SGU Episode 883

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SGU Episode 883
June 11th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 882                      SGU 884
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
What I love about experts, the best of them anyway, is that they get to their humility early. They have to. It's part of who they are; it's necessary for what they're doing. They set out to get to the bottom of something that has no bottom, and so they're reminded constantly of what they don't know. They move through the world focused not on what they know, but on what they might find out.
Michael Lewis, American author
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Introduction, What are the Rogues watching?

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, June 8^th 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening folks!

S: So guys what are you all watching on TV recently? Anything good?

B: There's so much on right now. I gotta say the thing that got me pretty much the most excited is The Offer which is the making behind the scenes all the drama that went into the creation of The Godfather. I mean if half of this stuff is true. It's like kind of like a docudrama. I mean it's definitely not a documentary but a lot of the stuff a lot of the stuff that's happening really happened. And it's just the acting is great, the writing is fantastic, the characters just love them. Can't wait for every episode. So if you liked the Godfather definitely check out The Offer what's it on is that on?

S: Paramount+ because it was produced by Paramount. That's how you remember.

E: That would make sense.

C: I'm watching a few things on HBO and Showtime. Like some comedies. I'm watching First Lady and I Love That for You and a couple like fun things. But I think the thing that I saw most recently that like had me gripped and I could not wait until it would come out each week was Under the Banner of Heaven.

S: Yeah I hear really good things about them.

C: Ugh it's so good. So that's based on, it's on Hulu, it's based on John Krakauer's book that came out I think in the early 2000s. Like quite a famous book. Got a lot of buzz. Made the Mormon church none too pleased.

B: Good.

C: And of course, yeah, for me personally having been raised Mormon it hits in all the right places and it's a very deep dive into the misogyny of the religion. It's the story basically of a detective and he's played by Andrew Garfield we love him, right? Do you guys love him? I love him.

B: Oh yeah.

C: He's so good in this role too. I don't know there's just something about like he plays a Mormon guy so well. But yeah it's a story of a detective who is investigating, actually a true crime, a murder that took place in Utah more than a couple now. We're old. And it parallels him sort of learning about the foundings of the Mormon church. And seeing inconsistencies and questioning the morality of it and really questioning his own faith. So it's this really cool parallel story where they've got pioneer town scenes and then they've got modern day scenes. And then it's also a murder story. It's like all the good things.

S: I just binged my way through the first two seasons of The Umbrella Academy.

B: Oh how was that? I've been meaning to see that.

S: You haven't seen that? You haven't seen that at all?

B: No no. It's been on my list.

S: Oh my god. It's awesome. It's one of the best written shows on television.

B: Really?

C: Is it a comic book show?

S: It's a comic book.

E: It's based on Gerard Ways comic. Gerard Way was the lead singer for My Chemical Romance.

S: Yeah dark horse comics.

B: Oh man.

S: So it has good source material but just this the script writing is so tight and it does that thing where it anticipates like questions the audience might have and it deals with them, you know what I mean? Like everything has a is foreshadowed or explained somehow. It ties back together without necessarily hitting you over the head with it. Just so that the characters are are all wonderful. So the third season's coming out June 22^nd so I re-watched the first two seasons to remind myself of everything that happened. It's a good thing that I did because you forget so much. There's so much detail in there. But just so enjoyable. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it.

J: Well I watched, we're reviewing a lot of science fiction shows for Alpha Quadrant 6 and I have two little kids and it's it's been really hard for me between work and my kids to find time for TV. But my wife went away this week and I had a little free time and I was able to watch the what is it five episodes of Stranger Things oh man and I really, going into it I just felt like third season I'm not really expecting much because the─

B: Wait, fourth.

J: ─oh, I'm sorry you're right. The fourth season. Not expecting really anything. All the actors are pretty much grown up now. They're not the same people.

B: [inaudible recognizable.

J: I gotta tell you I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it and how great they all were. They all connect, you know what I mean? Like it's funny you a lot of times with children actors like you think but what are they going to be like when they grow up? Because there's lots of examples of actors not being able to do it anymore. But that is not the case and I love this show. I'm just into it. I really really like how complex the story is. It's not a light story. It's definitely, like there's a lot of darkness and seriousness and it's really good horror. It's just really really good.

S: I was worried about it because the first season was magic. It was just so different. Very very enjoyable. The whole 80s vibe was really fun. Everything about it was was really enjoyable. And then second and third seasons we're good but you can't capture that magic again but the fourth season I think is better than two and three. Nothing's gonna be as good as the first one.

C: Do I need to have seen three?

S: Sort of. Yeah.

C: Because I kind of gave up. I loved season one also but season two just became like overly fantasy and like not... It didn't have enough other stuff to hook me. It was a little just bit just like too fantastic and so I kind of gave up in season two.

E: I watched it at two times speed. Half the time.

'C: (laughs) It'll be chipmunks.

S: Yeah I mean season three was good but four I think is the best season since one.

B: I mean just from a pure consistency point of view I mean this is the fourth season and they have maintained. They did not have a big drop off where you're like oh what happened. Cara's comments not outstanding of course but they kept it up. They kept it up and kept most of our interests and enjoyed that. But now four is actually even better. It's the best one since the first and if you enjoyed the first season definitely jump back in. Because it's good stuff. Those Duffer brothers I want to research them because they're kind of killing it. Good for them.

S: What about you Evan?

E: Well it was June 6^th recently which was of course the anniversary of D-Day and always around this that time of year there's all sorts of shows on television. War stories, war movies, documentaries, interviews, all having to do with a lot of World War II stuff obviously. So something that popped up recently on my Netflix account was what? Operation Mincemeat.

S: Yeah.

E: Which is a movie I had not seen before.

S: Saw that. Really good.

E: And the reason I, yeah and I bring it up because I'm familiar with the background of the story what the operation was by. A spy operation or to throw the Germans off. But there were certain things I learned about the operation that I learned through the movie that apparently are true that I hadn't learned before in other books that I've read or shows that I've watched. So I was very satisf--I'm always satisfied to learn more after having seen something and I walk away with something a little extra.

S: I love watching stuff about World War II. I don't know why. And there's like so many different stories to tell. So much happened in those four years. Yeah it's endless. But there's just something fascinating about. I guess because you're dealing with like the Nazis are just great villains, you know I mean?

E: Yeah.

S: They're iconic villains.

C: And there's a moral like we all agreed morally. I mean it took us a while to get there sadly but once we did we all agreed morally it wasn't like a divisive war the way that pretty much every war since then has been.

S: It was militarily very complicated. Every time I watched something about it I learned something new you. Really was just fascinating from so many different levels.

J: I don't think I could ever truly wrap my head around that entire war and all the little jigs and jags that happened. I mean so many people were involved and so many different big things happened that I never seemed to really understand like the big brush strokes of that war.

C: Right and on two completely different fronts.

E: Two theaters.

C: Yeah two theaters with multiple countries involved in both and yeah it was you're right very complicated.

J: But think about like there is an endless supply of drama that could be linked to that war. I've seen horror movies about World War II. I've seen thrillers about World War II.

B: Comedies.

C: Comedies, yeah. Video games.

J: Everything is in there. Like it literally encompasses like the spectrum of a human experience. You know what I mean?

E: Yeah it is overwhelming. It's a lifetime of consumption of information that you could have. And you can and walk away wanting more. Wanting to learn more.

