SGU Episode 399

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SGU Episode 399
9th March 2013
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SGU 398                      SGU 400
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
Neither evolution nor creation qualifies as a scientific theory.
Duane Gish
Links
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Forum Discussion

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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 March 6, 2013, and this is your host Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella,

B: Hey, everybody.

S: Jay Novella,

J: 400!

S: Evan Bernstein,

E: Good evening, everyone.

S: And we have a special guest rogue with us this evening, George Hrab. George, welcome back.

GH: This isn't The Price is Right! Jay, you lied to me. (laughter)

E: What else is new?

J: No, but this is our 400th!

S: No, it's not, Jay. Next week is our 400th episode.

GH: 399!

J: 399!

E: 399! And that's a bargain.

S: We're not round number bigots here, anyway. That's all superstitious nonsense.

GH: Roundists. You're all roundists.

S: So, Rebecca's voice is still recovering from whatever infection she had. So she is again not with us this week. But George will be taking her place and speaking in falsetto the entire show.

GH: (starting high pitched, dropping to low) Y-e-e-e-s. I'm so skeptical. (normal voice) It's not a Rebecca impression. It's not a Rebecca impression at all. (laughter) We got that. All right. Good.

J: So we were just talking before the show, like, saying hi to George and everything, and it occurred to me I wanted to ask George this question. George, ever listening, you ever listen to a podcast—

GH: (in a Russian accent) Ever listenink to (unintelligible) Oh, sorry. Go ahead. So, have I ever listened to what?

J: Has this ever happened where you're listening to a show that you've recorded, and somebody says your name in the podcast, and you answer them in real time? Like, it just happened to me two days ago. I was listening to one of our shows, and Steve says "So, Jay," and I actually go "Yeah." I'm like wh-o-o-o-a. He's not in the car with me! I'm not on the phone with him. I'm hearing him in the podcast.

GH: I don't listen to my show 'cause I don't really like my show.

S: Yeah.

GH: But sound effects that I've done before have scared the hell out of me. I'll forget that I inserted an airplane or something, and it'll scare the crap out of me. (laughter) Or like a doorbell sound or something, yeah. But I don't actually, because I'm the only person on my show, for me to respond to myself as if I was actually talking to myself, I think would be indicative of something really scary and awesome.

J: All right, that is a good point.

GH: But, I respond to (two people talking – undecipherable) And if I listen to this show, I'll make sure that every time you say "Hey, George" no matter where I am, I'll say "What? Oh, damn!" (laughter) What? Oh, damn!

E: With a head turn, right?

(two people talking—inaudible – something about Scooby-Doo)

GH: (imitating Scooby) Erh?

B: Scooby snack.

S: Hey George!

GH: Erh?

This Day in Skepticism (2:45)

March 9, 1851: Hans Christian Ørsted died. Ørsted was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered current traveling along a wire could deflect a compass needle.

S: Evan is gonna tell us about this day in skepticism.

E: All right. So, March 9, and the year was 1851. Now, we all know who Hans Christian Ørsted was

B: (singing) Hans Christian Ørsted.

J: I have no idea who he is.

E: Well, he was a Danish. Oh, I'm sorry, wait, he was a Danish physicist

S: And delicious.

GH: I sing.

E: Who made a discovery. He discovered that an electric current in a wire causes a nearby magnetized compass needle to deflect, indicating the electric current in a wire induces a magnetic field around it.

B: That is awesome.

J: That is awesome.

B: You could just retire after making that discovery. I'm done. I've made my contribution.

E: A little electro-magnetic theory for you, then?

B: Oh, my god.

GH: Yeah, but how do you monotize that. I mean, that's the problem. What d'ya do with that? What kind of invention could that possibly lead to? (people talking simultaneously)

B: It's just a laboratory curiosity. Nothing to see here.

GH: That's right.

J: It took like a hundred years for them to slap one of those suckers in a bracelet. (laughter)

GH: And then you get the real money.

E: A bracelet made of, perhaps, aluminum. Hey! Speaking of aluminum

S: Yeah, so

E and B: Aluminium.

S: Ørsted also was the first one to produce metallic aluminum. Do you guys know how common—

B: As opposed to rubber aluminum?

S: No, as opposed an aluminum oxide or aluminum silicate. So, aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust. And I know you guys all know that

E: The third most?

B: I used to know that, yes.

