SGU Episode 1063

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SGU Episode 1063
November 22nd 2025
Unable to acquire caption from OpenAI
SGU 1062                      SGU 1064
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
“What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.”
– David Eagleman
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Show Notes
SGU Forum

Intro

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Thursday, November 20th, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey everybody. Jay Novella. Hey guys. And Evan Bernstein.

E: Good afternoon, everyone.

S: Now Cara is away this week, but I did record her segment previously so that will she'll be jumping in in the middle of the show with her news item, but she is not here to participate in the rest of the show. She actually we did her science or fiction as well, so I'll be clipping that.

B: Ah, she went first, if I.

E: Don't. I would have sent. I would have texted her. And that's. Yeah. Right. Does that mean though we get to hear her ramblings before in her decision before we go? So she's getting no. Why? Why wouldn't she go first? In a limbo.

S: She went, she's done, but play her for you.

E: Yeah. Did you tell her if she got it right or not?

S: Maybe.

E: Oh, Steve, you are clever.

S: All right, so I'm I Bob just picked me up at the airport a few hours ago. I just got in from Dubai. I'm significantly jet lagged but.

E: This will be fun. I'm.

S: Mostly awake. It was a good trip. It was a lot of fun. You know, I did a nine hour seminar on, you know, perimeter on scientific skepticism, which is always fun. After that, there was a conference where I was on a panel on the future of consciousness in the mind. It was good. It actually turned out to be a really good, really good panel. So yeah, things are happening in Dubai. We may be going back there next year.

J: What's your #1 take away?

S: So I mean, there's, you know, the Dubai's trying to position itself as like the city of the future. You know, they're investing in a lot of technology, they're trying to attract a lot of talent, a lot of investment, and and they're motivated to make this happen. So, you know, they have like the Museum of the future there. It's actually pretty snazzy kind of construction. Yeah. There's. So, you know, the, the Muhammad is the guy who's hosting me there, who's the listener of the show. He's a skeptic. He's like we skepticism has to be part of this process, otherwise the pseudoscience will come in. So which of course I completely agree with, The learning curve is pretty steep when you're, you know, thinking about metacognition, critical thinking, science versus pseudoscience, thinking about that versus not thinking about that is a huge difference, right? So having some kind of process where we say, OK, is this something that's legitimate that deserves our time and attention, our investment? Or is this just some crank looking to exploit the situation? You know, so that's that's we're trying to at least introduce that basic nuts and bolts kind of process.

J: I mean even them pausing for a second and asking themselves could this be a scam? Or am I? Could I possibly be taken advantage of? Is a wonderful start.

S: And there's huge, there's research on that. Anything you do to make people think about, be aware of the truth status of a claim makes them more skeptical about it. You know what I mean? Just introduce the even if saying anything about is this true or not true? Soon as you introduce the idea that it may or may not be true, people think about it, you know? So So yeah. But obviously doing that in the context of this is how you tell real science from fake science.

J: Steve, when you're when you're there like this is part of a giant conference, right that you said it lasts like a month.

S: So there's two things, right? So the first is the field program, which is like there are 30 fellows that that, that are invited each year and they spend a month long seminar workshop with going through multiple seminars. I did one of the of the seminars in ours, you know, for that court there, but they have many other people doing that. And then the other one was a 2 day conference. It was the Future Forum, just a 2 day conference that anybody could go to. Just got to buy a ticket like any other con.

E: Was it dominated by AI discussion?

S: So AI all over the place, man, it was so much AI. Absolutely.

B: Of course.

S: Like, almost every, it seemed to come up in almost every context, you know, Yeah, like, and of course AI is going to change this. It's like, sure, yeah, yeah.

B: Let's see what they're saying after the. After the bubble burst, right bubble.

S: No, listen, it's it's they I is, as we've said before on the show, it is it's it's hype, but it's real technology as well. Just like any new technology. It's doesn't work for everything, but it's still figuring out like the Internet. You know, when Internet commerce and the and you know, the web came out, obviously it's transformed our economy, but there was a lot of hype that led to a bubble, which then burst. You're right. And so the two things can be true at the same time. It is a powerful new tool that is being used in research in so many ways. But because of that, there's also a ton of hype around it. And there's a lot, a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks, you know, about the AI bubble and when's it going to burst and etc, etc.

J: I don't see it bursting. I mean there.

S: We will see it, then it will and then it, you know, it'll things will sort itself out, you know, overtime, like what really works now we're in the throat shit against the wall phase, you know, see what happens.

J: But there is, there is so much money being put into that industry, it's crazy.

S: That's the thing. It's there's so much money. That's the bubble, right? It's attractive, crazy investment money, which is inflating the whole thing, you know. But yeah, yeah, the way I had it explained to me, actually, it was, you know, one of our one of our friends who was an investment guy. Remember, stocks are based on two things. There's the actual value of the company, its assets, its revenue, and then there's speculation about its potential in the future. When speculation gets too far ahead of reality, that's when you have a bubble, right? So we are absolutely in the massively speculative phase of AI and that it's no question that there's that that's causing a bubble. Because of that, at some point there's a quote UN quote correction right now. That correction is when you get back to a proper balance of, you know, the actual value of the company, like its profits and its assets versus speculation. The question is, is the is the correction going to cause a recession or even a depression? Right.

E: Yeah.

S: Like how you know? Hopefully it won't get that bad.

E: Hopefully not, but.

S: That's what happened in 1929, right? Those other problems too, there were regulatory problems that we've hopefully fixed this time around. But yeah, a lot of a lot of economists are worried that there's some some some similar things going on now that we have to be careful about.

E: Yeah, And there have been some big sells by some prominent investors who have sold, for example, all their NVIDIA stock, like dumped it all now, like just this week because they see the downturn coming.

S: Already, but that could become a self fulfilling prophecy.

E: It could be. It definitely could be, but there's more than one of these people and hedge funds and other things that have been unload unloading.

S: That's why bubbles burst, right? There's everyone's getting in to make money and then as soon as people think that it's going the other way, there's a rush for the door and then it collapses.

E: Right. And then there will be a buyback once it's down. But you're right, there could be a lot of collateral damage on the way. I just hope it doesn't get to that point.

J: Yeah, and can you trust those bastards?

E: Yeah. Trust. That's a big word.

J: Hey, and you know, I guess we're not going to talk about the Epstein files, right? Has.

S: That, has that been in the news recently? I don't know. A little bit, yeah, Yeah.

E: Oh yeah, yeah, you've been in Dubai.

S: No, even in Dubai it's in the news. Actually my, my lifeline while I was over there was BBC International, which was like the one English speaking news station I could get in the hotel room. So that was that was my lifeline to U.S. news was through the BBC. It's actually pretty good. It's exactly, you know, it's fairly objective reporting in my opinion. Anyway, let's move on.

Dumbest Thing of the Week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NKe7vtpueA/ (08:01)

• [url_from_show_notes None] 

S: Evan, you're going to start us off with the dumbest thing of the week.

E: Thank you, Steve. Yes, dumbest thing of the week now, Steve as you know you were in Dubai recently. That's.

S: What I understand.

E: This particular dumbest thing of the week took place relatively close to where you were. Not exactly not not you know, but in the same. Same part of the world, same region. Same part of the world. Yep, Yep, Yep. And this can't comes to a courtesy of the Today show. And I know a lot of people in the United States know about this show. It is a big, big morning television show here in the USA on a major network. And this network even has a deeper online reach to its various related media products. So yeah, NBC, the National Broadcasting Company, this is their product. This is not some fringe Tiktoker or Myspacer or Six Degreeers. 6° Do you guys remember that at all? No, it was like the precursor. The precursor to Myspace. Look it up. Oh geez, I had to look it up because I didn't even remember what 6° was. But that was the pre Myspace though. Due to its enormous reach and potential damage to the collective IQ of the planet, they have earned Definitely the dumbest thing of the week. So they thought it was a good idea to head out to Mount Ararat in Turkey and Recook a long dead burger known as Noah's Ark.

B: Ararat. Isn't that where Ark is?

E: Thank you, Bob.

B: Yes.

E: Do you remember that?

B: Wow.

E: Well, NBC did because that's where they went and that's what this particular story was about, because a new team of investigators went out there to once again study the study this particular area to see and try to get confirmation that they have located the biblical, the fictional, the mythical Noah's Ark.

B: Steve, I got to say real quick, Steve and Jay, do you remember going to the movie theater to see the the movie popularization of that whole thing? Yeah. It was just like a it was just like a bad pseudoscientific documentary. It was horrible. My God it.

S: Was, yeah, It was in search of level of horribleness.

B: Yes.

S: Oh, yes, It's all speculation and coincidence and you know, you know what I mean? It's like never, ever. That was one of the shows that in my formative years, you know, like when I'm in, when I was a proto skeptic, not really a full skeptic, but we were all interested in all of this kind of stuff where I always had this nagging feeling, it's like, how come we never get to actual evidence? There's always the promise of evidence, the implication of evidence, the suggestion that there might be evidence, and it's all really full of hype and everything, but never anything solid. And that was definitely in that that bucket, you know, that that movie was that way. It's like it's all just wild ass speculation.

E: And yet, teams of researchers continue to visit the site in an attempt to try to make fact out of fiction. Basically is what happens. For those who don't know, in the book of Genesis, Noah's Ark came to rest, according to the book, on the mountains of Ararat, which has led to a long tradition of searching for Noah's Ark near Mount Ararat in what is modern day Turkey, the highest peak in Turkey, in fact, Mount Dara, it's a dormant volcano near the borders of our media and Iran. So despite many alleged sightings over the centuries, as you said, Steve, there has been none 0 credible scientific or archaeological evidence that the ark has been found. Geological studies of a presumed ark formation have concluded that they are what not not an ark, but a natural rock formation. Yep. Yep, so the new claim. In 2025 an American Turkish research team using GPR and other geophysical scans claimed to have found evidence of man made structures within this particular formation. Finally, you know, using the latest greatest technology to to go back to an archaeological site to try to find more information, which is not unusual in archaeology. That does happen, however. What did what did what did they find? Well, let's see. According to Lawrence Collins, who was a retired professor of geology from California State University and co-author of a paper that thoroughly debunked this formation near Mount Ararat as a natural geological structure, which was formed by a volcanic sediment by the way, and erosion rather than being a man made vessel. His analysis determined that the supposed artifacts looks like an iron bracket and drogue stones or is it Druge stones, DROGUE. And that's what these new researchers said that their readings came back with. But actually no natural mineral concentrations, local rocks. It's still just geology that that we're looking at. But hey, it looks like an arc, right? It has the shape, it has roughly, I guess the size that would that would match it. So what do you do if you're a true believer or creationist or what have you? You go back and you try to continue to find evidence to support your conclusions.

S: I mean, it's not even good pareidolia, right? It's just vaguely Bodish shaped. It's clearly a natural rock formation, you know, I mean, like, I it's the kind of thing, like you wouldn't even necessarily think anything about it until somebody points it out. It's like a face in the cloud. Like you kind of see how this could be a boat. Yeah. OK. I, you know, sure, if you squint really just right. But it's not, it's not even convincing, even just as just as being in a boat shape. It's terrible.

J: But Steve, for a lot of people, that's enough.

S: Apparently.

E: Well, right, and you know, and what the and and again, they just continue to go back to try to get more information, you know, something, anything that they can cling on to to help support their particular biblical based theory of what of what this is. But it fails. It fails time and time again why NBC and the Today Show decided to do a segment.

S: You know the answer to that question.

E: Well, I suppose so, you know.

S: Why does Time magazine have Jesus on the cover once a year? No matter what's going on, you know that's.

E: True Shroudaturan pops up all the time, you know, regularly these things are cyclical in in this way. So, so that's NBC. They get the dumbest thing of the week for helping to keep creation creationism alive.