S: All right well talking about learning more we're going to move on with our news items. We got some interesting stuff lined up for you today.

News Items

Infantile Amnesia (9:25)

• Why can't you remember being born, learning to walk or saying your first words? What scientists know about 'infantile amnesia'

S: Cara you're going to start us off with a discussion of infantile amnesia. Why don't we remember things from when we were like one year old.

C: Yeah. And I think this is a it's a fun story that I came across that was published in the Conversation by a psychologist at Rutgers named Vanessa LoBue or Lobu. I'm not sure. Yeah this isn't really based on any new big discovery. No big new publication but sort of a compilation of what she knows because this is her I guess area of expertise and she teaches child development. And so let's pose that question to you all because it's, as you might guess, a multifaceted answer. Why do you think we don't remember things from when we're babies?

J: I would say that parts of our brain aren't developed enough.

E: Yeah the recorder part of our brain isn't fully functioning at that point.

C: We're missing some hardware, yeah. Okay

B: Something about the hippocampus?

C: Something about the hippocampus, yeah.

S: I don't think it's anything like that because we learn, right? When you're one or two years old. You're not like you haven't learned stuff. It's really─

B: But that's different memory though.

S: ─ I always thought it was mainly due to the fact that we don't have a language. We don't have something to anchor those memories. But it could just be also that just it is a brain development thing.

C: And so researchers think it's kind of all of the above and then some additional stuff that we'll talk about. But I think you brought up something important Steve that Bob you questioned which I think is also an important conversation to be had here which is what's the difference between learning and memory? I think in some ways I come from psychology but by way of neuroscience. And it's also it's always been really interesting to me having one foot in kind of each pool to see how neurobiologists and how psychologists describe similar concepts using their own sort of constructions. And so very often you'll see that in cognitive psychology there are descriptions of things like memory that are somewhat different than the way neuroscientists might describe memory. For me personally learning and memory are sort of flavors of the same thing. And I'm curious Steve if is it safe for me to assume that based on your statement that you kind of see them the same way. They're sort of interpretations and different utilizations of very similar neural processes.

S: But we know that there are different kinds of memory. There is operational memory learning stuff. And then there's autobiographical memory learning, remembering your life. And it's what infants lack is the autobiographical memory. But they're still learning about the world. They're learning language, they're learning to recognize people etc.

C: Absolutely so when we think about memory we can kind of divide it into two main types. We often divide it into long term and short term or working memory. Long term memory is all the stuff that actually is retrievable. And short term memory, working memory is sort of it's the very short time that you're keeping something in mind before encoding it or before transferring it into this long-term memory. Short time memory is seconds. It's like active attention. Maybe 20-30s or less. Then working memory is the memory that we're implicitly deciding to utilize or not. We're comparing it to other things matching it up with our experience and we're starting to figure out whether or not it gets encoded. If it doesn't get encoded then it's lost. Long term memory is anything that's encoded but I think there are briefer engagements with long term memory. You can encode something and then never access it again. Or you can encode something and then rehearse it all the time and access it a lot. Which as we know, we've talked about this a lot on the show, we're not tape recorders. Every time we rehearse something it changes a little bit. So short term the shortest. Then working. Then long term. But regardless, Bob you're right, when we talk about these big those are the big distinctions. But when we really talking about today is types of long term memory. And as you mentioned Steve there's autobiographical memory. There's also declarative memory sometimes we call it explicit memory. Then there's implicit memory. So think about it this way: autobiographical is parts of our life. It's our relationship to our memory. It's sort of our narrative. Our chronology. Explicit memory is like in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It's things that are conscious that you can declare. That you can say out loud. And then implicit memory is think about things like rote repetition it's sort of like remembering how to get somewhere─

B: Yeah, unconscious.

C: Yeah like a procedural memory. Things like that. There's so many different labels for this stuff. But sort of implicit, unconscious and very often you would relate that to sort of rote learning.

B: So I think for this task for this specific topic we're definitely gonna we need to focus on explicit memory which is conscious. Not implicit. We're talking about conscious explicit memories from when we were really young.

C: Really we're talking about autobiographical memory like Steve said.

B: But I think that's a labeling thing because my understanding when you talk about long term you use explicit and implicit─

C: [inaudible]

B: ─as you said. But then explicit is something that I think where you need to go down that road And there you see things like declarative memory which is facts and events. And then they further brake that down into these are the two that I think are the crooks. Episodic which is events and experiences which is what we forget. then there's semantic which is facts and concepts. So facts and concepts are retained it seems from that young age. But the episodic events and experiences that's what really that we don't remember. At least according to this labeling system. Episodic and semantic.

C: And some people my argue that the episodic is only even that that it's not explicit. That really you're not retaining much of that but you really only retaining explicit memory because of the age and because some of the factors that we've described. There are million different ways to, we talk about this constantly actually. This is a larger conversation but about taxonomy. About categorization. And there's again, I always recommend this book when we get on this topic, by Lulu Miller called Why Fish Don't Exist. And it's really about this concept. How do label things. How do we make meaningful distinctions. And sometimes they're meaningful depending on the field you're in. Depending on the specific topic you're talking about. But let's use a term which is not a perfect term. It has fuzzy boundaries. But this term autobiographical memory. This sort of self-referential memory. This memory for our own lives. Because that seems to be what a lot of researchers do sort of home in on when we talk about infantile amnesia. Infantile, I don't know why that word makes me laugh. Sounds like a rectile.

E: Describes an adult over [inaudible].

B: Oh my gosh.

C: Infantile dysfunction. That's like, I don't know why that's funny to me.

B: I'll always link those words.

C: (laughs) Sorry. So but basically if we were to say tell me a memory from where you were young very often people recall memories from like starting around 3-4-5 years old. Very rarely if at all─

E: And who knows how accurate.

C: ─and who knows how accurate, right.

B: [inaudible]

E: It'd be totally contaminated.

