The Skeptics Guide #1050 - Aug 23 2025

Quickie with Steve: Using Fusion to Make Gold; News Items: Older Americans Using AI, Semi-Solid State EV, Ad Hominem Attacks Online, Non-Surgical LASIK, Now 3I-ATLAS is Glowing; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and Emails: Elemental Drugs; 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 Wednesday, August 20th, 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

  Jay Novella.

• 0:49Jay Novella?

  Hey, guys.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  And Evan Bernstein.

• 0:51Speaker 05

  Good evening, everyone.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Jay, we're going to Kansas. Has any of you been to Kansas before?

• 0:56Cara Santa Maria?

  Of course.

• 0:56Speaker 05

  I've been through Kansas.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 0:59Cara Santa Maria?

  I've been to Kansas.

• 1:01Jay Novella?

  I honestly can't remember. I don't know.

• 1:03Speaker 05

  I've heard about it. In 1981, my family moved from Dallas, Texas to Denver, Colorado. A part of it was a Midwest trip we took. So we went south up through the north, straight up the center of Kansas, pretty much drove through. Then, when my family moved from Denver, Colorado to Connecticut in 1983, we drove west to east. So I literally did a crisscross of the state. I mean, we may have stopped for a meal, but that was probably about it.

• 1:29Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, stopping for a meal, I don't want to start beef here or anything, Evan, but you lived in Dallas first. Would you say Texas barbecue or?

• 1:38Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh, yes.

• 1:39Cara Santa Maria?

  Kansas barbecue. I know, I'm Texas all the way.

• 1:42Speaker 05

  I'm very biased with that, though.

• 1:43Cara Santa Maria?

  But I'm going to be open while we're there. I'm going to eat me some Kansas City barbecue.

• 1:46Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Gosh, how can we not?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Well, Kansas is like right smack dab in the middle of the country, you know?

• 1:51Speaker 05

  It is. You know, watch some documentaries on things like the Dust Bowl, like from the 1920s. It's incredible, just devastation of what happened in Kansas and much of that part of the country. And it's like a little piece of American history that you don't hear about so often. It's not talked about, it's not recollected about, but it's still unbelievable to learn about.

• 2:14Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  And then, and the fears of a future Dust Bowl, which very well, as climate change continues, very well could happen again.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  That was really a lot of soil mismanagement, right?

• 2:24Speaker 05

  Sure. Yep.

• 2:25Jay Novella?

  Well, the good news is that we're not going to be dealing with that when we're there.

• 2:30Jay Novella?

  We're gonna be dealing with two shows. We have a, Steve, we like to call this the Private Show Plus, which is a three-hour live podcast recording and random fun, sometimes crazy or ridiculous entertainment with audience participation. And George Robb will be there with us.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:50Jay Novella?

  And I say this every time, but it's worth noting that when we do these private shows, yes, we're recording a legitimate SGU episode, but we go off the rails. We, you know, don't hold back. We don't edit ourselves. Steve has to do all that.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  We guarantee a minimum of eight curse words.

• 3:09Cara Santa Maria?

  The editing happens afterward before it goes into the show.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  A lot of post-production.

• 3:15Jay Novella?

  So those are a lot of fun, not just for us, but the audience always has a great time when we do those. And then, you know, we got the Extravaganza. This is our stage show. This is a hour and 45 minutes, a two-hour show where we, there's a few things going on. It has a backbone of science to it. We are teaching you about how you cannot trust your senses and how your brain fools you. And mixed in with that, there is a lot of, you know, straight-up improv stuff. George will pose crazy things at us and we have not, we don't know what he's gonna do. And it's all kind of impromptu that puts us all on the spot. All the things that we've come up with, we've been honing this show for 10 years. It's a ton of fun. We really think that if you haven't been to one, you really should consider going to this.

• 3:59Jay Novella?

  So this Kansas show is going to be, just like all the others, it's gonna be a really good time. If you're interested, go to our homepage, that's the skeptics guide.org. And, you know, the tickets are available there and you'll get to see us. There's VIP tickets also available for that Extravaganza, which is another thing where we get a little wacky. Now, we take audience questions and usually turns into a conversation about one or two things that somebody brings up. We get into details. It's a lot of fun and you get some swag. You get to hang out. You get signatures. You know, whatever you want.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  The other thing we have on the schedule, do we have the final dates? We're going to Australia next summer.

• 4:41Jay Novella?

  Yeah, you wanna hear all about that?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  Oh, is this now official?

• 4:46Jay Novella?

  Yeah, we're doing it.

• 4:47Speaker 05

  This is official? Okay, so we have, then we have dates?

• 4:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Yay.

• 4:50Jay Novella?

  Okay, so it's a little complicated.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  Well, isn't that what science is all about, Jay?

• 4:55Jay Novella?

  Because, you know, when you, when you cross international datelines. So we will be very likely on, sorry, on July 18th of 2026, we will be doing a SGU extravaganza that night. And then a private show probably the next morning. So that'll be, that'll be Sunday, the 19th.

• 5:18Bob Novella?

  Where's that, Jay? Where's the venue?

• 5:19Jay Novella?

  That's going to be in, in LA.

• 5:22Bob Novella?

  LA?

• 5:24Jay Novella?

  Yeah, I'm still.

• 5:24Bob Novella?

  I'm so excited.

• 5:25Speaker 05

  Hometown show for Karen.

• 5:26Jay Novella?

  I'm still picking the exact venue, but it's going to be, you know, central to LA.

• 5:30Speaker 05

  Can you see if the Hollywood Bowl's available?

• 5:33Jay Novella?

  I already had that rented out, but that's where we're sleeping.

• 5:37Jay Novella?

  Those, you know, it's going to be on those two dates. There is a chance that we might do both shows on the 18th. You know, but of course I'm going to work out these details very, very soon. But, you know, it's, it's a lot of things to consider and I'm in charge of moving a lot of people to a lot of places. So I got to make sure that everything lands exactly correct. But we will give you more info when that comes out. And then what we are going to do then is we all fly to Sydney, Australia. And then the conference will happen on Thursday, the 23rd, Friday, the 24th, and Saturday, the 25th. It'll start with something happening mid-afternoon on Thursday that, that like this year, what did we do? We did the board game.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Yes, the board meeting.

• 6:21Jay Novella?

  Yeah, that board meeting was so much fun. We had a bunch of different games happening at about five or six different tables. And, you know, things got pretty heated a couple of times. Evan got into a fistfight with someone over Monopoly.

• 6:34Jay Novella?

  No, so we played a bunch of different games. Everybody got to give input on what the games are. But the real thing is, is that we're getting, you know, kind of lubricated up for the conference. And typically, and we're very likely going to do the Thursday night VIP that, that morphs into a celebration for everyone to join at some time on Thursday night. And then two full days of programming. The thing about these conferences, the, these Nauticon conferences, is that we give plenty of time for people. To meet, socialize, and hang out, which in our collective opinion is the best absolute thing about all of these conferences that we go to. It's being able to meet people, talk to people, make friends, whatever. All of that is, you know, the things that I remember

• 7:17Jay Novella?

  the most particularly about going to TAM was that I ended up making friends with like a couple of hundred people during those years.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  And the events that we do do, I said do do, are very audience participation. They're designed to have the audience not only interacting with us, but with each other. So it even further fosters this community. Correct.

• 7:37Jay Novella?

  So that's going to be that. And then it's possible that we might be doing some type of engagement in New Zealand. I am still finalizing details. There's, you know, a lot of people have a lot of decisions to make in order to check all these boxes. But we're talking to those guys. If anything's going to happen there, it's going to happen the next weekend, which is the weekend of the 31st into August, into August 1st. And we'll let you know more about that. But you're going to be able to buy these tickets for all of these shows very, very soon. Hopefully at least the conference within the next week.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  And if you want us to come to your hometown, send us an email. But here's the thing, honestly, just getting an email from one person saying, hey, come to this remote part of the world and have a conference. We'd love to, but, you know, logistically, if you're going to fly seven of us out, which is really what it takes to do the live events, we need to know there's enough people there that are going to come out and see us. So if you can give us any information about what the local skeptical audience is like there, that will help in our prioritization of where we can logistically go.

• 8:48Jay Novella?

