SGU Episode 411

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SGU Episode 411
1st June 2013
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 410                      SGU 412
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guests
VD: Vijay Dewan
ST: Scott Thurman
Quote of the Week
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
Karl Popper
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Tuesday May 22^nd 2013 and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Rebecca Watson

R: Hello everyone

S: Jay Novella

J: Hey guys

S: and Evan Bernstein

E: Hey-yo darleen

J: Hey darling, how you doing?

E: That is saying hey there in Gungan, Star Wars Episode 1

R: Gungadin?

J: It sounds like Bill Murray in Caddyshack when he says "agungalagunga"

E: It's close, because it's Jar Jar Binks

S: Really? Jar Jar Binks?

E: According to Wookieepedia, yeah. And that is a fine resource

R: (savoring sounds) Wookieepedia

S: Did you all have a fine vacation yesterday?

R: What vacation?

S: Memorial Day

R: Oh!

J: I've had 10 hamburgers since Friday. 10 hamburgers

(sounds of disgust)

R: Since Friday?

J: Yup

E: You can only eat a few more this week, I tell you. That's a lot of red meat

R: I don't— that's probably not healthy

E: No

J: It's been one big picnic! I mean, I don't feel good about myself but—

(laughter)

J: I love hamburgers, though, man!

S: So yesterday, I got my first picture bald eagle

R: Oh!

S: Yeah, it's very cool, there's a bald eagle nesting in Hamden. Evan and I took the families down there to see the nest. It seems just like right next to the street, right next to the road. And the nest is huge! But we couldn't see anything in the nest, we were hanging out there for about 20 minutes or so, hoping— because we know from reports that there is a baby in the nest, a baby eagle. But we did see one— possibly both of the parents flying around after about 20 minutes, one of the parents showed up and had to fight off an ospreywhich was getting too close to the nest. It sort of chased it away, and then it just perched next to the nest and just stood there like on guard.

R: Isn't an osprey like one of those, like a crane or something?

S: No, an osprey is like a large sea bird that eats fish and so they both sort of— this is next to like a marshy area so that they have that both bald eagles osprey would be in the same sort of niche there

J: How big was the eagle, Steve?

S: It's a huge bird

J: Like, if you were standing up and it was standing next to you on the ground how high up would it come on you?

S: Oh, I'm not sure, maybe 3 feet?

J: Oh wow!

E: And it's a raptor, correct?

S: It's a raptor

J: Yeah, they don't they don't get much more raptor than an eagle

S: They're beautiful, beautiful birds.

E: Oh yes

R: I saw a bald eagle in Alaska that had lost its beak, and they made it a new beak, so it had Like a fake beak on. It was pretty awesome

S: Wow

J: Yeah, I've read about that too

R: It looked sad, because it was still in a cage, but it was cool that they helped out

E: It's like the Tyco Brahe of birds

R: While in Alaska, I also saw an eagle swoop down and grab a fish out of the water and then take it away

J: Did it go "Geeyar" when it swooped down?

R: B-R?

J: "Geeyar"! Don't birds make that noise when they swoop down at you, and they come bite your horsey?

S: That sound that you hear, Jay, that every movie and TV show plays as the sound of a raptor?

J: Yeah

S: Is a red tailed hawk. That's not the sound that eagles make

J: Do you mean this sound?

(typical bird screech used)

S: Yeah, that is a red tailed hawk

R: Steve, can you make the sound of an eagle for us right now?

(dubbed with chirping sound)

This Day in Skepticism (3:41)

• June 1 1965: Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discover the background radiation of the Big Bang.

R: Hey! Guess what happened on this day in history — speaking of none of that. On June 1st 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, Robert Woodrow Wilson — good name — discovered the background radiation that was a huge part of the proof for the big bang.

J: Awesome!

S: mm-hmm

R: They were doing radio astronomy using a very sensitive antenna, and they kept getting this interference, and they couldn't figure out what it was. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, they were located in New Jersey so they thought maybe it was coming from New York, but it wasn't, because it was like all around. The examined the antenna, and they found that it was absolutely covered in pigeon droppings. So they cleaned it off and they murdered the pigeons, and they still heard this sound, and so they wrote it up. It turns out, they discovered this amazing proof for cosmic microwave background radiation. I think Stephen Hawking called it the final nail in the coffin for the competing steady state theory.

S: mm-hmm

R: So this ones pretty much nailed it for the big bang

S: And they got the Nobel Prize for Physics for that discovery in 1978

R: They did!

E: Wow, they weren't even initially looking for it.

R: There were other people who were looking for it and it was first&mdash I did it already been on theorized, and so there were a few people looking for it. One of the first people to come up with the idea of it was Ralph Alpher. Which is like one of my favorite scientist names of all time 'cos it sounds like Scooby Doo saying the name of the leader of our gang. (demonstrates)

J: True

R: So, yeah, people had been looking for it, and—

S: How could you look for it and not find it? 'cos it's always there?

R: Well they were hot on its trail, so Alpher had come up with this idea—

S: It's like missing the ground, right?

R: People weren't very interested in it, apparently. Astronomers just weren't that into it, like there was a small group of people that were really fascinated by this and thought that this was something observible that they could find. And so people like Robert Dicke, another great name in astronomy history. Dicke came up with this super sensitive antenna that the guys were actually using when they identified the noise. They were just using it for radio astronomy, but Dicke had created this antenna specifically to find this noise and he was with building his own and working on it when he got a call from New Jersey saying 'hey, we heard this thing, what do you think this is?' and he was like 'well crap, you beat me to it'

(laughter)

R: Yeah, it did it all happen pretty quickly once people started looking for it

S: Yeah, imagine just turning it on and there it is

R: Yeah

S: Just a matter of having a device, so building an antenna that could hear it.

News Items

Mermaids (7:04)

• Discovery.com: Be Afraid... Be Very Afraid, Animal Planet’s Monster Week Slithers Back to the Small Screen

S: So Evan, you're going to tell us about another amazing scientific discovery, perhaps just behind that of the cosmic background radiation. And that is Animal Planet's discovery of mermaids

E: That's right it's close, I'd say it's a close second

R: Which also, like background radiation, exist everywhere isotropically

E: You're right Rebecca, you're right! I'm going to touch on that in just a moment. Now, when you think the word mermaid it probably invokes a very specific image in your mind. And the image you see is mostly defined by your age. Ok, so for example, if you say mermaid to a 6 year old girl in kindergarten she's most likely to think of what?

S: The Little Mermaid

E: Right, the cartoon character Ariel

S: Definitely

E: From the movie The Little Mermaid, right? Now say mermaid to a 52 year old housewife and mother of 4, and what will she tell you?

