The Skeptics Guide #1067 - Dec 20 2025

News Items: Animals Adapting to Humans, Pig Organ Transplants, Japan Plans to Beam Energy from Space, Ant Yogurt, First Evidence of Fire Making; Your Questions and E-mails: Mercury in Fish, Compounding Pharmacies; From TikTok: Inventor of the Diesel Engine; Science or Fiction

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  You're listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Hello and welcome to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Monday, December 15, 2025, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody. Cara Santa Maria.

• 0:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Howdy.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  And Evan Bernstein.

• 0:50Speaker 04

  Good evening, folks.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Jay is sick this week. He thinks he has the flu. Could just be a bad cold, but his daughter was sick. And, you know, kids are basically Petri dishes. They're just vectors for communicable diseases.

• 1:02Cara Santa Maria?

  I hope Jay got his flu shot already.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  He didn't.

• 1:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Ooh.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Which I dressed him down about. But, you know, he, he said he did. He went to get his, his flu shot.

• 1:13Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  And it was not available. They were out of stock. So then he went to CVS and they were out of stock. Well, he tried. Then he basically forgot. Then he dropped the ball. But he wasn't persistent enough, and now he's paying the price.

• 1:27Cara Santa Maria?

  I had the weirdest experience. Tell me if this has ever happened to you. This year, I got my flu shot at work because I, I started my job back again. And they, they require a flu shot if you work in a hospital. But my hospital has stopped requiring that you get annual COVIDs. You have to have had a certain number of shots.

• 1:45Speaker 04

  I see.

• 1:46Cara Santa Maria?

  But you don't, you're not like required to keep getting the booster every time. But I wanted to get the booster. And so I went to CVS like that same day and I got my COVID booster. And I had them do it in the same arm because, you know. I don't want two sore shoulders.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:02Cara Santa Maria?

  And my arm lumped up in a way it had never done it before.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  Ooh, they gave you steroids.

• 2:07Cara Santa Maria?

  I was like, what happened? And I don't know. I remember her getting confused at CVS. She was like, and I was like, do you want me to take the Band-Aid off? And she was like, yeah, it's right where I need to give you the shot. So I took the Band-Aid off from the old shot and I'm like, did she stick it in the same hole?

• 2:24Cara Santa Maria?

  What happened? Because my arm was not happy.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  I've got them in different arms. It's not a big deal.

• 2:29Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, maybe I should. I've gotten them together before, but it's usually the same person that does them. And I guess they stuck them in far enough apart. You think it's just like I had a local reaction?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. Yeah, you had a double local reaction. You got the two shots in the same room.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Not a big deal, but yeah.

• 2:46Cara Santa Maria?

  No, no, no. I mean, I had, I think, eight vaccines in one sitting before when I went to a travel clinic before I traveled to.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  So you got super autism then?

• 2:53Cara Santa Maria?

  Africa. And that woman was incre- I was like, how did you do that? She was like, I do this all day, every day. It was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I didn't even feel it. Amazing.

• 3:02Bob Novella?

  Some people say you shouldn't get like the flu and COVID shot at the same day.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  You can. Absolutely.

• 3:07Bob Novella?

  You can. You absolutely can. I did once and it was definitely a much bigger wallop than I'm used to with either getting just one on its own. So that's just one data point for me.

• 3:16Cara Santa Maria?

  But when you say wallop, you mean like your arm hurt or like you got sick?

• 3:20Bob Novella?

  Well, it hurt and I felt, yeah, I felt sick the next couple of days.

• 3:23Cara Santa Maria?

  Because I haven't felt sick with COVID boosters in a while.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, the first couple were bad and then after that it hasn't been bad.

• 3:29Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 3:30Bob Novella?

  Yeah, it's never been bad for me, but that one time I did the double, it was, it was the worst that I had experienced.

• 3:35Cara Santa Maria?

  It's never been bad for you. You're so lucky. I felt like I had the flu for days the first time I got a COVID vaccine. No, the second one.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  The first one was the worst. Yeah.

• 3:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, second one.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  It was basically one bad night. You know, like we just lose one night of sleep.

• 3:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Not me.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  This year, I don't think, I just had a sore arm for a day. That was it.

• 3:53Cara Santa Maria?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, same.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  I got my shingles shot today. First of two.

• 3:57Cara Santa Maria?

  Good for you.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Because I was reading up on shingles and horror stories that people go through.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Definitely get your shingle shot.

• 4:03Cara Santa Maria?

  When is it recommended again?

• 4:05Speaker 04

  After age 50.

• 4:06Cara Santa Maria?

  They should lower that. My kid's sister got shingles and COVID at the same time and she's like 38.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  Oh no.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could get it. If one of my got COVID, got the shingles in his 30s.

• 4:15Bob Novella?

  I was in my 40s and it, and I, I think I got super lucky because it wasn't bad at all. And I keep hearing horror stories. I wait, shingles is that bad? Like holy crap, I must have lucked out.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  It's a roll of the dice. So it's, you know, it's a reactivation of the chickenpox virus that is dormant in the sensory nuclei in your spinal cord, basically. And then if it reactivates, it goes out to the skin and back to the spinal cord, right? So you get the rash, the vesicles, but then also it could cause the nerves to be painful. And the worst is when you get post herpetic neuralgia. So it's not just the pain of the rash and of the acute flare. You can have years of burning pain in the distribution of where you had the shingles.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  And that's the roll of the dice, right? That's what you don't want to get, but that could be terrible and that it's treatable. I've treated many patients with it, you know? But it's not, not fun.

• 5:14Cara Santa Maria?

  I had patients who got shingles in the mid, middle of their cancer treatment. And these are patients with severe disease and intense chemotherapy and radiation. And they were like, the shingles is by far the worst part of what I'm dealing with right now.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Oh boy. Yeah, this is what scared me in saying, yeah, I've, I've put it off too long. I've just got to get this done.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, your risk, your risk of, of getting shingles is greater if you are in any way under stress.

• 5:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  You know, so yeah, getting chemo is huge risk of doing that. You can get it when you're not under stress, but it's just your risk of getting it goes up.

• 5:50Bob Novella?

  For me, I remember, the only thing I really remember is this weird tickle itch in my back like, whoa, what's that? I never felt that before.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:57Bob Novella?

  But it was not bad at all. It was just weird. Like, ah.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got lucky.

• 6:00Cara Santa Maria?

  I feel like at this point, they should just let us all get the vaccine because anybody my age, kids start getting vaccinated against chicken pox.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  I never had a vaccination for chickenpox.

• 6:10Cara Santa Maria?

  No, none of us did.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  I contracted it in 19.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  I had chickenpox.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  I had it in 1981. That was when I, I was 11 years old.

• 6:15Cara Santa Maria?

  Right. But you guys are older than me. I'm saying younger people than me, not that much younger, all got the chickenpox vaccine. So

• 6:22Speaker 02

  1970s. Well, that's when it was developed. 1995 is when it was approved.

• 6:26Cara Santa Maria?

  That's it. Okay.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 6:27Cara Santa Maria?

  So, so kids, people who were kids in 95 or later, they're all vaccinated already. So I feel like I'm the kind of in that last lost generation and I'm only 42. Just let me get the shingles vaccine now. Just let anybody who is not vaccinated. Yeah. I just don't know if it, I mean, I'll probably have to pay for it out of pocket. Damn, you manage care.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Right. How bad could that be, though?

• 6:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. It's just weird. Like, it's the same thing with the, I mean, we've talked about this before, but when Gardasil first came on the scene, people in my generation just kept getting skipped over because it wasn't approved for us right away. It was only approved for younger adults. And then they would like extend the coverage to be older and older and older. And finally, we were in the cohort, we were able to get it and it be paid for. But it was so silly that a lot of people just got skipped when the vaccine came out. You can still get it, though, everyone. I think up to age 45.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  So there are reasons not to get the vaccine early, Cara. One of the reasons is that they don't know how long it lasts. And so you want it to last when you're vulnerable, you know, when you're older.

• 7:34Cara Santa Maria?

  So just get it again.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Get it when you're younger, when you don't really, when the risk of shingles is much lower, it's kind of a waste.

• 7:40Cara Santa Maria?

  It's not really a waste, though, if you can just re-vaccinate every, however, you know, like tetanus, right? You just get it again every 10 years or.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  And they say the side effects are stronger the younger you are.

• 7:50Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, that's so the case with a lot of things. It's really interesting.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Because your immune system is more robust, so you.

• 7:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Mm-hmm. Chemo, too. Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Well, you know us here, we're sticklers for vaccines.

• 8:02Cara Santa Maria?

  Hi-yo. It's a good jab, Evan.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  All right. Well, let's go straight into some news items, shall we?

• 8:16Cara Santa Maria?

  Okay.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  May I talk to you guys about domesticating animals?

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Oh, like kittens?

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Not necessarily domestication, but the whole, you know, it's a continuum. And this is based, I want to talk about it because of a recent study. So this is a study looking at brown bears in a specific region of Italy. Now, these brown bears, this population has been isolated, genetically isolated from other populations of brown bears for a couple of thousand years. And they're pretty distinct. You could, you could tell from looking at them, right? They look a little different. Their faces look different than a typical brown bear. But there's something else about these bears. So this population has been living in close proximity to humans, right? To like urbanized areas and suburban areas.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So the researchers wanted to know, you know, if they had adapted at all to being in such close proximity. And they, you know, they did a genetic analysis for genes that known to be associated with aggressiveness. And, you know, they're all genes that affect brain development, you know? And they had many genes that are associated with reduced aggressiveness. These are some of the same genes that you would see in domesticated animals.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Oh, this is like the fox experiment.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  It's like the foxes. Yeah. So the Russian fox experiment where they, again, they selected foxes for, these are the silver foxes. They selected them for being less aggressive, less nasty, more calm, more friendly.

• 9:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Only to humans too, which was really interesting.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, to humans.

• 9:52Cara Santa Maria?

  And, and we forget too, they also bred the most aggressive ones together.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  They bred the most aggressive and the least aggressive. They created two populations. Then they compared their genes and then identified the genes, again, for brain development that were associated with sort of domestication versus being very aggressive.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Such a great experiment.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  And it really was just a few generations that you could start to see some significant differences.

• 10:15Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, yeah. And now they're pets all over the world.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And because what they selected for the behavior, but a lot of the physical characteristics that they were not specifically selecting for came along for the ride. Floppy ears, spotted coat.

• 10:29Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they looked cuter, you know, and.

• 10:33Cara Santa Maria?

  The problem is they also, they have that thing like excited urination or whatever it's called, where they just pee when they see people.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Happy pee.

• 10:41Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, happy pee.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  My dogs had happy pee.

• 10:45Bob Novella?

  Whenever I would see that dog, he'd run over to me and be just, "Happy Peas coming, just expected it." He just loved me too much. Not too much, it was all, "I miss Murray."

• 10:56Speaker 02

  So, he was an adorable dog. Alright, so it's interesting to think about though, you know, there's lots of instances where, just because, you know, the human population is so big, and we've taken over so much of the earth, that animals are basically forced to adapt to living side by side with humans. And one of the ways that they adapt is to become less aggressive. So, and we've seen that, you know, historically, obviously, probably most famously with wolves evolving into dogs. Most of that domestication, you know, experts now believe, was probably self-domestication by the wolves. Like, it wasn't due to human selective pressures. We weren't breeding them. They were self-selecting.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  There was a selective pressure there to become more docile, and that was primarily the availability of food at the edges of human, you know, civilization habitation. And so, the, so less aggressive also means less high-strung, and a little bit more willing to get closer to people. And that would be, that would provide a huge calorie source that gave a selective advantage. And so, the wolves that were better able to be around people, you know, were able to get more access to food. But it also meant that they were less dependent on hunting. And so, over time, the selective pressures for being mean, and muscular, and aggressive

• 12:22Speaker 02

  reduced, and the selective pressures for being cute, and cuddly, and friendly increased. And that's how you get a chihuahua. It was working both ways.

• 12:31Bob Novella?