S: After oxygen and silicon, which is why there's lots of aluminum oxides and aluminum silicate. And he figured out how to make metallic aluminum. Although it was up to later chemists to figure out how to really industrialize that process. If you recall, we talked about the fact that when aluminum was first available as a metal, it was more expensive than gold.

B: I recall nothing.

S: It was considered a rare and exotic metal and things made out of aluminum were like a status symbol. But then later chemists figured out how to make massive quantities of it, just from dirt, basically, and, you know, from bauxites, specifically.

J: Did these scientists like cash in at that moment? Like, okay, I figured out how to make it, it's everywhere.

E: Let's sell it now.

J: Yeah, did somebody become a trillionaire for like the first three years or what happened?

S: American Aluminum, you know, I think was the company that became very wealthy mass producing aluminum. And the price went from hundreds of dollars an ounce to pennies a pound.

J: Oof.

GH: See, Alcoa shouldn't have waited.

S: Yeah, Alcoa, that's it.

E: Bad investment.

J: Guess I shouldn't have invested in that company early on.

S: Well, you shouldn't have invested in aluminum. The company did quite well, actually. Now, did you also know that Hans Christian Ørsted was a very close friend of Hans Christian Andersen.

B: Seriously?

J: That's what I was gonna say.

GH: No way.

J: Yeah, and I actually don't know exactly who Hans Christian Andersen is or was. What's his deal? Who's that guy?

B: Come on, Jay.

E: He wrote stories.

B: It's Danny Kaye!

E: That's right. Danny Kaye. He wrote Thumbelina,

GH: The Little Mermaid.

J: Did he sing The Little Mermaid?

GH: I think he played the crab in the movie, actually. (laughter) Oh, aluminum.

S: He wrote famous fairy tales. But, so, how did these guys meet? Like at a Hans Christian organization or something?

E: Convention?

B: I know. Famous People Named Hans Christian.

GH: That was a Facebook page, wasn't it? (laughter)

S: Did they get each other's mail, or what happened?

J: My money's on the fact that maybe like half the population is just named Hans Christian something.

S: Maybe.

B: I think it's a coincidence.

E: And March 9, 1851, was the day that we lost Hans Ørsted. Hans Christian Ørsted. So, we mourned Hans Christian Ørsted on this day. But thank you so much for all that electro-magnetism. It is doing us wonders these days.

S: And aluminum. Yep.

E: Yeah, that too.

S: So George, before we go on to news items, what's new with you?

GH: What's new? Goodness. Uh, what isn't? Actually, it's a short list. The newest thing is a number of you rogues were at the 21812 concert that happened last year.

B: Yes! Loved it!

GH: We are furiously, furiously editing and putting together what looks to be just an incredible DVD of that performance, which is audio mixing. I was at Slau's yesterday, as a matter of fact. So the audio mixing is done. A monumental effort, and now the video is being edited, and there's gonna be commentary and a documentary and it's gonna be really, really fantastic. So that is the thing which is occupying the most frontal part of my frontal creative lobe right now, is the 21812 concert.

B: It only took you a year!

J: When's it coming out?

GH: I know, I know, I know, I know. Weeks. Months? Weeks. Well, I guess months are made up of weeks, so I'm not lying in either direction. But, weeks.

S: As long as it's more than one month, right.

GH: Hmm? Right.

News Items

HIV Cure (7:49)

Neurologica: HIV Cure "Game Changer"

S: So I have some good news everyone. (laughter)

E: Excellent.

J: What's up?

S: Did you hear about the girl who was cured, cured of HIV?

B: Despite this, or in spite of, the incompetence of her mom, apparently.

S: Her mother appears to be troubled. I don't know if incompetence is her problem or if it's other things, but, so . . . Here's the story. The mother, who was HIV infected, presented for delivery with apparently no prenatal care, and delivered a child, who was positive for HIV within 30 hours of being born. So almost certainly infected in utero. The doctor was consulted, an HIV infectious disease specialist at the time was consulted on the case. Not really sure why, but decided to treat the child earlier than is typically treated. So at 31 hours, the infant was treated with anti-retroviral therapy. And also, she decided to give the infant

B: Extra.

S: Well, not extra, so therapeutic doses as opposed to preventive, or prophylactic doses.

E: What's the difference?

S: It's a higher dose. So a therapeutic dose is meant to treat an existing infection, whereas a preventive dose is meant to prevent an exposure from establishing itself as an infection.

