SGU Episode 1046
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| SGU Episode 1046 |
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| July 26th 2025 |
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"Beware: This doll holds secrets best left undisturbed." |
| Skeptical Rogues |
| S: Steven Novella |
B: Bob Novella |
C: Cara Santa Maria |
J: Jay Novella |
E: Evan Bernstein |
| Quote of the Week |
“Ignorance is the most delightful science in the world because it is acquired without labour or pains and keeps the mind from melancholy.” |
- Giordano Bruno |
| Links |
| Download Podcast |
| 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 Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
E: Everybody.
S: Cara Santa Maria.
C: Howdy.
S: Jane Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein.
E: Is it bueno, Sara? Bono, Sara. Bono, Sara. Pardon me.
S: Yeah, so I just got back from a week in Sicily.
E: Ah, Sicily.
S: As a beautiful, beautiful country, Very beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. It's really, it's really different. So, you know, the, it's, it's deserted scrubland, but not that dry. It's got, there's lots of trees and olives trees and and stuff. But you know, it's not like forest. It's, it looks more like Arizona than like Connecticut. In fact, there are prickly pears cactus all over the place, even though it's not native. It was introduced in like the 1500s, but it's been such a part of Sicilian landscape for so long. It's like part of their culture now. Yep.
US#07: It's stuck around.
S: Yeah, very lovely. And did the cultural history is amazing because, you know, obviously there were the Greeks were there, then the Romans were there, then there were a lot of a lot of Arab occupation there and they eventually unified with Italy. So they're, you know, obviously part of Italy now, but they have all these different cultural elements, you know, still present. And, you know, we went to I think the most amazing thing I saw when I was there was the valley of the temples. It's A and it's also called the hill of the temples. It's like a hill in a valley. So sometimes it's.
E: The Lady Templi.
S: So yeah, they hurt. The Temple of Hercules is the best preserved Greek ruin in the world. Like Greek Temple, it's it's not intact, but it's pretty complete. You know, all the columns are there and there's a bunch of other ones that are in various stages of ruin. But it was cool. Very, very cool.
E: Were you able to visit all the major cities? You know, towns.
S: A lot of them.
E: Palermo, Messina. Cat Catania.
S: Yeah, we went to Catania, went to Palermo.
E: Syracuse.
S: Castle Amari did not go to Syracuse.
E: OK.
S: Yeah. You know, we had, you know, what was it like? We had a full week, you know, so.
E: Steve, did you see anything that might indicate it was a ruin from World War 2 or anything related to the war?
S: So I not directly, and I asked about that a couple of, you know, pretty much every tour that I took. So apparently all of the damage done in World War 2 was repaired.
E: Wow.
S: So most of the time I said, yeah, that's like Catania was was bombed, you know, pretty significantly during World War 2. And they pointed out this, this area here was, you know, pretty demolished, but it was completely repaired, you know, And then there were some places where, like in Catania, it's interesting because, you know, it's right in the shadow of Mount Etna, which is still an active volcano. And at some point in the last 100 years or so, a lava flow extended the area of the land, basically extended the shoreline so that all of the like, the castles and defenses were now no longer on the ocean. They were on the Mediterranean. They were inland.
E: I. See.
S: And so they were not strategically important because they were like no longer able to defend a port. And so they were not bombed during World War 2 because of that. It's interesting. The whole place is, I mean, it's, it's obviously a volcanic island. Like Catania is all lava. Everything's made out of blocks of lava. All of the the squares we had lavas.
J: I wonder if that's a good building material.
S: It is. It's a very strong, very good building material. Although they had an earthquake in 1690, something I think, and it was devastating. It was like it flattened the entire city. And they, our tour guide said they basically there's the before time and the after time, right? Like the city was completely rebuilt after the the earthquake. But you know what? What structures withstood the earthquake the best?
E: What would have withstood the earthquake the best?
S: The Roman foundations.
E: They're concrete.
S: Yeah, they weathered it very well, to the point that they actually built buildings on top of the the Roman foundations because they were so strong.
E: Yeah, they had the good. Stuff.
S: Yeah, that concrete just was yeah, we've talked about this before on the show. You know how it even got stronger overtime. So they they stood when almost every other building fell.
J: Now more importantly, Steve, you mentioned that they have very dense meatballs there.
S: They do. Their meatballs were very meaty. The meat. The meat to breadcrumb ratio is different than what we're used to is more meat, less filler.
E: How did you find that?
S: They were great. They were different, a little different. You know, they weren't as, I don't know, fluffy as what we were used to, but they were, they were fantastic. The food was good. The only thing is it's very heavy seafood and I'm not into seafood. So that, you know, pretty much anywhere we went like half to most of the menu was seafood.
E: Yeah. And the big and the big cities or towns are on the coast. So yeah, you would expect that, Sure.
J: Jas must have loved those two.
S: She did. She had like every night she had some different kind of seafood.
E: Steve, was it only Sicily that was your the entirety of your trip?
S: We went to, we started in Malta because my wife had a conference there. So that was just a weekend, like a Thursday to Sunday and then then a full week in Sicily. And that was like, that was not enough really. We were, you know, we drove all around the island.
E: Look how tiny Malta is on the map. Oh my gosh.
S: Yeah, but it's a good.
E: It's a spec bigger.
S: Yeah, yeah, it is a small island. It's a couple of islands, but. Yeah.
J: So you you fly there, Steve, or take a boat?
S: We, we took a ferry from, we flew into Sicily, took a ferry from Sicily to Malta and back. That was like an hour and an hour and a half. I say ferry. It's like a ship, you know, It's like a smallish cruise liner, you know, But it was.
E: Is it like the one we took when we visited the Great Barrier Reef?
S: No.
E: Ship like that, larger.
S: Much bigger.
E: Nice. Much, much bigger.
S: Yeah.
J: Oh God, the water there looks amazing.
S: So the Blue Lagoon was filmed there. It was. You're beautiful. Yeah.
J: Wow, wow, wow. Well, I thought I got to put that on my list. It looks fantastic.
S: Yeah, well, yeah, it was very, very beautiful. Obviously the a lot of movies are filmed there because it looks so old, you know, and the first in the first season of Game of Thrones, for example, the city of Medina in Malta was King's Landing. So of course that's part of every tour now. Like this is where here it is that Start was killed, you know?
E: Oh, my gosh. They're doing what Lord of the Rings did to New Zealand. Basically the Game of Thrones did to malt. Did to malt. Very cool. And it was just the two of you, how nice it was, you know, when was the last? When was the last time and who? It was just the two of you, right?
S: Yeah, that's exactly.
E: And when was the last time the two of you just took a vacation like this summer?
S: Couple years. We went to Bermuda a couple years ago. OK, but that's just Bermuda this. Was this was, Yeah. This is the first really extended vacation just the two of us because, you know, we have kids. So we've and exactly.
E: You want to take your kids and.
S: You want to give them the experience, but yeah, this is like a second honeymoon kind of trip.
E: Damn kid meddling kids, Bob meddling kids.
S: And of course, the whole time we're there, it's like, oh, we ought to bring the kids back and show them all this cool stuff, you know?
E: Oh, wish the kids were here.
B: You did not I.
S: Didn't say we wish they were there. We said we ought to bring them back, make a separate trip.
B: No, you're not going back. We're going to Japan.
S: So these are not mutually exclusive.
B: Well, we got to get to Japan before it goes crazy over there.
S: All right. Well, we got a great show for you this evening. We're going to start Cara with What's the Word?
C: Hey, that's me. This week I thought I'd do something differently. Mostly I was inspired by listener Ryan Taylor, who wrote to us and said much earlier this year, I thought this would be a topic of interest. You've had conversations in the past about the history of specific phrases like blood is thicker than water. You remember we went down that rabbit hole, and of course I do.
What's the Word? (08:34)
- Fossil Words
C: What's the word? This is in a similar vein. So he introduced the concept of fossil words. Have you guys heard of these before? I guess I hadn't heard that label, but I've thought about the.
E: Colonel, they're very.
C: Old so fossil words are, as he put it, and and this is like pretty standard definition words that have mostly disappeared from the English language but remain quote fossilized in several phrases. Like we might talk about short shrift, but how often are you talking about shrift in another context?
B: Short shrift, right? Yeah. I love those, yeah. Skullduggery. Yes, and so. Fell Swoop.
C: One fell swoop. That's a great example. And there are a ton of them. Like without further ado or run amok. I I rarely amok without running. How about you guys? Yeah, I just don't amok often. Well.
B: There's a muck. Time. Sometimes.
C: There are so many like this like oh I love this one. This one was fun as I was digging deep. Just desserts. It is DESERTS spelled like deserts, but pronounced desserts like a deserter because it's the state of deserving something.
E: Oh, dessert.
C: Yes.
E: I thought maybe desertion.
C: No. So if you get your just desserts, you are getting something that you deserve. You're not getting like dessert, like chocolate cake and that.
E: Phrase is kind of a negative. It's kind of a negative term, like somebody gets there just. As right, something that they deserve.
C: You got what you were asking. What you had coming to.
E: Be heard.
B: Here's 1 kith and kin. You don't hear kith.
C: I know I never hear kith and kin though. Is that a common one?
B: Well, you don't watch A Christmas Vacation, but yeah, I watch that every year with Les. But yeah, kitten kin.
C: I love the whole shebang. When's the last time anybody used shebang and like? I say that every once in a while. Yeah, every.
J: Well, there has to be something, you know, big, right? Yeah, it's got, it's got to fit it.
C: Well, and apparently programmers have taken it over and they use it in their in their languages as well.
J: If I remember correctly, Cara Perry used to say that he'd be like the whole shebang. Like, you know, he'd say it like that.
C: Yeah, I feel like I see so many of these and Steve, you may too, because I know Steve and I share our love for the New York Times crossword. Like eek out is always on the crossword.
B: But when?
C: When is the last time you said eek otherwise?
B: Well, in terms of fear, it's a word for that denotes fear.
C: Yeah, it's spelled differently. EKE EKE is. Ek what?
B: Oh, you're talking Ek? Yeah. Yeah, really.
C: It's spelled differently, Yeah. What does it mean EKE? Well, let's look it up. I mean, that's the thing.
J: I could barely, barely. Barely.
C: Oh, I thought you meant what's the etymology of it. I was going to say I couldn't get into the etymology of all of these things, but there are a fair amount. Like beyond the pale is a perfect example. According to Merriam Webster, it's not the word that we're used to using, like pale, like lacking in color. It was derived from a Latin word, palace, which means steak. So beyond the pale was beyond the stakes or the fences that made-up the boundaries. So it was outside of a boundary. That's where we got beyond the pale. It's not. It's a totally different word, pale. And then here's another one, kidnap. So nap apparently was a slang word for nab. So if you nab something, they altered it like in the 17th century and said nap instead. And the only way it's really stuck around is kidnapping. We don't use the word napping of anything else. It's different from the word nap to sleep. Totally different usage, totally different word just spelled the same. And there's a few others like that. Slipshod abated with baited breath. You only ever do any. Yeah, you only ever bait your breath. You don't really bait anything else. It comes from the same root as abate. We use abate all the time. Oh, sure. Abatement. We never use the word bait or baited. Yeah, it's just fascinating. And there's.
B: There's one in the in the offing.
C: In the offing. What's that?