  Oh my god.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, yeah, till you get, basically, dogs from wolves, and then, once people really took them in, then we, of course, started breeding them ourselves as well. But they basically were domesticated by the time that happened. And now, this is happening in other species as well. There's like, different species all along this continuum. So, there's the golden jackals of Israel. Have you guys heard of them? Nope. So, they're like halfway there. They're, they've been, again, living in close proximity to human civilization for a very long time, and they are becoming less and less aggressive, and they are, because they're getting access to food. You know, even if people aren't directly feeding them, they're finding food.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  But there's another layer to this as well, and that is humans do provide a selective pressure, even if they're not breeding them, we kill aggressive animals, right?

• 13:24Cara Santa Maria?

  Of course we do.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if you're a wolf, or a jackal, or a bear, or whatever, and you're very aggressive and mean, eh, we might just kill you, you know, just to protect our people, our pets, our livestock.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  But that also helps these more friendly versions of these animals as well.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a selective pressure. Right, so not only are they self-selective, but then we are killing the aggressive ones if they get too close. So there's a double selective pressure there as well.

• 13:55Cara Santa Maria?

  You definitely see that here in LA with our coyote population.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:59Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, aggressive coyotes get killed. The ones that don't bother anybody live among us now. Like, they're fully just walking down the street near us.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  They're probably also breeding with dogs.

• 14:10Cara Santa Maria?

  And they could be breeding with dogs as well, yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know the eastern coyote is part wolf, part coyote, and part dog. And they are, so I get the wolf and the dog parts are fighting with each other, I guess, but they're not friendly. I mean, they're wild animals.

• 14:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, ours are wild, too, but they are definitely garbage dump hypothesis. You know, they're doing it now. They're like right there, along with people. Most people just don't bother them, and they don't bother us. And I get, I have coyote sightings weekly in my neighborhood.

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's part, just like, just staying away from humans is one of the selective, you know, pathways that you could take. You don't have to be friendly with them, you could just know how to stay out of their way.

• 14:54Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, just don't bother them and eat their garbage and...

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:58Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  I wonder how mountain lions will adapt, because they're very popular in the western part of the US.

• 15:04Cara Santa Maria?

  They are, but the problem with mountain lions is they will hunt livestock, and they will get killed. And it happens over and over and over. Actually sadly, this is neither here nor there, but the biggest selection pressure, the second biggest cause of death among mountain lions, other than other mountain lions, is cars.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's another thing I was gonna, I was gonna bring up, is that a lot of animals, like in the, in the eastern half of the US, car, car strikes are a huge problem with deer. So will deer evolve behavior that makes them less likely to be struck by a vehicle?

• 15:37Cara Santa Maria?

  God, I wish they would.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Or would, would squirrels ev- evolve, would, will their behavior change?

• 15:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Aren't deer also the most deadly animal to humans because of that?

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  The most.

• 15:50Cara Santa Maria?

  In the US, yeah, yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  I don't know if it's the most, but.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  Not an insect animal.

• 15:53Cara Santa Maria?

  No, no, I think in the US, they are more, they are more deadly than mosquitoes.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  They are very deadly in the US. And in fact, I know that, cause I've read, you know, that, that article that said, hey, if, if mountain lions were introduced in the east, or if they migrate naturally to the east, even if they kill a couple of people a year, they're gonna save lives from controlling the deer population, which is now totally out of control over here.

• 16:13Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  It's different to be, think about eaten by a lion versus hitting a deer in your car.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:19Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly, and mountain lions don't eat people.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  It's so rare.

• 16:21Cara Santa Maria?

  It just doesn't happen, they don't wanna eat people.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  It's very rare, it's like 12 in the last 100 years, like literally.

• 16:24Cara Santa Maria?

  And they still aren't like eating the people.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Like that's, I think that's pretty, I don't think they're like, wow, I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat a whole human. They might be attacking them.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:34Cara Santa Maria?

  But that's different.

• 16:35Bob Novella?

  I, I hit a, I hit a deer at highway speeds.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's rough.

• 16:39Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's scary, you could've died.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Oh gosh, I've seen horrible.

• 16:42Bob Novella?

  That was like, I guess I got, I got lucky, I mean, it was, you know, it was nasty, I mean, there was like fur and blood on my car, $3,000 worth of damage, but you know, killing something like that, it's just like, it's horrible, it's just, it's a big beautiful creature, it was so sad.

• 16:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 16:56Bob Novella?

  But damn, man, just like, oh, all of a sudden, yep, there's a deer, and that's happened to me on backroads, I had three other times, like, there's, there's no braking or, I mean, you could, you should be looking out in certain areas, but all of a sudden, yep, there's a deer right in front of my car, I have, oh, I have no time to react.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Well, you'll see the signs here, the road signs, the warning signs, deer crossing, and that, that's common. Connecticut.

• 17:16Cara Santa Maria?

  That's common all over the country.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  In Australia, it's kangaroos. You basically have to have like a kangaroo rack on the front of your vehicle if you're driving.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  But the best ones may be New Zealand where they encourage you. They have signs encouraging you to hit the possum.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  He's killed the possum and the rats.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Right. If you see them, strike them. That is, that blew, that blew my mind. That was like, wow.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Well, they're invasive and they're.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  I get it. I just didn't expect to see road signs encouraging you to drive your car into them.

• 17:42Cara Santa Maria?

  Hey, man, all hands on deck there, okay?

• 17:44Speaker 04

  That's right. Almost hit a deer once, but it was, it was close, but the buck stopped here.

• 17:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, I was waiting for that. I looked it up. It's 150 to 440 deaths a year. And that's actually, makes it the deadliest animal in the US, but like tens of thousands of injuries.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, lots of injuries, lots of, you know, vehicle damage as well. You could total your car easily.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I've seen it.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  So the other thing is that, you know, humans have to adapt to animals as well, but our adaptation is more cultural than evolutionary, right? We just basically have to learn the rules. I remember that time I, you know, had a bear in my backyard and I called the animal control people and they were basically like, stay out of his way. This is what you should do. Yeah, just.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  Bad luck for you, pal.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  So you're, you're, you're in his territory, so you have to stay out of his way. So, you know, you learn like we have to bring the, the bird seed and you can't leave that outside. You shouldn't leave your garbage out overnight. You know, you gotta, if you have anything in the garage that's edible, you gotta keep your garage doors closed. We actually have like a, a neighbor warning system where we text each other when we cite bears in, in the neighborhood.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  It's a neighborhood watch.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. You can bring your pets in, et cetera. Cause our population is growing so much and because we're restricting their territory so much. We are getting more and more crossover, you know, between animal and human living spaces and they're adapting to us. We're adapting to them. We all gotta get along. You know what I mean?

• 19:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 19:10Cara Santa Maria?

  But it does raise interesting questions about domestication, kind of classic domestication, like pets, right? I, I definitely see arguments online or people kind of arguing for, why don't we keep raccoons as pets? Raccoons are, you know, really interesting animals that have basically domesticated themselves.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Smart, man.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  They make terrible pets. I mean, I would love it. If raccoons could be a pet, I would be interested in it because they are fascinating. They're, I think, they're very, they're smart, they're cute, they've got thumbs.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  Neuronal density, man.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  There's a couple of problems with raccoons. One is

• 19:46Speaker 04

  They're assholes?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Biting is their go-to move. They bite.

• 19:50Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, have you ever met a cat?

• 19:52Speaker 02

  No, no, they way more than cats, way more than cats.

• 19:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Really? Because cats can be very bitey.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  No, raccoons are, that's what they do. They bite. They're off-the-hook bitey. And they also will wreck your furniture and pee everywhere.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Have you ever met cats?

• 20:07Speaker 02

  They have.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  You cannot housebreak a

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Cats are so variable, though.

• 20:11Cara Santa Maria?

  I think a lot of this is cultural. It's we decided that that is a, you know, acceptable risk with that animal.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Well, sure. In India, they bring the cows inside the house, right?

• 20:19Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Do cats often bite? My cat has never bitten anybody.

• 20:23Cara Santa Maria?

  A lot of cats are very bitey, and a lot of cats will destroy your furniture, too.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  Does your dog bite?

• 20:27Cara Santa Maria?

  And some dogs, you know, don't ever get housebroken. In Sweden, a startup built these devices. They almost look like ATMs. And what they do is they trade little pellets of food for cigarette butt litter. And all of the crows have learned

• 20:46Speaker 04

  No, they did.

• 20:47Cara Santa Maria?

  to clean up the cigarette butts, deposit them in this little machine, and then they get food in exchange for it.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  That is awesome.

• 20:54Bob Novella?

  That's kind of awesome.

• 20:55Cara Santa Maria?

  I know!

• 20:56Bob Novella?

  What the hell, man?

• 20:57Cara Santa Maria?

  Because that's just something, cigarette butts are impossible to clean up. And they said it's, yeah, it's reducing like billions of cigarettes butts, cigarette butts that are thrown out each year.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  But the cancer rate among crows has grown.

• 21:07Cara Santa Maria?

  Probably. Fascinating. It's so cool.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  One reason among many why you're smoking is it disgusting, is it?

• 21:14Speaker 04

  Amen to that.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  All right, let's move on. Karen, it's another animal-related item. You're going to tell us about pig organ transplants.

• 21:22Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so, help me remember, but, you know, earlier this year, there was a trending story about a patient, basically part of a new clinical trial, where a genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into this patient.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 21:37Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, we talked about this in October, I think. And we've talked about xenotransplantation in the past. We've talked about this idea of sort of a human-animal transplantation, whether we're talking about specific valves in a heart, maybe, or skin grafts, or different organs. And, you know, there are some Transplants that we can do directly from an animal, like utilizing their tissue and using enough drugs and different mechanisms to reduce rejection. And then there's the big, difficult ones, whole organ transplantation. So this pig to human kidney transplant, do you guys remember the kidney?

• 22:21Cara Santa Maria?

  Was it pig or human? It was pig. It was a genetically modified pig. Yes, it was a genetically modified pig kidney that was modified to sort of mimic human tissue mostly around rejection, right? It was modified to have a lesser chance of rejection. Why was it not a human kidney that was grown in a pig? Does anybody but Steve know?

• 22:47Bob Novella?

  Would it even work? Would it have some rejection issues?

• 22:51Cara Santa Maria?

  Of course. Even a human kidney has rejection issues that goes into another human.

• 22:57Bob Novella?

  Right, so then that's not the answer, though?

• 22:59Cara Santa Maria?

  That's not the answer.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Well, something advantageous about a pig kidney that a human kidney doesn't have, maybe.

• 23:05Cara Santa Maria?

  Nope. And you're thinking racially, think bureaucracy. Yeah, it probably would be better to grow a human kidney inside of a pig, but we're not allowed to.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Oh, ethics. I see. Oh, yeah.

• 23:17Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so that's what this article that was recently written in The Conversation is all about. It was written by Monica Piotrowska, who's an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Albany, State University of New York. And I love just the headline of this. Putting pig organs in people is okay in the US, but growing human organs in pigs is not. Why is that? And really, that's the question she's posing. Why is that? It seems that the answer comes down...

• 23:46Bob Novella?

  Abuse, intentional abuse.

• 23:47Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, it seems that the answer comes down to the NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. In 2015, they, well, I shouldn't say they outlawed it, they paused funding. For work on growing human organs inside of animals, specifically inside of pigs. They paused that funding in 2015. And the argument here came back to the NIH guidelines for human stem cell research. So when you look at some of the FAQ, you know, they talk about potential benefits of the research, funding that could happen in the future. What is their policy on this research?

• 24:28Cara Santa Maria?

  And basically, they said, we can't move forward with this because it is falling underneath. There's a moratorium that falls underneath the purview of of the stem cell guidelines due to public outcry and due to some concerns from, you know, scientists, from individual experts working in this field. But this is one of those really interesting topics that we sometimes get to discuss on the SGU where 99.9% of scientists don't agree, right? Like, there's actually quite a bit of debate within these fields themselves about whether

• 25:10Cara Santa Maria?

  or not this ethical consideration is appropriate. And the kind of the extreme step of putting a moratorium. And can you really call it a moratorium if it was put into effect 10 years ago? Is that still a moratorium? Or is that it for all intents and purposes, a ban?

