SGU Episode 821

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SGU Episode 821
April 3rd 2021
SGU 820	SGU 822
Skeptical Rogues
B: Bob Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
J: Jay Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
S: Steven Novella
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Introduction

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

B: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. (applause) Today is Thursday April 1st 2021, and this is your hostess with the mostess Bob Novella. Joining me this week is Evan Bernstein...

E: Hello everybody

B: Jay Novella...

J: Howdy

B: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Hey guys

B: and Steve Novella. How is everyone? Doing this evening, doing good? Well, yeah, Jay, I noticed your back. Where the hell were you last week, bro?

What happened? Yes. So I got a virus and I didn't know if it was covert or not and it was very scary and we got tested, you know, like I had to get tested. Because why would I catch a virus while I'm quarantined at home during a pandemic? So we figured out that, my, my daughter got a virus in school, like some cold head cold.

You know, when you feel virus symptoms coming on, you got to get the test because, you know, oh God, yeah, there's a Kofi, you know, once we decided like we're getting the test, you know. I realized you know I could have covid you know. Like and so you have to quarantine that on. Yeah. We double secret quarantine and I got a wicked bad head cold. And as the symptoms got worse, I really, I mean, I just got scared. I got a little scared. I don't like, you know, I'm 52 years old and you know, a lot of people a lot younger and a lot healthier than me died. You know. Like you just can't I think about it. You don't want to make that Constitution saving throw. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. But luckily, luckily, you know, was it was just a head cold and you know we went and got covid tested twice, you know, it was a huge swing. So you know, as we record this five days ago, I was feeling very ill and thinking I'm going to miss my covert appointment and wow, you know, this would be terrible if I actually got covid. Why I was at home, right? Because I can't give it to myself. But you know, so the bottom line is, I ended up getting my, my vaccination yesterday, which I didn't think I was going to be able to get for a couple of more months because I had to reschedule with my wife pulled, an amazing miracle and found us vaccinations like Tuesday. So I was it all turned out awesome. But I mean, you know last week I was like, oh, you know, this could be it for me. Yeah, we keep saying like we don't want to get sick now. You know like we should be. The end. Is in sight. Yeah. Just be a little bit more patient hunkered down. Yeah.

Now Advocates on the rise or yeah. So it is a time to be extra cautious, especially around here. And during the live stream I was like falling asleep. While I just wanted to do the live stream, but that was not even close to as sick as I got. So just be careful guys. Like if you get a virus, you know, you have to go get tested for covert like you don't know what virus you have. Yeah, they're hot. The hospital. You know where I work? Is preparing for a possible surge. You know, the wave numbers are starting to go up the Hospital admissions Etc. So in this is this is just when they said that the new variants like the UK variant was supposed to be peaking. They said in March I guess it is you know that Steve we're not hostile. Yeah pairing. Does that mean that there are a bunch of doctors and white lab coats running around with their hands up going out saying I'm Sarah? I'm sterile. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's like it's like you've worked in the hospital before. Jane saw it on TV. Dr. Stand around. Just look at each other and go doctor. Everything I know about

I learned from st. Elsewhere, what? So, I always know, like, when the hospital is gearing up, his one of the first things they do is put the neurologists on standby. They basically asked. So, who is going to cover us when we get swamped, you know, who like the, who's not normally like an internal medicine doctor. So that's, that's, that's happened. They can set the word dancing. All right, guys, were ready, getting ready for another wave. Would be need to have you waiting in the wings when we get overwhelmed. So, Internal Medicine. There are like pediatric, nurses working in the ER, you know, at at the hospital. Right. It's all hands on deck my sister-in-law. She was a, she is a nurse that specializes in treating patients after open heart surgery when I comes with a ton of training and now that's a very very difficult thing to do and they walked up to her and said you now work in the ER when covid hit that was it and she had been in the ER for a year.

During the worst times that we had. In the pandemic. So, yeah, she was hit hard. Not one person on her for God's sake, not one nurse got sick, that that's amazing, PPE usage. But here we are guys, we're not out of the woods man. You know like we've got about a hundred fifty million people in the United States got the vaccine because a ton of people about to get the vaccine you know with the scheduling going off the rails but it's still like it's getting worse because spring is coming and people are getting that itch and they're over it. And that's answer and states are opening, you know, prematurely old, like trying to outdo each other and how open they are. I know they want their economies to open and get money back in there, but yeah, Jesus.

What’s the Word? ()

• phenotype

All right. So this week, we also have a, what's the word segment, Jay? What do you have for us this week? I've got a fun one for you guys today. This word is a word that you've heard before but I don't know how well you know it every you. Everybody's heard the word phenotype, right? Oh yeah. I've heard. I'm sure Carrie you and Steve are probably well acquainted with it, but you know, when I was looking for a word, I'm like I want to find a word that I know, but I don't know. And this is one of those words. I had a very loose understanding of it, and now I have a very good understanding of it. So, here it is. Here's the definition of the observable and measurable characteristics of an organism as a result of an interaction of the genes of the, of the organism. Environmental factors and random variations. Yeah, so not to be confused. A trait because the trait is actually an attribute of the organisms phenotype. So you could say, the fish is blue, right? As a trait. But that's not really. That is not anywhere near as big as what the phenotype is, right? So traits are underneath phenotypes. This word was coined in 1911 by a scientist called Wilhelm Johansson. Of course, he created the word in German voting. So the nation Guards people, the original word is PHA Eno typ us and I think it's pronounced phenotypes. Originally in German. So phenotype is actually a translation from the German. Now, Wilhelm was a Danish pharmacist of botanist, who was a plant physiologist, a geneticist. So he coined the word phenotype, he coined the word genotype, and oh, this other word, that you probably may, or may not have heard of before the word Gene and they all came out of one book that he wrote. Wow, right now, is that cool? So it's Please, I'm not even going to like anybody that speaks German just does not want to hear me. Try to say this but the translated German book. Title is elements of the exact doctrine of heredity. Well there you go, pretty straightforward in that book became one of the founding texts of genetics which I think is very cool. So to give you like the real, real, real origin, of course we're going to go back to the ancient Greek and that word was thank, you know, fine opha, Ino, you know, I probably pronounce wrong. It's that

That means to shine to show to appear. And then the second part was to talk or two posts which means Mark or type. So to shine to show to a peer Mark type that's phenotype, right? So its appearance, right. As opposed to its genetic coding. Yeah, sure. That would be the genotype. Yeah. Yeah. And in medicine, we are when we talking about a phenotype, we're usually talking about a disease, right? So the man is, not everybody, not all. All genetic diseases have a hundred percent penetrant meaning that it will always. If you get you have the gene that doesn't mean you have the disease and they're not always as severe as you might have a mild manifestation of it or of extremely severe. So we talked about yet. This is your genotype. You have this specific mutation but this is your phenotype. This is like how you manifested you do or do not manifest the disease, right? And we often talk about Evolution and we talk about how genes

Have neutral positive or deleterious mutations, and one of the ways that we know what's going on in a mutation is that there may be a deal at serious phenotype. So a gene mutates. And the now this creature has no melanin for example or this organism, you know, ends up with an extra set of wings that prevent it from being able to fly neutral mutations often make changes but those changes might not even be observable from the The outside and so there may be something going on. That we can't see. But I think one thing that's important to remember is that phenotype is not always just how it looks on the outside. There's a phenotypic expression under a surgical knife, there's a phenotypic expression. It just has to do with what were observing right? Yeah well it's also I think like physiology so whereas morphology would be what it entirely Anatomy. What it looks like morphology phenotype includes that but also biochemistry and Physiology doesn't want other stuff. It's yeah. Does everything work exactly. So it's the Freshen. It's the way that the expression. Yeah. Right. And if you want to throw out some very geeky flattery, you could throw around the word phenotype as well, just throwing it out there. Thank you, Jay. I feel confident saying that, that's the best. What's the word you've ever done?

News Items

Satellites and Light Polution ()

• Study finds nowhere on Earth is safe from satellite light pollution

Evan, I believe you're about to talk about. Some pesky pesky pesky. Light pollution indeed new news about that this week. However, first I would like to put a little

Hole out there, a little question for the Rogues, as of January first two thousand twenty one. How many artificial satellites are in orbit around the Earth as jewelry for quintillion 30,000, I mean functional and non-functional just artificial satellites I believe they're counting the functional ones thirty thousand three thousand three pounds use pretty close. Yep yeah thousand thousand 3372 three right? With more satellites comes an increase in the risk of

Of collisions. The number of licenses that are being allowed for new satellites to be launched that it's not just this gradual increase but rather a sharp Spike that can exacerbate the potential for accidents and collisions and other satellite related problems are also concerned that radio frequencies will be pushed to their practical limits throughout the next decade coming up and they're concerned that the satellites are interfering with ground-based astronomy, which if you think about it is something countries around the world have invested many. As of billions of dollars on and it puts those Investments to a certain degree at some risk. But we can add perhaps a new concern to that list and it's comes to us because of the recent published paper, in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society letters, which is found that objects orbiting, the Earth Elevate the brightness of the night sky by at least 10% over natural light levels and this increase in brightness is not limited to. Certain parts of the planet, but rather it's having a global impact. So, no matter where you are, you're nighttime sky, observations are being impacted by not just these thirty three hundred or so satellites. It's in concert with the other bodies, that space junk debris, and other things that are up there that are all reflecting the sunlight, tens of thousands of these objects that are large enough to reflect the light are having this impact. The title of the paper is called the proliferation of space objects is a rapidly increasing. S of artificial night, sky brightness. And you only need to really point to the abstract to pick up the highlights of the story and really what they're talking about here. They say that the population of artificial satellites and space. Debris, orbiting the Earth and poses non-negligible constraints on both space operations, and ground-based Optical, and radio. Astronomy this ongoing deployment of several satellite Mega constellations that something we've definitely spoken about in recent episodes and the ones that are coming up in the 2020s. This coming decade, they represent an Additional threat that raises significant concerns can no longer be ignored or just kind of brushed off. We have to put it into really the spotlight, they're reporting that a new Sky. Glow effect produced by space objects, increased night, sky brightness, caused by sunlight, reflected and Scattered. By this large set of orbiting bodies whose direct Radiance is a diffuse component. When observed with the naked eye, or with low angular resolution photometric instruments. And according to Their preliminary estimates, the Zenith luminance of the additional light pollution Source may have already reached a ten percent increase over the brightness of the night. Sky determined by natural sources of light. Now, that 10% is important. 10% is the critical limit. That was adopted in 1979 by the international astronomical Union, for the light, pollution level not to be exceeded at the sites of astronomical observatories. And we, according to their study and

Are calculations. It's there. And it's there right now, and it's going to get worse dr. Miroslav Klose. Fache of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and cominius University and Slovakia? And forgive me. I mean, that's probably a terrible pronunciation of his name by me, I'm sure he's listening right now, so I apologize. He was the leader of the study and he said, that our primary motivation was to estimate potential contribution to night, sky brightness, from external sources, such as space objects in a river Corbett. We Spected the sky. Brightness increase would be marginal if any but our first theoretical estimates have proved extremely surprising and thus encouraged us to report our results promptly. What he's basically saying there is they were surprised when he says surprising, I believe he means alarmed and they said we have to we have to make people aware of this a lot sooner than later. Their work is the first to consider the overall impact of space objects on the night sky by modeling objects contribution to overall brightness and they're in.

