SGU Episode 938

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SGU Episode 938
July 1st 2023
The CHAPEA mission will see the participants live and work in a 158m2 habitat at the Johnson Space Center.
SGU 937                      SGU 939
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
I hold my theories on the tips of my fingers, so that the merest breath of fact will blow them away.
attributed to Michael Faraday, English scientist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction

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 Thursday, June 29^th, 2023, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening everyone.

S: Bob is off tonight. He had some last minute thingy, like he emails us on Mondays, like, oh, could we change the day this week? I said, no, you can't change the freaking day this week. Three days, he knows the rules. Something came up last minute and we couldn't make another day work, so Bob's out. But he'll obviously be back next week. And it's ironically, he's out the week that the biggest astronomy news probably of the year broke.

E: It's only been everywhere.

S: To the point where I think he thinks we're going to wait for next week before we talk about it.

C: Yeah, right.

Titan submersible update

S: He thinks incorrectly that we're going to wait for him. I mean, I'm going to have to talk about it. I'll cover it, like, basically tonight, and we may go into more detail next week depending on it'll be good to have like a week of the science community meat grinder before we get into that. But anyway, we'll get to that with the news items. We did want to follow up on the reporting that we did last week on the Titan submersible disaster. That news story was really just breaking when we were recording last week.

E: Yeah, it's still developing.

S: Yeah, we wanted to do some follow up. It's pretty clear at this point in time that there was a catastrophic implosion. It happened about an hour and 45 minutes into the descent. It's also pretty clear that the primary reason for this catastrophic failure of the submersible was the poor design of the submersible itself. There's been a lot of criticism of the whole process. I think the big thing is we talked about the fact that this sort of fell between the regulatory slots there, Canadianship and American company International Waters, nobody really had jurisdiction. The company decided, it was their own design of the vessel, and they decided not to be independently certified for the depth that they were going to. They made that decision, and they were using a new design. It's not like they were using a proven design. The big thing was the carbon fiber shell. It was titanium and carbon fiber. Most other submersibles, from what I've been able to find, are pure titanium. Bigger submarines can be like steel, but titanium is better, especially for something small like this. It was an experimental design, and a lot of engineers are saying that, yeah, this is not a great material. The carbon fiber doesn't stress well. This was its third crude descent, and there were some test descents as well, so the stress of the pressure and depressurize must have just put a crack in there, and then that was it.

E: You can't have any failures at that.

S: No, it was the smallest crack, and this was like popping a balloon, but in reverse. This is what will happen.

J: How could they not know that, though?

E: That's a good question.

S: A lot of people say it was basically just arrogance. This guy wanted to be...

C: Hubris.

S: Yeah. Yeah, the SpaceX of the ocean. It's like, yeah, SpaceX has NASA looking over their shoulder and certifying their vessels for crude flight, and you didn't do that. You didn't do what SpaceX did in terms of once you put people in these vessels, and again, that was sort of a voluntary choice. He wanted to mass-produced, streamlined, cost-effective, going down into the deep ocean. It's like, yeah, this industry has been around for decades and with a great safety record by following the rules.

E: Right. Certainly, there were some standards at the other companies and other related industries that follow these rules, whether they're the US standards, the European standards. There are standards. It sounds like this person deliberately skirted any set of standards in order to achieve what he felt he wanted to achieve.

S: Didn't get the independent certification. I think that's the bottom line. They're recovering a lot of the wreckage. Some of the reporting was saying that they have possible human remains, which suggests to me that it's hard to identify what they're pulling out, probably because there's biological material in the wreckage itself, which is gruesome. One of the questions that came up was, what would they have experienced, the people on board that ship? The implosion and death would have occurred faster than their brains could have processed the information. It would have been in milliseconds.

C: The question is, was there any indication in advance that it was going to happen, and how scary would that have been?

S: Probably not, because again, the moment you have a crack in the seam, it implodes. It's not like it would be leaking or whatever. It would have just been instant implosion.

E: Like the end of The Sopranos, Tony sitting there, and cut to black the end. That's it.

S: Exactly. Bullet to the back of the head. Yeah, there would be no time to process what was going on. It just would have happened.

'E: I've never seen The Sopranos, by the way. I just know the end.

S: Are you kidding me?