• 25:29Speaker 02

  It's a de facto ban.

• 25:30Cara Santa Maria?

  Right. And so here's here's something that's interesting, right? So we've got this new clinical trial where basically researchers are trying to sidestep the regulation, not sidestep isn't really the appropriate term because they're not breaking with regulation. They're trying to do everything they can and still follow the rules. And in doing that, they're having to go through quite a few hoops, you know? Okay, instead of growing a human kidney inside of a pig, which nobody's done before, by the way, but when the moratorium was put into place. They had shown proof of concept by growing, I think, a mouse pancreas inside of a rat,

• 26:16Cara Santa Maria?

  which I know sounds like, oh, it's mouse to rat. It's basically the same. It's not the same. Those are two different species. And so they were showing proof of concept there. And they were able to do that successfully. And that's sort of when all the research stopped. So we know that it could potentially work, but we don't know if it can work because we haven't been able to figure out if it works. So instead of growing these kidneys, these human kidneys, and when we say human kidneys, we don't mean like generic of the human ilk. We mean kidneys grown from the genetic information of the actual recipient. That's the, right, that's the goal here. From human cells.

• 26:59Cara Santa Maria?

  From human cells, but not just human cells, the recipient's cells.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  The individual.

• 27:05Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, the individual. The idea here would be that they would be a match to not just their blood type, but all of the different factors that they're coding for that would promote, or I should say, decrease the chance of rejection. Because the recipient would recognize this cell, or this organ, as its own. That's the hope. What they're having to do right now is they're having to use different genetic modification techniques to sort of trick the recipient's immune system into thinking that the organ is not a threat, into thinking that the organ is human, or maybe even into thinking that the organ is the recipient's. And it kind of works. And

• 27:50Cara Santa Maria?

  that's what we talked about a few months ago when we described this. If you guys remember, ultimately, these recipients are having to have these organs removed. There was one example, 271 days was the length of time that the New Hampshire man who was on the transplant list was able to keep the pig kidney. I shouldn't say was able to survive with it because he didn't die. He just had it removed and then went back into dialysis. And then that was after, you know, an Alabama woman's pig kidney lasted 130 days. And we've had some other examples in the past. But we have to remember that the transplant list

• 28:34Cara Santa Maria?

  is long and it's growing. There are over 100,000 people on the transplant list in the US. And most of those are for kidney transplants, actually. You would think it's mostly, you know, heart, but it's not. It's still mostly kidney transplant that's needed.

• 28:52Bob Novella?

  Oh, interesting. I didn't know that.

• 28:52Cara Santa Maria?

  I know, right? Because heart is by far the most difficult and you can't donate a heart, obviously. And the rules are much, much stricter. But yeah, most people who need an organ need a kidney. And there just aren't enough. There aren't enough donors. And so we are, or should say were, on track. I'm not saying it was there yet and I'm not saying it was perfect, but on track to be able to... And you can read some really, you know, fascinating articles from five, 10, 15 years ago about growing human organs in animal hosts. And specifically, pig is usually the one that's used. But where are the ethical concerns? Like, I do think it's important to highlight both sides of this debate.

• 29:37Cara Santa Maria?

  What do you think that the largest ethical concerns are? Why would it be... Why would people not be okay with growing a human kidney inside of a pig?

• 29:45Bob Novella?

  So what are they inserting? They're not inserting stem cells?

• 29:50Cara Santa Maria?

  They are.

• 29:50Bob Novella?

  Right?

• 29:51Speaker 04

  So it's the general stem cell argument?

• 29:54Cara Santa Maria?

  Human stem cells into animal embryos. But even beyond the general, kind of like...

• 29:59Bob Novella?

  The fear of chimeras. That's a pretty intense fear with some people.

• 30:05Cara Santa Maria?

  What's the main fear of chimeras?

• 30:07Bob Novella?

  That chimeras are gonna vote Democratic? I mean, you know...

• 30:10Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, but it's funny you say that. I mean, that's actually, obviously, really funny. But it's that the pig would be more human.

• 30:17Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 30:18Cara Santa Maria?

  And how human is too human. And that is...

• 30:22Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 30:23Cara Santa Maria?

  Right?

• 30:23Speaker 04

  Are we making a new human type of species here? Are we playing God?

• 30:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Like, the NIH literally used this quote. They were concerned of possible, quote, "alterations of the animal's cognitive state."

• 30:38Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 30:39Cara Santa Maria?

  They were concerned that putting kidney, human stem cells that, you know, will ultimately code for a human kidney into an embryonic pig could somehow those cells could...

• 30:53Cara Santa Maria?

  Migrate to neural tissue.

• 30:55Bob Novella?

  Wait, was that the real fear? Was that, was it the fear that this is the slippery slope? And this is the first step that will lead to like neural transplants?

• 31:03Speaker 04

  Panel of people, doctors and things, and they have to placate a couple of them who are fringe on the panel by saying something like this.

• 31:10Cara Santa Maria?

  What's the ultimate reason? I don't know if anybody really knows. And, and Bob, I think that's an interesting question. We can only go off of what's published. And what they published is a warning of possible alterations of, of the animal's cognitive state. Now, you do see animal rights activist groups or animal advocacy organizations arguing against sentience or awareness or, you know, whatever kind of terminology they want to use, not sentient, sapience, sorry. Animals are already sentient. They can feel pain and pleasure, but arguing against a fear of sapience. And you're right, I think a distinction needs to be made between a slippery slope of what

• 31:54Cara Santa Maria?

  happens if we try or we get to a point where we have the technology and the know-how to insert human stem cells into a pig's brain, for example, intentionally to try and grow a human-like brain in a pig. That's very different than a concern that a few cells might migrate into the brain of a pig when the intention with a lot of

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Safeguards.

• 32:19Cara Santa Maria?

  Safeguards, yes, is, is to prevent that from happening. And I think also it shows just like a general lack of understanding of how this kind of scientific research happens. You don't just throw some cells in an animal and see what, what sticks. It's really hard to make this work. Really hard.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  I don't know. Are there any examples of something like that actually happening? I don't think so.

• 32:47Cara Santa Maria?

  No, no, I'm saying it's hard enough just to make growing a kidney work.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Right, right. Let alone worrying about the brain developing of some kind of new

• 32:57Cara Santa Maria?

  As some sort of random oopsies. And, you know, this bioethicist or philosopher, I should say, who, who obviously specializes in bioethics, their argument in their article about the flawed logic of the ban, as they call it. Is that in practice, they're saying it's not about the concept of self-consciousness at all. It's about species membership, membership and sort of human exceptionalism. They're saying that if, if, and this is a direct quote, if certain cognitive capacities, such as self-consciousness conferred higher moral status, then it follows that regulators would be equally concerned about inserting dolphin or primate cells into pigs as they are about inserting human cells, but they are not.

• 33:42Cara Santa Maria?

  They are not equally concerned about that. It's specific to humans. This idea of human to non-human chimera.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  We're responsible for it all, I suppose, you know, whereas a dolphin's not.

• 33:54Cara Santa Maria?

  True, true. And I think that's, that is an important argument. But I think there's also this concern of like, where is the cutoff? And this is something that we've talked about a lot on the show, and I know I'll probably get feedback from people, you know, arguing against certain stances on eating meat or arguing for veganism. And I think that these are all valid arguments. But there's always a line in the sand at which a decision has to be made, whether it's personally or collectively, you know, from a policy standpoint, that says, what is, you know, at what level is this ethical and is it not?

• 34:38Cara Santa Maria?

  Cause I, I think we often forget that fruit flies are animals.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:43Cara Santa Maria?

  We often forget that, you know, fish can feel pain.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  It's a continuum. Yeah. I think they're worried about the island of Dr. Moreau.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what came to my head.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a slippery slope, I think, at the end of the day. It was like, well, we have a, a pig with human parts, you know, they're thinking like human parts. It's like, how many parts, eventually like the end of that is a, basically a human being with a pig brain. Or you have a pig with a human brain. And I think either of those are abominations that people would recoil at. And so they don't want to go in that direction. Whereas if you're genetically modifying a pig, it's still a pig. It's just genes, or I guess that's a little bit more easy to take. I don't think there's a rational, science-based, or even really ethically-based distinction there. You know, growing a human kidney in a pig versus a genetically modified pig kidney to look more human, to be functionally more human.

• 35:38Cara Santa Maria?

  Right, because either way, the pig is. A host.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:42Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and not just is it still a pig, it's still a host. We're still harvesting the organ and sacrificing that pig. So that the human may live. If that's the argument, if that's the concern that we don't want these pig farms, which is a valid concern, right? That like, we don't want to like, use animals just for our health, health purposes, just to slaughter them at the end of the day. It's a valid concern, but it doesn't hold water here because we're already doing that.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not the distinction that they're making.

• 36:13Cara Santa Maria?

  The distinction that they're making is this idea of a human chimera. And at what point is that animal, should that animal have similar rights to the, to human beings due to its makeup being some percent human? But I would make a huge distinction between neural tissue and everything else.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Of course, and everything else. It's like, come on.

• 36:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  But we're, but we're seeing this with a lot of technologies. We just talked last week about the fact that they're, they're making the European Union's making a distinction between genetically modified and genetically altered, genetically engineered. That's really, you know, splitting hairs. And, you know, if you remember back in 2001 with President Bush's ban on Presidential lines. Stem cell research, on harvesting any new lines. Eventually, they worked around it. They found a way to make, you know, to make cell lines that did not have to be harvested. Yeah. And it basically made the, made the law obsolete.

• 37:13Cara Santa Maria?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  I see they're kind of doing that in this case, but it is holding back the research, which is

• 37:18Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, it's absolutely holding back the research. Yeah, it's, I mean, hopefully it works as well as, you know, the, the false start that we had, but I just, I see there being sort of a, a line where we go, we just can't go any further without this organ being of human origin. Like, we just can't. And I guess I'll close with another quote from the article, because, I mean, she says it better than, than we could. If a pig embryo infused with human cells truly became something close enough to count as a member of the human species, then current research regulations would dictate its owed human-level regard. But the mere presence of human cells doesn't make pigs human, and Steve, you made this point. Then she goes on to say, "The pigs engineered

• 38:03Cara Santa Maria?

  for kidney transplants already carry human genes, but they aren't called half-human beings." When a person donates a kidney, the recipient doesn't become part of the donor's family. Yet, current research policies treat a pig with a human kidney as if it might.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's scientifically incoherent.

• 38:20Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, yeah, and it's holding back research in a major way.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  And which we need, because again, you said there's a massive shortage in organ transplantation, especially kidneys.

• 38:30Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  All right, thanks, Cara. Bob, you're going to talk about another cutting-edge, high-tech issue here: Japan's plan to beam energy from space.

• 38:41Bob Novella?

  Yeah, Japan is about to test for the first time solar power beam from space, guys. This is, it's a Ohisama project, and it will soon launch a satellite to collect solar energy, beam it down to Earth as microwaves, to be turned into electricity, enough to run a toaster, I hear. So, we've touched on this before here and there, right, Steve? Our reaction has always been something like, "Oh, this is such a cool idea, but give me a break. It's way too expensive compared to simple, ground-based solar power collection." I mean, how was this even a discussion? So, that's basically what, how we've been dealing with this, I think. I mean, at least in talks, Steve, you and I have had. It's like, "Oh, it's cool, but come on. It's just way too, it's ridiculously expensive. Why is that

• 39:23Bob Novella?

  even on the table?" So, let's revisit this a little bit. Space-based solar power, SBSP, first proposed by aerospace engineer Peter Glaser. And what do you think? What year do you think this was proposed, this idea, guys?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  68.

• 39:36Bob Novella?

  Yeah, you bastard. (laughing) Whatever. 1868.

• 39:40Cara Santa Maria?

  Big year for space travel.

• 39:41Bob Novella?