B: You can call that extra, I think.

S: Yeah, so, she gave the higher dose, the therapeutic dose.

B: Extra.

GH: Not the gum, but the actual medicine, right?

S: Yeah, the anti-retroviral therapy. ART.

GH: 'Cause that would be something, if extra gum cured AIDS. That would be, wow.

S: This is Hannah Gay. A pediatric infectious disease specialist. And the child was treated with ART for the first 18 months of life, or thereabouts. At that point she was lost to follow-up, as we say. Stopped being brought back in by the mother for treatment. Now, Dr. Gay diligently tracked down the mother and the child, through the police, in order to bring the child back in for health care. So now, it was like seven or eight months the child has been getting no medication. The mother was going through some kind of life situation. Apparently has a lot of challenges. And not giving the kid their medicine. Not bringing them in to doctor's visits. So Dr. Gay at this point thought, okay, so now we have a two-year-old who has gone six, seven, eight months with no medication therapy. Their viral loads are gonna be off the charts.

B: Right, because typically what happens, Steve, is when you're taking, when you're going through that process, the viruses pretty much just go into hiding, right? They just like say screw it, I'm just gonna hang out and wait til the weather's better and then once you stop it, bam! They come out. And that's what he expected.

S: She, yeah.

B: Dr. Gay, that's what Gay expected.

S: What typically happens is, in an HIV-infected individual, if they're treated with ART, then the viral loads will drop to undetectable levels. But the virus still lives on in the body, in these hidden reservoirs. As you say, they go into hiding. And these reservoirs are isolated from the immune system so that they can persist despite the retroviral therapy, and if you stopped the retroviral therapy, anti-retroviral therapy, then the infection would come back, would rebound. Because of these reservoirs. So, checked out the child, did the viral loads, they were still undetectable. There was no sign of HIV in the child at all. Went back to check everything. So now she things, all right, there's something interesting going on here. She checked a number of things. She got other specialists involved as well. First they confirmed that yes, she was indeed infected with HIV as a newborn. They confirmed that. Two, that the strain of HIV is a wild type strain that's not some mutated strain, it's not a weakened strain. It's a regular strain of HIV. Three, they tested the mother and the child to see if they happened to have a genetic type that makes them resistant to HIV, 'cause there are people out there who are naturally resistant to HIV. And they did not. So they did not have any of the known forms of resistance.

B: Three great tests. So it's like, yeah. It didn't occur to me that they should do that but when I read it I'm like, oh, of course, that's exactly what you would need to do to really be secure in your conclusions.

S: Yeah. Well, plus, I think, at this point that they were planning on publishing. And of course you want to get all your ducks in a row if you do that.

B: Right, right.

S: And in fact they did present this case at a conference and reported all these details. So essentially they discovered that she was infected, it was a normal virus, they're not resistant, and even six, seven months after stopping ART the virus never rebounded. They're calling this a functional cure. A functional cure. Not an outright cure, I think because a couple of, they did really, really sensitive tests for HIV, RNA and DNA and a couple of these tests showed rally miniscule little remnants of RNA or DNA.

B: Yeah, but didn't they describe them as non-functional, or they did not have the ability to reproduce?

S: They are not replication competent.

B: That's what it was.

S: Yeah, they are not replication competent. But I guess it means it's not completely, completely, completely out of the system. But what it does mean is that the virus will not rebound. It is not established. There's no active reservoirs of the virus. And the child will be able to live their life without the need for further ART, or anti-retroviral therapy.

E: Wow. So we're not looking at some state of remission that's currently going on?

S: Well, remission is not an unreasonable term to use. It's a remission without medication, without needing further medication or treatment. Functional cure is the specific term that they used. This is only the second case of any human being who was known to be infected with HIV who then was cured. The first one was a gentleman who got a bone marrow transplant in Germany from a donor who was HIV resistant. And they were apparently cured by that bone marrow transplant. Basically given a new immune system resistant to the HIV. This is now the second case.

J: Does this help the world, Steve? Can we use this information in any way?

B: Well, shit yeah. Look at the children born with AIDS like in Africa. I mean, the United States it's not so much of a huge deal as it is in Africa. But Jay, there's like, the statistic was crazy, it was like thousands of kids per pico-second in Africa.

J: Bob, but my question is: does that case, the second case, of this child, does it actually help scientists figure out how to use that to make some type of cure?