E: No, I'm not kidding you.

C: I didn't see The Sopranos either.

S: Oh, please. It's a great series. It's a great... Cara you would love it. It's all about doing... The premise is you have a mob boss who has panic disorder and has to go to a counselor to be treated for his panic disorder and anxiety, and the guy's a mobster. You would love it. Anyway.

C: That's very... The Departed, in a way.

'S: Yeah, yeah.

C: Which I also... I did love The Departed.

Media's misguided attention

S: We have to bring up the fact, because this has been reported, that the disconnect between the way the Titan tragedy was reported and the way the other nautical disaster was reported that was happening basically at the same time, where hundreds of migrants died on an overcrowded fishing vessel.

C: In the Mediterranean.

S: In the Mediterranean. Yeah. Very sad, very tragic. And it is...

C: Horrible.

S: Yeah, it's horrible. It is an interesting, I think, commentary on the priorities that the media has. What's the stories that get their attention?

C: Well, and not just the media. I think there's two different conversations that are both worthy of having. Obviously, we're not going to have the time or the background to have them on the show. But one of them is, why did we pay so much attention to the submersible? And why did we... Most people didn't even know about this tragedy off the coast of Greece. When we were covering the submersible, I didn't know this story existed yet.

S: Yeah. I only heard it incidentally mentioned in the reporting on the Titan.

C: Right. The question is, number one, where are our priorities with regard to the media coverage? But also, as a human species, where are our priorities with regards to how we spend our money and whose lives we want to save? And I think that's a whole other conversation that is deeply necessary because we put a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and let's face it, a lot of taxpayer dollars into saving or into attempting to save the lives of people who we didn't know where they were, who eschewed all sorts of regulatory... We talked about all of this. Now, it's a tragedy that they died. They did not deserve to die. And it's absolutely heartbreaking that they died. And it is also true that there was a boat full of people who were fighting for their lives and we knew exactly where they were, and they were allowed to die a tragic death.

E: And that took place off the coast of Greece.

C: Greece.

E: I mean, the Greek authorities, I guess, were limited into what they could do, I suppose.

C: What does that mean?

E: Well, their Coast Guard. I mean, weren't they... They would be the ones who would be able to get there first to help as many of these people as possible.

C: They could get there.

S: Yeah. I mean, obviously...

C: They could get there.

S: It's two different countries. I mean, the American Coast Guard will rescue anyone who needs rescuing if you're within a thousand miles of an American coastline. That's their policy and that's what they do. I don't know what the Greek policy is and how that decision-making happened.

C: But there's a difference between could they follow policy or, yeah, what kind of decisions were made. There's a difference between what's possible and what choices were made.

E: Right.

S: Definitely.

E: I'm trying to read about it. I'm not seeing much really about the response itself to this and what was exactly happening with the authorities or anyone else who could have possibly made a difference in helping save some lives here.

C: I mean, what we do know is that it was well established where this boat was and it was well established that the people on it were in danger. And we have to remember that the situations that underlie these kinds of human rights tragedies are only going to accelerate and will be more and more refugees because there will be more and more geopolitical conflict because what is happening to the planet right now is untenable and there will be more and more people who need to find safe harbor.

Worsening geopolitical tragedies

S: That's true. This is going to get worse. It's not going to get better. We need to have a conversation about the and this is this really is a global problem.

C: It is.

S: It's like an international problem that requires international solutions.This can't be in every country for itself kind of thing.

C: It can't be.

S: It's going to get worse.

C: Massive similarities between that and the unhoused crisis that we see here where very often we love to say it's somebody else's responsibility and then we actually criminalize existence. And do we want to live in a society where these people are treated like criminals for trying to exist and trying to survive or do we want to live in a society where we help people thrive?

S: Yeah, it's also a cost effective and deficiency thing. Like even if you're going to be cynical, it's not cost effective to allow people to exist in situations like that because they end up costing the system more money because they use emergency rooms and police resources and jail resources or whatever. And in the United States, unfortunately, that's what happens to a lot of people who are experiencing homelessness where they, even like in New Haven where I practice, we see a lot of this. There are people who are like, no, we know that they're in the system where─

C: They're frequent flyers.