  Yep.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  All right. Thanks, brother. Let's get started. I want to start us off with a little bit of a quickie.

• 8:53Jay Novella?

  Boy.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a quick question, though. What do you guys think about turning base metals into gold? Is this alchemy? Is it fiction? I'm all for it. Which craft should be burned at the stake? I'm all for this. I have to recuse myself, so I won't say anything.

• 9:07Cara Santa Maria?

  I don't know.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  All right. When you think about turning a base metal into gold, what base metal do you generally think about?

• 9:13Jay Novella?

  Lead, of course.

• 9:13Cara Santa Maria?

  Lead, yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Lead. Lead. Sometimes iron, iron into gold. What about mercury? Yeah, isn't mercury close on the chart there? Is there a lot of gold in the planet Mercury? Is that what you're saying? I'm talking about the element mercury. All right, so you know what that's called? When you, when you turn. Transmutation.

• 9:31Jay Novella?

  Trans.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Transmogrification. Transmogrification, I like that word. There's also a more technical term. Crisopaea. I don't like it.

• 9:38Jay Novella?

  I don't like it. That does not roll off the tongue.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  No, it does not. And it's got P, it's got P in it. Crisopaea. All right, it's like onomatopoeia, but it's crisopaea anyway.

• 9:47Jay Novella?

  We got it, but what the hell?

• 9:50Speaker 02

  All right, some, some silly phys- physicists have published. This is in the archive, so it's a pre-print. I love it. Right? They, they said, it's a really, at this point, it's like a thought experiment. They, they basically said, they did, they crunched the numbers and it's possible to turn mercury into gold, into a stable isotope of gold, Au-197 specifically, from HG-198, right? Using the output of a fusion reactor, specifically a deuterium-tritium fusion reactor. So they ran the numbers and they said that you could do this without in any way reducing

• 10:31Speaker 02

  the electricity output and also allowing for tritium breeding, which is critical. So tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, right?

• 10:44Bob Novella?

  Hydrogen.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  It has two neutrons, right? Deuterium has one, hydrogen has, is just a proton, no neutrons. Deuterium has one neutron, tritium has two neutrons. So it's, it's, it has a fairly short half-life and it doesn't really exist in significant amounts naturally. So we would have to create it as we go, you know, if we're gonna have a fusion economy, we're gonna need to make, you could purify deuterium from water, but we're gonna pretty much need to make tritium. So. One of the ideas is that you could build a fusion reactor that breeds its own tritium from the hydrogen.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  And so they said you could do that, so deuterium-tritium fusion, like tokamak plasma fusion reactor that breeds its own tritium. And as a side reaction, if you just line some part of the chamber with this mercury 198, it will turn it into gold. And they calculated the amounts that would be generated as just part of the running of the fusion reactor. And they concluded that the amount of gold that would be created would essentially double the revenue generated by the whole system.

• 12:00Bob Novella?

  That's huge. Right there is my favorite part of it.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  They would make as much money from producing gold as they would from producing electricity.

• 12:08Jay Novella?

  That is freaking amazing.

• 12:10Speaker 05

  Will the price of gold plummet?

• 12:12Bob Novella?

  Yeah, that's the question. The key would be not to destabilize the gold market, but it sounds like it wouldn't do that.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  There's a lot of gold in the world. It wouldn't plummet, but it might affect gold prices.

• 12:24Bob Novella?

  Well, it's at a couple of metric tons a year, so.

• 12:27Jay Novella?

  That's a lot.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  And this is just the initial.

• 12:29Bob Novella?

  If you think about how dense and heavy that is, it's not a lot of volume, but yeah. I wonder how much of an impact. But hey, man, even if it does drop gold prices a little bit, eh, they're high enough anyway.

• 12:40Speaker 05

  What's the limiting factor? What's to stop a private corporation from ramping this up?

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Jay, how much gold do you think is mined every year?

• 12:47Jay Novella?

  I mean, I've read weird statistics, Steve, where like the amount of gold that exists in the world is the size of an Olympic swimming pool or whatever, so like.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Oh, no, it's way more than that.

• 12:56Jay Novella?

  Right, I figured it was, but I've read things like that.

• 12:58Bob Novella?

  It's not ridiculous.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  2,500 to 3,000 tons of gold are mined each year. So adding a couple of extra tons is negligible.

• 13:08Jay Novella?

  Okay. But tell me again, Steve, how renewable energy doesn't just blow away any other form of energy? I mean, we're going to have unlimited power and gold.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, how much energy does this take? Or does it not? It's already happening.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  It's already happening. It's just using the, basically the radiation that's going to be produced by the whole process.

• 13:30Speaker 05

  Which is otherwise wasted, not captured for anything else.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically.

• 13:33Speaker 05

  I don't know. Yeah, why not? If it's just lying around doing nothing, make it do something.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Would it be radioactive for a while? Well, there's, yeah. Out of the gold itself, I don't, no, it's a stable isotope, Au-197. Fusion reactors will create radioactive waste from the containment vessels, you know, that then have to be replaced, et cetera. So there is going to be some radioactivity, but it's not like, it's not using fissionable materials. There's not, they're not going to be spent nuclear fuel. It's just going to be in the, the structure itself. So the gold won't be dangerous? No, it'll be a stable isotope of gold. Right. Yeah. So again, this is all theoretical, of course, just like fusion is all theoretical at this point. And there's a lot of non-trivial technical hurdles to getting to the point where we're

• 14:19Speaker 02

  going to be making commercially viable deuterium-tritium fusion. But this is just an interesting wrinkle to that. And yet doubling the profitability of a tokamak fusion reactor is an interesting idea that certainly makes it seem like it would be more, be

• 14:36Speaker 05

  A better investment for, yeah.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  More commercially viable or commercially viable sooner or however, if this all works out, you know?

• 14:43Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Interesting little tidbit. All right. Interesting, yeah. Kara? Tell us about older Americans using artificial intelligence.

• 14:53Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so there was a, a recent poll that was, it was actually conducted at the University of Chicago for the University of Michigan's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. Uh, it's called the National Poll on Healthy Aging. Uh, and they've recently published their report. Uh, they interviewed a randomly selected stratified group of US adults, um, 2,883 in total, with an oversample of non-Hispanic, Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American and Pacific Islander individuals. Here's something I don't like. The age range was 50 to 97, but of course, in all of the write-ups of this,

• 15:36Cara Santa Maria?

  they show like somebody in their golden years. And I'm like, 50? That's not older than.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  That annoys me.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  That's a beard scratcher.

• 15:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Right. So everything is like this is.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  Reading it right there.

• 15:47Cara Santa Maria?

  This is how older adults, blah, blah, blah. I get it. I get it for use on a poll on healthy aging.

• 15:53Speaker 05

  I know. I may know why I care of 50 because people are eligible for groups like AARP at age 50, and it could be just a. Convenience. Data from sets like that.

• 16:02Cara Santa Maria?

  Totally. Yeah. But you're not.

• 16:04Speaker 05

  Probably in line with that.

• 16:05Cara Santa Maria?

  Eligible for Medicare. You're not eligible for social security.

• 16:10Speaker 05

  No, unless you're disabled. Like 64. Correct.

• 16:12Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. So they basically asked a bunch of people, you know, almost 3,000 people between the ages of 50 and 97 about their AI usage. And I'll give you some of the top line, but you know, they kind of opened, there's a write-up in the conversation by one of the study authors, Robin Brewer, who is an associate professor of information at the University of Michigan. And she basically wrote that, you know, when we talk about AI, we're often talking about like AI use in schools or AI use in the workplace. And it sort of biases the conversation toward younger people.

• 16:53Cara Santa Maria?

  And I do wonder, I mean, when I think about AI, I guess I kind of just assume that most of the people using it are younger. And that may still be true, but older adults do use AI. They use AI maybe in different ways than you would think. So yeah, 55% of people who responded to the poll said that they have used AI technologies that you speak or type to for a bunch of different purposes. But interestingly, what do you think is the top category? And it's one I wouldn't have even thought of for use.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Google Home or Siri devices. Yeah.