S: So here's the bottom line

GH: We have to weaponize the baby, I think. (laughter)

S: The stats are about 130 children per year develop HIV from their mother in the United States. But it's about a thousand children per day world-wide in developing countries. So that's a lot. That's a thousand kids per day.

GH: Why is that woman having so many children? (laughter) I'm sorry. Sorry.

S: What this suggests is that the standard of care for treating newborns born of infected mothers might be, rather than giving prophylactic doses, but to give, would be to give therapeutic doses earlier, to try to prevent the virus from ever establishing an infection. Which seems to be the case here. The virus never got itself established. Here's the trick, though, is that, I mean, it's gotta be studied, is the case. This is an anecdote, right? It's interesting, but it's one case. And it's hard to extrapolate from that. So this will lead to research looking at this approach to show that it's safe, to show that it's effective. What's going to be tricky, so let's you get a hundred kids, or 200 kids, 100 you give the standard therapy. The other hundred you give this early aggressive therapy. You track 'em over a few years. To really know that the children have been functionally cured, you would want to actually stop their ART. That's gonna be tricky to do.

E: That's tough.

S: Ethically, how are you gonna do that? We're not gonna give you proof in therapy to see how you're doing. So, the best they could hope to do would be to follow a lot of children and then track those whose parents stopped giving them the medication due to non-compliance or whatever. Like in this case. You know, you can't randomly choose people not to get treatment just to see how they do. That's the definition of unethical research. But you may be able to track cases where the children stopped getting their drugs for one reason or another and see how they do. And maybe you can gather enough information from that to say okay, it's reasonable in these cases with these outcomes to reduce the medication, see how they do, maybe wean them off, tracking them carefully. So it's not gonna instantly lead to replicating this exact treatment paradigm, but it will, I think, probably it'll lead to studying this higher, more aggressive, early treatment, which may lead to curing infants who otherwise would have been infected with HIV. But this is using drugs that are already in existence to treat HIV. This is not a new treatment or a new cure. This is not a cure for people in whom infection is already established. You might think that maybe the same applies if you, let's say, get exposed to HIV. Again, instead of getting preventive doses, maybe even as an adult, you would be given therapeutic doses right away.

(inaudible comment by GH)

J: When you say "therapeutic doses" you mean a large, large amount.

S: Well, the doses that are normally given to people with HIV infection, as opposed to preventive doses, which are doses given to people who have been exposed but who are not infected. In order to reduce the risk of the exposure resulting in an infection.

GH: When I read the story, it was amazing. And I remember one of the first things that popped into my head was the idea that the kid at one point was outside of the care of the hospital, whether that was seven months, or whatever it was.

S: Yeah.

GH: And that someone is going to latch onto something the kid did in those seven months and say that that is the actual cure.

B: Ohhhhh, wow.

GH: You what I mean, like Fruit Loops or something. And they're gonna say "Yeah, the fact that she had Fruit Loops!" Forget the hospital. It was the Fruit Loops that cured. Here's proof! Like that was the first, the woo radar warning system that I have installed in my brain, was like, oh man, okay, let no one take advantage of those seven months where the kid was outside of supervised care to claim that that's some kind of secret cure.

B: Oh, yeah. I didn't even think of that.

J: Yeah, I agree.

S: I haven't heard anything about it yet, but that's always a risk. There was a lot of sensational reporting of this story.

GH: Wh-a-a-t?

S: It's fascinating enough as it is. What I always, my radar goes up, we talk about the skeptical radar, my skeptical radar always goes up whenever I see the word "cure" in the headline of any article. Especially when it's connected to AIDS or cancer or the common cold or whatever.

B: Acne.

S: Yeah. There are certain things where it's like, really? You mean, no, we did not cure AIDS, I'm sorry, we did not cure HIV. This is a very interesting case and has implications for research and for treatment. But no, this isn't the discovery of a cure for HIV.

B: Steve, so what if a parent has AIDS. They have a kid, and they're like, I want my kid to get a therapeutic dose asap? What can they do? 'Cause that's what I would do.

S: Yeah. Enter a trial, enter a clinical trial in which that is being done and take your chance that you'll get randomized, getting it.

J: Is it hard to get into a trial?

S: Well, right now, none exists. But I'm sure

E: Yeah, that's just it.