S: Well, I do want to point out one other thing and that is I'm noticing that the use of this, you know, penetrating sonar is the latest pseudo scientific tool because you it's a BLOB squatch tool because you get back these vague low res images that you can hallucinate whatever the freak you want to hallucinate in those images. And so they look, this could be a corridor and then they then they superimpose on top of these blobs are shit, you know, and you're like, come on.

B: We're seeing it under under the pyramids right in in Egypt, we're seeing similar. That's what I'm saying.

S: It's yeah. So this now my radar is up for any pseudo archaeologist whatever using this ground penetrating radar. It's just pareidolia generating machine at this point in time.

J: Which, you know, suits their purposes perfectly.

S: Yeah, exactly. It's it's like there's the ghost hunters who use the squelch machine to to listen to ghost voices. It's there's the pseudoscientists will use noise generating machines that they could then over interpret to be whatever they wanted to be or whatever they needed to be to support their nonsense. But but you know real scientists know how to use it properly and you know how you know its strengths and weaknesses, etcetera, etcetera, right?

E: Limitations of the instruments correct? Absolutely.

S: I mean, The thing is, and this is, again, this is standard archaeology, is when you see something that looks like it might be something, right, just because it has a shape or whatever, that's meaningless until you find the physical stuff itself, right? So like, show me, where's the actual ship? There's got to be some. We have ships that are front 4000 years ago, Yeah. 2. 2700 BCE. So, yeah, So we could find shipwrecks from thousands of years ago. There should be something some wood, some because you say nails some of the Pete, the metal that you used to make it something not just it's dirt in a vague ship shape that I impose my beliefs on to.

News Items

Using AI To Design a Virus (16:36)

• Stanford–Arc Team Reports AI-Made Viruses That Kill Bacteria 

S: All right, Jay, what I understand that scientists have used AI to make a virus to kill a bacteria.

J: That is correct, Steve. I was really, really looking forward to hearing what you guys think about this. I think it's really cool. I think it's another great example of. You know, of using artificial intelligence, but of course there's details and there's things that we have to consider. So what we have is 2 scientific teams, both in California, and they claim they've used artificial intelligence to create functioning viruses that can infect and kill bacteria. You know, on the surface, this sounds, you know, incredible, right? Both groups designed to complete viral genomes using the AI systems. The DIA systems were trained on massive DNA data sets. You know, they just filled it with as much information as they could and then they assembled those genomes in the lab and watched them come to life inside bacteria cells. They had 16 successful AI generated designs from the Stanford and Ark Institute teams. They, they produced fully working bacteriophages and this marks a, you know, a significant shift in how biology can be engineered. Now, of course, I mean, who hasn't thought about this? I've been thinking about, you know, them using AI to do genetic engineering for a long time and I'm.

S: Yeah, it's code, right? It's perfect tool for it exactly.

J: Yeah. And and it's, this is probably not the first time it's been used this way, but this this particular thing that was accomplished is pretty significant. So in case you don't know, a bacteriophage is a virus that infects bacteria. It can't reproduce or grow on its own. And what it does is it attaches itself to a living bacterial cell, then it injects its genetic material, which then hijacks the cell's internal machinery, which forces the cell to make new viral components. This is, you know, exactly what happened with COVID. And then eventually, it causes the cell to burst open. And this is very much like a Thanksgiving meal at my house, by the way, each, each phage usually targets only one type of bacteria, sometimes even a single strain. And that's pretty cool. That means you can match a specific phase to a specific infection. So the targeting potential here is is at maximum. This is why researchers are right now exploring these phases and the precise treatments that they could eventually bring to us for antibiotic resistant bacteria. And if you don't know about what is going on in the world of antibiotic resistant bacteria, well, there is a a growing problem caused by several things. One of them is people taking their medication and not finishing their antibiotics. You know, you can get some nasty bacteria that comes out of that, that happening over and over and over and over again. And it's always good to future proof ourselves from future potential heavy duty bacterial threats, which happened from time to time. The California team at Stratford and ARC Institute, they were focusing on PHIX 174. This is a tiny phage with a genome of about 5000 bases and 11 genes in a virus. This genome is a single continuous piece of DNA or RNA. And that tells the host cell which proteins they produce and how to assemble new virus particles, right. This is this is all basic virus information. PHIX 174, this is a well known and very much heavily studied phase, which makes it perfect, a perfect test case for these synthetic genome designs that they're coming up with. The researchers also used the LLM that is specifically trained on DNA sequences, right? So it wasn't just a standard like out-of-the-box LLM. They were, they were training it to only essentially only understand DNA and there wasn't even really like a like a talking component to it. Like you couldn't just type into it. You know, the way that they were communicating with it was, was largely just based on them pumping in DNA information and it's spitting out DNA information. And that LLM was part of the Evo and Evo 2 family of artificial intelligence systems. You could read a little bit more about them. They're being used for different things. So they used it to write complete virus genomes from scratch. And the AI was able to do this very well because the models were trained, like I said, on just a huge amount of data about bacteria and virus and everything. So they, they built, they loaded the gun perfectly for them to get these results. The AI learned many of the rules that real biological genomes follow. And this part is important because it wasn't just it shooting into the dark. They concluded that the, the success of this program proves that it had, you know, a quote UN quote, a real understanding of, of what the, you know, you can call them rules or whatever, but just just how these systems work. And it needed that in order to, to have this many successes. So once that they had the these DNA sequences, they used other laboratories to actually build these structures and they were assembled and they were able to inject them into bacteria. And it, it worked. It was, it was actually very successful. And the interesting thing here, so now that we have the DNA and now that they were able to build these phases, the implications are significant because we see what was able to be done with the LLM. We know that it can function and we know that it can spit out usable data. So now what are we looking at? Fate, You know, phage therapy could become a much more targeted thing in the future. Synthetic biology could explore, you know, designs that are way beyond what evolution has produced. But of course, there's like the Frankenstein risks here that we have to be very careful about. And there needs to be responsible oversight. And of course, whenever we say that we need oversight, it's the one thing that we seem not to get because, you know, we had this incredible powerful technology that, again, we could do incredible things with. Here's a few things people need to keep in mind. This could be used in the future. It's not ready today.

S: We also should say that this is a preprint, so it hasn't been peer reviewed yet and it hasn't been replicated so.

J: Yeah, that's why I'm saying that they claimed it. You know this isn't.

S: Yeah, just to point it out specifically, this is preliminary. So, but this is, you know, the next iterative step in this research that's been done. It's not. This is not a huge leap.

J: And, and again, this is how science works, right? Right now, it's in super early phase. We don't know exactly where it's going to go. What's going to happen with this research. If you look back on like mRNA and the mRNA platform, for example, that took 40 years from the very beginnings of it to get it to where, you know, we could create a, a vaccine, you know, or at least come up with the vaccine code in a few days, right? It's incredibly powerful. They need to, they can only test this thing in the controlled lab environment. They have to work on, you know, safe model organisms. This is not a medical application that involves people. It probably won't be that if it even gets there. It would be a very long time from now. But that said, this is not insignificant. And it's one of those things where it could potentially have a massive downstream effect.

S: Both good and bad. So I think the idea that we could make designer bacteriophages to fight bacterial infections, that could be a massive new medical application, right? That could be wonderful.

E: We need it.

S: Yeah, we definitely have. We bacterial got to have it. But you know, like antibiotic resistance is an issue.

E: Yeah.

S: So, yeah. So again, it could be, if it works, if this all pans out and I've seen a reason why I wouldn't, you know, again, genetics is code and LLMS are sort of a perfect tool for this, then the applications could be amazing. But the risks are equally powerful, right?

B: Double edged sword. It's a double. It's a double edged sword. Technology.

S: Yeah, the young, the ability to create, you know, custom viruses that the as a as a potential bio weapon. That's obviously the first thing to be concerned about. Somebody could somebody could use the same platform to create to engineer a bio weapon, just telling hell of them to do it. So once again, we're at the point where in a perfect world, the regulators would be all over this and they would be getting, you know, the testimony from the right experts and trying to craft thoughtful regulation to minimize the worst risks of this kind of technology without slowing down genuine innovation or the potential upside of it.

B: But and they should do it now. Should be doing it now. You've got to stay ahead of this is. Going to happen, right? Is there any doubt that this is going to happen on some level in the not too distant future? It's happening now.

S: So let me let me say something because I was at, you know, when at Dubai. One thing that's interesting is that it's very the whole thing, the especially like the future form is very corporate, which is fine. But you know, so it's a little bit different than the academic conferences that I'm used to. It had more of a corporate vibe to it, but it's but it's good for me. I think it was good to get a perspective to get that perspective and what one of the panels, you know, one of the guys, you know, running a company doing this kind of cutting edge research is like, yeah, we we prefer operating in that phase before the regulators know we exist because then we get to do whatever we want. But they're and they're always behind, you know, they always are playing catch up late. So that means you have this phase where you could just do whatever you want, you know, and without having to worry about regulation. So that's kind of that, that that's, I agree with that. The idea that regulators tend to be decades behind sometimes, you know, regulating these new technologies when they really need to. Like, we need a system. We need, like there should be an office or whatever, there's got to be people whose job it is to keep an eye on emerging technologies that may need to be regulated before the genies out of the bottle, right?

B: Right. And it would also be nice if we had politicians that barely, you know, that do more or no more than just barely understanding what e-mail is. Yeah, I mean, right. I mean, serving these old guys, you know, try to understand these complicated advances, It's just not working out.

S: I mean, again, not to be ageist, it is just from a generation who didn't grow up with digital technology. That doesn't mean they they can overcome it if they make it, if they make a point to understand the technology and to learn and keep up. But they're saying things like the Internet is a series of tubes, you know, I mean, they're making comments that indicate that they don't understand the technology.

B: Yeah, they don't inspire confidence at.

S: This They don't inspire confidence. That's a good way to put it. So we're going to cut to to Cara's item, which we pre recorded and then we'll come back to the to the stuff we're recording now. All right, Cara, you're going to tell us about Earth's digital twin.

C: Yeah, so there's a really interesting study that was just published. No, actually it's still this month in the archive Physics. It's called the computing the full Earth system at 1 kilometer resolution, which is actually really funny because it's 1.25 kilometers resolution. But they're like close enough publish. Yeah, round it off. They're like, for all intents and purposes, it's the same thing. So this was published by a group of scientists who basically, I mean, there, there are two main things that happened here to make this possible. And from everything I'm reading and you know, this area of press, it was originally public published in Universe Today, and then it was picked up by Science Alert and by other outlets and the physics archive. It was published in this. I guess the subheading is atmospheric and ocean physics.

S: And is this preprint?

C: Yeah, I mean, it's in the archive. So yes, that's almost always preprint. But from what? And the main reason it's a big deal is, well, it's two things. Number one, they used the latest technology to be able to do this technology that just wasn't available before. And we'll get into what that is. And #2 they simulated the Earth, and we're talking about weather and climate patterns or systems of the full Earth down to a resolution that's never been achieved before.

S: So you say weather and climate. Weather meaning it's very. It's very on a short time scale, not.

C: Absolutely.

S: On a long time scale.

C: And they actually for the purposes of communicating the research and the modeling, they basically talk about two categories and they call them fast and slow systems. So they use these different models and we'll talk about what the models are, or at least how they got to the models to reflect these two systems. These are obviously very dynamic systems. The fast system is basically what they're calling weather like energy and water cycles. And then the slow system are the things that have been somewhat successfully modeled in the past, like the carbon cycle and changes to ocean geochemistry, the biosphere. So these these are things where the changes occur over years, sometimes decades. Whereas the fast system, we're talking minutes, like imagine a thunderstorm and it's moving from one area of the map to another. They're able to get that resolution down to 1.25 kilometers, which is high enough to be able to say here is a storm moving from one area to another. Previously, systems were only computationally mappable down to about 40 kilometers or more. So this is a big.

S: That's a big.

C: Change, yeah.

S: Are they feeding it real time data or this is just to look and see at simulated weather?