C: But very rarely do we hear much about something that happened when somebody was one. And researchers think that we may not be able to develop these autobiographical memories at that age. But it is very true as Steve mentioned as we were just grappling with Bob but of course we're learning when we're young. And learning requires that you hold things in your memory. So there are super early examples of experiments that show kind of without a shadow of a doubt that infants know their own mother's face. They can recall it. They can distinguish it from strangers. The longer that they're exposed to faces the more they can recognize them and we have different ways of measuring this that aren't always perfect. There are gaze tests that are often used with with infants. Some people argue that these aren't appropriate because kids will look at things for longer periods for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's about novelty. Sometimes it's about memory. But there is a study that was detailed in this article that I'm referencing that, well not a study, a series of studies that were done by Carolyn Rovee-Collier and she was a Rutgers psychologist who unfortunately died in I think 2014 but she was kind of really instrumental in helping us understand learning and memory in infants. And she did these really cool experiments where she would put babies in cribs and they would watch a mobile and they would they would see how often. So babies would watch a mobile because it was interesting to them. And babies also kick because that's what babies do. They kick their legs. And then what they did after they got baseline measurements of gaze and of kick activity. Is they tied a string between the baby's leg and the mobile. This is very low tech and I love it. And very quickly the baby learns hey if I kick the mobile moves. That's fun. And so babies often will kick significantly more often once they learn that. And so there is a certain amount of learning that you're seeing there because they change their behavior based on this feedback. And they did they adapt it for older children as well. But what we don't see for example. And this is I think an important aspect of autobiographical memory is we don't see children passing the mirror test when they're really really young. Takes them a while. I think not until they're about 18 to 24 months will babies when they're looking at a mirror notice a mark on their face. Recognize that it is their own face and start to try and wipe it off. Prior to that they don't seem to recognize themselves in the mirror. They see a baby. Like their eyes are fine but they don't have that concept of self. And so then that raises the question. Can we form memories about ourselves if we don't even have a concept of what selfness is. That's I think it's somewhat philosophical. I don't know if we could ever answer it neurologically but I think it's an important question. And then of course we add to that the fact that until like later in the second year we don't develop language and of course how much is memory tied to language as you mentioned Steve. We've all we've often talked about embodied cognition that language helps us label things and we label them in a way that they relate to to our person. If you think about the way that the words that we often use prepositionally speaking they're very much geometrically relational. Above, beneath, under, within. They have to do with this concept of space and of where we fit within space. And as we develop language we're also developing, or actually a little bit later, first we're developing this kind of sense of self. Then we're developing language. And then as you mentioned I think Bob mentioned it and Jay did as well. The hippocampus simply isn't developed in infancy. So there probably are some purely neurological limitations as well. And really what are we talking about? We may be talking about emergent properties here. All of these things aren't it's not a sense of self and language, and hippocampal development, and frontal lobe development. I mean these things all play off of each other. And in some ways are the same thing. They rely on one another and they're just different ways that we conceptualize them. So it does seem to be that there are some fundamental limitations for developing autobiographical memory. But! I'm catching myself even in that statement. Maybe we do develop them. Maybe we do encode them. We just can't retrieve them. And there's really no way to know.

B: They're there waiting for us to [inaudible]

E: We need AI.

J: What like you like Cara are you saying that these things are encoded in like a baby brain format that we no longer can access?

C: Could be. I mean there's really no I mean I don't know. That's a gross hypothesis but there's really no way to know i mean the thing about memory is that we don't know it's there unless we can evoke it. And so we are capable of retrieving through will. There are also examples where we can prime memories and then there are examples, there are some really cool examples, and Steve you've probably been just as fascinated by these studies as I have through the years where during deep brain stimulation surgeries memories are evoked simply through neurology. Like they're actually evoked. And that's kind of cool too because very often this is more of a cognitive process than a physiological process. But really it's hard to know because memory isn't a memory or it's not a memory that we can discuss unless we have both aspects. First we have to encode it but then we have to access it. We have to retrieve it.

E: Is there, what would be the advantage for a person, a small, young, an infant to be able to store the memory in such a way that it could be retrieved later in life? Is there an advantage or are we or is the brain wasting resources at that point?

C: I don't think I think in some ways that it might be a bias to think of it that way. Similar to like when we think about evolution as being advantageous. Like this is advantageous over that. Like that it's there's a goal at the end of it. I mean it just is a process that we develop with life. That's like kind of like saying what's the advantage of having memory as an adult. I mean there's a million reasons for it and it has to develop somehow and at some point in time. So I think I don't know. I mean correct me if you disagree with this but I think that this is just a function of we can point to the sort of developmental era at which this becomes codified. At which this becomes functional. But I don't think it's there's a why. There's a how but I don't know if there's a why.

E: I mean how busy is the six month old brain sort of just doing what it is.

C: Banana's busy. (laughs)

E: Yeah.

C: Well baby brains are so taxed. But we're they also sleep so so much because of that. But if you think about the amount of metabolism that's necessary for just starting to develop associations. Starting to learn. Pruning. So much of this neurological pruning is happening at this point. Neurons are firing. We're developing these hebbian synapses. So neurons are firing together and associations are being made. And we're actually laying down architecture and sort of losing other associations. There's a lot going on in those first few months. A lot. So yeah I mean that is an interesting question Evan and now now I guess I'm kind of seeing it for what I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, for what I'm thinking maybe you were pointing to which is from a purely efficiency. Like a metabolic efficiency perspective.

E: Right.

C: Why waste resources. Gotcha, gotcha.

E: Right, right. Yeah if it's running full capacity doing what it needs to do.

C: Right.

E: Why spend time doing something else that is, what, superfluous.

C: And it could be as simple as again not a why but a how. It not that there's any sort of choice in this but that it just isn't as important. It's taking a backseat to some of the more important processes and eventually it becomes more important.

E: It's low priority.

C: Yeah but it's a fascinating. I think we all sort of take for granted that babies don't remember stuff. It's like he won't remember it anyway but they are actively learning all the time. And we know little kids are total sponges the older they get too. But when they are infants, one and two years old, they are one and one and a half years old they're actively learning all the time but switch over to being able to tell stories about themselves. Understand who they are how they fit into the world. Develop language all of these things do seem to have a role. And it's clearly like most of the things we talk about on SGU, it's complicated. (laughs)

E: It's very complicated.

S: Cara what's your youngest autobiographical memory?

C: I can tell you that I have a like what I like to think of as a flashbulb memory. My first sort of evocative emotional memory. And I have no idea how old I was. I was maybe three or four. But we used to go to, what was it called? It was a burger place. Fuddruckers in Texas.

E: Yeah. We had one in Connecticut.

C: And the reason I think we went there is because kids under a certain age ate free with every adult. And I grew up when I was really really young it's still my mom and my dad. It was just me and my sister. So two free kid meals. But so we went there and I don't remember being there. I don't remember anything except having the balloon. They used to give you a balloon when you were a kid and you would eat there. And I came home, and I had the balloon wrapped around my wrist, and I was so excited. And we had these prickly bushes in front of our house.

E: Oh no.

C: And the balloon popped on the prickly bush. And it's, it's so funny but it's like my first feeling─

E: Of loss?

C: ─memory feeling of loss. And it's actually evokes like a lot of sadness in me when I think about it.

E: Oh gosh.

C: Isn't that funny? Like it's fundamental to later much more complicated and sophisticated experience of loss but I felt inconsolable. I had lost this thing that I loved. As in so far as a two or three year old or four-year-old can form those kinds of attachments. And I remember that feeling. What about you Steve? What's your first?

S: Yeah I was three. I have a couple of again those flash memories from being in daycare. One, probably the strongest is I was like in the kitchen area. Remember I was standing up but the table was over my head. So the room is huge in my memory. And I guess we were getting soup. It was beef and barley soup. And I remember that because I remember the smell and the smell always brings back that memory.

C: Oh right.

E: Interesting.

C: I love smell associations with memory.

S: A very strong odor-related memory.

The Age of Giants (27:23)

• Why don't we have many giant animals anymore?

S: All right Jay. This is an interesting question that I think many people may have asked themselves at one point or another. How come there aren't any giant animals anymore like the dinosaurs?

J: Yeah why were they able to grow so big and then what happened to the big animals?

E: So big.

J: (laughs) So you guys have all been to a museum of natural history. I mean I'm sure most of the people─

S: Oh yeah.

E: Several.

J: ─listening to this podcast. You've seen the bones, right? They're huge.

B: Look at the bones.

E: Look at the bones.