  Wow, that was a long time. Yeah, so, I mean, there's so, but there's so many benefits to collecting solar energy in space. It's easy to get a little entranced by it, the benefits. are just like, oh, man, it's just so wonderful. So traditional solar farms on the ground, they've got the classic disadvantage, right? At night, the earth gets in the way of the sun. It's like the damn earth, there it is, it's blocking the sun. So yeah, nighttime really sucks for solar. It's, you know, it's like half the time, it's not, you can't, you can't by definition, use it. And then, of course, even when the sun's shining, there's cloud cover, then you got to deal with, you know, limited, limited area, and even just respect for the environment. It's like, oh, my God, you know, because some of these Seasonality.

• 40:26Bob Novella?

  Some of these installations can be so big, and there's always concern there. But now the orbital solar collectors in, say, geosynchronous orbit, now that's, you know, Geostationary, right, Bob? Yeah, right. There's that whole thing. It's, it's in, it would be in a geosynchronous orbit, but it would be in a specific type of geosynchronous orbit, which is geostationary, so that it's in one spot. Right? So if you've got a, oh, you're getting me off on a Save your emails, folks. It's geostationary, so it's basically hovering in one spot, whereas a generic geosynchronous doesn't have to be in one spot. It could move a little bit. All right. So when you're in, when you're in this orbit, sunny 24/7, earth is no longer in your way at night. There's no weather, right? Especially clouds don't get in the way. You, also, here's

• 41:11Bob Novella?

  an interesting angle. You avoid most common forms of wear, because you're not like on the planet dealing with the weather. So so many types of wear won't, won't be happening that you would see on the ground. And the environmental impact is, is basically non-existent, except for some of the collectors, but nothing compared to the big solar rays. So it's just like, it's like so many interesting advantages to solar orbital solar collectors. And we all know how much energy is hitting, is hitting the earth. I mean, if you look at, here's, here's a stat I found interesting. Our deserts absorb in one day all the energy humans use in a year. And as great as that is, space is even better. It's even better. Sunlight

• 41:50Bob Novella?

  in orbit is approximately, it's like 144, 150% stronger than the ground. And with, if you factor in no nighttime or weather, orbital systems can yield 40 times the total output over time. So, yeah. It's just an amazing place for this to happen. So now to transmit the power home efficiently, my first thought would be, well, let's use lasers, right? Why don't we use lasers? But they can, they can cause issues due to, you know, interference with the atmosphere. The atmosphere can be problematic for lasers in this scenario to a certain extent. So for decades, many decades, and most recently in 2008, it's been shown that power beaming with the microwaves would be much better. It just slides through the atmosphere almost effortlessly.

• 42:35Bob Novella?

  It's really, microwaves are great for this application. So there we go, microwave. So this is what Japan is gonna, gonna test. And microwave beams, you know, it sounds like, oh, boy, this is what's happening in my microwave that's heating food. It's safe. It's very safe for us and for wildlife. The energy density is not anything that we would really need to worry about here. But here, but this is the process. If we, if this worked, the process would happen this way, just a generic solar installation in space. So the solar, the solar panels intercept the solar radiation and they convert that to DC, direct current. That DC powers the microwave generator that sends the signal to Earth, right? Converting the microwaves into electricity on the ground, for me, that's, that was the

• 43:16Bob Novella?

  real slick part of this tech, because I didn't really understand how, how that worked. How are you taking microwaves and producing, you know, usable electricity from that? So to deal with this, they have special antennas. These are called rectifying antennas or rec tenas. Have you guys heard about rec tenas? Or rectifying circuits? Yeah, they're, they're fascinating. I didn't really have a full grasp of how they actually did their work. So it's basically two devices in one, this rec tena, hence the portmanteau, right? Rectifying antenna, you know, rectifying circuit and antenna, rec tena. So the antenna part of this device is just a regular antenna, but it's designed to harvest microwaves instead of, say, you know, remember Steve, our old school TV signals were, which

• 44:00Bob Novella?

  were our radio waves on our, on the roof of our house? Now, microwaves, by the way, are really just energetic radio waves. So they're just basically, I think technically they are radio waves, but they're just, just, you know, they're the far end there. So now you got the antenna, the antenna is grabbing onto these microwaves. The microwaves drive the electrons back and forth in the antenna, right? Imagine the antenna, the microwaves are hitting it, it's driving electrons back and forth. This is basically alternating current. This is AC right here that we're dealing with. The rectifier takes this back and forth of the electrons and blocks the backward part, right? So the current mostly goes in one direction. Instead of both directions, it's just going in this one direction.

• 44:45Bob Novella?

  And then you're basically done. The only thing that you need to do additionally here is that a filter will take that kind of bumpy direct current and make it into a smooth direct current that we normally use in our everyday lives. So that's what's happening. This rectifier takes some of that back and forth of the electrons and makes the current go in one direction. And that's what it's doing to turn microwaves into direct current. But Ohissama Project is going to launch a 400-pound washing machine-sized satellite into low Earth orbit, about 400 kilometers above Earth. It's a two-square-meter solar panel. That's going to collect the solar power, and it's going to beam it down in the microwaves to an array, a 13 antenna ground away, that array.

• 45:30Bob Novella?

  That's the plan. And the test is designed to validate two things. They want to make sure that the accuracy of the microwave-to-ground targeting is spot on, and that the efficiency of the wireless energy reception on Earth is also good. I mean, if it's not efficient and not accurate, this is not going to work. I think this is going to work for them. I think when they finally get this up here, probably, I would guess, they keep saying the end of 2025, and we're getting damn close to that. I assume it's going to be the first quarter of 2026, that they're going to launch this, and they'll do a test. I don't think, I think this will work fine, this very narrow, specific test, mainly because this isn't the hard part.

• 46:12Bob Novella?

  Scaling this up cheaply, that's the hard part. You know, it's the steps that come after this that really get kind of rough. And it boils down to what? What does it boil down to? Is this worth the extra expense of launching this entire system into space, right? Why would Japan even consider this? And it's kind of obvious if you think about Japan. Japan imports something like, I've heard numbers, from 90 to 97% of their energy. Any country should consider that untenable long terms. Like, this is ridiculous. I mean, we can't be, how do we survive long term if we're importing almost all of our energy like that? So, yeah, so they're looking at this hard and they've been, they've been working on this specific technology for decades. This has been a priority for them.

• 46:57Bob Novella?

  Well, look, look more at Japan. The, um, a ground-based solar array that's very limited in Japan. There's limited space, right, in Japan? The, the terrain is difficult. There's a lot of people in, in a tiny area. So, yeah, so, um, ground-based solar arrays are, are not going to really do that much. Let's see, nuclear energy, that's a tough sell, right? Fukushima, I mean, that's, I think that's something that they, they're not, they're trying not to focus on too, too much. Uh, I just think the, the gut reaction to people, uh, over there is just like, obviously pretty tainted. Geothermal isn't much of an option in Japan. There, there is some geothermal activity there, but, uh, either they, they can't, um, use it where it is, or it's being used for like hot, hot baths and stuff and they don't

• 47:42Bob Novella?

  want to start a huge construction thing there, uh, where tourists go and whatever. Offshore wind farms, I think that's pretty viable. They've got a lot of coastline. But, uh, I think that, that, uh, this is going to need to be kind of a scenario where they do different things, including a wind farm and maybe, you know, maybe some space-based solar, I don't know. But let's see how much more expensive this, this could be. So I found a NASA study that's only, I think it's only a couple of years old, so it's pretty new. They looked at two designs. Um, each design would add two gigawatts to the grid. So that's, that's pretty intense right there. Japan is only imagining a one gigawatt solar array up in, in space. Uh, so they, NASA was thinking about two gigawatts and what would this cost?

• 48:26Bob Novella?

  They calculated the cost of electricity comes to about sixty-one cents, uh, USD, sixty-one cents per kilowatt hour for one design, and their other design was a dollar fifty-nine per kilowatt hour. And, uh, Steve, what, do you know the latest, uh, ground solar is like four cents per kilowatt hour? Something like that? So it's, yeah, so clearly this is going to be more expensive. Duh, that's, that's kind of obvious.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Uh, but Bob, because I was looking at that too. I was very interested in what the relative cost. That NASA study, which I also came upon, is at the very high end of estimates. I've read other estimates that put it as low as like 10 to 20 billion for a 1 gigawatt system where NASA is like 250 billion for the 2 gigawatt system. So NASA's estimates is 10 times more than some other estimates. There are even super optimistic estimates that put it at 1 to 2 billion dollars. I think that's pie in the sky. But if they could get the cost down to 10 billion for a 1 gigawatt system, that's in the cost range for a nuclear reactor. That's now as expensive as nuclear. And that is totally doable.

• 49:34Bob Novella?

  Best case scenario is interesting. I mean, they did conclude that space-based solar power would cost either 12 to 31 times higher for their one, for one design, or 32 to 80 times as much as the other. So I didn't really focus on the dollars here. I focused on how much more expensive would it be because of the launch? And of course, it's mostly launch costs. Remember, we're talking thousands of launches, right? To get this into space, thousands of launches they're predicting. So NASA says 70 to 80% of the life cycle cost is just launching. But then if you keep reading, it says that best case scenario, if there's multiple major improvements made, like say that the launch is even cheaper, it gets, it's more efficient,

• 50:19Bob Novella?

  and this and that. So if you have multiple stacking major improvements, they say the cost could drop dramatically, even down to, get this, single-digit cents per kilowatt hour. So that would mean, instead of 4 pennies per kilowatt hour now on the ground, they're saying space-based could eventually be something like 9, 9 cents per kilowatt hour. That would be like, oh my god, that'd be a no-brainer. Who knows? There's so many complex variables interplaying here. Who knows what it's going to be? So what's the takeaway? I'm not sure. Generally, I think the takeaway is this: it's too expensive now, but it will get better, and perhaps it could get way better, potentially. I don't know. But I think if we just wait, it's going to get better.

• 51:04Bob Novella?

  Just wait a little while, it's going to get better. I'm not sure, you know, when we might see a gigawatt-class instrument deployed. You know, very complex instrument deployed into space. I don't know, you know, if, when, if we're gonna see that. That still could be twenty, thirty, forty years away. I don't know. I think if Japan figures that, that their cost is at the lower end of the estimate, they may go ahead and try to, and try to do this and launch their planned gigawatt system into space. But one problem with that is that some people are saying that this is gonna be, this is gonna require an international effort like the Large Hadron Collider. You know, it's just like, it's just too big for one country to do it. But the problem is, what other countries are gonna put all the millions of,

• 51:45Bob Novella?

  millions of dollars, you know, millions of whatever, whatever currency they use into this project and their F, and their time, and their, their smartest people, and if it only benefits Japan. I mean, the Large Hadron Collider, I mean, this data is available for everyone. But for this is like, why would, why would Germany then spend so millions on something that is directly just for Japan? I mean, the technology that you come away with, maybe, maybe that, that kind of joint intellectual property would be, would make it worth it? I don't know.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  I think the idea is that you, is that the advances reduce the cost.

• 52:19Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  Until it gets down into the range where it's viable for the EU or for the United States, for other countries to do this. So what's interesting though, you have to, you always have to think of like how expensive something is. That's a, that depends on the country, right? It depends on the use case. Japan is kind of unique in that.

• 52:36Bob Novella?

  It is.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  They have their landlocked, they have a severe land restriction, you know, so this only needs to come down to the relative cost of nuclear. It doesn't need to come down to the cost of ground-based solar, because they don't have a land for ground-based solar. So it's not really an option for them.

• 52:53Bob Novella?

  They are absolutely a special case, and I think we'll see it with them before any other country, essentially. They, they are more motivated than everyone, and they should be.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  They could push this forward, but they could be, you know, if that R and D brings it down, because there's other things you didn't talk about that really could affect the price.

• 53:10Bob Novella?

  Yeah, it's so complicated. Like, what else?

• 53:13Speaker 02

  How are they gonna be constructed in space, right? Are you gonna send up individual units that will, that are built on Earth and then unfold in orbit? Or are you gonna have robots assembling a massive multi-kilometer array in orbit? We don't have the technology to do that right now. So a lot depends on how we develop that technology, and if that, we can get that so that's reliable and it's cheap, you know. Then it changes the equation further.

• 53:39Bob Novella?