S: It'll take time to get them up and running. I don't know how many and how many people are gonna be introduced. So, probably in the U.S., given that the number is so low, number of kids who get infected this way because of pre-natal care, etc. 'Cause you know, normally what you would do is aggressively treat the mother, get the viral loads down as low as possible so the risk of the so-called vertical transmission from mother to child is minimized. This mother didn't do that, that's probably why the child was infected. So, this is the exact people who are going to end up infected as an infant are the ones that are going to be difficult to recruit, and there aren't that many of them. So it's probably gonna be more, it's gonna be hard to get people into this trial as opposed to people having a hard time getting into such trials. You know what I mean? If you're the kind of parent who is going to seek out that kind of aggressive care, you're probably not the kind of parent who is going to give birth to an infected child in the first place. Does that make sense?

B: Yeah.

GH: Yeah; where's the father through all this, I wonder?

S: No mention in anything.

GH: I wonder what his situation is.

S: Obviously the doctors are being confidential, keeping confidential the personal details. They're just saying she had some life situation that intervened, but we have no idea what that was. But clearly she's troubled.

B: It still won't be an outright cure because if you have the infection, this won't work, but for people who just get it, it will a cure for them. There—

S: Well, remember, she was treated at 30 hours of life.

B: Right.

E: Yeah.

S: How many people don't we even find out that they've been exposed until—

B: That's it.

S: --days later. So, one example would be a health care worker who stabs themself with an HIV-infected needle.

B: Yup. Perfect example.

S: You would be in the clinic in 15 minutes. In fact, I did that to myself once. Not with an HIV

B: Really?

E; Oh, my gosh.

S: Not with an HIV-infected needle. But I stuck myself with a Hep C needle.

J: How'd you do it?

B: Oh, man, I hate when that happens.

GH: Did you lose a bet?

S: No. It was an accident. I did what I wasn't supposed to. I recapped the needle, the needle went right through the cap and into my finger.

E: Geez.

J: And you were right in front of a patient?

S: Yeah.

J: What'd you do?

S: I finished what I was doing. I went to the health services and got two huge needles of gamma globulin injected into my buttocks.

E: Gamma globulin?

J: Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

B: One per cheek?

S: Yup.

J: Steve, I have to ask more detail. Did you keep your composure?

S: Of course.

J: Like, did you do "Oh, holy shit!!" Like run out of there.

GH: Like We're all gonna die!!!

J: Give me those ass needles!! (laughter)

E: On panic day? Yeah.

S: Yeah, it was not panic day. Unlike today.

J: Were you embarrassed? Were you shameful, like going to some guy sitting at a desk and you're like "Um…"

S: Yes, I was stupid. Yea. It was dumb. I was a medical student.

J: Did they say anything to you. Like did they make you feel really weird?

S: No. No.

B: Steve's heart rate increased by two beats per minute.

E: Were they messing with you? "Oh, we gotta do a biopsy, and now we're gonna do this. Gotta do that."

S: No. They're my physician now. They acted totally professional.

B: Steve, put this in a little context. Hepatitis C. How bad we talkin'?

S: That's bad. Like a chronic liver infection. It would be very bad. And yes, I got, the treatment for that is gamma globulin, so it like pooled antibodies. And it's a huge dose.

B: Is it a bolus? They call that a bolus?

S: Yes.

J: If they give you enough of that gamma globulin, Steve, can you turn into the Hulk? (laughter)

S: The first injection was very painful. The second injection was ten times as painful. (laughter)

E: Yeah, but ten times!

S: It was so much more painful! And the reason for that probably

GH: It's not supposed to go in your penis. That's the problem. (laughter)

E: We gotta get this in here!

GH: A really long needle.

S: When you get the first injection your body excretes chemicals which sort of prime it for pain, and so then when you get the second injection, it has a huge exaggerated local response to the injection.

B: Thank you, body, isn't that convenient?

E: Well, okay

J: Why's that happening?

E: They should give you both needles at once. One, two, three, jab.

S: Yeah, I don't know what would be worse.

J: That's crazy.

E: Two at once. Two needles at once.

S: But this was, whatever, twenty years ago, so, I know I'm out of the window. And never had a problem from it.

GH: Are you sure?

E: No Hep C.

S: I could definitely imagine the panic of jabbing yourself with an HIV-infected needle. That would be panic time.

J: It just shows you how dangerous health care is. I mean, these professionals—

S: This was also, this was not in the early, early days, but, this was earlier in the whole HIV situation. So, you know, the protocols for preventing these things were not as well established. You know what I mean?