C: I'm actually not sure because all of the reporting has to do with how they did the model computationally and it has less to do with what they fed into it, but basically what they decided to do. And well, yeah, I think what ends up happening with a model is that that you do get real time data, but I'm not sure if it's historical or if it's, you know, to the minute.

S: Yeah. I mean, for climate, you know, if it takes them a year to input the data, it doesn't matter for whether it's got to be pretty in.

C: Real time. Yeah, real time.

S: But that's that's maybe a different thing.

C: And I guess modeling too is complicated because I, I watched a few videos on how to model climate and all of the different levels of complexity that go into it. And some of it does seem to do with just basic Earth parameters. Like especially when we're talking about climate, it's like albedo. It's where you know, it's like the rotation of the Earth. It's all these different things that are relatively standard. And then when it comes to weather, of course there are pressure changes and shifts and, and all the things that kind of feed into pockets of weather forming. So, so two things that were kind of big here. So they used something called the I see. OK, the icosahedral non hydrostatic model what?

S: Icosahedral.

C: Yeah, Icosahedral, but ICO is like in capitals for some. I see. Yeah. So I'm not sure why, but the icosahedral non hydrostatic model was developed as the German Weather Service or sorry by the German Weather Service and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. That is, I guess the data that they used or the the the kind of basic modeling that they built upon. The big difference here is scale. So be in order to get that 1.25 kilometer scale, they're estimating that basically if you imagine like a grid covering the surface of the Earth, that that grid is composed now of 300, three 36 million cells. They doubled it because then they kind of modeled atmospheric cells and they're mapped directly above the ground based ones. So we're looking at a model of around 672 million calculated cells, which they estimate translates to like one trillion what they're calling degrees of freedom, which I know is different depending on the statistics that you're talking about. But here what they're referring to when they talk about a trillion degrees of freedom is the total number of values it's calculating. So it obviously needs a supercomputer to run this, and that's where this big new bit comes in. They used 20,480 of the new NVIDIA GH200 super chips to be able to model 145.7 earth days in a single day and.

S: That's why my gaming rig costs so much. Yeah, using up them and everybody else, every cryptocurrency.

C: So, so I had to look up what AGH 200 super chip is because I was like, what does GH stand for? Is that like gigahertz? What does that actually mean? It's not that's that was really confusing to me. The number and the the letters have nothing to do with computing power. So the NVIDIA GH 200 is also called the Grace Hopper. So GH stands for Grace Hopper. It's, you know, to honor her. And 200 is just their name and convention. So this is the 200th product in their series. But the GH 200, by every measure that I've read, is a huge leap in performance, a huge leap in memory. We're talking mostly because it's integrating two different types of processing. So there's the NVIDIA Grace CPU integrated with the NVIDIA H100 Tensor cord GPU, and then they work in tandem. So you've got CPU processing along with the graphic processing. And so it's got this high bandwidth interconnect between the two. It's got unified memory. It's got a massive memory capacity. And so the platforms, like the applications for things like this is generative AI, it's high performance computing, it's data analytics. You know, it's things like modeling the climate and the weather of the entire Earth.

S: Yeah, and. Since we're talking about computer chips, though, as a little bit of an aside, IBM just announced their latest quantum computer chip, which does seem to be a real game changer. We'll probably have to do a deeper dive on it at some point. But they combined error correction on the same chip with the quantum computing. This kind of reminds me of the same thing. It's like it's the two, two functions in one. And as Bob and I have said previously, the error correction is like the ball game at this point with with quantum computer chips, Like what's the error rate, you know? And so anyway, if this pans out the way they say it, it would, it should then they should have like commercial quantum computer chips by 2030 is what they're saying. So I wonder if that would apply to this kind of model because that's always the, the first thing you hear and they say, what's it going to do? It's going to be able to do climate models like it's always on the top of the list of like what these can chips could do. I wonder if that would you know that for some applications they could be thousands of times more powerful than conventional chips, or or more.

C: And this is what's really interesting as you were talking about that I I did a little, so I'm trusting AI here a little bit, but I did a little search about the NVIDIA chip because it's not a quantum yeah chip, right? It's it's.

S: There's no quantum chip that you.

C: Could buy but they are calling it a super chip. And the interesting thing says that even though it's a classical processor, it it is playing a a really important role in advancing quantum computing because it can it can run large scale simulation of quantum algorithms and because it's got that low latency classical computing power, it can be used for quantum error correction. So. Like. Finding these things is big. Yeah, yeah. And apparently this one was like a leaps in about like they made a big leap when they went from their pre when NVIDIA went from their previous super chip to the the Grace Hopper 200. So now you can combine that with what's going on over at IBM and wow.

S: But so not surprisingly with this model, it's basically it's a hard upgrade and the software upgrade, yeah. They're using these. Super chips and they're getting better at the software, you know, using generative AI and boom, we got a one quote UN quote 1 kilometer.

C: Yeah, yeah. And also other hardware, right. They're using these massive supercomputers in order to run it because it just takes take so much of everything.

S: Yeah, it takes so much energy, it's going to warm the climate just by running the model.

C: But that's what they, the authors at least, really put a lot of of the kind of onus, I guess that's not quite the right word, but they say that this is really only possible because of that GPUCPU bifurcation. It allows them to run the fast models. Previous to that, they could have only done the carbon cycle models. So they're doing the carbon cycle models on the CPU portion in parallel with the fast models on the GPU portion. So the weather and climate is being modeled sort of at the same time due to this big innovation in the in the chip.

S: So, yeah, And from what I'm reading, just so I tell me if this is your understanding too, they're using an existing model, right? An existing.

C: Model. I think that's what the they.

S: Just made it higher resolution. So it's not like this model has to be validated. It's already been validated. They're just making it to just putting it on steroids.

C: Yeah. Basically they're taking a model that has been used in Germany and that is I think, yeah, like a valid, completely validated because it's in use today. Yeah, through icon and then they are because of this computational power, it made a huge leap from like 40 plus kilometers down to like 1.25 in resolution, which is enough to talk about weather. But 40 kilometers, yeah, you can kind of talk about huge weather systems, but we're not talking, you know, looking at your app on your phone and seeing what's happening right where you live. That wouldn't be possible with 40 kilometer resolution. So, you know, the, the, the write up, it does caution and, and the authors do as well that, you know, models of this complexity are not going to be carried by local weather stations. It's just too, you know, it requires too much computational power. And they worry, of course, that big tech is going to use that type of computational power. Like these GH2 hundreds are going to be used for generative AIA 100%. And then all of the supercomputing time is, is being taken for that. But maybe, you know, you've got to show that something's possible before it becomes faster, cheaper, better. And this is showing that it is possible.

S: Yeah. I wonder if this will impact the the global warming modeling that this model does.

C: Oh, right, because even if.

S: You get more precise or will it be different than?

C: Yeah, yeah. Like, even if Your local weather station can't afford to do this, obviously the researchers doing this are going to give this data to, like, the UN and to, you know, all of these groups that are sort of responsible for modeling what's happening. Yeah.

S: Local weather services, by the way, like Your local weather, they're all pulling their data off the Weather Service. They're not doing anything themselves, so this would be used like by the government and then everybody would get the information.

C: Yeah. But yeah, this idea of a digital twin, it's, I don't know, when I first read about it, I couldn't help but see the parallel between our fields, right? Where there's constant modeling of brains or of other biological processes, and we're trying to get better and better at that. That in some ways the climate is, I don't know there is a parallel there because it's stochastic and it's complicated and there's so many variables that have to be fed into it.

S: And we are just trying to get more and more resolution. Yeah, you know, but we don't have, we could do a mouse brain, you know, because it's smaller than a human brain. We don't have any small planetary systems to model.

C: Well, actually we have been able to model things like Mars pretty well because like the atmosphere is a whole level of complexity that we just, you know, makes the Earth way more difficult to model.

S: Do we have really complicated climate models of Mars?

C: I well, really complicated is, is tough, but I did do a deep dive into this really great video where I learned an awful lot. So I want to give a shout out to Doctor Trevor Bassett's YouTube channel. But he talks about how climate modeling works and he goes into like 4 different levels of complexity. And he says over and over, he uses like, Mars and the Moon as an example over and over where he's like, yeah, this would be easy to do on Mars or the moon. But like, now that we have the atmosphere of Earth, things get a lot more complicated. But yeah, probably not down to 40 or even definitely not down to 1 kilometer.

S: Yeah, yeah. All right. Thank you, Cara.

Creatine for Cognitive Function (42:05)

• Creatine Supplements for Brain Function 

C: Yep.

S: All right, guys, have you ever heard of this idea of using creatine supplements for brain function to improve your brain health or improve your brain function? So I was asked.

B: About it.

S: I was asked about it and I, I hadn't heard of it specifically. I heard it for like bodybuilding, you know?

B: Yeah, me too, but.

S: That's like 20 years ago, you know, it was, it was when it was, I think having having its heyday.

E: I wonder what creatine exactly is though.

S: Well, it's protein, basically.

E: Thank you.

B: So you could say that about anything about biology and you will probably be right.

S: Yeah, it's a good, good first.

E: Gas protein, it's organic and.

S: If you want to get you want to get crazy, you could say it's an enzyme. This isn't an enzyme though, all right, but.

E: That would be crazy.

S: Here's the basic science. So this is specifically creatine monohydrate, but you know, creatine gets converted to phosphocreatine and stored in neurons. Phosphocreatine can be broken down into ATP, which is energy, creatine triphosphate, energy adenosine triphosphate. So it basically could be turned into energy that can be used by cells to function.

B: Kind of important.

S: So the idea is if you take supplements, you'll increase your store of phosphocreatine and therefore you'll increase the availability of this energy currency to the brain when it needs it, so it'll function better. So I consider this to be a semi plausible mechanism. At least it's something physical happening like the the biology adds up. It's not saying quantum vibrations or anything like that, right? It's saying, you know, it's.

E: Meridian. Homeopathic memory. Yeah, exactly.

S: But you know the idea that because you know the, the it's, it's based upon the premise that the availability of the raw material is a rate limiting step here. And that's rarely the case, right? Just eating more of something usually doesn't make your body function better. It only, it would only be helpful. It'd only be helpful in a situation where the body's being stressed beyond its normal parameters. And we'll get to that in a second. Or where you are deficient for some reason, right, right. Or you have a disease that makes it deficient take.

E: Vitamin C if you have scurvy.

S: But if you're yeah, exactly vitamin C is helpful for scurvy because you're deficient in vitamin C. But if you're a healthy person with a good diet, taking more vitamin C probably isn't going to help, right? That's the idea. So I, I have sort of the same overall view of this. It's like, OK, that sort of makes sense and it's helpful, but does it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to help if we're a healthy person to take it? Your brain's going to better because it has more ATP being made from this sort of side pathway.

B: Right. Is it even noticeable?

S: Right. It may and also it all may be true that that is true of so many things, Bob, where it's like, yeah, that's true, that is happening. But is that a clinically significant effect in and of itself? Maybe not, you know, so how how do we know you have to do clinical studies, right?

E: Can it lead to toxicity as well?

S: Well, the, the big thing with creatine is that it's got to be processed by the kidney. And if you take too much of it, like a lot of proteins, you could, you could stress out the kidneys. But generally speaking, the doses that people are using for this specific indication are below the general safe levels. Again, if you have kidney disease, then don't take it, right? I'll talk to your doctor. Well, bets are off. But if you're healthy kidneys, you could, you know, take this, the supplement levels are probably safe. OK, so there was 2024 systematic reviews. So that's pretty recently 16 clinical trials. That's not a lot for systematic review, but it's not nothing. 492 participants in total. Again, that's not a lot, especially for 16 studies. That's those are that means they're mostly small studies. So it's a, you know, overall modest amount of data. This is telling me this is preliminary research. So they found that creatine supplementation showed significant positive effects on memory, attention, time, and processing speed, but no significant improvements were found on overall cognitive function. That seems like a big thing or executive function. So it kind of sounds like it's like, alright, there's some improvement on components of thinking, but it didn't improve your overall cognitive function and didn't improve your executive function. So they also did a subgroup analysis to show that the effect was more significant in people with diseases, those aged 18 to 60, not sure about what that means. And females, again, not sure what that means. So what is how do we make sense of all this data? First, these results are a bit mixed right there. It's not a clear a consistent signal. It shows improvement in some things but not others. Also, there's a kind of quirky subsets of people to be affected by it.

