that warranted at this time though? At the airport?

C: A flu shot, yes.

B: No, no, no. At the airport. Wearing a mask at the airport.

C: Well, I don't think that LA or Phoenix even have confirmed cases, so I'm not sure. I mean- I'm not warranted there. Not warranted, but also, I mean, whatever. I'm not going to blame somebody. I just feel like the misinformation there, like they were mostly wearing lawnmower masks. I don't really know if those are effective. And my friend-

S: No puppy masks?

C: My friend who lives-

B: What's a lawnmower mask?

C: It's like the one that's big with the little pinch thing that just goes like this. It's kind of hard.

B: Oh, gotcha.

C: As opposed to a surgical mask which like forms to your face.

S: But those are probably, to be honest with you, those are better.

C: Oh, really?

S: The ones that pinch over the nose. So if you're in a hospital and you need respiratory precautions to go into a patient's room, that's the one you wear.

C: It's the pinchy one, but it's the one that goes around your ears, right? That's like this. Whereas the lawnmower ones are hard. They're like rigid.

S: Oh, yeah. Those are- So they're actually yet a different one.

C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

S: So there's the- Yeah, there's the hard ones that are round that fit over your mouth. Then there's the surgical masks that pinch your nose, which are-

C: But I wonder if the actual respiratory capabilities of them are different. Like the actual pore size? I don't know. Whatever. I will say that my friend who lives in Hong Kong was saying it's like mass hysteria there. It's like really out of control. But he was like, my favorite is seeing all the people wearing the masks in the street pulled down so that they can smoke their cigarettes. He's like hundreds of people. But anyway, so we have some new information. And the coolest thing, there's a new article that came out today in Business Insider that talks about the fact that over the last three weeks, there have been- They combed the research literature and found that there have been 50 scientific studies that have been published. Now most of them are not peer reviewed, obviously, because the peer review process is slower than that. But a handful of them have been fast tracked in peer review. Most of them are published on different archives. So what they did is they looked through all of this literature to see like, what do we know now that we didn't know then? So there's a few highlights here. Number one is an update on the numbers. So as of today, which is Saturday, February 1st, there have been 259 people who have died. And the infection, which I have in here, is at least 12,000 people have been infected. 259 dead, 12,000 infected. That's obviously going to change because we see those numbers going up pretty quickly. And let's talk about the rate there. I want to jump ahead to that.

S: Hey there. Here's Steve breaking in with the latest numbers as promised. So this now is being recorded on February 8th, 2020. As of right now, the latest numbers are 34,958 confirmed cases. 6,106 of those are deemed to be in severe condition. There are 724 confirmed deaths. So as you can see, the numbers are increasing geometrically. And obviously, the numbers are going to get much higher before this infection plays itself out. Let's get back to the show.

C: So there have been a couple different studies to try and identify what the rate of infection is. And the idea here, they call it the R-naught, which is like for every one infected person, how many other people are they likely going to infect? And they're saying that it's between one and five based on the literature, which is pretty high.

S: Yeah. And just for background, if you're more than one, the infection is spreading. If you're less than one, it's dying out. Remember with the Ebola outbreaks, we're always waiting for that number to get below one because that's when we're on the far side of that. As long as it's over one, it's going to continue to spread.

C: Yeah. And so looking at the average of that, there was a study that was published in The Lancet on Friday that said that they think it's about two to three people per infected person. So that means that the infected population would double every six and a half days.

J: Wow.

C: So they are saying that it looks like it's more infectious than SARS, but it actually seems to be less deadly than MERS or SARS, the other two big coronaviruses that have caused a lot of problems. And there's a great chart that it's all as of January 31st that they pulled some of this data.

B: It's already a day out of date.

C: Yeah, right? A day out of date. No, some of it was actually pulled from the end of the other infection cycles, obviously. And so comparing so far the novel coronavirus, the 2019 novel coronavirus, which is what they're kind of calling it, or the Wuhan coronavirus, the infection rate, or I'm sorry, the fatality rate, that's what they're comparing in this chart, appears to only be 2.2%. I shouldn't say only, because that's still very high. But compared to other special pathogens, we're talking MERS, 34%.

B: I read 30 to 40%, which is huge.

C: SARS around 9 or 10%, Marburg virus, 80%. I mean, when we start to look at filoviruses, they're bad. Ebola, 40%, Hendra, 57%, Nipah virus, also very high.

B: Ebola, Zaire on there?

C: Yeah, Ebola. I mean, they just have all the Ebola's together.

B: Well, that's misleading, because there's flavours of it in Zaire. It was nasty.

C: Sure, but still, in terms of the total number of cases, it's not much lower than novel coronavirus so far, but it's still not that high in the grand scheme of things. So here's a fun fact, H1N1, right? H1N1. I just had them guess in the car how many cases worldwide, I would love to hear you guys. How many cases do you think worldwide?

B: Put it in the context of exactly what H1N1 is.

S: That was the swine flu.

B: Bird flu.

S: No, not the bird flu. It's H5N1. This is the swine flu.

C: H5N1 is bird flu. H1N1 is swine flu. It's a little confusing, though, because I don't know if anybody's been watching Pandemic on Netflix, but apparently they called the bird flu the swine flu in India, so it gets a little confusing with the common names.

S: Yeah, H1N1. But for our American colloquialism, that's-

C: H1N1, the infection was 2009, so that's the more recent one. I'm sorry, bird flu was 1997. It was a long time ago, the H5N1. Okay, so swine flu, H1N1, 2009. How many cases worldwide in total since then? 1,632,000. A lot. And 284,500 people died. Yeah. So the infection, or the fatality rate there, 18%. It's very, very high. And just in sheer numbers, killed, I don't even, I can't do that math that quickly, like 30 times more people than Ebola, like something just intense, yet people don't think about the flu. They don't think about the fact that the flu causes so many deaths every year, that the flu is very infectious. And so I think it's not like, don't be concerned about coronavirus, only be concerned, I don't want to be black and white in this, but like, let's compare these things. Let's think about scale. Let's think about these rates. I think the reason that coronavirus is so scary is because we don't know much about it yet.

S: Because it's new. It's new. And it could just be a new endemic virus that we have to live with.

C: Exactly. It could be something that we all figure out how to work around. It could be something that takes off. We're still in the early stages.

B: It's new. I mean, the common cold is made up of like four coronaviruses.

S: This particular strain is new, not coronavirus as a genus.

C: No, there are eight different, there are eight different listed, or nine, seventh. Seven.

S: Seven. Four is common cold, and then SARS, MERS.

C: Common cold and pneumonia are very common, and then SARS, MERS.

B: But what's the difference between a coronavirus and influenza?

S: A different virus.

C: There are different viral types.

S: The influenza virus versus the coronavirus.

C: I think they're both RNA viruses.

B: Right, but they're both respiratory infections. I mean, so what's that? Is it just the-

C: Yeah, the flu is different, though, right?

B: The type of virus that's causing it? And so the coronaviruses are all similar enough where they're just kind of like cousins?

C: Yeah, it's a different species. Like if you could call a virus a species, which they actually do. I didn't realize that they do.

S: Coronavirus is one species. And the different ones are strains.

C: And they're subtypes.

S: Strains of that species of virus.

C: And there are four different flus. There's influenza A, B, C, and D. I think there's single species of most of them, and then there's a bunch of subtypes of A. That's what we're used to seeing, like the H5N1, the H1N1. Those are all influenza A's, and they're subtypes. But think about what the flu feels like.

B: I don't know.

C: Oh, yeah, you've never had the flu.

E: You're lucky.

C: I know. So the flu-

B: I rolled a 20 for constitution.

C: The flu does have some respiratory symptoms, but it's also like deep muscle symptoms, right? Like a lot of people have muscle pain and malaise as a common-

J: Yeah, massive fatigue.

C: I'd say malaise is probably the most identifying feature of the flu. Whereas these specific coronaviruses, MERS, SARS, and especially now this new coronavirus is a pneumonia virus. Like people have pneumonia symptoms. And so that's what you want to look out for. If you have been to China recently, or if you've been doing a lot of air travel, and you get a pneumonia-type experience, seek treatment. That's like- And let them know. Tell them there's a risk here. And so, yeah, let's talk about, here's some interesting stuff that they pulled up out of all of these studies that were like, ooh, a little bit eye-opening. They think that anywhere from two to 14 days is the incubation period for this virus.

J: That's a long time.

C: They also think that you can spread it if you're asymptomatic. So there's a study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, actually is a letter talking about a German case, when a 33-year-old man met with a business partner from China, three days later. So he got fever and chills and horribleness. And then three days later, he felt better, so he went to work. When he went to work, he actually infected two of his colleagues. So remember that some people don't show symptoms, and some people have mild symptoms. So it's different for different folks. And it does seem to be a little bit more virulent is not the right word, a little bit more deadly for older adults.

J: Didn't they shut school down in Hong Kong for a month?

S: No, Hong Kong schools are closed until March right now. My friend who lives there is a teacher, and he said the schools are all closed until March. He works for like a private school, and they're doing all of their classes online right now. And a lot of physicians in Hong Kong and public health experts are urging China to close the border because obviously this is a huge risk. Based on some of these projections, that's another section in this article, they think that the most at-risk city outside of China is Bangkok because that's where the most air travel occurs and the most trade. And then if they were to rank it after that, it's Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, Sydney, then New York, then London. And that's based on not cases so far, but based on air travel and different kind of epidemiological forecasts. And now it seems to be that the consensus is bats. It looks like it came from bats, not snakes. There's one study that's still pushing for snakes, but there's no evidence so far that this is anything other than an avian or mammalian. They think it's a predominantly mammalian virus.

J: So bats do this deliberately?

C: They're jerks, these bats. They're horrible. They're common reservoirs.

S: Unfortunately, coronavirus can live in non-humans, so we call that a reservoir, which means we'll never get rid of it because it's just going to always be out there in the wild.

C: In the wild, yeah. And then finally, there's an interesting one study not peer-reviewed yet that suggests that it may not only be respiratory, but it might also pass through the digestive tract. So that's like a secondary transmission potentiality, something to be careful of.

S: The bigger picture here is that China now is serving as an incubator for generating these viruses. There's been multiple. The third coronavirus. The bird flu. The third coronavirus. Every 10 years, another coronavirus is coming out of China, and they're saying it's not a big mystery why this is happening. Massive population, a concentrated population with intimate contact with lots of species of animals that are potential reservoirs.

C: Yeah, wet markets.

S: They don't have great hygiene required.

C: Well, these wet markets are difficult, yeah.

S: It's not like they're not regulations. So loose regulations, population, lots of animals. It's a recipe for just spitting out these kind of viruses.

C: We tend to buy our food packaged. We tend to buy our food where... So there's going to be agriculture, and sometimes agriculture is really dense, right? Because we are like the kings of factory farming here. And so we do see viruses popping up in that area or infections popping up in factory farms. So generally speaking, they're then processed and packaged before the consumer gets to them. Whereas in China, the wet market model is quite common. I visited one when I was there, where you've got freshly slaughtered animals, you've got skins and you've got vegetables, and live animals. Because there's a lot of live reptiles. I saw a lot of frogs and a lot of seafood and poultry, unfortunately. A lot of people want to buy live poultry and then slaughter themselves. And that's a recipe for avian flu. It's just densely populated chickens and geese and things like that.

G: I like that the film Soderbergh's Contagion is on the top 10 iTunes rentals that popped back up. It's eight years old or whatever, and it's in the top 10 rentals.

C: And I know I mentioned this on the show last week, but I do actually highly recommend the new Netflix series. It's quite measured. It's very pro-vax, obviously. It's called Pandemic. It shows anti-vax sentiment in it, and it counteracts it very well. And it really does help you, again, with that perspective, because Pandemic is mostly about flu. They touch on some Marburgs. They touch a little bit on some coronaviruses. I mean, the timing's perfect that it came out now. But it's mostly about flu and the fact that we really don't take the time to look at the numbers and realize, because we've been living with flu for so long, exactly how deadly it really is worldwide and how we can protect ourselves.

J: It's kind of like alcohol abuse. We're so used to being around alcohol and everything. The world is filled with alcoholics and people that have drinking problems.

S: I know. I always point out. It's like you always have to put things into perspective. People are worried about this drug problem or that drug problem. There's one recreational drug that causes orders of magnitude more morbidity and mortality than all other recreational drugs combined, and that's alcohol. It's not even close.

J: Have any of you guys heard of gutter oil?

C: Oh, God, with the gutter oil.