B: That's just an expression that means like it's within possibility. You know your, your raise is with, you know is in the offing if you perform well. That's so interesting.
C: I've I've as I'm reading these lists, I'm only regurgitating the ones that feel salient to me, but there are so many that I'm like, I've never heard that in my or, or maybe I've heard it and I've read it, but I've never said it. Like do you ever say Wend your way? Like Wend one's way.
J: No, definitely.
C: Not me neither, but I see it all over all of these lists. Oh, here's another one. This one is, I think, relevant for a lot of skeptics. Slight as in slight of hand. It's the only time we use that word.
B: Yeah, that's right.
C: Isn't that weird?
E: But you can slight someone at the same time.
B: It's funny because I I have noticed these fossils from time to time, but I never really realized how many. Yeah, there are a lot. So many now when you think about it when you dive down this rabbit. Hole.
C: Oh, you stick something in one's craw?
E: Stuck in your?
B: Craw.
C: What else are you talking about? Craws, crawfish or batten down the hatches.
J: That's legit though, there are hatches that need battening.
C: Exactly.
E: Down. That's the only thing you batten, right?
C: It's really the only thing you batten.
E: You batten up the.
C: Hat, you might say bored and battening with when you're talking about a sail, but yeah, otherwise those are that's it. You only batten a hat.
E: There's a way.
C: Fascinating. Anyway, so thank you once again to Ryan. That was really interesting to dive into and now everybody will notice them, you know, when they are running amok, Not walking amok, Yeah. Oh, wreaking havoc. Haven't havoc without wreak in a while. Haven't wreaked without havoc either.
B: Yeah, wreak havoc.
E: Wreak. Destruction, yeah.
S: I want to, I want to pay attention, to come up with some more, yeah.
E: We'll try to inject as many as we can going forward.
S: Well, what you do is you find out what the pieces of it mean, and then you use that out of context. Oh yeah, appropriately, but out of the. Idiot.
C: Yeah, you use it in context, but out of the. Yeah, out of the fossilized phrase like.
E: There is a there is a word I looked up specifically for my news item and so a little foreshadowing there, which is a rarely used word and when you hear it, you'll probably know it.
C: Well, here's one that I think we could all probably use. Like ulterior. Yes, it is still kind of in common parlance, but you only ever hear it when talking about ulterior motives. So maybe we can all use it to describe other intentionally kind of hidden things. Ulterior. I don't.
E: Know.
C: We're just going to come up with a bunch of synonyms. Well, our brains are so.
E: Trained to hear motive after ulterior. Now you have to decouple it from that. It's not natural.
C: Fascinating.
S: All right. Thanks, Cara.
News Items
New Supermaterial (15:35)
S: Jay, tell us about this new super material.
J: Well, slow down there.
E: Is it kryptonite?
J: It's cool, it's cool, but there's a lot to talk about. Well, first of all, you know, we have to talk about plastic in general real quick to kind of set the stage here. So as you guys know, right, plastic is unbelievably useful. It's used in all applications at this point. I mean, we're, you know, where isn't it used? We we just can't live in the modern world without using it. It's cheap to produce, it's chemically stable. You know, it's useful in pretty much every industry. But the problem with plastic is what that it doesn't biodegrade or does it incredibly slowly. It's it pollutes the environment. You know, it's like I was saying, it's this is not biodegradable stuff. It does. It just stays there and it leeches chemicals into whatever, you know, whatever surrounding area that, that it's in, you know, major concern here. The amount of plastic in the world is this, this freaking blows my mind. It's larger than the volume of Mount Everest. The, the, the used plastic in the world would, would bury Manhattan under 1 1/2 kilometers of plastic, which if you think about the, the sheer volume that we have in our environment, it's, it's unreal. You know, we have research now that shows that it harms our ecosystems. It's entered the food chain. The recycling rates are just abysmal. They are so low. It's pathetic. And, you know, current global efforts are simply nowhere. They're just, there's, there's nothing going on here that's going to regain the ground that plastic is taking from us every year. So of course, lots of companies and, and research labs, you know, there's a huge effort to replace plastic with the material that has, you know, most of, if not all the benefits of current plastic, but none of the negatives. And it's been impossible to do so far. So for example, like past attempts that have been made, you know, they could come up with a material that would work, but it's way too expensive to make. It's not strong enough. It requires really complicated chemical processing, which know the chemicals are expensive, that some of them could be very dangerous. However, there is, you know, of course, I'm going to pivot this to some research that's that's happened that has shown, you know, something promising that I think is worth talking about. South Rice University and the University of Houston, They they might hopefully they might have developed something that could one day help us move away from the plastics that we use today. So their research was recently published in Cell Reports, Physical Science. This is a journal and they outlined the process for creating a very strong biodegradable material from bacterial cellulose. This is unlike most plastic substitutes. This one, you know, actually performs better than many of the metals and glasses that are being used in manufacturing, both in strength and thermal performance. Now, Steve, I know there's different kinds of strength. I think in general for the applications that they could make with this, it would be, you know, stronger than the plastics that we're currently using. So they have some key innovations here. Cellulose is already the most abundant natural polymer on Earth. It's everywhere. It's, you know, it's doesn't cost anything to get your hands on it. It's what gives plants their rigidity, right. So when you have a you know, plant stalk that's standing up, you know, out of the ground, it's using cellulose to to, you know, have that form to hold it in that form, but there's a bacteria now that the name is so ridiculous, I don't even know if I should try to say it. I'll try it Ready. Cara, just be patient with me here. It's.
E: It ends with an I all that.
J: It's Komagatai bacter Xylenus. Komagataia bacter Xylanus that's.
C: Probably kind of right?
J: Yeah, close, right.
C: Sounds good.
J: In order to produce this, they spin cellulose into ultra thin nano fibers. And these are long chains of glucose that form dense entangled mats. And that's basically how plants make it, right? It grows that way and it's not uniform. There's no, there's no rhyme or reason to how the, you know, these strands like connect to each other. It's all chaotic. You know, you could just think of them as randomly aligned, right? All these different strands that are going in all different directions. Now they're they're strong, but they're not remarkable in any way. So the the Rice Houston team changed that by introducing this interesting mechanical constraint. What they did was they grew the bacterial cellulose on a rotating gel in a bioreactor. Right. So just think of it as like a flat plane that's spinning around inside of a bioreactor. And that's and that's the environment that they grew the cellulose in it. And this rotation forced the bacteria to lay down cellulose nano fibers in the direction that they wanted them to for it to grow in. And this formed ordered sheets rather than chaotic tangles. So that that shape in that way that they connect with each other is uniform and it fixes lots of problems. So the result is a highly aligned cellulose film that has a tensile strength up to 436 megapascals. So that doesn't mean anything unless you know, let me give you a comparison for most of us who don't really know what that means, 436 megapascals in comparison. So a common plastics like PET plastics, we use those in water bottles, food containers, synthetic fabrics, right? They have a tensile strength of 50 to 100 MPA or megapascals. So aluminum tops out like at 400 and even some types of glass fall short of where the engineered cellulose could get to from a from a strength perspective, which is really cool because of course we want it to be strong. And as an added bonus, Steve, because you're purchasing today. No, but as the team said, as a as a bonus, right? You know, they didn't even know this was going to happen, but they found that if they essentially doped the films that the cellulose is is being grown on or laid down onto. If they if they these films have boron nitride nano sheets, right, that are there during the biosynthesis. Now these you know, these are atom thin structures and they're known for they're known for high thermal conductivity and strength and they bond to the cellulose and they make a matrix. And what this does is it's like a film with a tensile strength now up to 553 megapascals, which is even stronger, right?
S: Pascals.
J: Pascals. That's exactly. Isn't there a guy named Pascal? Yeah, was. I will never say that incorrectly again. So this now is more than five times stronger than the PET plastics like water bottles and food containers. It's three times better at dissipating heat compared to the untreated cellulose. And all this is happening without needing high temperatures or chemical solvents or any expensive post processing. The bacteria essentially build the material in one step. Now, of course, this sounds so good, right? You know, there there some takeaways that we're going to get to. But you know, before I go there there this would have potentially broad applications. You know, you could use this material in thermal management for electronics which you know, if you think about how many, how much thermal management is happening in all these heat producing electronics that we all have. I mean, each one of us probably owns, you know, 2345 devices alone in the house. That turns into a lot of of need for thermal management. They could use it for packaging films, biodegradable textiles, flexible sensors. It happens to be optically transparent. It's foldable. Like I said, it's strong and it's more thermally efficient than conventional plastic. So it contains no toxic byproducts. There's a, there's one called Bispherenol, a BPA, right, BPA that's not present in this and unlike petroleum based polymers, it will naturally degrade and that's important. It doesn't introduce anything funky into the environment. So you know, this isn't just lab tinkering. Like they're not, they're not just like hey, lab scale tinkering where they make a tiny little bit of this stuff, but it would cost an incredible amount to mass produce it. The process can be scaled up using the rotating gel platforms in standard bioreactors. It makes it far more viable than most of the other green materials that other companies have come up with. Most of them, if not all of them, couldn't get out of the small scale production, and they're not seeing a problem here with that. So this is the first time that bacterial cellulose outperform plastics and metals across multiple categories, again, without requiring exotic methods or expensive inputs. So I did try to specifically find out like what what this is on track for. So, you know, they have to do all the things that need to be done in order to, to get past the initial gates, right? They have to, they have to prove that it can be scaled up to, you know, very, very large amount, right? It's not just, you know, hey, we want to make enough, you know, we want to make a pound of this stuff a day. They probably, you know, are looking way past that, like for mass production, they need to find out, you know, how cost effective it'll eventually be. I read that there are steps along the way where it could be like, you know, there are some early uses of it could come out as soon as like 2 to three years. But for it to go into like full production and, and really be replacing a lot of the products that we use, it's probably, and I hate to say it, 5 to 10 years. That's the, you know, we've said this before, but the five to 10 year thing means they don't know how long it's going to take. It could be less than that it depending on how well the research goes and everything. You know, this isn't like testing, you know, medical procedures or a medical interventions on people where there's, you know, an incredible amount of testing that has to be done. They could get to the finish line in a few years of things go really well without, you know, how well the testing goes. And you know, as they scale it up, it's, there's nothing holding it back. I'm being hopeful because I want to think that my kids have the chance of living in a future that isn't completely choked out by the plastics that we're making. You know, I think about this all the time, like on a personal level, like I, I have, I don't buy plastics if it's possible, you know, if I'm in the supermarket, if I can find ketchup in a glass container, I'm going to do that. It's not easy and, and most of the time, you know, I can't do it, but you can. You can find some products that are in glass containers, you know, switch brands if you have to. Whatever we all need to stop or aluminum, it's fine. Exactly. I love, I love it when a water bottle, like you want to buy water and it comes in in a big aluminum can. I love that.
S: My my big question, Jay, is how much will it cost? Is it cost effective?
J: Yeah. That's that's I think the the big one, yeah.
S: If the deal. Killer.
J: Of course it could, you know, but if the price is a little bit more expensive, you know, I think it would be fine. I mean, if it's like 10 times the price, you know, we don't know anything yet, but I'm going to keep an eye on it. You know, this is on my list of things I'm looking at. I really do hope that this works. And we imagine that we just dump all this stuff in a landfill when we're done with it, and it just biodegrades and goes away and it's totally fine.