S: Yeah, I sis't want to use that term, but the frequent flyers, they're out on the street until they get arrested. Then they go to prison and then until they can't be held anymore, then they go to a hospital until they get discharged and they're back on the street. And that's the cycle. And it just keeps going around. And it happened because Congress decided this is I forget exactly how far back this goes. I think it's like the 80s. They said, what we're going to do is we're going to deinstitutionalize people and give them like halfway homes. And then they did the first half and they didn't fund the second half. So we deinstitutionalized a lot of people and then gave them no place to go. And so they wound up on the streets. And here we are 40 years later. And the same thing is happening like that problem has never been fixed because it's money upfront versus money at the back end.

C: And the funny thing is that takes us back full circle to the submersible because what happens when there are no safety nets in place and when the regulatory bodies aren't there and when individuals aren't working when there's not a system there to support and individuals don't feel empowered to work within the system. Obviously, this is a different situation in that the rogue nature was to eschew any sort of outside help. But ultimately, it's the same thing that happens financially.

S: It costs as more in the back end.

C: There's only so much money. Yeah, there's only so much money in a system and that money is going to go someplace.

S: But I do think I do want to make just to emphasize it, it makes sense on every level. Yes, it's a humanitarian thing to do. It's also the cost effective thing to do. You're always better preventing problems, even if it costs you money upfront, than paying at the back end. Even with medicine.

C: Ounce of prevention, pound of cure.

S: Totally. Preventive care is cheaper than treating people in the emergency room.

E: Heck, yeah.

C: Yeah, it's cheaper to make preventive care free. That's why they're dentists. That's why when you buy dental insurance, you have prophylaxis that's just covered.

S: Yeah, they want you to be healthy.

C: They're willing to fund it. Yeah.

S: Right. That's why my insurance company was happy to pay for a new roof, because they know that a roof problem will lead to 10 times the damage down the road. So the insurance companies know what they're doing in many contexts. They know that sometimes you just pay for things upfront, it's cheaper in the long run. OK, let's move on. Cara, you're going to start us off with a what's the word?

What's the Word? (12:42)

• Decussate

C: I am. And I want to thank listener Richard Spalding for sending in this word. Richard Spalding, the Latinist. So I don't want to screw this up here. It's like if you ever have questions about Latin or Greek etymology, I'm happy to help. I'm sure that every time he listens to what the what's the word, he cringes at my terrible attempts at pronouncing things or the times when I mix up the the roots. But so he recommended the word decussate. This word I've had to look up the pronunciation like five hundred times and I still feel like I'm getting it wrong.

S: No, it's a decussate.

C: Decussate. Yeah, but there are apparently lots of people say it different ways.

E: Decussate.

C: Yeah, like some people say, decussate.

S: Decussate?

C: Yeah. And also, we very often see decussate written as a verb, but it's also an adjective. And I do think if we're saying it as an adjective, I would be inclined because I think that this is just how language nets out to say it's a decussate pair, but that they are decussating or they have I don't know.

S: And decussation, they have decussation.

C: And decussation. Yeah. So let's talk about decussate, D-E-C-U-S-S-A-T-E. Not to be confused with desiccate, totally different word, totally different root. Right. Like those little packets that you get when you buy things.

E: Well, thank goodness they sound so similar.

C: I know. Right. But no, we're talking about decussate, which you you may or may not have heard before because it has a very specific definition. And really, it's a pretty straightforward definition when you look at the etymology. It's X-shaped. It's something that crosses in that specific X pattern. And we see it across the board. We see it in biology, in zoology, in botany. We even see it sometimes used in rhetoric.

S: Cara, do you know the decussation of the pyramids?

C: The pyramids like in Egypt?

S: Nope.

C: Oh, in the brain!

S: In the brain. That's why I know this word.

E: The brain doesn't have pyramids.

C: Right. And that was that was something I'm going to get a little bit like inside baseball with you in a second, Steve. I'm actually kind of excited to get a little bit wonky with you in a second. But before I do, let's look at the roots. So it comes from the Latin decusatus, which comes from decusare, which ultimately was like to cross, right, to divide, cross, rise, to cross. It actually apparently came from an earlier route, which had to do with a with a coin. That coin, I guess the Roman numeral X was because that was the the worth of the coin. Roman numeral X is the actual root here. So this is a Latin word. And so when you see this used in biology, botany, across different scientific terms, you'll see the word decacet, which comes from the Latin, which comes from decim, which is ten. So to cross is to make like a ten symbol. But interestingly, Steve, what is the analog? Do you know in Greek in the brain? Think about the optic nerves.

