SGU Episode 941

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SGU Episode 941
July 22nd 2023
"A 300,000-year-old hunting weapon has shone a new light on early humans as woodworking masters."
SGU 940                      SGU 942
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Science is not about building a body of facts. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes them feel good.
Terry Pratchett, English humorist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Cara's and Jay's trips

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, July 20^th, 2023, 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 everyone.

S: We have a full boat today. We've got all the five rogues together.

E: Hey.

S: Welcome back, guys. Cara, how was Africa?

C: It was gorgeous. I mean, it was stunning. I'd never been to Eswatini. It was a very interesting experience, I have to say. Obviously, there's a lot of conflicting feelings. I shouldn't say obviously. For me, there's a lot of conflicting feelings about Eswatini because of the governance there and some of the values that I struggle with. I mean, it was sad, if I'm being honest. We went to do humanitarian work. So we weren't in rich parts of town. We weren't spending time with comfortable people. We were spending time with people who really, really struggle. One thing about Eswatini that's probably some of the most difficult is, and I didn't really, I don't think I really appreciated this before I got there, but I learned that Eswatini's population, 43% of the population are children under 17 years old. It's a very young population. Of that, 58% of those children were orphaned.

E: Yikes. Is it war torn?

C: HIV.

E: Oh, HIV.

S: Just ravaged.

C: The rate of HIV in Eswatini is the highest in the world, 26% of the entire population.

S: That's terrible.

E: I mean, that's a human disaster.

C: It's a human disaster. And so what we're looking at right now is a sort of lost generation where now there is more access to antiretrovirals. And so newer individuals who are infected now are not all of the, obviously not the most impoverished people, but a fair amount of the country is able to access these drugs and prevent the virus from being passed on to their offspring. But this generation of children that we were visiting in these camps and that we were working with in some of these schools are sort of that lost generation of kids who were born with the disease, like upwards of 80% of the children that we were working with were infected. And it's just, it's horrible. It's horrible that that's happening in 2023, you know? And so, yeah, it's very hard. It's very sad. There's a lot of poverty and there's a lot of problems, also a lot of violence against women. It was, I think, a really meaningful trip and it's complicated, right? Because this is a very, very small country and it is not representative of most of the continent. We spent a little bit of time in South Africa, where I've been several times and it was as lovely as it always has been. We also got to do some really beautiful, lovely things, like we went on a safari and saw some incredible animals, like up close, like, oh my god, we had the best elephant sighting, the best lion sighting, and went on a beautiful hike by this lovely waterfall. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous country, but it definitely has its problems. And so it was for me, it was the fourth or fifth time I've been there, not to the continent, but for some of the students that came, it was their first time even leaving the country. And so I know for them, it was a really impactful trip, but a hard one for sure.

S: And how about you, Jay? You were in a different continent.

J: Yeah. So my wife and I went to Greece with some friends and we went to Athens and then we toured six different islands went to Santorini, which is when you look at pictures of Greece and you see all the white painted buildings with the blue domes and all that, that's Santorini. I got to tell you, the food was fantastic. People are, were very nice, very polite just, it was a very zero drama vacation. It was just very, very comfortable place to be. And the history there is amazing you know, it was basically the place where democracy was created and lots of other things like this incredible history there, we saw tons of ruins and it's really, we took a cruise to go to the islands, and it was like one after the other we even went to Turkey. It was just beautiful. Really, really wonderful part of the world.

S: Yeah, yeah. I love those kind of trips where you're like exploring deep history.

J: I got to tell you though, looking at the map, it was really troubling for me to realize how close we were to Ukraine. I don't know the proximity really made me think, here I am, like on a vacation, having a relaxing time with my friends and there are people fighting for their lives, just right over there.

S: Yeah.

J: And I was near you, Cara. I was like, Cara is south of me right now.

C: And we got stuck in Paris for a layover. We got stuck for a whole night. So then I was like even closer, I guess, same, what do you call it? Hemisphere, at least, because I was in winter in Eswatini, which was kind of weird.

E: Africa is the only continent that touches all four hemispheres, right?

S: Oh, cool.

E: East, west, north, south.

C: Wow. And I say the word really weird. It was pointed out to me many times, so I'm going to now be self-conscious about it, but the equator, don't judge me, the equator really does cut Africa like in half. I don't know. I mean, I've been there and I know it and I look at it on maps and I know this, but I don't think I fully appreciated that there's so much Africa above it and so much Africa below it.

E: Whereas South America is just the, is the exact opposite. Very little is in the northern hemisphere, most of it is in the southern hemisphere.

Steve's bear update (5:56)

S: So a quick bear update before we go on.

E: Oh, this is good because we got a lot of emails about bears.

S: Yeah, we did. And Jay and Cara, you weren't here for the discussion last week. Cara, I don't know if I sent you the video, I sent it to Jay.

C: I don't think so.