E: Jay should look for cats up. I think that comes in a glass.
J: I will do that immediately.
E: Instead of the ketchup.
S: All right.
Avi Loeb and the Alien Hypothesis (26:50)
S: Thanks, Jay. You guys remember who Avi Loeb is, right?
E: Oh. Yeah, Avi Loeb. How's he been? What's he chasing?
S: That he is the Harvard astrophysicist who whose claim to fame came when he he speculated that the first interstellar object that was detected, Amuamua, might be actually an alien probe.
J: Yeah, a spaceship, if you will.
S: Right. So remember a couple weeks ago we talked about the third interstellar object, the three eyes?
B: I did.
S: It was.
B: A wonder. It was a wonderful news site. It was very well delivered. Early research.
S: Early researched Avilo published a paper and then wrote an opinion piece saying that we need to investigate whether this is an alien artifact. And he has the Galileo Project, which is dedicated to looking for techno signatures, you know, of alien technological civilizations.
B: And that's a. That's a worthwhile endeavor. Absolutely.
S: I and he.
B: I think that's how we're going to find him.
S: I thought that may be the most likely way that we're going to detect the existence of alien civilizations. As to their techno signatures, I agree. My, my problem with him is not that he's doing that, it's that he's doing it wrong. He's just not doing a good job. I mean, he's he is, in my opinion, falling into this pattern that we have encountered many times of a scientist who is not familiar with pseudoscience who then falls into all of the pseudoscientific pitfalls and traps.
B: Right.
S: We've talked about this occasionally over the years on his show. Like, remember there was that neurologist who fell for facilitated communication, same kind of things like you don't knowing science, even being a, you know, world class scientist at an institution like Harvard is not protection from falling for pseudoscience. If you are not familiar with all the critical thinking stuff that goes into understanding pseudoscience. Remember Mack, who also was at Harvard on Mack? Yeah, John Mack, the psychiatrist who thought his patient were actually abducted by aliens. I mean, you know, come on. Anyway, so here are some of his arguments. They're so bad. They are. So they're like embarrassingly bad. But he outlines his arguments. 1 is that well, well, three eye Atlas, you know, getting into interstellar comma. It's zipping through our solar system. It's going too fast to be bound by the gravitational, you know, pull of the sun. So it's, you know, on a hyperbolic pathway. So we know from its from its path that it came from out of the solar system and we'll leave our solar system. So and it's a third interstellar object that like that that we have detected. So he has done what we call anomaly hunting, right? Oh, let's just look for features and then invent some reason why this might be an indication that it's an alien artifact.
E: Yeah, especially if you have a preconceived notion about things and try to retrofit it.
S: Yeah, like he's that he's starting with it. Like let's look for things that might indicate that Italian, right. So one thing he says is the orbital plane of the comet of three eye Atlas is about 5° off the ecliptic, which is, you know, pretty close to the ecliptic. And he says there's a .2% chance that that would be the case, that the IT would be 5° and it would be in retrograde compared to the planets, the direction that the planets are going. So, but OK, So what you know, why would the, you know, the plane of the comet being in in in any way predictive that this is this might be alien.
B: Right. Would we even notice any that we're not in the plane?
S: Well, so he is assuming the the 2, the point 2% comes from, you know, any possible random arrange, you know, orbital plane. So I looked into that because I know what you're saying, Bob, like what if we're looking for them more in the plane? But Atlas is a whole sky survey. So I'm assuming this is the whole sky survey that it does have an equal chance of noticing things in any plane. So that's fine. My real problem with, I mean, first of all, if it's, if you're just going by the five degrees, it's actually 2.7%, right? 10°, five degrees on either side of the ecliptic out of 360. But he includes the fact that it's retrograde. But again, he's then he retrofits. It's like this sharpshooter fallacy. You know, he's drawing the bullseye around the, the hole. So what? Why? So he says, because it would make it harder for Earth for, for observers from Earth to detect it. Oh, and therefore to intercept it with chemical rockets.
J: That's oh. My God, like they know they. Know chemical rockets exactly all about us.
S: That's that's one problem with that. The other means it's also it's it's. That's how that's a secondary problem.
B: That's why it's the.
S: Primary problem is like, So what you know, you could have found invented some reason why an alien might desire any possible feature, you know, parameter of this comet. This is not something that you could predict ahead of time. Again, you're just completely retrofitting. But yeah, there is this this deeper problem of and he is connects to another point that he makes. You know, this is like I think his worst point. He says, you know, so the at the speed it's going, it would have entered our solar system 8000 years ago. And he says.
B: Wait, wait, do we have? Do we know enough of it's orbit? No, it's orbit. That's what he says.
S: This was roughly when human made technologies became advanced enough to start documenting history on Earth.
US#08: Oh, here we go.
S: Again, so the Frick what? So, Well, maybe he's saying that the aliens knew that we were interesting at that point, right? So then they sent the probe to take a look at us. But it makes no sense at all when you think about it. So first of all, why are you starting your count at the beginning of our solar system? Where did the probe come from?
E: Right outside the solar system.
S: Yeah, but we don't know where.
E: Yeah, right.
S: You know, that's completely arbitrary to say that that that's when it was the aliens decided to send a probe our way. And also because that's when we started to document our history. So what? That's not when civilization became that's region dude crossed and threshold again. Talk about searching for any justification, right? There's nothing special about 8000 years ago, but.
B: That's such motivating. Yeah, totally.
S: But it but Bob then you relate that to the well they sent. So makes another point that it will get it to its close approach to the sun when it's on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth, right. So it's perihelion will be hidden from right that because that would be the best time for for it to fire its rockets, to change its orbit, to stay in the solar system and and peep and observers from Earth wouldn't be able to see it.
E: We can't. See it No evidence.
S: It's well, again, it's it's astrology level retrofitting. It's like so you, so it's making so many assumptions about the motivations of the aliens, the, these alleged aliens who were sending in their probes or first of all, think about this. So if he's arguing 8000 years ago, the aliens decided we want to take a look at that planet. And then they, they orchestrated this orbit so that, you know, 8000 years ago so that it will be in the plane of the ecliptic. So we could it could like send probes or take a look at multiple planets, you know, on its way in, but be hard to detect for an astronomer on Earth and also make maneuvers on the opposite side of the sun hidden from Earth. So that that assumes that we're at a particular place in technology 8000 years in the future. And not only that, but that particular impossible, it's impossible to predict, but it's essentially where we are right now, which is chemical rockets, which is probably just a tiniest little blip on our technological times. TCL Right. First of all, we could we could have fission rockets right now.
B: We had them in the 60s. We're testing them. I. Mean, I know it's like it's just a quirk of it's. History. Why we don't?
S: It's a quirk of history. It's not a foregone conclusion that there's going to be any prolonged period where we only have chemical rockets.
B: Also, Steve, if the if that thing is trying to trying to hide its trajectory change on the far side of the sun, we could still detect something happened like wait a second, that trajectory makes that new trajectory makes no sense, no.
S: What we would immediately know something happened and he said, because that way you could come and then visit the Earth. It's like, then why hide itself from us if it's if it's going to come visit the Earth anyway?
E: Steve, you're not a Harvard astronaut. He said. OK. You don't. Understand.
S: It's almost childish. I'm like, come on, that's your reasoning. It is such anomaly hunting and special pleading and it's just bad. So again, I it's the almost the worst aspect of it is that it gives a bad name to academic disciplines searching for techno signatures, because I think that's a legitimate endeavor. But when you have like, the face of that, be somebody who's doing it so poorly and making arguments that are so transparently nonsensical, it actually is accomplishing, I think, the thing that he's most afraid of, right? So if you read his article, he's very defensive about sort of the academic and scholarly legitimacy of what he's doing.
B: He must. Yeah. He's gotten lots of pushback.
S: Yeah, for good reason. But he's missing the point. Yeah, he's. He's saying we need to keep an open mind and it would, you know, like he's.
B: That's not open.
S: Yeah, It has nothing to do with the things he's talking about. It has nothing to do with this isn't a legitimate academic concern or having an open open. It has to do with your.
B: Eye to open your brains.
S: Fall out, dude. That's what it has to do with only that your logic is crap and I think a lot, you know, so he needs some one O 1 in critical thinking in pseudoscience so that he does not fall in the podcast Latent pitfalls.
C: Read our book.
US#08: Read our book, start there.
S: You could start that, absolutely.
US#08: And then become a listener.
S: So frustrating. And then, you know, he tried. Then he finishes all up by jacking off, right? Just asking questions kind of approach. He's like he says. That is a hilarious. Excitement.
B: JAQ ING off I love it just.
S: This is how we finish. This is towards the end. Our paper is largely A pedagogical exercise with interesting realizations worthy of a record in the scientific literature. By far the most likely outcome will be that three I Atlas is a completely natural interstellar object, probably a comment, and we await the astronomical data to support this likely origin. Nevertheless, when viewed from an open minded and unprecised perspective, our paper includes many compelling insights that could be applied to 10s of interstellar objects that are expected to be detected over the next decade by the Vera C Rubin Observatory. No it doesn't. It doesn't include compelling insights. It includes horrible logic and terrible arguments, and that's the problem. But you could see how defensive he's being trying to like justify what he's doing.
B: That actually would have been cool if he came up with a list, you know, if he said no. Atlas. OK, Atlas, I'm sure it's a comment, but here's things that we could look for in the future that could be interesting and informative and somewhat anomalous and really come up with real things to look.
S: For actual anomalies and something that might have some predictive value. Now, the problem with the predictive value thing is that we don't have any. We don't, We don't have any gold standard, right? We don't know how to judge how predictive any feature is because we have nothing to compare it to. We don't. We can't say we've seen this before. And these are features that we can statistically correlate with interstellar objects being an alien artifact, being a natural phenomenon. We're just speculating. Again, he's just speculating very, very poorly. I think that he almost admits by saying that it's overwhelmingly likely to be a natural object. He's admitting that all of his things together have almost no predictive value. I think though, he thinks it has a small predictive value, whereas I think it has 0 predictive value. It has 0 predictive value because the methods he's using are so bad. Because he's anomaly hunting and retrofitting and special pleading. The fact that he also, you know, now runs an organization that gets donations to do this, you know, you could make of that what you will.
E: At least he's consistent.
S: That's not it's not a good thing, though. When you're consistently bad, that's that's not a good. One he clearly. Has learned nothing over the last seven years after his Abu Amour. Experience.
B: Yeah. It reminds me of Ralph Kramden. Ralph Kramden, you know, screws up.
US#06: Yeah.
B: Remember the honeymoon as he screws up again and his and he says to his wife Alice, no one's 100%, you know no one's 100% and his wife's like you are you get it wrong every. Time.
S: No learning curve that I can detect. All right.
Belly Fat Jab (40:51)
S: Anyway, Bob, tell us about this belly fat jab.
B: All right, fat in the news. Fat in the news. Taiwan's Callaway Pharmaceuticals announced a first in class injectable drug that safely appears to safely remove fat cells near the injection site, not just shrinks them, they're gone. So this their study is based on the fate their Phase 2 results which were recently published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal. The papers name is Efficacy and safety of CBL 514 injection in reducing abdominal subcutaneous fat blah blah blah. I don't know about you guys, but care and I are very excited about this.