B: The movie—

R: Also the Little Mermaid

(laughter)

J: I was thinking the movie right? From the early 90s was it?

E: That's right. She'll tell you that it's Cher at her acting best in the movie Mermaids

R: I feel she'd identify more with Ariel than with Cher

S: If she had 4 year old kids, yeah

R: I remember watching that movie, by the way, and being profoundly disappointed. I think I was like 10

(laughter)

E: "But where's the mermaids?

J: That movie was epic! The song that she sings in her cave with all her stuff, I mean, that is awesome.

E: See that?

S: That was the revitalization of the Disney animated feature length movie right?

E: But what what about if you say—

S: What about Darryl Hannah's mermaid?

R: I was totally into that too, Splash

E: Splash? Absolutely. But I would say that you ask 45 year old guy who works in corporate America as an IT specialist what will they say? They'll say that it's a level 1 monster with 1D10 hit points and an armor class of 6

B: Ha!

S: Probably

E: But in any case, mer-folk have been a part of the collective human monster manual for thousands of years, right Rebecca? And in various cultures all over the world, in every place.

S: What's the earliest cultural reference to a mermaid?

E: 30,000 years ago

R: Really?

E: Yep, according to the folks at NOAA, in fact. "The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic period, some 30,000 years ago"

S: That's earlier than I would have thought

R: Yeah

E: Pretty cool, huh?

S: Now finally we have proof that they're actually real

E: Finally, yes. This weekend the TV channel Animal Planet aired a show called Mermaids: The new evidence. And this show set a new record for the Animal Planet: the most watched show in the history— 17 year history of this channel. 3.6 million viewers on the initial showing. But this show, from a few days ago, was actually a follow up to show they did last year, 1 year ago, called Mermaids: The body found which was also quite popular and caused a lot of chatter on the blogospheres and internets, and everything else, as to: do mermaids actually, really exist?

S: My daughter had fun debunking that. She saw that on Animal Planet—

E: As did mine

B: Did they show a body? Like, what did they have?

S: It was Bigfoot-esque evidence

E: Exactly, so Animal Planet gives you this, well I don't, I've seen it with a docudrama, or someone else called speculative science fiction, which is probably the most accurate description of what it is. Because it is — the whole thing, concept and everything — is entirely fiction. Now, the Animal Planet does a very good job of — I wouldn't say hiding that fact, but absolutely treating that little piece of information that is fiction to the barest of minimum ability in which they just put one or two little blurbs in at the end right before the credits roll on these shows, saying 'yeah, there's some fiction in here'. So basically, they really skirt around the whole point of this is that it's entirely a work of fiction, but they don't make any great efforts to let the audience know that. So if you miss just a little bit, then the audience left with making up their own mind.

S: Did you know that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to release an official statement saying that mermaids are not real.

(laughter)

S: Because they were getting so many questions from people after they watched the Animal Planet episode. The original one

R: Wow, that's sad for us as a species

S: Yeah

J: So what did they actually say, Ev?

E: Well the gist of it is that evidence washed up on shore many years ago as the government was testing new sonar devices which was causing massive beaching of whales, right? Which is kind of sad because that probably is a phenomenon that might actually be happening. So you're kind of mixing up your storys here. But they're using that as a background, saying not only did the Whales beach, but also it kicked out something that we don't know exactly what it is but it appears to be have webbed hands and webbed, you know, and a tail, and some kids stumbled upon it and they used their cell phone to record it and they were quickly rushed away by the Navy and government— you know, men in black people, and it was, of course, perhaps the evidence, smoking gun, of a mermaid

J: Ooh

E: But I'll wrap up with this as David Shiffman who's one of the authors from a website called southern fried science on which they specialize in talking about the oceanographic phenomenon and real science that's going on the ocean, someone asked him "what's the problem here? You know, it's good fun, it's good to expand your mind and think about these things. What's wrong here?". So he summed it up like this, he says "why is this a problem? This displays a troubling lack of awareness in reality that is likely not limited to a belief in mermaids". That's exactly correct

S: Right

Angelina Jolie's Double Mastectomy (13:06)

• Respectful Insolence: The quack view of preventing breast cancer versus reality and Angelina Jolie

S: Well let's move on to a more serious news item. I'm sure you've all heard about Angelina Jolie's editorial in the New York Times, where she described her decision to undergo a preventive double mastectomy. So she was diagnosed with a BRCA1 mutation, now that is a gene— BRCA stands for breast cancer, and BRCA1 and 2 are what's known as tumor suppressor genes. They are genes for proteins that regulate DNA, and keepcells reproducing out of control. So there are certain mutations in those proteins that diminish the proteins' to function properly, and people with those mutations are at increased risk of certain kinds of cancer. So she had a particular BRCA1 mutation that increased— she was told it inncreased her overall lifetime risk of developing breast cancer to 87%, and her risk of ovarian cancer to 50%. That's pretty big, that's pretty high. And her mother died of breast cancer, so this was very real for her. So she decided to have the preventive double mastectomy. So this raises some interesting issues, first, her description of the care that she received is— it's mostly good. She was certainly brave for just coming out and saying she had this done, and it was definitely a science-based decision. The evidence for the risk for the BRCA1 mutations is pretty solid science, and that's probably the one reasonable situation in which getting a prophylactic mastectomy is a justifiable idea. A couple of little concerning things come up, though. She got her care at the Pink Lotus breast center, which as you might imagine from the name, also promotes holistic types of methods. So she also was promoting— not so much, she just mentioned it in the New York Times article, but she says that her holistic regimen— she described elsewhere, but she is taking a bunch of supplements, and homeopathic remedies along with everything else. So unfortunately, there's the woo mixed in with the science-based decision, which is unfortunate.

R: Luckily, it was just a bit of almost lip service

S: Yeah

R: The crux of it at least, like I found it really disappointing too, but at least the crux of it was like 'this is what modern medicine can do!'

S: Right, and let's waste some money on some other nonsense

R: Right

S: Some people have brought up the fact that she's sort of describing her experience as a way of empowering women to not be afraid, and get tested and do what needs to be done and not feel like it makes them less of a woman, and that's all fantastic. But you do have to also realise that she is fabulously wealthy. She can afford to pay for these tests.

R: She talks about that too

S: She mentions herself, yeah, that just the test itself is expensive, and many women don't have that option. It costs like $3,000 to get the genetic screen. But also, the surgeries are expensive, and may not be covered preventively. There are a range of options for reconstructive surgery, and at the high end, the results can be absolutely amazing. So I'm sure she had the absolute high-end of options here, because she can afford to. So I think she does seem to understand that, just from what she wrote in her editorial, but I don't know if she fully appreciates what her advice would mean to the average woman in a similar situation, who doesn't have millions of dollars to explore their options.

