SGU Episode 395

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SGU Episode 395
9th Feb 2013
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 394                      SGU 396
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
GH: George Hrab
Quote of the Week
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
Democritus
Links
Download Podcast
SGU Podcast archive
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, February 6, 2013, and this is your host Steven Novello. Joining this week are Bob Novella,

B: Hey, everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson,

R: Hello, everyone.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

E: Hello, my friends, how are you?

S: Good. How are you, Evan?

E: I'm doing fine, thank you.

S: Jay is conspicuously absent this week. Jay and his wife, just a couple of days ago had their first child.

E: Yay!

R: Slacker.

B: Baby Dylan.

R: You gonna let a baby get in the way of SGU, come on.

S: He's gotta get his priorities straight.

R: Yeah.

S: So Jay is busy not sleeping, and taking care of his wife and newborn.

E: Yeah, well.

R: . . . poop.

E: He had to know that was coming.

B: He's been practicing for that for years.

R: I wonder if the baby will have Jay's unique abilities to pee.

(laughter)

R: Long distances.

E: Reference from two Dragon Cons ago.

S: We'll have to see.

This Day in Skepticism (1:07)

R: Hey, so, happy Space Medicine Day.

E: Space Medicine!

R: It's not really a day. But it should be. It could be. I don't know. I just like the phrase "space medicine." Because if you put "space" in front of just about anything it becomes more exciting.

S: Space monkey.

R: Yeah!

S: Yeah.

R: Way better. We should talk about that, by the way. That space monkey that Iran apparently didn't send up. I don't know. That's a whole other thing. (laughter) But, not what I'm talking about.

E: There were pictures. That thing was so cute, in a little suit.

S: Strapped down like it was. Oh my god.

R: Yeah, but he didn't take any Instagrams from space. So, I don't know. But no, today, this day in history, 1949, February 9, 1949, the first Department of Space Medicine was established at a U.S. Air Force academy. The School of Aviation at Randolph Field, Texas. You might be able to guess what space medicine's all about. It's making sure astronauts don't die when they go into space, and all of the many things that entails. The guy who was the first professor of space medicine was Hubertus Strughold, and, at this point, it becomes less fun. Because, he was a horrific Nazi, who did horrible, horrible, horrible things.

S: He was a literal Nazi?

R: He was literally a Nazi. There were documents uncovered during the Nuremberg trials that linked him to really horrific medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

E: Oh, wow.

R: Yeah, really horrific. U.S. space history is unfortunately littered with Nazis, because that was one of the plunders that the U.S. got after the war, was the brains behind a lot of Germany's advancements. And so one of those was Hubertus Strughold.

S: Well, that's that famous line from The Right Stuff, you know: "Our Nazis are better than their Nazis." The U.S. space program beating out the Russian, the Soviet space program.

R: Right. So, yeah, there used to be an aeromedical library at Brooks Air Force Base named after him, but in 1977, when these documents were uncovered, it was renamed.

S: I betcha the whole field of space medicine really took off after people started going into space.

R: You think? (laughter)

S: Prior to that, not that there was nothing they could do, but I mean prior to that, I betcha it was mostly theoretical work.

B: Kind of like Xenu biology?

R: A lot of dunking people in tanks of water. Things like that. I don't know.

S: I actually have a colleague who, while they were at Yale, they're not there anymore, but they were working on space medicine. They had a grant from NASA and they were suspending rats to see how they, if they, how their anti-gravity walking system would develop if they were raised essentially suspended to simulate zero gravity. The thinking being that if you had a baby born in space and they grew up in zero gravity, they would never develop certain parts of their nervous system that are adapted to gravity.

R: Right.

E: Space baby.

B: And they would duplicate that by hanging them?

S: Suspending them from their rear legs.

B: Suspending them?

S: Yeah.

E: Funny they never got to the human trials for that. (laughter)

B: Didn't NASA have those anti-gravity rooms like they showed in I Dream of Jeannie? Do you remember that?

S: No.

R: No.

E: Anti-gravity rooms . . . I Dream of Jeannie?

S: I remember I Dream of Jeannie.

B: I remember, in a few episodes, they had a room where you walked in, they hit a switch and the gravity was turned off. Even as a kid, I was like, that's baloney!

E: I think that was Barbara Eden just blinking her eyes.

R: She didn't have to blink here eyes, that was Bewitched.

E: A nod and a blink.

S: No, no, Bewitched was the twitchy nose. Jeannie was the blinking of the eyes.

R: Oh, right. She did the crossing the arms.

S: Remember when Jeannie had the drops put in her eyes and she couldn't blink and her magic was on the fritz? Come on.

R: No. I don't remember. Why. . . (garbled) What is with you guys and your encyclopedic knowledge of I Dream of Jeannie?

S: Of attractive magical women?

R: I just remembered what Barbara Eden looked like, so never mind.

B: Major Nelson never availed himself of her talents.

News Items

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Russian Lake Monster ()

LiveScience: Reports Surface of Monster Lurking in Russian Lake

Bones of Richard III ()

BBC News: Richard III dig: DNA confirms bones are king's

Scientific Genius ()

Scientific American: Is the age of scientific genius over?

Without Fear ()

The Raw Story: Fearless brain-damaged patients are terrified of suffocation

Feathered Dinosaurs ()

Neurologica Blog: Transition Denial and Feathered Dinosaurs

Who's That Noisy? ()

Answer to last week: Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Questions and Emails ()

Question 1: Tuesday Boy ()

Follow up to WTN from last week

Interview with George Hrab ()

Quick chat about NECSS 2013 - http://www.necss.com

Science or Fiction ()

Item #1: A new systematic review concludes that CT scans in young patients may pose a greater increased risk of cancer than the diagnostic benefits they provide. Item #2: New research shows that people have greater happiness and sense of well being as they age, regardless of when they were born. Item #3: A recent review of research involving 122 personality characteristics finds no significant difference in male and female profiles.

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

References