J: It just blew my mind. So gutter oil is reclaimed oil that what people do is they go and they lift up the septic lid off the street, and they put a bucket in, and they pull it up, and they're pulling out this coagulated ball of grease that has everything in it, because that's where the street runoff goes into, septic systems, sewage, all this stuff from the city, and it's legit oil dumped down there from restaurants and all that stuff.

G: In Asia, you're saying?

J: In Asia, yeah. Okay. They take the oil. They take the oil outside of the city, and then they boil it, and it stinks to all hell. And this is like... Guys, this is disgusting shit that they're doing.

C: Literally.

J: Then they get this huge strainer, and they get out all the garbage and the solid material, and then they put it into big vats, and they bring it back into the city, and they sell it to the people that cook food on the street. And you virtually cannot avoid it if you buy food on the street. Legit restaurant don't do it, because they know. But these people that are like... That day could be the difference between them eating or not eating. They're going to buy gutter oil, so they can make more money, and it's less expensive. And the woman who did this that they were following, she earned so much money from it, she bought a house, because it's a massive market.

C: So they boil it. Do they boil it long enough and hot enough for it to actually be sterile?

J: I have no idea. I would imagine yes, because there's sewage in there, so...

C: You would imagine it, because way more people would be sick, right? Like we would know about it.

E: How the hell do they police this? How do they control for it? There's no control.

C: No, but I think so. No, but they might-

J: The process of them just kind of getting the trash out of it and being able to strain it, it didn't seem like there was this huge epidemic of people getting sick off of gutter oil.

C: Then again, it's state-run media in China, so it's actually very hard to know if the line in the newspaper or the radio is actually what's happening, or just what the government wants to kind of portray as happening.

E: That's what I'm also worried about with some of these numbers. These are the reported numbers, but what are the real numbers?

C: It does seem, though, at least the scientific community is heavily involved. We always say this on the show, but science is one of the best sources of global diplomacy, because when something like this happens, people really do communicate, and they come together across party lines, across any geopolitical conflicts. They just want to prevent this epidemic.

B: Another good example of that is scientists from different countries in the space station. They work together. They don't care what's going on geopolitically. They work together to do good science.

J: Yeah, of course. It's like a love of anything, if you think about it. Think of all the people we met through skepticism, and science fiction, and other passions that we have.

News Items

Proxima B Climate (18:24)

• Universe Today: Here’s What the Climate Might Look Like on Proxima Centauri B

S: All right, Jay.

J: Yes?

S: We actually just talked about the Alpha Centauri system, which includes Proxima Centauri, which is a red dwarf closest to our solar system, I should say. But there's an update on Proxima B, one of the planets around Proxima.

J: And it's B, because it's the second one.

S: Yeah, so the star is always A.

J: Oh, it's the first planet, okay.

S: So the first planet's B.

J: Proxima B, as most of you know, is the first planet, right next to the sun. Don't ever make a mistake. It's B means the first planet. A is the sun, Steve.

C: Well, it's a star.

J: The star, yeah. Whatever.

C: The sun is the name of our star.

J: Stop it.

C: Okay.

J: Stop it.

E: Helios.

J: It's a red dwarf. So, all right. This is a cool situation that we have here. So they're calling it a super earth. They're saying that because it's in the Goldilocks zone, we heard someone tell us not to say that.

S: It's a habitable zone.

J: It's the habitable zone.

C: I love the word habitable.

S: I know.

J: You can't say it slowly. Habitable. So it's probably tidally locked, which means that the same side of the planet is facing the sun at all times.

B: Like the moon. To the earth.

J: Like the moon, yeah. That's no moon. So what they decided to do was they took the software that they're using that models global warming climate, all that incredible bulk of data, and they're using those computer systems to run a model with all the information that they think would possibly affect this particular planet. So they're putting in different places where the land masses could be, and different weather conditions, and different temperature ranges, and all these different variables that can give us a possible view into what the makeup of this planet is.

B: Well, because Jay, what's the classic problem with a planet that's really close to a small star that's tidally locked?

J: Super hot.

B: Super hot on one side. Super cold on the other. And then how could anything live there except maybe on a band in between the hot and cold? So that's the classic idea of how a planet like that would be.

S: Which is, just for further background, so we talk about, obviously we're interested in what planets out there in the galaxy would potentially harbour life. There's a lot of red dwarfs. 80% of the stars out there are red dwarfs, right? If red dwarfs could potentially-

B: In our galaxy.

S: Yeah, but probably everywhere, right? It depends. There's different galaxies, different ages and stuff. Yeah, I get you. But in our galaxy, definitely, 80% of the stars, if you look up at the sky, 80% of the stars you see are red dwarfs.

B: Well, they're hard to see, but yeah.

C: Sampling bias.

S: That's true. If they could contain planets with life, that would dramatically increase the number of planets potentially that could have life. So the astronomers have gone back and forth on that. At first they said, no, the planets would be too close.

J: Too hot, too close.

B: Too hot and cold.

S: Tidally locked.

J: Too old to begin the training.

S: Maybe the climate may, it may still work out. But then there's also the instability and the red dwarfs. They flare up, and that would strip the atmosphere away from the planet, which is bad. But what? But maybe they could migrate in late enough after the stars calm down. So we don't know. The bottom line is you can make an argument either way. But so this is adding one piece to that puzzle. So if we have the scenario of a planet that's the size that it could, like a super earth in this case, but that could be rocky and could have an atmosphere in life. What would the climate be on that planet? Is it – would it be – would life be ruled out because it would be boiling on one side and freezing on the other? Or what? So what did they find?

C: Wait, so Jay, is it rocky?

S: We don't know.

C: Oh.

J: Well, rocky one, two, or three.

C: Oh, the groan.

J: I'm here. I'm here, for Christ's sake.

C: Good.

J: I let the first one go. But I said to myself, somebody else says rocky. I'm going for it. There you go.

B: Jay.

J: Come on, George. Back me up, man.

G: It's all you. It's all you.

B: Jay, because it's – I think it's 1.3 solar masses – earth masses, 1.3.

J: Yeah. Yeah.

B: Because of that, it's probably rocky. It's probably –

C: Probably not gaseous.

B: Yeah, not gaseous. But we're not 100% sure.

J: So, look, we don't know. But given the computer models, they put it in, and they're looking at, like, OK, what are the computers saying? Like, what could possibly be here? And I don't honestly know what the spectrum is, but one of the things that they were saying is, well, from what we're seeing, they think that clouds would likely be building up on the side of the planet that's facing the sun.

B: The star.

J: I call them suns.

B: OK.

C: We'll let it go.

J: Is that really not cool?

S: It's more accurate when we're referring to another star as a star.

J: But aren't they all suns?

S: Our sun is a star, and all stars are suns. But the name of our star is the Sun.

E: Sol, if you prefer.

C: It's like solar system.

J: The planet, the side of the planet that's facing the star, they think would have a big buildup of cloud cover, which would be great, because as you know, that would insulate it or reflect a lot of the energy back to the star, which is good.

C: And you can only have clouds in an atmosphere, right?

S: This assumes it's an atmosphere.

J: It absolutely has to have an atmosphere. So then they were saying, with that in play, that the air and water would actually move a lot of the hot and cold. Now, look at our ocean, right? You see how we have the dipoles, and the ocean is incredibly connected to it. It's a part of our weather system. So you have weather systems on a planet this size with certain parameters that would allow for the atmosphere and the ocean to move a lot of the heat and cold around. I'm not saying it would normalize it, because on the other side of the planet, it's basically like one big South Pole, North Pole. It's going to be Arctic. But there would still be a lot of movement of the water and air, enough that it would level things off to a certain degree. So and I do feel like there's a little bit of wishful thinking here, but...

S: Well, the thing is, it's not wishful thinking. They were not saying, what is the atmosphere like? What's the climate like on the planet? They said, if we put in a range of plausible parameters, what percentage of those parameters lead to a climate that is habitable for life? And it was actually a lot broader range than they went in assuming. It's not a narrow range. You just have to have the right exact amount of water and atmosphere, whatever. It's like, yeah, in most situations, the convection of heat, when the water and the atmosphere actually spreads the heat out cools the hot side and warms the cold side, under most scenarios, you're going to have a pretty habitable climate.

J: Now, wouldn't it be amazing if we could send a ship there fast enough to get a better glimpse of what the... It doesn't have to go all the way. Just close enough to get a lot more data.

C: At that point, for all intents and purposes, it's all the way there.

J: Let me finish my point, because this is really cool. That would give us a better idea if our computer models work well.

B: Don't forget, the James Webb Telescope and other telescopes coming online this decade will be able to directly image that planet.

J: The atmosphere.

C: Really?

B: Wait a second.

C: It's so far.

B: No, it can't, because that planet is too close to the star, to the sun, to the star. So Proxima C, that's the one we could image.

J: That's the second planet.

B: That's farther away.

B: You're right. We can't image that one.

C: Crap. But we can image the star itself.

S: Well, we could get more information.

B: Huh?

S: We could get more information.

J: Bob, all they have to do is put their thumb up and block the star.

B: No, no. Jay, that's actually what they do. They block...

J: You see how I invent science on the fly?

B: Proxima B is too close to do that method.

S: But can't you still do-

B: Indirect methods?

S: Well, yeah. You could look at the light from the star shining through any potential atmosphere and look at the spectral absorption. We could say it has an atmosphere that has oxygen in it. That would be interesting.

B: Or it has no atmosphere.

S: Or it doesn't appear to have any atmosphere.

B: Wait, then why can't they do that now?

C: We can already do that.

J: Well, I think the thing is it's close.

S: We could theoretically do it now, but it's not... The better telescope is going to be able to do it.

J: It's something that someday humanity might visit. I would love to be able to check our algorithms to see how accurate they are.

S: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I mean, that's the thing. We're living in an age of... We're detecting planets indirectly, and we're trying to infer their properties and everything, but we're never going to really know, like really be able to see these planets and know what they're like. This is the closest...

E: Four light years.

S: This is the closest exoplanet to Earth. This is the closest exoplanet to Earth. It's 4.2 light years.

J: 4.2 light years. That doesn't seem that far away.

E: It's not that far.

S: It would take us tens of thousands of years to get there.

E: By the current technology.

C: It's far.

E: Yeah, but you send a light sail with a laser propulsion, 20% speed of light, and there's 20...

C: Yeah, that's far.

J: You never know. In 50 years, we might have...

E: Slowing that thing down.

J: ...much faster.

B: We could send a probe there in 20 years.

J: How long would it take to get there, though? We need something...

B: In 20 years, if it's a light sail...

E: 20 years using light sail and laser technology.

B: ...at relativistic speeds. But the probe is like a nanoprobe. It's like... And it goes right by. It's not going to be slowing down because it's going to...

E: Yeah, that's the problem.

B: But we could image it. We could image it and within...

E: Potentially.

B: Within a quarter century, potentially.

J: Yeah, but the picture would be pretty blurry, wouldn't it? Moving that fast.

E: I'll tell you what. If we could send a probe to hit that planet that is such a feat of science. It blows my mind.

G: Wait, are the probes actually that tiny, Bob? They're that...

C: It would have to be.

G: These are all probes that... I mean, I don't think they've really built a probe to do that yet.

G: But, I mean, the idea of it...

B: Yeah, they're predicting that the probe...

G: Would it be in a camera of some kind or this is going to be emitting some kind of...

S: That would be the idea.

B: Some imaging. There'd be some limited imaging.

S: You just need a camera and a transistor.

J: You'd have to have Wi-Fi.

B: Gram-sized. Very, very... Super crazy light. But there's some information we could get.

G: Wow.

B: That's the idea, anyway.

G: Tiny.

Drug Development with AI (27:54)

• BBC News: Artificial intelligence-created medicine to be used on humans for first time

S: Okay. We're going to be bouncing back between sort of medical and astronomical items today. So I'm just going to give a quick one. I say quick. It never turns out to be that way.

B: Never.

S: All right. But this is an interesting milestone. For the first time, a company brought a drug to clinical trials, all the way to a clinical trial, that was developed using artificial intelligence. That in it of itself is nothing new. There's over a 160 startup companies that are using artificial intelligence in drug development. But let me let you what phase of drug development we're talking about. In order to bring a drug to the point you're ready to test it on people you have to either get that drug, that chemical from nature. It needs to be something out there in nature that we've shown it to have properties that are potentially useful. Maybe already in sort of traditional use. And that actually gives us a little bit of a head start, if that's the case. That field, by the way, is called pharmacognosy. And it's basically just trying to pick a low-hanging fruit. What's out there that we can get access to that's growing on trees or whatever that maybe even people are already using. But we've actually picked a lot of that low-hanging fruit. Not that it's all gone, but we've already gone through that. In fact, pharmaceutical developments start in the slowdown, in terms of the number of new drugs being brought to market, partly because of that. So we do the easy stuff. So by definition, as we keep going, it gets harder and harder and harder and harder.