R: No, I think she does though. The fact that she does bring up the problem of expense of it, and the fact that low-income women's healthcare just isn't adequate for this sore of thing—

S: Yeah

R: I think the whole reason why she wrote this was— well, maybe not the whole reason, but part of the reason, is to make people realise that this is something that can be done that can save many lives, and could be very important to consider when we're talking about making more healthcare options open to more women.

S: Yeah, I do agree, she's confronting this issue, and she does mention that she wants women to know that they have options. But a lot of people have pointed out that, 'yes, this is all great, but they won't necessarily have all the options that you had'.

R: And I think that's good, and again, I think that's part of her point, and that discussion needs to happen. Like, we need to talk about why wealthy women have access to this stuff, and other women don't.

S: Yeah, absolutely. And David Gorski raised a point as well. So David Gorski who blogs for me over at Science-Based Medicine, he is a breast cancer surgeon, this is what he does. And he wrote a good article about it too on Science-Based Medicine, and on his other blog as well. And he brought up a point that he, as a breast cancer surgeon, is often under a lot of pressure from women to get mastectomies, even when lumpectomies would suffice. That often, women facing breast cancer, act out of fear. It's a very difficult thing to face, facing the 'big C', right? Facing cancer

E: Right

S: He thinks, his impression is that patients are more likely to request a mastectomy than the surgeon is. Patients are pushing for it, even when the surgeon's saying you don't need a full mastectomy, we could probably get away with just a lumpectomy. And also, some women push for a double mastectomy — taking away the other breast prophylactically — when there's really no evidence that it enhances survival.

R: Hmm

S: So his concern was that, while it's great that Angelina Jolie is coming out with her experience here, and raising awareness of the options here, that it may further increase this patient demand for prophylactic, or bilateral mastectom, or more aggressive procedures where it's not really necessary. Because there's really already patients are shifted in that direction more than theey need to be. So that's interesting, the unintended consequence.

R: I was surprised by how many... like, the response to her article, I was surprised by how many people seemed to have never heard of the mutation, or the prophylactic mastectomy. Because that's something that I thought was just common knowledge, but apparently isn't

J: So, to make it crystal clear for our listeners, what should a woman do if she's concerned, and what's a good course of action?

S: Yeah, so if you're concerned, get tested. First of all, just consult with your physician. It's reasonable to get — especially if you have a strong family history — to get tested. Hopefully you have good insurance that can pay for it. The difficult part would be if you're a woman who doesn't have good insurance, who can't really afford to lay down £3,000 in cash to get the genetic testing, what do you do? I don't know, your options are limited at that point. Talk to your physician, see if they have any ideas to offer you. Probably, there's a good case to be made for insurance companies covering this.

R: Yeah, and you might check Planned Parenthood, because I know Planned Parenthood recently launched a huge program, I think last year, to equip more clinics to do more breast cancer screening things, including genetic testing, so...

S: Yeah, absolutely. Now, of course, the cranks come out of the woodwork when any kind of—

E: Oh yeah

S: The worst of which is Mike Adams from Natural News

(general sounds of weariness))

R: Ugh, that guy

S: Yeah, he says— he's so despicable, so he's now accusing Angelina Jolie of unnecessarily mutilating herself, of removing healthy tissue for no reason

R: He sounds loathesome

S: He's loathesome. He chose— he's saying that she chose to have unnecessary surgery, rather than just lead a healthy, anti-cancer lifestyle. Because he claims that even if you have these genetic mutations, you won't get cancer if you lead this quote-unquote healthy anti-cancer lifestyle, and—

E: And nutrition, right?

S: —he'll sell you CDs that will tell you how to do that

(exasperated noises)

J: So he's not motivated by anything other than just caring for people, Steve

R: Yeah

S: Right

R: He's the worst of the worst. Because even the lip service she paid to natural remedies wan't enough for him. Like, the way that she did it is the way that I think, if you have somebody in your life who is into alternative medicine, that's the kind of person you want them to be like, is the Angela— Angelina Jolie type, where she has a doctor, and say the doctor is aware of the other quote-unquote natural things you're doing in addition to the actual course of action recommended by your doctor. Like, that is fine, do that. But Mike Adams is pushing this complete BS stuff that's gonna actually murder people—

S: Yeah

R: —like give up the real medicine, and savor this BS I'm gonna sell you.

S: Here is his logic. He writes

With this logic, abortions are cancer prevention, too, because those babies might one day grow up and develop tumors. Better to kill them early and "prevent cancer," right?

E&B: Wow

R: Oh god

E: Sheez

B: That's aggravated anti-intellectualism

S: Yeah, aggravated idiocy

B: Like, he's really trying there to go against science at that point. What a complete jackass

S: He's a complete jackass, yeah. I agree, it's terrible.

Prosopagnosia aside (23:08)

S: Interestingly, just as an aside here, I noticed, during all of this, this is kind of it's own— this is kind of a Brad-Jolina news item, because Brad Pitt, while all of this was going down, gave an interview in which he described his life-long struggle with prosopagnosia, which is interesting in and of itself. I was wondering if the timing of that was coincidental, or maybe he was just trying to, I don't know, take some heat off of his girlfriend.

R: Well I don't think it's coincidental, because he talks about her decision as well

S: Yeah, so we know someone else who also has what's so-called developmental prosopagnosia.

R: We do?

E: So they tell us

S: If they can be believed, I don't know

R: Yeah, you know, I make a lot of money in the fake prosopagnosia game

(laughter)

B: Yeah, that's the whole goal

E: It is

J: So you first noticed this when? When you were a child?

R: No, because... I didn't know I needed glasses until I randomly mentioned to my mother that I couldn't see something in the distance, and I just didn't realise that that's not how normal people saw, so it's the same kind of thing. I didn't realise I had it until in my 20s, and I stumbled across a website where somebody was describing it. I don't even know how I got to the website, but it was like the choir from heaven, you know? The clouds parting?

E: That moment...

R: Yeah, it was... it was

E: Yep, when you realise "Oh, this is me!"