Puts further, modeling are the known distributions of the sizes and brightness of the object. So they actually took these physical measurements phenotypes, can I say that these include both functioning satellites as well as the other debris and rock and spent rocket stages and other things that are reflecting the light? Now we have John barrentine, he's the director of public policy at the International dark-sky Association carry. Have you interviewed him before for your show? I haven't. But I have done a lot of Search on that on that or, you know, that concept, I could have sworn that you have some folks. John barrentine or Baron Taco. I havent had him on, but I've definitely, I don't know, I have talked to some people about dark sky initiatives before and they they were involved in this in this study and this analysis as well. He particularly said, unlike ground-based light pollution, this kind of artificial light in the night. Sky can be seen across a large part of the Earth's surface as space gets more. Or crowded the magnitude of this effect, will only be more not less. I think he's absolutely right. You know, we've talked about the starlink communication satellite array. Yeah. And since 2019 SpaceX has launched more than a thousand Starling communication satellites and obviously from used for Global Internet service. But how about this? Over the next 10 years? Tens, of thousands more, they already got the licenses for them, they're going to come from SpaceX and other companies including Amazon and those you know those are just too big.

Companies and there are others. So you're about to see a real significant increase in this in this traffic. But I was disappointed with with SpaceX because they because in response to a lot of this outrage they the SpaceX Engineers had a managed to actually a dim this. The satellites that they were working on by about a quarter of the brightness 25% of the brightness of the that they that was exhibited from the first prototypes. And that's great that they did that, but my reaction is that they shouldn't have Had to have waited to outrage to do this. This should be part of the ethos of like, Hey, we're doing, you know, we're putting all these satellites up there. Let's do what we can to make sure it doesn't mess, you know, with the, with the, in the glow of the atmosphere or the, the impact on other astronomers. And if they could, if they can whack it back, 75%, I think that should have been in their minds before, you know, people started really complaining about it. Yeah. Is there a reason why these satellites can't be coated with either material or a special paint or something?

It would absorb all that sunlight rather than reflect admit. There may be practical reasons or just the material itself doesn't exist but no just wait probably I would say wait and possibly possibly heat, right because reflecting it is bouncing the energy away and it if it's absorbing all that energy you know a black satellite might just get too hot. Hmm. It just redirected away from, you know the Earth that's you know maybe just how about some metamaterials I could probably do it but that's probably Probably expensive, but what would that do to add right? So the cost and then they'd have to increase the cost of the users and then the practicality aspects kind of go off the charts. I suppose at that point, guys, even at the darkest possible sites on the earth. The sky itself has this Natural Glow in the upper atmosphere. You know, you got ionized particles, among other things happening up there. But on top of that background glow, the objects already in orbit, add about 10% more diffused light as per these estimates. But this impacts the work of astronomers, the ground-based astronomy equipment, that is searching for the faint.

Objects dim galaxies. They were lying on that delicate data for collecting and studying giving clues about physics of the Galaxy formation of Dark Matter over things. And it puts those it does put those things in Jeopardy. And there is a lot invested in that, you know, I mentioned there's like many, many billions impact, tens of billions of dollars that has been invested towards these projects and it is going to put some of these things. At some level of risk, the number of space objects orbiting the Earth is expected to increase by more than an order of magnitude in the next decade because and largely because of these constellations satellites. So this has to become something that comes to the Forefront of the conversation. That was the purpose as to why they got this paper out in pretty quick order. So things are crappy for human stargazers on earth.

Heart Size and Space Travel ()

• Biological Effects of Space Travel

Kara, how are things for humans in space? Yeah, not great. With all that, right?

Asian and whatnot, right? Yeah not not awesome. Not as bad as we thought though. So there's an interesting new study that was published in the Journal circulation. Turtle named circulation. I love it and so yeah, double meaning, right? And so what are we think? It's about, of course, cardiac effects of repeated weightlessness during extreme this is the best part extreme duration swimming compared with spaceflight. So not only are we going to talk today about? Out what space flight does to the heart, we're also going to talk About what weightlessness during extreme duration. Swimming does to the heart because you guys may remember that Benoit lecompt actually swam over a course of a hundred. Fifty nine days attempting to break a record 2821 kilometers and during this time he was mostly horizontal. He was mostly weightless in the water and then at night he slept in a boat also mostly horizontal. Interestingly we saw similar Effects from been Wala, comps swim to Scott, Kelly's flight Scott, Kelly famously spent 340 days in space. And I know we've talked about him before astronaut Scott Kelly because of course he has a twin brother. So there's some really cool twin studies that could be done here and he spent so much time in space and has been so open of course as part of his job. But also with with being poked and prodded to really understand what is space doing to this man's body. And so we've got some new data now about what

Gravity drunk kind of these our in microgravity. Yeah, shrink for sure. Yep, it shrunk, cardiac atrophy, we saw that it most of the shrinkage occurred in the left ventricle which is you know kind of the PowerHouse of the heart. This is where most of the muscle mass is. And the shrinkage was think something. Let me get the exact number 27 percent of its fat is square wave 27. It's so that is not. That's not trivial that's scary. Oh, man, so one thing that we don't usually think about is, the heart is striated muscle, which is very similar in a lot of ways to skeletal muscle, unlike most of our organs, which are made of smooth muscle. And the thing about striated muscle, is that it builds, it actually builds bulk with work. We know this. We know that in individuals, for example, who have gigantism that they end up often developing an enlarged heart, we know that an individuals who have narrowed

He's, you know, through different types of cholesterol buildup. Hardened arteries, different reasons that their heart, sometimes become enlarged, because it's working harder. But, in microgravity, it doesn't have to work as hard because not fighting against gravity. And interestingly, we see something similar. If you're swimming for many, many hours, horizontally in the weightlessness of the OSHA, the same thing, the heart shrinks even In though this person was working out like a madman, right? That's well, he take away. He was not working out like a mad man. That's part of the thing and precise that well I mean you swimming he was the hours, six hours a day, average is five point eight or something, a little bit less than 6, but he was pacing himself, he was not swimming, all out. He was swimming at a very slow steady Pace in order to be able to keep up with. This was a long, this was a distant. Yeah, you know, situation, they considered that moderate exercise.

Sighs and what they concluded was. And here's the thing. Of course, Scott Kelly was exercising as vigorously as, you know, his day allowed for, on the ISS that in neither case, was that amount of exercise protective. Yes, it didn't make up for it. Oops. Six hours of swimming. A day was not enough to prevent that from happening because it wasn't vigorous enough or just the it just doesn't compensate for the fact that the heart does not have to pump Against Gravity, right? And that's what I, what I would still say though, that, even though he was doing much, Moderate workouts. I would still say that five hours of moderate activity, a day is a lot of effort and working out. It is, how much more is necessary? Because been wild, accomplice, 25% of his heart Mass Scott Kelly lost, 27 percent of his heart Mass here. I mean Scott Kelly lost it over 340 days in microgravity been while accomplice it over after only a hundred, fifty nine days swimming. But here's an interesting takeaway that The study authors mention more research needs to be done but what they're starting to see the trending in the data is that a lot of this has to do with premorbid functioning. So, prior to going to space prior to swimming in the ocean. If somebody is incredibly athletic, they tend to lose heart Mass but if somebody is not doing much anyway the strain of working out or the strain of swimming may actually build them. M. And so the thing is these people were healthy, they were healthy. So they needed to work harder either been. Well, accompany to swim more intensely to make up for the loss of heart. Muscle or Scott Kelly. Unfortunately, six days a week doing 30 minutes a day, wasn't enough? Yeah, he's going to have to be prescribed, a more intensive exercise, regimen space that doesn't surprise. It was actually that low because I thought my impression was that their workouts in space were far more than 30 min for more than

Minutes a day. I mean, I'm doing that every day. They should be working harder than me, right? And let's think about where that prescription comes from. It comes from the fact that over decades, we've been collecting data about how space affects our physiology. But that data is really a function of random happenstance like there are certain hypotheses that physiologist working for NASA, have been able to come up with, okay? I'm worried about the bones right, our bones work because they keep us upright, and they work hard to like, you know, it To have our muscles connect. To them and to do this kind of work and the minute that we don't have that kind of pressure. What's going to happen to our bones? We might just start to see bone loss, this was a hypothesis that was expected. You know what wasn't expected that our eyeballs would squish? Nobody saw that coming. Yeah, but some people's eyeballs Squish and they it changes their Vision. They become more farsighted and space and at that they were like what when they first realized that? So the thing about space that's so fascinating is we did not evolve their we evolved here on Earth with 1G. And every like when do we adapted to one G? And so we're learning slowly. But surely based on these ISS studies, exactly what micro gravity does to us and it seems to do a hell of a lot now. The cool thing is, some things can be prevented or changed or mitigated like the muscle mass loss. It's very likely that if they exercise more and more rigorously, that muscle mass loss would be.