• 17:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. So 80% used AI-powered voice assistants. 96% used AI-powered home security devices. I didn't even know that was a thing. I mean, I guess it makes sense. But yeah, home security was by far the number one category. And then AI powered voice assistants. After that, I think it was closer to one in four had used a so of the people who used some type of AI technology that they could speak to or type to. Voice assistants were much more popular. About half of the people who reported using either of those

• 18:07Cara Santa Maria?

  reported using a voice assistant within the past year, and only one in four reported using a chatbot or something like ChatGPT. So that's actually one of the least popular mechanisms would be like an LLM or, you know,

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Possibly because they can't type as fast as younger people, maybe.

• 18:22Cara Santa Maria?

  Could be, or it could be that same thing we talked about a little bit on the show last week, like they might not see the utility or know how to do it. And a lot of these other tools and technologies like home security devices like Alexa or Siri, it's like just built in to the technology there.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  They've gotten used to it over the past 10, 10, 15 years of this technology being available.

• 18:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. So, you know, there are some, I'll give some more kind of outcomes of the poll, but I'll try to contextualize them a little bit. The author of the of the write up here in the conversation and one of the authors of the study mentioned how independent living is a really important component to this conversation. Most older Americans want to live at home and they want to live at home independently or with minimal support. And one of the ways that they can do it, because they either don't want to live in a long term care community or they can't afford to, is to use AI tools. And a lot of older adults say that AI in their homes is actually making it easier. And it's helpful for them to live safely and more independently. So I mentioned before, AI powered home security devices.

• 19:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Nearly everybody said that they feel safer using one. They also talked about trust in AI in the study that, you know, a lot of older adults are struggling with whether or not they should trust content that was generated by AI, which I think is a good thing. So 54% of them said that they trust it. 46% said that they don't. I wonder how that maps against younger people. But interestingly, the more people used it, the more they said that they trusted it. Also, there are demographic differences in older adults who use AI. Who do you think is more likely to use it? Uh, more educated people. Yeah, those with higher income and those with more education

• 20:11Cara Santa Maria?

  tend to use AI more often, um, which, you know, follows the same patterns of most technologies, right? Like, they're gonna be more likely to use smartphones and to use tablets and to use different things as well. Right, not a surprising result. Yeah, yeah. And so, some more interesting things here, though, like, there are some tools, you know, they talk about how AI literacy tools are probably really important for older adults. In the survey, nine in 10 people said that they wanted to, like, some sort of label on AI-generated content. And we do see that now, like, when you go to Google and you search for something and they give you an AI overview, it's labeled AI overview, right? And different, um, states have different policies, but it seems like a lot of the enforcement,

• 20:56Cara Santa Maria?

  at least from this write-up, tends to be required only in political ads. And it's, it, it, it varies by state, but other contexts, there doesn't seem to be a lot of regulation around whether or not you have to say if something was AI-produced. So, yeah, a lot of older adults are pushing to say, no, I, I think I need to know, because I'm not as good at telling the difference between something being authentic and something being produced, or I shouldn't say authentic, but something produced by AI and something produced by people. And so, they talk a lot about how, yeah, AI can really support healthy aging when used, you know, appropriately, and when there's good training on how to use AI. Interestingly,

• 21:37Cara Santa Maria?

  only 12% of the respondents said that they used AI for social connections. Still not as much adoption, like, using kind of like social media or using different apps. Uh, 14% say that they've used AI to receive health information. Um, and I think that that can be really empowering, especially when used appropriately. I love that 11% said that they used AI to create text or images. So I mean, it's a low number, but like the fact that they're using it in that way.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Good for them.

• 22:08Cara Santa Maria?

  I don't do it, but I'll be in your demographic in about eight and a half years. And then 9% said that they used it to plan like a trip or another activity.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Good.

• 22:20Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so it's interesting. A lot of people are using AI across the board and we shouldn't ignore or bias our literacy training and even our marketing towards younger people because it is a tool that I think can help everybody at any age.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love it as the idea of using it for people who are in that gray zone, you know, to help people be independent longer, for whatever reason, because of normal aging or because of any other disability. So, you know, before I retired, you know, many of my patients are in that gray zone, right? This is like an almost weekly conversation that I was having with some family member and patient about should they continue to drive? Can they live independently? What support do they need? And, you know, just because of our, at least in the United States especially, you know, we don't really live in extended families as much anymore. You know, when everyone

• 23:16Speaker 02

  was living together, that was kind of people's parents would live in the house with them and that's how you would take care of it. And now we don't really do that so much. So like even GPS helps people who are in that gray zone where like they can drive, but they might get lost every now and then. But if they always can hit, take me home and can find their way home, it keeps them independent longer. And, you know, I would love to see an AI app that's really designed to be an AI assistant for people who are trying to live independently, who are kind of in that gray zone, who are kind of marginal.

• 23:54Cara Santa Maria?

  Absolutely. Like just a, like a, that has all of the reminders in one place.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Orienting.

• 24:01Speaker 05

  Help dispense your pills too, right?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Apps, so many little things. It's like just what we used to call like an ectopic brain. Like this is just helping you remember all things you need to remember. Checking in, they can also give you reminders. They can answer questions. They could contact your family, your contacts, like your in case of emergency kind of people if necessary. Like all, you know, remind you where you kept your keys. Like all these little things that that people can have difficulty with, with like minimal cognitive impairment or early dementia, for example.

• 24:33Cara Santa Maria?

  Absolutely. And even

• 24:34Speaker 05

  They could take their letters to the editor to the AI.

• 24:37Cara Santa Maria?

  And it could be, it could be humanized too. I mean, I think oftentimes we think about these things in sort of like a cold, um, clinical or like technological way. But obviously, an older adult who maybe is experiencing like mild cognitive impairment, uh, to have some sort of app or AI assistant that's like on a device or on a phone. We could talk about, you know, connectivity, like the internet of things and tracking tags and things like that. For like you mentioned, keys and their car, integrating all of that into one place. But also with photos, with voice notes, with a lot of like rich reminders of family and of home, I think could be really beneficial psychologically.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  And also make them feel less lonely.

• 25:18Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a hu- that's a huge part of it. And so maybe it'll be interesting to watch these data and see if those numbers go higher as individuals, or the numbers at least on on AI use for social connection go higher, the more AI becomes, you know, a part of people's daily lives.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  So let me pivot a bit because we spoke about AI last week. We got a lot of feedback from it. And I thought a lot of the feedback was quite honestly unfair. And it was mostly of like, you guys are too positive about AI. And like, you didn't mention any of the negatives. And it was like you were as a commercial or you were just gullible, all this stuff. It's like, well, first of all, we were talking about one very specific thing. We were talking about ChatGPT five and is it useful, right? Just how good is it as a tool? We can't go into every aspect of every complex topic every time it comes up.

• 26:15Bob Novella?

  Plus Steve, the other component here was that this was just released. I want to wait a little while at least before we get some real serious feedback. And to be fair, I didn't mean, I went through a lot of websites looking at a lot of information and by far, the main thing that was being reported so soon after the release was this pushback, this major pushback of the release and how bad the release was.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, which we talked about, you talked about.

• 26:38Bob Novella?

  Which I talked about. And of course, the other, you know, the people that felt like they had lost a friend because the earlier models were no longer available. And that was everywhere, everywhere. And that definitely needed to be discussed. So, yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  It would take us an hour to talk, every time we brought up, like on this news item, do we have to go through the litany of all the positive and negative on it every single time we bring it up?

• 27:01Cara Santa Maria?