  Yeah, NASA's NASA's study went through a lot of the different types of types of technologies. You know, the ways and and different methods and ideas, just that super high level. You know, what are they going to construct up there like you mentioned? So maybe we should we'll put the link to that PDF on the site. I wish I had time to read every every word of it. It was kind of big. Yeah. But yeah, a lot to digest there. But so, yeah, interesting topic. I think we'll probably be talking about this again, maybe once it launches, but we'll see how it goes. I think it's going to go. It's going to go well. It's what happens afterwards that really matters. So we'll see.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  Now, old Musk would have just invested $100 billion in this and made it happen and made it be cool.

• 54:18Bob Novella?

  Yeah, right.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Tesla space or whatever, you know what I mean? Yep, workforce. All right, thanks, Bob. Well, everyone, we're going to take a quick break from our show to talk about our sponsor this week, Aura Frames.

• 54:32Bob Novella?

  Aura Frames, it really is. I mean, it's not a cliche, the gift that keeps on giving. It's it's really shocking. We gave it to our mom, you know, a few years ago, and it's so it was just so ridiculously easy. And it is the only gift that I can think of over the past decades where every day you notice it and you comment on it. Look at that picture. I forgot about that picture. It's always right there. Fan, I mean, it's a wonderful, wonderful gift. I really can't recommend this enough.

• 55:00Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, I love that. Yeah, I think it is the gift for anyone in your life that deserves something extra special. And the reason it's so special is because it's so personalized. You can add a message before it arrives. You can preload it with photos before it ever ships. And of course, you can share photos and videos straight from your phone year after year. That's why it's the gift that keeps on giving.

• 55:22Speaker 04

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• 55:53Speaker 02

  All right, guys, let's get back to the show. All right, Evan, tell us about this anti yogurt. Sounds yummy.

• 55:59Bob Novella?

  Yeah, it does sound yummy, maybe.

• 56:03Speaker 04

  I had no, I had an ant yogurt. Uh, she was wonderful. And I have a question. All right. Wait, Bob, I know you can, you have, you have expressed your concern about aging, but I think we all have, you know, maybe to some degree, right? Sure. We, we slow down, we lose our vitality, so forth. Would you consider sucking on a straw that had ants crawled all, crawled all over it to get benefits of helping with that aging issue? Would you do that? Depends on the extent of help. I suppose it would. This is an actual folk practice that existed in parts of Europe as something I had never heard about before. Are any of you familiar with this? Or have you heard this in any machination?

• 56:48Speaker 04

  Ants, straws, sucking on straws? Nothing like that, man. Ants used to be?

• 56:53Cara Santa Maria?

  I don't understand what you're saying. Is it a sucked straw full of ants?

• 56:57Speaker 04

  It's, it's a straw that ants were at, it's, it's a little unclear, but that ants had crawled onto.

• 57:05Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, well, that wouldn't bother me. I mean, it sounds like it wouldn't do anything either, but it wouldn't bother me.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  But what it, but how it's described is that if you then, you know, drink something through it, you'll get this taste, this almost like a little bitter, maybe sour taste. And that relates to some kind of health benefit. Right? Sounds kind of crazy, but a lot of these stories from antiquity are, you know, we've heard crazier stories than that. And this turns out to be an actual practice that existed in parts of Europe. Joe Schwarz, uh, over at McGill, at the McGill Office for Science and Society, wrote an article about this, um, recently. But according to the story, children would place a straw into an anthill, wait for the ants to climb up it, and then

• 57:50Speaker 04

  they would suck on the straw to get that sour taste, supposedly absorbing the ants vitality and improving their, their own health. And someone wrote to Joe saying, talking about this and claimed that it may have contributed to someone in their family living to the age of 93. Right. Okay, so first of all, that's wrong. One thing has nothing to do with the other. So that the fact that somebody lived to age 93 and sucked on a straw that an ant's one crawled on, that's not anything, right? So we already know that part. But underneath that folklore, there appears to be maybe something real,

• 58:31Speaker 04

  which is cool stuff when it comes to science. So it's a general, when you talk about these things generally, the category that anthropologists term, the term they use is sympathetic magic. The idea that you can absorb the qualities of something by contact or consumption. You know, ants are energetic, resilient, so if you ingest something associated with ants, maybe you get some of those benefits as well, right? Eating animal organs for strength, wearing animal skins for power, bloodletting, you know, the humors. So many different things in our history have pointed in that, in that direction. And they're all wrong, of course, but now that we know that, but this was a time before really, science and medicine came together.

• 59:14Speaker 04

  So wait, why would this straw taste sour in the first place? That's, that's a good question. There is a scientific explanation for that. Pheromones? Ants produce, right, formic acid, which is responsible for the sharp acidic sensation, like when you're bitten or stung. So that sour taste that children would have is, is real. It's, it's a real phenomenon. But there's no evidence that ingesting those tiny amounts of formic acid would do anything beneficial for your health. So, you know, strike, strike one there. But in some regions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, people didn't just suck on the ant straws. What they did is they would add ants to warm milk, allow it to ferment,

• 59:58Speaker 04

  and that produced a yogurt-like food. So it's a, it's a form of fermentation. The ants carried lactic acid bacteria on their bodies. Those bacteria can lower the pH of the milk, cause it to curdle, producing something, you know, yogurt or yogurt-like. And so the ants become the delivery system for this particular bacteria. And there could be some narrow, but some health benefits that could be derived from a product like that. If you isolated that bacteria and cultured it directly, you would really get the same results, and you wouldn't even need the ants at that point. So, does that mean we should all go out and start sticking ants into our

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  foods and, you know, getting those benefits? No, it's not that at all. But, you can kind of get the sense of where this came from, the ancient folklore behind it, and how it sort of translated through time up to the point where we now are able to sort of isolate it and figure out, okay, this is really what they were talking about in a real scientific sense. Fermented foods, including yogurt, can have modest health benefits, can we say? Maybe certain strains of bacteria might help with lactose digestion, help prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea. This is according to, what, the American Gastroenterological Association, the AGA, and the World Gastroenterology Organization, the WGO.

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  It's all pretty thin. There's a number of articles on science-based medicine about it. The evidence only supports the highest count, you know, colony count, probiotics, and only if you take them before you initiate antibiotics. So, like, in the most favorable situation, maybe there's a little bit of a benefit. That's about all you could say. But, like, using it routinely, no. Using anything other than the highest colony count, no. For any other conditions or general gut health, no.

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  And they do say it has extremely narrow and specific potential.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  In those particular cases, Steve. That's right. They are not saying this is a general practice for overall health. Very, very... And, you know, it's strain-specific, condition-specific, with small effects. So, yes, there's something there. But, you know, it's kind of interesting how we look into these stories. And frankly, this is one I had never heard of before. Maybe our listeners in Europe are a little more familiar with it, something their grandparents or great-grandparents... Handed down to them, it's in their culture, it's in their history. But this was something, you know, I mean, we've come across so many things over our, you know, 20, 30 years of of being exposed to this, and I had never heard of this before. So anytime I find something new

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  like this, I become really interested in, in how it went from its original, its origins to where we are today, understanding it.

• 1:02:56Bob Novella?

  I mean, I'd do it to grow an exoskeleton, that'd be cool.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, if it would, if it would do something like that. You know, Vladimir Putin is said to bathe in reindeer blood, reindeer antler blood. We've talked about that on the show before. Same idea, you know, exactly, pretty much the exact same idea. That's Siberian culture with, you know, roots in their folklore essentially, but no basis whatsoever. There's no evidence that it, that it does anything. Yet, there is, there's, you know, one of the most, you know, infamous people right now on the planet who's doing it and, you know, who knows who else is doing it on TikTok, let's say.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  And Evan, in this case, think of the poor ants. They didn't ask to be sucked on.

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  That's true. That is absolutely true. We don't think of them. Not nearly enough.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  All right, guys, I want to finish up with just a quick, a quick news item here. How far back in time do you think evidence for fire use by hominids goes?

• 1:03:57Bob Novella?

  Oh, I don't know, 400,000 years?

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  250,000 would have been my guess.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  So you're incorrect, Bob. Goes back about one and a half million years.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  Oh, see, I'm way long, yeah, I'm way.

• 1:04:09Bob Novella?

  Oh, that's what I meant to say.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  The 400,000 that you're citing, I know you were trying to do to me what I did to you, but you.

• 1:04:15Bob Novella?

  I did, and I failed.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  You have to make a distinction between evidence for fire use, which is what I said, versus evidence for fire making, which is.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  Meaning, starting, like, starting your own fire?

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Starting your own fire. So there's.

• 1:04:30Bob Novella?

  And that was 400,000?

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  So the, so the evidence for fire use goes back to probably Homo erectus. And essentially, you could see evidence of fire pits with animals that they were eating, like the bones were charred, right? So we were.

• 1:04:47Bob Novella?

  Look at the bones.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  They cooked the food that they were eating multiple times at that site. So that's clear evidence of fire use. But that doesn't mean they made the fire. You guys remember the movie Quest for Fire?

• 1:04:59Bob Novella?

  I do, lightning baby.

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  1981.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that movie wasn't really accurate. I'm not citing this right.

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  It was.

• 1:05:08Bob Novella?

  But Steve, I remember, we were in Italy in 1980, what? Two or three?

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Bob Novella?

  We're in Italy and I'm, and I see the sign and I had read about it and I'm like, wait, I know there's no language in this movie. And we're in Italy, we could still watch it because it's not gonna be.

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  It was no language.

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  Just grunts.

• 1:05:27Bob Novella?

  That was awesome.

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  So they, but they were two basically different humanoid species there and one had fire but didn't make it. They had to protect the fire, right? The keeper of the fire. And the other more advanced species could make fire. And so that's the distinction we're talking about here. Of course, because we don't have evidence that Homo erectus or early Homo neanderthalensis or whatever, that they could make fire, that doesn't mean they couldn't. Right? Just means we haven't been able to prove that they could. We knew they were using it, but it could have been opportunistic, like lightning strikes, etc. And maybe they were able to keep the flame going for a while.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  But the earliest evidence for making fires goes back about 50,000 years to humans. Until, of course, this new study, which was just published. It comes from a site in eastern England and this is a site that was occupied by Neanderthals. And is 400,000 years old.

• 1:06:30Bob Novella?

  There's the number.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Pretty, yeah, that's where you got the number. Pretty convincing evidence of fire making, not just fire use. What do you think that might be? What would be the evidence that they were making fire, not just using?

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  They were scraping the rocks together.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  What rocks?

• 1:06:46Bob Novella?

  Flint, right?

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  Flint, yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:48Bob Novella?

  A lot of flint, baby.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  So flint and, and what else? Flint and another-

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  Charcoal.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Nope. And la- and lasers.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  No, uh, quartz, no, um, uh-

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Pyrite, iron pyrite. So flint and pyrite will spark together. What are pirates doing here now?

• 1:07:09Cara Santa Maria?

  Wait, sorry, I misheard.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  So they found both, pyrite and flint, um, and there's two, but okay, so there's flint and pyrite at the site, and they were cooking it, they were using fire at the site, and burned bones, the clay was subjected to, um, high temperatures over a long period of time. Well, is it a little circumstantial at this point? It was pretty solid. You tell me.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  What are the other options?

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  So one is there were flints there that were heat shattered, right? So there was flint, which is used to make fire, and it was in the fire, right? So, that's, that is circumstantial, but that's- Pretty good. Is that a technique to make it a better tool? No, it just means they were using it and some of it ended up in a fire at some point. You know, they were doing it for decades, hundreds of years, maybe. The other, but the pyrite, here's the thing, the pyrite is not local. The lo- the most local source of pyrite was forty miles away, so they brought the pyrite to their campsite.

• 1:08:10Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  How did they know? Because it-

• 1:08:13Cara Santa Maria?

  They learned from somebody else?

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  Oh, how did they figure it out? Yeah.

• 1:08:17Cara Santa Maria?

  That was forty miles away?

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, if you have a rock-making culture, figuring out that these two particular rocks spark, it's probably not that unusual.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  But, but to the point where they traveled with the pyrite forty miles? In other words, why weren't they building fires at the pyrite site?