The bone loss can be prevented or certain types of exercise. But there doesn't seem to be a mitigation for things like squishy eyeballs. Immunodeficiency, the disorientation that happens with in your inner ear. We're turning your head ever. So slightly makes it feel like you're literally turning your body around in circles. And a lot of these different things come out of space travel. And so, you know, physiologists are working on trying to figure out are there. Ocean efforts, we know that for example, of what's it called, the like rotating areas that Force fake gravity that we see in a lot of Science Fiction. Yeah, spinning satellites. Centrifugal force. And yeah, the centrifugal force that keeps your feet on the ground. You know, it has long been thought of as a mitigation for a while. It was abandoned because it's insanely expensive but it seems to be the case that it may actually be necessary. Yeah. Because It might make up for some of the unknowns that could have in months and our health is directly tied to gravity. Our health, every total everything. Yeah. Do you on Earth, we do in this environment? All of our physiology happens at 1 G and as soon as we change that everything goes wonky and weird and we still don't even know what some of the things are. That could go extra wonky and weird. Yeah, we need to seriously look at, you know, having things like you know, rotating sections of spaceships, if we're To have people out there for months, and months and months. And over a year or more, we're really going to need to consider that. If we can't really get our around these, these things that happen. And and that's, that's not to mention basically unlivable conditions of space radiation. We talked about the in the intense cold the near vacuum, you know, Starbucks, those Starbucks. Oh goodness. You know don't get me started. So obviously all of those mitigations are in research phases. And

And very, very smart. People are spending a lot of money to try and figure out how to solve these problems. There probably is a solution for all of these problems. Whether that solution is feasible, financially, whether it's feasible, physiologically, that is yet to be seen because what we're talking about here are the unknown unknowns when there's no way back to safety very readily. And we're talking about very, very, very long expanses of time and and one thing That I want you guys is insight into because I don't know this very well and I don't seem to see it in most of the coverage here is pretty much everything we know is based on low earth orbit its microgravity. But when we're talking about going to Mars, isn't it even going to be even more intense? What do you mean like on the trip to Mars? Yeah, like the lack of gravity is even less than in microwave.

As it's not like there aren't you not just surrounded by mass that's having gravity on you. But it's the when you're drifting through space and you're in low earth orbit, it's basically the same essentially. If you're in low earth, orbit, you're still within an orbital plane which when you're falling gravity, your you're following the gravity. Yeah, your fault. Whereas once you get out of low earth orbit you're no longer falling, right? Well, depends on where you could be in higher Ortho, but you're still falling, right? It's just Earth's orbit. It depends you Accelerating the Nets a difference formula different story. But yeah, you're yeah, it's essentially the same know, your yielding, to gravity and orbit or you're traveling to, you know, you're not accelerating to Mars years. You're still in the, you know, you're not affected by mass essentially, Kara, if you're in an inertial frame. So in other words, you are just traveling without any forces acting upon. You doesn't matter what your if you're, you know, what, gravity is, pushing you're pulling in One Direction. The reason why we feel the 1g of gravity at Earth Surfaces because the Earth is pushing up and against us, right? When you're in when you're in orbit, you're just you're you're falling around the earth, your there's nothing pushing up against you. So you're not feeling any gravity, same thing would be when you're coasting through. Deep space would be the exactly the same thing, but you bring up a when you said Mars, I thought you were going to a different place. So I think. Yeah, spaceship space stations you're going to need some kind of artificial gravity which is basically going to be rotation is going to be the next king. There's a lot of like diameters and radii being tossed around. I found one study though that said that you're going to need, you can go to four revolutions per minute. And that seems like a lot. It's not what's like really recommended but you could, you could adapt to four revolutions per minute and that means that diameter would have to be 336 feet. That's so that's that's like the minimum diameter it's well maybe not minimum but that's like a good one that's a good diameter that's a lot 336 feet damn it sighs even when even when

You're in Earth's orbit. Emotion because you're not only falling around the earth, you're falling around the Sun anyway. Right, yeah. So, our existence is basically managing Fallen. Well, that's what walking around on the ground is too. I mean, it's, we've already cried uncontrollably care. Did you know that there's already a private company orbital assembly Corporation. OAC, that is, that is planning to build a right station. That is rotating station in orbit. Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed your stay. And there and there, they plan on starting it in 2025. Yeah. See, the interesting thing is that really could mitigate a lot of the fundamental problems of low earth, orbit, totally. There are still the problems of radiation, you know, cosmic rays like all these things hoop shield shield. Yeah there are definitely things that are in Mobile research, phases, and development phases. For one thing that I often like to think about is the fact that when we look at these human trials, these like real life,

Is so much data has been published about one God. And I'm not saying that Scott. Kelly is the only astronaut who we've studied. We studied many astronauts. But we do not, our n is very small and these are people who are very fit, these are people who were, you know, Thailand strained. Yeah, military pilots who went through years of training before they before they left Earth. And the the amount of variability just for example, in our susceptibility to cancer is It's so great, you know, you and I, if we get the right dosage of radiation, we'll both get cancer. But there is definitely an in-between where some people are going to get cancer and some people aren't well. Yeah, I don't know. Is anyone under the illusion that spaces for everyone? I think that that's the ultimate goal, right? I think sure, but it's not really attainable. You also wonder though. How long will it take for a subpopulation of humans to evolve adaptations to living?

Space on the Space Race Hugh Steve, that you mention that because we're talking about like kind of classic natural selection, right? Like populations. But a lot of the researchers, even the researchers of this study mentioned that there are certain things were. We may actually be able to adapt. We've just never given somebody long enough to see if they can sew it, so we're not even talking about evolutionary adaptation, you know, genetic adaptation. There may actually be ways that our body start to adapt physiological attitude. Illogical. The longer that we are exposed to these certain stressors. And so we still don't know if maybe there would be a rebound effect with with Scott Kelly's, heart, if he was there long enough or, you know, a little footnote Scott, Scott's heart went back to normal within within, I think months of his Return To Zero, it wasn't back to normal. But also remember, Scott, Kelly works out a lot. Yes. And we don't know of any long-term effects of to that rebound. Yeah. And so the interesting thing is that, if somebody who is kind of like,

Lazy and like not doing a lot of work, goes to space and has this new exercise regimen, that's really intense. Their heart may actually grow because the exercise regimen made make up for the shrinkage, but then, of course, they may not rebound the same way either. Yeah. The Grinch. Yeah, like the Grinch yet. They, I think that the right up in the New York Times actually reference the Grinch course. What does that say? It's one of the famous lines from that. They said it wasn't from love those from exercise. Well, thank you, Kara.

Self-Replicating Synthetic Cell ()

• Scientists built a perfectly self-replicating synthetic cell

I will now talk a little bit about a synthetic cells, and replication in the news. So, so, yeah, there's another nicely incremental, advances, in synthetic cells recently, that it's also a little on the Milestone e side kind of important. Researchers have updated their minimalist synthetic cell, so that it can now reproduce itself normally. So this is published March 29th in the journal cell. Senior author was Elizabeth.

Child ski leader of the cellular Engineering Group at the incident National Institute of Standards and technology nist. So, in 2016, some of you may remember we talked about the creation of a synthetic cell by genome sequencing Pioneer. J Craig Venter. That name is probably familiar to a lot of listeners. They wanted to create a cell with a minimum amount of genetic baggage required to to be alive. That was a go. So they started with the bacterium mycoplasma genitalium and I I love, I love that name. Probably obvious though that this is a sexually transmitted microbe. So remember, this is, this is still back at like, a decade ago when this started in 2010 2010, they started working on this and they, okay. They, I believe, they use that micro because it already starts with a very spare Genome of only about nine hundred eighty five genes which is not a lot. I believe some common genes in common microbes have you know, somewhere in the thousands and so this is kind of kind of spare R. So back in 2010 they replace them with 900 and and one went down. If they reduced it by 84 genes, these are hand engineer genes that they that they used. And they dubbed, the result sin, Sy, n 1.0 sent 1.0. So they basically took out the nucleus and then put in, you know, the basically completely hand engineered genome, so that was like the first, you know, minimalist attempt. But 2016 though, is the bigger breakthrough. That's what we

About a few years ago, got a half a decade ago. So when they, when they brought that total way down to a measly 473 jeans, that's from 9012 473, they called that sin 3.0. Now, I'm not sure what happened to sin 2.0, but it might be best if we just don't ask. So that was a nice break through and they believed that they were close to the minimal genome required to be alive but they soon discovered a problem you know, building proteins. And duplicating its DNA, no problem. It did that stuff like a champ, but when it came time for this minimalist cell to divide, it did not go very well. It would not produce, well, it should have produced these nice fears, you know, like Forks fears, but they were all messed up. They were different sizes. They were different shapes. Some were huge, some were kind of skinny, like, beaded necklaces, just not, not at all good, but like all good scientists. They looked at first, all their processes and they ruled out the Environmental.