S: Well, the optic chiasm.

C: The chiasm, which comes from chi, which is the Greek letter X. So I was like, this is cool. I'm seeing some parallels. And then I looked it up. I was like, why do why are some things decasations and some things are chiasm? And I read that chiasm refers to crossings within the peripheral nervous system. And decussation refers to crossings within the central nervous system. But that's why I'm freaking out about the optic nerves, because they're they're like those weird things that are kind of both.

S: Yeah, they're they're well, they're they're they're cranial nerves.

C: They're cranial nerves, but they're definitely still central nervous tissue.

S: Yeah, yeah. So they're they're anatomically peripheral. And developmentally central.

C: That's a good way to put it. And so they have fallen into the peripheral categorization hen it comes to chiasm versus decussation.

S: Now, the decussation of the pyramids, I know people are just dying to hear what these are. So it's the cortical spinal tract, right? So it's the nerve fibers that go from the motor cortex down into the spinal cord to connect to your ultimately to your muscles. And they go down basically what we call ipsilateral on the same side of the brain. And then they cross in the medulla. And that's the decussation. And these are the pyramidal tracts, because that's the pyramidal motor cells in the cortex. So it's the decussation of the pyramids.

C: And do they sometimes call it the medullary? No, they don't.

E: Why is the term pyramid used?

S: Vecause the because the motor neurons that they come from are pyramidal shaped. So they are the pyramidal cells. And this is the pyramidal tract.

E: Parameter shaped, huh?

C: Yeah. Yeah. And then you also see so we've got decussation of pyramids, which is a common one. We've got sensory decussation. We've also got like sometimes, OK, I think I saw somewhere that basil is a good example of a decussate leaf pattern, because when you look at a leaf from above and each subsequent pair, like rotates at right angles, that's a decussate leaf pattern. Even in apparently in tooth in animal, there are bundles of rods that cross each other and they make the same pattern. And then you even see it sometimes in there's like a species of insect called Dysdercus decussatus. And it's got an X on its back. So, yeah, you see it. You see this term a lot, but I thought the part. And thank you so much for bringing it to our attention, Richard. But I thought what was so fascinating was the relationship to me between the Latin decasation and the Greek chiasm. And how we see that used in in neuroanatomy, but also across different scientific disciplines.

S: Yeah, that's a good one.

C: Cool.

S: All right. Thanks, Cara.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Ripples in Spacetime (18:51)

• Ripples in Spacetime

Mars Simulation (28:23)

• NASA locks four people inside fake Mars habitat for year-long study 

Multimillion Dollar Psychic Scam (42:04)

• Canadian Man Convicted in Multimillion-Dollar Psychic Mass-Mailing Fraud Scheme

Who is Most Susceptible to Misinformation (52:16)

• First misinformation susceptibility test finds 'very online' Gen Z and millennials are most vulnerable to fake news

Malaria in Florida (1:00:26)

• Malaria alert issued in Florida. Why infectious mosquitoes have led to statewide concern

Who's That Noisy? (1:07:48)

Answer to previous Noisy:

A knife cutting down a vertical length of bamboo

New Noisy (1:11:54)

[_short_vague_description_of_Noisy]

short_text_from_transcript

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:15:55)

Email #1: Existential Dread

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Science or Fiction (1:22:55)

Theme: Computers Item #1: The FBI reported that financial losses due to cybercrime in 2022 exceeded $1 trillion. Item #2: A 2020 analysis found that 77% of American jobs involved medium to high levels of digital skill. Item #3: A recent study estimates that even skilled computer users lose 11-20% of their work time dealing with computer issues.

Answer	Item
Fiction	$1T cybercrime losses
Science	Jobs involving digital skill
Science	Dealing w/ computer issues

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	Jobs involving digital skill
Jay	Jobs involving digital skill
Cara	$1T cybercrime losses

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:33:23)

I hold my theories on the tips of my fingers, so that the merest breath of fact will blow them away.  – Michael Faraday (1791-1867), English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry

Signoff

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

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

References

Vocabulary