SGU Episode 951

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SGU Episode 951
September 30th 2023
The sample return capsule from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert. Credit: Keegan Barber/NASA
SGU 950                      SGU 952
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
Josh Billings, American humorist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Bob gets Covid

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, September 27^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: So, Bob, I understand your COVID cherry has popped.

B: Yes, I'm so disappointed in my immune system.

S: Your superior genes and immune system have utterly failed.

C: This is your first time?

B: First, yeah. First timer.

C: Oh, no.

B: It must have had to have happened in Disney. We were with thousands of people. We were there for like five days. And we did wear our masks quite often when we felt uncomfortable, when you're like shoulder to shoulder with people. It's just like you just doesn't feel normal anymore, right? So we would still put on our masks, but often we would be with a lot of people and we were outside and you usually feel a lot safer outside. But yeah, whatever, something happened. We got it. But we got it the day we got back. So like, all right, if we had to have it, this is the time.

J: Yeah, right.

S: You made it through your wedding reception.

B: We had a huge September, multiple big events that we were very paranoid about getting sick for. So getting sick after, all right, that kind of works.

E: And before Halloween. Let's not forget that.

B: Yes. Oh yeah, baby. It's haven't been this sick and I can't even remember. Not that it wasn't bad, but it's just that I so rarely get sick that it was weird to have a fever and to feel so achy. Oh my God. But that's that's all gone now. Just a little congested and coughing now at this point. I'm on-

C: Paxlovid? Did you take paxlovid?

B: Yeah, I'm on.

C: Okay. Did you have the burn hair thing? Like, how does the back of your mouth taste?

B: Yeah, my taste is a little off in terms of like, what is that back there? What's going on in my mind? You know, it's like you have a weird taste in your mouth, but I barely noticed it just once in a while. Like, oh, that's nasty. Not that bad.

C: Really? It was debilitating for me.

B: Oh, not even close.

E: Is that one of the listed side effects?

B: I've only had three, nine pills. That's three doses.

C: Oh, no. So from dose one, immediate and nonstop for five full days.

E: Do you think that's because you're a super taster, Cara?

C: Maybe. Steve, did you take it?

S: No, I've never taken it.

C: Okay. So if you get it, I'm not wishing this on you, but if you get COVID and if you take paxlovid, please report back to us on what the back of your mouth tastes like.

S: It's complicated because super tasting is not a single thing. It's multiple.

C: Yeah, it's lots of different genes. I know for sure, though, that when I used to teach the, I know that for sure that when I used to teach the simple dominance lectures and whatever labs that I think we had like four or five different tasting papers that we would use and I was a super taster on all of them.

S: Yeah. I only remember doing that for the quinine one. I'm definitely positive for that.

C: Anyway, back to Bob. Bob, how you feeling?

B: I'll say I recommend, I highly recommend the Magic Kingdom Mickey's spooky Halloween party. So good. It was so good. They do projection mapping on that castle that just blows you away. It's basically projectors that are designed to project just onto the castle, the entirety of the facade of the castle. They could change its look and mood in a second. And they've been doing it for a while, but for Halloween, it was especially awesome. And of course, the fireworks and the parade, the Halloween parade and the stage show, the Hocus Pocus, Disney villain stage show, they were all wonderful. You're in the park till midnight. It was the best day. So very nice. And thank you, COVID.

S: I'm actually amazed to be we all went to Dragon Con and none of us got COVID at Dragon Con. So we definitely wore our masks, wore a mask on the plane, wore a mask whenever we were basically inside with crowds. And you can't say it worked because we don't know what would have happened if we didn't. But we but none of us got sick for what it's worth. And even though that's anecdotal, but interestingly, we were posting pictures on social media. And on one of the pictures of us on Facebook, we were wearing our masks because we were wherever. I think we were in the airport. And people started hating on our masks. Non skeptical people on Facebook.

E: Well, yeah, some people hate masks.

S: They took it really personally, they took it because we were wearing masks.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

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

Zoom Backgrounds (17:12)

• Your Zoom background might influence the first impression you make

Manifesting Fails (24:38)

• Manifesting More Money Is Linked to Worse Financial Outcomes

...the Mirror in Harry Potter

Tong Test for AI (37:51)

• The Tong test: A new approach to evaluating artificial general intelligence

Looking for Service Worlds (54:42)

• Forget Alien Megastructures. New Study Says We Need to Look For 'Service Worlds'.

NASA Recovers Asteroid Sample (1:09:47)

• NASA asteroid sample lands safely in Utah before being whisked away by helicopter

...when we last reported on it^{[link needed]}

...(Evan_mentions_cool_NASA_graphics_so_replace_this_with_some_of_his_words_for_the_hyperlink)

Who's That Noisy? (1:17:16)

Answer to previous Noisy:

two glass marbles being knocked together

New Noisy (1:20:55)

[evangelist's screaming speech]

... who this week's Noisy is

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:25:14)

Email #1: Natural Gas vs. Coal

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Science or Fiction (1:35:38)

Item #1: A series of cognitive studies finds that people tend to make worse decisions when given more information. Item #2: In the first study of its kind, researchers find that antihydrogen atoms respond the same to gravity as normal matter, ruling out the existence of repulsive antigravity. Item #3: Engineers have published a method for making thin crystalline silicone solar cells that are one eighth the thickness of existing commercial solar cells with record-breaking efficiencies of 29%.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Thin crystalline solar cells
Science	Worse decision w/ more info
Science	Antihydrogen atoms & gravity

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Cara	Antihydrogen atoms & gravity
Jay	Worse decision w/ more info
Bob	Worse decision w/ more info
Evan	Thin crystalline solar cells

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

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:50:30)

I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.  – Josh Billings (1818-1885), pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw, American humorist

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