As for these messed up kids, since I've ruled that out the cause then was most likely that the previous removal of genes that managed our reproduction itself and the resulting shapes of the daughter cells, that was probably the mistake they made. They pulled out some genes that they probably shouldn't have now that gets us up to modern day and they have now produced the, the new champ, the new synthetic minimalist Cell. It's called sin 3, a not four. But three a and this contains Is 492 jeans a little bit more than three point. Oh, well, that's fine. And it makes sense. Of course, crucially seven of those genes that were added, were absolutely critical for the cell to divide normally. Now, the cell is great. It can divide it creates these nice little uniform babies fears and they're just just the right size. So they looks like they nailed it in terms of reproduction at least. So what? So, what happened, what do they do? So in the intervening years, they discovered that two of the genes that they

Previously removed 430. We're involved in cell division. My take was that they discovered. Oh, look at this, this Gene clearly is doing something involving seldom age division. Let's throw that into 3A. But the other five though there's five more genes so that they added back and and they were obviously needed to reproduce because they they helped it to be able to reproduce perfectly but they have no idea what those genes do regarding this child. Ski said we still don't know the mechanism by which Which these things divide that blows my mind, it's one of the basic aspects of life and it's kind of true. This kind of reproduction is kind of critical to you know to life. You know, propagating on Earth and they still don't have a really good handle on just the minimal amount of G of jeans that you need to make this happen with cells. Now then of course the scientists point out that determining what those genes do was not within the scope of the study and again you know, it makes sense. They were they weren't looking to find out exactly what they do. They were their goal was

Great. This minimalist cell that can live and reproduce and that's what, that's what they did. And that, of course, leads to the future of this work of finding out what those genes actually do is going to be obviously at the top of somebody's list because we know, once they get a handle on those, those jeans and exactly how they operate, then you could truly say that, you know, we know now exactly what's needed for this. But more generally though, this is important, I think because in the scientists as well, this is important because Cuz once you have a truly minimalist cell that could live make proteins, We produce maybe smoke, a nice cigar, or to that, then that's the proper Foundation. Because from there, you can build and you could add desirable properties, to do. Truly amazingly helpful things that were probably going to see in the future with this synthetic cell technology. What can we do? You know, they're talking about building miniscule, computers. You imagine molecular scale computation taking place inside of cells. That's just too awesome and don't even get me started on that. They could also do things like engineering. We're living sensors. These sensors can potentially be aware of the environment that they're that they're embedded in, in terms of acidity temperature, oxygen levels, Etc, that could be incredibly helpful. You could potentially make these. These tiny synthetic cells, Beach, drug factories, or these just tiny, tiny generic factories that could produce drugs. That could essentially they're talking about having them to detect. I like a disease state in part of the body, then it could actually make the necessary Therapeutics.

On bam. I mean that's pretty damn convenient, but it's not just drugs are talking about. They're talking about synthetic cells, creating fool, and Fuel and food itself. And I think this is a, you know, an amazingly promising industry that this is going to be an amazingly advantageous industry in the not too distant future. I can't wait to see you know what these guys can do. Imagine, imagine basically being able to create a custom-made microbes, I mean, look at everything that bacteria and archaea do on a daily. Basis. If we could tailor build these metabolisms and these these cellular structures to create what we need. I think it has amazing potential so that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

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Why No Lyme Vaccine ()

• Lyme disease vaccine: the frustrating reason there isn’t one for humans

So, Jay got a question for you. You need to tell me why my dog can get a Lyme disease vaccine but I can't. What's going on you dog? A. So I don't know if any of you have had Lyme disease. Steve, did you ever had this? No, nope. I thought somebody had it that we do, but it's bad. It could be really bad, especially if it goes untreated. So Lyme disease, started in Connecticut. I remember talking about this on the show before, right? It started not too far from where we're me Bob and Steve and Evan are right now. Kara it's very far from you but there is a place called Lyme Connecticut and I guess that was the first place that the disease was identified. And they're in, there you go. So the way people get it is by a deer tick way. Those little bastards carry a disease and they infect as many as 300,000 people a year. Now, most of those are unreported cases, but that's the estimate. We have confirmed cases averaging about 35,000 a year. So out of those cases, some people get very serious.

Symptoms and get permanent damage because the disease if left alone could do very serious things to the human body, its core, it's caused by four main species of bacteria, you know, like I said, the deer ticks transfer the bacteria and they love grassy and heavily wooded areas. So that ends rolling in the hay, I guess, right? Because if you're a New England, you know that you're not supposed to walk and Tall Grass, unless you're wearing long clothing, you know, sometimes I'll tuck my pants inside my socks. You have to like you, because you're there. Small. You really can't even feel them. Then you have the other tick checks on ourselves as we did that with the kids. All summer, took Jackie and that means basically get naked. Let somebody look at every previs that. Yeah, so yeah, just ask me to do that anymore. Jay, couple of a couple of points. So that is effective because it takes about 24 hours for a tick bite to transfer the bacteria. So if you get it off in the day, you're probably good and also So the bacteria these bacteria called spirochetes. They look like little Corkscrew little spirals they're related to the bacteria that causes syphilis. So lime is actually a it's is a similar very similar disease to syphilis in that. Not that that's not sexually. Transmitted it is tick-borne but it has a primary a secondary and tertiary kind of infection. And the tertiary infections are very similar. They can affect your chronically affect the heart or effect.

Nervous system is differences, obviously, but The lot of overlap, very, very similar kinds of organisms and infections and did you guys know that there are so, there's, there's four different kinds in. There are two of the bacteria are in North America and two of the other bacteria are in Europe. So it's not all the same. So like to add to what Steve was saying, there are many different types of symptoms that you can get. You can get a rash, you can get fever chills, fatigue body aches, headache, neck, stiffness, swelling, Olin lymph nodes which are you know, that could be very painful and then later on if untreated, you can get your with Mia migraines joint pain and neurological problems, which Steve would probably know a lot about but you don't want any of this and then the really bad stuff. Heart problems, eye inflammation, irregular heartbeat, liver inflammation, severe fatigue, hepatitis all just all sorts of nasty things. So what do we do? We use antibiotics to treat Lyme disease and it works for the most part, it works like Bob was

I know if you were a dog you can get a vaccine because they have a vaccine for dogs. But did you guys know that there was a vaccine for people for Lyme disease and not that long ago? This was back in the early 2000s in the name of the vaccine was limericks. L ym e RI X, okay? I think lime remember, line works whatever I have to say limerence because that's basically so it was developed and started in the Late 1990s, it was up to 92 percent effective against infections. Several hundred thousand people got the vaccine, but this ended because of the anti-vaccine movement. So Alan Barber who was one of the people who helped discover the cause of Lyme disease, and also a co-inventor of the vaccine said eventually. He said that, even though the patent has run out on the vaccine now, because it's been quite a while since it was being formally produced, no companies are trying to sell it and it's very

That it will ever be sold. Mrs. Because this particular vaccine had gotten not only just a lot of negative baggage attached to it. From the very beginnings of the anti-vaccine movement, it probably was one of if not the first vaccine to get completely crushed by the anti-vaccine movement, the Food and Drug Administration did approve this vaccine back in 1998 and the vaccine had three doses. There were about fifty dollars each, which if you think about it today, like I'd get that in a heartbeat he'd like never have to worry about About ticks again a hundred, fifty bucks. Yes, you know, I mean it's like a daily problem if you live in the spring summer and fall, you live in New England, it's a part of your life and I don't want that in my life. So I would have spent the money. So these these vaccines are given over the course of a year. And by all accounts, it was extremely effective against North American strain of the bacteria on top of that. It had little to no side effects with all the good things that science knew about the vaccine it was, unfortunately marketed at the beginning like

Set of the anti-vaccine movement. So, of course, the anti-vaccine movement goes back a very long way. But the modern anti-vaccine movement, really did come into existence in the late 90s and of course, many of, you know, of the infamous Lancet. Publication that falsified a study about the MMR vaccine in the link to all the false linked to autism. And that study was done by Andrew Wakefield, whose name you will forever live in infamy and I'm not kidding, you know? We Add it in the Lancet and it got really got pulled out, but the anti-vaccine movement was already created. And in my personal opinion, he is responsible for the death of every single person that died from a lack of these vaccines, because he did it. So Wakefield had his own measles vaccine that he was trying to sell and he put down and discredited the MMR vaccine because he wanted to make money. That's so that's really where the edge effects. The modern anti-vaccine we became. So,

Started to get around that there was possibly autoimmune reactions from the Lyme disease vaccine. Now, this was originally brought up by a few members of the FDA that actually approve the vaccine. There was, of course, no evidence of this. And I think that they were being very cautious because the anti-vaccine movement was happening and it seems to me, like, they were trying to hedge their bets, but in the end, they gave it full approval and the clinical trials, showed no sign at all of any autoimmune, fact, a study published in the year 2000, found that the vaccine contributed to Of autoimmune, arthritis, and hamsters and not in humans and other researchers. Saying that it might be possible that some people had a genetic disposition to develop the autoimmune, responses the vaccine and then people who receive the vaccine started to report the plates, they filed a class-action lawsuit and the vaccine was pulled from the market. You know? And after all of that the FDA continue to do research on all of the claims that were made they spent four years doing it and they never ever found any conclusive evidence that there was any connection between the vaccine and arthritis or autoimmune or Anything. So yeah, in fact, the people the number of people who reported it that was at the background level right there was, it was exactly what you would predict just from the background, you know, incidents of those. Yeah, it was over. So, the numbers are 1.4 million doses, were eventually, ultimately given. And out of all of that 59 people that got the vaccine developed arthritis, and, like Steve said, this exactly matched the rate in which unvaccinated people got the fire.