S: Last week I talked about the fact that I had another bear encounter, a bear came onto my deck. Bright Sunday afternoon, bright daylight out my dog, Jay's dog, who's visiting went crazy. The bear would not leave, he was nosing around for food and had no interest in leaving.

E: Cara, it was on his back porch, like pressed up against the glass sliding door.

C: Aww, what did he want?

S: He wanted food.

C: Yeah, that's sad.

S: All right. So I talked about it last week on the show, got a ton of emails about it, which I'll mention a couple. But one thing I did, and look, George, who was on the show last week, jokingly asked me like, what weapons do you have at home if you had to fight off a bear? And I said, he asked about my katana, I mentioned my crossbow, of course we were joking, I would never use either of those weapons against a bear. But I did buy some bear spray because I figured this bear is now frequenting my property and if I ever have to defend my pet or whatever, if he gets really aggressive, I want to have an option. So a couple days ago, just two days ago, the bear was back, he's on the deck, same exact bear, he's on the deck, in the middle of the afternoon, it was yesterday, actually, yesterday afternoon.

E: It knows where you live.

S: Well, yeah, exactly. We had moved the bird seed inside, so it wasn't there. So he made a circuit around the decks again, I only knew he was there because my dog went crazy, I would have not even known he was there. They snarled at each other through the glass. And then he left, this time he didn't stay because there was nothing there to interest him. He walked off the deck into my backyard, went down the hill, ate some pears off my pear tree. He walked up to my apple tree, ate some apples off my apple tree, stood up on his hind legs and was like pulling apples off the branches, and then walked off into the woods. So this time I called the Department of Environmental Protection in Connecticut, just to see what they would say, right? And just to ask some questions, just to talk about it on the show. So I told him the whole story, I said it's the same bear, he's come back to my house at least twice now, because again, probably more, just these are the two times that we noticed. So I said, what do you guys do about that? He said nothing. So you don't relocate bears if they get too friendly? Nope, they don't do any of that. Basically the only thing, the only advice he gave me is I could report it to the researchers on their website. That was it. I could file a report, which says absolutely nothing for me, it's just information for them. But then I asked a few more questions. So I said, so actually I had, I already had the bear spray. My plan was to shoot the bear with the bear spray from the bathroom window above the deck, right? But the bear had left before I got there. So he was out of range by the time I got up there. And so I told the guy, I said, well, I had bear spray, I was going to shoot him out the window. Well, at first I just said I had bear spray. And the guy's like, wait, you weren't planning on going outside and confronting that bear, were you? Like, no, I was going to shoot him through the window. He's like, well, don't do that. So the thing I know about bear spray, first of all, it's like five times as potent as like the human version, like Mace. And even though like it shoots a directed stream, it doesn't only go in that one direction. Like you were going to get pepper spray everywhere. You should absolutely not shoot it out the window of your house. That apparently would have been very bad.

B: Oh, good save.

S: You really should only use it outside. And even when you do, like you you will get affected by it as well. It's not that direction that you're not basically goes everywhere.

B: Well tht sucks.

S: Yeah. And again, it's also really, really potent. It's like bear potent. When I was buying the bear spray, I also noticed that for sale were essentially what they are, they're paintball guns, but they have ammo that instead of paint, it's pepper spray, right? So the good thing about those is that they have twice the range. They have 60 foot range of a 30 foot range as the bear spray itself.

B: That's 30 foot range?

S: The cans have a 30 foot range, although─

E: And it's a stream, right?

S: Yeah. Yeah.

E: It's like this streaming something 30 as opposed to shooting a pellet 60, which will explode on impact. So that's much better.

S: That sounds much better to me, especially now that I realize I can't shoot the bear from outside my window, because there's no way I'm going to go outside once I absolutely have to. If you were attacking my dog, I would probably go out there and spray them. But if I had the paint pellet gun, that first of all, I could pretty much get them anywhere in my yard from the window. And also they also have like these hard plastic or rubber ammo. It's actually, they're sold also for just like home defence whatever. But yeah, but just the pepper spray paintballs are sounding like a good idea. So I think I'm going to get one of those, especially now that I know I can't use the bear spray from inside. So here's the other thing. The guy said, oh, yeah, that you're on his circuit now. The bears have a good memory. He's going to come around to your house over and over and over again. That's it.

B: Forever.

S: Yeah, that's it. You have a bear that looks at your house as food. And I said, what about I told him about the apple tree said, well, you could put an electric fence around the apple tree. That's not going to happen. I'm not going to put up an electric fence. Not very helpful. So I said, well, not really concerned about the apple tree itself. I just I'm just concerned that he might get into a confrontation with my dog. So his his suggestion there was, well, don't let your dog outside.

C: Just like ever?

S: Yeah. You could walk in, but like, don't let him roam free outside. That's his entire life is roaming free outside. There's no way that's not going to happen.

B: Holy crap, man. Yeah.