C: Yeah, we've been talking offline about this.
B: Right. This is like I I send every week. I send. Here's my here's my news item. Some physics or astronomy thing. No, no word for a decade. From Tara. I do this and she's like Bob, Oh my God, let's get on this study.
C: It's like way better. I'm so excited.
E: Yeah, you guys. Don't.
B: All right, So why are we excited? Why are we excited? Do I even need to answer that? We're human first of all, right? Most humans are obsessed with this. The global weight loss industry is projected is projected in 2034 to be about 1/3 of a trillion dollars, 300 more than a third $360 billion by USD. So what? So why is this big? I don't know. I have some notes here that I think I'm just going to I don't want to go on a rant, but losing weight or fat is specifically is a pain in the ass, right? It's it's hard. People are obsessed with it because it's it's hard. And of course you've got a factor in the media, right, Always throwing in our faces. You know, you got to you got to be skinny and muscular. That's all that what that matters. So it has made people into these like machines looking for ways to lose fat, to lose weight, right? Temp temporary diets are horrible, right? Because they're statistically almost certain to fail in the, in the long run, right? Restricting calories is, is really hard. And, and trust me, when you get, when you get a little older, it's like ridiculously hard. My body's like, no, you're going to eat right now. You're not going to get hungry. I don't want you to get hungry. It's like I can't, I can't allow myself to get hungrier than usual. It's just a weird thing. I don't know if you guys are experiencing that too.
C: It's also, I feel like as I get older, my calorie deficit and it's have to be more extreme because my metabolism is not what it was when I was young. Like when I was young, I could get away with eating a lot of calories and I was more active. But it feels like even now when I'm pretty active, my, my just basal metabolic rate is so much lower than it was before. It's just hard to get rid of it. And I like that you were saying fat and not weight because it's not really about losing weight, right? It's about losing, especially belly fat.
E: Yeah, the dangerous stuff.
B: Well, I mean, This is why Ozempic is is so popular now. It says as popular as I was trying to think of an analogy as coke in the 70s, right? It's just a, a weekly, it's a weekly injection and you almost certainly are going to lose weight. But even with Ozempic and and similar GOP one drugs, they're problematic. And we talked about it on the show a bit. They cause both fat and muscle loss. And muscle is, you know, notoriously difficult to build and it's, it's among our most precious tissues. And losing that is, is actually, it's a horrible because you know, you lose, you lose fat and muscle, then you gain fat back. So you're, you're actually worse off you, it'd be better if you didn't lose any weight at all because you, you end up with even less muscle. So Ozempic also is good in a lot of ways, but also bad because because you're losing some muscle as well. So this new drug also has this the added benefit of not only of not only killing fat cells, which is, which is, you know, a lot better than just shrinking them. Because when a fat cell goes away, it's, it's gone. It's, you're not going to be building new fat cells, especially after adolescence, it just really doesn't happen. So, so this drug, you lose the, the fat cells die only only near where it's injected. So let's talk about the drug more specifically. It's called CBL 514. It's a small molecule drug and it triggers something called adipocyte apoptosis, fat cell death. This is programmed cell death that uses chemical triggers to do that. It's a natural process. Any debris, any dead cells are cleaned up by our immune systems and metabolized into energy or harmless waste products. So this is a a natural thing that's that's not dramatic, that doesn't impact other critical systems of your body at all. And there's there's three possible uses for this drug. There's the non surgical fat reduction, which I've been mainly focusing on, but also Cellulite on. This would help with that. And there's also a disease called Dirkham's disease. Hadn't heard about that one. That's apparently a condition that causes painful fatty tumors to build up around the body. This sounds like this would be perfect for that just, you know, killing those fat cells that are causing the pain. This sounds like a great application for that. So, OK, this new study specifically about how this drug did in its phase two trials, we've mentioned phases like this probably scores of times on the show. Phase one is essentially a small group of people, 20 to 100. It's it's first time and it's essentially for evaluation of safety and dosage range. And, and if there's any, you know, obvious side effects, that's a phase one. Phase two, as we're seeing here, expands this study to a large group, 10100 people to three, 300 people and then to see how effective it is and to further evaluate its safety. Phase 3 then which could come after this could involve hundreds to thousands of participants.
C: Sign me up.
B: Yeah, so, so there is actually I did find one drug that is similar to this. It was an injectable drug that could get rid of fat in very small areas where they were injected. It's called ATX one O 1. It stands for Deoxycholic Acid injection.
C: Is that that's Kybella, right? Yeah, that's what I was mentioning before. Kybella seems to be the only thing on the market it but it's it's like an acid that injects and kills the fat cells with acid. It doesn't actually induce apoptosis.
B: Well, yeah, that sounds nasty. Currently, though, that is the only FDA approved minimally invasive injectable treatment for fat reduction. And it has been effective for small areas, but the side effects are scary. We're talking about skin necrosis. Hello. Dead skin, ulceration, nerve injury and infection. So no, no thank you. I won't be go anywhere. Going anywhere near that. That sounds pretty. Nasty.
C: And it's mostly not. It's not used for belly fat, it's mostly used for double chin.
B: OK, Yeah, OK. So now CBL 514 has no side effects like that that that have been detected. What they did see was the following. So if they had a phase 2A study, So this is a preliminary kind of like a preliminary phase two. It was mostly proof of concept at this point. The paper says that the drug had a favorable and acceptable safety profile as well as efficacy in reducing subcutaneous abdominal fat at multiple dose levels. So they, they, they show that this, this thing works and there's no, there was no obvious side effects. So now the meat of the paper though, goes into, goes into the phase 2B trials and there was two of those. So there's two papers, one for each of the phase 2B trials, which, which looked more again at efficacy and safety information. Now, the first phase 2B trial was it was randomized, single blind and placebo-controlled. It had 76 participants and 80% showed a greater than or equal to one grade AFRS improvement. AFRS stands for abdominal fat rating scale, which is didn't know that thing existed. They one article described it as as 5 categories of A of abdominal fat rating. So they improved one of those and I'll give a little more detail a little later. The second phase 2B study was double masked, placebo-controlled and it was multicenter US and Canada and that had 173 participants. So for both of these, the researchers found that the safety profile was very favorable. It was it was consistently acceptable across both trials. No serious systemic side effects. The worst that was a local injection, swelling and pain. Almost everyone, I think 99% didn't note that there was some swelling and pain. Some people had a little bit more pain than others, but that was really the only thing that that I came across in the tube in the two papers. In the papers conclusion, they said our results indicate that targeted injection consistently and significantly reduces subcutaneous abdominal fat comparable to that achieved by liposuction and shows a favorable safety profile. Over 75% of the CBL 514 treated participate participants who achieved the target fat volume loss greater than or equal to 150 milliliters required just one or two treatments. So it worked for the vast majority of the people, 75 to 80%. I believe there was some loss for it seems, I think for everyone, but 75 to 80% reached the target, which was 150 milliliters. So they're they're also the other number that they throw around is like like 20. The second test here, the second study looked used MRI specifically to really take a close look at the fat and yeah, there was like 20 to 25% of the of the fat layer was gone, something like that. So pretty dramatic, pretty solid. So it's also, I think it's important to emphasize that this isn't just for aesthetics. There are, you know, there are reasons to do this that are more than just, you know, how you look and, and how you feel about yourself. You know, like I said, that there's also this works for Cellulite and Dirkham's disease, but the focus is on this non surgical fat fat reduction. So it's so it's more than aesthetic. The benefits are much broader. Abdominal fat, especially as we age is related to serious conditions, including this chronic pain, There's stroke, cardiovascular disease. Even though the drug targets just the subcutaneous fat just under the skin, it does not specifically target the deeper visceral fat, which is, which is critical as well. Because that it's that fat that's, that's kind of, you know, and meshed around your internal organs. It's that, it's that fat that that is why men have much more heart disease than women, because we have much more visceral fat.
J: How quickly does it work? Like is it kill the fat cells like within minutes or what?
B: No, I think, well, they were, I think within a week or two. It's, it's on a scale of weeks where when it, when it's it's, you know, they were going back and testing them to make sure to see how much they had lost. So yeah, it's fairly quick and you know, a week or so.
C: And you were saying it doesn't touch visceral fat?
B: No, it doesn't. But but that said, that's said, they said that it, it seems like it could have a positive impact on the hard to treat visceral fat, but they need more research on that. So there may be a little bit of a benefit to the visceral fat, but you know, the effect doesn't go too much farther from the injection site. So if you're just injecting it, you know, into your into your belly, you know, the visceral fat's farther away. So it's going to be, you know, it's not necessarily going to have a direct impact. So it seems to be a maybe a little bit of an impact, but but I think that they need more research for that.
C: But if you're already reducing your total fat store load, then the work that you're doing may have a greater benefit on visceral fat, like if you are doing calorie deficit or you are increasing your.
B: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And and even just reducing the subcutaneous fat can it can still reduce chronic disease risk at least. So there's definitely could be some very good benefits to, to, to getting rid of this fat. All right, so the next step here is phase three, which has already started. There's they're planning on over 300 participants across 30 clinical sites in US and Canada. If Canada even still wants to work with us at this point, we shall see what what happens. So, so based on the clear results of phase these phase two studies and the extensive preliminary work that that they've already done with the FDA for phase three, there is hope that this drug could be commercially available sooner than what may be would may be typical. One of the articles I read by bronwyn.thompson@newatlas.com claim that this drug could potentially be commercially available in 12 months. That seems overly optimistic. And Steve, I know you agree with that. That's probably overly optimistic, but it, it could be, it could potentially be much sooner. This is I don't think this is going to be a five year, 10 year thing at all. It could be, you know, maybe a couple of years or maybe even even sooner. I don't know. But they, they're definitely into phase three at this point. And if if this gets cleared and everything looks good after phase 3, then there's nothing really that's going to stop us. And I think if this goes well, if this goes very well, this is good. Just going to explode. I don't know what the cost would be. But then I think this could be Ozempic level, like, you know, frenzy of people trying to get their hands on spot reduction of fat with with just some swelling and pain in the injection site. To me, that's just like, people are going to be clamoring for this.
J: Bob, do you think that this is going to cost a ton of money or what?
B: I don't know, hard to say I.
C: Don't think so. It's only a single. It's it's it's effective after a single or two.
B: Injections.
C: Even if they are really expensive, it's not going to be like Ozempic. You have to keep taking.
B: Yeah, for it's a weekly that's weekly for for a bunch of weeks.
C: Kind of like forever. I think that the people who go off of it gain the weight back.
B: Yeah, they go.
J: Well, the devil's in the details, right? So like if they if they give you a single injection and you know it has a certain amount of biomass, it's going to get rid of, right?
B: Yeah, those cells, those cells are gone. So even if you lose weight, yeah, if, if you if you gain weight back, you're you're gaining the weight with fewer fat cells. So it's just not going to be the same, you know, it's not going to be the same.
C: You'd have to make whole new fat cells and that doesn't have to replace that.