B: Well, what else could be slowing that down?

C: Well, we're also clear-cutting the Amazon, which is where a lot of this helps. But a lot of people are using computational chemistry.

S: Yeah. So if you're not finding it in nature, you're just basically making a designer drug. You're synthesizing it, but you're also designing the drug just de novo, based upon first principles of chemistry. I want to put an OH group here, an alkaloid group there, whatever, a benzene group there.

C: And you've got the binding site. So you want to make something that fits in that binding site.

S: So if you have a target. So having a new drug target is like the whole game. Like, when we find a new drug target, meaning something in the body, this is just basic science. Oh, we figured out that there's this receptor on neurons in this part of the brain that are involved in this. Hey, maybe if we block that receptor, we could treat obsessive compulsive disorder, which is what this drug is.

B: Or you find a receptor on a cancer cell that healthy cells don't have. Then you could just nail that.

S: Or whatever. So there's some basic science finding that has a potential drug target. Then you have to develop a drug to bind to that target. And so you can either screen existing drugs. That's one approach. Or you could design a new drug. How do you design a new drug? It's largely done computationally, right? We do it in computers.

C: There's software for it.

J: How good is that? How well does that work?

S: It works, but it takes years.

C: It works, but you have to do thousands of iterations, usually.

S: So this is just taking it to the next step, not just using computation, but using artificial intelligence, the latest in deep learning algorithms.

J: So they're giving artificial intelligence drugs and seeing how looped out they get?

S: So what they're doing is they're saying, here's the receptor, the target. Build me a molecule that binds to that. And that also doesn't kill people.

C: Yeah, try to make it non-toxic.

S: So the drugs have to have, like a lot of things we talk about, like batteries or whatever, they have to have a suite of properties all at the same time. And any one of them could be a deal killer, right? So it has to get into the body, have a certain half-life, and not be toxic to the liver, or the kidney, or the blood, or whatever.

C: Yeah, you've got to be able to excrete it.

B: Yeah, metabolize it.

S: Yeah, we like to see that it's not acid. It doesn't burn your tissues.

J: This drug would work great, but it'll melt your skin.

C: That happens a lot. Oh, this would be perfect. I've designed this thing, and it would be perfect. But it's also going to clog up. Like, it's got all these off-target binding sites that are really dangerous.

S: But there are drugs that are literally acidic. And then there's obviously a degree of acidity. But there are drugs that you can't give them intravenously because they're too acidic. They'll burn.

C: Yeah, they'll change your blood chemistry.

S: Or it doesn't get absorbed, so you can't give it through the stomach, or whatever. So they're trying to design drugs with the properties that they want to be useful clinically. And so that involves, as one of the researchers here said, it involves billions of decisions about that chemical. And so they're saying, all right, AI, you do it. You just figure out what all the parameters are, given all the thousands of drugs that we already have and the thousands of chemicals. You figure out ones that will have the properties we want and will have the specificity that we want. And so that's what they did. And what they said was that this took what is typically about a five-year drug development process, again, just coming up with the chemical that you then put into clinical trials, down to one year.

E: Nice.

J: Bob, what does this remind you of? Bob, what does what Steve just said remind you of? It's kind of like the precursor to a singularity, right?

B: Oh, yeah, automating scientific research.

J: Yeah, like, this totally smacks of that. Imagine if, now, I don't know all the details. I don't know how much the humans have to interact as they go over that year to do stuff. But imagine if they got the computer models so tweaked, like, they just chug. And they go, and then they're done. And they're like, OK, cool, we got a result, right? And imagine, instead of it taking a year, it took a month. And then imagine if it took a day. Imagine if the computer processing gets so fast.

C: Yeah, but that's not the singularity.

J: Well, I know. That's a straw man.

C: No, but that's designer drugs.

J: Excuse me. I said one little tiny thing. And you turned it into me saying, I'm just saying it reminds me of the singularity.

C: You just said Bob, what does this remind you of the singularity.

J: Remind you of.

B: It's related to the singularity.

S: It's one aspect of it.

J: It smacks of the singularity.

B: Because as the AI gets more intelligent and does a better and better job, then you get closer and closer to what could be the singularity. Because the AI is getting more intelligent. And in my mind, the singularity is all about an intelligence explosion.

J: Cara, are you anti-singularity?

C: Yeah, I don't. Yeah, totally. But what I'm seeing here is the runaway kind of version of this would be an at-home or elite clinic where you would ultimately be able to take a blood sample, a stool sample, or whatever, and design a drug on the spot to treat whatever you're dealing with.

J: To the individual.

B: That sounds horrible.

C: To the individual. It sounds amazing, but it sounds nothing like the singularity.

B: I agree with you.

C: It just sounds like really advanced, really sophisticated designer drugs.

S: Imagine designing a vaccine for the new coronavirus in an hour.

C: Immediately. Yeah, exactly. You sample 500 people.

B: Everybody downloads it to the 3D printer at home.

S: That's not infeasible. But the other aspect of this to keep in mind, though, is that the pharmaceutical companies are looking to increase their technology and the efficiency and the speed of their drug development just to keep even. You know what I mean?

B: Just to maintain pace.

S: The problems are getting harder and harder. So even as the research technology advances, sometimes it's advancing just to stay in place. And so for each research challenge, you have to know how quickly is the challenge getting more significant, and how quickly is the technology getting more significant. And it's different for everything. Sometimes progress slows down. Sometimes it speeds up. Sometimes we hit roadblocks that we just can't get past until something changes the game. And here, the pharmaceutical companies are struggling just to keep up.

B: Steve, you said that this is very generalized. They can do this to search for any type of drug, for any type of scenario.

S: Yeah, it's not specific to this one problem.

B: Right.

C: But some drugs aren't going to be computationally feasible either. I don't think you can generalize it to everything.

S: So the AI program that they're using, that process, is not specific to this one problem. It's generalizable to I need a target. But you can't change the laws of physics and chemistry, right? You can't make a drug to do something that drugs can't do. And the other thing that pharmaceutical research can't change is biology. So that is the inherent limit of pharmacology as an approach to medicine. Specifically, we have a target. We have a receptor. But we evolved, right? It's a messy process. And not only did we evolve as a whole organism, all of the parts of us evolved. Those receptors evolved from other receptors. And they're related to other. You know what I mean? There's a branching, nestled branching relationship among receptors as well and to the genes that code for them. And so the receptor that I'm interested in is going to be very similar to receptors that I'm not interested in. And so that's where the side effects come in.

C: But the cool thing about computational chemistry is you can increase affinity in a way that you probably might not have been able to do before.

S: But there's an inherent limit to that.

C: Totally.

B: What does that mean exactly?

C: It means that you're making it so that it fits that much better into the receptor. But you're right, there is an inherent limit. Even if you have the perfect key, it's still going to fit in multiple locks.

S: And that same receptor could be serving multiple functions in different locations.

C: Exactly, in a totally different part of your body.

J: Steve, do we have receptors that we evolved that we don't use anymore? Like, they're just there and we don't use them for anything?

C: People think so. Like, PCP, we haven't found an endogenous version of PCP. So you take PCP, it binds to stuff and has an effect. But we haven't found an endogenous, like a chemical that our bodies make that binds to those same receptors.

J: I wonder how much of that we have, just legacies, like access points.

S: Vestigial receptors, yeah.

C: Here's the cool thing I'm thinking. Right now we're talking about using AI to develop the drug itself. What happens when we can use AI and computational models to test the drug?

S: So I agree, but I think what-

C: Right now we still have to do clinical trials.

S: I think that what will happen is we'll do a round of virtual clinical trials to further narrow those-

C: Because we'll get all the body parameters logged in a huge database.

S: Because, like, the worst case scenario is that you get to your phase three clinical trial, which is the big one, right, that's like where you're the final one to get FDA approval. And then, like, this 1% liver failure crops up. We just lost $100 million.

J: Steve, that is not the worst case. The worst case scenario is if these meds turn people into evil mutants.

B: But that's the holy grail. Remember that Star Trek episode, the one Ashley Judd was in it? They had a device, a video game, that you put these glasses on. You played a video game, and you got addicted to it, and it messed up with your mind. So they were like, what is this thing? And they put it on the computer, and it actually had a virtual brain that interacted with that device. And they said, oh, boy, look what this thing does. Wow, that's not good right there. Essentially, a virtual brain that they could test it. That's the holy grail. That's something that's-

S: Yeah, I think for a long time, we'll still have to ultimately then try in actual biological organisms. But again, it's all about screening. It's about maximizing the probability that it will do what we want it to do and not do what we don't want it to do.

C: We might be able to eventually just skip animal trials altogether. Use computational animal trials instead of animal trials.

S: As soon as it gets better than animal trials, because animals are not people.

C: Exactly. It's already an approximation.

S: They're an approximation. If our virtual approximations get better than the animal approximations, then it would be obvious.

J: Wouldn't that be amazing if some- it's going to happen eventually. But someday, we'll just be like, yep, we don't have to- no animals have to suffer anymore for anything.

C: We try to reduce their suffering.

B: Eventually, they'll be able to test it on your specific biopsy, because everybody's different, right?

C: You can take a little biopsy, and they can test it on yourself.

B: Because a generic human, like, oh, yeah, it passes mustard. But then you put it on you, and it's like, oh, damn.

C: Because eventually, it's going to be targeted specifically for your biology anyway. That's the cool thing.

J: You were right, Steve. This is not going to be a short news item.

S: I know.

C: But it's fascinating.

Frame Dragging System (38:57)

• Science: Lense–Thirring frame dragging induced by a fast-rotating white dwarf in a binary pulsar system

S: All right, Bob, back to astronomy. Tell me about frame dragging. What's frame dragging?

B: So yes, this is really cool. Astronomers have found the best example of a spinning star dragging space around it. This was in the journal Science this week. So this is frame dragging. So this is developed by Einstein's general relativity. He predicted this. And so what's happening is that a spinning mass actually drags space along with it.

S: Space-time.

B: Space-time. What did I say?

S/C: Space.

B: Of course, I meant space-time. So imagine you've got a blanket on the floor, and your feet are on it, and you twist your feet. The way that rug will bunch and turn around you, that's basically what a spinning or rotating mass does to space-time. So for example, this is great.

J: Is it also referred to as spice-time?

B: No.

C: Spice. Only in New Zealand.

S: Outer spice.

B: Do I have to tell the story now? OK. So all right, so our SGU coin. So spin this coin. So this spinning mass is actually frame dragging. It's taking a little bit of space-time around with it, but cannot detect it.

S: It's too tiny.

B: Way, way too tiny. You would need something probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than LIGO to actually test that. So how do you actually verify that?

C: Is that because it's so small that we can't detect it?

B: Yeah, so small. The mass is so tiny. The spinning mass is so tiny.

C: Because of the size of the coin.

B: The mass of the coin.

J: So you've got to look at something gigantic, and then maybe our instrumentation can see it.

B: I think Einstein himself thought that we'd never be able to test this. I mean, a lot of his predictions, he said, we'll never be able to test this.

C: But he didn't foresee something like LIGO.

B: No, no, my god, no, god, no. So how do you test it? So we tested it, I think it was in 2011. We had a $750 million satellite, Gravity Probe B, I think, in orbit around the Earth. And it detected, the gyroscope in that probe detected frame dragging because of the spinning Earth. But the mass of the Earth, it's huge, right? But it's so relatively tiny that it would take, what was it, 100,000 years to detect for one degree of change to be made to the gyroscope because of the frame dragging. So it's super tiny. And it's really, really hard to say, yep, this is exactly what happened. So what do you need? You need something bigger. You need something with a lot more mass spinning a lot faster than the Earth. You need something like ultra-relativistic. And it's actually called relativistic frame dragging. And they found it in a star system. They say it's 10,000 to 25,000 light years away. What kind of error bars is that?

S: 10,000 to 25,000.

B: Yeah, like, hello.

S: I mean, 10,000 to 25,000, which is still huge.

C: Yeah, 10,000 is just huge, not 10,000. You said 10,000 to 25,000.

E: Zero to 25,000.

C: No, we know what you meant.

B: 10,000 to 25,000 light years away. So this is the star system PST J114016545. I hate these boring names. I can't think of names that are really cool.

C: There's too many of them.

S: I know, but just call it Frank.

C: You're like the only person using them.