  I don't think so, but I do think that sometimes the critical feedback that we get, and you know, maybe I'm an opposing voice here, is I'm often the person who's like, I don't use this and I don't really get it and maybe I don't need it, maybe I do. And I think that you guys did a good job of explaining to me like where it's helpful and why maybe it's not necessary. I think what I want to remind listeners of is we have dedicated whole news items to the environmental impact of LLMs. Yes, we probably could mention, because I think sometimes we can be gushy gushy about new technology, like this is so exciting, this is so exciting. Yeah, sure. And in the same breath, we have to be mindful of the fact that it could also be somewhat detrimental to the environment, or these might be other drawbacks.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, but this is a chronic issue that comes up, like how, sometimes we have to expect people to understand that when we talk about a complex topic like this, it's cumulative. I say, we've talked about this in 20 news items, and we can't give, we can't talk about what you want us to talk about every single time. We're going to be talking about different aspects of it. But but let me just run through all of the issues very again, I did this when I wrote about it on my blog. Oh, nice. Very quick. So, yes, L L M training is very expensive. Data centers use a lot of energy. Training can violate creators' rights to use their own material without compensation. There's a lot of hype surrounding A I and the reality is way more modest. A I can be disruptive and cost jobs.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  They still have problems with hallucinations. They have a problem with sicko fancy and some people are falling into emotional relationship with software owned and controlled by a corporation. They are causing problems for teachers as it is now trivial to have A I do your work for you. And A I is creating a tsunami of deep fakes. Yes. So just every time we talk about A I, assume that we are caveatting it with all of that. Because that is, we have talked about all of those things before. That is true of A I. I don't think by saying, oh, it could be a useful tool, we're saying we're minimizing these problems or endorsing any particular regulation or non-regulation, whatever. We've also been pretty clear that we feel A I needs to be regulated.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  That we feel that companies who are training A I need to be responsible for their own energy production. You know, these are trillion dollar companies. They could make sure that they're powering their data centers with green energy. You know, all those things. That's not going to happen under the current administration, but whatever. Yeah. So give us a little bit of credit. We talk about all these things. It's you have to give us recognize that this is a bit of a cumulative topic that we talk about over many, many episodes. And no, we can't go into an hour long discussion of all the negatives every time something comes up about A I. And I didn't just, I'll say for myself, it's a freaking useful tool. We we need to find a way to make it work. I don't think just abandoning it because of these downsides is the way forward. It's first of all, it's not going to happen. So you're living in Nirvana.

• 29:56Jay Novella?

  Right, that's not.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Other countries are working on this as well. It's too powerful a tool not to figure out how to make this work well. But now is the time to figure. All solvable. They are all solvable.

• 30:08Cara Santa Maria?

  But now is the time to solve those problems.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 30:10Cara Santa Maria?

  And we don't want to get so deep that we go, oops, you know, because we are aware of it. And it is a clear, you know, it's different than the certain decisions that were made during the industrial revolution when we like had no idea.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:22Cara Santa Maria?

  We probably did, but, but, you know, we, we know this, we know all of these issues and we, we need to be aware of that.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Totally. And none of us are endorsing the move fast and break things approach, or the just let them run wild and no regulation and, you know.

• 30:37Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  The tech bros will sort it out. Like, no, none of us are endorsing that approach. But the need for moral purity, I feel, is behind a lot of this. Like, you could say, yeah, these are the downsides and some of these are very serious and still say, but it is a damn useful tool when used properly.

• 30:53Cara Santa Maria?

  That's the thing that I think is so dangerous about that type of, and I'll use like a, an informological fallacy, like that type of black and white thinking.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:03Cara Santa Maria?

  Is that, you know, we do it with fossil fuels too. Like, we can talk about all the dangers and all of these things, but like, we couldn't just turn off the tap tomorrow. Like, civilization would collapse.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:14Cara Santa Maria?

  We do rely on these things and we need to, you know, work in a way to, to obviously making our entire energy structure more, more sustainable. But I think there's a tendency for people, like, I might be more critical and less like, like, excited, and you guys might be more optimistic, but we are all talking about both sides of that.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:36Cara Santa Maria?

  But there's a tendency for people to hear me be critical and be like, Kara's anti-AI, and hear you guys being excited and be like, you are so pro, you're not even looking at the negatives. And it's like, no, no, no, we're all somewhere in the middle.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're all doing both. The same thing happens like whenever Musk comes up, right? Because he's such a divisive figure.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  If we say anything positive about him, then we're a Musk fanboy. If we say anything negative, then we're a Musk denier and hating on Musk. It's like, no, he's both at the same time. He's a complicated dude who has done some great things and some horrible things at the same time, and our feelings about him are complicated. And we're just trying to appreciate the full nuance here, but you gotta give the devil his due, right? You always gotta call it like it is, good or bad, and it's, most of reality is a mix of good and bad. I say most.

• 32:25Speaker 05

  And the cyber cars suck. Oh, yeah. It's a spectrum.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  I love my Tesla.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Shades of gray.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  I think cyber trucks are ugly. Right?

• 32:31Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, yeah. Come on, they're horrible.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  I don't like Musk's mentorship of X, formerly Twitter. Whatever, the guy is problematic. But anyway.

• 32:45Jay Novella?

  Wait, can I say what I think about him?

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:49Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, no.

• 32:52Jay Novella?

  To me, he did a slippery slope. You know, this guy slipped down some crazy pathways here and did some horrible things with the US government.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  That wasn't really an invitation to dish on Musk. I was just bringing him up as an example.

• 33:08Cara Santa Maria?

  I'm with you, Jay.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  He is a world-recognized example. I get that. Easy to make an example.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Right, but the big sense, I guess, with a lot of these emails, like, no, it's gotta be all good all the time or all bad all the time.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Because there are people who will not give Musk credit for the things that he has done, which I think is wrong. You gotta give him credit for bringing Tesla to what it was. He didn't invent it himself. He wasn't the engineer, but he did invest his money in that and pushed it through years ahead of what would have otherwise happened. You've gotta give him credit for that. And even if you hate everything else about him.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Yep. History and science are replete with examples like this of people who have done wonderful things and at the same time, either later in life or whatever, they did horrible stuff.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Deal with it. You know what I mean? It's complicated.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  Linus Pauling.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Linus Pauling was a great scientist who became a crank in his later years. Deal with it. But, yeah, just, we feel so uncomfortable, you know, having to be able to say that there's good and bad in people. We just like there to be this morally pure narrative. Anyway.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  Welcome to reality.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Jay, tell us about semi-solid-state EVs.

• 34:17Jay Novella?

  Yeah, you know, I keep up on these. You know, we all like to talk about the latest battery technology and what's happening. There's a ton of money being spent on battery technology, and there are some goals that the industry is trying to get to. And of course, like everything else, you know, that whole five-to-10-year thing is always hovering around any of these claims that are being made. So I thought I'd clarify some things that are going on right now. Like I said, there's a ton of companies out there that are trying to make batteries safer, you know, faster charger, charging, longer lasting, you know, bigger energy storage and solid-state batteries have been pretty much thought of as some kind of holy grail that

• 34:59Jay Novella?

  will replace the flammable liquid electrolytes in conventional lithium ion cells. And, you know, it seems like this is true. So far, you know, everything is pointing to these batteries will be much safer. They should have the capacity increases that we want. But there are some things that are going on here that I think you should know about. There is a Chinese automaker called Saic, or S-A-I-C. This is under its MG brand, and they announced the launch of the MG4 EV. This is a vehicle of theirs with a semi-solid-state battery. This was developed by, forgive me for my pronunciation, Suzhou Qingdao Power Technology, and it's been promoted as the world's first production electric vehicle

• 35:44Jay Novella?

  to carry something close to a solid-state battery. And I will remind you, though, this is a, it's a hybrid battery.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  It's a hybrid.

• 35:51Jay Novella?

  Hybrid, which is fine. You know, it's not fully solid-state, but it's taking, you know, serious steps in that direction. They're calling it like a technological bridge, then a final destination. That's all good. The creators of the battery say it has better cold-weather performance, a longer life cycle, enhanced safety compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries. These are all good things, if it's all true.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  What about the specific energy density?

• 36:14Jay Novella?

  Yeah, I'll get into that. At the same time, Nissan announced a partnership with LICAP, L-I-C-A-P Technologies, to accelerate development of an all-solid-state EV battery with a goal of commercial production around 2028. Now, that is sub-five years, and anything that goes below that five-year mark, my ears perk up because it makes me think, okay, they're definitely not-

• 36:39Speaker 02

  It's in the pipeline. It's not just a theory.

• 36:41Jay Novella?

  Correct, yes. Things are actually really happening here. So meanwhile, another company, QuantumScape, which is a well-funded US startup, they revealed a new, you know, COBRA process for producing ceramic- Separators, right? What's a ceramic separator? Uh, these are thin, heat resistant membranes that go inside of a solid state battery that keeps the anode and the cathode apart. While allowing the lithium ions to pass, making the cells safer, more stable. Uh, than the ones that, the current ones that have plastic films in that, in that same position. Sure, these could significantly improve manufacturing speed, which is a huge part of the problem. It is one of the biggest bottlenecks that are preventing solid state batteries from scaling up.