S: So basically, their solution was you have to learn to live with the bear, but there's that's it. There's nothing that they do to help. There's nothing else you really can do. It's like you're stuck. You now have a bear that's coming to your property.

E: You'd have to put up a bear-rier.

C: No.

B: Steve, you mentioned the paintball pellets with the. You know that there are punks out there who got those bullets and used them for paintball against humans. Right? I mean, it's guaranteed. Can you imagine?

S: That would be terrible. So first of all, he said before you spend money on that solution, just check the local laws in your town because it might be illegal. So I checked. It's not it's illegal to shoot people with it, though. It's not just illegal to shoot it in your property, but it is illegal to shoot people with it.

B: As it should man.

S: As it should be. Obviously outside of paintball ranges where people are geared up and everything. But you have to have like─

B: Even within a paintball facility, that would still be a terrible experience.

S: Oh, yeah. With the with the pepper spray balls? Yeah, they're not illegal.

E: Nor do you have to have a license to to use them.

S: Right. I think that sounds like it's under regulated. But I think I'm going to I'm going to get one of those and have it ready for the next time I see the back. So I want basically I want that bear to associate my yard with being hit in the face with pepper spray. Because otherwise, it's just inevitable that he is going to get into a confrontation with my dog. But I think it's clearly this this bear has lost all fear of being around people and pets and houses and everything. Now he's he's adapted to it. That's bad.

E: Yeah, it's going to tell its bear friends also about it.

B: Right.

E: Three bears show up.

J: Steve, I saw a show.

S: Yeah.

J: Where they were using pepper spray at a campground to dissuade the bears to be in certain areas. The bears were catching fish and then they would bring the fish to where the pepper spray was sprayed and they would rub the fish to season the fish.

B: Whoa.

C: That's awesome.

B: There's like spice.

E: No, there are other examples of animals doing that. Don't they don't they treat what were they? They were the macaques or something that bring the the food to the vegetables to the salt water.

S: The potatoes.

E: So the potatoes. Yeah.

S: They rinse in the salt water. Yeah. But that's different than getting it in your spray in your face. To a person, it would take you out. I mean, it would completely incapacitate. You couldn't breathe. It would be actually dangerous if you had asthma or something. It might even kill you.

E: Steve, I mean, if you want to be really super safe about it, you'd get one of those, masks with the filter containers on the front. And that that should protect you from accidentally getting any of those fumes. You'd have to gear up, though, you know.

S: Yeah, I have to gear up.

E: Get all tactical.

S: So whatever. I mean, I'm sure I'll see him again.

B: Tell him I said hi.

E: Take more video.

S: But yeah, it's a little surprised at how completely unhelpful they were.

B: It's like your only recourse is literally a paintball gun.

S: We have to avoid him. He didn't even I suggested that he didn't suggest that I asked him about. It's like, you could try that. Just check the laws in your town.

B: But I mean, your only real resort for like, a near worst case scenario is basically that paintball gun, because nothing else really is.

S: Yeah. I mean, it's basically his advice was stay inside and put up an electric fence. Right. Those were. Yeah, that was that was the stay inside. He had that bear owns my property now.

E: Gee whizz.

B: Keep up apprised.

S: I will. Jay, you're going to start us off with ancient woodworking. Tell us about this.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

Early Woodworking (15:31)

• Early humans were weapon woodwork experts, study finds 

Genetic Engineering to Fight Malaria (23:56)

• Using Genetic Engineering To Fight Malaria

How We Determine What's True (38:12)

• How We Determine What to Believe as True

Killing Bacteria (49:13)

• Dual wavelengths of light shown to be effective against antibiotic-resistant bacterium

Nanopatch Pseudoscience (58:32)

• Novak Djokovic’s Nano Patch: He Calls It His ‘Biggest Secret’—Some Experts Call It Bogus

[2020 covid news item about Djokovic]^{[link needed]}

Who's That Noisy? (1:17:39)

Answer to previous Noisy:

playground "pebble harp"
(and here's an older video of a bigger, exposed "pebble chime")

New Noisy (1:21:18)

[whirring in background, scratching sound fading in foreground]

J: ... what this week's Noisy was

Announcements (1:21:52)

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Science or Fiction (1:26:46)

Theme: Animal sound tropes Item #1: The famous sound made by Flipper the dolphin is actually a recording of a kookaburra bird sped up. Item #2: The only species of frog that makes the “ribbit” noise is the Pacific tree frog, which is native to Hollywood, CA. Item #3: Horses make a variety of sounds, but they don’t whinny like in the movies, which is a sound recorded from a donkey.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Horses don't whinny
Science	Dolphin = kookaburra
Science	Pacific tree frog's "ribbit"

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Jay	Horses don't whinny
Evan	Pacific tree frog's "ribbit"
Cara	Horses don't whinny
Bob	Horses don't whinny

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:40:35)

Science is not about building a body of facts. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes them feel good.  – Terry Pratchett (1948-2015), English humorist, from The Science of Discworld

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