B: Right. And that, but that doesn't happen after. There's like 3 times in your life where you actually create fat cells. The, you know, the last main, the last time that happens, you know, like when you're born is 1. And also adolescence is another one. So when you're an adult, you're pretty much done making, making fat cells, you know, from from scratch. So if you get rid of fat cells that then they, they are gone. Your body's really not going to create any new ones. And the reason why you, you have areas of your body like compare your stomach to your bicep, you're that the amount of fat cells in your per unit area of your bicep under your skin is far, far, There's far fewer fat cells there than in your stomach that you know, there's this under your, you know, under your, your in your abdomen, there's lots of fat cells there. That's why it, it might, it gets bigger quicker than any other than any other place in your body because there's more fat cells there. If you remove those fat cells, that's just, you know, it's not going to be a problem area nearly as much as it used to be with so many, with so many fat cells. It's just they're not there.
S: Yeah, but to be clear though, you still will gain weight, you still store fat. You you'll, but distribution of that fat storage will be altered by the fact that you have artificially eliminated fat cells from one party.
B: So problem areas will be less problematic is another is another way to put it.
S: You might. You might develop new problem areas though, that are even worse than the one that you just got rid of.
C: Well, this is, I can see this being purely, well, you said that there were some kind of like diseases that this could tackle. But for the most part, this is going to be a cosmetic development that is targeted towards individuals who are a relatively healthy way or have mild like or who are somewhat overweight and not morbidly. Yeah. And who are just struggling with like basically with confidence about their bodies.
S: Right. Thanks, Bob.
Hormone Therapy (56:58)
- AND https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/health/hormone-therapy-menopause-fda.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/health/antidepressants-ssri-pregnancy-fda.html AND https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/health/hormone-therapy-menopause-fda.html [4]
S: Cara, tell us the latest news about hormone therapy.
C: Yeah, not just hormone therapy. There's actually two things I wanted to cover today that are sort of, I guess, process stories that are there are two FDA panels that convened recently. Both of them were, I'm not sure if they were led by, but both of them, yeah, I think they were because they were introduced at least by Doctor Marty Mccary, who is the new FDA commissioner under the current administration. And I'm feeling a certain kind of way, like I'm being pulled in two different directions. So I'm going to be really curious about the insights of the team here. So the first one, actually, I'm going to go away from hormones and come back to them in a minute, has to do with antidepressants during pregnancy. So for a very long time, a lot of research has gone into determining the safety and efficacy of basic antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The article in the New York Times that covered this panel focuses on Prozac. Prozac kind of came on the scene about four decades ago. That's fluoxetine. That happens to be the antidepressant that I take. And a lot of research has gone into determining its safety and its efficacy during pregnant. And although there are some potential side effects and there's some risks, low level risks, A slight rise in the odds of birth defects time and time again, it does appear to be the case that the risk of a mother having untreated depression during her pregnancy outweighs the the minor risk of an increased odds and birth defects. Yet, as we know, the Department of Health and Human Services is led by Secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior, who overseas the Food and Drug Administration, specifically the FDA. As I mentioned before, the commissioner is Doctor Marty Makary. I've read up on Marty Makary, Interesting guy seems to have a lot of legitimacy to his training, to his active work as a pancreatic surgeon, specifically doing surgical oncology. He trained at Johns Hopkins. He was involved I think with Atul Gawanda in the surgical checklist that was developed there at Johns Hopkins. But he and he was an advocate of universal masking during COVID, but he has opposed broad vaccine mandates and he has had some kind of concerning views about about vaccines. At the same time, like, it's hard to pin down whether his decision making has been political. He donated to Obama's presidential campaign, but he's also been an adviser to a conservative health care think tank. So I think that I'm hoping at least that. He is a person until we're proven otherwise, that is making decisions or at least personal decisions and policy decisions where there is no, I guess, pressure put on him based on the evidence and based on his clinical thoughts and feelings. That said, we don't know. We don't know. He is starting to see, it's starting to seem like there's a shift in his conversations about things like food dyes and things like that. But let's let's take a step back and let's talk about these two panels that he ran. The first one is about the use of antidepressants during pregnancy and whether or not the FDA should actually add, add a black box label, which has never been there before. Many individuals who watch the panel and reported on the panel have stated that they felt that the panel was very biased and very anti psychiatry, that many of the experts on the panel have backgrounds and agendas that seem to be anti psychiatry. So we had for example, somebody named Doctor Joseph Witt Doring who is the founder of a tapering clinic that works to help patients quit anti psychiatric to quit psychiatric medications. He claimed that many women will come to him on antidepressants and he tries to help them get off because of the risks to a fetus. We also have two British psychiatrists on the panel that were invited by the FDA who have long records of criticizing the use of psychotropic medication, Doctor Joanna Moncrief and Doctor David Healy, who have written books about psychiatric medication and who have also served as expert witnesses on trials involving psycho psychotropic drugs. But there was 1 panelist named Kay Roussos Ross, who is an expert in postpartum health at the university in Florida, who actually made a case that, you know, antidepressants are really important in treating pregnant women, especially those who may use substances or or forgo prenatal care if they're not taking their antidepressants. And so there is some concern that this panel was convening as a politically motivated panel that is, I guess we could say biased against psychiatric medications and that the decision making of the panel may not be evidence based. Now if we switch gears to another panel, and this is interesting and confusing to me and I'm again curious about your Steve, your take, but also the rest of the the Rogues. Another panel that recently convened is calling for the removal of black box warnings on certain hormone replacement therapies. Specifically, one of the things that they really focused on in this panel was the black box warning on topical estrogens. Now, the panelists stated that many of the black box warnings that come with menopausal hormone replacement treatments are based on findings of studies that were performed when HRT dosages were significantly higher than they are today. They were also based on studies that were performed where the average age was significantly older than the average age of those receiving HRT currently, because many people are starting hormone therapies while they're still in perimenopause, not when they're officially in menopause. And so there's kind of a a double argument that was put forward in this panel. The first one was all of the risks and we're talking about potential, you know, blood clots, cardiac risks and stroke. That was kind of led to the original black box warning label that was put on these hormonal menopause products. These HRTS was again based on a higher dosage than women take right now. The other one is that it was all based on oral hormone, so systemic hormone and not topical treatments like vaginal, like creams or ointments that are often used to counteract some of the symptoms of menopause like vaginal dryness and painful sex. So it's, it's an interesting argument that sort of gets to the heart. I think of one of the important conversations that has to be had when it comes to biomedical science, which is that there's the research side of things and then there's the regulatory side of things. And the hope is that those two things play nice and that they're in lockstep. But the reality is that very often there is either a delay or there's kind of a slowness to to titrate, for lack of a better word, the way that we regulate these things. At the same time, there are some individuals, and I think Doctor Jen Gunter is cited in this article and she's, you know, a very prominent skeptic in the OBGYN space saying, I am still really concerned about a lot of the side effects. We don't have enough evidence to show that they're not harmful. That said, she specifically kind of mentioned that the, the topical argument is one that she agrees with. It's just, it's, it's disconcerting when we see experts across the field or across and we, we talk about this all the time in our discussions of, of biomedical science here as skeptics, right? One of the things that we often talk about is, is consensus, right? That there are certain things that are sort of, without a shadow of a doubt, the vast majority of experts have consensus on, and that's how science work. Science works, right? We look at the consensus of subject matter experts. Then there are other places where there may be finer points that are still up for debate. And those are really interesting edges that are important to dive into and to talk about and to try to promote and fund more thorough and creative efforts to do science in those areas. And then there are those places where it's sort of the sharpshooter fallacy, right? Where a decision has already been made due to a bias or an agenda that's being forwarded, and then the evidence is cherry picked. And right now we're living in an era where there's so much evidence. There's just a lot of science, a lot of good science, but a whole lot of junk science. And it's very easy to cherry pick and make what sounds like an intelligent argument for almost anything. And so it's it's, it's worrisome that we're living in an era where science is deeply, deeply politicized. And so I'm, I'm curious, Steve, in your reading, especially of somebody like Doctor Marty Mccary and in your reading of like these two very different panels that were convened and run by similar people about both adding a black box warning label to something that in my view probably doesn't need it. And removing a black box warning label to something that I don't know if I have enough a background to know if it should be removed or just altered yet.
S: There are certain trends that I have noticed right over the last 30 years with these kinds of expert panels and the FDA recommendations etcetera, etcetera to keep in mind. SO1 trend is that there's a tendency to be risk averse, to be more worried about causing harm than missing out on a benefit. And sometimes the numbers don't favour that approach. You know, like we we.
C: Especially if the harm is not death, like if the harm is not death or dismemberment.
S: Whatever, even if it is, it's a, it's a numbers game right At the end of the day. So and so, like even within my own specialty, I've seen drugs get a black box warning for a theoretical risk that wasn't even shown to be actually the case. And then 20 years later, people are still avoiding that use of a medication, even though like now we know there's no risk. Like the risk?
C: Well, and that's what they talk about a lot in these write ups is the idea that this does change prescribing and it changes consumer uptake of these drugs like, and, and here's here's an example that I'll give you just to interject and then, and then please continue. I, I take a drug for a, a disorder, what are called idiopathic hypersomnia that is massively black, like it's got a black box warning and it's really regulated and it has a lot of really dangerous side effects and worrisome side effects. That said, it is the only drug on the market that's FDA approved for my diagnosis. Everything else that's given is off label and there's even a drug that's somewhat off label that's now has orphan status for my diagnosis because my diagnosis is very rare and it's debilitating. And the risk benefit analysis is such that because I can tolerate this drug, my neurologist and I agree it's very much an important drug for me to take. On the flip side of that, if you guys remember on the show I talked at length, I was very open about having gone through hysterectomy. After my hysterectomy, I couldn't take birth control anymore because I, I used vaginal birth control and I had a lot of side effects from going off birth control that I didn't like. I had an explosion in acne. I didn't feel well. My hormones like my, my moods were all over the place. And so as soon as I could, I got back on it. Then I had a blood clot and now nobody will write me a prescription for the birth control, even though we know that my blood clot was caused by like it was caused by an iron infusion and but, but nobody will come near it. Back in the day when I tried to get on it, they were like, oh, you have migraine with aura. We're not going to prescribe it. And I remember really struggling with that. I remember my gynecology saying you can't take birth control because you have aura, and then my neurologist saying that's outdated. That's. Outdated. Nobody takes birth control at the level they used to take, and now it's not a risk anymore. And so you see that different specialties are arguing. And then as the patient you're stuck in the middle going how do I get the help I need?
S: There is a specialty bias, and that's such familiarity with the literature because you know why? Because neurologists read the neurological literature and internists read the internist literature. And they not they don't necessarily read each other's literature to the same degree. And that matters because, yeah, so like, there's a lot of drugs where neurologists have come to a comfort level with it where, like, cardiologists are afraid to use it. And that you hit upon one was the hormone therapy in migraine with aura. I reviewed that literature because I have to make those recommendations to my patients. And it's like, it's not really a risk. It was always a minor theoretical maybe sort of might be a risk. But then you can give the the progesterone only. And really it's only a risk if you also smoke. If you don't smoke, don't worry about it basically.
C: And. And there are such low dose estrogen drugs now.
S: That's true. And also you fail to consider the risk of not treating because I know that has a risk as well. So the so that's the risk aversion thing. I think there's a bias in there that you have to think about and you may want to consult with multiple specialists that you know on big decisions for that reason. Get different perspectives. But the other thing is that even when you have well meaning evidence based practitioners, there's not always an objective answer because it is risk versus benefit. And the question is what? What is more meaningful to you? A this risk or that risk, this benefit or that benefit? And there's no right or wrong answer and people come to different conclusions about it. I can remember the same. We had the same debate about how old should we start recommending routine mammograms and two different panels came up with two different age cut offs. And it was based upon how much of A risk do you think is the anxiety caused by a false positive?