B: Yeah, right.

S: So that tells me that this could just be an artifact of small studies looking at a lot of variables and some things are going to come up positive, right? So this is an overall not very confidence building, right? Not a, not a good sign. So the the authors themselves conclude that there's that the evidence is low to moderate confidence. That would be like more of an evidence based evaluation. I would say putting adding the other things that I just said the the mixed results and the patterns that we're seeing, I would put to me that's low confidence. And they say that we need larger robust clinical trials to validate it. So again, that's code for this is not ready for prime time. This results are not have not been established. So we can also look at this from the lens of if we take 100 things right, medical claims that where there's this level of evidence, how many of them pan out to actually work? And it's you're probably down in the 1 to 2% range. And there has been some, some research to back that up. It's hard to, it's hard to say it's exactly analogous. But you know, when we generally ask that question, the answer is quite low, usually single digits in terms of percentages. Part of the reason is, is because there's a huge false positive bias in the literature. So if you have preliminary data, mostly small studies with mixed results, and you would count for a positive, a significant positive research bias, then you know, statistically speaking. And then historically this is true. Most of these things don't pan out. And of course, does the supplement industry has the flavor of the weak approach, right? It takes 1020, thirty years to do the research to really tell if something is effective or not. That gives them 20 to 30 years to market it. And then by the time it gets shot down, they're on to the next thing. So to me, this is just the next, you know, sort of an endless sequence of, of brain supplements that are supposed to help your brain function better, make you smart or whatever the smart pill thing, and none of them really pan out.

B: Where sometimes the baloney sticker it sticks around, it doesn't go away like.

S: Sometimes doesn't like, yeah, the Oct, the antioxidant thing is this hat is just is so embedded now. I thought some things become permanent, like there's become a permanent addition to the culture and the health Halo thing that never goes away. And I think, yeah, I think antioxidants are here to stay, even though I think there's no evidence that there's any benefit to supplementing them. So be cautious. You know, with the creatine thing, again, don't spend a lot of money on it would be my advice. It's like, I'm not saying there's no benefit there. There may be some benefit, but the evidence of preliminary low confidence, these things don't have a good history. I will say one other signal. There's another study I looked at that wasn't in the systematic review that showed that it may have a benefit for people who are sleep deprived. So that may that's a little bit more plausible because if you are like, if you're sleep deprived, you're under a lot of stress, then things like this could make a difference at the edges. You know what I mean? I don't think it's going to affect normal healthy functioning of your brain, but it may help with these kinds of situations. But again, need, we need more research to tell, but that is at least somewhat more plausible. And it wouldn't surprise me, right? Wouldn't surprise me. Oh, yeah. There's a little bit of a benefit if you take a high dose right when you're sleep deprived. OK, maybe it's kind of like the probiotic thing too. Like probiotics don't do anything for most people most of the time. But if you take a super high dose only when you have post antibiotic used problems because you wiped out your gut flora, it may help. You know, I mean, like there's this little sliver of there may be some effect here in these with the all of these caveats. So it wouldn't surprise me if like again, in some subset of a subset, it may have some limited benefit, but it's not a panacea. It's like, take these smart pills and you know, all your cognitive function is better. I think already we could, you know, say that that's probably not true because if it were, we would be seeing it right there. There isn't a false negative bias. Usually we, we the false positive bias means the where the the preliminary research is usually calibrated to make sure that they're seeing an effect and not missing it, but they at the expense of overcalling it, right. So if you're not seeing a like a home run positive effect in this level of data, it's probably not there, right. So that's kind of the longest answer to, hey, is there anything to the whole creatine thing for brain health? That's yeah, just.

B: Even less than minus.

J: Yeah, it's.

S: So this is how I would characterize this research as this is the plausibility and the preliminary research is sufficient to justify doing large clinical trials, but that's it. It's not sufficient to market it or make clinical claims or I think even take it. But I do think it's enough to justify further research. And that's it. I think that's the best way to look at it.

J: But people won't won't change their buying habits.

S: Well, some people will. Maybe some people listen to this show you where critical thinkers and skeptics will say, oh, that's good information. I will change my buying habits. Who knows?

B: That's because we have. Awesome listeners.

S: Yeah, absolutely. All right, Bob, I'm very excited about this.

Earth Digital Twin (52:25)

• Scientists Create Digital Twin of Earth, Accurate to a 1-Kilometer Scale : ScienceAlert 

S: There we go. Tell us about this quiet supersonic.

Quiet Supersonic Jet (52:28)

• Meet NASA’s X-59: An ultraquiet supersonic jet that just made history with its first test flight 

S: Jet.

B: Yeah, quiet guys. Commercial supersonic flight took a significant lurch out of its grave recently when when the test plane, the X59, flew for the first time at relative slow speeds to check its systems. The plane's been designed to fly faster than sound, but not create the jar. Oh, wait.

S: It didn't fly faster than sound for the test.

B: No, this was a shakedown cruise. OK. Yeah. I wanted to mention that out of the gate because then it's just like, you know, you'd be the disappointments, hopefully.

S: Get that over right now. Tell us the whole stuff.

B: Right, The plane has been designed, Steve, to fly faster than sound, but not create the jarring ground level Sonic booms. Only tiny Sonic thumps. Sonic thumps. So this X 59, it's the baby of NASA and Lockheed Martin, the first full scale experimental plane designed for tolerable booms. We all remember the iconic Concorde, right?

S: Oh yeah.

E: Oh.

B: Yes, it flew its last flight early in this Millennium. I think it was 2003 people.

E: Who were on Concorde?

B: Oh yeah, man, I remember it. I remember being so excited. But such commercial planes are not allowed to fly over over the land in the US even, you know, if the Concorde couldn't do that. And that's because the Sonic booms are so loud and disruptive that it could, it could actually potentially break Windows and cause minor building damage, even worst case scenario. But Despite that, the real Sonic boom problem was the chronic annoyance and the public backlash that it caused. It was people were, you know, we're just not happy. Can you imagine hearing that? About time.

S: Can I point out at this point, yeah, I had a misconception about this when I was younger, and I wonder how many people still have it too. I thought you could say the Sonic boom. Yeah, it was when it crossed the the bear. Yes, it's supersonic, but it's the entire time it's flying supersonically. There's a there's there's a continuous boom as it as it travels.

B: It's constantly.

E: Putter or is it a solid kind of? I've heard it before.

S: I've heard it.

B: It's. It's a constant booming. It's a constant booming.

S: But you hear it. You hear it once each person. But as it travels over the land, the booms travels with it.

B: Exactly, Yeah. And, and I had that misconception as well. And that that's the biggest misconception. But I'll go into a little bit more detail about that now. Commercial supersonic flight, that's a, that's one of the sci-fi staples, right? I mean, not one of the big boys, but it's a it's a sci-fi staple. But just the desk. This one is extra frustrating because we already had the damn thing and now we don't. Bye, bye. See you later. Just a big tease, so. But have you considered this other angle as well? This is also frustrating. The Boeing 707 in 195867 years ago flew at 965 kilometers per hour, 600 mph. And that's just about what commercial jets do today. Yeah. You know, that's when you think about that. How is that even a thing in this age of rapid scientific advancement speed. We were across so many fronts. It just sounds wrong, right? But you know, there are there engineers aren't lazy and just like this is good enough. It's there's good engineering reasons why we don't see commercial flights getting. Faster and faster?

J: Isn't it largely fuel efficiency?

B: That that's part, that's part of it. But it's also, yeah. But it just becomes more and more difficult to go much faster than commercial airlines today. It's not just for the reason of surpassing supersonic speed. You know, the drag just gets worse and worse and worse. So there's lots of reasons. But NASA and Lockheed Martin, they're trying to solve a lot of these problems on test planes like the X 59 and in just general research. But they specifically, from what I could gather, they specifically want to make this technology available so that US manufacturers could then build their own supersonic commercial jets. So that's what's 1 of their goals. So ideally these technologies will need to solve so many problems, all of which plague the Concorde and are why it no longer flies. And these reasons include inefficiencies and expense. If you look at the, the tickets back then, they were priced at, at in today's dollars, many thousands of dollars, you know, and even 10s of thousands of dollars almost twice, about twice the first class subsonic ticket at the time. And even then the Concorde struggled to be, to be consistently profitable. It was very, very difficult even with those exorbitant prices that were people were paying. And then there's safety. There was a, there was safety problems. Remember, there was a crash in 2000. It killed over 100 and 13 passengers. That greatly. That was a real turning point that greatly diminished ticket sales and confidence that people.

E: Had a good safety record up until.

B: That and yeah, there was just a crazy thing that, yeah, the, the, the tire taking off hit some debris that that flew into the wing which punctured the tank. And like, oh man, you could imagine, just extrapolate from there how bad, how bad that got. So these those are just a couple of the problems that that that these planes would experience is there's also the environmental impact take off and landing noise. There's high altitude emissions and there's, you know, there's weight. But finally, one of the greatest barriers for commercial supersonic flight is this iconic Sonic boom. And it's and it's that that specifically which the X 59 test plane is addressing that major problem right there. That's basically the purpose of the X 59. So it's not specifically addressing these other issues which are important, but it's a Sonic boom problem. This relates to another critical goal of this research, and that's essentially to change aviation laws. Right now there's a specific aviation law that says no civil aircraft over Mach one in US airspace without special authorization. So that's that's a that's a law. So these researchers want to change that. Ideally, I think if they if we could change that law or if they could change that law to say something like you can go supersonic over over land, as long as what people on the ground here stays below a certain decibel range, a loudness limit, if you will. That's also one of their major goals here is to make that happen to actually change these laws. But then I'm thinking, well, what what made Sonic booms so bad? What what is it about them? Why are they so bad? How did so I definitely took a dive and just learned as much as I could about what is actually happening here in in these scenarios. So to do that, let's start with subsonic flight first, right and then we'll just kind of work our way up. So below the speed of light. Wait, sorry, that's force of habit guys below the speed of sound, we're dealing with sound, not light. So below the speed of sound, planes push air out of the way as they move and that creates these pressure waves, which is what sound it's essentially sound right. So they travel at the speed of sound, obviously. And, and since the plane is moving slower than sound, the sound waves can move smoothly away from the plane as it's coming and, and in all directions, it just can move away. There's plenty of time to do that in a lot of ways similar to the boat waves that you may look at boat waves as a boat is going through the water. So then guys, what comes after Subsonic?

E: Supersonic Sonic.