You would find about 59 people that got arthritis. What does that mean? That means it had no effect. It wasn't the vaccine. So those people 905 people reported side effects out of the 1.4 million doses given. And again, this is an incredibly small fraction of people who got, you know, who got the shots. Like there's a lot of other vaccines and medications that do a hell of a lot more damage than that this vaccine was good and it was safe and highly highly affected. So the media Frenzy Killed the vaccine that the media frenzy completely fueled the anti-vaccine movement and in summer, I know Carol, right? It's disgusting. So they and they pulled it from the market because it wasn't making money. It went, you know, we went from like, you know, hundreds of thousands of people in one year, getting vaccinated down to 10,000 people the next year. Thanks and again, you know, keeping keep this in mind, the FDA did follow up testing and they found nothing. You know what I mean? Like they cleared, it doesn't matter though because once marketing hits, man forget it. So since then,

Partly due to climate change Lyme disease, disease, infections have done what they've gone up. They continue to increase a number. Many people in the medical community, of course, want an effective vaccine, right? Doctors are going, hey, I'm getting lots of patients coming in here. What the hell? Where's the vaccine? But no pharmaceutical companies are biting because they don't want to go back to that quote, unquote poison. Well, whether it was a good vaccine or not, they have to make money so I get it. Unfortunately, you know, we don't have the Lyme disease vaccine today. Which Which we absolutely could have, we would have had another 20 years of freaking, you know, research and understanding of it. They probably would have even modified. It made it even better and you know, look and I'm not kidding when I say this and the downside is people are getting really sick and it just affects day of life here in New England. Like, I have to like really think about my kids every single time they go outside. So good news, I mean, now that I've totally depressed, you let me throw some good news your way. Yes. You know, we all agree that the anti-vaccine movement has compromised public

But there are other companies. Now, one particular in France that is developing a new vaccine for for I think all of the different strains other companies are going to pick it up but they're not going to take this existing technology. They're going to build something new and it'll be, you know, new enough where it probably won't. Follow the same path. I really don't think it will at all, but unfortunately, you know, this is the harm. You know, the whole question that whole thing that we've been talking about for the last 20 years since the internet, what's the harm?

This is the heart, the harm is that there are people walking around with permanent neurological disorders from a little bug that bites. You that passes, you a bacteria and the anti-vaccine movement, very happily killed that vaccine because they don't like vaccines. Because one man dies paper for the Lancet, you know, over 20 years ago. Yeah. Did you know that they're doing? They're already. The anti-vaxxers are building the same kind of bullshit story for the, the covid vaccines. Of course, we had to predict saying that, oh, yeah, there's this preclinical animal study in whatever where they get like an immune reaction to it, like, okay. But what about the actual clinical human trials? We are, we did placebo-controlled studies. And found that if you get vaccinated, your chance of surviving were much greater. We're talking about a theoretical problem based upon animals versus clinical data and humid, you want to hear like more details about that. So we've distributed about a hundred forty five million

Covid back scenes in the last four months. So anyone who died after they got the vaccine at, you know, this is after exhaustive research and following up on all the patients and everything. There was absolutely no link to death so far from the covid vaccine, that's not the one, but there was also, you know, there's also this whole thing about this nurse who did a YouTube video about about the vaccine saying that has it causes autoimmune. You nor potentially is giving people autoimmune problems because from her understanding of her reading of the research she she did read that one of the developers of the vaccine and a researcher that had a lot to do with it. And this is a doctor called get this, this is a doctor called dr. Drew Weissman. He wrote about an earlier version of the MRNA technology and he said it's possible that we could see, you know, a few different

Side effects. And one of the things that he listed was a What possible effect on autoimmune, you know? But that was, you know, versions ago of this technology. And yeah, this is like there's always going to be a phase for our scientists. Are you looking at the basic science research were saying, these are the possible things that can happen. These are the things we need to look out for when we do the clinical studies, then we do the clinical studies, you know, and we see what actually happens with large numbers of people. And then when millions of people get it, we have lots of data we could look at to see if there's any Illogical correlations and they're going back to this preclinical animal data. That was in theoretical possibilities that have already been disproven by human clinical data because they're anti-vaxxers, right? They have the Grassroots, and yeah, their cherry-picking, whatever they can in order to build the case they've already decided they want to make. They love to talk about it as if we did studies and the studies were done like this idea that we're not still collecting data that the, you know, the vaccine

Is the the pharmaceutical companies and also governments around the world are continuing to look at the data to keep an eye on how things are changing. How is it active? In the real world, we're seeing a 90 percent Effectiveness within the real world? Yeah, this is huge, but it's there's this mentality like, oh, they didn't do enough research, it's like the research is not over it continuing. Yeah, but it's cost versus benefit right? You know. It's like yes, of course we wouldn't it. Be great. If we could do 30 years of testing, we can't and the world cannot die first. Yeah, exactly. So we, this is what scientists and researchers are good at. They figure out, you know, this is where we begin. Giving the vaccine, we've done an excellent research, it's showing this. Sure stuff can show up, but man, will save way more people that then will people that will die, right? That's the whole point.

Origins of SARS-CoV-2 ()

• The Origins of SARS-CoV-2

Steve, I read your blog ansari's, science-based medicine about the origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Scope to see what say you. Yeah. So this this has been an issue since since the pandemic began but a major new report has come out from the World Health Organization, The Who and Chinese researchers, who collaborated for this investigation, it's actually been started last summer and they've the in person part of it happened earlier this year, they reviewed the literature and they produced a pretty thorough report About just where did this virus come from? So tsar's Cove to it was a novel coronavirus, raging a new virus that has not been previously detected. So they wanted to know what is the very first evidence that this virus existed and where and what was the epidemiology of the spread early on and then try to Marshall this evidence oratory in court in order to determine where it came from. There's basically four hypotheses.

Right? In terms of where I came from and they were exploring all of these one is directed zoonotic spillover. And so zoonotic means coming from animals, spillover means it goes from the animal population to the human population. The second is Introduction through an intermediate host. So it's so it was in an animal population and then it didn't go directly to humans, but it mutated on its way through an intermediate host and then to humans the third why is that still is Or not. It's still an animal to human it is, but it's but it's not direct, it's through an intermediary. That's it's a difference. It's about the difference in the reservoir, did a bat bite a person. If the bat was the reservoir or did a bat spilitt, over 200 K: and then the pig got it and passed it on to the president. It's not as if or well, it's like the temporary. You know, it's like the actual natural Reservoir and that's important because we want to know the path that this virus took. So

Third would be introduction to cold food chain products to stuff. That's not cooked. Yes. So basically like this come from the meat market, right? And the fourth is Introduction to a laboratory incident. So they looked at all four of those possibilities. Here's what they found. We'll break it down a little bit. So epidemiologically, they found that the weather is evidence that the virus was circulating in the area in and around Wu Han in late November early December, they can't rule out. Out that it wasn't going around a little bit before that as early as October of 2019, but the peak of that probability Carver's in late November, early December, of course it was first discovered in December, and then, but even the, in the, there was an outbreak in the Wuhan Meat Market, but, but that outbreak showed multiple strains. And so that wasn't that outbreak wasn't the origin. It had already had time to mutate into more than one

For that outbreak. And the other thing is thought, at the time, that That was the origin though? Yeah, right. Right. But they know that it had to be before that it means still could have come from the market just wasn't that outbreak, you know, the other thing is they did. This is very cool. They calculated the most recent common ancestor of all the earliest strains, right? So he's basically Evolution to figure out what K. Well how much time would it have taken for these strains to have emerged? And that's also where you get that sort of November. Probably sometime in November, can't rule out October sort of timeframe.

So, multiple lines. Broke into the human population and definitely was first reading in Wuhan. And then, and then after that, it was spreading to the larger Province or written, you know, that wind is part of. They also looked at just evidence for the pathway took from animals to humans, and there's definitely, there's a huge reservoir of SARS virus is not Stars Coke to, but related Coronavirus. Is endemic to the bat, populations of Southeast Asia and also the Pangolin populations of Southeast Asia. However, they could not find any evidence of SARS Cove to itself in China in any animal population, wild or domestic how frustrating search continues. Yeah, so yeah. So we're related viruses there the related coronavirus, but not but not Cove to not sir. Let's go to right. All right, so they could not find any evidence of any introduction from outside China but they can't rule it out either because there's that possibility of a the cold chain product. Meaning a frozen meat, from Italy. Found its way to that Chinese market that's very plausible because that market gets cold chain meets from 20 different countries. So it's not just all locally sourced. So even if that was one of the part of that early pathway of the virus, it's

Could have come from somewhere else. It is to investigate all 20 countries then they, yeah, which they did. You know, they and they couldn't find any Smoking Gun, right? So frustratingly. At the end of all this, there is, as I said, there's no Smoking Gun. There's no. Like, we have discovered the origin of stars, cover to, it's more probability, but here's what here's what they say direct is zoonotic spillover is considered to be possible to likely introduction to an intermediate. Host is considered To be likely to very likely. So that is the most common pathway. They think that it came about introduction through cold food, chain is considered possible, so not likely, but possible introduction to a laboratory incident was considered to be extremely unlikely. So again, but they can't quote, unquote, can't rule it out, which is scientific speak for. Well, right? We can't prove it wrong, but there's no evidence for it, but of course I do.

Gets picked up by the public and by the media as they said they can't rule out. So it's still a possibility that yeah. Respective, they're saying it's extremely unlikely. They also concluded that we need to do more research. So now here is where things get a little tricky because 14 countries the United States. Nine states plus 13 other countries, wrote a letter to the World Health Organization. Essentially complaining about the report and we're pulling out. Yeah. What they were complaining about was that access to the data was delayed and was not complete. So, they're basically complaining about China. Not being a hundred percent transparent in this process. And that's my biggest concern. Yeah. So that trust is that

That and puts that question mark next to the conclusions and unfortunately is that is a big reason why the lab released or lab accident theory is not going to die with this report, right? Because it leaves open this. Yeah it's question mark. Now I just updated myself on what research has been published about just looking at the virus itself to say does the virus have features of? Dick manipulation. That would indicate that it was part of laboratory research and there are studies would say yes and there were studies would say no and so I don't know that there's any consensus of expert opinion on that specific question so we can No Smoking Gun but it can't be ruled that ruled out. Essentially is what the research is showing and what the what the who team concluded from reviewing that research, which again, Steve