R: Yep, it was amazing, like, so many... I've bought into this idea that I was just a jerk, I just couldn't be bothered to remember people, even if I really really wanted to. But yeah, it turns out that I'm disfunctional

S: So, just to make sure our listeners know what we're talking about—

R: Oh right

S: Prosopagnosia is the inability, or a deficit in the ability in the ability to recognise faces

R: Yeah, and mine's a deficit, not a complete inability. So if I have met someone a number of times, or if I've just seen them a number of times, like actors and stuff, I can totally recognise them. But, as an example, I lived with a guy for 3 years, we were dating and living together, and he picked me up from work one day, and he had shaved his head and his goatee, and he was sitting in the car outside, and I went to get in the car and I opened the door, and I'm like "Oh my god, I'm so sorry", and I shut the door.

(laughter)

R: And then I stopped, and I turned around, and I'm like "Wait a minute". And then I realised it was my boyfriend, but like I had no idea, because I had just come to remember— because I can't remember faces very well — and apparently someone I'd been living with for several years — you just learn to recognise people by ...

S: Other features

R: Yeah

S: Focusing on other distinctive features

R: The way they dress—

E: Their voice

R: —the way they talk, yeah, things like that

S: Yeah, and that's typical that— I've been doing some reading on it just— there's a couple of research centers that research prosopagnosia, and many people with the— because there's acquired and developmental. Acquired is like from strokes, it's very rare to get brain damage precisely to that part of the brain. So most people have so-called developmental prosopagnosia, and many of them don't realise it until they're adults because, as you say, that's normal for them. This is their life, they don't notice that anything's wrong.

R: Yeah

S: So Brad Pitt was saying that people just think he's a jerk, what you were saying. 'cos they think these all big high and mighty actors, they're too much of a jerk to remember people. So he decided to just tell people that he can't recognise faces, and that you need to give me context, you need to tell me how I know you. But he said that people get even more mad with them when he started being honest with them about the fact that he can't remember them.

R: See, I started doing that aswell after I realised that this is an actual thing, and it has an actual name, an impressive sounding name

J: Yeah

R: I started doing that, and I found the opposite of Brad Pitt, that people are totally cool with it. Like at first they, to me, like it happens most often at conferences, people will come up and introduce themselves to me, and if I suspect that I'm going to meet them again later, I always tell them "look, I'm terrible at faces", and they'll always say like "oh, well that's just because you meet so many people", and I'm like "no, it's this thing, prosopagnosia". And once I explain it, people find it really interesting and— like I've never had anybody think that I'm just like hiding the fact that I'm a jerk

S: Or maybe it's the skeptical versus the Hollywood culture that we're—

(sounds of agreement)

R: Yeah, I don't know

J: Rebecca, if I were your boyfriend, I'd wear the same t-shirt every day so that you'd know it was me

(laughter)

R: I would appreciate that, Jay, I think Adam probably does do things like that, I don't know

S: Jay, that's very nice, but when am I getting my flying car?

Flying Car (27:59)

• The Register: Your Flying Car? Delayed again, but you WILL get it, says Terrafugia

J: Well Steve, it's a good question because people have been trying to create a flying car since—

R: God, it’s not question

J: It is, it is! It’s fascinating to talk about this

(laughter)

J: It’s been the big promise from many companies and science fiction for a long time, right? Like think about it—

E: Oh yeah

J: It goes back to 1917, when the first attempt was made by a man named Glenn Curtiss, and this guy happened to be one of the rivals the Wright brothers who was also developing airplanes at the time. So his Curtis Autoplane failed and—

E: Cool

J: —it was only able to come to hop a little—

E: Oh

J: —it couldn't get sustained. And it took another 20 years past that for the next real airworthy flying car to be built in 1937, and that actually could fly. And nowm tons of failures all along the way moving forward to the 1950s, the car — flying car — was part of that era of Science Fiction, right? You guys can visualize the science fiction graphics and illustrations that people made back then. A flying car was very much a part of all of that, people really did think it was going to be coming soon in the future and it never came. And did a lot of the problems people hit 50 years ago we’re still hitting today. So throughout all these companies trying to develop a flying car without success, there has been some moderate success stories, and there are several companies working on them today, including DARPA, who is trying to develop one right now with the goal of 2015 having a vehicle that would be ready for use. But one of the companies I wanted to talk about today is just a way to start the conversation. This company’s called Terrafugia, and Terrafugia was founded 2006 with the sole purpose of developing a flying car. And they have been fine tuning their first design and it went to a couple of unexpected — I would say emergency — but they did a test, and they realized they had to retool it and re-engineer it to get rid of problems. And it went through 2 rounds of that. So now they’re on their third design, and they're saying that the first delivery will be in either early 2015, or all the way to mid 2016. And that car is called the Transition. And it's based on the idea of a roadworthy car that can easily deploy wings and take off like a normal airplane. And there's different kinds of flying car concepts, there’s the kind with the wings, and maybe the tail section detached, so it looks like more of a real car, or like a small light-looking car that gets an attachment connected on to maybe one or more places. However, Terrafugia‘s cars and their ideas are self-contained, meaning that the wings will fold in and it doesn't need to drop off any components anywhere. So like I said, their car, the Transition, you can't take this thing off in your driveway or you from a long street, you need to go to a real airport with a runway, and you need a pilot's license to fly this. So this is a real airplane that just happens to be street-worthy after the wings fold in. Now this company that I mentioned already, Terrafugia, has already come up with the next model, and it’s called the TF-X, and this is a vertical take-off and landing vehicle, similar to the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey — I thought it was funny earlier in the show Steve, when you mentioned the osprey—

S: Yeah

J: Because you ever see that? It’s a twin rotor helicopter ‘slash’ kinda airplane-y lokking thing?

E: That's right, it's like a helicopter when you take off, but then it contorts itself into a jet or airplane

J: Yeah, so it’s like, the 2 engines, if you hold your two hands up next to your head and you point your palms up at the ceiling, imagine those are the blades. And then now bring your hands and point forward, and what happens is that's what the blades go. That’s where the 2 helicopter-like rotators move into position to help propel the vehicle forward. That's a similar design that they're using with the TF-X, except when it gets up to flight-speed, those propellers turn off, and it uses a gas powered internal engine that’s a 300 horsepower combustion engine. It's using two 600 horsepower electric motors, however, to take off and land. Which I think is pretty cool, so the machine itself is somewhat of a hybrid concoction here. Batteries are really heavy, and battery technology today actually isn't up to snuff yet.