B: Yeah, you would think, but technically? No, technically, technically Perry, actually, actually it's transonic. It's the term is transonic, but that occurs between Mach .8 and 1.2, right between 0.8 and 1.2. And things start getting messy in this regime. It's basically around the cutoff of Mach one. It's a little bit messy for a little while. So that's because I didn't realize this. That's because parts of the plane like the wings can experience supersonic airflow even though the plane itself is subsonic, right? So it's kind of like a mixed, mixed airflow sense these isolated shockwaves, you know, supersonic airflows can cause these mini kind of proto shockwaves. So you're we're already starting to see this transition to. Supersonic flight before you even hit supersonic flight. And then finally we have we enter the the regime of supersonic flight. Mach 1 right at sea level, that's 12134 kilometers per hour or 767 mph at altitude. It gets a little bit lower because of temperature changes. OK, Now this transition is characterized by by the smooth pressure waves of subsonic flight changing abruptly into shock waves. That's what the key thing that happens when you become supersonic, shut the formation of shock waves. So basically the air pressure waves can no longer get out of the way of each other, right, Because the plane is traveling as fast or faster than sound itself. So these pressure waves pile up, merging together into essentially this thin, sharp wall of compressed air. That's a shockwave. That's the cause of these Sonic booms. Now, Steve, I was going to say here what you had mentioned. This is the the misconception is that the the plane creates a Sonic boom as it exceeds that the speed of sound and then it's over like we're done here with the Sonic booms. No, the shockwave is continuous. It booms as long as the plane is exceeding Mach 1. And also an important you have multiple shockwaves. This isn't just one big shockwave. This is a multiple shock waves are are generated from the cone, right, The leading cone of the plane, the wing, the tail, any surface like that are creating their own shock waves. What happens is that all of these shock waves kind of merge into a cone expanding behind the plane. So the plane is that they point the end of the of a cone and behind it you have the cone shape expanding and it's all the Sonic waves, all these shock waves that the plane fuselage, the body is and the wings and everything about it. All of those shock waves are being formed and pushed into this expanding cone behind the plane. And when that cone intersects the ground, we hear a Sonic boom. So that's why it's such a deal killer for commercial planes, overpopulated areas. Anyone near that plane is, is going to, is going to hear you, hear you. You could hear the classic, you know, the double Sonic boom, which is, which is often the, you know, the, the front of the plane and the tail of the plane. But sometimes it's just a, a rumble, a nasty rumble that's kind of like hard to, to tease out specific booms. So it depends on lots of different variables. So that's why it's such a deal killer overpopulated areas. Anyone, anyone that's under that boom carpet, they call it the boom carpet. As the plane passes nearby, they're going to hear that boom, not, not just the people right under the flight path, but even extended outwards as well. So that's a, that's a Sonic boom and that's supersonic flight. And what happens? So to turn the Sonic boom into a Sonic bump, the engineers are in essence sculpting and shaping the downward part of that cone of shock waves, right. So you got the, they don't really care about the upward part of the cone. It's all about the downward part. That's what that's what people are going to hear. And so they're they're kind of sculpting it into smaller, gentler shock waves more spread out in time and space. They say that when you eventually hear it on the ground, it should have the volume of a, of a car door slamming a little bit of distance away from you. Or sometimes they like it to the rumbling of distant Thunder a lot, a lot more tolerable than than the classic Sonic boom that that we hear today. So to do this, the nose of the plane has to be really long. It looks kind of weird. It's so long. They they call it, they refer to the plane as a swordfish. It really does look like a swordfish, but the end isn't pointed, though. It's it needs to be this chisel shape to effectively change the shape of the of the shockwave and and the entire body of the plane also is kind of designed to do this. So this test happened this past October 2025. They went very well. It passed all the tests. It only flew like as I said before, at a boring 230 mph at 12,000 feet, but it was still a historic test for this experimental X. Plane.

S: It's just to make sure it flies.

B: Yeah, this is this is basically a 12,000 foot shakedown cruise, right? This is the shakedown cruise because this plane was built from scratch and it's not like they just added, you know, they, they screwed on a few things over a conventional plane. This is an experimental plane designed from the ground up. So they wanted to make sure that this thing actually flies. And it's a huge milestone for any X-plane to have that first cruise. And it's not doing what it was specifically designed to do, but it can fly and it, all the components are working together. So that's, so that was the goal of this of this flight. So, but now what happens, you have the real test campaign is going to going to begin. So in the near future, we should hopefully be reading about this test plane, this X59 hitting Mach 1.4, which is about 925 mph and at 55,000 feet. So soon after that, what's going to happen is that they're going to fly it over various communities in the United States, not only to record and assess these new Sonic thumps, but also and primarily to interview people to see what their impressions are of these Sonic thumbs. Is this something, could you live near an airport where you hear this multiple times a day? Is that something that would be, you know, would, would cause problems or would you be annoyed? You know what, what, what are your impressions? So that's what they're, they're going to do, which is something that doesn't really happen. Typically when you have an X, an X-plane that's flying, it flies over a specific area, a military area. It's not going to go over, over communities. But this one, we need to do this, we need this, this real world data and see what what people's impressions are. Because when they when they did this test in the 60s with supersonic commercial flights, they people, the feedback that people gave was was not very good. And, and I don't think it never got it never got good. And that's when I think maybe it was at that point but that they said that, yeah, you can't fly over land. And that was one of the major problems with the Concorde. It could not, it could be supersonic over the ocean, but not but not over the land. And that was a major problem for any right, any supersonic plane. You want to be able to fly supersonically over land. And they could, they couldn't even and do that. So if regulators are convinced that the thump is tolerable, this may be the first domino to fall for the true return of commercial supersonic flight. And of course, as I mentioned, other hurdles remain like the environmental and climate impacts need to be addressed. And you actually have to make this into a viable business. You have to make money. You know, one of the many problems with the Concorde is was it was not making it was not making enough money or sometimes no money at all. It just wasn't a consistent money maker. And that was one of the things that would kill any business very quickly. But for the first time since the Concorde retired, we now seem to have a plausible path for a future with airliners traveling twice as fast as they do now with no no one cringing over the inevitable boom that just never will come this time, hopefully so fingers crossed. Definitely going to track this. I hope to, you know, to fly on one of these at some point before I lurch into the ground as well. So we'll see what happens.

S: All right, Thanks, Bob. Yeah, we'll report back on this. I especially want to see what happens when they fly at actually supersonic speeds and see what kind of a Sonic thump it makes. Yes, but I love the fact that they're doing this and then saying so that commercial airliners can incorporate this into.

B: Yeah. I was very happy to hear that. Yeah. I was like, yeah, that's the goal. They want to make the technology. All right, guys, here's the technology. Just now use it happen and make it happen. Build your own these supersonic airliners and let's have at it.

S: Have having just spent 14 1/2 hours on a plane, I heartily endorse this plan.

B: Steve, imagine that trip would have been cut in half.

S: Yeah, practically. All right.

Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (1:08:07)

• Breakthrough blood test finally confirms Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 

S: Evan, tell us about this new test for chronic fatigue syndrome.

E: A new test, right? Chronic fatigue syndrome. It's been a little while, maybe since we've talked about it on the show. Steve, you blog a lot about this.

S: I I have in the past, but a lot, but yeah.

E: Am I getting this term right? It's it's myalgic encephalomyelitis. Am I pronouncing that?

S: Right myalgic encephalomyelitis.

E: There we go. But I am going to call it chronic fatigue syndrome because that's what most people know it as. Let's see, according to the Look up the definition of this a debilitating condition characterized by persistent fatigue that's not improved by rest. It can lead to cognitive issues, sleep problems, orthostatic intolerance, and other issues. Here's a little history on this. From what I could tell in the, well, what the 1980s, basically through 2010, some researchers proposed psychosomatic or behavioral explanations as to what this actually was. But in recent years there has been some other, well maybe more scientific support for it actually being a real physical medical issue. Let's see the current, and I'm by say current. As of late 2025, the current scientific and medical consensus based on CDC, NIH, EU, KS, NICE, and ICE, The Who and some other recent peer reviewed research say that it represents A distinct physiological disorder which involves immunology, neurology, autonomic and metabolic dysfunctions. No single biomarker has historically defined it. Multiple converging lines of evidence seem to point to a biological disease process. This is controversial.

S: Yeah. I mean, I think that that's definitely where that the science has been heading in that direction for the last 30 years. You know that there there is something biological going on here. And in any case, at least at least in neurology, like we've significantly moved away from the notion that anything is purely psychosomatic. You know, I don't even use that term anymore. It's functional neurological disorder, meaning it's just it's a complex disorder that involves, you know, brain function, but it's not, you know, simplistically understood now with chronic fatigue syndrome, the the big caveat to chronic fatigue syndrome, that is probably not one thing. It's not one. It's not one discrete pathophysiological disease. That doesn't mean it's not real. That means it's complicated. It's probably multiple things. So different people, right? So it's a syndrome. You should think about it when it is chronic fatigue syndrome, that that word is appropriate. It's a syndrome because it's a clinical entity. It's a, if you have this, again, persistent fatigue above and beyond, you know, your activity, you get this with modest physical activity, you get extreme prolonged fatigue that doesn't get better, etcetera, etcetera. There's a lot of components to it. That's the syndrome, but different people could have different causes. It could be different ways that people get to that. So that makes any research on it difficult because any marker you look for may only be relevant in a subset of the people you're looking at, or you may be looking at things that contribute to chronic fatigue syndrome, but aren't the essence of what it is, which all will be brought to bear on this news item that you're talking about. But but go ahead and tell us what the new bit is and then and then I'll we'll talk about how to make sense of it all.

E: Science Daily had a headline recently that reads Breakthrough blood test finally confirms chronic fatigue.

S: That's all hype.

E: OK. Now, because yeah, based on what you just said, Steve, my my follow up sort of question immediately on this syndromes do, can you have something as simple as a blood test that could define or identify a syndrome? It doesn't sound like that that would be the case.

S: No, I mean, that would be very unlikely at this point in time with all the research that's been done, everything we've done to try to understand this syndrome that oh, it turns out it's just one thing like this one thing explains it pretty much completely. I doubt that that's going to be the result. It's not impossible. We may be missing something. You know, it may be like there's this one that even if it has multiple things that contribute contribute to it, there may be one thing about people who get it that is different and there may be 1 biochemical or biological pathway. Again, unlikely, but I can't say that that's impossible. But this test is not it though, right? If that is possible, or at least they have not established that it is, so the the hype isn't getting way ahead of where the research is. This is 1 component to a long and complicated research program to try to understand this very complicated syndrome. It is not not the breakthrough that that that headline hyped it as.

E: Right, right. But there was. But a research team has conducted these studies via the University of East Anglia in collaboration with Oxford Biodynamics Company Has. They've developed a blood test using 3D genomic folding or epigenetic profiling that reportedly achieves roughly 96% accuracy in differentiating chronic fatigue syndrome from healthy controls. The assay examines I brought my assay. The assay examines DNA folding signatures in immune cells, which suggests an underlying measurable biological signature for the disease. Lead researcher is Professor Dimitri. Oh boy, this one. PSHEZH Dimitri Pisinski. I'm sorry if I got that wrong of UE. As Norwich Medical School was quoted as saying, CFS is a serious and often debilitating disease characterized by extreme fatigue that is not really by rest. We wanted to see if we could develop a blood test to diagnose the condition and we did. Exclamation point. Our discovery offers the potential for a simple, accurate blood test to help confirm a diagnosis. The diagnosis, which could lead to earlier support and more effective management. Post COVID syndrome, commonly referred to as long COVID, is one example of of ME/CFS where a similar cluster of symptoms is triggered by the COVID-19 virus rather than by other known causes such as glandular fever. We therefore hope that our research will also help pave the way for a similar test to accurately diagnose long COVID. What do you think of that?

S: So, all right, So what do you, what do you that?

E: Sounds like something different. Right.

S: Yeah, right. He's basically admitting that this is multiple potential different clinical entities that might have this commonality, right? Like saying this is also going to diagnose long COVID. Well then is that the same or different than chronic fatigue syndrome? Definitely. You know, I have seen plenty of patients with post infectious chronic fatigue syndrome. That's definitely a thing. Again, we don't really understand the mechanism that causes that, but again, that's probably different thing than people who have it who have not had a brain infection or some other chronic serious illness. All right, So if there is one glaring problem with this research, though, with this specific study, I don't know if any of you have a guess as to what that might be. So they compared.

E: Small. It's a small.

S: Well, yeah, there's a usual caveat. It needs to be validated, needs to be independently, you know, research needs larger, you know, no larger studies, but just they compared people who have the clinical diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. Again, there's no real gold standard. It's just you meet the you have the clinical diagnosis and certain changes, epigenetic changes that they were looking for, you know, in their study. So what, what did they not do? I guess this might be hard for you to, you know, as non physicians to to suss out but just wondering if any of you have a guess. So they compared people with the disease clinically to healthy controls. What's another comparison that might be helpful?

E: People with comorbidities.