Suited that the virus is incompatible with the lab work. Gorgeous? Yeah. And then you say that other studies conclude that genetic manipulation cannot be ruled out. Those are not necessarily incompatible statements though, because that's just like you said, well if they are because incompatible means you are ruling it out. And so some studies say you can rule it out and other studies that you can't rule it out. And in fact, there's some evidence that maybe it could be, I've been lab created. So there's like, there are Studies have come to different, which come to incompatible conclusions. So, I just think, you know, it's technical detail about the The sequence of the gene for something I want, I didn't want to get into that. But it's looking at the, my new show of the organization of the genes and the virus basically. Now, you know, some people point to the fact that well, isn't it a coincidence that the root hand Wu, hen Institute of virology is right there where the outbreak occurred and they are the world's leader in Research into coronavirus, has and bats, right? So they, why are studying the virus? That's our scope to came from. But yeah, it's about as I pointed out in the study, which we were alluding to Bob is the fact that well, yeah, the lab is there because that's where the virus is, you know? So both of them here. Yeah. They both could relate to the growth, the origin of stars Cove to, and the lab could be in the same region because that's where the virus is. So that, yeah, there you can't assume the cause and effect there, but it doesn't. But just the fact that the lab is there still makes it plausible, which is why again, the Who said it's possible? It's just extremely unlikely because there's no evidence for it. And there's evidence actually suggest this zoonotic pathway and the virus itself doesn't have any any Fingerprints of genetic manipulation. So I have a question about the interview. Yeah, yeah, one Steve. And so if you with this intermediary Factor, how wide does that open up the possibilities? Is it make it almost infinite? Like we all going to have a real hard time figuring it out. If there is an

Media involved. Yeah, I think that's the problem. Evan is that there's so many possible candidates and we haven't found. We haven't found that what that path is a lot of plausible Pathways that could animals that could have gotten it from that bad, that then spread it to humans. We just don't know what the one is. That did it. Yeah, we have to think, though, about what are typical animals that we use for food? What are typical animals that we interact with, you know, spillover events, rarely happen with like, super exotic animals. Yeah, it's usually going to be more likely that it's in an F, an animal. Is in close proximity to human beings. I'm wondering Steve. Is it likely then that the bats that have the non tsar's Cove to related version of SARS of crore the actual carriers? So when it spilled over to the intermediate if this is what happened, it evolved enough within the intermediate. So that's what there's that's what they think it combined with a virus that was in the intermediate to become Stars cuff to. So it's still likely that the bat is the ultimate benefits. It's bad.

Other. We don't know what the mother was basically. Yeah. Yeah. So they contributed genes from the virus that were circulating in that population but it was added to something else. All right. So but here's what I think where there's a pretty strong consensus among scientists among the who researchers among governments that, and this is really where the study winds up, you know, and why it's important that we are spending so much time in time and effort trying to investigate the origins of this virus. Because as terrible as the last year has been, and as hard as covid-19, has been this worldwide pandemic or still at the 10th. Hopefully tail end of this is not the worst virus out there. That is capable of causing a pandemic, right? And there's actually thousands of them out there and there's, and most of them are worse than SARS curve to. This is probably not. This is probably a dress rehearsal for Worse, pandemics to come. And so the

Could the primary conclusion of this report is to put it euphemistically as we have to get our shit together. And what that means is we need International institutions like the World Health Organization. Of course, we need International cooperation. We need International treaties of transparency and collaboration and cooperation, there's got to be an International Community that, that is in charge of this. So that there isn't a country that could hide Hide it if they want to do because there's the infrastructure. The institutional infrastructure is there for experts International worldwide, experts to puke to be reacting to any potential new pandemic. So that this doesn't happen again or it's minimized. You only like we are ready to pounce if the, if a possible eruption occurs of a virus that could cause a pandemic and, you know, the scientist swing into action and we just have to have worldwide. We have

The better response next time. Yeah, and an example of that. It is. If a year ago if we, if China was more forthcoming and they actually reacted and did what was right? Even as little as 3 4 5 days or maybe a week at the outside, if they reacted a week earlier, they couldn't this could have been nipped in the bud so much more easily. Yeah, week, this could have had, you know, this could have died a stillborn death. Oh well over a year ago if the reaction was fast enough And it wasn't and because of that, what's the worldwide death toll? Now, I mean that that's what that delay is right. Well and to be fair, you're right that China was a nucleation point but let's not forget that if the United States which is a massive Global Hub had gotten our act together and hadn't pretended like this was not a threat to us and hadn't pretended when we had evidence that this viruses on our Shores.

That it wasn't actually on our Shores and that kind of overly. Calm, rhetoric of, don't worry Americans. This is somebody else's problem. Hadn't been the case, we would not have carried such a viral load that we know ran back around the world. Most we fell, we totally failed at math. No question about it. And we were a nucleation point for sure. Totally. We could have bottleneck this thing and this is not about pointing fingers. I wasn't. This is, there are pointing. Fingers are assigning blame.

This is about. He's right in medicine and this totally in medicine. We have something that's called morbidity and mortality report, Eminem. And where we go over all the horrible things that happened like on our service over the last month or whatever. And the rule of these reports is there's no blame. No one is no shame or if there's no blame it's because we want, we need people to be completely honest about what happened so that we can talk 100% about. Out, how do we keep this from happening into the, in the future? That's it. So, it's like a safe space to talk about what went wrong so that we can fix it. And that's the same thing we need here. This is not about blame or about finger pointing or about politicking. This is about. Damn. We cannot let this happen again. The numbers by the way, a hundred and twenty nine million cases, 2.8 million deaths worldwide, that's where we are. And today, that number is next, one, could go 10 times. Yes, yeah, there are

She's out there that if the same thing happened to me, it could be 10 times as that. Absolutely. It could be a hundred times of that incompetent incomprehensible. It really. Now I'm just so depressed. I need to feel better about the all of this I know,

Quickie with Evan

Evan. I want a quickie. I want a quickie with Evan. Well, thank you Bob, and all right, let's talk a little bit about atomic clocks. Yes, yes, redefining the second. So, a new clock comparison is the most precise yet. Accurate to within a quadrillionth of a percent nice at is V. Okay, so you got zero point and then 15 zeros after that decimal point. And then, the one is in the 16th Place, right? And yes, folks, that is also known as the femtosecond, a very nice summary. Sorry and she starts by reminding us that back in 2019. The unit of mass the kilogram was officially redefined based on a fundamental constant of nature. Instead of the old metal kilogram known as the ipk, the international prototype kilogram. And we covered that on the show. But scientists, this past decade of also been focusing on overhauling the fundamental unit of time, which is the second. And in order to do, so they're using atomic clocks, three of them, comparing them to one another to squeeze out the last minute. Bits of discrepancy as to what defines that second, but these are not just any atomic clocks. No, no, no. These are the latest and greatest atomic clocks, that makes your grandfather's atomic clock. Look like a sundial since the 1960's. The second has been defined by atomic clocks made of cesium atoms now, cesium atoms, absorb, and emit light at a particular frequency that determines the length of the second cesium atoms oscillate 9,192,631,770

Hundred seventy times per second in their excited state. That's when they are absorbing light, right? Excited state. And so, from what I have read, there is no variance in this that they are all the same. Now, someone might come back and correct me on something like that. But that's what I read. They accept, they all share this exact frequency. So it makes for a very stable means of measuring time. And of course, example, the global positioning system GPS. Those satellites in orbit they're using Cesium atoms and their atomic clocks. And so night. Since 1967 cesium has been the atomic clock Champion element, but until now cesium, perhaps it's no longer the Undisputed lightweight champion of the atomic clocks. Meet the new atomic clock. Preferred elements strontium, strontium, strong Canadian strontium terbium. So it's Serbian strontium and an everyday favorite of people everywhere aluminium

All right. So this comes from scientists at the boulder. Atomic clock Optical Network and that stands that's bacon. By the way, Jay be acon. Thank you. They compared, they compare, the frequency of light using and measuring the ratios of frequencies of three, new atomic clocks. So one made of ytterbium and one made of strontium atoms and one made with a single electrically charged aluminum. Aluminum The results of the most precise clock. Yet with uncertainties less than a quadrillionth of a percent. And this was researched, this was reported in the March 25th edition of nature. The three Clocks Were in different locations to at the NIS tea and the others about 1.5 kilometers away at the research institute jae-il a sorry. I don't have the exact names of those but this is a quickie the team's compared The Clocks by sending information across an optical fiber and through an open air link. So they used again. Fiber. And then they used an open-air link which is basically lasers and they found that there was essentially no difference. So they were able to run these tests no difference in the, in the, when they were measured through the air right through the through space or Earth space, and through the fiber Network. So that's a very, very good sign. So this ability to compare these distant Optical atomic, clocks is considered a step forward

In atomic clock research and precise measurements. And they, you're going to use this for helping. Well better characterize Earth's gravity and search for Dark Matter defining, what dark matter is, and testing other fundamentals of physics. So this has been your quickie with Evan. It may have been quick but we will always have the memories. Haha. Nice until we don't nice. I like it. That was good. Thank you.

Who's That Noisy? ()

• Answer to last week’s Noisy: _brief_description_perhaps_with_link_

Okay, Kara It's who's that noisy time? Hey, Last week, I played this noisy.

I think I heard that in an episode of Twin Peaks. Yeah, sounds like Wally being very high on something. Molly, got into the hydraulic fluid, huh. I mean, it sounds like I think it's about video game. Sounds like, it could be Wally could beat. No, no, your rug. But I did get a ton of emails on this one. People out there, they know. But the question What is it? Well, here's our first guess a listener named Shannon. Who also happens to be a close friend. This is science, yoga Shannon, yes science, yoga Shannon. So she said longtime listener, first-time caller. Well, is that an interactive Wally toy? Played backwards and what-have-you was on it. But no. Sadly that is not the case. And then this next guest is from, why do you do this to me? Time Mateus. Brook, house, key. Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, like you get these names that are very hard to pronounce, I feel so bad for you. How matoose matoose, time up to so Katie, why Mo T EU SZ 10/10. That's a cool name.

He says it sounds like a broken number station and in case you guys don't know what this is. A number station is a shortwave. Radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, you to believe to be addressed to Intelligence Officers operating for the country. I had one of those as a noisy, many many, many years ago. I still one of my favorites. Yeah. And did the sound similar if it were broken? No, no.