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Well, that's because this was a watering hole where they were hunting game.

• 1:08:38Cara Santa Maria?

  We also don't, we also don't have every site fossilized.

• 1:08:42Speaker 04

  No, I get that.

• 1:08:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, we don't, we don't know.

• 1:08:44Speaker 04

  Undiscovered sites, of course.

• 1:08:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they, you know, this was, this site was good for them to camp at. They needed pyrite. It was 40 miles away, so they brought it from there. So clearly it was important to them. It's probably not a coincidence they had both flint and pyrite where they were using fire. And it was definitely exposed to the fire. So it's again, it's not direct, direct evidence, but that's pretty darn good.

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, what other, right.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  That's the simplest explanation for all those pieces of information. I think they make a very strong case that those Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were making fire. And again, it may go back long before then. It's just, things are always older than our earliest evidence for them, right? Because chances are pretty low that we found the very first fire used starter. You know what I mean? Ever in the history of the world that we have caught it in the act. So we're always, we're always only going to see evidence later than when it really started.

• 1:09:42Speaker 04

  So does that also push anything else on the timeline into a different, you know, era? I mean, 50,000 compared to 400,000 is a long time, like tool, other tool making and things? Like, do they have to move anything else as a result of discovering this?

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  No, no. We knew that, again, we knew that fire use goes back one and a half million years or so, or two million years, something like that. And so it's not a big, it's not a, not a stretch. And then we also suspected this was going to be the case. Really, the only trick was how do we prove it, right? How do we find evidence for fire starting? Extensive fire use does imply that at some point in time, they figured out how to make fire. Although not, again, not necessarily because they could have just been very good at finding it when it occurred naturally.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Holding on to it.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  But also you think of, you could estimate how common it was by how easy it is to find, right? So, but unfortunately now we just have, we have an N of one, right? One instance of, over a long period of time, but one location where there's evidence of fire use 400,000 years ago. But still, that, you know, it was pretty hard to put these pieces together. It doesn't mean that it wasn't common. It could have been common knowledge among human ancestors at that time.

• 1:10:51Bob Novella?

  It's amazing just to think that something that people were doing hundreds of thousands or over a million years ago is, is discernible now. So, I mean, talk about a cold, a cold case. I mean, it's ridiculous that this stuff would be something that we could figure out, kind of, these details. It just blows my mind sometimes. It's like, you imagine, you know, in a million years, there's not going to be a trace of us. At all.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  There will be. Sure, there will be.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  There will be something.

• 1:11:20Bob Novella?

  The robot.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  I mean, something like Mount Rushmore, they say, will last a very long time.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  You can't say a trace. There'll be, you know, people with fillings in their teeth and stuff like that.

• 1:11:28Bob Novella?

  There'll be, there'll be some, there'll be some techno-signatures, yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  There'll be the plastic, uh, layer in the, in the, in the surface to be discovered, you know?

• 1:11:37Bob Novella?

  But nothing we do is gonna be there around.

• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  Well, I think, I don't know. Mount Rushmore, they think, they say, was gonna be one of the last things to go.

• 1:11:43Bob Novella?

  Well, by we, I mean, us, us.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  Many hundreds of thousands of years.

• 1:11:46Bob Novella?

  By me, I'm talking about us four.

• 1:11:47Speaker 04

  Oh, us.

• 1:11:49Bob Novella?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:50Speaker 04

  Oh, well, okay, we'll work on that, Bob. Let's, uh, let's put a time capsule of something together.

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  We have to record all of our podcasts in the most adorable medium possible, and then we have to put it someplace where it's gonna be preserved.

• 1:12:02Bob Novella?

  Well, I read a news item that, that engraved information onto these glass disks for billions of years, so that's what I'm working on.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  Oh, that'll, that'll work.

• 1:12:10Bob Novella?

  That's what we need to do.

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  I'll buy it. Billions of years, that's good.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, billions, I, I'll take that.

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Work on that, Bob. All right, so, no.

• 1:12:15Bob Novella?

  It's supposed to exist.

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  No, who's that noisy this week, as Jay has said?

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  Well, who is the winner, though?

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  He'll, he'll, he'll get us updated next week, which will be the year in review show, but he'll do the, I guess, a, uh,

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  Who's that noisy review. Uh, either that or we'll reveal in, for the first show in January. But we are gonna do a couple of emails, a couple of quick emails. Uh, the first one is, I sent this article a couple of months back as a suggested, suggestion for a segment. I am resending it because of the science or fiction last week. It is about mercury in lakes in Minnesota. They are bioengineering fish to get rid of it. Uh, so, yeah, so mercury is a, in fish is a problem. Um, that's one of the avenues that mercury, especially the methyl mercury, that's very, very toxic, gets to people, right?

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  Is through fish. That's because the bacteria alter the mercury into the methyl mercury toxic form, and then a bio accumulates up the chain. Up the food chain, right? And so then you have the fish that eat the fish that eat the fish that eat the whatever, that eat the plankton, that eat the bacteria. And then we eat it. Then, right, they have bioaccumulated a lot of this mercury. So this is a problem in many of the lakes, like it's pretty rampant in the lakes of Minnesota. They have to, you know, have an alert as to like, you know, warn people like, don't eat fish from these lakes, is basically most of them.

• 1:13:47Cara Santa Maria?

  Isn't it a problem in the ocean, too?

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. But it's just, it happens to be an area of high concentration. You know where most of the mercury in civilized areas comes from? And it's naturally occurring in the soil, there's gonna be a certain amount of it, but... Vaccines? No. Coal-fired plants, right? Any fossil fuel, but especially coal, and especially certain types of coal, is very, you know, dirty coal, has a lot of mercury in it as well, it's radioactivity and other stuff. So that, you know, mercury from coal gets into the ecosystem, gets into the water, the bacteria convert it, then it goes, concentrates up the food chain. Then you have fish that are kind of at the top of the food chain, ones that are popular

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  to fish and to eat, and they can have mercury levels that are higher than the cutoffs of recommended cutoffs. Sometimes 10 to 15 times as much as the upper limit of what is considered generally safe. So they're obviously interested in ways of reducing the amount of mercury that makes its way into the food chain in these lakes. And so one would obviously be releasing less, you know, less mercury into the air, and you could do that by burning less coal, but also by having better standards of capturing,

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  you know, the pollution at the coal power factories, power plants. But there's another way, and that they're investigating, and remember we talked about, this is a science fiction, about some plants and plankton have a pathway that allows them to convert... The methyl mercury to the non-toxic form and then into the gaseous mercury and release it back into the atmosphere. Well, they're taking those same genes and they're putting them in the fish, into some specific fish, to see if that can reduce the burden of mercury in the fish in the lakes. So, they're targeting that- Minnows. Minnows. Minnows.

• 1:15:57Bob Novella?

  Oh.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  The SS Minnow?

• 1:15:59Speaker 02

  SS Minnow, yep. So, yeah, what they want to do is make genetically modified minnows, which are small fish that the fish, the game fish eat, right?

• 1:16:11Bob Novella?

  Wait, are there any human components in that, in that scenario?

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  No, no human components, just plant genes that will allow them to get rid of their mercury, so it's not bioaccumulating. And then their hope is that that would reduce the mercury burden all the way up the food chain, because now the fish that eat them will be also getting less mercury, because they're the ones, that's where they get their mercury from, right? Right. So, we'll see how it all works out, but that's, but they're doing that. And hopefully that will work. Basically, cut off the chain of accumulation of mercury in the system. Genetic engineering is, has tremendous potential, you know, putting a plant gene into a fish. This would be a transgene, right?

• 1:16:56Speaker 04

  Ethical considerations?

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Not in my opinion. Yeah, right. Okay, one more. This one comes from Guy Henry, and he writes, "Longtime listener, one-time helper of Steve for his son runs solar panels." You guys remember that saga? Yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. You had to call and, oh my gosh.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:17:14Speaker 04

  Thanks, Guy.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Anyway, yeah, he helped me, because I had to get my solar panels taken off the roof to repair the chimney, then put back on the roof, and they, I couldn't get them put back. But he made it happen. The company was in transition.

• 1:17:27Speaker 04

  Good man.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Blah, blah, blah. It was a big, yeah. So, thanks for that guy. So, he writes, "A strip mall right near my house has a quote-unquote 'compounding pharmacy.' I've never heard of such a thing and haven't heard it mentioned on the show. I knew it had to be BS and apparently it's an alternative medicine that is not regulated. I'm wondering if you've talked about this on the show and if not, it might be worth a segment. Thanks for all you do." So, what do you guys know about compounding pharmacies?

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  Don't they take medicines, put them into candies and stuff? Isn't that that kind of pharmacy?

• 1:17:57Cara Santa Maria?

  No, I mean, guys, compounding pharmacies are real.

• 1:18:00Speaker 04

  Yes, I know they're real.

• 1:18:01Cara Santa Maria?

  They're, so basically, there are drugs that are developed by drug companies and those drugs are produced, but there are certain instances when drugs need to be combined or they need to be offered in a different formula. And that's what compounding pharmacies do. They're run by pharmacists. They also do retail stuff, like they might add multiple derma drugs to like a skin cream and then sell that as like a combination dermatological topical treatment or something. But these are all RPH, like they're pharmacists.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  Yes, they're legit. They're legit. They are regulated. The idea that they're not regulated by the FDA or by state boards is not correct.

• 1:18:45Cara Santa Maria?

  No, it's just that the compounds that they offer are not FDA-approved compounds.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Yes, the specific, each, a specific compound has not itself been FDA-approved. But the components are FDA-approved. And they, they either are, they have to be approved in one way or another. Either they are an approved drug or they are part of the FDA's approved bulk pharmacy list, which is the, you know, the bulk drugs are the ones that they would use to, as they're compounding, right? And they are also regulated by the state boards of pharmacy, which oversee their daily operations and force guidelines, you know, of purity and cleanliness and all that kind of stuff. They can't just put whatever they want in there, right? The ingredients all have to be approved on some level, right?

• 1:19:36Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  They have to have proper labeling, all, you know, et cetera, et cetera, accredited. So they are legitimate, they are regulated, they're just differently regulated than just like a specific drug. That's like you have one drug, so many milligrams. I would order them all the time. And most of the time I would order them, it was for the creams, as you say, Carol.

• 1:19:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, there's a lot of derma users.

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  With a 1% this, 2% that, blah, blah, blah. I would use it for patients who have like posturepetic neuralgia, you know, ironically, which came up previously.

• 1:20:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  You know, where you, it's a topical treatment for neuropathic pain thing, you know, is one use that I would frequently order it for. And yeah, so they're legit. Now, whether there are pharmacies playing hinky alternative medicine stuff, I can't tell you that. Regular pharmacies do that, too. They sell homeopathy.

• 1:20:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly. Homeopathy's on the shelves at CVS and Walgreens.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm sure there are compounding pharmacies also selling bullshit, too.

• 1:20:32Cara Santa Maria?

  You know what? What a common one that, I shouldn't say common, it's very, very rare, but what I know them best for now in my work is that medical aid and dying drugs have to come from a compounding pharmacy. Because it's all these different powders that are mixed together. It's like grams and grams of material. And so, of course, you're not going to buy all the pills individually and mix them together. They compound it for you.

• 1:20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they compound it for you.

• 1:20:58Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:59Bob Novella?

  How do you know if a pharmacy is a compounding pharmacy? They say it.

• 1:21:02Cara Santa Maria?

  It says it in the title. Yeah.

• 1:21:04Bob Novella?

  So like the storefront, compounding pharmacy?

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  You have to order it.

• 1:21:07Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, it does.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  Like each compounding pharmacy, you'd have their own order form that I had to fill out in order to order like the specific thing that I wanted.

• 1:21:17Cara Santa Maria?

  Like you're saying, as a provider?

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:20Cara Santa Maria?

  Like as a physician?

• 1:21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. You don't write a script, you fill out a compounding form.

• 1:21:25Cara Santa Maria?

  Right. And like as a consumer, your provider will tell you, oh, this specific thing that I, you know, that I'm recommending can only come from the compounding pharmacy, here's their number, or...