S: That that's a close. I mean, that's good. That would be good too. But you're sort of getting heading in the right direction. People with other diseases. So again, this is a kind of thing like a physician should you know, who's familiar with this kind of research would instantly see that Oh yeah. But they didn't compare it to other diseases, right. So if you're saying it's specific to chronic fatigue syndrome, then you have to show that it doesn't exist in everybody with any disease. You know what I mean? Just saying it doesn't exist. These markers aren't present in healthy controls. That's one important component. But you also need to show it's not present in people who have, let's say, rheumatoid arthritis or who have Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease or Mississippi or 100 other diseases. You give us some idea that it's actually specific to chronic fatigue syndrome. What if it's present in all of these things?

E: Well, that doesn't. Help.

S: Well, then maybe it's just a marker for inflammation, right? How do we know that they didn't just discover some other marker for inflammation that's going to occur in any chronic illness or in many chronic illnesses? Or what if this is a marker for the depression that people often feel from the chronic fatigue that's secondary to the chronic fatigue and then becomes comorbid with it? So who knows, right? We can't answer any of these questions because all they did was compare it to healthy controls. So that that's why this is, this is just getting the ball started. This is the kind of thing where again, this is saying, oh, there's something potentially here now here's a dozen other studies we need to do to really suss this out. We need to confirm it. We need larger data. We need a more generalizable population. We need to validate that it's unique to or telling us something specific about chronic fatigue syndrome as opposed to just all chronic illness or maybe some of the symptoms of chronic fatigue, but not the cause of chronic fatigue. So many questions, but then at the end of the day, then at the end of the day, this is something that I learned just over the course of my career. Like one of those pearls of wisdom that you get with experience that I teach to, you know, to students and fellows is that when we first start to understand a disease, we're looking for ways to say like who has the diagnosis right? Who has, who qualifies for having the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome. But then once we, once our knowledge of that disease and especially how to treat it matures, then the the question shifts to who should get treated and with what. And that's the only thing that really matters really, or that's the thing that matters the most. It's not the only thing that matters, but that that overshadows the question of who gets the label and who gets the labels only a marker for these other questions. What's the prognosis, what's the treatment? What are any other, you know, Co morbidities or other concerns that we have to worry about, etcetera, etcetera. And but the thing of course most people are interested in is who gets what treatment and doesn't work. So if this and that will be the ultimate test, if this is a marker of anything, is does it predict anything useful clinically? If it if all it predicts is who we label as having chronic fatigue syndrome, who cares? That doesn't help us. It has to predict. But of course, we can't treat really don't until we they're saying maybe this will lead to treatment. Sure, that's a pretty big maybe. Let's hope that it does. But that's like you're now you're jumping ahead multiple steps. So yeah, this is 1 preliminary step in a complicated picture that may or may not pan out. Don't believe the early hype that finally we've proven it's real and blah blah, that's all nonsense. It's just one interesting little nugget in a complicated story. But those are the pieces that you have to think about when you hear things like this. You know what other comparisons, comparisons that they make and how has it been externally validated? Does it actually predict or mean anything? Or is it just some correlation that they found Right?

E: Yes, All right.

S: Complicated item, but it was, yeah, but interesting.

E: Good.

S: It's good to talk through those those issues.

E: And anytime CFS hits my headlines, obviously I'm, I stop and take a second look because it's something we've we have talked about before on the show. So we keep up on this.

S: Absolutely.

Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:21:01)

S: All right, Jay, it's who's that noisy time? Oh boy.

J: How come all these freaking studies, it's like it's always like there's a million things ahead of what you're reading before like anything legit could happen. You know, it's that's scientists frustrating.

S: Scientists complicated, and the news cycle wants breakthroughs and sexy headlines.

E: Yep, Yeah.

J: I mean, I, I totally look, I agree. And I know all that. It's just it's, it's every single thing we talk about though. It's, it's never like this is functioning right now.

S: Yeah. Because we're functioning on the edge, Jay, we're on the edge.

J: You're right.

E: We're riding the wave, Crest of the wave.

J: All right guys, last week I played this noisy.

E: Oh, that's a Sonic boom.

B: The lamest Sonic boom ever created the. Lamest Sonic fart sound like a Sonic. Fart. It sounded like a Sonic fart.

J: It's funny rather fart.

B: Raspberry.

J: I got to preamble this. Who's that noisy segment with? Thank you to the 300 and like 70 people who responded this week. Wow. Yes, because this is a noise that a lot of people recognize in one manner or another. And as we get into it, I'll I'll reveal some of the most common responses that I got. So let's get into this. We got a listener named Berkhelp Medahan and Berkhelp says, hey, y'all Berkhelp from D Butt of Turkish descent DE space, BUT of Turkish descent. I'm just reading what he's saying here.

E: The. Team might be silent.

J: I it could be but you know, you know what my problem is. He says it's a second time guessing but I don't count the first time. My guess for the speaks noisy is a recording of a rocket launch at a public viewing. The weird farting noise is I think due to the decibels of the ignition of the rocket. The mic just couldn't handle the the amplitude. Is this correct? You are not correct, but it is a good guess. Definitely is a good guess because it has some rockety noises in there. So I totally can see why you pick that one. Thanks a lot for setting that in. I have another listener here named Steven Gloff. Says hi all. Long time listener, first time guesser. To me it sounds like a wasp being sucked into some sort of vacuum. Many pest control workers will eradicate a wasp nest by using something like a shop vac half filled with liquid to suck up and drown the Wasps. I have never heard about this. I've never heard a noisy about this, but I thought that this one was very provocative. I I think I need to know now what this thing sounds like. It's like a slop vac or whatever. But anyway, thank you. Steven, you are incorrect, but that was a fun guess. This next one was sent in by a listener named Edward Andrick. He is a friend of ours and I but he did have a good guess. I'm not he's a punk favorites. He is a punk, but we love him. He says. Hey, Jay, don't normally have guesses on the noisy, but this sounds like a model jet aircraft powering up and taking off. The sound at the beginning could be some sort of electric pulse ignition device which starts the engine prior to take off. I have no idea if any of what I just said is even a thing, but it's my guess. It's not that crazy. There are a lot of of model jet aircraft. You know, they have jets. So you know, there's definitely some jet sounding noise in there. It's not a it's not a bad guess, but you Ed, you're incorrect. But don't be sad because this game's just for fun, another listener named Nicholas Jasmine says. First time guessing, long time listener. This sounds exactly like an A10 Warthog firing its Rotary cannon as it flies, guys.

B: I like that.

J: This was by far the most popular guess and it's incorrect to hell playing man, but but all the people that guess this or similar you're you're there, you're there. It now we're just talking of like, what kind of aptitude? Details. Yeah, it's always about the details. I did have a winner from this week. The winner's name is Mike, not to be confused with Mike, who sent in the noisy. And Mike says, dammit, Jay, I've heard this, I think. My guess is that this is a demonstration of an F16 doing a strafing run, firing. It's M61 Vulcan auto cannon. And Mike, you're perfectly correct. I don't know how people can tell the difference between the Warthog and the F16. I listen to both of them and for my ears there it's the same exact thing. You know, some of them might have a little bit more bass or whatever, but there's, you know, it just depends on the recording equipment and everything. But some people, you know, they can tell.

S: That would be an interesting skill to have to recognize all different kinds of fighter jets and planes from just from hearing the engine.

J: Yeah, I just do guarantee you that there are people out there that can do this.

E: Oh, absolutely.

J: So this this was sent in by a listener named Mike and, and Mike actually is the person that flew this plane. That was him flying the plane and firing those guns.

E: He farted.

J: He said. This is me you're seeing and hearing me strafing in an F16 shooting the 20mm gun at a target on the ground. So that, that's pretty cool, You know, there's not.

B: Wait, is it a simulator?

J: No, it's a video. I saw a video of him do.

B: It oh, it's not just an audio file. Oh.

J: He waved to me and he was holding up an SGU banner too. I mean the guy is a fan but no but he I saw the video it's legit.

B: Awesome.

J: Yeah, and the the sheer power of those guns, I mean, they're unbelievably powerful. Apparently very useful when the time comes. But anyway, thank you, Mike, for winning and thanks, Mike, for sending that in. That was a lot of fun. I have a new noisy for you guys this week. This noisy was sent in by a listener named Jim Grove. And here it is.

E: Where's George Robb when you need to translate? Things like this sounds slow, right?

J: I had to, I had to pick this one. This is a tough one, guys. I, we had an internal discussion here. I usually don't reveal what The thing is, but I wanted to because I I asked everyone, hey, should I give anybody a clue here? And Steve came out swinging from left field and said hell no like them. Guessing that's it.

E: Guess. You're on your own, folks.

J: Yeah, so just do your best, you know, send me the wacky guesses if you have them. If you want to send me a guess or you heard something cool this week, you got to e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, I'm going to shotgun this list real quick. If you support the work that we do or would like to support us, please think about becoming a patron of the SGU. We have a ton of work ahead of us for obvious reasons. You know what I'm talking about and we want to to make the world a more logical and skeptical place. And we do that through our our weekly activism. So if you're interested in helping us, go to patreon.com/skeptics Guide. Every week we send out a mailing list that tells you everything that the SDU did the previous week. Go to our homepage at the Skeptics Guide org if you'd like to join that list. You can give our show a rating if you don't mind. It always helps other people find the podcast. And then of course, guys, we have tickets going on sale or are on sale. We have a show in Seattle and a show in Wisconsin. There's going to be a SGU private recording. There's going to be extravaganza shows at both of those. At the Seattle show. We will be having a special event on Friday night. This is going to be a very, a very low attendance event to hang out and talk. And Steve, you called that the what the special premium Talk About Bananas event?

S: Yeah, the Talk about bananas event, that's exactly what it is, OK.

J: All this information though, people, it's on the website. Go to theskepticsguide.org. Thank you.

S: All right, thanks, Jay.

Emails (1:29:07)

S: All right, guys, let's do one e-mail. This one comes from Tom Buckley. And Tom writes a recent paper in Science claims wolves use tools. A wolf apparently learned to pull it up a submerged net with crabs at the bottom, an ethologist on Blue Sky wrote. This meets the most standard definition of tool use used in primatology, and it surprises me how many don't think it qualifies as tool use. The definition is apparently that they are using an unattached object, the net, to manipulate something else, the fish and manipulate it and properly orients the tool correctly angles it to pull the net out and get the fish. To me this seems like a weak definition of tool because it relies on humans awareness of whether the object is unattached to the reward. For example, suppose crabs had a very long floaty tail that looked like just like a net and a wolf pulled that up and ate the crabs main body. Humans wouldn't call that a tool, but the wolf might not see any difference between that and the reported situation. What do you all reckon? Love the show best. So yeah, I love these kind of questions because it has to do with definition or categorization. And these are always subjective, right? So what counts as tool use and is there's not going to be any right or wrong answer. It's going to be a continuum. And this is arguably in the grey zone. Personally, I don't buy it. I don't think this is tool use. So you got to watch the video. Essentially it's a wild wolf pulling up a net from a, from a river and it's attached to a trap, you know, a fish trap, the fish swimming, but they can't, you know, swim out and then there's a fish in there and he eats it. So I don't think that's tool use. He just knows that there's fish there. He's just getting at the fish.

E: I would like it to maybe a bird getting caught in a bird feeder and a bear or something coming over, knocking down the bird feeder and eating the bird.

S: Yeah. Something like or something like that, yeah. Squirrels get into my bird feeder and eat my suet. Are they using a tool?

J: No, Steve if he deployed the thing. Yeah, right. Oh shit, Yes, he's been wielded. Back it would be impressive.

S: He's an so that's the thing. They say they are using an unattached object in that, but he's not really using it, he's just pulling it out of the water because that's because it's attached to food.

E: Right was on land he wouldn't have pulled.

S: If it were a branch, if there was a fish caught in a branch and he grabbed it and pulled the branch out of the river to get at the fish, would that be using a tool? If he went and got the net and put it in there and that's, that's different.

B: That would be impressive, but he had to connect this is this is buoy that right? He grabbed the buoy and so he connected the buoy.