J: You stand at the base of a of some dinosaur displays and the thing is what 3040 feet tall? There's dinosaurs that were just absolutely strikingly enormous. And as a side note there was a lot of other animals that were huge too. Which you might not be aware of. There were giant ground sloths. There was a giant penguin that was six and a half feet or two meters tall and it weighed 250 pounds or 115 kilograms. That's a lot bigger than me. Dragonflies that used to have a wingspan of about 12 inches or 30 centimeters. And there is a 4.5 times the size. I'm sorry . Ad that is 4.5 times the size of a modern dragonfly. That's big. And of course a creature that can only be described as a monster: the Megalodon. It's a monster. It makes Jaws look like a joke. And these things were real.

E: I know I saw that.

J: And everybody seems to be okay with this. I just don't get it. (laughter) Anyway. So dinosaurs existed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. And one of those words had a movie named after it. And at the time the climate was a lot warmer as you guys know. CO₂ levels were over four times higher than they are today. So dinosaur remains have been found as far back. I mean this goes way back to the sixth century BC. When paleontology took off in the 19th century, since then scientists have been trying to explain why are these animals so big. Why were these freaking dinosaurs so big? What was it? What was it about the distant past that was different. And why aren't they anything like that here today. And the answer is... it's complicated. (laughter)

C: Yeah.

B: Got me again.

E: Oh gosh.

J: There are potentially a lot of answers. It's not one thing. It's not like oh because of blah they were big. It's like because of tons of things. First off let's talk about teeth. So let's say you're a baby dinosaur who is one day going to be huge. You're not huge yet but you're just a little tiny little critter there. Well you'd start out eating small prey. If you were that kind of animal that eats other animals. And you were lucky because you had these tiny little sharp teeth. They're perfect for killing small prey. And as you lost your teeth new ones would replace them like a shark, right? Now you're getting bigger and so do your teeth. Your teeth are getting bigger as well. And on top of that your teeth not only got bigger but they would change in type to suit the new prey that you were hunting.

B: Whoa.

J: Yeah. like it was already programmed of course into them. At this age the teeth are like this. And at this age they're bigger and they're like this. So they evolved to have different sets of teeth for different types of prey at different times in their lifespan. That's freaking amazing. Now let's go to bones. Dinosaurs could be as big as 100 feet long and weighing upwards of 45 tons. They were big so their bones had to be strong but their bones had to also be light. So some dinosaur bones had channels for air sacs that came from their circulatory system. This is like modern birds. They have extensive air sac systems. And this gives the bones the ability to be extraordinarily light but gives them strength as well. And this means that since dinosaurs had a lighter skeleton. They needed less muscle to power their movement. And this in turn reduce the amount of body heat that they produce. And this is the case this is not the case with modern mammals. Land mammals can only get to the size of roughly about an elephant maybe a little bit bigger but that's the limit. And warm-blooded animals require a lot more food as you know. If anyone has had a meal with me recently we require lots and lots of food. So a huge cold-blooded dinosaur would eat one-fifth of food of a modern elephant. Think about that.

S: Yeah but Jay I was reading that article and it struck me that it was a little out of sync with the news item from last week. Because the largest dinosaurs, the sauropods, were warm-blooded.

J: No we talked about it. I know I mean these are all, these are generalities you know what I mean?

S: This article was sort of like didn't update itself to that information yet. So they were partly speculating. Maybe they were only on the low end of the warm blooded sides. Like no actually they were fully warm blooded. So that wasn't really a factor in the size. Remember the whole gigantothermic thing was just not true.

B: [inaudible] consensus now?

S: This is news item from last week.

B: Yeah. I mean it's still percolating through.

S: Yeah, right. It just hadn't get it wasn't updated yet. So I think that one piece that doesn't jive with the most recent evidence on dinosaur warm bloodedness.

J: Well if they were cold-blooded they would have eaten one-fifth of food of a modern elephant. But yeah there is more recent information. The environment. So let's talk about what was their environment like. So another factor that allowed dinosaurs to be as big had to be their environment. There had to be plenty of oxygen and food to cover their needs. Their habitat in particular. It had to be just right. It had to be the perfect mix of things in order for these giant creatures to come into being. They required ecologies that were at the beginning of when the dinosaurs first started to appear the environment was already there. Like it was waiting for them. So since CO₂ levels were higher like I said this gave plant life this huge boost of making. It was a great time to be an herbivore let me put it to you that way. Plants of all varieties were everywhere. And we're talking about like everywhere. Like north and south pole as well. Wherever there was land and dinosaurs were living there was plants and they were in it and there was tons of herbivores eating through these plants and they had a seemingly endless supply of food. Now as we know more carbon dioxide is directly correlated with increased global temperature. So I've read that the daytime average temperature was 90 to 100°F or 32 to 38°C.

E: That's average.

J: Yeah. Yep.

B: That's nuts.

J: That's f--ing hot. That's really hot. (Cara laughs)

E: That is balmy. That is humid. So more oxygen also likely played a big role in allowing for giant insects as well.

B: So insects were critical. I think that you could say that the oxygen was probably overwhelmingly critical. More so perhaps than dinosaurs. This increase in oxygen. How high did it get? Was it like 20%? Yeah. Compared to that was like the main reason. The main reason. Otherwise insects just couldn't get that big without that much oxygen.

S: Do you know why that is, why that's so important for insects? Because they don't really have circulatory systems. The oxygen diffuses through their tissue so there's just a limit on the distance that the oxygen can diffuse. So you increase the oxygen tension even by a few percent─

B: More diffusion.

S: ─more diffusion. They can get bigger. They can have basically they could have parts of their body farther from their skin.

E: Huh.

J: All right let now let's click over to size. So once large bodies did evolve, which took a very long time, it gave those dinosaurs more protection from predators. If the dinosaurs grew big enough like for instance the hadrosaur even a pack of tyrannosaurus couldn't bring it down because it was just too big. Now let's talk about skull size. Some dinosaurs had large head ornamentation. You've seen tons of pictures of really weird shaped dinosaur heads and all this stuff. So they used these heads to fight. They were very very very likely to attract mates and the sheer size of the head itself could have given dinosaurs more protection. Think about this. The skull is bigger, thicker, heavier. One study showed that dinosaurs with large head features evolved to larger sizes 20 times faster than those without. So there was a huge boon to having a large bulky head. Not so much today but back then it was really in. Now time was another factor. Another thing that we have to consider here is that it took the dinosaurs an incredible amount of time to evolve to be this huge. There's so many things that had to change in order for the dinosaurs to get up to these sizes. During that time the habitats had to be very stable and consistent. Which it happened to be. So that's why they were able to live for so long and be so prosperous. Now as the environment slowly changed again. So millions of years going by and the environment is now getting cooler. It's possible, right? Like that an asteroid impact hit and if that did it probably very quickly killed off all the largest creatures out there because their food supply and environment and habitats were significantly disrupted. Now we have this big dying off of these large creatures. So now it comes in the smaller animals. And smaller animals were also during these times learning to have their social structures were starting to develop. And they were learning to hunt in packs which enabled them to take down larger prey. That was another thing that even reduced the size of the remaining largest animals, however large they were, all the way up into modern times where we killed off the closest thing to an elephant at the time. Because we were hunting them into extinction. So like I said. Tons of factors. All mish-mashed together. There's probably dozens and dozens more that we don't even know about of course because we don't have live specimens, we don't really know what the environment was exactly like. A lot of things are speculation. But these are very likely things that had an impact on why they could get that big and then the dying off and the larger animals kept getting killed and taken down and the environment kept changing. Until we get to the point where the largest creatures today live in the ocean. We have whales as the largest creatures and they're supported by the their body weight is supported by water. Of course they couldn't live on land. So land animals really have come way down in size to where we're looking at modern day elephants.