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:36Cara Santa Maria?

  Lots of times they're like mail order now and you can do it all online.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I told some patients, just find a compounding pharmacy near you, send me their form and I'll fill it out for you.

• 1:21:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:46Speaker 04

  Yep, compounding is interesting.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:21:50Cara Santa Maria?

  Hi-yo.

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  That was better than your other one, which was...

• 1:21:53Speaker 04

  I've had like five, which one?

• 1:21:56Bob Novella?

  Keep going.

• 1:21:57Speaker 02

  You just keep throwing a bunch of crap against the wall.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  The one that had more groans, some of it sticks.

• 1:22:01Speaker 02

  The buck stops here, that was a better one.

• 1:22:04Cara Santa Maria?

  That one was not good.

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  We'll get the most emails on that one.

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Alright, one from TikTok. TikTok is an endless source of sculptural imagery. What do you guys know about the inventor of the diesel engine?

• 1:22:19Speaker 04

  He died a moida.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  Died a moida, no, that's the controversy of it, that is the actual issue at stake here. So, that was Rudolf Diesel, was the guy's name.

• 1:22:29Cara Santa Maria?

  Okay.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  Rudolf Diesel was a German engineer, developed the concept in the 1890s. Do you guys know, I mean, this is like an engine, wonky engineering thing, but do any of you know what a diesel engine is? What makes a diesel engine a diesel engine?

• 1:22:40Bob Novella?

  It's a compression scenario.

• 1:22:43Speaker 02

  Yes, so instead of igniting the fuel with a spark plug, it compresses it so that it heats up and ignites spontaneously.

• 1:22:51Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, I know you need something called like adBlue, right? Isn't that a common, you need like additives when you run a diesel engine?

• 1:22:58Speaker 02

  Well, diesel engine, so...

• 1:22:59Speaker 04

  To stop the noise, maybe?

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  What's the advantage slash disadvantage? The advantages of the diesel engine primarily are that it's more efficient, it's more energy efficient. The disadvantage is, when they were first invented, they were huge. They actually were too big for a car, you know, so they were used in trains and ships.

• 1:23:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, the trains.

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  Or as generators, right? So that's like, they're initially used generators, ships and trains, you know, things like that.

• 1:23:26Bob Novella?

  Yeah, not good for airplanes.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  And then in the 1920s, other people came up with smaller, you know, versions of them. Then they sort of were usable in trucks. And it wasn't until the 1930s that the first car, like diesel engine car, was on the market. Alright, but, so the diesel engines were initially used basically in ships and as power generators. And so they, this is now in the lead up to World War I, Germany was using the diesel engine in its navy, and...

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  Rudolph Diesel was visiting England and he vanished from the ship that he was on and was later found drowned floating in the water. So there are three hypotheses as to what happened. And this, so the TikTok video that I was responding to about this is a Joe Rogan interview, where he's interviewing with some guy who's basically touting one of these three hypotheses, right? So the one that historians think is most likely is that he died by suicide, right? That he basically, he jumped overboard.

• 1:24:32Cara Santa Maria?

  What was going on in his life?

• 1:24:34Bob Novella?

  That's what his two biographers conclude. So, you know, I'm kind of leaning towards the two biographers.

• 1:24:38Cara Santa Maria?

  Was he dealing with like money problems?

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  Yes, he had gone bankrupt.

• 1:24:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Okay.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  What money he had, he left in a bag for his wife. That's kind of like you're giving stuff.

• 1:24:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh yeah, that's a big tell.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a tell. And there's no evidence that anything else happened, right? But there's two other hypotheses, both involve Moita, right Evan? So one...

• 1:24:59Cara Santa Maria?

  What about the, an accident? Couldn't he have accidentally fallen overboard?

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 1:25:03Cara Santa Maria?

  In the 30s, that happened.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  Got drunk. Nobody thinks, that's not usually proposed as one of them, but I guess that's possible.

• 1:25:09Cara Santa Maria?

  Interesting, okay. All right, sorry.

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  He also kind of left a note. So, anyway.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  So one hypothesis is that Germany had him killed because they were afraid he was going to give the diesel technology to, to England and that that would beef up their navy and have, and so that it would compete with Germany's. Again, this is in rising tensions prior to the First World War. So that one, at least it's, I think plausible that that could happen. Again, there's no evidence that it did happen, but the idea that, you know, Germany would assassinate this engineer who was about to sell his patents to an enemy, you know, that they might be going to war with soon, that could actually affect the balance of power.

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  Again, at least, you know, I don't think it's that plausible, but at least it's semi-plausible, right?

• 1:26:05Cara Santa Maria?

  I think it's plausible.

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, right? I mean, it's not crazy. If the evidence supported that, sure, you know? But then, but, but the Rogan interview was touting the third hypothesis. Anybody want to guess what that was?

• 1:26:17Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh gosh. Aliens?

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  No. That's a great guess, Kara. That...

• 1:26:25Bob Novella?

  Is he still alive?

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:26:27Bob Novella?

  Or that he did, he didn't, he faked his death.

• 1:26:30Speaker 02

  No, that he was killed, that he was murdered.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Someone's.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Who was he moited by? By Rockefeller. What?

• 1:26:36Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:26:38Speaker 02

  Because in order to protect his oil interests.

• 1:26:42Speaker 04

  Oh, I see.

• 1:26:43Speaker 02

  Now, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Because, so first of all.

• 1:26:50Speaker 04

  I wonder if I'm TikTok.

• 1:26:51Speaker 02

  All right, so the only sort of kernel here where you could at least, there's a thread to pull on, is that the diesel engine is a flex fuel engine. You could burn anything in there. It doesn't have to be gasoline. So the thinking is Rockefeller was trying to protect his gasoline interests against this flex fuel engine. So we tried to have, you know, he had diesel killed, you know, in, in 1913. But it's ridiculous because, first of all, you'll notice that we still have diesel engines. Right? I mean, killing the inventor of an invention that's already out there doesn't do anything.

• 1:27:34Speaker 02

  Rockefeller was not a dumb guy. He probably would not have, oh, I want to kill the diesel engine by killing Rudolph Diesel. That'll do it. You know, if he did, obviously it completely failed. But it's dumb. Like, that's not how you silence an invention. First of all, you can't. Like, the idea of we're going to use compression to whatever, somebody was going to come up with that at some point. He was just the first guy to come up with it. It's not like you can kill an idea. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's just stupid, that whole idea that all these people, these brilliant inventors get killed by people trying to suppress their inventions. It's dumb. It's not how it works, right? It's not how technology works or how advancement works. You can't just kill one guy and then you think forever we're going to silence this idea.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  And again, if anything, the diesel is a counter example because the diesel engine is still around today, 100 years later. Also, as I said, there was no diesel car engine at the time. It was still 20 years away, which means they didn't have any idea if it would ever be developed. So it wasn't competing with car engines and And it may never have. And the third, it may never have. And the third thing is, there was no infrastructure of any alternative oil that could compete with gasoline. It's not like there was a peanut oil magnet out there who was gonna take over, you know, the oil industry by running diesel engines on peanut oil.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  It like, there was nothing like that. Rockefeller had nothing to worry about in terms of, and of course, he didn't, right? Cause the diesel engine had its, you know, its niche in technology. It didn't do anything to decrease the, um, the, you know, fossil fuels. And diesel engines run on fossil fuel, you know what I mean? It's not like we're running them on peanut oil.

• 1:29:25Cara Santa Maria?

  We had electric engines that were in practice prior to oil being used, prior to gasoline.

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  So it's not like they're Yeah.

• 1:29:33Cara Santa Maria?

  No, way prior. Gasoline came after the electric car. Yeah, yeah. Gasoline, like, you're right, not oil, but like refined oil, like gasoline as we know it came after steam and electric were like well on the scene.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:48Cara Santa Maria?

  And so they clearly, they had incentive to use these fossil fuels because they had alternative options available and people were choosing to use gasoline powered cars.

• 1:29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was two things that really, this is a separate conversation, but very quickly. We wrote about this in our book. I've done extensive research on this very question. And no one knows for sure, but the two primary facts that come up, one is infrastructure. There was, it was just, you know, the infrastructure, this is something that Rockefeller did, right? You know, just had plenty of mechanisms to massively refine gasoline and distribute it everywhere, right? We were about 20 years behind the time on electrification. If we were 20 years ahead of where we were, the electric car might have won out or at least succeeded side by side with gasoline. You imagine. The, uh, the steam engine, it was water, like you had to replace the water frequently and there wasn't an infrastructure for

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  Refilling your tank with water to get from one city to the next. So it was mainly an infrastructure thing, but the other one is just quirky history. Ford planned on making a gasoline car and an electric car, and he just chose to do the gasoline one first. He was fully-

• 1:30:59Speaker 04

  Coin flip?

• 1:31:00Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so it was mass-produced earlier.

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, but he had, he had designs for a mass-produced electric car, and Edison was going to build the batteries for him, and it was going to be a nickel metal battery. Nickel-iron battery.

• 1:31:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, what was the issue there?

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  And then, but, but, yeah, but, but his, um, R and D was a little behind schedule, so he sent Ford some lead-acid batteries. Ford got pissed and canceled the whole project. That was it.

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  That was it. It was a quirky thing that did not have to go down that way.

• 1:31:33Cara Santa Maria?

  No, it did not.

• 1:31:34Speaker 02

  We could have had electric cars. I, the thing is, electric, the range was always going to be an issue, but, but you could have existed side by side for intra-city driving or small commutes or whatever.

• 1:31:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, because that's how most people drove.

• 1:31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's how, exactly.

• 1:31:47Cara Santa Maria?

  It's still how most people drive.

• 1:31:49Speaker 04

  These were horse trails and stuff that people were driving on. They didn't want to go drive 40 miles. It was a bumpy-as-hell ride.

• 1:31:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly. Their electric car looked exactly like a horse carriage.

• 1:31:59Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:32:00Cara Santa Maria?

  It just had a wheel instead of, like, reins.

• 1:32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. It was a horse carriage.

• 1:32:07Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Fascinating.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  All right, let's go on with science fiction.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  It's time for Science or Fiction?

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  Each week I come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. Then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. There's a theme this week. Bob, this theme is for you.

• 1:32:34Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:32:35Speaker 02

  The theme is- Astronomy news from 2025.

• 1:32:40Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh geez.

• 1:32:40Speaker 02

  We'll see if you caught these news items.

• 1:32:43Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:32:44Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:32:45Speaker 04

  He was going last.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  Item number one.

• 1:32:47Cara Santa Maria?

  Bob's going last. I know who's going first.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  Item number one. Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named Teles, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. Item number two, scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard Star, the closest single star system to Earth at just six light years. And item number three, NASA's Curiosity Rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. Kara, go first.

• 1:33:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way named Teles, but they don't know why it formed.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  You know what Teles, by the way, what that word means?

• 1:33:40Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, it's Greek.

• 1:33:41Speaker 02

  It's Greek for perfect.

• 1:33:44Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, like telestial, like tealy.

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 1:33:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Perfect. That makes sense, right? Because you've got the terrestrial, the telestial, and the celestial kingdoms in Mormon mythology.

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  Kara, you have an advantage here.

• 1:33:59Cara Santa Maria?

  Probably comes from that. No, I don't have an advantage on it. Let's see. So we've got that. I would think that a lot of things started spherically and then got weird, but it's within the Milky Way, so that's interesting. Then we've got the existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard Star. So that's the closest star system. So, I mean, that wouldn't really surprise me because I know that we've found so many exoplanets at this point. Most of them are probably gas giants, but I think that we're just getting better. So I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see like rocky-looking things.

• 1:34:39Cara Santa Maria?

  Curiosity discovered complex organic chemistry, including simple nucleic acids. Hmm. I feel like I remember there being some stuff found, but nucleic acids is getting me.

• 1:34:59Cara Santa Maria?

  Ah, complex organic chemistry. So 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids. Okay, so the two that, I think that the four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard star is science. So I'll throw that one out. So I think the two that are getting me are if Teles is this close. Like, is it here? Or is it really, really far away? I don't know. Is it super, super old? Not that the Milky Way is not old. And they don't know why it looks the way it looks. Is that what you mean by that?