• 37:26Jay Novella?

  So this right there, that one piece of technology that was developed by this company could solve that problem. And solid state batteries are no longer going to have the, um, the, the manufacturing bottleneck to prevent them from going, you know, worldwide. Now there's another company called Stellantis. Have any of you guys ever heard of this company?

• 37:43Speaker 05

  No. Yes, I have heard of it.

• 37:46Jay Novella?

  Stellantis, it's one of those companies that, you know, wouldn't be a big surprise if you hadn't heard of it, but you know of it in a sense. Uh, Stellantis made headlines earlier this year when it validated solid state cells from factorial energy that can reportedly charge from 15 to 90% in just 18 minutes at room temperature. And those are good numbers. Now, what is Stellantis? They are ranked among the world's largest car makers and this year they are the fifth largest in global sales volume. And they own 14 car brands and I'll just name some of them here. You, you might recognize Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Peugeot, Ram trucks, you know, that's not all of them, but that's, that's the, uh, the ones I thought most people would know.

• 38:31Jay Novella?

  Incredible company. They, they, they own all those brands and this is a huge player in the, in the car market. So what we're seeing here is that there, there is real potential. There is real, um, growth happening. They're making improvements and, and they're, they're knocking down these hurdles as the years go by. We don't have any, anything right now that is like, here it is, we're, we've got a finished product and it's, you know, this much better. And, and all these, you know, all of the traits that it has blow away what we currently have. That's not, we're not here yet, but I do believe that that is coming. So the, uh, there's a payoff to, for them to develop this new technology because solid electrolytes could allow for denser energy storage, which is a big deal.

• 39:14Jay Novella?

  Uh, and it also means that the batteries could be lighter and longer range. All these properties are super important to batteries. They can suppress dendrite formation. We've talked about this on the show several times. These are like these needle like lithium growths that can cause short circuits in the lithium ion cells. Very, very bad that, you know, we don't want any of that going on. And without the flammable liquids inside, the risk of, you know, horrible fires happening significantly drops.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Wait, are they flammable or are they inflammable?

• 39:43Jay Novella?

  They're Inflammable means The current batteries we have

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Or a dozen.

• 39:50Jay Novella?

  Are flammable. You, if you haven't seen a video, look up a video of batteries catching on fire or whatever. And it's crazy what happens. There, there is, it's very flammable when it, when the battery is compromised. So these new solid state batteries are supposed to be much, much, much less flammable. And again, like imagine if they're using these on future electric airplanes or electric flying vehicles. You know, you don't want to be up 300 feet, a thousand feet, whatever, and have a fire happen. You know, that's like snakes on a plane, like no good, don't want it. You know, we gotta do everything we can to, to prevent that. On the consumer side, uh, faster charging could help make EV ownership feel more like filling up a gas tank, which is great, right? Cause you, you know, it's essentially how much time is it going to take?

• 40:34Jay Novella?

  I went through this with Steve when we went to that conference together about a month ago. And it was really not that big of a deal to charge up the car.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  It was fine. You have, we had lunch.

• 40:43Jay Novella?

  Yes. So what they're saying is, you know, the, the, the newer batteries, you know, you plug in for 10 minutes and you'll get most of your range back, which is really nice. They say for grid scale storage, the, uh, solid state batteries can make renewable energy more practical. Um, this would be by storing larger amounts of, of energy, safer, longer periods, everything. You know, it's got, it's got all the features that, that we want to hear about. So to look at this with a hard skeptical angle, there, there's a couple of catches here. We've been here before. Solid states have been five years away, like I said, for for over a decade. You know, these laboratory breakthroughs that we hear about in the news, you know, I'm reading probably all of them, right? I'm sure you guys are reading them, too.

• 41:25Jay Novella?

  They rarely translate into mass production because, you know, they're talking about like, hey, we achieved this, but you know, they haven't achieved mass production, which that's where the tires hit the road because great, you can do it in the lab and it's really small, but you want to build them out, make them, you know, have a huge amount of storage with all the other properties that we want. You know, most advancements don't make it when in regards to everything when it comes to technology of any kind. However, the MG4 has the semi-solid solid-state pack. It's impressive. It offers energy density similar to existing lithium-ion batteries. Scaling up solid electrolytes, it's difficult. It's a very hard thing for them to figure out.

• 42:07Jay Novella?

  The solid-state manufacturing defects can easily ruin their performance. To produce large quantities of these batteries at a reasonable cost, you know, this hasn't been fully demonstrated. Even if Nissan hits their 2028 goal, the batteries won't instantly replace lithium-ion batteries across the industry like we're all hoping. Again, the adoption is going to be gradual. As, you know, the costs slowly drop and the supply chain constraints slowly go away, you know, we should see these batteries like picking up momentum, but it isn't going to be a wake up in three months and they got it and, you know, the next year, your EV is going to have it. That's not where we're at. We have to get confirmation that they can be mass-produced at a competitive price. That's huge.

• 42:52Jay Novella?

  We need them to show real-world improvements in their range and their recharge cycle life, and they have to be independently validated for safety and performance. So as critical thinkers, you know, that's what we're looking for. So watch out for the claims, you know, be mindful of the fact that technology is progressing, and we're looking forward to hearing, you know, what happens over the next two to three years. Now, let me give you some numbers, Steve. You asked for numbers. The new solid-state batteries that we're talking about here, they're expected to be 20% to 50% higher energy density compared to today's typical lithium-ion packs, right?

• 43:28Speaker 02

  So do you have a watt-hours per kilogram?

• 43:30Jay Novella?

  Well, I'm going to tell you mileage, just so you can understand it. It's more readily accessible because watt-hours might mean something to you, but I bet for most people that listen to the show, it doesn't really speak that much. So let's just talk about miles. The current batteries we have 250 to 350 miles or 400 to 560 kilometers per charge for mid-range EVs. The first version of the solid-state batteries that are expected to come out, 400 to 450 miles or 640 to 725 kilometers with the same battery weight.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  With the same vehicle, I'm assuming, all of the variables being in the same.

• 44:10Jay Novella?

  But keep in mind that their density is more, meaning that, you know, because they have a higher density of energy storage, if they bring the weight up to the weight of current batteries, I think that's where we're getting the gain from, right? Because it's, you know, you want to compare the weight to weight because it really, with batteries, it comes down to how heavy they are.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, or you could give the watt hour per kilograms.

• 44:33Jay Novella?

  Yeah. So I am, like, a lot of other things going on, you know, mRNA technology, CRISPR, fusion, all these things. Like, I'm hopeful, I'm sitting in the wings, I'm waiting for, you know, the right people to say, "We got it." It's not, you know, happening across the board with all these technologies. What we are seeing is slow incremental process, which tracks perfectly with everything that is going on with science and technology advancements.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  All right, but let me, I think that was misleading. Come on, Steve, what do you got? No, no, no, let me, let me come back to you, because now when I'm looking up the watt hours per kilogram, which is, now you're comparing apples to apples, of the MG EV, semi-solid-state battery, they say it has an energy density of 180 watt hours per kilogram, right? 180. Current lithium-ion batteries are 160 to 250, so it's right in the same range. But not only that, the current silicone-anode lithium-ion batteries are already reaching 500 watt hours per kilogram.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  With prototypes getting up to 700.

• 45:37Jay Novella?

  Wow, that's a lot.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Solid state could potentially get up to 800, but I, here's the thing.

• 45:44Jay Novella?

  I read 900, but that's pie in the sky, I think.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's fine, but whatever, it's like, but the ultimate potential. So the thing is, silicon anode lithium ion batteries are already in production, already in mass production, and they use the same production equipment as the lithium ion batteries. And so I think for the next five years, that's going to become the state of the art. They're coming out in 26, 27 EVs with the, with these batteries.

• 46:10Jay Novella?

  Oh, I agree, Steve.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Basically with twice the energy density of the, of the current, you know, at typical.

• 46:16Jay Novella?

  Yeah, we've talked about this.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  We've talked about it.

• 46:18Jay Novella?

  That's coming for sure.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  So, so the solid state batteries are gonna, are years away from beating that.