S: No, not even close

J: They are developing this model, and they think that their design is going to see fruition, or come to be a reality in 8-12 years, and that's even past the typical 5 year “it's coming, it'll be here in 5 years” that we hear all the time in science in exploratory things. 8-12 years means it could be never

S: Yeah

S: Yeah, it means they have no idea. There’s major technological hurdles here, when they have this CGI animated video of this car taking off and flying around, it would be cool if it worked as what they're showing on that video. But it’s fantasy-land! I mean, they can’t demonstrate that they can produce that kind of thrust that the thrust that something of that size and the size of those motors and the power that they’re going to have in their batteries and gas engine and fuel tank is going to be able to lift the resulting machine. I mean, they won’t necessarily be able to get off the ground. And its range could be negligible, like 10 minutes. The break-down of what they’re showing, it’s not like they have a design, all you have to do is build it. What they have now is a fantasy, and it—

E: It’s a concept

S: Whatever, the numbers don't even add up yet. So it’s like, yeah, if we have some imaginary super-advanced battery technology or maybe even material, superlight materials, or whatever — I don't know what the hell they're thinking

J: Well, Steve it’s not that much fantasy, like, there is definitely future technology that they’re banking on. They’re trying to converge their design with future materials and future battery technology

S: I think it's a fantasy

J: I think it’s a risky venture, it’s risky. But you know Steve, also think about it too, even though people are investing in this company largely because they want a return, I'm sure that 99.999% of the people like absolutely want to see a return on their money. It is an investment in future technology, the technology’s not going to just go by the wayside if the company fails. They can sell off things that they've developed to other companies.

S: I'm not against people with money dumping and investing money into this kind of project. Please, build me my flying car, I absolutely want one. But it’s just that, it’s not like we're on any kind of path to the vehicle that they are showing in the animation. The technology doesn't exist, and there are some real problems with just the numbers, the physics, it doesn't quite add up yet. And also, the other thing about the video is it’s silent, there's no sound. A lot of people are saying there’s an inherent problem with the vertical take-off concept, because you have to use essentially some helicopter-type technology.

E: Yeah

S: You’d have to use blades. We don't have ‘anti-grav’ yet, right? Once you have ‘anti-grav’, then all that’s right.

It's going to be really noisy, and there’s going to be this massive down-draft to get the thing off the ground. And that's a significant practical imitation of where are you going to take off and land?

J: Yeah, I would think that a short runway flying car would be a better option, it uses less fuel

Y: Yeah

J: It’s the difference between the space shuttle taking off vertically, verses a space-plane that can take off like an airplane

S: Yeah, short runway might be better than the vertical take off. I mean, it depends on what you want in a flying car, like the Transition model you were talking about—

R: Cup holders

S: (laughs) Yeah, to me, that’s not a flying car. That’s a plane that can fold up it’s wings and drive. But it’s not really a flying car, because you need a pilot's license, and you need an airport. That’s a plane

E: Yeah, you do

S: In my book, if you need a pilot's license, and an airport, that’s a plane

J: Yep

S: A flying car is something you can take off from your driveway and you don't need a pilot's license to operate it.

R: I feel like you would still need a pilot's license, though. I agree with you about the airport thing, and you know, the runway problem. But I think once there's a viable car that will fly through the air, there are going to have to be laws that restrict its use, and you will need to get a special license to drive it.

E: Oh, absolutely

J: Rebecca, yeah, let's talk about what the company says, and then we can chit chat about all that. So, one thing that they were saying is, in order for this to really work the drivers don't need to be fully piloted, or fully licensed pilots, that they need to be trained, they said its gonna take like 5 hour training. Ultimately what this means is, it’s all computer-driven, like you're pushing buttons

R: Yeah

J: Like, you're going to tell it where you want to go and if there's an emergency, you're going to have to know like, okay it's gonna deploy a ballistic parachute if there's a problem, and there might be a couple of things you have to do under that extreme circumstance. But for the most part, you can’t expect the average person to have any kind of real flying skills, so we’re talking about, you know, Google, the computer-driven car that Google's doing, but for the air.

S: Yeah, that’s actually the easy part, like, we’re already there. Having computers fly the thing so that you don't need a license, that you can just tell it where you want to go? That's the easy part, and they are talking about, you know, there are different levels of operation. Like manual operation, you need a license — flying on instruments, you need a license. But just flying in fully computer operated, automatic mode, a chimpanzee can do it. I mean, that's—

R: Yeah, but can the average American?

S: (laughs) Yeah, but we’re actually already pretty good with the computer technology and the navigation systems. That’s not the hurdle anymore. The hurdle is the same hurdle that we’ve had for a hundred years, it’s just the physics of getting enough to lift with the fuel and everything, it’s just a problem. You know, we just need—

R: I don’t think we are quite there though, just because you're talking like— there’s a huge difference between a driverless car, and driverless plane. There’s an extra dimension, and also there's an existing infrastructure and law system that the cars can adhere to, and—

S: I've heard some people say that flying is actually easier for the computer than driving on the road, there’s a lot less stuff to navigate around and negotiate

R: Not when you're taking off from your driveway, and you're surrounded by power lines and there's other planes, and there’s restricted airspace.

S: But I'm saying I think we're a lot closer to having— that would just be like we could say oh yeah we just develop the software, the systems already exist, computers are already powerful enough. We’ve already worked out most of the basic technology. Just adopting it to a flying car, to me, that's the easiest thing to accomplish—

R: Yeah

S: —out of all the things you have to accomplish to make an actual flying car.

J: One more quick thing too. When you have a vehicle that’s in the air, you need the maintenance to go way up. You can't have it be like an old clunker on the road, you know? You're going to have to— the cost of repair, and all that's going to skyrocket, there’s going to be a ton of man hours that have to go into to that. A lot of people are going to need to be trained to be able to repair these vehicles, and do checks and everything. Just everything gets more complicated.

S: Yeah it's true

J: But it's coming, it's coming. It'll come, I mean, I’m sure within 50 years we'll have something

S: (laughs)

R: 5-10

E: Alright, I might be good for another 50 but…

Who's That Noisy? (39:40)

S: But Evan, you know what time it is

E: Who’s That Noisy time!

S: Yep

E: We had about the last week for Who’s That Noisy, and I will tell it to you again. Here we go:

A bank teller made a mistake today. The teller switched the dollars and cents when they cashed a check for Mrs. Jones, giving her dollars instead of cents and cents instead of dollars. After buying a newspaper for 5 cents, Mrs. Jones realized that she had remaining exactly twice as much as the original check. So, based on that information, what was the amount of the original check?

E: A lot of people had to dust off some old math skills in order to figure this one out.

S: It’s just algebra

E: Eh, that is really all it is. The correct answer is $31.63 is the correct answer

S: Yes

E: Yeah, lots of ways you could arrive at that answer. Some people created clever spreadsheets, other people wrote on the back of cocktail napkins at the bar. But there were lots of correct answers, there can be only one winner, and that goes to, from the message boards, Mr Pedantic.