• 1:35:32Speaker 02

  Why it's a perfect sphere.

• 1:35:34Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, like for why it's spherical. And then the other one is the curiosity. I don't think they found nucleic acids. Wouldn't we have been talking about that? I think that that's the fiction. Maybe they found some stuff, but not nucleic acids.

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Okay, Evan.

• 1:35:53Speaker 04

  I'm gonna start with the fourth one. Moving on. Okay, the first one about Teles. Do not yet have an explanation for its formation. I don't know. Could that be the kink in that one? If that one is the fiction? Hmm. Maybe they do have an explanation for its formation. I don't know if you'd go that way with a science or fiction like that, though. But a nearly perfect spherical bubble. If you made this up, Steve, you did a good job naming it. I mean, I'll give you that. But I don't recall this news item at all. The second one about Barnard star. Certainly know about that one. The closest single star system

• 1:36:34Speaker 04

  to Earth. It's just six light years. So I guess what? Centauri? Alpha Centauri must be a multi-star system? I thought that one was closest. But in any case, the existence of four-

• 1:36:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's a system.

• 1:36:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that one's a system? Okay, that's, then that's-

• 1:36:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, it's a ticket. Three stars.

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  So six light years away is the single star system. That's our closest. The existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting. I agree with Kara. I think that one turns out to be science. And then this last one about NASA's Curiosity rover. We've talked a lot this year about chemical analysis of, you know, what the Osiris Rex analysis, among other things, certainly. What's going on on Mars, we've talked about a lot. We didn't talk about this, though. 12 carbon atoms and a simple nucleic ac- Simple nucleic acids, I'll bet at $5, we did not cover this. So if any one of these three is going to be the fiction, this one is probably has the

• 1:37:33Speaker 04

  highest probability of being the fiction, I'll join Kara and say it is the fiction.

• 1:37:37Speaker 02

  Okay, Bob.

• 1:37:39Bob Novella?

  Yeah, good choice, Steve, these are kind of obscure. But yeah, I'm gonna go with the crew. Nucleic acids on Mars, we would be talking about it. Bottom line for these. So yeah, I'll stop now.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  All right. All right, so let's take these in order. Astronomers discovered a nearly perfect spherical bubble of gas and dust within the Milky Way, which they named, which they named Teles, but do not yet have an explanation for its formation. You all think this one is science, and this one is science. Oh, good, he sounded really happy for it. Yeah, right. I have to throw you off.

• 1:38:18Speaker 02

  So yeah, so you know, they don't know why it formed. It probably is a supernova remnant, right? And the supernova explodes, sends out a bubble of energy.

• 1:38:29Speaker 04

  Wonderfully uniform.

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  But, but they very quickly get oddly shaped as they push up against different, in different directions, they're gonna have different pressures that they're pushing up against, more or less concentration of hydrogen gas, you know. So what would keep this one perfectly spherical for so long that it could get so huge, right?

• 1:38:50Speaker 04

  It's gotta be a weirdly uniform chunk of space.

• 1:38:55Speaker 02

  Yes. And what would make, what would make it uniform? A vacuum. That it's very, well, that it's relatively empty.

• 1:39:02Bob Novella?

  Super low density?

• 1:39:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it must be just happening in a relatively empty part of the galaxy. So that there's nothing disrupting, the perfect sphere of the.

• 1:39:13Speaker 04

  Other supernovas in the past could have cleared it out.

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I was like, why would something be empty? Well, remember, the galaxy does have arms, and in between the arms, it's relatively. Empty, right? The galaxy is not a uniform, we don't live in a globular cluster galaxy like that's

• 1:39:30Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:30Bob Novella?

  That's a spiral.

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, we live in a spiral galaxy. There are arms and then between the arms. But I don't know if that's where it is either. So they're still trying to sort it exactly. Why? But that's the current theory. Alright, let's go on. Number two. Scientists confirmed the existence of four Mars-sized planets orbiting Barnard Star, the closest single star system to Earth at just six light years. You guys also all thinks, think this one is science. This one is science. Good job, guys.

• 1:40:00Cara Santa Maria?

  No way!

• 1:40:02Bob Novella?

  Yeah, man. I gotta read more about this one. This is cool.

• 1:40:05Cara Santa Maria?

  This did feel the most like science.

• 1:40:07Speaker 04

  I know they recently photographed.

• 1:40:10Speaker 02

  You know, four.

• 1:40:10Bob Novella?

  Barnard star, man. Barnard star, six light years away.

• 1:40:13Speaker 04

  They have the image of it, like a satellite, one of our telescopes captured an image of it?

• 1:40:19Bob Novella?

  I thought that was, I thought that was AI.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  This is the wobble method. This is all wobble method.

• 1:40:25Cara Santa Maria?

  But the thing is, I feel like if we're gonna detect something small, it's gonna be to the closest star.

• 1:40:31Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 1:40:32Speaker 02

  Yes, right. It's the second closest system, like the Alpha Centauri system is closer. Four light years away, but that's a multi-star system. This is a single star system.

• 1:40:41Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:42Bob Novella?

  Yeah, I mean, this is like in your back pocket, not even in your backyard.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  Six light years away, nothing. So yeah, this was, you know, the wobble method is that you could see the wobble in the orbit, the movement of the star because it's being tugged a little bit by the planets orbiting it. And that works best for systems where we're looking at them face on, not edge on.

• 1:41:02Bob Novella?

  Face on, right.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  More face on than edge on. And also when they're close. So this is, you know, a perfect candidate for that. As opposed to the transit method where you need to be looking at them edge on, but it's only gonna be a certain number, you know, percentage of systems.

• 1:41:17Speaker 02

  All right, that means that NASA's Curiosity Rover discovered evidence of complex organic chemistry on Mars, including 12 carbon atoms and simple nucleic acids, is the fiction. So this is an item that we just missed. I didn't miss it, I read the item at the time, but it just never got, it fell between our weekly cycles, you know?

• 1:41:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh yeah, that happens sometimes.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, we just never reported on it. What NASA's Curiosity Rover found, Bob, do you remember?

• 1:41:43Bob Novella?

  Well, it was, was it organic chemistry? It was organic chemistry, right? Just not nucleic acids.

• 1:41:49Speaker 02

  Not nucleic acids. You're right. They did find carbon atoms that are 12 carbon atoms big. So that's complex carbon-based chemistry, but they did not find nucleic acids. We've never found nucleic acids on Mars. We recently found nucleic acids on asteroid Benu.

• 1:42:05Bob Novella?

  Yeah, right?

• 1:42:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:42:07Speaker 02

  So hoping you would get that confused, or at least think, well, we've found nucleic acids out there, so why not Mars? But we just, we just haven't, they may be on Mars, we just haven't discovered them yet.

• 1:42:16Bob Novella?

  Carbon-based life, baby, it's a way to go.

• 1:42:19Speaker 02

  So it's not a proof that there was ever life on Mars. It is the simplest explanation, though, and there's other evidence emerged this year.

• 1:42:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so it's not proof that there was life on Mars, but it is proof that there's ingredients for life on Mars.

• 1:42:31Speaker 02

  Yes, and that there was ancient life on Mars is the simplest explanation for the evidence that we have so far. But it's not proof that there was life on Mars. So we haven't discovered life on Mars, but it's looking good, that there was ancient life on Mars.

• 1:42:46Speaker 04

  Evidence that there was.

• 1:42:47Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  There could still be extinct life on Mars. We haven't ruled that out.

• 1:42:52Bob Novella?

  Oh my god, please.

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  But we haven't found evidence.

• 1:42:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Like soil bacteria or something.

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, deep in the soil, yeah, exactly.

• 1:42:58Bob Novella?

  Yeah, man, gotta get my hands on that stuff.

• 1:43:02Speaker 02

  All right, good job, everyone.

• 1:43:03Cara Santa Maria?

  No, you do not.

• 1:43:04Bob Novella?

  Well, yeah, Bob, I mean, you know. Does it have human-like DNA?

• 1:43:07Speaker 04

  It's where it lives.

• 1:43:08Bob Novella?

  Did we seed it, did it seed us, or is it brand-new? I'm hoping for brand-new.

• 1:43:12Speaker 04

  It's an ancient relative of yours, Bob. Be kind to it.

• 1:43:15Bob Novella?

  Like a triple helix or weird proteins.

• 1:43:19Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I'm assuming, Bob, but you mean you've got to get your hands on it. You mean you want Earth scientists to get there?

• 1:43:24Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, good, yeah, I thought you meant you physically want.

• 1:43:27Bob Novella?

  I thought that was obvious, but yeah, that's what I mean.

• 1:43:31Cara Santa Maria?

  Bob, it was not.

• 1:43:35Speaker 04

  It's like going into the ball pit in McDonald's, kind of thing, you know?

• 1:43:37Bob Novella?

  Hey, look!

• 1:43:40Speaker 02

  All right, Evan, give us a quote.

• 1:43:42Speaker 04

  This week's quote is suggested by Brad from Troy, Ohio, who sent this to us not too long ago, said it's a suggestion for a quote. "Hi Evan, I have a suggestion for a skeptical quote of the week from an unlikely source, the Christian Bible. I've never read it." Specifically, 2 Timothy, Chapter 4, Verses 3-4. I didn't even know there was a 2 Timothy, so that's new.

• 1:44:04Speaker 02

  Evan, you have to say, reading from 2 Timothy, Chapter 4, Verses 3-4.

• 1:44:14Speaker 04

  Like they did in, right, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  Which is how they say it in church.

• 1:44:21Speaker 04

  Please turn to page.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 1:44:23Speaker 04

  Here's the quote. "The time is coming when people won't listen to good teaching. Instead, they will look for teachers who will please them by telling them only what they are itching to hear. They will turn from the truth and eagerly listen to senseless stories."

• 1:44:39Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:44:40Speaker 04

  And then Brad commented, "Sometimes they are so close to getting it." Like, yeah, there are little kernels like that in Scripture, right?

• 1:44:50Speaker 04

  Little nuggets that you could pull, but then they fail to, you know, bring it to its correct conclusion.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  The Christian Bible is based upon Greek Enlightenment, you know? It's not, it was...

• 1:45:01Speaker 04

  So right.

• 1:45:02Speaker 02

  The philosophy of the time. There's no reason, you know what I mean? It wasn't...

• 1:45:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, but that does happen all the time.

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  You would expect to see things like this.

• 1:45:09Cara Santa Maria?

  You guys have all done God-awful movies, right?

• 1:45:11Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:45:12Cara Santa Maria?

  You've done it at this point? I feel like whenever I'm on that show, at least once an episode, we're like, "Man, the point was right there." It just went right past it.

• 1:45:22Speaker 04

  You had it in your hands.

• 1:45:27Speaker 02

  It's like Theodoric of York.

• 1:45:30Speaker 04

  Thank you, Brad.

• 1:45:32Bob Novella?

  What a great scene. I'm gonna watch that. Steve Martin, baby.

• 1:45:35Speaker 02

  Well, thank you guys for joining me for the last regular episode of 2025.

• 1:45:41Bob Novella?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:45:42Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  Next week, we have the year in review. Hopefully, Jay will be back to fighting trim. He's basically lost his voice. Like, it really wasn't an option today, but hopefully he'll be back by Thursday when we record.

• 1:45:55Bob Novella?

  Which is two days from now.

• 1:45:56Speaker 02

  Two days from now, yeah. I gotta double up this week so that we're off for, well, Christmas coming, ain't it?

• 1:46:01Speaker 04

  Man, oh, he has a program. Wait, wait, wait. He has access to a program that simulated your voice. Couldn't he just simulate his own using that? Exactly. Type it in, what he's gonna say?

• 1:46:10Speaker 02

  He could. He was bedridden. He was wiped out. He wasn't doing any work.

• 1:46:14Speaker 04

  Feel better, Jay.

• 1:46:15Speaker 02

  All right, well, until next week, this is your Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  Skeptic's 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 [email protected]. 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.

• 1:47:01Speaker 06

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