S: To fish, Yeah, that's smart. I'm not saying it's not clever how, but how?

B: Because the analogy with the, with the bird and the bear is of course, is not a perfect analogy because the bear can see the bird, but he, he, you can't see the, the cage, you know, the net or the, the, the fish. You just see the buoy floating. So he, did he see somebody pull it out himself or herself and get the fish. Maybe that was where he made the connection. He or she made the connection, I don't know.

E: Sample of one video here of 1 wolf. How could you say that wolves have learned to do this? Seems some standard to me.

S: They're generalizing. It could be a Haitian generalization. But even that aside.

B: It doesn't matter.

S: He does disqualify, does disqualify. I just, I don't know, I think the term using is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. You're using an unattached object or they're. Yeah, they're just pulling at something to get to food. You know what I mean? It's not really tool use. They're not. They're not using it. They did not deploy the net. They did not. They're not doing anything with it. They're pulling at it to get at food.

B: It's not. It's not like you know a chimpanzee crafting using it into a tool that leads.

E: Ants sick, right? Forming it for a tool, sticking it into the termite mound. That's tool it's. Pulling it back out, there you go.

J: An interesting thing to look at here, though, is that Wolf knows that there are fish in there.

S: Yeah.

B: That's that's the biggest leap. How was that? Connection made.

S: But they eat fish. I mean, what are you talking about? Those, those you know that those wolves, some wolves live by water. They eat fish well of.

B: Course, but connect. My point is connecting the buoy, a man made yellow and a. White How does it? Buoy with. How?

S: But how does it?

J: Probably saw the guy throw it in the water.

B: That's what that's what had to have happened. I assume that that's how he made the connection. I don't think it could have made that connection otherwise, right?

S: But but you're, but how do you know that he's making that connection, meaning that? And then you're saying, how does he know that it's that? It's artificial. It's just something in the water. Fish get trapped in stuff in the water. You pull the stuff out and sometimes there's fish attached to it. And maybe this specifically, he's learned through experience or through observation that there's often fish attached to. Again, is it different than pulling a branch out of the water hoping there's a fish in it? I don't know.

B: I mean, I mean, fish can get caught in submerged branches, I guess. But yeah, I see your point. I see. I see your point. Maybe maybe he just brings stuff in that's floating. Just, you know, he just something that it's a behavior that they do. Yeah, It could. It could potentially, you know, get lucky and like and get some sort of food trapped in there, whatever it may be. I would.

E: Be more so, yeah, I would have been more impressed if the wolf took. See how these loose rocks are over here on the shore. It's a very rocky shore because there's a technique by which you put rocks in the water near the edge of the shore and the fish will swim into that rock formation and kind of get trapped. And then if the wolf did that, I. Would. Be more impressed.

S: With that, that's tool use. So again, I love this because it's this murky question of definition and it shows you how careful you have to be with definitions because you could break that, right? I think this is an example which is breaking a poorly written definition of what right tool use. Again, I don't think the wolf there is making any of these associations. I don't think he's using that network or in any way. He's not manipulating anything. He's just getting at food. That's it. And that's not tool use in my book, right?

B: Yeah, it's definitely, it's a stretch for tool use. It's it's a cool behaviour, but it's not, Yeah. I could use it.

S: This is a real stretch. He manipulated and properly oriented the tool right? So he correctly angles it to pull it. You know he's just pulling the net out of the freaking wall.

E: However it came out, it came. Out. Yeah, like he just fucks with it until it comes out. Orientation.

S: He's not. Yeah, he's not exactly.

E: Measuring the 45° angle to optimization? No way.

S: Yeah, it's not like he's doing that to catch the fish. He's just pulling the thing out of the water.

E: Yeah. Let's see this thing, recast that out into the water and that would impress me. But yeah, reset the trap. Yeah, all.

S: Right.

E: So that's where did you guys fall?

S: I'm not buying it. I don't know. Do you guys do you guys agree or any of you think this constitutes tool use? All right.

J: It's not tool. Use.

B: No, it's not tool, It's not tool use. It's cool, but it's not technically tool use as I envision it.

S: Yeah, I guess it's no different than the bear getting my pursuit out of my cage, you know?

US#07: Wolfy, Wolfy.

S: Wolfy All right, let's go on with science or fiction.

Science or Fiction (1:36:49)

Theme: None Item #1: South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers. Item #2: MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers. Item #3: For the first time scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification.

Answer	Item
Fiction	South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.
Science	MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers.
Science	For the first time scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification.

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Bob	South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.
Evan	South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.
Jay	For the first time scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification.
Cara	South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over 10 fold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers.

Voice-over: So it's time for science or fiction.

S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 genuine and one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. And of course, you all can play at home. Feel free to play along with us. All right, three regular news items. Are you guys ready?

J: Yeah, Here we go.

S: Item number one. South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over tenfold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers. Eye #2 MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers. And eye #3 For the first time, scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. Bob, go first.

B: All right. So they're they've increased bacterial cellulose production for textiles, an order of magnitude parody with natural fibers. I mean, OK, I mean, I don't know, it doesn't sound very dramatic at all, which kind of makes me want to pick this because it's just like ho, it seems a little ho hum. I don't know the details about this. But not as dramatic as the other ones, it seems. OK, now we've got a polymer film for the second one. 10,000 times less permeable to gas and other polymers. I mean, I just don't know enough about polymers, I guess, to to know how dramatic this is. I mean, yeah, 10,000 times is dramatic, but I don't know what to make of these. Let's see, let's try the third one. Maybe I'll have some insight into that one. Immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modifications.

S: That's the new bit, obviously.

B: Yeah. So what could you tell me, Steve, about this that might not that you would allow? What kind of what? Kind of question, can I ask that you would answer? I don't know.

S: You'll have to ask it. You'll have to ask.

B: It that's not an unreasonable stance. Crap. I mean, I guess that's interesting because my first thought is like, can't they just grab some cancer cells from a cow and get immortal cells that way? But.

S: Well, I'll, I'll tell you one thing. They're obviously doing this for the point of like artificial meat, right?

B: Lab grid meat, right?

S: Not going to make it like cancer cells. All right, Cancer burger.

B: Cancer Burger? Maybe they should just call that the Seaburger instead. Seaburger. I don't know, this is a total crapshoot for me on these. I'm just really don't have a lot of a huge amount of insight into any of these. Can you, couldn't you just throw in like a astronomy or physics one in here, Steve? I mean, Jesus, no, throw me a throw me a bone here. All right, I'm just going to I I think I'll take the one that is just seems like meh. I'm going to say that the bacterial cellulose one seem to seem, you know, more mundane than the other one. So maybe it's not and hopefully it's not. So I'll see that one's. Fiction.

S: OK, Evan.

E: Well, yeah, I don't, I don't. This first one is confusing me a little bit. Cellulose production for textile. Cellulose production for textiles.

S: Yeah. So all right. But basically, you know, you could engineer bacteria to make stuff, right and grow it into that and it cranks out of stuff. So it's making cellulose?

E: OK.

S: Which is a structural protein.

B: Protein Baby.

S: And then you could weave that cellulose into fibers, right, that you can then make clothes out of.

E: I don't know this happened this this is possible?

S: So this has been going on this that's not that's not new. What's new is that they got the production increase tenfold, driving the cost down to close to say things like cotton like.

E: Natural fibers, so higher efficient, better efficiency. Yeah, divided order of. Magnitude. Existing technology. Yeah, it seems reasonable if you said this one's the fiction.

B: No, I said. The fact I said yes, I did. Yeah. Yes, you. Did. Yes, I did. No, yes, I did.

E: You must have been more more impressed with the other two then more so.

B: Yeah, but this one is interesting now that I'm. Really, what's going on here? Whatever.

E: Cara. What? Cara, what do you think? Well, moving on.

S: I'll tell you what she thought after, after you go.

E: She would have told you that. OK, second one, a thin polymer film, 10,000 times less permeable. That's a lot, but it's gas, OK, compared to other polymers, a thin polymer film. MIT researchers. OK, 10,000, I don't know, 10,000 is a lot. Maybe it's 1000. Maybe it's like order of magnitude kind of thing, but I don't know. You don't norm, you know, you don't usually play those games. You have but not not not always and not that often. The last item is scientists were able to create immortal, immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. So create without the need for any genetic modification. So what would be what would be the option? What would be if it wasn't genetically modified? Then they did it through what?

S: Some other way?

E: Yes, how that's that's the.

S: Essence of that one, so I'm not getting that too.

E: Oh, boy. So some other process that is not as well known as genetic modification. I don't know. This is tough. I, I, this is a very difficult one for me. I'm not really having a good sense for any of these. Therefore, Bob, I'm going to latch myself to you for no other reason. And you and I are going to rise together, or we're going to fall to the deepest depths.

B: I will proactively apologize. All right, Jay.

J: OK. I'll just take him in reverse order here. So we got the cow cell one, so there wasn't genetic modification and the they were able to create immortal cow cells in some other way. I mean, I would know, I would just imagine if it wasn't from genetic modification that it would be through their environment somehow or, or you know, you know, and if they made a genetic modification that made the cow cells immortal, I would imagine that would have been all over the news big time. And this one is like the biggest claim as far as I read of these three. Like it has the most implications and it seems the most dramatic. And my science or fiction Kung Fu is telling me that that this one is science. But, you know, it's one of those things that could easily go either way. Like, what am I going to say? No, they didn't. And then what would my premise? Because I don't even know how they got there in the 1st place. So it's it's too vague to actually even divine. Got that. No. OK. Yeah. Anyway, I'll say that one is tentatively science. MIT researchers have developed this thin polymer film that's 10,000 times less permeal than other polymers. OK. I mean, you know, on 1st blush, you know, I could see an advancement like this. I mean, companies are constantly working on making improvements like this. It is a massive jump forward. You know, 10,000 times is a profound change from the current polymers that are being used. We don't know if this means anything other than it happened in the lab. It's not like they're, you know, you can buy this stuff. Whatever uses that they have for it. I don't know. That one seems, you know, like a big deal, like a big number jump there. Then we just go on to the first one. So this one here where the South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production by over tenfold. That's not tenfold. Leap is not that big. It drives a cost way down. Like Steve said, I don't see this being a, it's not a massive claim like the other two, but I find it interesting that Bob picked this one and I have, I could tell you that the other two seem like crazy and you know, a lot of big, big claims and everything. And this one is like the stinker. This one's like, Oh yeah, they'll believe it. It's so, you know, it's not that big of a deal, so I'm going. To go with the boys, Steve, I'm going to go with the boys.

S: All agree on #1.

J: I'll tell you why it's important because if I if I'm wrong and the work that we do here happens and people will forget. If we no big deal, you know we lost. But if we sweep you, then it's a thing and I'd rather go.

B: Going for the sweep or swinging for the fence it. Depends what Cara said.

J: It depends what Cara said. That's true.

B: No, she's irrelevant. She's not here. This is the boys. No. She's not the role. She put her guess. In so Cara. There's no interaction in that feedback.

J: Cara's guess?

C: OK, so the first one here is they've just developed a process, so that's important. They're increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles by over tenfold, approaching cost parity with natural fibers. Oh, bacterial cellulose. I was like, synthetic fibers are way cheaper, but yeah, they're bacterial cellulose fiber. OK. So basically they're artificially producing natural fibers.

S: Oh, cellulose based fibers. Yeah, which is it's, yeah, it's different.

C: But we're not talking like polyester.

S: Right.

C: Right, right. Because that is way cheaper, which is why this microplastics is like a. Mess. Yeah.

S: Well, we're talking like with cost parity with something like cotton.

C: Okay, yeah, yeah, well, that's big. And then the thin polymer film 10,000 times less. I mean, I don't know, less permeable to gas than all other polymers. So why would you need this? You would want something that is yeah, that no gas can pass through for all sorts of applications. Medical, industrial, I could see that being important, but I don't know how I always thought polymers weren't very permeable anyway. I don't know, that seems like it's probably maybe. Oh, this is so hard. And then lastly, immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. We don't already have immortal cow cells, we have immortal people cells.