E: They had you rub garlic on the wound. Prayer beads and whatever.

S: The needle that I was using at that time doesn't even exist now, really. Everything is made to prevent this from happening. Anyway, let's move on.

Mars Comet (24:49)

Newly Discovered Comet May Hit Mars: Watch for Two Others Near Earth

S: Bob, you're gonna tell us about the comet that's going to smack right into Mars.

B: Yeah.

E: Cool.

B: You guys remember I recently mentioned that this would be remembered maybe as the Year of the Asteroid. But not I think it will be, in retrospect, in the future, considered the Year of the Asteroid/Comet. (laughter)

S: Slash comet.

B: Slash comet. The big news in recent days is not only do we have the Pan Stars comet, which will be visible in mid-March 2013

E: Can't wait.

B: And also the Ison comet, which could be awesome. Very bright, in November 2013. But we also have the Sliding Spring, an oddly named comet which could potentially hit the planet Mars in October 2014; not quite this year, but coming up relatively soon. So that is kind of exciting, I think. It's not the Earth, so it's all good. This new comet was discovered January 3 this year, 2013, by famous comet hunter Robert McNaught. He actually has 74 comets on his resume.

E: Wow!

B: So how cool is that?

J: Bob, does he hang them on the wall like a plaque?

B; (laughing) Yeah, right. I would. I would create a little comet for every one that I discovered. And he also discovered asteroids. This guy's very prolific. He gets a gold star.

S: Did he discover that asteroids exist?

B: No. Just discovered asteroids.

E: The game Asteroids."

S: Specific asteroids.

B: Yes. So this is like, apparently this is a new, or virgin, comet. Never having been in our local area of the solar system before. And I think they believe this is because of the eccentricity of its orbit, after it was ejected for the Oort Cloud of billions of comets that are in orbit about a light year, I think, from the Sun.

S: Yup.

B: Billions and billions of these guys and occasionally one will come careening in.

S: (imitating Carl Sagan) Billions and billions.

B: Billions, yes.

E; That's about a Sagan.

GH: A virgin comet has no tail.

B: Okay.

E: (unintelligible) no comets, tell no tales.

B: So, ah, so

S: Tough crowd.

J: George, don't laugh.

E: Yeah, George is grabbing his tie as we speak, right?

S: We're laughing on the inside.

GH: I was all excited. (unintelligible) Zilch. Loser.

B: That's all right. You had some good ones so far, at least. So the big question, in my mind, is is this sucker gonna hit Mars? And the answer is: nobody knows, not yet anyway. Some projections put the comet within 23 to 63,000 miles away from Mars at its closest approach. That's 37 to about 100,000 kilometers away.

E: Hey, Bob. The orbitors we've got; I'm sorry, the orbitor we have, we have one? Or more than one around Mars? Is it gonna be close enough that it's gonna be able to capture this thing for us? Are we gonna get a good view of it?

B: It depends, actually, on various variables. But yeah, they could potentially get a really view of this. Although there are certain things that could make it not as awesome as it could be. Depending the various factors of the approach and things. But, as you know though, as we've talked about this, the estimates of the future positions of these objects are very difficult, 'cause you need to take a nice long look at its orbit so that you can accurately extrapolate, right? And one I wasn't quite aware of , though, is that this is even more problematic with comets, because, think about it; you've got these frozen gases on this comet; they heat up because it's getting closer to the sun, and then they explosively sublimate. They turn from ice to gas very quickly. And so it's like these little geysers that are erupting on the comet, and this, of course, is what creates the tail. That can change the orbit, as you can imagine these little geysers erupting. That could subtly, I mean not a lot, but it can change the orbit of the comet a tiny bit.

S: Like little jets.

B: And, right, and enough, this thing is gonna be so close to Mars as it is, that it could actually make it hit it or even miss it by even a greater distance. So right now, we really won't know until probably the earliest, I think, is late summer. It's when we can confident of what's gonna happen. Chances are, unfortunately, it's not gonna hit. Well, I guess it depends how you look at it. But if it did hit. Whoa. I mean, we're talking megahit. This thing's five to thirty miles across. This thing will be coming in at about, say, 55 kilometers, or 33 miles per second.

GH: Geez.

B: I mean this thing'll be coming in so fast. That is kinetic energy. They're talking, the impact equivalent of a billion megatons, that's a petaton. Equivalent to a one petaton nuke.

S: Bob, you like petatons?