S: And average sizes. I mean they increased for a while among the mammals. There was the age of gigantism. Not anything close to dinosaur size but everything was big. Mainly because of competition. So the prey gets bigger so they're protected from predators so predators get bigger to eat the bigger prey. So there's like an─

B: Arms race.

S: ─arms race of size. So but then that takes time to play out. But then the trend reversed which a lot of researchers attribute to human hunting. We basically kill off the biggest animals because they're the most meat. And so the average size of mammals has been decreasing over the last twenty-thirty thousand years. One argument I didn't buy was the there just hasn't been enough evolutionary time to get that big. Because the biggest creatures to ever live are alive now. The whales. As you said. And they evolved in the last 60 million years. There has been enough time for creatures to get bigger than the biggest dinosaurs. I think the it's just that mammals can't get that big. Reptiles are just different. Reptiles continue to grow throughout their life unlike mammals. They have the lighter bone structure. They replace their teeth more often so they can adapt to larger stages in feeding strategies etc. So there's like a lot of features that reptiles have that mammals simply don't have.

B: Yeah plus how fair is it to compare land dwelling reptiles to sea going mammals? In terms of size. It's probably it might be just easier to to grow big in the water because you got all the water supporting you so it's not it's difficult.

S: Yeah you don't need to evolve as many adaptations. That's true.

B: Just stay streamlined.

S: But tells you how complicated a question it is. There's so many factors involved.

E: Huge.

AI and Traffic Jams (40:05)

• AI Can Help Traffic Jams

S: All right guys I'm going to tell you about something else that is also complicated. (Evan laughs) Not as as the previous two topics and I'm going to take a page from Cara and start by asking you a question. The question is: what do you think causes traffic jams? What's the most common causes of traffic congestion.

C: Idiocy.

J: I think it's a lack of attention.

B: People.

C: It's inefficiency in driving.

E: Any vehicle on the highway.

S: Evan is very is correct. It is cars. Vehicles. (Evan laughs)

C: But isn't it the people's behavior behind the wheel of the vehicle?

S: It's also that. (laughter)

B: I know it's not the lack of lanes.

E: Vehicle didn't get there by itself.

S: Well it could be lack of lanes. It's not as it's not a simple linear relationship. And you can inadvertently worsen traffic by increasing lanes by altering the flow of traffic by altering behavior. So you guys are hitting on the big things but let me clarify it all a little bit for you. So there are hard causes and soft causes. So there is the infrastructure material causes. This is just how many cars and vehicles are there on the roads. How many lanes are there. What's the carrying capacity of those roads and if the number of vehicles begins to exceed the carrying capacity that tremendously reduces the speed, the average speed at which vehicles can go. So that is a major cause of traffic. So bottlenecks because of infrastructure account for about 40% of traffic congestion. And construction ironically, attempts at improving that infrastructure causes 10%. So 10% of traffic is just caused by they're fixing the roads at that time. 40% are just congestion. There's too many cars for the roadway itself. So that's about half. But half of congestion is caused by those sort of infrastructure hard causes. Then there are or those are called are long-term or recurring causes of traffic. Because they're there all the time. Then there are temporary causes. These are things that─

B Weather?

S: ─are due to temporary conditions. So weather is a big one. The environment. Just as a more general category. That's about 15%. Bad weather causes about 15% of traffic according to the Department of Transportation. And then there is accidents, breakdowns, mechanical failure, things like that. That causes another chunk. And then finally we come to human causes. Just driving behavior. This primarily results from what's called a phantom traffic jam. Have you guys ever heard that term? A phantom traffic jam?

B: No.

J: No.

E: No. No.

S: So that's entirely caused by driving behavior. It's called the phantom traffic jam because there's no apparent physical cause. Has that ever happened to you where traffic just slows down.

C: Oh it happens all the time. That's what I was referring to when you said what is the.

E: Yeah I always think it's like an echo of something that happened prior to that and it's catching up to the point of going back to some state of normalcy.

C: Oh see I always just think it's because people suck at merging. And people suck at paying attention to the car in front of them and they don't pace them. I also think brake lights on the freeway are the bane of my existence. Don't break─

E: It's a trigger?

C: ─unless you have to. Yeah because one person breaks every person behind brakes and often for no reason.

B: Yeah it's domino effect there.

E: Take our cues from the cars in front of them.

:S That's exactly what a phantom traffic jam is. So if someone slows down for whatever reason.

E: Rubber necking.

S: It could be rubber necking. It could be they're coming to a steep turn and they want to really slow down or they weren't paying attention. They got a little too close to the car in front of them or whatever.

C: Or just they're bad drivers and they don't understand how to slow down without breaking.

S: Exactly. So they when one car slows down the car behind it needs to slow down a little more. And then the car behind that slows down a little more. And that keeps propagating back until you come to a stop. And there's no reason. Like there's nothing in the road that would explain it. So it just propagates through until traffic comes to a halt. So that's a phantom traffic jam. The other driving behavior thing which is actually external is traffic lights. Because the traffic lights are trying to are programmed in order to manage the flow of traffic. So let's talk about these two soft causes. Phantom traffic jams and traffic lights. Because those are the most immediately modifiable kind of variables. Obviously it takes time to build roads. A lot of investment. The construction itself slows down traffic so that takes a long time to fix. You can't do much about the weather. You could try to minimize accidents but it's going to happen etc. But these two are just like the two variables that should be the most modifiable. And what's triggering this whole discussion is a study looking at artificial intelligence in order to be better at managing the traffic lights. Well let's talk about that first. Today in the developed parts of the world traffic lights can be controlled by computer and they follow an algorithm to design to optimize flow. But they're sub-optimal. They're not necessarily fully optimized because it's a very complicated problem. It's not like there's a simple mathematical equation that you can apply to a complicated intersection or set of traffic. And it also has to be somewhat dynamic. I mean it's moment to moment changing to the the flow of traffic through an intersection for example. So you know a dynamic intelligent control that requires artificial intelligence. So what researchers did they were really basically trying to answer a very specific question. They developed a deep learning reward-based algorithm called deep reinforcement learning. Have you heard of that one Bob?

B: Yeah.

S: DRL. Deep reinforcement learning. So basically the AI gets a virtual reward whenever a car goes through an intersection.

J: Wait what but I mean wouldn't there have to be like programming in place to make that reward actually meaningful to an AI?

S: Yeah of course. That's assumed. Yeah. The reward is in air quotes that you can't see because it's positive reinforcement for the AI. Like in some software programming mechanism it this reinforces the AI's behavior. I want to do that. I want to get more of those. So and then also they get negative outcome negative reward for unwanted outcomes like traffic slowing down. So that's how the the deep reinforcement learning is programmed. And in this model they used video cameras to monitor the intersection. The other potential method and there are lots of places that have this is you can put there's like sensors in the road that will detect every time a car goes past so you could literally count the number of cars got past that way. But in the model they use they just use video because they're just it's more common. They trained the AI on a simulation. So not in a real world scenario. And their primary question was if we train our AI on purely on a simulation will that work? Will that improve their ability to then manage an actual real world intersection.

B: That's a question.