C: Yeah, I was going to say a big part of this is a conversation about psychological health, which I don't think historically was considered as much. And the truth of the matter is a black box warning carries weight psychologically and it's very because all drugs have a package insert, right? All drugs are legally required to list the risks and the side effects. At what point it does across a threshold to require a black box warning and how much of that is up for debate, I don't know. I mean, I think that is an important categorical question.
S: There's also a medical legal issue here. It's like there's a one question is what do you think is probably the best medical decision? But there's also the question of what is the decision you're confident you could defend in a court of law?
C: Yeah, those aren't always the same thing.
S: Black box, black box warnings are like a, a don't go there kind of thing. It's like that's people doctors worry about that.
C: Yeah, it's like do it at your own risk. But I remember, I remember asking my my neurologist, I was like, listen, is there long term data about this drug that I take who's that's only been on the market for a few years, taking it nightly? And he was like, not really. Like we don't. So far it seems like people are OK, but we don't have longitudinal long term data. And I was like, should I be scared of that? And he was like, well, you know, what we do have is longitudinal long term data of what happens when you sleep 12 to 14 hours a day and it's not good, right? So it's like at a certain point that sort of risk versus benefit. You're right, we bias towards risk aversion without remembering that the do nothing approach comes with its own risk.
S: Doing nothing is a risk. Yeah, absolutely.
C: Yeah.
S: Yeah. But the social media TikTok universe is all about risk, no nuance. There's no risk versus benefit. This is the RFK approach. It's all about he's texting a lawyer. What risk can I, you know, can I scare people about approach to healthcare? It's destructive, it's actively harmful. It's not really logic and evidence based.
C: That's why I'm so, so curious and confused about these specific panels because 1 is about adding a black box label to something that does seem to have a political agenda behind it. But another was about removing a black box label to something that I guess historically RFK and Mccary have been proponents of hormone therapy. And so it's interesting, like, what is the motivation there? I don't know more to dig into for sure.
S: Right, right. All right.
Death by Haunted Doll (1:15:41)
S: Thanks, Evan. This is a, this is a funny story that we have a personal connection to.
E: We do.
S: Give us an update. Tell us about the haunted doll.
E: Annabelle the cursed doll back in the news we covered 1 five years ago. Five years. That was the last time we spoke about Annabelle. Remember, that's when COVID was raging. That's how long ago that was. I have dubbed Annabelle the second most well recognized doll in the world.
C: Behind Chucky.
E: No second, Barbie third. Barbie. Oh, Barbie. Barbie was #1, Chucky was #3 and Ken was #14 What about Kermit?
S: The frog.
E: Didn't make the Liz.
S: Oh, come.
E: On you know, it's not a doll puppet doll if.
S: It's a muppet, man.
E: Yeah, it's a little bit different. Well, in a case, and as Steve mentioned, we have seen, at least the guys have. Sorry Kerry, you weren't with us at the time, but we saw Annabelle up and close. In fact, one of us, Bob might have touched her. No, no. Or in the case I mean in the case it.
B: Was it was in the case I couldn't get to Annabelle on 14 but I've I'll never forget. What's his name? Demonologist dude. Ed Warren. Ed Oh my God, it's like don't touch anything because people have died who have touched because everything was so was so cursed. So I'm walking behind him and literally touching everything within reach in his everything 20 years ago, whatever it was still alive. It's like so ridiculous. Come on, don't. Touch anything but Bob.
J: That might be why you can't lose the last 5 lbs.
E: It could. Be that's the curse of Annabelle. Work.
US#02: There you go. There you go. Worth it. Totally worth it.
E: Annabelle is the name of a Raggedy the Ann doll which came into the possession of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the original Ghost Hunters. I don't know, Did they start the genre? Can they be credited? They gave it a boost.
US#02: I don't know if they were the first.
E: Person, Yeah.
US#02: And they go back a ways though.
E: 1952 is when they started with their shtick boy, I tell you what. Well, in any case, Annabelle Raggedy Ann doll. According to the Warrens, back in 1970, there was a student nurse named Donna, no last name, and Donna was given the doll. Donna lived with her roommate Angie, also no last name, and both soon noticed strange occurrences. The dolls seem to change positions on its own and move from one room to another room when no one was looking. And then things escalated from there. They allegedly found mysterious notes written on parchment paper with which they didn't own. It wasn't their paper and it would have notes that would read things like Help Us. The doll reportedly even appeared to have blood like red liquid on its hands and chest. So they decided to seek some answers. Donna and Angie consulted A psychic medium who told them the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle Higgins had attached itself to the doll. The spirit said she felt safe with the women and asked permission to stay. So out of sympathy, the girl said yes. But they were all of them deceived because it's according to Ed Warren. When they investigated the case, the Warrens concluded that the entity was not a child's spirit, but a malevolent demonic force that used the Annabelle persona as a ruse to gain trust and ultimately possess a human being. So what did the Warrens do? They took the doll from Donna for safekeeping and for spiritual containment. They performed a blessing and placed the doll in a locked glass case in their Occult Museum in Monroe, CT, not far from where we are right now. And thus, the legend of Annabelle the haunted doll was born, stolen by, and brought to you by the imaginations of Ed and Lorraine Warren. And of course, the legend of Annabelle grew with every retelling by the Warrens and their acolytes and eventually, hey, the public at large, Annabelle became the showcase of the Warrens collection of supposedly haunted artifacts. Right Bob? All the things that you touched in their, in their, in their collection. And there it was, a locked glass box. Annabelle lived where it could no longer conduct its evil doings. And a sign on it that says do not touch. We see the real power is for those who touch the doll. If they touch that doll, they become the victim of Annabelle's evil curse, which brings misfortune, misery, injury, and possibly death to anyone unfortunate enough to touch. Now, as I mentioned, we actually got to see Annabelle. Among the other hoarder clutter that was in that basement, and there's no other way really to describe it. All those magical cursed artifacts that they curated as part of their Museum of haunted objects, so much so that the Warrens boldly proclaimed their basement because of that collection was the most haunted place on the planet. And they were not just I get a.
B: Picture right now and I see. I see Annabelle, but I also see two skulls that I actually own identical versions of those skulls, which makes me very happy.
E: And you too can buy them at Amazon I'm sure.
J: So guys, let me, can I ask a question sure at this stage in, in your description, right. For anyone that might not know more details about Ed and Lorraine Warren, the primary question I think that people should be asking themselves is how did they not get if? If those items were truly possessed right, why would they feel so secure to bring all of that into their house? Like literally below them.
E: Yeah, it's a good question, Jay. And that is because Ed and Lorraine Train claim to have specific powers of their own and training on how to handle such. Things. Either that or they were full of shit. One of those two. Yeah, it was one of the IT was one of the two. He Steve, he was a demonologist. All right. Do you have a degree in demonology? I don't.
S: You have a degree in Bologna?
E: Exactly. And Lorraine was a clairvoyant or an aura specialist. She sees auras. Everybody illuminates some sort of. And for us it was, you know, our auras apparently weren't good because she felt that somehow science interfered with anything good going on about our auras, if I recall. All right. Well, Anna.
B: Did you phrase it? How did you phrase it guys?
E: Was it the science?
B: Thing, was it the science that did it to you or something?
E: Yeah, she did. She did. She was she.
B: Was Oh my.
E: God, she wanted to know how we fell from, from holy grace. You know, very religious people, clearly. Well, OK, Annabelle. I think most people know Annabelle from The Conjuring movie series. That extremely lucrative franchise up to date, I checked it, $2.3 billion. This is the highest grossing horror franchise in history, $2.3 billion of gross receipts at the gate, Bob, that's.
B: Crazy. That's ridiculous.
E: So that's it, Annabelle's cemented into popular and horror culture. No way around it. Well Fast forward OK many years. Ed dies 22,000 and six. Supposedly not related to Annabelle or any other curse. Lorraine dies in 2019, also not Annabelle related. What became of Annabelle at that point? After Lorraine's death, the Occult Museum and the organization they founded, Nesper Any SPR, which stands for the New England Society for Psychic Research, became maintained still in Connecticut by their daughter Judy and her husband Tony Sparrow, who have we mentioned on the show before. So they ran the museum. Now the museum was ultimately later that year shut down because apparently they've been were in in various had various zoning violations for many years having this attraction in their basement. Oops. So like any good huckster, what you do, what do you do? You take your show on the road. Annabelle and many of the Warrens collections of oddities have turned into a traveling carnival show. COVID slowed it down a little bit, but in recent years it went back on the road and it is still drawing pretty decent crowds. Here is the news item for this week related to this. His name is Dan Rivera, 54 year old paranormal investigator and lead researcher for Nesper. He died on July 13th, 2025 in his hotel room in Gettys, Gettysburg, PA during the Devil's on the Run tour featuring Annabelle the doll. As part of the tour, Rivera was traveling around the US with other members of Nesper to show off Annabelle, among some of the other things that the Warrens used to keep in their museum. His death came after he finished a three day sold out stop in Gettysburg and the show was hosted by something called Ghostly Images of Gettysburg Tours at the Soldiers National Orphanage. So for what you want, you know these places they do host paranormal and ghost related themed events.
J: Unfortunately, Evan so so we got the, you know, got this collection of like, like incredibly dangerous stuff. And now it was given to the daughter and the son-in-law. Now they have the skills that Ed and Lorraine had, the magic skills.
E: That's a good question, Jay. Good follow up on that. No, but I've seen pictures of each of them handling Annabelle wearing black gloves.
J: Oh, the gloves.
E: So. So apparently these are plus one magic items of some kind. At the clubs that do nothing. That allow protection against such against such things. They have not released the cause of death for Dan Rivera yet. They said it'll be 8 to 10 weeks before there is an official release or the investigation or whatever is concluded into his death. The no, no foul play is suspected. It's some kind of health related reason. But they'll, they'll tell us in a couple weeks what was what the 'cause.
J: I predict it had something to do with a ham sandwich.
E: You never know. You never know. That's how Mama Cass went and Rivera was a feat, was featured as a paranormal investigator on the Travel Channel's Most Haunted Places and served as producer for a number of other shows, including Netflix's 28 Days Haunted Anyone in the net in the world of Netflix, Listen to our show. You think, I mean, would you know, because we're available as I guess is what I'm saying, to either come on an existing show, make a show. We would love to offer some some rare insights and other things about our history, our investigations, a lot of the things we've come across in our, you know, now 30 plus years of having done all a lot of this stuff. And I think that would make for an interesting at least part of a documentary, if not a documentary unto itself. But so I'm just saying Netflix, we're available. Give us a call. Again, no foul play expected was suspected. But again, the history of such of Annabelle is that they're a tribute and all these attributions are from Ed and Lorraine from their story. So it's all ghost storytelling. That's all this is. Someone died in a motorcycle crash after they mocked the doll after visiting the Warrens in their museum. A priest had a fatal car accident when the priest said something negative, apparently in the presence of Annabelle. People have been assaulted or had marks on their bodies unexplained after having visited and perhaps somehow insulted Annabelle. I like this one. Even Ed Warren once had a problem. He said, he said on one occasion his vehicle's brakes and power steering failed in the car. So he had to like, you know, swerved or somehow get, you know, get the car to stop. So Annabelle was the cause of that. Apparently he was transporting Annabelle from wherever to wherever. And the way he he he got the car to stop. And then what he did is he sprinkled holy water on Annabelle in order to get the immediate effects or whatever curses she was putting on Ed at the time to go away. There is some speculation that Ed micturated on Annabelle, but again, that's. Just a rumor. Piss on. Yeah, piss on No.