And they said either yum Cookie Monster doll or a gizmo doll from Gremlins good guesses. I think we're getting closer. Okay. Yeah, okay, there's really a doll called the yum Cookie Monster tough just like the sound of a yum Cookie. All right so onto this week's winner, her name is Hannah Jackson and she wrote this is without a doubt the horrifying and

Possessed voice of a Furby, I would recognize it anywhere. And I still remember mine mysteriously turning itself on in the middle of the night. Speaking from behind the closet door Herbie what seriously call him? Call him a boomer good cover. This was like the original AI or at least we thought it was. So here's a few facts about Furbies, maybe this will jog your memory. Steve it was first sold. In 1998. Tiger Electronics. You can say, over 100 words, in Furby speak. It's actually called Furbish as many dialects. The yeah, right for bees were actually banned at an NSA Base in Maryland because they were able to record confidential conversation. So remember Furbies would listen and react and they would learn. This was a pretty intelligent boy for the time. I was a bit too old to have a Furby but I knew people Uh, that got them sort of quote. Ironically, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Like in 98, let me think. So, I graduated high school in 2001 so I would have been in high school when the Furby came out. So, there were people who have little brothers and sisters, who really wanted them. And yeah, there were some people who were like this, seems like a cool to way I want this toy, but I can definitely imagine being in elementary school and being haunted. I think they must have fallen right between me and my kids, you know, like, my kids were too young and I was too old. Yeah.

It appears their Bluetooth connected so it's great, if you can get them on eBay, like you know, for about 30 bucks, you can get one that's in good condition. And I was like thinking about getting one at one point, just to play with it, just to see what it because I never held not to play with that, right. You know what I mean? It's what I wanted to learn about eBay. Oh yeah. I'm just like, yeah. And I was like, you know, that That was legit like in it. That was like, early crack. Yeah, that's tough, man. Yeah, man. Well, yeah, if you had so crazy, it is weird. We've talked about this before, Steve, where do you remember back? Now, I've seen jackals a ton of times in the flesh in Africa, but prior to going to Africa, somebody mentioned a jackal. And I was like, I'm not sure what that is, and it was like these gaps in our knowledge. You're literally, when you said what's a Furby? I was like what you've been under a rock this whole time? Well, you know that the

The version 1.0 of this when we were kids was literally the pet rock, as that Kara I do. I know you can get to pet rocks and breed them. Did you just hit them together? Really hard. And a Little Rock would fall out. Yeah, I'm golden Pebbles. This was by far the most accurately, guess who's that noisy of all time? The Furby Sonic.

New Noisy ()

But I've got a new noisy for you and it was sent in by Matt's early. Here it is.

So you may recognize that Melody and obviously this noisy is deeper than that. I don't need to know where you know this Melody from. I want to know what is this noisy. And if you think you know it or if you heard something really,

The send me, you can email me at WTN at the Skeptics Guide dot org

Announcements

So Bob yes I'm here we've got some announcements this week we're doing announcements. Okay. Okay everyone this is important. Listen up coming up first on the docket, we have Nexus this is going to be the 6th and 7th of August and we really hope you will all join us. This is going to be an Incredible event will have some amazing speakers and you can learn more about that by visiting Nexus. That's any CSS dot-org after that we have a rescheduled. We're so excited to get back on the bus, right? Yeah. The Denver Extravaganza and there will be a private show as well. And this is going to be in November. The Extravaganza will be on the 18th. The private show will likely be the next day and you can learn all about.

By visiting the Skeptics Guide dot-org. And don't forget that you can support the show by becoming a patron. All you've got to do is visit patreon.com slash Skeptics Guide, you pledge your support and we get a little piece that helps us, you know, pay people like Jay. It helps us, make sure that we've got everything that we need to keep producing this high-quality show week after week. And, and yeah, it's, it's becoming a big part of our livelihood, isn't it? You guys, Future lights on and you know, as we more patrons, we have the farther our reach in the more stuff that we can do and we have incredibly great things planned. You're right, Jay and Patron has become a really important part of funding DSG, you and for helping us to continue to do not just this amazing show and not just the ancillary events that we do but also continue on with our skeptical activist a. So thank you all so much. Make sure that you visit necss.org, theskepticsguide.org and patreon.com/skepticsguide. Thank you cara.

Emails ()

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_ with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Email #1: ()

Alright, we are now going to address a bunch of emails all at once excoriating us for dissing Avi lobe, Steve. So this is my news item from last week. I was talking about an update on a mullah and that some scientists came up with an alternate explanation for its odd behavior. That's was accelerating away from the Sun now. Avi lobe is a Harvard astronomer who also is, recently, came out with a book where he pounds his Theory that a mu more might be an alien artifact and that this could be an explanation for a number of anomalies that we observe with the rule of law. So the the feedback from a lot of people thought we were being unfair to Avi love and I listen back to to my segment just as just to remind myself of what exactly what we said. And I don't know, I think this is was one's kind of in the middle. So I think the criticism was None of us was not fair in that. They were saying you were saying that this guy was a crank. We never called this guy, a crank, we never were all the things that we were. Accused of saying about this guy or implying or you reading between the lines or inferring it from our tone, whatever. We didn't say it. We never said anything that he was not a legitimate scientist are criticized, and we also never said this was his only line of evidence. We also never said that he is saying this is absolutely true. But having said that yes we were there was a

Snark in our tongue, I will say that. Absolutely. And maybe people inferred too much from that, or we could have been a little bit more balanced. So usually we do, I was very careful to say that this was one of the arguments. He was putting forward. It was not the only one, but I also went back and reread a bunch of articles by Avila where he is being interviewed or where he's talking about this Theory. And I thought inter when you dig down to what we were actually saying, I thought we were actually totally fair. Solo does have a number. He does point to a number of anomalies of a Momoa. The primary one knee says, this is the primary one was its acceleration away from the Sun and which has now been I think largely taken away explained or at least a plausible explanation has been offered and his other wives of Evans also are simply anomalies. They are not anything that we could point to. That's a that's evidence of, you know, that this is an alien artifact and they're not even that convincing

I didn't, I live one of them. Was that the velocity? Moo, moo it was typical of only about one star in 500. So any object, even if it's leaving a solar system, if you compare it to other things swinging around the Galaxy, its velocity relative to the other things is going to be roughly the same as the star system that it comes from. And so if you look at a mu a mu as velocity relative to us and relative to the Galaxy, it's, you know, it's coming from a star that whose velocity is only representative of Of about one in 500 Stars. Okay. That's not such a big deal, one in 500. That's like nothing. You also said that we thought that these things should be very rare are models. All predicted they would be very rare and yet here we are seeing one, you know, and that would be a very own should be a very unlikely event but I think that was undone by the fact that two years later we found yet another Interstellar object. So the idea is so again and our criticism of his reasoning again.

He's just it's perfectly legitimate to say these are hypotheses. I never said we should not consider alien Tech no signatures as as the explanation. We are always happy to report on them and excited about it. I wanted tab. You start to be a Dyson swarm as much as anybody. Yeah, right. It's just that the history is that when you base your argument on the fact that something is an anomaly, we don't currently understand yes. It's legitimate is among all the other things to say, you Could this be an alien artifact? But you've got to be very humble and careful about that. It's a very weak argument. And I think that Avi lobes arguments are falling one by one and and hopefully they will continue to as we discover more about the universe is a more and more, an alien derelict spaceship with a solar cell. I would love for that to be the case and if there's a good reason to argue for that, fine, I also stand by my criticism of him publishing a book, it was fat, you know, again promoting this idea too.

Public before letting it marinate in the scientific literature for a bit longer, I think that's legitimate as well. So, but yes. Did you frame all of this as this is just a hypothesis? Yes, of course, he did, he's a scientist and he's a legitimate scientist. We never said, he was a crank or, or fraud, or anything and the other. The last thing was that people were saying that one of his primary complaint was that the scientific Community is being unfair to any legitimate hypothesis, that happens to do with aliens and okay. Whatever. I don't know. I don't know that. That's true. I astronomers come up with this every time there's a, there's a potential anomaly. They always throw on the list, could it be aliens? And it's fine, you know, as long as you don't put too much weight on it, and as long as you're careful here is where I think the bias is, you have to be careful in how you talk to the public and the media about it. That's because it's not, it's not just another hypothesis. When you're talking about, communicating it to the public. It's a special one because it's going to get all the attention. So you

Have to be careful and I think that elope is being the opposite of careful when it comes to that hypothesis. So, okay we could have been a little bit more balance in a little bit less snarky but I actually think that our take on the whole situation was the tournament. All right, thank you, Steve.

Science or Fiction ()

Answer	Item
Fiction
Science

Host	Result
'

Rogue	Guess

Okay, let's go on with science or fiction.

Voiceover: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Each week. I don't come up with three signs, which one is the fake. There was no crack this week so we may have a little less energy than usual. Are you ready? Sure. Okay this week there is a theme. I call it pandemic. Patents. Wow but not the 2021. Pandemic that 1918 pandemic. Ha ha okay. Number one, April, 10th 1989. Alexander em Nicholson files a patent for the radio. Crystal oscillator. Number 2, February 23rd. 1918 Arthur scherbius. Applies it to patent the Enigma machine. And finally, number 3, January 22nd 1918, a George Eastman is granted a US patent for his role. Film camera which he registers the trademark Kodak. Okay, I'm going to roll an imaginary Dyson. My head. Steve go first. I always go first. Alright so the first one Nicholson files a patent for the radio Crystal oscillator at there's a lot of that going around around then so I think that sounds pause. What are we number this but that sounds very plausible. The second one, the patent for the Enigma machine. How I know that was World War II right? The Enigma machine but it's 18.

That when it would have started or is that too? Early. And then Kodak sure 18 that sounds about, right? So my gut is telling me the Enigma machine, is the fake. Okay. Thank you Steve. And let's see. Kara, you're next, I don't know. Alright, alright, let's try. So, the real question is, which of these would be anomalous for 1918, unless you literally just made something up and that's extra frustrating. But my guess is that all of these patents, Exist, but they are not all from 1918. So we've got the radio, Crystal oscillator, don't know what that is, sounds like a turbo and cab you later, but it's hardly done. We've got the Enigma machine, which again is yeah, World War but you know what? This technology could have been developed. This is not uncommon for the Technologies developed earlier and then utilized in the next war and, you know, kind of in anticipation. And then we've got the roll film camera.