S: Yeah because if it can that's huge. Because it's a lot easier to train software on software. On a simulation. You don't have to train it in a real world scenario. And they the bottom line is they found that it worked really well. They were able to train their software on a simulation and then apply it to the real world and it worked. So that's great. So now they just need to you know implement it more in real world situations and see how it does. But it was able to significantly increase the throughput through these intersections by using this deep learning algorithm that helped them optimize the timing of the traffic lights. So that could have a significant decrease in traffic jams and traffic congestion. Just by improving the control of traffic lights. The interesting thing was the other end was the phantom traffic jam. So how could we reduce phantom traffic jams. Cara you're kind of hitting on it but if there was one method that worked turned out to be the most effective in terms of reducing phantom traffic jams and they were able to reduce it by 50%. Reduce phantom traffic jams by 50% by doing one thing.

B: Carpooling?

S: No. Although carpooling is good for overall traffic congestion.

C: I guess I feel like this is like an open menu. Like I feel like I need some constraints to be able to guess the answer to this.

S: The answer relates to what the primary cause of phantom traffic jams is. And again it's. You didn't say the magic word. It is driving behavior, people not knowing how to drive whatever. But the number one cause is tailgating.

C: Uh yes! Because if you weren't tailgating when they tapped their break you wouldn't have to.

S: You wouldn't have to tap your brakes. Exactly. Tailgating dramatically increases phantom traffic jams. So reducing tailgating dramatically reduces phantom traffic jams. But what's the driver? What is the actual best method to use? And it's something that the researchers are calling bilateral control. And so it's not just managing the distance between you and the car in front of you. It's also between you and the car behind you. And the optimal behavior seems to be to evenly space yourself out between the car in front of you and the car behind you. And when you do this that─

E: That's constantly changing.

S: ─reduces phantom traffic jams by the largest amount.

C: But we really have little control over how close the car behind us gets to us.

E: That's a three-car equation.

S: I know everyone needs to be doing this. Everyone needs to be doing this.

C: Well and tech can really improve this. Like my car has a follow behind signal.

S: Exactly.

C: So when it recognizes there's a car in front of me it's a little green car. When I'm getting too close to it's a red car and then if I get way too close to it goes bep-bep-bep.

S: And this is where AI comes in again.

E: Mine will actually engage my brake if it senses for some reason I'm accelerating and the car ahead of me is not moving at a fast enough speed─

C: Yeah it can tell.

E: ─it'll initiate my break.

B: Yeah mine too it's cool.

S: Exactly. So obviously driver education can help but that would have to be pretty thorough. And some people are calling for that and in fact people who do get more extensive driving coaching do better. The outcomes were better. But in any case something that would be very easy to implement would be simply a software update for any driver cars with driver assist. So if you--what you guys are talking about is driver assist. It's not a total self-driving car but it tells you you're getting a little bit too close to the car in front of you. Now if we update the algorithm of the driver assist to do bilateral control where it's managing it's trying to position you halfway between the car in front of you and the car behind you. Especially if a lot of the cars on the road have that. That could significantly reduce phantom traffic jams.

C: I still feel like psychologically all you need, and tell me if I'm wrong here mathematically, but all you need is the forward assist if most cars have it. Because that automatically spaces. And psychologically I think it would fuck with drivers heads if their car was constantly telling them that a car was getting too close on the back end.

B: And to speed up.

C: Yeah I think it would make them speed up and do bad things and get anxious when they drive.

S: Yeah at this point we're talking about like in a computer simulation. Mathematically that's what works. Now you have to factor human behavior into the equation. So you may be right sometimes and we get we encounter this in medicine all the time. There's something called an intention to treat analysis where you're looking at not just what would be the optimal outcome but what's the best outcome you're going to get out of people. And when you implement it in the real world. So what you're talking about is an intention to treat kind of approach to driving control. Sometimes it's better to give people a sub-optimal but simple rule they can follow than an optimal complex rule that they can't follow. But this would need to be tested in the real world. But again if cars are doing it because of just on their own. If like just automated driving is doing it self-driving cars are doing it we don't who cares. We can ever be as complicated as possible. So of course in 10-20 years or whatever when we get to that point where we're where most cars on the road are are self-driving. It's all going to be AI controlled. But the good news is that this should significantly reduce traffic. Because in addition to managing things like avoiding traffic jams for example, like not tailgating and spacing themselves out optimally and timing with the lights optimally etc. It could also root your pathway to adjust the overall flow of traffic to avoid congestion. This is again this actually gets back to Bob's point. Where people are attracted to the more lanes which actually can cause more congestions. It actually shifts traffic in a negative way sometimes. You have to actually, it doesn't always Bob it's not every single time. Sometimes adding lanes does help. But you have to simulate it and figure out if adding a lane will be a positive or a negative thing. Because if you're not careful you could actually have the opposite effect by negatively affecting traffic patterns. But if we have networked self-driving cars algorithms will run at all we don't need to worry about. The human behavior like the flocking behavior thing where people are like why do people tailgate. It's interesting. When you're in traffic you're like anxious and you're right up on the guy in front of you. Why does everybody do that? It makes absolutely no sense. It doesn't get you there any sooner. It actually just makes traffic flow slower. If everybody just relaxed and backed off a little bit. Tried to keep a steady pace rather than constantly accelerating to get to the car in front of them. Traffic would move smoothly but most people behave in a counterproductive way.

C: Yeah. There's also this interesting phenomenon Steve where it's maybe an unintended or I'm hoping it's an unintended but positive outcome of a future where we have networked self-driving cars. Is I think there will simply be fewer cars on the road. Because I think fewer people will own cars. It will be much easier to have more of a car hailing economy when all the cars are self-driving anyway. And there's a system by which they just pick you up and take you where you need to go.

S: But we talked Cara that's─

E: It doesn't work everywhere.

S: ─cars as a service may actually increase the cars on the road because now you have self-driving cars with no passengers going to the next person summoning them.

C: Yeah but I wonder if it's not a net negative. I don't know.

S: May not be a net negative. But that's another variable and it depends on how it all plays out. Again it gets complicated.

Special Segment: Green Bank Observatory (55:45)

• Bob visits the Green Bank Observatory

S: All right Bob you recently took a trip and you wanted to talk about something that you ran into that you thought was cool.

E: Oh my gosh is it okay? (Cara laughs) Thanks Cara.

B: Thanks it's very okay. This happened in West Virginia recently. Liz set up a tour at the Green Bank Observatory. And I had heard about the Green Bank Observatory for sure but the details were kind of fuzzy since I'm reading about observatories all the time. And well that's not so fuzzy anymore I have to say the history of this place and the current work plus the sheer broad nagging awesomeness of my first encounter with the huge radio telescope made me decide to do a deeper dive and talk about the mighty Green Bank Observatory. What a fun tour. So it wasn't always called the Green Bank Observatory. For years it was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory built in 1957 by the National Science Foundation. It was the United States first national astronomy observatory and also on the first national laboratory open to all scientists from all around the world. At that time in the late 50s they had a head honcho meeting in DC and they're like we need a national astronomy observatory. And radio astronomy because we were way behind and we needed to really get do some catchup and we certainly did. So then once some green bank was there for a while then other other observatories also were created as part of this network. Then it was basically referred to as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Green Bank. And now since I think 2016 it's more independent. It's no longer officially affiliated with the government and it's simply called Green Bank Observatory still doing amazing stuff. So now driving to the observatory and it was still quite far away and I first noticed this amazingly huge annoyance that overcame me as I had no damn cell service. Not one damn bar. Nothing. There was nothing on my phone. Super annoying as I'm sure many of you can relate. Turns out there was a very interesting reason why that's so. And it's called the United States National Radio Quiet Zone. That's a 13 000 square mile area.