J: That's I didn't want to have anything, yeah.
E: But there's a, there's a whole angle.
J: Evan, there is a whole angle here that I'm surprised Ed didn't think of. He should have talked to Annabelle and said, let's open a car dealership together. You, you damage the cars as they drive by. I'll do the repair work. We'll split the profits.
E: Well. Yeah, I mean, that's that's as good as anything else that's ever any idea that I think has ever come out from the from the Warrens and their and their infamous history, as it were.
J: It's so convenient that they could just, you know, assign, you know, blame or or you know, that the doll did this, the doll did that when, you know, some guy died in a motorcycle crash, You know, it's like, I think it's disgusting that they're they're making claims like that. Oh, this guy talked bad about this doll I have in my basement and that's why you know, this, this motorist died. You know, it's like, who the hell do you think you are, commandeering this person's story to further your bullshit?
E: It got a lot of press this week because of this death and all the new, you know, and that you're reading these new stories about it. And they are, they're telling those stories again, Jay, about, you know, the Warrens claim that this happened and this happened. It's like, yeah, they gave us the same stuff. 0 evidence of any of it, obviously. What was our conclusion after they showed us their best evidence and told us things and you know, but it was all just garbage. 100% ghost stories. They're the greatest ghost storytellers, perhaps in history, but they have nothing else that is thorns.
S: All right. Thanks, Evan.
Who's That Noisy? + Announcements (1:29:15)
S: Jay, it's who's that noisy time?
J: All right guys, last week I played this noisy. OK guys, any clue what this is?
E: Well, there's multiple sounds there. Something sounded like a truck, right? Like an 18 Wheeler either pulling up or driving away, or that's kind of the background. But there was also this squeaking, kind of struggling to open the pickle jar kind of noise.
J: Yeah, I've heard that too. Yeah, this one is very interesting. So I I would have been able to identify this sound and that's only because I, I was exposed to it. And it is something that once you hear you kind of it, you know, you can recognize it. But I couldn't imagine someone straight up guessing and getting it right. So let me let's get through these. Listener named Joshua White wrote in said hi, this sounds like an old push mower, the kind without a motor and you have to push it for the blades to turn right. So he's talking about a manual push mower, which we actually had when we were kids. It was our grandfather's push mower. And he's right. If you didn't, you know you have to push it for the blades to go and it was hard as hell to use. You guys remember that?
E: Yeah, I could work out. It's a brilliant, brilliant invention, yeah. No power needed. Totally, totally green.
J: You have a mechanical only push mower Steve.
S: I got it for just like small area spot work. It's it works really well.
J: There we go. You got to keep the blade sharp. Got a man you got?
S: To keep it free of rust and keep everything sharp, yeah.
B: Yeah, I used to. I used to have one when I lived in Danbury and I used it mainly for the workout because it was a.
E: Yeah, a good workout upper body.
J: I remember like as a kid pushing it and like I could only get it to cut like about 6 inches of grass by the time it stopped because you got like you push it really hard and I wasn't big enough to keep it going. But anyway, they're hard anyway. That is not correct, but thanks for the memory. A listener named Dan Oberst or he, oh, he gave me the pronunciation. It's Obersty. And now that I see it, I think I was wrong all these years. Like, yes, it is, Obersty. Sorry about that, Dan, because I recognize your name and I think I've read it before. So anyway, Dan said this week's Who's that noisy is the sound from inside the equipment penthouse over an elevator shaft. Now, I think this is a good guess for sure. Yeah. I've heard the noises that elevators make throughout the years of my life. I I did get trapped in an elevator once, but I didn't hear any of these noises then, and it was completely my fault. My.
US#02: Was 100% fault I was with. You in Italy?
J: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, you know, we were doing something in there. I remember exactly what we were doing, by the way, that stopped the elevator.
E: Oh yeah. So it was a it was an attempt to get the elevator to stop.
J: No, we were trying to rub our feet on the carpet in the elevator to produce static electricity.
E: Well, that seems. Harmless.
J: We did it and for some reason the elevator stopped and then some dude had a hand crank it to get it down. And I just remember like somebody yelling to that guy in Italian. You never been.
S: Like hour and a half.
J: Yeah. Oh. That's scary. 90 minutes or it was a sweat box man.
E: That's good.
J: Awful. Yes, but it's this noisy is not anything to do with elevator shaft, but I I do hear some similarities and sounds that I've heard. Another listener named Chris Ford wrote in he said, hey Jay, is that an engine dyno sounds like an electric ducted fan spinning up something being tested for near future commercial aviation applications perhaps. Chris, you are not correct, but you are on to something. We will continue. Another listener named Jeremy Samuel wrote it and said, Hi Jay. This is the first time I've ever felt like I might have a clue what the noise is. I think it's a jet fighter engine spinning U sounds like a single engine. So I'm going to say an F16 going from stationary to moving along the runway, you know, and Jeremy, you're also in the right neighborhood kind of. But so let's do the reveal here. I have several winners, but the first one was Ryan Hannold. And Ryan said the sound from this week's, he said the sound from this week sounds like a vertical wind tunnel getting up to speed before the flyer gets in. It sounds like, and I get this part, it sounds like an I fly Gen. 9 tunnel. So Colorado's tunnel, Detroit's tunnel, or one of Texas tunnels. You guys understand what's happening here.
E: The I Fly is the indoor. What indoor skydiving? Skydiving. Yeah.
J: And he said sounds like a Gen. 9 tunnel. So and then he's naming the cities and where where the recording happened because he knows.
E: They know where the Gen. He knows where the Gen. Nines are as opposed to the Gen. eights through the Gen. sevens.
J: Which I think is freaking amazing that there are people, you know, like people that have these experiences or it could be their job or you know, whatever it is like can get that specific. I love when who's that noise he produces? Like someone that is like, I know what it is and I'm going to tell you even more, you know, it's just really cool. All right, So guys, I've got an indoor skydiving many times. The first time I did it was actually when we were in New Zealand for the last the tour that we went on.
E: Bob did outdoor skydiving. At least Bob did real. Skydiving.
J: So there is without a doubt a huge fan, it's electric fan. And you know, they actually have to adjust the speed of the fan depending on your body weight. Particularly for heavier people, you know, you can hear them turning up the knob on the fan to to increase the airspeed. And it sounds exactly like this. So let me play it again and just imagine, you know, this is the operator increasing the speed of the fan. Pretty amazing, pretty amazing machine that actually can simulate skydiving, you know, because the air is moving fast enough to essentially lift you up. And, you know, I saw one of the times that I did it, you know, I saw someone who really knew what they were doing it again, could do some unbelievable maneuvers inside those chambers. It's incredible. It really is. And it's a lot of fun. It's a really cool thing to do. It's not so stupid expensive that you can't go give it a shot. I think it's a great experience. So if you're interested, you should go check it out anyway. So good job, Ryan. Very cool. I'm curious, you didn't say in the e-mail, but maybe you can e-mail me and tell me why you know that information so well. Maybe you would put what do you do installs. All right guys, I got a new noisy for you this week. This is sent in by a listener named Robert Gonardi, and here it is. Very cool. All right guys, if you think you know what this week's noisy is or you heard something cool, e-mail me at wtn@theskepticsguide.org. Steve, September 20th, 2025. This year, yeah, we will be in Kansas. We're doing 2 shows on the same day. On September 20th, we'll be doing a live SGU recording and then we'll be doing an extravaganza that night. This includes all five of us and George Robb. And if you want to catch a glimpse of Ian, you look to the side of the stage and you might see his red hair over there. Do not look him directly in the eye, trust me, just don't do it. Go to theskepticsguide.org to buy tickets to check it out. Whatever you want to do, there's information there, but we'd really love it if you could join us. There's still tickets left for both of the shows, so please check it out.
Science or Fiction (1:37:42)
Theme: Malta
Item #1: Despite being a small island nation notoriously cramped for space, Malta has one of the highest cars per capita in the world, and the highest in the EU.[6]
Item #2: Malta contains among the oldest freestanding structures in the world, megalithic temples older than the Pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge.[7]
Item #3: The national bird of Malta is the peregrine falcon, with a large breeding population on the main island.[8]
| Answer | Item |
|---|---|
| Fiction | The national bird of Malta is the peregrine falcon, with a large breeding population on the main island. |
| Science | Despite being a small island nation notoriously cramped for space, Malta has one of the highest cars per capita in the world, and the highest in the EU. |
| Science | Malta contains among the oldest freestanding structures in the world, megalithic temples older than the Pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge. |
| Host | Result |
|---|---|
| Steve | clever |
| Rogue | Guess |
|---|---|
Evan | Despite being a small island nation notoriously cramped for space, Malta has one of the highest cars per capita in the world, and the highest in the EU. |
Cara | The national bird of Malta is the peregrine falcon, with a large breeding population on the main island. |
Bob | The national bird of Malta is the peregrine falcon, with a large breeding population on the main island. |
Jay | Malta contains among the oldest freestanding structures in the world, megalithic temples older than the Pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge. |
J: All right, guys, let's go on with science or fiction.
Voice-over: So it's time for. Science or fiction?
S: Each week I come up with three Science News items or facts, 2 real and one fake and then I challenge my panel of skeptics. Tell me which one is the fake. We have a theme this week. What do you think it is?
J: I think it's crazy politicians.
E: Italy or Sicily? Sicily.
S: It's close. It's Malta, Malta, Malta. I think most people know next to nothing about Malta, right? It's just.
E: Because there is nothing next to Malta.
S: There's stuff there. These are these are three facts I encountered while visiting Malta. All right, here we go. Item number one. Despite being a small island nation notoriously cramped for space, Malta has one of the highest cars per capita in the world and the highest in the EU. Item number 2. Malta contains among the oldest freestanding structures in the world, the megalithic temples older than the pyramids at Giza and Stonehenge and I #3. The national bird of Malta is the peregrine Falcon, with a large breeding population on the main island. Evan, go first.
E: Highest cars per capita in the world. OK, I wish I knew what the population of Malta is. I don't know, but it's small boy. I mean that what you could walk the entire main island I think in a day, right? Or I mean it's really not that big. So if you had, I don't know, if you had 100,000 people on that island, maybe that would could do it. That could do it. I have a feeling that one is science. I also have a feeling the second one is science. Some of the oldest freestanding structures in the world. And I guess I'll use what little I can retain from the movie Patton, in which a scene in which General Patton and his entourage visit Malta and he's giving a tour to some people of the press and others, and he's explaining certain things and how it is like one of the it's history of warfare and stuff. So yeah, that could have some of the oldest freestanding structures in the world. Definitely this last one about the peregrine Falcon. So what's it eating? You know, right. If I knew more about Falcons, maybe I'd have a better idea of in case this one is science. But I have a feeling it's fiction because I just don't know that there would be enough to, if it either the national bird, hold on with a large breeding population on the main island. Yeah, no, I'll say it's something else. It's not the peregrine Falcon. I'll say that's fiction.