S: Yeah, but they we get to them through genetic modification. So this is the first time they're able to do it without genetic modification.

C: Gotcha, well I thought we had immortal cells through like like cancer lines too. Do we genetically modify those? OK gosh these all seem like they could be science or fiction. I think the one that's bothering me the most, it is maybe the cellulose because I don't think I think that there's a reason that we have such a big cost difference right now. And I know that this is an area of a lot of research. And like, you know, when we talk about sort of plastics or even biochemical innovation, we just see so much happening so quickly. Like when we talk about material science and when we talk about biochemistry in the lab, but I don't know, textile science, I feel like it's really bifurcated. It's like the old school natural methods. And then it's like the new stuff, which is all material science and it's all plastic. It's all like synthetics. And so either I don't know, the will hasn't been there, or maybe there is something that prevents it from happening. Of course, then that means that there's a vacuum. So there's, you know, space for a lot of innovation, but this one just seems like an area that we're not reading about very often and we're not seeing like these huge improvements and changes. But I mean, this is such a shot in the dark because all of these seem like they could be either completely realistic or not realistic at all. But I just got to put my nickel down, so I'll say the bacterial cellulose production is either not increased by tenfold or it's not approaching cost parity with natural fibers. One of those two things may be false. I doubt it's that it was not in South Korea. But but yeah, I'll give also that 1 is really complex. It has enough variables that maybe you know one or two of those things are wrong.

S: Caras guess was #1 as well. So I so love it. It's going to be a sweep one way or the other. Let's take these in reverse order. Follow Follow Jays lead.

B: I'm sure her reasoning that was much more. You know, not really. Air, you died 10 hours. Oh, good. We were all lost. I love it. Excellent.

S: She was pretty lost, but she she had, she reasons her her way pretty smartly through these.

B: Oh yeah, anyway, yeah, we we know that by now.

S: All right, we'll start #3 for the first time, scientists were able to create immortal cow cells without the need for any genetic modification. You go all think this one is science and this one is science. This is science. So the the previously it was believed that in large mammals this was not possible. You know, all cells will only divide so many times. In order to bypass this limit, you have to disable genes that you know that can limit the number of times that cells can reproduce. So they wanted to see if they could find naturally occurring, like spontaneous immortality in in the cells of a large mammal, because this has been previously shown to exist in chickens, but they're not mammals and they're not large. So they said, all right, but they thought, but this can't happen in cows. So they, the researchers wanted to see if it was possible. So they, they basically plated the, the cow cells for 240 cell generations over 18 months, just looking for any cells that looked self renewing, right? Any, any self renewing colonies emerged. And finally, finally one did. They basically they proved that there's spontaneous, you know, emergence of immortal cell lines in cow cells. They, they then found out the mechanism was the natural activation of telomerase and PGC 1A. So basically extending the telomeres, right? So setting back the repairing the telomeres to set back the biological clocks. All right, So that's cool. Obviously the purpose of this is for lab grown meat, right? The big advantage here is 1 is regulatory because if there if there's no genetic modification, it bypasses all of the GMI regular regulation.

B: Yeah, so that's a big part, yeah. Fears of Luddites.

S: And also this could make the whole process cheaper, right? So they think now they want to do this with like muscle cells and cockroaches create, create immortal lines that then you could use to crank out those lab grown hamburgers. All right, so we'll see if this leads to anything. But that's, that was the purpose for that. All right, let's go back to #2 MIT researchers have developed a thin polymer film that is 10,000 times less permeable to gas than all other polymers. You guys also think this one is science and this one is also science.

E: Yay. Thank you, Cara.

S: So polymers generally are made from fibers which are woven together and those are very permeable because there's gaps in between the weaving. So this polymer however was made as a 2 dimensional material, so it's a single film and therefore there's a solid crystalline structure with no gaps and so that's why it doesn't let the gas through.

J: OK, no gases.

S: No gases. So they tested it. Tested it with helium, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, helium, methane and sulfur hexafluoride. Do you guys remember huffing sulfur reflex?

E: Yes, the. Opposite of. Of helium makes your, makes your voice really it.

S: Was so cool. All right, So what would what do you think this would be useful for?

E: Well, gas proof. Space.

S: They didn't mention that as a potential one, but so.

E: OK.

J: Big thing would be scientific experiments, food.

S: Preservation, right? Because if you basically prevents anything from oxidizing, if you can keep oxygen from getting access to it. So this would be very useful because it also could be a very, very thin coating, you know, so you could put it on wrap food in it for example. Also would be useful for so the reason why I was interested in in hydrogen because hydrogen is notoriously to hard to contain.

B: Well, yes, so it's so small. Yeah. So if you read, if you read Hail Mary, you right? Yeah, you kind of would get there too.

S: You could line line the tank with this film and that would keep the hydrogen from leaking out. So, so any, any time when you need to to use, you need a sealant to be useful as a sealant. OK. That means that South Korean researchers have developed a process for increasing bacterial cellulose production for textiles. But over tenfold approaching cost parity with natural fibers is the fiction, because the innovation has nothing to do with production. And this is still hella expensive and nowhere near the cost of natural fibers. But what they did was they figured out how to combine two different bacteria in the same VAT. One makes the cellulose and the other makes the dye. So they could, they had to get the timing right and everything. So essentially you could do both things at the same time. And then you get these vibrant colored cellulose fibers that to make the textiles out of. And they tested them to show that they would hold on to their color even with the usual test with bleaching or washing or whatever. So it seems like a good method for making textiles, you know, of these different colors dyed in the wool, as they say, but in this case dyed in the cellulose. But it's, you know, it's still super expensive.

E: Where do we see cellulose based textiles in everyday life? Or don't we, because of the cost?

S: Well, you can, but cellulose is in cellulose I think is the most. Yeah, cellulose is in cotton. So it's just artificial cellulose is it is the most most common structural protein that exists in the world.

E: Yeah, I. Just didn't realize it was used for textiles.

S: Well, it's part of any natural plant fiber is going to have cellulose in it. And a lot of natural fiber textiles are made out of plant fibers, right? Like cotton and GT and other things. Flax, you know, yeah. So that so this is, you know, it's an interesting technology that they developed. Again, you're I'm concerned about the scalability of using background textiles when you could use plants and, you know, like cotton to do it cheaper. But you know, the part of the idea is that, well, if you're manufacturing the textiles, you have more control over them. So you could make fibers with or the the the cloth itself with better properties you know then you would get out of the natural fibers.

B: Yeah, like bulletproof cotton.

S: Or shrink drinks. Less would be nice, you know. So I don't know if this is commercializable. It's a, you know, kind of a proof of concept kind of thing. We'll see if it goes anywhere. But it's the fiction, so it doesn't matter. Well, good job, everyone. You got me. Well, you swept us a few weeks. This one can't make less than. I can't. Can't make the fictions Too simple.

B: This was kind of unique in that you had two people go and.

S: You both kind of. She had a similar thinking.

E: Interesting. It's like Cara was in a.

S: Too mundane.

B: You compliment me, dear Sir.

S: All right.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:56:20)

“What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.”  – – David Eagleman, (description of author)

S: Evan, give us a quote.

E: What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance. Very Well Put by David Eagleman Nice, an American American neuroscientist, best selling author and science communicator who teaches at Stanford University.

S: Yeah, it's a critical concept. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah, And the more you learn, the more you know about what you don't know. So actually, the frontier of what of the unknown increases as you learn. More, yeah.

B: The stupider you feel, the more you learn, yeah.

E: Right.

S: Or the more you learn in a way, the more humble you are. Like you know the.

E: Humility.

S: Because it's you realize how much more there is that you still don't know but.

B: Which makes it even more exciting, right?

S: It should anyway, and, and you've guys have probably had this experience too. When I go from knowing basically nothing about a field to knowing something about it, one of the first things I realize is, wow, there's a lot of information here. This is way more complicated and way more deep than I thought, right?

B: And we appreciate that the experts even yes.

E: Heck yes. The people who devote their lives to their their particular field. My gosh.

S: And this is beyond science. This is in every any field of intellectual endeavor. Like it's just even just hobbies, anything. It's amazing how complicated things everything gets when people are involved.

J: You know, in the, in the rare cases when the average person has some level of expertise in something, right, and they hear somebody talk about that topic.

S: Yeah.

J: And you and you say to yourself, oh, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. You know, like I can, I have a couple of things in my life that I, I've been able to. I've had this happen with. Yeah, right now imagine whatever that thing is that you're good at that you did it for 30 years.

B: Yeah.

J: And you know it so well that you know, there there might be 100 or less people in the world that know it on the level that you do like that. That's when you know, you would be a world blown away by by how the BS that people you know, or how little understanding that people have on it and everything. And that that is one of the things that causes me to, you know, have an enormous amount of respect for people who have developed these massive skill sets and expertise. Like, you know, when they say, hey, man, you know, we global warming is happening and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that that's good enough for me. I don't have to pretend that I'm going online air quotes to do research.

S: They're not checking their math, right? You're not?

J: Yeah.

S: Let me take a look at those ice cores and see if I agree with you on that. You know, come on. But I also flipped that around you because I use that example a lot. Like your own expertise, that that thing that you're an expert in, when you read an article about it in the lay media or somebody you know, just in the general population is talking about it, they know nothing, right? Like you.

B: Yeah, it's cringy.

S: They profoundly know nothing about this topic that you're an expert in. But that's you for every other freaking topic in the world. So that's the thing that you remember. You are just as ignorant about all the other things you're not an expert in. So that should be a humbling experience. Yeah, you know, but you have to, you have to make extrapolate to that, you know, to that bigger point. So I often use that example in lectures, but I think it drives it home pretty well.

B: Yeah.

S: You're that person that create that cringey person who doesn't know what they're talking about on every other topic.

E: Yeah, but what about all those TikTok videos I see?

S: Yeah. That Yeah, Don't get me started. Don't get me started the thing, all right, since you had to mention TikTok, so I have to random out of two seconds. The thing that kills me about TikTok is there now that one of the themes that I'm picking up with the videos that get sent to us, etcetera, is the denial of history, right? Just denying that something happened. The most recent one we talked about was Now there's assholes denying that Helen Keller existed. Or, you know, that she was, that she was blind and deaf. She couldn't have been blind and deaf. Nobody could do what she did if they were blind and deaf. That's the point, you idiot. That's why you know her name 100 years later, because she was amazing and she did amazing things. And now you're going to try to take that all away from her because you don't believe it. Get a life, I mean.

J: I know it's really, it really is sad to hear things like that because why would anybody even need?

S: To go there, I know that's the other thing like.

E: Yeah, right.

S: So what's the deepest big Helen Keller made it up for some purpose? I mean, it's just silly, right? Or you're seeing through the veil that nobody else could see through. Get out, you know, Come on.

E: We've been lied to all these years, you see. Yeah. I know the truth.

S: That's the narrative. Everything you know is wrong. I know what's really going on. It's all coming out now, right?

E: It's all coming out. We're all according to TikTok.

J: It's good to have you home. Steve yeah, it's good to be home.

S: I enjoyed the trip, but it's always good to walk in your front or here and to be home.

E: Again, now you're going to sleep, I'm sure.

S: Dinner, then sleep. I haven't eaten in a long time.

J: And this time you didn't crash into your house at the very last. I know, I know.

S: That that when the second time I think we were coming back from Australia. So literally traveling for over 24 hours to work.

B: Yeah.

S: And I crash into my house at the very end of the because really, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I hit the top of my driveway. The the, my driveway was frozen over solid with a glass of ice. And it's also like invisible. It's just this glass of ice. And then, and then, and then my car coasted all the way down and hit into the house. There's knife 0 control. It just slid all the way down ice, no coefficient of friction. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you all for joining me this week.

B: Sure, man. You're welcome, brother.

S: And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.