E: I've never heard of that quiet zone.

B: Yeah the quiet zone. United States National Radio Quiet Zone. 13 000 square miles and I was right in the middle of it.

S: Did you put your phone on airplane mode?

B: No. No need to. It wasn't getting anything.

S: No but that's why you should do that because otherwise your phone is going to constantly be pinging to try to find a signal and it will run the battery down.

B: Yeah my phone was plugged in. The battery wasn't going anywhere. But it gets even more interesting because I was right in the middle of this. And this is radio transmissions are restricted by federal regulations. This is like a real it's a really interesting area. And because they did this. Why they do this? Because radio telescopes are bottom line just so super sensitive that they are susceptible to any weak radio interference that could ruin the scientific [inaudible].

E: Microwave oven.

B: Oh so there's so many. So now tremendous sensitivity is needed because radio waves have notoriously low energy. And this is where I pull in my Carl Sagan quote from Cosmos and he was essentially accurate in 1980 when he said this, when he said: "The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground." So we're talking about amazingly weak energy and that's why these radio dishes are so big. They got to they're trying to get as much as they can and it's not much but they can. And they get amazing images. So what happens with these radio signals? Why is that so dreaded from nature or man-made? And that's because and I saw actually what this looks like. It throws this radio interference so it's nasty these vertical interference spikes all over your data. And if it gets bad enough it's like you got to just throw it away. Like I can't this isn't going to.

E: Yeah like an etch a sketch gone wrong.

B: It's it's really bad and that's why they picked that area in West Virginia because essentially if you looked at the topography and the geography this is like a bowl-shaped area surrounded by hills and mountains that essentially shield it. And it's also why Green Bank actually has a truck with antennas on it that I saw that they drive around looking for excessive signals from microwaves, Wi-Fi routers or even automatic doors that use microwave signals. So if they detect it if they detect any of these overabundance of radio interference or microwaves they will send a representative from the Green Bank. They will find you and they will sit you down and you won't believe this they actually amicably work out a solution with you. And that's what they do. It's not a big deal. Like for example that automatic door that used microwaves to open up they just basically paid for swapping out their microwave emitter to an infrared one. There. Problem solved. So it's not like they can't really make you do a lot really anything legally. But it's I mean they will then they're really nice about it. They will work with you and fix the problem. But if you get close to the observatory though the closer you get the more insistent they become. Especially if you're within eye shot of that radio antenna. No cameras allowed. Steve when I walked in there cameras are off for the tour. Absolutely off. There's no microwaves. No microwave ovens that are like right on on the campus there. They've got Faraday cages over a lot of stuff because you need it. And then can you guess. Here's one here's a question for you. Can you guess why all the work vehicles that are on site are diesel? Everyone. They're all.

S: Because of the starters? Whether it's a heat starter with an electrical starter?

B: Well the diesel engines don't have spark plugs and those spark plugs─

S: That's what I just said.

B: ─yeah this is yeah but spark plugs it was the key word. Like tailgating. You didn't. We didn't say tailgating. You didn't say spark plug. (laughter)

S: They use heat instead of electricity. Instead of sparks. That's what I said.

B: Right and it's really it's the diesels have compression ignition. And they have glow plugs that heat the area. So yeah the wires that are connected to the spark plugs they're like antenna. And they just they create nasty radio interference spikes. Okay so let's talk about the radio telescopes themselves. Yes Evan?

E: I'm sorry but before we get off that topic entirely. What about the airspace? Is there a restricted air?

B: No they really they don't have any control over what's flying overhead.

E: Okay.

B: So they don't there's not much they can do about that. All right so the radio telescopes themselves. There's four active ones that are at the observatory. There's a 12.2 meter or 40 foot radio disc. They got a 20 meter. They got a 43 meter. And then of course the jewel in the crown the 100 meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Now the smaller ones we drove by those. They're beautiful. They're really cool. It's a little miniature. Kind of miniature. I guess it's all relative but they're really cool. But when I walked up to that Green Bank Telescope it was I would compare it to the time I saw a Saturn V or I walked onto the bridge of Kirk's Enterprise. Not exactly as awesome but right kind of up there. It was an amazing experience. If you've never seen something this big. I mean we're talking 17 million pounds and it's over 485 feet tall. 148 meters. This thing is monstrous. And with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships. It destroys planets. Chops them into rubble. Sorry I was channeling Matt Decker from the Trek Doomsday Machine episode. Couldn't help but thinking about that. Sorry Cara.

E: I think we all thought of that one.

C: Yeah. Totes.

B: What a great episode. And if you're gonna watch that episode. The doomsday episode. Watch the one that was that had the special effects redone because they're especially sweet. (Evan laughs) Okay so I meant the collecting dish. The collecting dish. I said 100 meter. That's about 300 feet. Two and a third acres. You could fit a damn football field on this thing. It's so huge it's mind-boggling and it really it really was a sight to behold. If you're nearby there definitely check it out. Pictures don't do it justice. It is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in existence. The premier telescope of its of its kind in the world. And that's why this thing operates pretty much 24/7/362. And it's been operated by 900 scientists in the past five years. And each of those scientists only had a 25% chance of having their proposals accepted. Only one in fourth. 75% of the people that apply to use that telescope don't get it. And I'm just so bummed I couldn't get a picture in front of it. Or I could or go inside of it. I couldn't go inside of it either. All right enough of that. So let's look at this the amazing scientific history of the scientific discovery. And it really made me feel like it was hollowed scientific ground. So many interesting discoveries. I'm not even gonna cover a hundredth of them. But here are the ones that that stood out for me. 1960 Project Ozma. That's when that's a project that where astrophysicist Frank Drake was the first to use a radio telescope to search for extra extraterrestrial life at Green Bank. And he looked at Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani two of my favorite star system names anyway. If you, does anyone know what project what Ozma means?

E: Ozma?

J: Isn't that a character from Star Wars?

B: No that's from the Wizard of Oz. L. Frank Baum Oz. The Queen of Oz was was Ozma and so they kind of just took that name and Buam said in his book he said he described it as very far away difficult to reach and populated by strange and exotic beings. So they used project Ozma the name Ozman which I thought was was kind of interesting. Okay and one year later what did Drake do? He introduced at Green Bank the Drake equation which of course estimated the number of transmitting civilizations in our galaxy. And is still just one one of the more famous equations around. Okay how about this one? 1967. The first discovery of flat galactic rotation curves. That is big because that implies that was the first hints of dark matter. In 1967. Because we use dark matter to explain those those flat galactic rotation curves because otherwise without the dark matter being there then all the stars in the in the outskirts of the galaxy should fly out. It's just way too much. Okay 1974. This is a big one. 1974. Sagittarius A* the black hole the supermassive black hole the center of our galaxy was discovered at Green Bank. And they in that case they were using the four element radio dish interferometer system. 2008. First detection of prebiotic molecules in space. And I'll end with this one: 2014 Laniakea was discovered. Now if you look at where the Earth is we live in our local group of galaxies. And then we're in the Virgo Supercluster and the Green Bank discovered that we are in an even larger super cluster called Laniakea and so it was a major adjustment to the address of the Earth. So nowadays the Green Bank is still doing great science like I said that Green Bank telescope is busy every day of the year except a few. And notably which is funny because it kind of came back around they're also working right now on the latest phase of a SETI project it's called Breakthrough Listen. This is the most comprehensive search for alien techno signatures to date. Specifically they're looking for radio signals from one million near nearby stars and the centers of a hundred galaxies. So man come on I it just do I even need to say what would happen if they actually did find a you know a verified techno signature?