• 46:25Jay Novella?

  But how safe are the, are those new batteries?

• 46:28Speaker 02

  They're safer than the current ones that, that we're using.

• 46:30Jay Novella?

  That's fantastic.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Now, the, I think the solid state has more potential, but I, I think that's, that's the battery of the 2030s, to be honest with you. That the next five plus years are going to be the, the age of the silicon nano lithium ion batteries, and then sometime in the 2030s, we might see solid state, unless something else eclipses it, but that's what I think. Because it's gonna be, it's gonna take that long to get the production costs down and the watt hour per kilogram, the energy density to, it's not fair to compare it to last year's battery. You gotta compare it to the thing that's gonna be coming out in a year. You know what I mean? At the same time.

• 47:08Jay Novella?

  Yeah, okay.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Which is already like in the 400, 500 watt hour per kilogram range. So, we'll see how it plays out, but it's all good. It's a good problem to have, right? We have two great options on the horizon, and like predicting which one is gonna eclipse the other, who cares? Whichever one does, it's good. We're, we're poised for doubling basically energy density in our car batteries, which is gonna be great.

• 47:31Jay Novella?

  What we need is Tony Stark to create a real arc reactor.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:35Jay Novella?

  And put them in everything.

• 47:37Speaker 05

  Is he listening now? Maybe he can.

• 47:39Jay Novella?

  He probably is.

• 47:39Speaker 05

  Contact us. Okay, good.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  I think you should only put it in his own chest and never use it for anything else.

• 47:45Jay Novella?

  I know, I guess he says it's dangerous. He doesn't want. That's too, that amount of power is dangerous.

• 47:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, but the radiation can make gold. Gold! That's like double the price, double the value.

• 47:56Jay Novella?

  Either way, you know what? I'm glad to see technological progress happen. I love it when these big companies are spending billions, billions and billions of dollars to push the ball forward because they, you know, of course, they're doing it to make money, but everybody benefits.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Alright, thanks Jay. Bob, tell us about non-surgical LASIK.

• 48:15Bob Novella?

  Yeah, this one was fascinating, guys. Researchers have described a new technique for fixing common vision issues like nearsightedness. And their experiments on rabbit test eyeballs show that it could really be an alternative to LASIK surgery that is completely non-invasive, pain-free, and other interesting adjectives. So, um, so they, they released this information at a recent fall meeting of the American Chemical Society. And these researchers were from Occidental College and the University of California at Irvine. Alright, so imagine treating your myopia or nearsightedness, right? In less than a minute, non-invasively, no scalpels, no lasers, no cutting, no pain. It seemed to me when I was reading this, it seemed more at home at the enterprise's sickbay.

• 48:59Bob Novella?

  And then, you know, rather than the clinic of the near future. It was really fairly remarkable, I think. It's such a cool idea that I never would have even guessed was even possible.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  Retinex 5.

• 49:09Bob Novella?

  Yeah, right. And, and this might be possible before we all die, except you, Steve. And this technique is called electromechanical reshaping.

• 49:22Bob Novella?

  This is where Steve should have said something similar to like, "Yeah, but you're older than me, Bob." And I would have said, "Yeah, but I'm Bob." But, okay, so that joke failed.

• 49:30Jay Novella?

  I'm sorry, I didn't feed you the line you were hoping, Bob.

• 49:32Bob Novella?

  Yeah, you know, it was, you know, it was a reasonable, reasonable probability.

• 49:36Jay Novella?

  Yeah, but I didn't play your game, Bob.

• 49:38Bob Novella?

  Yeah, that's okay. Still, everyone was laughing at you. Alright, so this works. Alright guys, serious. This works by essentially relaxing your cornea so that it can be molded into the optimum shape and then making it rigid again so it holds its new shape. So that's kind of like the, you know, 40,000-foot overview of what's happening here. So it's like taking Jell-O, this is the lame analogy I came up with. It's like taking Jell-O and making part of it softer so you can change its shape and then making it stiff again. So how do they do this? That's the key, right? How do you even do this? How do you soften the cornea like that? They do it by putting a platinum contact lens on your eye, specifically, right over

• 50:20Bob Novella?

  your cornea that has the precise desired shape of your cornea, right? So it's like a mold of what they want your cornea to be. So now the contact lens acts as an electrode and they apply a small current to it. And then that current, now here's the critical part, the current changes the pH of that part of your cornea that's actually touching the contact lens. And that's really the critical part because some of the components of your cornea are positively charged and some of them are negatively charged. And that attraction, these pieces of your cornea that are attracted to each other, that's what makes the cornea firm and taut. That's what makes it have, you know, the feel, and if you could touch your, you know, if you put on contacts, you've touched your cornea. It's stiff and firm.

• 51:05Bob Novella?

  That's what's doing it, is these negative and positive charges that are trying to get to each other. But when you change the pH, though, it weakens this positive-negative attraction so that the upper part of the cornea, the part that's specifically touching that platinum contact lens, that's going to relax a little bit. And when it relaxes and destabilizes, if you will, it makes it fit into that contact lens mold. Can you picture that? It softens up and then it kind of just goes slurp into the contact lens. And the difference between the cornea as it was and the contact lens, the difference is super small. I mean, it's not like this big change. It's really, really tiny.

• 51:48Bob Novella?

  I mean, that's all it takes to fix some of these vision problems. So then what they do is they take the, they turn the current off of the device and your cornea restifflens into its new shape and with no cuts, no tissue damage, and just pretty amazing. So how slick is that? I mean, they say there's no pain, but I think it probably would feel kind of weird, but who knows? Who knows, I'm sure it's it's pretty, I mean, I've had injections in my eyelid, so this probably would be absolutely not even noticeable by me.

• 52:17Cara Santa Maria?

  They probably, do they make like, kind of numbing drops that aren't overly intense?

• 52:22Bob Novella?

  Um, I've had, yeah, I've had numbing, um, eye drops that are, that they might have to do, uh, I don't know. It seems, it's, they've mentioned multiple times that this, you know, this is, there's no, there's no cutting, there's no blades or lasers, so it's, it just, I think it just might feel weird, but I don't know.

• 52:38Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, but I mean, for people for whom it's like, it ekes them out to have like, somebody pushing on their eyeball, or like, just that weird feeling, you could probably just numb it.

• 52:45Bob Novella?

  Yeah, that's true. That's true, yeah, sure, do the drops, that's fine, they're, they're, they're not. Alright, so to test the technique, they tried it on enucleated rabbit eyeballs, and so that means they use just rabbit eyeballs with no other parts of the rabbit attached, ex vivo, if you will, poor bunnies. So they used 12 of them, they did the electromechanical reshaping procedure on them to correct for nearsightedness on these 12 rabbit eyeballs. All the tests succeeded, uh, there was no trauma to the eye, and, uh, and then they did subsequent, of course, they did some measurements and close-up measurements of the, of the cornea, and they showed that it was, all the corrections that they wanted to get to were, were absolutely successful. And one of the articles I read showed that it reached a, uh, it showed a negative 3.12

• 53:28Bob Novella?

  diopter change in the, in the refractive power of the corneas. So, um, I think, I'm not familiar with, I mean, I don't have, I just have readers, I don't really have regular, normal glasses, so I'm not familiar with, with diopters, but 3.12, I think, I think that's fairly standard. Pretty, it seems to me they could make almost any change that you would normally make with LASIK, they could probably do with this procedure, it seems. And then they also said that there were some other experiments that apparently show that this procedure can also, uh, potentially treat some chemical-caused cloudness to the cornea. Uh, there's some, you know, we've all heard of your lens being clouded, um, but also apparently the cornea can get cloudy, and if, if that happens, if it gets bad, from what I, from

• 54:13Bob Novella?

  what I briefly read on this, is that you would need a corneal transplant, and that doesn't sound like fun, but this, this technique could Potentially treat that as well. So that's pretty much the extent of the news item in terms of what they've accomplished, where they are right now. So what's the future of electromechanical reshaping? So this is the initial stages of research. They go to pains to say, yeah, we're just really getting started with this. There's still a lot of work to do. Dr. Brian Wong, who's a professor and surgeon at the University of California, described the next steps as "the long march through animal studies that are detailed and precise." What do you think, about five to 10 years? So he's like girding his loins. For this type of thing, I have no idea what it could take.