B: Frame dragging age. Give it a cool name or something. All right, so this is a fascinating star system. They've been looking at this for 20 years. And they finally got their observations really kind of dialed in. So this is a system. Imagine it's a white dwarf, which is about the size of the Earth, and 300,000, let me make sure my numbers are right, 300,000 times the density of Earth. So this is huge. It's a massive density, a dead core of a sun-like star. And in orbit around that is a pulsar. Now, they're kind of co-orbiting, but it's really, if you really look at it, it's kind of more orbiting around the white dwarf.

C: So a white dwarf already died.

B: Yeah, so the white dwarf is a core of a sun-like star.

C: So it wasn't big enough to have become a black hole.

B: It wasn't big enough. Yeah, it wasn't big enough to overcome degeneracy pressures to become a pulsar, and definitely not a black hole. So that's what our sun is going to turn into. Many stars, a lot of this is going to happen to. No, no, not massive enough. Now, the next star, though, the pulsar, that was close. That was closer to being a black hole, but not quite enough. So that collapsed into a pulsar. So that's about 20 kilometres wide, about the size of a city, but 100 billion times the density of the Earth.

C: And these would have been a binary system, is that why?

B: It is. It's a binary system.

C: I mean, when they were living stars?

B: Yes.

C: You know what I mean?

B: Right.

J: So, Bob, I've got to ask a basic question about this that I'm not quite getting. So the frame dragging is distorting space-time, just like gravity.

B: Right, mass, we know mass distorts, right? Mass changes the shape of space-time, and space-time shows mass how to move. So it's kind of like this relationship between the two.

J: But then you're saying that momentum, I guess, is distorting space-time as well.

B: Right, the spinning mass bunches it up, because there's so much energy in such a small place that it's actually bunching up the space-time around it.

J: As if, like, space-time was-

B: Malleable. I mean, we know that mass changes. Like, when you look at the gravity well of the Earth, it's changing space-time because of that mass. So we know that you could change space-time with mass, right? So this is what a rotating mass does.

C: So is the frame drag from them rotating around each other, or is it the pulsar itself that's got the stronger frame drag?

B: Neither. It's the white dwarf. The white dwarf is spinning so fast, and it's so dense and spinning so fast that the frame dragging is intense.

C: And it's because the pulsar is going around it that it's spinning faster?

S: No, because as it collapsed, it spun faster.

B: But there's more detail to that. Because now imagine, at some point in the past, you had a white dwarf, and then you had a big star, a really big star. That star was going to become, this is the progenitor star, this was going to become the pulsar. But it lost something like 20,000 Earth masses of gas, and that fell onto the white dwarf, which caused it to spin faster and faster and faster, right? Like a skater bringing their arms in and spinning faster and faster.

C: But still not to get enough mass to fall in on itself.

B: No, not enough mass to turn into a pulsar, but it spun much faster. So they think that's the key to the system, because you have a white dwarf spinning faster and faster and faster. So fast, in fact, that it's like one day is like two minutes. Now, this is the size of the Earth. We have 24 hours to rotate. This does it in two minutes. So this is like an amazing system.

J: Yeah, right?

E: Headache.

B: All right, now, so imagine Cara's head is a white dwarf. So here's a pulsar.

C: I can't turn my head around.

J: Your hand is the pulsar, Bob?

B: You've got to do it really fast. OK, so the pulsar is not far away. It's only like the width of the sun, which is what, 800,000 miles, something like that? It's tiny. So they're orbiting around each other in five days. So the pulsar goes around it. It's years, five days, if you will.

C: But my year is two minutes.

B: Your day is two minutes. Now, they looked at this system, and they're like something's going on here, because they're intercepting the radio signals from the pulsar, right? The pulsar emits from its magnetic poles. It's emitting radio waves. So they detect these things for 20 years. They're like, there's something crazy going on with this system, because if you look at the orbital plane around Cara's head, that orbital plane is slowly shifting over time. It's changing. And they looked at that, and they looked at general relativity, and like, this doesn't make any sense. The only way it makes sense is if this white dwarf was frame-dragging the entire orbit of the pulsar. And that's when they realized, oh, now general relativity makes sense. This is a massive frame-dragging system.

C: So it's like when your vacuum sucks up the carpet. Like, the carpet is so disturbed that it's like all the way around the edges that it's coming in.

B: The frame-dragging is just messing up with the velocity and the orientation of the entire binary system.

J: Bob, so would we ever have to calculate that if we were sending a probe, or is it too subtle?

B: If we were sending a probe to that system, that over time, if we wanted to enter, have something, have a stable orbit, we'd probably have to think about that. But for a brief period of time, not so. But because this is such an amped up system with gravity and the rotation and the distances, that things are happening much, much faster there. And that's why, and still, it took 20 years for them to really say, yes, we're confident to publish this. So it took a while.

S: This is another win for Einstein.

B: Yeah, this guy just doesn't lose, does he? In the future, I was thinking, all right, what can we get from this in the future? And one thing, we could use these techniques to learn more about binary pulsars and to learn more about pulsars themselves, neutron stars. I mean, essentially, you've got what happens when a supermassive star collapses, and it's not heavy enough to turn into a black hole. You have a neutron star, and some of them will rotate and become pulsars shooting out the radio waves. But this is degenerate matter. This is like the most fascinating substance in the universe, even more so. Somebody asked me in Australia, Bob, what would you rather look at up close, a black hole or a neutron star? And actually, I was thinking, it has to be a neutron star, because a black hole, I mean, you've got the event horizon. You've got maybe the accretion disk. You've got intense gravity. But a neutron star has got so many more things that we could learn from this degenerate matter. Because essentially, imagine taking an atom, a whole bunch of atoms, and you're squishing it down so much that the proton and electron merge to become another neutron. So it's basically one big neutron.

C: You already know what that is, then. Well, what's inside a black hole, Bob?

B: If I knew that, I wouldn't be sitting here.

C: That's what I'm saying. Don't you want to go see that?

B: Yeah, but as soon as you find out, you're turned into spaghetti.

C: Oh, I assume that the thought experiment allowed you to still live. No, you're still within the laws of physics. So let me finish this thought. So yeah, but just because it's one ball of neutrons, it's still much more complicated than that. There could be quark matter in there. Weird things happening with the surface. I mean, there's so much to learn. So if this technique could teach us a lot about neutron degenerate matter and neutron stars, that would be a huge win, too.

Scream Therapy (48:27)

• Global News: Julianne Hough writhes, screams during so-called ‘energy treatment’

S: Evan, you're going to finish up the news part of the show by telling us about screaming therapy.

E: Screaming therapy, yeah. So enough of this science. Let's have some fun, right? There was a meeting, not last week, but the week prior in Davos, Switzerland, in a world economic forum. Every year this happens. A bunch of very powerful elites and wealthy individuals and representatives of corporations get together, and they talk about how to make the planet a better, wonderful place using their vast resources. That's generally what it boils down to. Now, but I was interested because there was a particular person there. Jay, who is Julianne Hough?

J: I have no idea.

E: Exactly, nor do I. Steve, who's Julianne Hough? Right, Bob, who's Julianne Hough?

B: She run the Hough Poe?

E: George? Anyone here know Julianne Hough?

Audience: She was on Dancing with the Stars.

E: Dancing with the Stars, exactly. And that's exactly why we don't know up here who she is. Because why? She was there. Why is she there?

J: I don't know.

E: I don't know. Why is she there? Who knows?

J: Well, who is she? What does she do?

E: She's made famous, apparently, by being a dancer on Dancing with the Stars. She's apparently an actress, among other many talents. I have some nods here in the back and confirming that that is, in fact, true. I really have no idea. Well, she underwent something while at Davos called energy treatment and scream therapy.

J: Oh, cool.

E: What the heck is that? Well and there's video online of this. And it made the rounds on social media. Perhaps some of you have seen it. It did go viral, in which, essentially, she was there on a table. And a chiropractor did some sort of manipulation on her and allowed her to release all this tension and other things that were inside of her.

J: Oh, my god, I saw that video. That's where she was lying on her stomach.

E: She was lying on her stomach. And she's basically screaming. Do I have any audio of this?

J: That sounded so fake to me. OK, I didn't know that was her.

S: Yeah, so that was that scream you heard this morning, too, that was playing that video.

G: Oh, yes. OK, I was wondering what was going on.

E: That's a sample, basically, of what she was undergoing.

B: Sounds like a breakthrough.

S: You know what that is? That's mesmerism.

E: Yeah, that's pretty much what that is.

J: But that's also the exact noise you make when you no longer have a career.

E: Now, who was doing this? So she participated in this demonstration led by Dr. John Amaral, A-M-A-R-A-L. Well, he's a chiropractor. You know, 25 years of working with thousands of people, blah, blah, including A-list celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes, influencers, thought leaders, and other gullible people with a lot of money, apparently. He most recently appeared in the Goop Lab Netflix series.

J: That's good for his resume.

E: Yeah, OK, so.

C: Rabble, rabble, rabble.

E: Birds of a feather, as they say, yeah. And all kinds of nice testimonials here on his website from famous people. The term miracle worker can often be overused, except in John's case. John's rare gifts, coupled with his equally rare techniques, have healed me multiple times and left me in awe. This is Maria Menousos.

C: Menudos.

E: Menudos, thank you. Television host, entrepreneur, and actress. So apparently this person has, obviously, a Hollywood-related following.

S: I know her exclusively from the intro to movies. Like, she's doing the interlude, right? Isn't that her?

E: Is that her?

J: Well, I mean, Evan, if she's on TV, we should listen to her, right?

E: Exactly. So here's technically, here's the technical analysis. It's called Network Spinal Analysis, NSA. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. I'll read it from the Network Spinal Analysis website, exactly what this is. Sometimes called network chiropractic, it's a distinct form and philosophy that evolved out of chiropractic, used for healing and promoting wellness. That's not too generic, is it? It involves a chiropractor using precise, specific, gentle touch on the spine to update and cue the nervous system and improve quality of life.

J: Yeah, you've got to cue up that nervous system, man.

C: How is that different from craniosacral therapy? Don't they do the same thing where they just go, boop, all better.

E: Essentially.

S: Yeah, because with craniosacral therapy, they claim that they're readjusting the bones of the skull.

J: Of the skull, yeah.

S: But they're fused. They're fused, right? They don't move. So they don't have to apply much force, because they're not moving anything anyway.

J: There's a picture that George has of himself where someone is squeezing his head and he's making his face like this. And that's basically the face you make when you get that treatment, because they're literally like, going like this on your skull, pretending that they're shifting bones around. And if they did, it'd probably kill you.

S: Right, that wouldn't be a good thing.

E: Now, I explained how NSA works. Here's what they write. It focuses primarily on working with the spine using low-force gentle adjustments. Practitioners shift the nervous system from a defense physiology to growth and healing by accessing the nervous system through the spine at specific areas known as spinal gateways.

J: Sounds like chakras to me.

E: Exactly, what?

C: They're just making it all up.

S: Yeah, just making it up.

E: So, all right. So we're here.

C: I did not learn any of that in biology, by the way.

J: Spinal gateways.

C: Like, not in any of my textbooks. Spinal gateways, I forgot.

G: You know what, let's make this more authentic. I think you should read that again. We're gonna do it live, though, from the lab where they're doing this. So present this to the clients that are doing it and just read it again.

E: Okay, so how does. (George screams) The practice focuses. (George screams) Primarily on. (screams) Using low gentle.

G: Harder!

E: Adjustments.

J: Oh my God.

G: That's good, that's good, that's good, that's good.

E: Live from the clinic itself.

J: That is magical. Well.

E: You know, these places like these World Economic Forces.

G: I feel great now. Sorry, I feel really good now.

E: This is what they're inviting in and lending all sorts of legitimacy to it through money and other, and celebrity. Both money and celebrity, which is, of course, a magic formula, to spreading it worldwide into viral videos in which all sorts of people now are gonna start questioning and I'm sure some will be curious as to how they, too, can get NSA for themselves.

J: Italian couples all around the world figured out long ago that screaming is very therapeutic.

G/C: Just Italian.

J: It makes you feel good.

G: Solely Italian couples.

E: Gateways, Steve.

J: Spinal gateways.

E: That's a neurological term.

S: Yeah.

E: Spinal gateways.

C: I mean, the good news is that that video, that specific video you're talking about with Julianna Hough and this guy, all I've seen regarding that video is sheer ridicule, which is good, at least. It's spread all over the internet and everybody was like, WTF is happening?

J: Well, she can't even act. She can't even pretend, like, she screams and it's like, wow, that sounds so fake, it's pathetic.

C: And she looks like she's convulsing.

S: No, I'm reminded of like exorcisms where you have somebody who's actually, needs to be seeing a psychiatrist. So, Evan, I'm gonna start marketing MSU therapy, which to combat the NSA therapy.

C: What's that?

S: Making shit up.

C: Yeah.