(laughter)

S: Mr Pedantic! That’s how you say that word

E: That’s his name: Mr Pedantic

S: That guy again

E: Shows up often

S: Evan, what have you got for this week?

E: Yes, so we're going back to the classic Who’s That Noisy, I'm going to play a sound for you. If you're ready, here we go:

(female voice) So I went to the bookstore the following day after this much involved conversation. And the books fell out on the floor in front of me, and I picked them up, and there are lights all over them. So this is when I learnt about Edgar Cayce, and I learned about a few people I’d never heard of in my life, and—

E: If you would like to give us a guess, the email address for Who’s That Noisy answers is WTN at the skeptics guide.org and of course our forums is SGUforums.com. Give it your best guess, good luck everyone

S: Alrighty, thanks Evan

Questions and Emails

Question 1: Raw Honey (41:37)

S: We’re just gonna do one quick email this week. This one come from Adam Dietrich, from the United States, and he writes:

Something I've been hearing about a lot lately (and, living in Portland, that means every day), is that raw honey is of great benefit to the health. Everything from being a cancer cure (obviously bullshit) to a treatment for allergies (somewhat less obvious). While I have heard of its topical antibiotic properties and its use as a cough suppressant and relief for a sore throat, I wasn't sure how much of what is said about honey is actually true. Would the SGU have any insight?

S: Well, for our listeners that are not in the United States, you may not be familiar. Portland Oregon is definitely in the epicenter of holistic woo win the US

E: Yeah, one of ‘em, yeah

S: Not surprising. Yeah, one of them. There was actually just a community in Oregon, was it Portland? I just wrote it down — fluoridated water, the antifluoridationists had their way.

E: Had their win

S: Yeah, unfortunately. So, raw honey! Who knew that all honey wasn’t raw!

(laughter)

E: Organic honey

S: It’s organic raw honey.

E: Must be good for you

S: Sometimes, often, honey manufacturers with heat it up to 70 degrees Celsius to kill off things like bacteria and fungus. But if you are— you want to be one with Mother Earth, you want the fungus and the bacteria, because it’s all natural. In fact, I read an article while researching this item that identified 2 new candida species from raw honey. They’re discovering new species of fungus in raw honey.

J: I looked up some of the things they say it's good for

S: Oh yeah, it’s good for what ails ya

J: Yeah, of course!

R: Everything

J: I'm gonna ignore the simple ones like it's good for sore throats

S: Yeah

J: And laryngitis and things that are, you know, won’t kill you probably. It's good for bladder infections, very, very bad to ignore bladder infection. Upset stomach, or bad stomach pain or bad breath, bad breath could be a significant sign tooth decay, and it could be a precursor to a lot of other bad things

S: Like heart disease

J: Yeah, like, heart disease is an example. They're saying eat raw local honey, because the local bees are going to be in tune with your local situation

(general sounds of weariness)

J: I don't even want to continue on that one.

R: That’s the only one— I use to buy into that, and that made perfect sense to me. I think it makes really good like “folk sense”, whatever you would call that. Like, the idea is that your local bees go out and they pollenate all of the local plants, including the things that are causing your allergies. So, by eating the local honey, you're getting like a little bit what's causing allergies and in the way that people might think that vaccines work, then you vaccinate yourself against allergens. I totally believed that when I was younger.

J: Yeah, there is a little thread that you could consider to be not completely idiotic there. But it’s wrong. Bleeding gums, stomach aches, and migraines. They were saying that you can put it on wounds, like actual wounds.

S: There is a little bit of truth to that, Jay. That honey, it doesn’t have to be raw, just honey — and we talked about this, and Mark Crislip wrote an article about it actually, in Science-Based Medicine. It actually does kill bacteria, it’s an unfriendly environment for bacteria. It is a poor man's kind of topical antiseptic, so you you can rub it into a wound and it will be fine.

J: Yeah, but Steve, what are we, living on that game show, where you’re on an island? Come on

S: Absolutely, I would rather use actual medicine

J: But you go to the pharmacy and get a band aid, and some bacitracin ointment, or some type of antibac— like, don't use honey to put on cuts on your body, that’s ridiculous

E: Well it’s not your first choice

S: Yeah, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but there’s actually some rationale to that, and it can actually work

R: Yeah, like if you’re on a camping trip or something, and you get a scratch

S: But the evidence is weak. The published, peer-reviewed evidence is week, but it’s not implausible. And the allergy one, I’ve been trying to find some published evidence on that too, and I can only find preliminary, small, basically worthless studies. But again it's not completely crazy, ‘cause at least you're getting exposed to pollen, and yeah, that could theoretically affect your allergic reaction. But again, it’s kind of a thin argument on the evidence isn’t there. Everything else is crap. Everything else is just made up holistic nonsense, you know, treating any disease with—

J: Rub a Tootsie roll on your frickin’ wound next time. Get out of here with that!

(laughter)

Interview with Vijay Dewan and Scott Thurman (46:31)

• Interview with Vijay Dewan (producer) and Scott Thurman (director) of The Revisionaries.