• 54:58Bob Novella?

  I mean, so I'm not even gonna throw out a number here. Yeah, it could be 10 to 20. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me at all. Obviously, what the team's gonna do in the near future is determine, you know, what kind of cornea corrections are possible with the electromechanical reshaping. Certainly, they'll be trying, you know, for the full trifecta, nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. But remember, presbyopia, that can't be directly corrected with this technique, since that's a lens issue, and this is the cornea. It's treating the cornea, it's not treating the lens. But apparently, it may also, it may be able to help a little bit by tweaking the cornea to fix, to help, or at least improve, presbyopia. So there's a little bit of hope for me for this, because that's what I have.

• 55:43Bob Novella?

  So that's unfortunate for me. But still, fascinating technique that could potentially, you know, be a really viable alternative for Lasik. And Lasik's great. There's like a 95% success rate. Almost every one of my family's had it. Many people in my family have had it, and they've all done fantastic with it. But there are people, there are some people that don't tolerate it. Or, don't forget, when you do Lasik, you are, you're cutting, you're using a laser to cut into the cornea. So you are, you know, you are destabilizing the cornea. And it could have, your worst-case scenarios, I'm sure, are not fun with that type of, you know, when you mess with the structural integrity of the cornea, you know, things,

• 56:27Bob Novella?

  when it goes bad, it goes bad, even though it's extremely rare. So it seems to me that this type of technology, where you're not even doing anything like that, that it would potentially be even, you know, even greater than 95% success rate, it seems, based on this technique, as far as I could tell, anyway. But so, just an interesting little new research that these guys have done that look interesting and very promising.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  All right, we'll have to give an update on this in five to 10 years.

• 56:51Bob Novella?

  Yes.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  All right, thanks, Bob.

• 56:53Bob Novella?

  Sure.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  All right, guys, again, I like to start my news items with questions. There was a recent study looking at the comments online, and this was to videos on YouTube and Twitter. And what do you think was the most common response when somebody objected to the content of the video or a previous comment?

• 57:18Speaker 05

  You mean, how did those people reply in the negative?

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 05

  You're a jerk. I mean, probably some...

• 57:24Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, yeah, probably just being like, you're a dick or something.

• 57:27Speaker 05

  Didn't address the subject at all, just didn't like...

• 57:30Cara Santa Maria?

  You're a shill for Big Pharma.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  That's exactly correct. It was an ad hominem attack. That's the most common response online, which I do not find surprising at all. So they examined 6,500 comments replies to trending news videos on YouTube and Twitter, and identified seven distinct objection tactics. And they said, like, which one was the most common? The most common was the ad hominem. So I just want to mainly use this as a jumping off point to talk about that phenomenon. So first of all, I want to make a distinction between an ad hominem logical fallacy and an ad hominem attack. They're just talking about an ad hominem attack, which, like, if I said, "Jay, your meatballs suck",

• 58:17Speaker 02

  that would be kind of a... Or, "You're a bad..." More to the point, "You suck at making meatballs", that would be an ad hominem attack, right? But an ad hominem logical fallacy would be like, "Jay, you're wrong about this because your meatballs are terrible, because you can't make meatballs." So concluding that someone's wrong because of their negative characteristics is the fallacy. Just saying...

• 58:39Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, it's like what we were talking about earlier. Like, Elon Musk is a dick, so Tesla's suck.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Right, right. Saying someone's a jerk is not a logical fallacy. It's just a personal attack. Saying that they're wrong about something because they're a jerk is a logical fallacy.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Does that make sense? Yep.

• 58:57Jay Novella?

  Yes.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  So oftentimes I will have people make that mistake. They do the fallacy fallacy thing, like, oh, you're wrong because you're committing an ad hominem fallacy. It's like, first of all, no, they're just calling you a jerk because you are a jerk. And second, that doesn't make them wrong anyway.

• 59:13Jay Novella?

  Right.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  Just means that that's not a good or a very, a nice or a viable, really, line of argument. Doesn't mean that the conclusion is wrong. That's the fallacy fallacy. And I'm sure you guys do as well. I'm not sure if you do as much as I do because I'm managing two blogs. And managing blogs involves paying somewhat attention to the comments. I occasionally dip into the comments on my TikTok videos and on our YouTube. And sometimes even on our, just when we put the show up on our Patreon page. You know, it is absolutely the default mode of most comments is to be attack anyone you disagree with. And oftentimes, you know, I had an anti-vaxxer come onto my blog recently.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  And out of the gate opens up with a frontal assault of ad hominem attacks. You know, in terms of like, you never look at the evidence, you're a shill, you're corrupt, blah, blah, blah. Of course, it could also get even worse if people use, you know, people have like racist sexist, whatever. Yeah. Can be part of those attacks. But the thing is, is that skeptics do it too.

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  Oh, sure.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  And we do have to be very aware that we tend to do that. It's so tempting. And again, it's not necessarily even wrong. But as soon as you start to, as soon as you frame your feedback towards the person, like, not that this argument is weak or this argument is wrong or it's not backed up by... Citations of evidence, or whatever, but saying that you're gullible, or you have these negative attributes, or you're a true believer, or whatever, that's really, it's a weak form

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  of argument. Sometimes it evolves into a logical fallacy, if you start to use that as the basis for saying that they're wrong. So you have to be very, very careful with that. And this happens almost every time we talk, like when we were just doing this today on the livestream, we were doing a long format review of a video, and it was horrible. The person was a psychiatrist who was basically shilling her book where she says there's evidence for life after death, and dualism, and all these things. And she's just trying to brand herself, make her own guru brand for herself, right? But it's just inevitable

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  that we get into a conversation of how much does she believe her own nonsense? How much is she just straight up lying? Is she a fraud? Or is she a true believer? Is she sincere? And how fake is this whole thing? The thing is, we usually don't know, and it usually doesn't matter. You know what I mean?

• 1:02:13Jay Novella?

  That's the point.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  You're better off just not focusing on that.

• 1:02:16Jay Novella?

  Don't go there.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, unless, again, my standard is, if somebody, if I have actual evidence that someone's a fraud, that's different. Right? We've talked about psychic surgery before.

• 1:02:29Jay Novella?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  Somebody's palming the chicken parts and pretending to pull them out of people. That's not a true believer. That's a magic trick. That is deliberate deception. There's really no other way to interpret that. If you catch somebody in explicit deception, then you could draw conclusions from that.

• 1:02:49Jay Novella?

  Peter Popoff.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Peter Popoff, yeah. You have the radio signals from backstage, right? Things like that. That's clear fraud. But most of the time, it's, again, we talk, this gets back to the clean narrative type of thing. Most of the time, it's a complicated mix. And I think people have You know, some kind of level of belief, right? But then they cut corners and they have some awareness that they're cutting corners. And they engage in motivated reasoning and they may have some sense that, you know, yeah, they're really, you know, making a lawyer's case for one position and, you know, what do you mean, like really pushing hard on the narrative that is in their interest.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  That's not the same thing as lying or being a fraud. It is more of what psychologists call bullshit, literally, as a technical term, meaning an indifference to whether something is true or not. Lying means you have to know it's not true. Bullshit means you don't care if it's true or not. So I think that most people are somewhere between sincere and self-deluded and bullshitting. Or the, or sort of the pious fraud, where they are saying something that they know wasn't strictly true, but they think it's justified because they do believe the conclusion. You can't read people's minds and you can't really know. We, so it's, it's, just police yourself. Don't just go right for the ad hominem.

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  It's cheap, it's easy, doesn't really get you anywhere. You know, try to discipline yourself to, in my opinion, this is just more effective, especially if you're tussling, you know, in the comment section of something online. Uh, cause the, the conversation just degrades so quickly once somebody goes ad hominem. Especially if somebody else, that's what I find myself doing it most, when somebody else goes there first. You know what I mean? Like they come at me guns blazing.

• 1:04:46Speaker 05

  Whoa, yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  You know, it's, it's hard to be charitable at that point. But you are always. I, I tend to be, at least the first time. But I do, I will occasionally say, oh yeah, that's spoken like a true conspiracy theorist nut job.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Occasionally, those kinds of things will come out.