B: I love petatons. They're awesome!

S: You're a petaphile?! (laughter)

B: Yeah, good one. Go for the easy ones, Steve, that was good.

E: See, Bob. There is the horizon. Did you see it coming?

B: That's with a "t" by the way, not a "d." Now, that's millions of times bigger than anything that we've ever detonated. We're talking about a crater that could be hundreds of miles or kilometers across. It would be totally devastating. But that would be cool.

(unintelligible – several people talking at once.)

B: I want this thing to hit Mars so bad. But, and I want one of our rovers to have a safe front-row seat to film this entire thing. But the problem is, I don't think there's, there won't be anywhere safe on the planet. Even if it was on the other side. This thing can be so devastating. It could take out every probe on the planet or in orbit. It won't matter where you are. It could wipe out everything. And that would clearly suck.

S: Would it be worth it, though, to get the video?

B: Think about the time and effort and future science that we would be getting out of these things, all wiped in an hour. Bam! Game over, you're done. But, yeah, the video, the YouTube video that came out of that would be epic. Totally epic.

J: Is that gonna ruin the geologic history of Mars?

B: No. In what way Jay?

E: Not all of it.

S: It's going to hit the last colony of life on Mars. (laughter) Wipe it out. Some bacterial colony.

GH: That group of cells up there is all getting psyched.

S: This little frozen, this little underground pond.

E: (in a little voice) Yay, we can think! Ahhhhhh! Crash.

J: Let me clarify. So we have a petaton object hitting the surface of Mars. Couldn't that breach the, get down in the mantle and actually . . .

S: The Martian crust is a little thicker than Earth's. Mars's crust is 50 kilometers thick on average, while Earth's is 40 kilometers on average. And the mantle is still hot. So, like Earth, Mars has a relatively thin crust. It also has a much thinner atmosphere, only 1/100 the thickness that of Earth. So that's less of a cushion to slow down anything incoming, like a comet. But I don't know if this could carry the punch necessary to crack open the crust down to the mantle.

B: Yeah, and that would be a deep crater, Jay.

J: Couldn't that kick up enough matter into the tiny atmosphere that there is and actually just screw up all of that geologic information?

S: Oh, it'll definitely erase a lot of geological information, no question.

GH: But it could also expose a lot, too.

S: Yeah. I don't know, but, yeah.

GH: I wonder, if it does hit, will this be a, sort of a good selling point for us to come up with some kind of comet deterrence system, asteroid deterrence system. Like, look at Mars! Look at what happened! That could be us!

B: Yeah.

GH: You know, I'm just saying. It'd be nice, right?

B: Absolutely. That's one of the big benefits of the Russian asteroid recently. That people are like, oh, boy, we've gotta really start taking this seriously. If something like that hit Mars and with such a devastating effect, and we filmed it in all of its glory, yeah, that would be, that would spur us even more. So in that regard, I think that will be a great benefit of this thing taking out Mars.

S: So I'm having mixed feelings about (unintelligible) It would be uber-cool in many ways, but I don't want all of NASA's probes to be destroyed. That would suck.

B: In one fell swoop. Which of course, the conspiracy theorists would say, well, yeah, this was manmade. We steered the comet towards Mars to wipe out, so that our probes wouldn't run into the secret…. (overlapping comments)

S: What if the comet hits Cydonia? Like it hits the face on Mars.

B: I was just thinking that, Steve. I was just thinking that! That would be, I really hope that doesn't happen, 'cause that would be too much of a coincidence.

(Many people talking at once – unintelligible)

GH: --put the pieces together. (laughter)

S: Yeah, we're getting there. That's our next item. So, Bob, what I read, though, was that the current estimate is that there's a 0.1 percent chance that the nucleus of the comet will directly hit Mars.

B: Yeah, it's looking unlikely, very unlikely, even right now, before we know the obit.

S: Yeah.

B: But it's not completely ruled out and who knows, these are comets and they are inherently harder to predict than asteroids.

S: But even if it's not a direct hit, though, there's a good chance that the

B: The comea, the coma?

S: Yeah, the coma will pass through Mars. Essentially

GH: Combover?

S: Yeah. It'll coma over, yeah.

GH: If it does hit, though, what happens to all the life force vampires that're in the comet? Are they affected by that, or is that . ..

B: OOOOhhhh. Yeah, I know what you're thinking of, George.

GH: Damn right.