S: Huge party?

E: Oh boy.

B: Drunk for a week.

E: Bob which okay how would they verify because you would have to verify that signal. Would the with the Green Bank telescope also? This telescope also be responsible for doing the verification of it? Or is there something else somewhere else on the planet that can independently do that verification?

B: Sure you would definitely want independent detection that's one of the big things that you would do as quickly as you could. You want to have somebody else on the planet discovered. You can't have just one place detected so there's so they've got the Green Bank telescope detecting. They've got one in the southern hemisphere that's also looking. There's also a Chinese radio telescope that's also joining in on this. So they would try to before we could you'd have to rule out. The thing is you have to rule out that it's coming from the Earth.

E: Yes.

B: That's the biggest thing. And that's the biggest thing. If you could rule that out then that would be something [inaudible].

E: Contamination.

B: Oh absolutely. And what I like is that they're releasing their data every six months. Bam. They do a dump every six months. And the Green Bank telescope was used recently Steve you're like this one. To scan ʻOumuamua for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. You know what they found? A rock. It's a rock. It's just a rock. That's it.

E: A rock? [inaudible].

B: Yes.

E: Cool.

B: And so they are working on one weird signal that they found that seems to have come from Proxima Centauri the closest star to our Sun. And it hasn't been fully ruled out yet I'll say that. But a lot of the scientists think that yeah this is probably Earth-based. It's some sort of contamination but they haven't fully ruled it out. I mean and just think of it. What are the odds we've oh yeah there's Earth. I mean there's life on around Sol and there's also life around the closest star? I mean that would just be the winning a lotto 20 times in a row. But hey I mean that would be a best case scenario and hey it happened on Babylon 5 so maybe it will happen on Earth. (laughter) So yeah so guys if you ever get down to West Virginia check it out. It's a beautiful place and seeing that Green Bank telescope was really it really was awe inspiring.

S: Cool thanks Bob.

Who's That Noisy? (1:10:12)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Bugle of a bull Elk during Elk rut

S: Jay it's Who's That Noisy time.

J: All right if you don't like loud or high-pitched noises please lower your volume right now and then we'll play the noisy. All right guys last week I played this Noisy:

[high pitched whoops and grunting, squeaking calls]

Okay.

E: Just keeps going.

J: All right guys. So what is this thing?

C: Mechanical. Something that needs to be lubricated. (laughter)

J: All right well Dan H writes in: "I'm going to guess that this week's Noisy is a Japanese Ryu Techie". Please don't. Ryu Techy flute.

C: (laughs) Please don't.

J: It's a flute. Playing some especially shrill notes. All right that's that sounds reasonable. It is not a flute but I definitely can. I've heard. I've made flutes make this noise so I'm agreeing with you that it does sound like a bad played flute.

Amanda Lay wrote in: "Hey Jay I love this week's Noisy because I'm a big fan of whales and that sounds like a cetacean to me. But which one? So many choices it doesn't sound ponderous and thoughtful enough to be a Mysticeti so I'm thinking that it might be what was described by early sonar operators as the canary of the sea so is this week's Noisy a beluga? Best wishes Amanda from Melbourne." No it is not a whale but that was one hell of a guess.

Moeen has written in from Chicago and say: "Hey Jay it sounds to me like a rooster's singing noise in the morning. I hear some dogs barking in the background as they wake up by the noise." This is not a rooster and I will tell you. One lives about 30 feet from where I sleep in my neighbor's yard and if it made that noise it would not make it to tomorrow. (Cara laughs) Because I could not hear that noise at 6:30 in the morning every morning.

Some rando dude in Australia named Visto Tutti wrote in. I don't know who this guy is. "This call sounds to me like the curlew bird of Australia. It's mournful calls at night spawned many a legend. Some say the birds call in the soul of an aboriginal princess who was unjustly murdered the night before her wedding by a jealous rival to her beloved. Her spirit still calls for her beloved to this day."

All right so let me just give you the answer here. John McKinnon wrote in: "Hi Jay I've been listening for about 10 years now and I rarely think I'm right when it comes to Who's That Noisy but this week I really think I know it. This sounds just like the cry of a bull elk." It's an elk guys.

C: Oh man. That's horrifying.

J: Yeah so let me explain to you. I'll play it again but let me explain to you now. This Noisy was sent in by a listener named Steven Tuscan as in Tuscan raiders. Very cool name Steven. This is the call of an elk. They're calling these bugles and chuckles and indeed it is during something called a rut. So at its peak from mid-september to mid-october the elk rut is a time when male elks or bulls vie for the hearts of their female counterparts known as cows. Their goal is to prove their prowess and win the loyalty of a harem of females. Eight to nine-year-old bulls stand the greatest chance of mating. Guys this is an elk. Watch your ears as you hear this.

[plays Noisy]

You can hear the overtones, right? So I'd like to say a ton of people got this one right. So good job everyone who emailed in the correct answer. I was surprised to see that many people know exactly what this thing was so it's I would say it's probably an unforgettable sound. It's pretty easy to remember once you hear it.

New Noisy (1:14:12)

J: Okay I have a new Noisy for you guys. This is a Noisy sent in from someone with a very difficult name. Pi Frogen. Froge. It's P-I. That's the first name. Last Name F-R-O-G-D. Frögd. With two dots over the--umlaut, right? Is that umlaut over the o?

E: Umlaut.

J: Pi Frögd. Okay. Very cool name and here is the sound:

[bellowing, buzzing, and low chirping, chittering animal sounds]

J: All made by the same animal. If you think you know this week's Noisy or you heard something cool--because you must have, because you have ears--please email me at WTN@theskepticsguide.org.

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:15:44)

Question #1: Science of Gun Regulation (1:17:04)

What Do We Know About the Association Between Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Injuries?

Science or Fiction (1:40:30)

Hidden Theme: Counterintuitive Results Item #1: A new study in yeast finds that about 75% of synonymous (or silent) genetic mutations are actually significantly harmful. Item #2: In a large Danish study researchers found that having shingles increased the risk of being diagnosed with dementia over the next 21 years by 10%. Item #3: An analysis of air pollution in China finds a significant association with higher socio-economic status and higher exposures to ambient air pollution.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Shingles and dementia
Science	Silent mutations are harmful
Science	Higher S.E.S., higher exposure

Host	Result
Steve	swept

Rogue	Guess
Jay	Shingles and dementia
Evan	Shingles and dementia
Cara	Shingles and dementia
Bob	Shingles and dementia

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:54:51)

What I love about experts, the best of them anyway, is that they get to their humility early. They have to. It's part of who they are; it's necessary for what they're doing. They set out to get to the bottom of something that has no bottom, and so they're reminded constantly of what they don't know. They move through the world focused not on what they know, but on what they might find out.
– Michael Lewis, American author

Signoff/Announcements

S: —and until next week, this is your 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

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• Fact/Description
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References

Vocabulary