Well let's move on to our interview joining us know our DJ to win and Scott Herman the chance got it thanks Shane's you and DJ you are the producer one of the producers of the movie the revisionaries send Scott you are the director of the this is a movie about who we do Rita couple weeks ago you were kind of to help set up as well so tell us about to the movie the revisionaries what about why did you do it 2007 I started becoming interested in delusion so you know the 80 S reading if you and there's blood in and seeing what other stuff online really interested in Dan Dennett inserted in his philosophy how was interested in calling and teacher teaching about evolution Texas just and evolution struction want to work in Italy classroom about this process news articles national news talking about the State Board of Education time so I decided to do you have a t-shirt science teacher in state tuition what is wrong with my morn more section to the politics of this is a shin of Education a sign national news that particular story would have a bigger audience mean really my idea was to increase good is win leaving any sort of positive positive role model for and someone that place is fun and we ended up doing half social studies because You know which is more of this uh I got a call from one of the guys got social studies and science world is at home insurance and so I can follow that guy in front of the jail for teachers and found the rest for me actually was in a different of a journey I am is mainly after college the first really read with the Elegant Universe ng from that open Rick Riordan my mind set on science science education and I got into your podcast and it was really early early interviews you guys did with you to the sky Steve shapers man on can Miller and a bunch of the other people involved with the text occasionally got me really tired I really wanted to do something about this I reset my friends were into filmmaking and I didn't even know Scott tired of this film we um we saw some videos on YouTube contact in my French class Texas in the rest of the street in the movie really spend a lot of time with Don McIlroy to his character and how is that drove the whole process it tells little bit but that so don't um is completely different when you read what he's done vs seeing in washing his behavior in the context of his personal life really the reason why I decided to follow him in his dentist office in church greatly surprised by the amount he was willing to give us his truck phone is ringing and ringing what you doing I was outraged I was on a mission to go and find out what are you doing and show it to the world in any way that service is in a little bit of his maybe underlining police or mine and his motivation against evolution but one thing happened in making this project in that was changed everything in that was that I got to know he was really kind and Grandpa figure that only in finding after the movie to audiences that you know are very aggressive sign down and see the damage done to sign in or interior your insurance you know it so I feel like I am often because I felt like maybe I head I had not done enough to show on a personal level how much of a genuinely trying to person she is an attorney this isn't necessarily story just about science education or the police station sign is a story about characters specifically persondata in his you know interesting huh fascinated by someone can never met anyone this trying to see me so hard to understand evolution yet only really see his perspective for free so God I really really tried hard to understand these concepts and made to study the whole life the last of it in the new jack what he's doing but I firmly believe genuinely wants to understand I'll never forget he told me when you're ready Millers only a theory that was the closest to creating understanding or is setting evolution and talk to her and see if she can write another book to her so she can do is all the while we play this game was trying to convince him he was trying to convince me to wednesday I just I just left the camera I was just going to report what he had to say and lead role play everything and you know my name well done and other people maybe maybe meeting Stacy revealing service motivations behind what are you trying to do against evolution but she's she really does CueT is he seems movie in for the most part is she really likes it in there in a preciate it and we still to this day off the movie and so we gave me a really is only have to say I really admired it was was giving me and you know we wanted to show and he's gotta be praised for the for allowing it coming out of it all and Indian Katie and Indian School in hiding using codewords with another IT issues but the bottom line is I think he's a very sincere person who's trying to fight science Chinese scientific argument understand and umm anyways I think there's some slightly in genuine overall person who's not the best person for the Board of Education Stephanie couple lessons here one is that is the power of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias he is seeing everything to a pretty sick filter the and if she thinks because he can come up with an argument against evolution that means older must be a problem with evolution underestimating the most people do how creative you can be coming up with exclamation just a very fact that he's teasing seize the Deal the revisionaries you see the documentary likes the way he's portrayed in a few think about it if you just try to watch the movie from the fish filter from the perspective of a Christian who believe in creationism and evolution is wrong and everything is cast in a different light all of his antics seem positive instead of negative the other thing that really comes out into the point you're making I do know what you see it surprise you that he was a genuine nice guy but that is something that we find pretty universally accepted into nursing true evil con artist out there but that aside most of the true believers that we deal with whatever side of whatever be a controversy the wrong Mr see your regular people yeah they're just walked in some way those are some major massive flooding the way that they are approaching the subject matter but to be 10 to create these icons for the cardboard notions of people and friends this is not true the real people with no regular got regular people you know and I don't like that picture of what No regular got regular people you know I like that picture of what so many articles it done with his dad real quality of a human being with food and then trace would rain more true and in a way I think of the portrait of people this is Ken say oh well cheerleading in the middle Dead Sea this is free she ate it is only be any of the Bulls I'm trying to feed that only you know in case you care if your ass is to provide a real service service these people coming from my angle iron grip in the Northeast I see never met a creationist my life and everyone I do believe I didn't even really understand that was the issue in till I collapse Notre Dame and Damer very smart very nice people who believe in evolution my mind coming to this project in a meeting Scott I really appreciated the fact that he created this three-dimensional picture of who don was rather than a caricature of lead to a lot of people think he is because I think a lot of people on our side have that had a crazy sorry I wanted to be released re 22 don was able to pull the full story you're done with the sound bite you know someone's gotta stand up sis expert that's all you see if him and that's what you think he knows you don't see the full more complicated person behind that statement hey just so you get the lesson of you have to keep bringing up over and over Kenny said everyone thinks there's a hero everyone is the hero of their own yeah you know no one is there is a villain shooting and what did you like about a con artist in a router to Bedford today probably rationalize in some way as well but you know in a few weeks been doing this long enough privacy to turn around against us and we're going to text by are ideological wanted to try to caricature us and engine you can tell they don't think that were real people they just see the iconic buildings near enough that they made us into hey so I think it's really is a very important lesson that people most people are people cool there's any sin sin and really close a lot of people of this is where may I say was that is not on the information 82 lease in the old days a single no I think we can get a lot faster if we had a great time I don't think its a coincidence that all of my favorite science communicators have a phenomenal tone and compassion and uh Oh Justin aka peacefulness about the way that they tock it's rare when you get it did Jeannie Scott or Carl Sagan come along in a date you want to listen to them you know I can listen to both of them speak for hours in and I love what they're saying how they're saying it and they're stacked on main idea of being fair very careful of the app um in that we're comparing apples and oranges science and non-science. I wouldn't be fair to the person rather than what I wanted to share about unfortunately it's not a new problem I think that's something that has to take the sugar skeptic unity for a very long time I've heard this exact same story from Jon Ronson for instance she wrote the book them Adventures extremis which is I think one of the greatest books skeptic could pick up because of what he does it finish work tonight with the book John just friends exclude include extremis Skype people who have a very strange least take them to the answer level and she hasn't responded to me right stuff and she had a really hard time at first 13 accepted amongst skeptics because of the critical of him for not shouting at these people for diet of Fritos for defending them and I think it's a shame that that's what are Frederick is it DC's it's it's it's it's very black and white shirt is you're right they're wrong kind of feeling and supporting the people like you guys and people like John are out there I'm continuing to humanize the clinical other side because at this week we are others them uh whenever if we can identify with the other side there's no possible way we can ever change their minds the matter said I think everyone has that has the Raleigh yeah the specific dates back to the doctor today and and docking station really great at least I think it's great it's bringing people over yeah yeah listeners can see the visionaries on Netflix if they have it they can go to your website 3 visionaries movie dot com and they could get the DVD or the day watch it stream directly online yeah I think that's no longer available but um is it maybe in the future I'm not a hundred percent sure about that alright will guide you so much for joining us is really great interview thanks guys

Science or Fiction ()

Item #1: Lucihormetica luckae - A new species of cockroach that glows in the dark has been identified, but may already be extinct. Item #2: Chondrocladia lyra - A large harp-shaped carnivorous sponge that feeds on fish and crustaceans has been discovered in the Pacific. Item #3: Paedophryne amanuensis - The world’s smallest vertebrate has been discovered – a 7mm frog from New Guinea.