E: Careful.

C: Just don't tell anybody that's what it's called.

S: Not that it matters.

C: You're right.

E: It's basically what it is.

G: No, I think telling people that's what it stands for would be great, because it's just, look how honest he is. He's so honest about it that he's.

J: So refreshing.

G: It's so refreshing that he's just, he's lying to us and telling us that he's lying.

C: But it's the power of the placebo now, right?

E: Oh.

C: It's so strong.

E: Placebo enterprises, yeah.

S: Making shit up, it's like the secret, right?

C: Yep. Yeah, it is.

Special Segment: Personal Questions (56:12)

• George Hrab asks the other Rogues personal questions

S: All right, George.

G: Yeah.

S: One of the roles that you recurrently play on the SGU is to ask us very probing and emotional questions.

G: Sometimes emotional, but yeah.

S: Sometimes emotional. Probing. You have a reputation of making rogues cry.

G: Right.

S: On multiple occasions.

G: And that's not even on the show.

S: Yeah, that's not even on the show.

G: That's just in the car right here, but yeah.

S: So tell us what you're gonna do. You got some questions?

G: Yeah, I got some really fun questions. I think what would be neat to do is some of these are gonna be sort of a little bit more in depth, and I think some of these should just be five second, don't really even think about the answer, and just blurt it out.

E: Oh, that's dangerous, yep.

G: Then some of them will be like whoever has the best answer can answer, and then some of them, I think, will all sort of go through and sort of chat. So for this very first one, I think it'd be nice to just, I'm gonna ask it, and we're gonna go straight down the line. Just Evan, Jay, Steve, Cara, Bob, and just don't explain.

C: You did that so well.

G: Okay, Steve, Cara, Bob. Don't even think. Don't even think. Just whatever pops in your brain as the answer, and we're gonna go straight down. Maybe we'll come back and do an end run, and we'll figure out the details.

J: George, is it the same question for all of us?

G: Same question for all of you. So yeah, ready? Ready. So here we go. What's the worst job you ever had?

E: Picking fruit and vegetable for you, and vegetables in the fields.

J: Working in a paper factory.

S: Working in a pill coating factory.

C: I worked at Feces Pizza. AKA Cece's, but that's what we also call it.

G: Bob?

B: Digging ditches in my dad's truck.

S: That was actually a good exercise.

G: Steve, did you and Jay ever dig ditches in your dad's truck?

J: Oh yeah.

C: And it was not their worst job.

G: And it was not your worst job.

J: I loved it.

C: So Bob has had a pampered life.

G: Why, why did you love it?

J: We worked with tube guys who became role models for me. They were amazing. They taught me how to work. They actually taught me how to have a work ethic. And I learned a ton about the construction business and it was very physical. I loved it.

G: How old were you?

J: Starting at 13. 13 to 16.

G: So Bob, why'd you hate it?

B: Because digging ditches isn't fun. But it was. I mean, the company was great. I'll say that. All right, maybe working at Macy's. Maybe that was worse. All right, you happy?

G: You're changing notes, yeah. All right, all right. What did you do at Cece's Pizza?

C: I worked there before I was 16. So the labour laws allowed me to work until like 7 p.m. Like, they're rules if you're under 16 in Texas, at least. And so I didn't work in the kitchen.

G: You didn't carry a gun, though, right?

C: Totally. I worked the register and then I worked, I had to call pies, so like people, because it's a buffet, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet. So people come in and you have to like count heads and call pies to the kitchen so you can make sure that there's always enough food, but not too much food. And then also people special order. But the worst part about working there, honestly, because I loved all the free food, is that you cannot get that smell out of your clothes.

J: Yes, you smell like a sandwich your whole food.

C: You had like special pizza pants and they lived in the pizza drawer. Yes, it's still there. And it was terrible. It really is like, I think, not good for people's sense of self-worth when they constantly smell like the job that they come from.

S: The only time I had to have smell-isolated work clothes was when I was in gross anatomy.

C: There you go.

S: Because everything I smelled.

E: You were in Gray's Anatomy?

J: It smells like a corpse.

G: For me, when Pennsylvania changed the smoking rules, we couldn't smoke in bars anymore. It was like this sea change of my lifestyle. Not only my car no longer, I didn't smoke, but because you have all your gear in the bar and you're playing. First off, when you're setting up gear and you're full of a room just full of smoke, before you even start singing, your voice is gone. So like there was that. Then all of your clothes get infused with smoke and then all of your cases get infused with smoke. So my car for about, I don't know, 15 years just smelled like smoke because you have it in there. You'd have this process if you go home, you get changed downstairs, take everything off. So staying in the garage. My dad all through the 60s and 70s did the same exact thing. And then they outlawed smoking in the bars. And it was like, I have my voice at the end of the night and my car doesn't smell like smoke. It's so great. Oh my gosh.

J: George, remember like a lot of the speakers that we used to buy, they would literally be covered in like a carpeting.

G: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

J: And that carpeting was like a sponge for that smell.

G: Every case that you have, a soft case that you put your drums in or your speaker case or whatever, yeah. It was just, it was like this nicotine delivery system. Yeah, awful.

C: This is why I think it's really cool when you see fast food places or like different jobs where I think they're thinking about these things. And so they'll have like locker rooms. There's a handful of like In-N-Out I think does this where that you have uniforms that are issued to you. And then you change at work, you leave the clothes at work and they launder them.

J: Oh, that's awesome.

C: So you get, you don't have to take that home with you which I think is actually really empowering.

G: What was the worst pizza and what was the best pizza that they had there?

C: They have macaroni and cheese pizza.

S: And which was that?

C: Kind of amazing.

S: That was the best one?

C: I thought so. Well, I don't like tomato sauce. collective Whaaaaat? So most pizza is gross to me. I know.

B: That's a deal breaker. Oh my God. Yeah, I don't like tomato.

S: Not even marinara?

C: No.

G: Do you like ketchup?

C: No.

S: Tomato and basil?

C: I like barbecue, maybe that's the closest thing I'll get to tomato sauce.

J: That's very Texas of you.

G: All right. Out of you five. Now we can have multiple people but whoever thinks has the best answer to this. What's the best story about you getting a scar? Who's got a good one? Who's got a good one?

C: The best scar story.

G: The best scar story.

J: When I was five, when I was five years old I was jumping on the couch and my mom had a glass coffee table right next to the couch.

G: Of course.

J: And you know. So I got cut right here and it got really bad. And you know, your head blood was coming out. So my mom lost it. And I remember them driving to me, driving me to the ER. I had like a rag on my head and it got soaked with blood. And I'm in the backseat of the car with my mom and she's losing her mind. And my dad, I don't remember this part but my dad told me that. I said, mom, it's okay. I'm going to be fine, mom. I'm going to be fine. So I'm like telling her everything's going to be okay. Then I remember they didn't knock me out but I remember like having a big white piece of paper over me and I could feel the tugging on my the doctor's voice is here. And my mom's over here. You know, like I hear all that going on. Yeah. So there you go.

C: When I was young, I did something similar where I was we had a tire swing in the front yard but it wasn't actually tire. It was like a big O-ring like hanging from the tree. And I used to like, when I would concentrate really hard I'd stick out my tongue. And so I ran and landed on my belly but then I went through the swing and my chin hit the ground. So my teeth went through my tongue. Yeah. And same thing. Like we went to the ER. I had a big rag in my mouth. I was spitting out a lot of blood but really interestingly, they didn't they were like, it's already healing. And so they were like, come back tomorrow. And if it looks as good as it looks now we don't have to do any intervention. And so I just slept that night with a rag in my mouth because I was so uncomfortable. And it was still like sensitive. And then the next day we went back and it was fine but it was really like traumatic for a lot of people.

G: Were you like going after tomatoes while you were falling on the thing?

C: But when you stand over the toilet and a lot of blood is coming out of your mouth it's a little bit scary. And I was very young, but my more recent scar story is that I got bit by a Korean Jindo.

J: What's a Jindo?

C: It's a dog that is, I don't want to paint a broad brush cause he was a sweet dog, but he was aggressive. And they're very attached to their owners. And they kind of look like big Shiba Inus. They're like, they look like sled dogs like brown sled dogs.

B: They look like what?

C: Like brown sled dogs.

B: Okay.

C: You know, and Shiba Inu, Korean Jindo. And it bit my knee and I was dating. We'll put it this way. I was dating somebody who's much older than me. Who's very famous, who has some issues, fill in the blanks.

J: Tom Cruise?

C: Yeah, it was when I was dating Tom Cruise. And I got bit in the knee and I was like, oh my God, oh my God, this is horrible. And, but we were supposed to go to the Playboy Mansion for a party and I was wearing pantyhose and it bit a hole in my pantyhose cause it was like a pajama party. And he was like, but we can still go to the party, right? And I was like, okay, fine. So I went to the Playboy Mansion with like a gaping puncture wound in my knee and made it through the night. Finally, I was like, it hurts like really bad. Went home, cleaned it, wrapped it and didn't go to the doctor until the next day where they gave me a tetanus shot.

J: Yeah, if a dog bites you, you got to go to the ER right away.

C: Yeah. And the good news is I did-

B: Unless you have a Playboy party then, you know.

C: No, but I cleaned it really well and it made me feel good cause I went to the doctor and I was like, this is what I did and blah, blah, blah. And he was like, you did everything I would have done. I was like, oh. That makes me feel better. But yeah, I probably should have gone sooner.

S: You should go soon.

G: Do you have, is there a scar still from the puncture?

C: Yeah, on my knee. And there's still a scar on my tongue too, but you can only see it if I eat like a lollipop that changes your tongue colors. There's one spot that doesn't change colour.

B: Oh, cool.

E: Oh, it reveals. It's nice.

B: Here, suck on this. I want to see your scar.

C: This is yellow. It won't work.

G: I have two. One was when I was, as a camp counsellor, I was showing kids how to carve soapstone. And I sort of was standing over the crew and I said, now make sure that like as you hold the stone, you want to be careful because you want to have your thumb sort of as the, ah! And I totally, I totally sliced my hand open. It was like a red marker. And I just kind of went like that and I walked out of the room and all the kids were like, ah! That was good. So yeah, that's a little thing. But then the other one was a year ago, I was at the gym and I was doing jumps up onto a box, but they didn't have the regular boxes at my gym. They have these like metal stools, basically.

S: With spikes in the middle?

G: So yeah, with spikes and yeah, and broken glass on top. Just to really effectively motivate you, yeah, yeah. No, so I, so I was, it was after a workout and I was doing extra stuff afterwards and I jumped up and I missed. And so on the edge I did, I did this, you know.

B: Ow!

E: Yikes!

G: And I knew, and so I jumped up and I did it and I landed and I'm like, I'm not looking down. I'm like, I'm not looking down. And I look over and Coach Jim, like the nicest coach, his name is Jim. He looks at me and the audio's not gonna really work, but he looks at me and he shakes his head and he goes. Oh.

B: To this day, George has still not looked down.

G: Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if you can see it. So it's still, I still got a little bit of bone there.

B: Let me see, let me see.

G: So I finally looked down. So it was about, it was about a quarter size and you can see the bone underneath right there.

E: Ooh!

C: Oh, was that bad?

G: It was that bad, yeah. It was, yeah, it was bad. The one side was okay, the other side was really bad.

C: Isn't it amazing when you-

B: Well, there's not much skin there. I mean, there's not much meat there.

G: That's the thing.

E: That's true.

G: It all just like accordioned up into itself.

C: And it's so crazy when you do it to yourself.

G: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: Like you're like, I have the power to peel off my own skin to the bone.

G: Yeah, so it went up. So luckily there was a little emergency center, like literally like to, it's an industrial park. So we went to this emergency center and they were like, they had to like pull the skin out because it was jammed up.

E: Oh, it folded under.

C: It was like folded.

G: Yeah, it was totally folded. And then he's sort of like, they sewed it, they sewed it done. And of all the places to have a gash like that, it was really good because there's no torsion here. So you can't really like mess with it.

J: Yeah, your palm is horrible. That's a great place to do it.

G: Yeah, that was a great place. So the next morning I went back to the gym, I grabbed the box and the first thing I jumped up onto that goddamn thing. So I was like, you're not getting in my head. I was like, dun, kunk. Good. Let's go down the line starting with Bob.

B: Oh, no.

G: Real quick, real quick. What's something you did as a child that your parents still talk about?

S: So many things.

G: Give one. One. What pops in your head?

B: Oh yeah, okay. Steve, is it you and I in the bathroom? I mean, in the room and the outlets? Or is it, who was that?

S: That was all of us.

B: All of us. Well, okay. This is the story.

S: We can just stop there and let them fill in the blanks.