J: My vote is I don't want it to hit.

B: 'Nuf said.

GH: 'Nuf said.

S: Jay votes no. What do you say, Evan?

E: Absolutely yes. This is a once, gosh, not even once in a lifetime chance. Once in a, I don't know, species time chance, for this to happen.

B: Yeah, I wanna see Mars split in two.

S: George, what do you think?

GH: I want it to hit, but I want it to hit like on the far side so we can't see it. Just to really be like Doooohhhhhhh it's so aaaaaaawwwwww. (laughter)

S: Worst case scenario.

GH: Yeah, I want a massive---

(Many people talking at once – unintelligible)

S: --wipes out all our probes so we don't get to see anything.

GH: Yeah, this huge nerd sigh, that just is like "guuuuuhh." Yeah, that's what I want.

B: (laughing) Nerd sigh.

J; Oh, my god.

E: Steve, what do you want? You said no?

S: I'm on the fence. No, I said I'm conflicted, very conflicted.

E: Don't forget, Mars has two moons.

S: Maybe it'll hit one of the moons.

B: Yeah, that'd be cool!

E: How cool would that be?

J: Not cool.

E: Why?

J: It could hit one of the moons and send it towards the Earth and then we're all f'd.

S: No.

B: I'll take that chance.

J: Hey, come on. You never know, Steve.

E: That's what happened in Thundarr the Barbarian. (laughter)

S; Jay, what are the names of the moons of Mars?

J: Yeah, there's, uh, Zero Zero One and Zero Zero Two. (laughter)

E: Alpha and Beta.

B: Deimos and Phobos.

S: Phobos and Deimos, yes.

J: Yeah, the first one, Frankie Gismore (laughter)

E: And the second one is?

J: I love it when we have all guys on the show. (laughter)

Sirius UFO (35:31)

YouTube: Dr.Steven Greer - Sirius Documentary (Trailer) - New Movie Coming Soon ! 2012

Who's That Noisy? (47:08)

Answer to last week: STS 1

A man from Ukraine had three sons. The first son was named Rab, and he became a lawyer. The second son was named Ymra, and he became a soldier. The 3rd son became a sailor, so what was his name?

Questions and Emails

Question 1: Magnet Hill (50:26)

Dear Skeptic Rogues, I am a Software Engineer originally from Dominican Republic, I have been a listener of the show since 2010, and every week I am looking forward to a new SGU chapter. When I was a kid (I am 28) back in DR, a journalist made an investigation about a "Magnetic Pole" in one remote corner of the country, Barahona, in the south east of the island. It always puzzle me.The place looks like a hill, however, everything you place in the ground "rolls" in the opposite direction, uphill. All objects, no matter what material they are, the are pulled upwards.You can look at dozens of videos in youtube by searching the string "polo magnetico barahona" (Magnetic Pole Barahona)The common and most simple explanation is that the place is an optical illusion. Is not that I do not believe it, I do not understand it.I have been looking for explanations, but none of them satisfy my curiosity. In my little research, I did't find any other place where this phenomena is happening. If you find an explanation to this phenomena I will appreciate it. Thanks in advance for your kind responses!

Jonathan Nonon

New York

Question 2: Tourette (56:27)

I was recently in a discussion about Tourette Syndrome and, to get to get quickly to the point, minor forms of said syndrome. It was my assertion that minor forms where more akin to compulsion or in more extreme cases OCD, and that Tourette was specifically an extreme. I remember you touching shortly on this on the SGU and searched your Blogs to see if you had written anything more in depth, to no avail. I was hoping that you could give me a short rundown on the "mechanics" to help me better understand what is going on with this phenomenon. If you would like to answer on the air I would be honored, but a small Email response is really all I am after here. Faithful listener, keep up the good work, etc.
Woody

Science or Fiction (1:06:04)

Item #1: Greater than 60% of upstream traffic is comprised of torrent files, while Netflix by itself represents 1/3 of peak download traffic. Item #2: Amazon.com benefitted from the popularity of the Yahoo search engine, which listed search results alphabetically. Item #3: North America has the highest internet penetration at 78.6%, while Africa has the lowest at 15.6%. Item #4: In 1999 Congressman Peter Schnell proposed House Bill 602P allowing the US postal service to charge a 5cent surcharge for each e-mail sent. The bill died in response to public outrage.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:22:01)

Neither evolution nor creation qualifies as a scientific theory.

Duane Gish

References