It's a roll film. You mean like the click? Click, click. Click like to actually have it in the cassette and move it across the camera. That's what roll film means. Yeah, it's basically, you know, instead of like a plate, like a photographic plate in the back. Okay. Yeah, film. So film on a roll it's old is it? That'll maybe it's not that old and its small to. It might have been 35 millimeter although it doesn't say who I think back to tintypes daguerreotype.

Types there, for Shannon and let's see. Evan you go next? Okay, radio Crystal oscillator in 1918. Yeah, I think that one is right. The Steve alluded to, there was a lot of tinkering with early radio round that time. So, sure not a problem there. It's one of the other two, I think now, the Enigma machine 1918. So yeah, we think about it. Think Machine World War II era, but that doesn't mean that they Don't try to, you know, patent something early or come up with some earlier version of it. Arthur scherbius, says that could be a Germanic name. Assuming it is a German patent. We're talking about, I don't know about this one and then there's the camera one, say, roll film camera or I could have sworn that Eastman grabbed patents. As early as the late 18-hundreds

The 1990s, but a roll film camera hype. Boy, that just seems, I don't think that came along till much later. Roll film. You know, it was plates. It was still plates. I mean, when they photographed, the eclipse in 1919 was a Teddington. We could have been. Yeah. We're using plates still then so is why I'm dating apps in 1999. 1919 Eclipse. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Arthur Eddington. And what was using well? Well, they were using plates. I don't really know about film little, you know, let alone roll film. So I'm having a, I think, Cara's right? I have a feeling, this one's the fiction, I'll go with that, okay? Jay, the first one here about the filing patents for the Crystal and fabulous. Ater. Totally has that sound, 1918. Alexander M Nicholson. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm just trying to figure from what I know about this thing, like this, it seemed more about the right time and I'd say sure, that scene.

You know, I couldn't say yes or no definitively but it seems about the right time the Enigma machine. I think that that timing works pretty good, you know, I would think maybe it was later but I wouldn't be shocked if it was if it was created, you know, in her late teens, early 20s, the last one here, 1918, the George Eastman, the roll film. I would say that this was this was earlier 1918 seems actually kind of late for that kind of technology. So I would say that that one is the Fiction. Oh wait, you think it was earlier? Not later. I think it was earlier. Was that see who's right? Let's start with the number one, since you all agree. That in April 10th, 1989, Alexander & nicolson, Carla patent for the radio Crystal oscillator, that is science. Yeah, Video Crystal oscillator. I should have thrown in something else, but let's let's go. And so what I have here. My notes, the first Crystal controlled oscillator, using a crystal of Rochelle salt. This is built into in 1917 and patented by

You need to buy the by a nickel Center at Bell. Bell Telephone Laboratories. So, this probably wasn't clear enough. I should have added something relating to quartz oscillators. I should have thrown courts in there because the, the quartz oscillators, that's what takes advantage of the piezoelectric effect and that creates very stable, vibrations and, and have a, just a tons of uses and especially in timekeeping devices and which watch, of course, what's right? I mean accurate up to one second, Thirty years, which is the most accurate, time until Atomic of fox appeared. It was so easy purely, mechanical beautifully made mechanical watch, even that could lose a few seconds a day. And so one second and third years is just an Amazing Leap. Radio stations 1920s, 1930s. They use these, these quartz oscillators so that they wouldn't drift off their frequency, right? Because they had a very, very narrow range. I 10 kilohertz.

Or whatever and they couldn't really drift too far but they're divided. The courts devices were big, they were big. It took until 1968 when Jurgen Stott invented a photo lithographic process for manufacturing quartz crystal oscillators that that made it possible for portable watches to be made. So in 1968 so I was kind of hoping way too much here. I was hoping that you guys would recognize that first off that have radio. Chris Austin was related to The Courts but also that Quartz watches didn't really appear until the 60s. So, 1918. I was hoping I feel like way too early for that Domino to start falling, but nobody paid on that one. So, let's go then now to let's go to number two, Steve. But that, that Arthur scherbius did not apply for a patent for the Enigma machine in 1918. And this one is science because this is exactly what I was hoping for that. We need the Enigma machine. Yes, this is a figure. The famous, or should I say Infamous Cipher device because it was used by the German military in World War II during cryptic, countless important Communications and pre-World War II, it was used as well. The fact that the enigmas encryption was cracked and multiple times not just once but many times as it evolved during the 30s and 40s that probably led to a shorter war and maybe even to a completely different outcome, which of course, was is a good outcome. The Enigma machine was invented by a German engineer. Arthur scherbius at the end of the world war one. He called his machine Enigma which is a Greek word for riddle. Now is hoping that you would think that Germany probably never patented such a device, because why would you make a make a patent for something like this? That could then make it less secure because if you're documenting something you're good, it's you know it's essentially less secure because this documentation exists and I was also hoping maybe even more than I think. I got Steve a little bit on this at 1918 seems a little bit too early. To be to be invented. Because because most people think when you think Enigma you think World War II, you know, you think we'll were to. You're not thinking way back in 1918 when this special type of Cipher rotor machine and Cipher like this, that was this was this is the peak of encryption at the time and and it was, it was pretty sophisticated, but not but not good enough and we're very thankful that that is the case. So this means that number 3, January 22nd, In George Eastman is granted the US Patent for his role field camera for which he registered as a trademark Kodak. That is fiction. But actually I was too good on this because it's fiction. First of all, I wasn't January 22nd, it was September, 4th ha, I'm only kidding, it's, it's fiction. Got me there. It's fiction because it was, it was patented three decades earlier, Jae Kil, there was right? And I was almost I thought it was in the Very difficult to do dry plates or or a glass that was coated with gelatin. Emulsion made things easier, somebody somebody thought of that in 1871. But in 1877 a bank clerk, George Eastman experimented with his new, his new wet plate camera because he was he bought it for vacation, the vacation was cancelled so it gave him time to experiment which is interesting because we're at with that vacation wasn't cancelled, what would have happened. So he was he's poking around with his new wet plate, camera, Cutting Edge. And over the next eight years he invented the following, he created a coating machine and he patented in 79. He then replace the glass support with a film made of three, layers of paper layer soluble gelatin and a gelatin emotion. And then finally in 1885 he added a convenient, roll holder and and that was it that culminated on September 4th 1888 when the Eastman got his u.s. patent. Number three 380 8850 for a small

Handheld, easy to use camera, all of which became almost obsolete for millions of unprofessional photographers, once they got their first digital camera. And then, of course, the cell phone camera but still an amazing invention that held sway that, you know, the broad Strokes of the technology, held sway for many, many decades hundred years, right? I'm an amazing amount of time an amazing Advanced. I mean, that was such a wonderful. I mean, Steve member, when dad's mom gave us our first little tiny Cheesy little tiny, little roll film cameras. And we were like, It's them all, all that for years. I think we use that. Yeah, they were great, this cheap film, pop it in, drop it off at this at the cheesy little little Kodak remaining at the newer Street shopping center and get it back. Like, you know, eight, nine months later, it was awesome. If you want to hear a very quick story about film, I went back to my high school was like the 25th reunions, or whatever it was, you know, back at the high school itself and they gave us a tour. One of the The students did current student at the time like 16 years kind of walked us around the school at the kind of show us how things have changed. And we went over to the photography, what was the photography department? And I mentioned film to them and they actually said the 16 year old kid. What is film know? I kid you not. They said that and I never felt older in my life. What is really? Let's try to forget about that as soon as we can, all right.

Kara, Evan and J that Eve. They sure, man.

Skeptical Quote of the Week ()

‘When I was a kid we’d rent Indiana Jones movies on VHS tapes. It inspired a whole generation of scholars because we saw the excitement, and the passion, and the drama. What’s amazing to me about archaeology is the stories are even better than what you see in a Hollywood movie.’

– Sarah Parcak, space archaeologist

In fact, her technique of combining high-resolution imagery from satellites with thermal imaging has helped find an additional 17 pyramids, 1,000 tombs, and over 3,200 ancient settlements within a single year.

Steve, I understand you have a quote for us. Yes, this quote comes from Sarah parsec who is a space archaeologists ale with that, as in just a minute, parse a core parsec, Parc AK. Our silos and she said, when I was a kid, we'd rent Indiana, Jones movies on VHS tape is that those work of Scholars. We saw the excitement and the passion and the drama. What's amazing to me about Archaeology is two stories or even better than what you see, in a Hollywood movie. Yeah, real science is even more interesting than how they would Sarah parsecs or what is the space archaeologist? She also causes up a, this is satellite archaeology, so this is still archaeology on the Earth, but it's using Things based in space. So she combined the technique of high-resolution imagery from Satellites with thermal imaging.

And her work has helped find 17 pyramids. Yes, a thousand tombs and over 3200, ancient settlements within a single year. What of work. Yeah. Because in those jungle environment said it's almost impossible to find those things can do a whole news item on that. That's amazing. Yeah about that but we should probably have her on the show to talk about how he's very cool. Yeah but I was a great quote. Then when I looked into her history Leo

Well, she's like a It was her husband's also in egyptology just Greg Mumford. How great is that and Mumford? I mean, our second Mumford egyptologists. How awesome is that? That's a TV show right there. Yeah, that's out of Central Casting. I'm yeah. Great quote. Thanks Steve.

Signoff ()

B: Well. Alrighty then, thanks guys for joining me this week. Thank you for your time, Bob. And until next week, this is Bob. Herbs and carriage ac-47, Skeptics Guide to the universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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Today I Learned

• Fact/Description, possibly with an article reference
• Fact/Description
• Fact/Description

References

Vocabulary