B: So apparently I got under the door. The door was shut and I was like, fire, fire. My parents come in. We had peed in the sockets and sparks were coming out.

G: Whose idea was it to pee in the sockets?

B: Who remembers?

S: Well, it made sparks fly out.

G: Oh yeah, that's a good, okay.

B: Who's that? Probably Steve's.

G: All right, we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. Cara?

C: I'm a girl, so I never like, I don't have any like pee in socket type stories to tell.

B: It's hard to aim.

C: I know, that's not.

G: Could be a good thing. Could be something.

C: Yeah, I think my mom always tells this one story and I really heavily question its veracity, but she says that when I was a kid, I was delayed in speaking. Like I wasn't ever speaking in words and they were worried. And then one day she came into my bedroom and she caught me practising talking. So she said that I would, I said, shut up, goggy. Like I said, a whole sentence was my first word, which I feel like is impossible, but that is what she tells everybody. So I was yelling, the dogs were barking a lot and I was like, no.

G: Oh, doggy, okay, gotcha.

C: Yeah, shut up, goggy. Like to the dogs.

G: All right, Steve.

S: Yeah, so apparently when I was like three, they, it was like two in the morning, I wasn't in my bed, they found me in the front yard eating dirt.

E: How was it?

S: Apparently, I wanted to know what it tasted like. So I did a first person experiment.

J: I'm gonna let Bob tell mine.

B: Ooh, which one?

J: The one that you were involved in, where I almost killed you.

E: So last week.

B: The gas tank?

J: No, when you were standing in the window.

C: He goes, the gas tank. No, not the gas tank. The other time.

B: So I'm upstairs, I'm upstairs, I'm upstairs in my room, looking down, second floor. So I got a window here, I'm looking down. There's another, my bed was there, another window. So I see Jay in the backyard, little shit, like this big. And he's got a bow and arrow. So that's scary.

C: Wait, what's your age difference, by the way?

B: Five years.

C: Five years, okay.

B: So, so I see Jay do this. So Jay's back was to me. So I see Jay's back, and he does this. Bow and arrow. And then, and let's go. Let's the arrow go. It goes through the window over here, through that window, and I'm standing at the other window, like 10 feet away. Like, holy shit, if it hit the other window, he could have killed me. It would have probably, at least, impaled me. And apparently, you were trying to get it over the roof, but you got it through the window. So Jay almost killed me that day.

S: How well do you remember that episode?

J: Really well, really well.

S: Really?

J: I used to go out. Like, you guys would be coming home a lot of times on the school bus and stuff, and I was out playing in the yard, and I would be out. Remember when I used to put on the Bruce Lee jumpsuit?

C: Wait, how old were you? Jay, how old were you?

B: Wait, you put on my Bruce Lee jumpsuit?

J: Oh, yeah.

B: The yellow one?

J: Yeah, the yellow one, black stripes, all the time.

C: Your parents let you play with a legit bow and arrow?

S: Oh, yeah.

C: But you weren't old enough to go to school?

J: Cara, this was the 70s.

E: Archery was a backyard sport, Cara. Yeah, everyone had a bow and arrow.

C: That's a backyard sport for four-year-olds?

J: Well, I was a little bit older than four. I was probably like eight when this happened.

C: Oh, I see.

B: And I'm sure he did not ask permission.

J: No.

G: So Bob, did you say, did you run to mom and say, this just happened?

B: I have no memory of what happened after, just almost getting killed. That's when my memory ends.

G: You didn't get in trouble?

J: No, you didn't get in trouble for shit like that. That was just like, hey, stop that. It was the 70s.

S: Don't do that again.

E: Heaven. Eight years old, my parents, my whole family, my two sisters, my mother, my father, they're in the room, I don't know, watching TV or something. I come running from one end of the house through that room into the next room, slam the door behind me, and I go into the bathroom. Like, ran into the bathroom. So they all come to follow me. The door locked in there. They're like knocking on the door. Evan, what's wrong? Evan, what's wrong? I didn't say anything for five, for like, to them it must have seemed like 10 minutes. I don't know how long it was, a couple minutes maybe. And they have no idea what the hell is going on. And they, from what I'm told, all I could mutter was the word bee, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, and they're trying to figure out what's going on. Eventually I could get it out. Bat, bats, bat, there's a bat in the house. And they just like all cracked up, like laughing at me outside the bathroom. I felt so awful. I just felt like humiliated, but I was so frightened.

J: There was a real bat in the house?

E: And there was a bat in the house.

J: Yeah, that's kind of scary.

C: That's cute.

E: When does the family capture the bat?

G: These stories still come up, so like, you'll be talking, like Thanksgiving or something, and it's just they eventually come up, yeah.

E: That's the bat story.

G: My mom always tells this thing that I, I was a very light sleeper. But I didn't cry, I didn't make noise. But whenever she wanted to check to see if I was asleep, I would just be at the crib, kind of like standing. Standing in the crib on the thing, just like watching the door, just like.

C: Creepy.

G: Yeah, yeah, totally creepy, yeah. And just like, be curious. And she could barely, apparently, from what she could barely open the door, and I would just hear it, and just get up and be like, what, what? So yeah, she tells that all the time. You'd always be standing, you'd always be standing there. You were so quiet, you were so good, you never made a noise. Yeah, meh.

J: Wow.

G: Open to anyone, best answer? If you could have any fictional character as a friend, who would you have?

S: I mean, Spock comes to mind.

G: Spock comes to mind. What would you do with Spock? Like, what would you suggest?

C: I feel like he's not a friendly kind of guy.

G: What would you suggest, like, if he shows, if he's like, he wants to hang out with you, what would you go do with Spock?

S: I don't know, go to a museum?

G: Go to a museum, okay, yeah.

C: Would you LARP with Spock?

S: LARP with him? If he would.

E: I'd LARP with him. If he would.

B: I'd pick Q from Star Trek Next Generation.

G: Q?

B: I mean, you're gonna pick a friend, pick a powerful friend. Really powerful, like godlike. It's also a little scary. But imagine, if he's your buddy, man, hey give me a car, give me a mansion.

S: He's a technical friend, though, yeah, but he could also decide.

B: The premise, well, he didn't say fickle, he said friend.

S: Yeah, but Q is fickle.

C: Like, would Q be a good friend to you?

B: I know, it's a risk. It's a risk. I bet you there's somebody better that I could pick.

C: And also, think about what.

G: Jesus.

C: You like to hang out with your friends, you have fun with your friends, right?

G: Right, right, like someone that you could, you know, that you'd want to chat with and hang out with or whatever, yeah.

J: I think Jeff Spicoli. I mean, that would be a lot of fun.

C: Who's Jeff Spicoli?

E: Past times in my mind.

G: Sean Penn's first major film.

J: I mean, I wouldn't want to be hanging out with him all the time. But yeah, that'd be fun.

G: I think for me, it's Oprah.

C: She's not fictional.

G: Is she Cara? Is she Cara? No, I mean, Picard comes to mind. It's just I want to have dinner with Picard. I mean, actually, it's actually Patrick Stewart, so there's no real difference between the two.

J: That's an impossible question to answer because there's so many fictional characters I'm in love with. I'm trying to think which ones would be fun because it's not like if you like Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, like, what are you gonna talk to him about? I'd like to meet him for about 10 seconds and then I'd be done with him.

? Or he'd be done with you.

B: You talked to him about drapes in the last movie.

G: Oh, here's a good one. This sort of goes along with the previous question. And maybe it follows up, but who was the worst boss you ever had?

J: It has to be in the past? (laughter)

E: I didn't say that.

G: Well answered, well answered.

C: That's mean.

G: I'll start this one. I actually had a boss that sued me.

C: What?

E: That's bad.

G: That was the worst. That was the worst boss.

J: What do you gotta do?

G: I was working at a college and I wrote a song that she claimed was about her.

C: Was it?

E: Was it called Bitch on Wheels?

G: She claimed it was about her.

C: What do you claim?

B: Was it?

G: She claimed it was about her. (laughter) And I said it was open to interpretation.

E: That's not in denial.

G: She sued me for $50,000 for defamation, evasion of privacy.

C: What did you say about potentially her in this song?

G: Actually, in the song, there's actually no real lyrics. Yeah. One could interpret. One possible interpretation is that the syllables that were sung out of order could, in some way, be placed in an order that could be someone's name. I mean, like someone could not that that was the intention.

C: But what was the context around it?

B: But wait, was it a total disorder or just a mild disorder?

E: Come on, George, grab the guitar. Let's hear it.

G: It started initially as a disorder. But once this, it's a 30-second song. It's a 32-second song.

E: Let's hear it.

G: Oh, fuck it. Okay, I took the syllables of her name.

E: Statute of limitations have expired. You're good. You're fine. You're fine.

G: So it starts, and the first syllable of her name kind of just starts repeating. So if her name was, let's say, Sarah, which it wasn't, it just went, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. And then there was another chorus. It starts going, rah, Sarah, rah, Sarah, rah. And then, like, the rest of her name, just for 30 seconds, it kind of plays out. And then at the end, everybody that was singing says, sucks.

C: That's it? And she sued you for that?

G: That's it.

S: You can't sue for that.

C: I know.

G: I know!

E: You can sue for anything, whether you get an award or a dismissal.

S: It's not a factual claim. That's clear hyperbole.

G: Right?

S: Yeah.

G: You would think. I had a judge. It was Judge Simpson. I was like, well, that's a good sign. Simpsons, cool. All right.

E: I would say that the fact that she-

J: Did they play the song?

G: They did play the song in court, which actually was worth everything. Because they had to get it in the records. So we're sitting there in the Lehigh Valley Court of Records, or whatever it is, and my lawyers, this amazing organization called the Philadelphia Lawyers for the Arts represented me for free. Because you had to show that you had no money, and they represented artists and musicians and stuff like that. So they were representing me, and she had hired this attorney and was spending who knows how much. And we're sitting there, and it's like, to enter into the record, can we play this thing? So they're playing the thing, and I'm just like, the sheer Python level of awesomeness that was happening at the time. I'm like, you know what? It's almost worth all the pain in the ass now. Because now it's in the public record, which means you can actually talk about it, and you can't, it's in the public record. The case was about, the whole trial was less than an hour, about 45 minutes. She had witnesses, I had a witness or two. And the thing ended, the judge was like, I don't think there's gonna be a judgement, but we're gonna go for a summary judgement. We're like, oh, it's a good sign, it's a good sign. Okay, cool. Judgement comes back, $50,000 in her favour. Which we thought, he did that because he didn't want, the judge didn't want to make a decision. He figured we would appeal, and then it wouldn't be his football, it wouldn't be his problem.

B: Oh, what?

C: Oh, messed up.

G: Yeah, well then my attorneys missed an appeal deadline.

E: What?

G: So they said, to their credit, they were like, you should sue, to me they said, George, you should sue us, because we totally effed up. I'm like, I'm not gonna sue anybody, I'm not gonna sue you guys. So then-

B: It should be 50 grand.

G: Well, the 50 grand, I was like, I don't have 50 grand, hello. So we ended up settling for a much smaller number, that was still thousands of dollars, which I did not really have to my name when I was 27 years old. Yeah, and I looked into, I wanted to find a couple thousand dollars worth of nickels, because she insisted on cash, because she didn't want me to be able to see her bank account number, because she thought that if I gave her a check, I would be able to somehow trace and figure out-

C: Steal her money.

G: Steal her money somehow, so I was like, you want cash? Fine. I inquired to like three banks, like how long would it take for me to get a couple thousand dollars worth of nickels, or pennies, is that possible? And I couldn't get the schedule wise in the deadline, so I ended up giving her, I had 50s, I gave her 50s, and I wrote on each 50 some words. Mostly just Shakespeare insults, I would just write, I found all these great Shakespeare insults that I threw out all his work, and I would just write Tempest, act two, blah, blah, blah, and then the next one I just wrote all these like Shakespeareans about wenches, and about whatever. Which wasn't that great. So that was my worst boss.

B: Wow.

S: So your lawyers were totally incompetent, I have to say this, because first of all.

G: They messed up, yeah.

S: Yeah, so they messed up, objectively. First of all, you cannot sue for libel for opinion. Can't. And $50,000 is the threshold to trigger a change of venue to the federal courts where you were not gonna get a shitty state judge who's gonna rule a certain way just to get it off his docket. So there were multiple ways out of that for you, if you had lawyers who knew what they were doing.

G: I actually, on my podcast, because I got the transcript of the whole trial, I did an audio version of the trial. So you can go to my podcast. It's like episode like 100 or somewhere down there, and it's called The Trial, and I did every voice, and it's about 48 minutes, and you see this.