As the Sun perfect but I try to tell me which one is the same for this week we have a team last year if you recall there was the umm top ten species discovered in 2011 this year we have a list of the top ten species discovered in 2012 top hits hey June its just you know what are you doing the past six my account what is seriously I'm not doing this okay here we go I didn't want the species is Lucy for medica Luke I can use pieces of cockroach I close the dark has been identified but may already be extinct for 200 cladia Lyra a large heart shaped carnivorous sponge that feeds on fish and crustaceans has been discovered in the Pacific and I never three pay to find an immense is the world's smallest vertebrate has been discovered a7 millimeter frog from New Guinea hey so what's the deal with this now what are you trying to do here so 220 top of these are real species discovered in the last year and one is not see how that works at the one that every doesn't exist at all well whatever one of them is to Jay you gotta figure it out but you go first okay the first one about the going to Darw cockroach we did they make a glow in the dark cockroach so there was some wacky we're going to Darw cockroaches that weren't made my lap and just what about the heart shaped sponge that feeds on fish that's pretty cool that's real that would be awesome to get a display of a song like a while he's coming up and then the 7 millimeter Frogger he's awesome okay I'm going to say that the glow in the dark cockroaches fake okay haven't yes in exercising guessing I suppose unless you're fluent in length I'm not I'm fluent in a gun in the game hahahaha me suspect how many of the wind say that I've been alright so the cockroach may already be expecting you think of a cockroach surviving a nuclear catastrophe in glow in the dark cockroach doesn't seem all that to a crazy idea what about the umm heart shaped turn off this train ever spongebob spongebob square art that sees on fish and crustaceans covered in the Pacific nothing special about that the last one is the frog 7 millimeters that small J I'm going with you I'm with you with the cockroach that one is the patient and Rebecca yeah I like the idea of a carnivorous sponge I like the idea of any angry and I'm at objects murder in things so that one definitely science and also use your the thing about the Latin alright lyrics heart tell me that once true smallest vertebrate pito freen PDF yeah I believe that I believe that there's a tiny frogs discovered um so yeah the cockroaches first of all that wouldn't have been that would have been one of the top animals discovered 2012 if its already extinct that's dumb I wouldn't that would make the top so that's the first thing that makes me suspicious that um other I can't believe that if there was a cockroach a good in the dark it would go extinct because I get a cockroach the whole thing is you to come out and your kitchen in the dark eternal light sale scatter healthy glow in the dark you be able to spray it with the bug spray before even turn on the lights so I get haaa haaa never know that that one is going to be at Ricker horrible Steve give it to her she is a reverse order then you guys all chosen one to start with the world's smallest has been discovered a7 millimeter frog from New Guinea that's all think that when the signs and that one is science it's not every year that you get to discover the smallest vertebrate the last winner was us a super need fish in 2006 was the last a title holder of smallish for this adult frog average length both males and females 7.7 millimeters with some exceptions this has been found in association with mostly flattering tropical forest green arrow which is a picture of it sitting on a Dime it's like to work by the time I remember that okay now that you mention that I remember a picture of a frog on a time for last year so it was okay one of the other items to the top 10 list was boys a sinus infection earlier this year s*** I'm sorry my son a minute number to a large heart shaped car never responded feet on fish and crustaceans has been discovered in Pacific you guys all think that one assigned as well and that one is the fiction nah ah oh sorry guys I really like the idea kinda hard in the Sun so there is Stacy to be seized the country radial I read was discovered it is a heart shape sponge very pretty um but it feeds on planting boring hi Disney fish and crustaceans that was in Plaza Park which means however that a new species of cockroach that glows in the dark and has been identified with me already txt is science this guy was identified it was he was I'm describing it officially became a species in the last year but the is known for me single specimen collected 70 years ago Free area recently heavily impacted by the reaction of the Conqueror okay no um to the their concerns that it did may have already been like that even has to be rich um so most actually uh glow in the dark land based in sex or quite rare most glow in the dark stuff in the ocean but everyone does fireflies right there to most common the people know if the most of my Beatles most glow in the dark yes what is more beautiful than any other insect tell em xinh other living thing I think I'm going to be like any other kind of animals um there's a Kevin having fungus gnats glow in the dark going over there was a previous piece of luminescent cockroach in 1999 was discovered good now we have a new one to the list lol look I look I not very lucky I've only found a reason to far from any light pollution not be hard to live in areas with less likely show me the scripture mating calls or whatever but not for a job shush sex apps to have the goddess the link show the pictures are very pretty sure I made you got your number from earlier this year police wings fly beautiful green lacewing with dark markings that was identified from a Twitter picture yeah somebody help load the pictures of liquor and then assigned to sunset hey that's a new species of placing fly chat also made the top 10 list me go over there was really quickly a teeny tiny itty bitty the rolling says its a yellow polka dot bikini going there HTTP tiny edbd violet viola Lilliput una familia put in one centimeter tall violet hey I knew a monkey from Africa only the second one to be discovered the last 20 years the less you love monkey has very human looking eyes very cute a snake called see bone no all I mean a which means no to the mine I guess its a Spanish phrase for people are protesting mining operations because its habitat is probably been mostly white out by mining operations Named it after social and a taco a black stain on the cave walls studio a of fungus see a black fungus that is a problem because it's actually threatening Paleolithic part and yeah that's bad idea Cajun French off the pill farts there's a white fungus threatening me now they wiped out the white fungus in every place for the black fungus boys had to take precedence what is the new fungus is in danger yeah uh oh what a president that are young haha remember the prime directive that and then uh Eugenia 90 s Katrina Scott genius which is AI to ginas if we ever green trees and they discovered a new species Patrick Kansas which is pretty like I'm classy green leaves and clusters of magenta flowers for a pretty to be told to play swing slide number 10 his sh how does the possible species a species of hanging fly hanging flies the implied hangs from certain species of hiking ko plants and a camouflage what looks like a lead to wings looks like the leaves of the plant and hangs there and then each other in sex I come close to the identified both areas of fossil hanging fly and the fossil plant that it was mimicking for 165 million years ago top 10 new species discovered and described in 2012 that from David Letterman Show you can vote for the 2013 species yeah you can submit your vote your choice nobody shows intro next year so keep an eye out for this for this is science fiction next year I'll explain this week everyone thank you speech to text even sure if I were here you would have gone no doubt about it MIB running another 10 minutes

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

J: Karl Popper!

Forrest dremas for dryness from Jackson Wyoming sent in this awesome quote you guys know who call poppers hi I just want to die or was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics and he said whenever theory appears to you as the only possible one take this as a sign that you have neither understood. Nor the problem which it was intended to stop call Papa getting the shop

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