S: OK, Cara.
C: So oldest freestanding structures, most cars per capita, large breeding population of Peregrines. Peregrine seems realistic. Oldest freestanding structures, I feel like. How do you define that? It can it be ruins?
US#06: Yeah.
C: OK, yeah, yeah. Cars, though. I guess the Italians do love their cars, but I don't know, I feel like that it would have to have like one of the highest GDP's also for that to be the case. And I don't think I know of Malta as being one of the richest countries in the world. So maybe I'll say that one's the fiction because I don't think it's one of the richest. So I don't think it would have the most cars per capita.
B: OK, Bob. You did say that traffic was crazy, so that kind of makes me think that most the highest cars per capita is possible. And freestanding structures. I know there's lots of temples there, so maybe that's going to be related to that. So I'll say that one's probably science as well. Yeah. The peregrine Falcon one just seems like it doesn't fit, but I don't know. But I'm just going to say it anyway. Falcon Fiction.
J: OK, NJ Steve, you did say to me and Bob that driving there was crazy and you couldn't figure out which way to go. Like like, like he was being driven by someone and he couldn't rationalize which way the car was going to go, right. So that's crazy crazy. But that doesn't mean that there's a lot of cars there. But but you were thinking about cars. The one about the let me see here, the oldest freestanding structures in the world. I believe that one is science because they're, you know, there's some pretty cool stuff there. There is a temple to Hercules there.
S: Hercules that was, that was. Sicily, J.
J: Oh, whatever.
US#07: Oh, you gave him, he gave him a.
J: He gave him a little. He felt so smart, Steve. I felt so smart.
US#07: He remembered and he just misremembered.
J: But I know there's cool stuff there 'cause we, Steve and I, talked extensively about this, so I'm going to stick with that. OK, so we're left with the Boyds and the cars. Which one? Steve is a birder and he likes bird details. Cara, I'm trying so hard to logic something into this. I have no clue what bird.
C: Of any dart and a dart.
J: Board, I mean what the only thing I have to say is I would think it would be some type of sea bird of that, you know, because it's like an island it's small it's got to be an animal that deals with the ocean in one way or the other I.
B: I have with me my science or fiction coin. Do you want me? To use it.
J: All right, Bob, it's going to be between the cars and the bird. So let's say let's do this because you picked the bird, you flip it for the bird and if it comes up fiction, I'll go with you, you say.
E: Flip the bird.
J: Oh, yeah, you flip the coin about the bird. All right, It's great.
B: Go ahead now.
J: All right. I'm with Bob. Steve, it's the bird. It is not that bird. It is another bird. It's a sea bird. Thank you.
S: Damn, you're leaving the terror all out on her own there. But you guys? All agree on the Little 1, so we'll start there. Malta contains among the oldest freestanding structures in the world, megalithic temples older than the pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge. You all think that one is science and that one is science. That is science. Malta is freaking old. It was.
E: Old.
S: You know, conquered by so many different forces over the earth. Phoenicians.
E: Oh gosh, look where it is on the map I. Understand. Why it's like? Hello.
S: And then you know, and then the Greeks and then.
E: Carthenogens.
S: There were, the, the hospitalers were in charge for a while, then they had to bribe Spain not to conquer them at one point. And then it was a, it was a English colony for 150 years, finally gained its independence and became an independent nation in 1975. So it has a long history of multiple wave after wave after wave of, of colonization and conquering and everything. And it's a mix of different cultures for that reason.
E: And of course they're yeah, whoever conquers first is going to put all their structures up. There, Yeah, so.
S: But there was. Yeah. So going back there are these megalithic temples there older than the pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge, you know, going back three, 4000 years BC, among the oldest in the world, not the E oldest. But it also, we had this conversation to do. It depends on what you count as a freestanding structure. But these are on the on the short list. OK, let's go to number 2, the national. I mean, I'm sorry, let's go to #3 The national bird of Malta is the peregrine Falcon with a large breeding population on the main island. I'm really surprised.
E: Maltese.
S: Falcon that none of you mentioned the Maltese Falcon.
E: Well, I you might because I didn't. Well, I thought of it, but I didn't want. I strategically didn't mention it.
S: OK, because falconry is in fact very popular on Malta.
E: However.
S: Has been for it has been for a long time. But this is the fiction. This is the fiction for a couple of reasons. Couple of reasons. First of all, the national bird of Malta is the Blue Rock thrush.
E: Was that like the first thing you looked up when you were researching Malta? This course it is.
S: Blue Rock Thrush. And because the Falcon was actually endangered on Malta and they had to reintroduce it, and it's just starting to make a comeback. So there isn't a large breeding population on the main island.
J: Is it a sea bird?
S: The time? No, it's a thrush.
J: Come on. All right. I'm happy. But they're happy anyway.
S: But there is a connection with falconry and Malta. But the Maltese Falcon, you know what the connection of that is to? To Malta, Yes, there is none, nothing. It was. It was a novel that was made into a movie. It has no basis in reality. It's pure fiction.
E: Yeah, probably Humphrey Bogart's second most famous film.
S: Right. But yeah, they, they Falcons live on the island and they hunt stuff. Evan, you know, there's lots of it's not that far from Sicily. And by the way, Cara, it's not Italian. Malta has nothing to do with Italy. The.
C: Yeah, it's near it.
S: It's it's just, it's close to it. But culturally, yeah, it is completely different. So.
C: No. But I'm just saying like in terms of like importing, it's right there.
S: There are two languages. There are two official languages of Malta, Maltese and English.
E: English. Maltese. I wouldn't have guessed.
S: That is a Semitic language. It's not Italian. It's not. It's a Semitic language. It's because of their Arabic influence. Yeah, and English, because it was an English colony for 150 years, right?
US#06: Yeah.
S: In fact, so one of our tour guides was saying that 20-30 years ago, you know, children were learned Maltese as their primary language and English as their secondary language. And today it's really the other way around. They really learn English as their primary language and Maltese as their secondary language just because it's such a much more of an international language. And of course, Malta is becoming more and more of a popular destination for tourists. But having said that, Cara, it is a popular destination for Italian tourists because it is so close. And so there is a huge Italian influence there now. But historically, culturally, it's not Italian. It has nothing to do with it. It's in the EU and it's they where they ended, like they drive on the left there because it was a British colony, whereas they drive on the right in Italy, including Sicily. Anyway, interesting. And I heard the language and it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's unique, but you could tell that it's a Semitic language. But it has a lot, there's a lot of introduced foreign words into their language, right? Anything modern, basically they use the English word. Anything food related, they basically use the Italian word that was introduced just from, again, the introduction of that. But there's a lot of a lot of Arabic words as well. Interesting. Very interesting culture. OK. That means that despite being a small island nation, notoriously cramped for space, Malta has one of the highest cars per capita in the world and the highest in the EU is science. And it is crazy. Now, it's the the reason why, guys, what I was telling you is that the streets were not really made for cars, right? And that the streets are very narrow. Yeah, they're very narrow. It's like, it was like you're on the edge of your seat the whole time you're driving in the car, going from from point A to point B, like you don't know what's going to happen next if you're not, obviously, you know, a native. It was, it was quite an experience. And we, we were not, we chose not to drive ourselves on the island. So we were only like, we ubered it when we had to. Yeah, we would walk.
C: Do you know why I think I got that wrong?
S: Why is that?
C: Other than just not knowing.
E: You misunderstood the.
C: Yeah, I read it as the most cars per capita, not one of the one of.
S: The most in the world, but the most in the EU.
C: Right, I don't know why I read it as the most in the.
S: World, but it's pretty high. It's pretty high on the list. Just on number 1, you guys.
C: Want I just looked it up, it's below the US it's.
S: Just below the US, Yeah, it's.
C: But yeah, most of the countries above it are like tiny countries, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein and San Marino.
S: So it's #11 on this, although Taiwan is out of sequence on the list. I don't know why that is, but anyway, so Evan the population 532,000.
E: On that small wow with 400 lot of.
S: People 38,000 cars, there's 438,000 cars on that little tiny island and I totally believe that having been there, it was, you know, there's a lot of people driving around.
E: Is it all petrol or do you have any electric?
S: Vehicles, there's both. Oh, we definitely there was some electric.
E: Vehicles, at least there's some OK.
S: Well, it was most, yeah, mostly ICE engines. They and just like no public transportation, you know, there's just no infrastructure for that.
C: Which is weird.
E: What's the Maltese word for Uber?
S: It's Uber. They just, they borrow English words for, for most, you know, modern technologies.
E: Hence my funny comment.
C: Yeah, even like comb.
S: The word for comb in Maltese is comb. Yeah, they just.
E: Yeah, that's.
S: OK, very cool place. It is fun to visit a place I know almost nothing about. You know, I just didn't really know much about it until we went there. Very. Cool.
E: I'm glad. I'm glad you were adventurous that way.
S: Yeah. Yeah. So we, we went there specifically as my wife had a conference there, but they, they do conferences in interesting places like this. And it's we, we, we almost went to Malaysia a few years ago for, for this conference, but it was cancelled because of COVID, which was a shame because one of her Co workers is from Malaysia and they were going to post us and show us around. We were really looking forward to it all got cancelled due to COVID. It was.
E: Shame it would have been. Perfect.
S: I know. Damn.
E: Shame.
S: You know, now that she's a tenured professor, she may be going to these conferences every year. We'll see what interesting places they take us to anyway, so good job, guys, yeah.
E: Thank you. Good job. It was a coin. It was, it was, it was a coin flip, I mean. Really.
Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:52:41)
“Ignorance is the most delightful science in the world because it is acquired without labour or pains and keeps the mind from melancholy.”
– - Giordano Bruno, (description of author)
S: All right, Evan, give us a quote.
E: This week's quote was suggested by listener Steve from Saskatchewan. Thank you for so much. Ignorance is the most delightful science in the world because it is acquired without labor or pains and keeps the mind from melancholy. Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher in the late 1500s, I think. Yeah. February. Born February 1548. Italian philosopher, poet, alchemist, alchemist, astrologer. Among other things, he's known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then novel Copernican the Model. Whoa. So a little ahead of his time, huh?
S: Well, thank you all for joining me this week.
E: Thanks, Steve. Of course, welcome back.
S: Thank you. And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
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- ↑ www.sciencedaily.com: Goodbye plastic? Scientists create new supermaterial that outperforms metals and glass
- ↑ theness.com: Avi Loeb and the Alien Technology Hypothesis - NeuroLogica Blog
- ↑ newatlas.com: New drug offers non-surgical fat reduction solution
- ↑ AND https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/health/hormone-therapy-menopause-fda.html www.nytimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/health/antidepressants-ssri-pregnancy-fda.html AND https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/health/hormone-therapy-menopause-fda.html
- ↑ nypost.com: Paranormal investigator Dan Rivera dies on 'Annabelle' haunted doll tour
- ↑ en.wikipedia.org: List of countries and territories by motor vehicles per capita - Wikipedia
- ↑ en.wikipedia.org: Ġgantija - Wikipedia
- ↑ www.newsweek.com: Ancient Art of Falconry in Malta is Making a Comeback - Newsweek