J: Wow.

E: Did you perform the song?

G: Well, yeah, I played the song at the point where it happened in the trial.

J: I gotta hear it now.

G: I performed the thing.

S: That reminds me of when I was sued by the quack. He entered into evidence during the hearing, a clip from the SGU, right? And this was to show, I think what he was trying to establish something, about that we talked about him on the show or whatever. But in the clip, we were trash talking him for like five minutes. And this is being played in the courtroom, and it literally was all the things that my lawyer and I wanted to get into the record, but we couldn't. And now this jerk is playing it for us. In the middle of the court, my lawyer was just smiling at me the whole time. I was on the stand when this was happening. And he's like, is that you? Yep, that's me. You know, it was like, what are you doing? Yeah, they were making our case for us. It was fantastic. It was one of those same moments.

J: I have a bad one.

G: A bad boss?

J: Yeah, I saw a guy used to work for a pistol whip someone in the office.

E: Pistol whip?

C: With an actual pistol?

'J: With an actual pistol.

G: What?

J: Yeah.

G: All right, give.

J: I was a real estate agent in New York City. This guy was trying to collect money from the boss that used to work there. And there was a really small office that was like where the fax machine was and all that stuff back then. And I heard a little like, what hey and I come out, and the guy standing there, the guy that I used to work with, and he's arguing. So then my boss just marches out of the room. And I'm like, holy shit, man, what's going on? And he's like, look, he owes me eight grand or something and he's paying me and that's it. So I turn and talk to a couple of other people and like about five minutes goes by. And then you just hear this noise and I turn around and he's hammering him on the head with the gun.

C: Your boss?

J: Yeah.

C: Wow.

J: And it was so violent and so completely effed up that me and the two people, I was standing, we were like frozen in fear. Because it was a gun. And I'm and I'm like, is it loaded? I'm like, all this stuff is going on. It was very dramatic. And then it was over. And then he did, the boss disappears again to hide the gun, right? So he, find out later, buried the gun in there. So in New York City there.

G: I gotta be honest, it turned me on a little.

J: Yeah. But he ends up burying it. I did get information later on.

G: Was there any indication he was capable of that before you saw him do that?

J: No. No, the guy was kind of unhinged a little bit, but not in a violent way. He was a weirdo. He was very weird. You know, and there was just a lot of things that happened. Like as I'm going back and thinking through like my experience there. I'm like, yeah, like I should have picked up on things. I was very young. You know, I'm like 20 when this happened.

C: And this was real estate?

J: Yeah.

G: Anybody beat a boss with a gun? Can anybody, does anybody have a worse boss than that?

C: But I had a bad boss who is not violent, but honestly probably should have gone to jail. But I was young and new in the industry. I worked on a live daily show. I might've mentioned it on the show before. I worked on a live daily show for about a year and a half. And I had this boss who was also pretty young. I think he was like 38 and I must've been 30, 28, 29, 30. And I was the co-host of a show with my very good friend, Jacob Soboroff, who is now doing awesome on MSNBC. And we had a boss who is incidentally dead now, which is kind of weird. So that was like a complicated situation who was the most, like he was like the king of sexual harassment and like gaslighting in the grossest possible way. So like, if I walked out on set in a dress, like in my ear, he would be like, you look really good today. But then if I wore, one day I wore like a tie and he like petitioned to the network to not let me dress like that anymore because I look too masculine. And in our meetings, he would tell me that none of the staff liked me. Like he would pull me to the side and be like, you know when you talk, people cringe. And so like, probably don't speak up as much in meetings and probably, and I like believed him for a long, like he gaslighted me for like nine months where I was like, I don't, okay. And I became very timid and I became very like afraid to speak my mind and ultimately a situation where I was a co-host with my co-host became like, he was the host and I was the sidekick, even though that's not what our contracts were and that's not how we were meant to run the show. And ultimately I worked with a therapist and kind of like regained a little bit of confidence, but what ended up happening that's really messed up is that everybody got fired from the show and they retooled it, but they let me go first. And he was in the room and he looked like so smug and sanctimonious. And it was a really tough situation because I just decided that day, because they were like, we'd love it if you'd finished the season. I could have just walked out out of anger and been like, I'm not going to, but I was like, of course I'm gonna finish the season. I wanna keep making money, but I'm doing it on my terms. And so then I started to like not let him bully me around for the last few months of the season. Two weeks later, he got fired too, which was a little bit like, I don't know. I don't like wish ill on people, but it was a really, really hard situation. It took a lot for me to learn how to advocate for myself in that situation. And really what came was that my crew, like all of the producers that I worked with, I would start saying, I know that you guys think sometimes when I say, and they're like, what are you talking about? And they like helped me see that it was just this guy gaslighting me. And like, it wasn't actually like that. They're like, we're like huge, like we're friends. We're like, here, we like go out for coffee and stuff. Like, we don't not like you. Like we like it when you talk to us like that. So yeah, it was a really tough thing. But the good news is at the time, that's when I went on Joe Rogan a lot. I had been on his show like twice and he had told me that I should start a podcast because it's like my own thing. And like, I'm my own producer and blah, blah, blah. So Talk Nerdy was actually born out of a very dark time when I was feeling very like not in control of my career and like not really knowing what would happen. So a good thing came out of it, but it was like a brutal. And it makes me think about how probably so many women.

S: How easy it is to [inaudible] into women.

C: Especially like, I consider myself to be like, one of the things I'm proud of, if you were to say, Cara, what do you have going for you? Like, what can you actually say? Is like, I'm a smart person. Like, I know that about myself. You know what I mean? There are a lot of things that women, I think we compare ourselves to other people in society. We're really socialized to think, but I'm like, whatever, I'm smart. And the fact that like, I could have been dismantled systematically by my boss because he was in a position of power and he would just the little things every day. I mean, it got to a point where I wasn't allowed to lead the panel. We had a section where it was like a panel discussion. I wasn't allowed to lead panel because nobody liked me and I wasn't good at it, according to him. And there was a panel on women in STEM and I had to be the sidekick to my male co-host leading the panel on women in STEM. And it was just like, and even he was like, what the fuck is happening?

J: That's so amazing, Cara, because I never, you are so strong. You have, you are like a force of nature.

C: But that's the thing about gaslighting a woman to make her think that she's a bitch because then she is like, oh, but when I'm being strong, people don't like me. So I need to be like more soft and demure.

J: I love when you're strong. I mean, really.

C: But that's how you gaslight a strong woman. You know what I mean? Is you tell her that nobody likes her when she acts like that and that she's not gonna be effective.

J: If you don't want to have any ill will towards someone, let me know, I'll have the ill will for you.

S: Jay will pistol whip him.

E: He knows how.

C: Yeah, it was intense, it was a bad time.

G: One more quick one, right down the line. Evan, I'm gonna go straight down. Would you rather have won a $10 million lottery or live twice as long?

E: Live twice as long.

J: Live twice as long.

S: Twice as long, no question.

C: Am I twice as old?

J: No, you're healthy, you're healthy.

C: I don't know, you can't.

G: Oh, you mean, oh, do you age?

B: What's the quality of life

C: Do I age? Like, am I 100 and then I live to 200?

G: I would say you're not gonna be commensurately like 200 years old, but you'll be old.

C: And then that makes it easier. Of course I want to live twice as long, but if I'm ageing that much, I might want to die.

G: You'll be ageing, but I would say, yeah, I think.

C: I don't want to be 200.

G: Proportionally, ageing proportionally.

C: I don't want to be old like a 200-year-old.

G: I think you'll be, yeah, you're right. You'll be like Yoda, yeah. You'll be like an 80-year-old for the last 100 years, let's say.

C: Well, that's different. I would be down for that. But if I was like 160, I don't want to be 160. Then I would take the million.

J: Don't even ask Bob. Don't even bother asking Bob.

C: Bob wants to live forever.

B: Not forever, just for 2,000 years.

S: Time is more valuable than that.

J: Time is the most precious commodity.

C: I don't know, though. I'm sitting here thinking everybody else in my life is dead. I'm gonna take the money.

G: I don't know, yeah.

C: I'm gonna take the money. I could do a lot of good with that money.

G: What about 100 million? Would that change?

C: Well, then I'll definitely extra take the money.

G: 100 million versus living twice as long. Is there a point? Is there a?

S: No, I don't think there's a point.

G: No?

B: There is a point.

J: No. No, there isn't.

B: I will say there's a point.

J: Well, maybe, because I know what Bob is saying.

B: Jay knows exactly what I'm saying.

J: Because Bob's going, okay, if you're gonna give me a few trillion dollars, and you can.

E: Oh, yeah, then you can, right.

S: But I mean, that's not true. Bob's living in a fantasy land.

B: What?

S: There's no amount of money right now that you could, with technology, that you could, yeah, that you could have a high probability of living twice as long.

J: But I look at it like this. I started my family older.

B: Yeah, maybe before we were younger.

J: I want to see my kids get married. I want to see what their lives are like. And that's worth.

S: I want to see movies in 100 years.

J: Yeah, whatever. I want to see my kids' lives. I want to. I want to be like the way, my parents got to see everything with their kids. And I want.

G: We're doing this Star Wars series one more chance. And then that's it.

E: Episode 94.

G: Episode 75.

J: It's not going to be movies, Steve.

G: I swear this is the last one.

J: Yeah, it's going to be virtual reality. Total immersion.

S: All right.

J: Yeah.

Science or Fiction (1:31:10)

Answer	Item
Fiction	First computer
Science	Oldest theatre
Science	Betsy ross myth

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Bob	Oldest theater
Cara	Betsy ross myth
Jay	Oldest theatre
Evan	First computer
George	First computer

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Theme: Philadelphia
Item #1: The Walnut Street theatre is the oldest theatre in continuous operation in the English speaking world.
Item #2: There is no evidence Betsy Ross stitched the first American Flag, a myth concocted 100 years after the alleged fact.
Item #3: The first general computer, ENIAC, was built in Philadelphia. It weighed 27 tons and when fully turned on the lights in the city would dim.

S: So we're here in Philadelphia, right? George, your band is the Philadelphia Funk Authority.

G: That's true.

S: You live in Bethlehem, but this is pretty much your hometown.

G: This is the home-ish, yeah.

C: But if you say you're from Philly, he'll like defend. He'll say I'm from Bethlehem.

G: Ish. I mean, I'm a Jersey guy at heart. So yeah, so I'm a, yeah, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a.

S: But it's within.

G: It's within my zone.

S: It's within your domain.

G: My, my, yes, yes.

E: It's your backyard.

S: What about the rest of you? You guys spend much time in Philadelphia before?

C: Yeah. When I lived in New York, for a year when I was working on my, the first time I tried to do a PhD. So it was 08, 09, 08 to 09. And I lived in Queens. And my friend was in med school here at Drexel. And I came here every weekend for a year. I love like, cause we were like, at first we traded off weekends and then we're like, let's just do Philly every weekend. I love Philly. I think it's a great city. And I love where we are like in center city right now. It's so fun.

J: So, so you know that you can't, when you order a cheesesteak, you don't say I want a Philly cheesesteak.

C: Yeah. You don't say I want a Philly cheesesteak.

S: It's kinda redundant.

J: I had a guy in a, I ordered...

S: I wanna here cheesesteak?

J: Well, I did it. I came down here for, well it was like, a high school trip and I'm like walking. Like, well, there's two places you gotta go. And I walk in in one of them and I'm like, I want a Philly cheesesteak. And he goes, no uh uh uh uhh.

E: Oh boy.

J: Then he told me, he gave me an explanation of why that is not correct. But then I hear from people, you're lucky he didn't kick you out. Really?

S: Well, you don't go into a pizza shop in Manhattan, so I'd like a New York pizza, please. I guess you could but yeah, but it would but you're branding yourself as a tourist.

C: Yeah, which is and with the with the camera around your neck?

S: And here we go. Right, science or fiction. Are we ready?

J: Yes?

S: Yeah? What do you think the theme is?

[talking over each other]

It's about Philadelphia. Okay, so here. We are three items. Yep, two of these are real one of these are fake. Are you ready? All right item number one. The Walnut Street theatre is the oldest theatre in continuous operation in the English-speaking world. Number two there is no evidence Betsy Ross stitched the first American flag a myth concocted a hundred years after the alleged fact. And item number three the first general computer ENIAC was built in Philadelphia. It weighed 27 tons and when fully turned on the lights in the city would dim. All right, we're gonna pull the audience only after I get the rogues votes.

E: Why is that?

S: Because they live here. Yeah, so we're gonna start with Bob.

C: What was the first one?

Bob's Response

B: So I Walnut Street theatre, never heard of it. Oldest theatre. Betsy Ross yeah, I mean sure there's so many things that we have just we're so wrong about that sounds like something we could be wrong about. ENIAC any act that kind of sounds right. That's ringing some bells here. So I'm gonna go with their Walnut Street theatre. Fiction.

S: Okay, Cara?

Cara's Response

C: I hate it when he does. Cuz it's like you the most obvious wrong one is often right. And he picks the most crazy thing to be a truth and then a more subtle thing to be a fiction. ENIAC built in Philly 27 tons fully turned on the lights would dim. I could see that I mean the first general computer is probably really old like over a hundred years old now.

S: I didn't put the date in there, but it was 1947. I'll throw that out there. That wouldn't have made a difference.

C: Really? When did NASA become net? Oh, there was a 60s. Yeah, and they were just getting the big IBM ones. Yeah, I could I buy it. It might be fiction, but I buy it. I also buy the Betsy Ross thing like maybe she didn't stitch it. Maybe she like I don't know. Maybe wasn't the first one. She just fixed one. Added some stars. That's all she did is add some stars. I don't know. Walnut Street theatres the oldest theatre in the continuous operation in English-speaking world. The thing the reason that's so hard to believe is our country is not that old. And so when you think of like well how long has like England been in existence like or like you think of like theatres that were performing Shakespeare? And then they're gonna keep performing, but that's just a continuous operation and like England was bombed during World War two and they had to rebuild and there might have been shutdowns of all these places so maybe I'm starting to think that the fiction is not the Walnut Street theatre, but it's. Maybe it's fucking Betsy Ross, and she actually did do that, and that's why we all learned it in school. So I'm gonna go Betsy Ross is the fiction. It's like the unification fiction.

Jay's Response

J: I haven't heard Betsy Ross's name in a long time. And I'm trying to remember like I have some vague memory of like she took the remnants of some old flag and then made the new one and that I don't know then I've got like a schoolhouse rock coming. The Walnut Street theatre is the oldest theatre in continuous operation. That just seems wrong, but that's so such a good one.

C: So it's obviously right.

J: Yeah, I mean because you just got to think like what's going on with the you know European countries that speak English, and you know no theatre survived that long. I don't know that's. That's a tougher. So I'm just gonna take any act off the table and say that's science. I mean the Betsy Ross one sounds like an urban legend, doesn't it? I'm gonna say that one. Wait. There is no evidence that Betsy Ross stitched the first American flag. I think that's science Walnut Street Theatre is the fiction.

S: Okay, Evan?

Evan's Response

E: Walnut Street theatre, I think the key word here is continuous operation that would seem to indicate that that one's gonna be science. The next one about Betsy Ross. I seem to recall reading something about this not, the Betsy Ross Ross myth and this seems to be in line with that. That leaves the computer. ENIAC. Was that really the first? It might have been way 27 tons when fully turned on the lights in the city would dim? I kind of find that part of this hard to believe I mean the lights and the whole lights in the city in night. We're talking 1947. Not like 1899.

C: But the city lights just turned on in 1899 in most places.

S: I understand that but but still I mean I mean think about I mean 1947 that that that would be a huge huge draw. If it was drawing that much? I mean wouldn't other there be other problems like wouldn't the machine shut down or something before it even was able to pull that that amount of power. Something's wrong there. The computer one I think is the fiction.

George's Response

G: One of my favorite Stan Freeberg sketches is when George Washington goes to Betsy Ross to get the flag and George Washington shows up, and he's like you're having a little fun at our country's expense stars with stripes. How's that supposed to work design-wise? They go in this great song and he hates it he hates it, and she's like he wants polka dots. I deliberately said polka dots.

C: Do you notice that in every rendering of Betsy Ross like cartoon kind of or like on stage place? She's always like wearing a star-shaped bonnet or like a star flag printed bonnet. Yeah, all the time.

E: All best stories are [inaudible]

G: Everybody wants to be an art director. Everybody wants to call the shots. Anyway, I think the Wall Street thing is true. I think that Betsy Ross thing is true, or it's no evidence is true. I'm gonna say that the ENIAC thing is correct, but it wasn't Philly I for some reason in my mind it's like Baltimore or something. It's like it's not Philadelphia, so I'm saying the computer is the fiction.

Steve Polls the Audience

S: Okay.

C: Well at least we know we didn't sweep Steve.

S: You didn't sweep me, that's correct. So let's see what the audience thinks. The the locals. How many people are you here from Philadelphia?

J: That's most of them. Fred are you not from Philly?

S: Let's see what you guys think. So if you think that the one about the Walnut Street theatre is the fiction. Do the guys know the single clap method. You clap when I get here. We'll do one practice, ready? (audience claps) If you think the Walnut Street theatre is the fiction clap. (lots of claps) If you think that Betsy Ross being a myth is the fiction clap. (a few claps) And if you think that the ENIAC is the fiction clap. (a lot of claps)

C: Shit.

E: That's very interesting.

Steve Explains Item #1

S: Alright, so let's take them in order. The Walnut Street theatre is the oldest theatre in continuous operation the English-speaking world. Bob and Cara you guys both think this one-

C: No, I think that is-

S: Oh, yeah, but Bob. You're the only one.

B: No, me and Jay.

J: I said ENIAC.

S: Bob and Jay said this one is the fiction. And this one is science. This one is science.

G: Really?

S: Yeah. 1809. 1809 continuous operation awesome, so that's it as that's the critical word all the other ones they shut down, and they open up they were. So absolutely.

Steve Explains Item #2

S: So let's go to number two. So when you look up Walnut Street theatre like the first ten hits are all about tickets like it's, anyway. Number two, there is no evidence Betsy Ross stitched the first American flag. A myth concocted a hundred years after the alleged fact. Cara, I think you're alone in thinking on stage with this one is the fiction everyone else thinks this one is science and this one is science.

C: No evidence at all?

S: None. It's in fact there is evidence that this myth was completely concocted out of whole cloth by her family like a hundred years later.

C: So what did she do?

S: Nothing.

C: Why do we know her name?

S: Because it was a completely fabricated.

G: It's the same time when they were doing like the George Washington cherry tree myth. There was all this like historical stuff.

C: But George Washington was the president so like.

S: She existed.

C: Yeah, but why do we care about her?

S: It was propaganda.

C: That's so weird though because we learned it in school.

S: I know, it's complete nonsense, and there's like no there's no provenance before a hundred years after she lived.

C: She's like one of the disciples.

E: Holds a place in the pantheon. Undeserved. Undeserved.

C: She did some shit.

S: She's Philadelphia history. Just not just not that part.

Steve Explains Item #3

S: Number three, the first general computer ENIAC was built in Philadelphia. It weighed 27 tons and when fully turned on the lights in the city would dim that is fiction. There's a lot of pieces in there, so what part is the fiction?

C: The city.

Audience: The lights.

G: The lights, okay.

S: So it was built in Philadelphia, but was moved to Baltimore. After a year of operation. It was built, it was designed to. So it's okay so first general computer meaning prior to that computers were built for one thing. You had to put yet to do one type of operation, and it wasn't reprogrammable. This was reprogrammable, not easily-

E: Hundreds of calculations per hour.

S: It would take weeks and weeks to reprogram it, but you could. Once you designed, once you said I wanted to now do this problem. You could do that, but you can't cuz they're pulling out cards and stuff like that. The original purpose for which it was designed was to calculate ballistic trajectories for World War two. But it wasn't completed until after World War two was over so the scientists were like great. We'll use it for-

G: Keep bombing.

S: What we want to use it for.

B: What good is this thing just put it in the warehouse.

J: The world will only need three computers.

S: Think about it. Calculating trajectories, what else is that good for?

B: Orbits?

S: Nat for NASA for orbits, and so this could do like 20,000 hours of human calculation in a minute. You know so that was over a person this was a huge advance.

C: But NASA didn't even exist yet.

S: Yeah, but this was for the space program and for the whatever the precursors of that etc.

C: So it wasn't 27 tons?

S: And it was used up until 1956 or something so we used up until we were doing that. Not in 47, but okay. So some other facts about this that are interesting. It weighed 27 tons.

C: It did?

S: Yeah, that was correct.

C: And then they moved the whole thing to Baltimore?

S: They moved the whole thing. Some amazing stats. 20,000 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors.

C:Who designed it?

S: And approximately five million hand soldered joints. Five million hands on a massive massive-

B: And this thing is probably hundred million times better.

S: Steve isn't it true that they ended up shutting ENIAC down because it became conscious?

E: I feel pain.

S: Just became obsolete.

G: Betsy Ross is a myth.

E: Turn it down! Shut it down! Unplug it!

S: Electronic numerical integrator and computer. It was built at the time as a as a machine brain, an artificial brain. And at the time it was. A lot of science fiction from the time which I've read a lot of science fiction over time like even Isaac Asimov who was a visionary, but they said-

B: He called them univac and multivac.

S: Well univac was a next actual. When they thought about like what are things gonna be like in a hundred years, in 200 years. They envisioned computers that were the size of cities. They thought the computers would get bigger and bigger and bigger.

B: I'm not aware of any sci-fi author that really predicted.

S: Predicted that they would get small.

J: I mean, but guys think about. Miniaturization is in and of itself an incredible-

S: Right, but it wasn't anticipated in this context.

G: Transistor.

S: But there there were rumours which became mythology that when you turn the machine on fully that the area would dim. The university where it was housed and then that spread to like the city would dim. But it was never true, and it was actually investigated and found that nope. It was complete mythology. That was the part that was total myth.

C: That's funny. That seemed like the most true to me.

S: Yeah, that's why.

J: Good job Steve.

C: And also that like it would never actually be at full capacity, so don't have to worry about it.

S: If you fired the whole thing I mean it was 160 kilowatts. A lot of juice but not enough to brown out a city.

J: Does anybody in the room know did ENIAC make noise when they turned it? I would love to know-

C: I'm sure it hummed.

G: Billy Joel sang about it when he said ENIAC-AC-AC.

J: George I totally love you, man. Such a humor. I was like every time you tell a joke. No, but you know I would love to use that for who's that noisy. I wish that there was a recording of it.

C: There might be.

B: It's interesting though that power consumption is a huge concern for the next generation of super computers. They would literally use the power of an entire city to run? I mean, that's a major concern.

S: Absolutely. As energy efficient and powerful by comparison computers are the amount of computer computing power in the world-

B: Trillions of times faster.

S: Yeah, but it's, the power output of countries relative to the whole world is powering our computers. And in fact there's a lot of concern about Bitcoin. Running a cryptocurrency like if the world ran on cryptocurrency it would be a massive increase in power output just to run the computers.

C: It's only the mining. It's just the mining of the Bitcoin that takes so much power. Not the utilization of it.

G: Literal electrical power?

J: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: There're like whole farms.

J: It's funny there's bin gimps in availability of GPUs because they are designed to do that kind of processing better than a CPU. The calculation that you got to do to figure out the algorithm for a Bitcoin.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:47:54)

Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more computing power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the world today.
– Ralph Merkle, American computer scientist

S: Yeah, all right, Evan. Do you have a quote for us?

E: Yeah, I do. I actually have two. One's a fake quote and one's an actual quote. Here's the fake quote. Ready? "Here lies WC Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia." Anyone heard this? It's supposedly what's written on his epitaph on his gravestone? It's very famous.

G: [inaudible]

S: [inaudible]

E: Yeah, that's a version of it, but it has a lot of fake. Not not real, no no. So obviously famous Philadelphian. So I was looking for Philadelphia related quotes and that one pops up all over the place. So you know WC Fields was yes native son of Philadelphia. But often use Philadelphia as a joke as a gag as reds the foil and it's humor and stuff. So I was looking for some things that were a little bit more positive, and then I came across some like real fluffy bleh non-science related stuff. So I went a whole different direction.

S: So you went with eh, yo Adrian.

J: He's just not funny anymore, I guess, you know?

E: All right, but here's the actual quote and this one's dedicated to Bob. "Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today."

J: I think I know who said that.

E: Who?

J: Eric Drexler.

E: No.

G: Betsy Ross.

E: No, Ralph Merkel.

B: Oh, he's awesome.

E: There you go Bob. Ralph Merkel. No, not from Philadelphia. But he is a computer scientist. One of the inventors of public-key cryptography. The inventor of cryptographic hashing and more recently a researcher and speaker of cryonics.

J: And often eater of Philly cheesesteak.

S: Or cheesesteak.

C: He'll never learn.

S: All right, well, thank you guys for joining me.

J: You're welcome brother.

E: That's Steve.

S: And thank all of you for joining. (applause) Hopefullly we'll have an opportunity to return to Philadelphia, it's not that far for most of us, and it's a great city.

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