• 1:05:03Speaker 05

  I love those. Seriously, what do you want to do? Invest your time in somebody who's gonna throw ad hominins around or invest time with someone who's gonna try to, you know, make some rational points about things? I mean, it's a no-brainer to me. I would, I wouldn't waste my time with those people.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, remember, see, most of the time I'm engaging in a conversation with somebody online, it's for the audience, not for them. It's not about them. It's about people who are onlookers to the conversation, setting the record straight. Especially in my own blog, I'm not gonna let propaganda drop on my own blog and not straightening it out. Then we all, you know, I also have continuously confront, you guys tell me what you think about this. The endless dilemma of how heavy-handed moderation you do, because the way I see it is a catch-22. If you have light moderation, you can't have no moderation, right? No moderation is just crazy time, like you can't do that.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  But then you will, you will just accumulate psychopaths over time, right? You have to be able to at least get rid of the psychopaths. But if you have a light moderation, you do end up with a lot of trolls, although I would argue that trolls in the, is often. There, yes, there are some behaviors, but it's also in the eye of the beholder. If you have heavy moderation, you end up with an echo chamber. You, you, then you can have a pleasant conversation only with people you agree with.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  So there's some utility to allowing the trolls in?

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  Well, I, you know, I'm always trying to allow enough for there to be active conversation. And as long as I feel like it's being handled, but there, you know, there's, again, there's this big gray zone of people who are...

• 1:06:40Speaker 05

  But it's good to practice those skills too.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then I get, other commenters complain about like not having more heavy-handed moderation. It's kind of a no-win scenario.

• 1:06:51Speaker 05

  You can't satisfy everybody.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  It's kind of a no-win scenario, I know. It's like they poison it for everybody.

• 1:06:55Speaker 05

  As long as you're consistent in your policy, I think, then, and you set one and that's it. It's the way it is.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I mean, but there's always, there's always going to be some subjectivity in that kind of policy, but...

• 1:07:07Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, you can't avoid that.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm, yeah, I'm fairly consistent with, we're, I don't moderate science-based medicine. Other people do that and they're way more heavy-handed than I am neurologically. I'm pretty light. I ban people on a regular basis, but it's only the worst of the worst. I have a pretty high tolerance for people who I completely disagree with. As long as they're having a conversation, you know what I mean? As long as I think there's some utility to it. It's still frustrating, it is frustrating for people to drop absolute propaganda or to be corrected on the same misinformation over and over and over again. You know, like, there's no learning curve. It's frustrating.

• 1:07:48Cara Santa Maria?

  Of course.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  But if I banned everyone who did all of those things, there would be nobody left. You know what I mean? There would be like, three people who all agree with each other. So...

• 1:07:57Cara Santa Maria?

  That's like disappointing to hear.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  It's just, I know, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. And part of it also is cultivating sort of a culture by example. You know? That's why I think it's so, you know, especially like for me, like, it's my own blog. If I let loose, then it gives everybody permission to do it, right? In a way. But yeah, I struggle, I just say, I struggle with, like, where is the optimal moderation policy? You know? I don't think you could fix the problem of internet balls and, you know, all the problems with social media with, with comment policy. It's just trade-offs, and it's like, pick your trade-off. But there's no, there's no, there's no solution, there's only trade-offs, right? There's only trade-offs. The saying goes. Right. But I do think that this one is kind of a no-brainer.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  It's like, just police yourself as much as you can about the ad hominem. It's just, it just poisons the conversation, it brings it down, it doesn't accomplish anything. And it earns you a lot of cred that you, it allows you to point out the nonsense and the bad arguments and all that stuff. Anyway, food for thought. You guys have any other thoughts on that?

• 1:09:03Cara Santa Maria?

  It's tough. I mean, yeah, obviously, it's a, it's not just a problem for you.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  I know. This is my personal experience. This is the internet.

• 1:09:11Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  This is what I study shows. Most people respond with an ad hominem attack. That's just the, that's how we go.

• 1:09:18Jay Novella?

  I'm, uh, I'm online all the time, arguing with people and everything. I mean, I take what you said to heart many, many, many years ago, Steve, and that is, you're gonna give yourself like, you know, a minute of satisfaction, typing, you know, the thing, the, the basically, oh yeah, you know, getting, you know, pushing back on that person. But if you take the high road all the time, you know, and they're the only one that is throwing insults and everything, the people who read it are gonna feel that difference significantly.

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  The other, the other sort of guiding principle, it's like, it's a cliche, but it's true. Don't mud wrestles with the pig, right? Cause you're gonna lose and they like it. You know, you're just getting down in the mud with them.

• 1:10:00Speaker 05

  Everyone gets dirty and they like it.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, they like it. So don't argue on their level. They're, they will, you know what I mean? That's, they want you to argue on that level. Uh, because all of the superiority of your arguments and your evidence goes away if you're arguing, if you're trading personal insults. You've now brought yourself down to their level, basically. That's, that's actually a strategy that they might consciously use if not, I think it's often tried consciously.

• 1:10:26Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, they try to trap, trap people? Sure, it's a trap. It's a trap.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, but if you keep it, let's just keep it with, on the level of evidence and logic, that's the area where we have the distinct advantage, or should, right? All right, Evan.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  You have yet another update on 3I Atlas. What is that bad boy doing now?

• 1:10:47Speaker 05

  This, this is going to be in the news until this thing makes its closest approach in October.

• 1:10:53Speaker 02

  Till it leaves the solar system.

• 1:10:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that, that too. So I don't know, is this like one of the main news items of the year? So, science news items? Maybe. 3I Atlas, is it making its own light? That's a provocative claim that has bubbled up around 3I Atlas, which is that newly, newly discovered interstellar visitor now cruising through the inner solar system. It might be emitting its own light rather than merely shining reflected sunlight. Now, can anyone guess as to who the prime mover behind this particular claim is?

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Avi Loeb.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  Avi Loeb, of course. Is there anyone else more invested on this planet in this object being a spacecraft? I can't, I can't think of a single person. And more on Avi in a minute. And yes, his claims are at odds with the best available observations, which continue to describe 3I Atlas as an active comet whose visible glow comes from sunlight scattering off of dust and gas. A real quick reminder of what exactly 3I Atlas is. Uh, that is an interstellar comet, basically, that's coming on through our system. It was discovered July 1 to 2025 by the Atlas

• 1:12:09Speaker 05

  Survey Telescope in Chile, hence its name. Uh, 3I, cause it's the third of these objects that has been discovered. So, uh, 4I, 5I will, will someday make, make their appearances, but until then, 3I is what we're looking at. It is on a strongly hyperbolic path, and that's proof that it came from outside of our solar system. The Perihelion will be October 29, 2025. So that's why I said in October. Whoa, was that? You're Halloween, right, Bob?

• 1:12:38Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Speaker 05

  The Halloween Comet. I'm loving it.

• 1:12:41Bob Novella?

  That's cool.

• 1:12:41Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:12:44Speaker 05

  They're still figuring out exactly how big this thing is. Hubble imaging, Hubble's been keeping track of this thing. A few others have as well, but they're saying it's somewhere between about half a kilometer and maybe as large as almost six kilometers in diameter. That seems like a wide range, but I guess that's the best that they've got right now. The Rubin Observatory has also taken images of it, and they, it was analyzed as part of a commissioning study, independently verified that there is no evidence for significant non-gravitational acceleration. In other words, this thing is not propelling itself. It is working under the known forces of gravity and how gravity works. So not a rocket-like

• 1:13:26Speaker 05

  push that you would otherwise perhaps see from something that would be of alien design, shall we say. And yeah, so multiple teams have now reported these observations. They are consistent with an icy dusty comet. Water ice features inferred in the coma, material that reflects sunlight rather than generating it. That is where the evidence is pointing right now. But, you know, Avi Loeb has other thoughts. I took this, let's see, I took one paragraph from his blog from the other day that he wrote about this. Alternatively, 3I Atlas could be a spacecraft powered by nuclear energy, and the dust emitted from its frontal surface might be from dirt that accumulated on its surface during its interstellar

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  travel. This cannot be ruled out, but it requires better evidence to be viable. Interesting thought, you know, and why would he, why would he posit that? And is anyone else really positing that? I couldn't find anyone else who is suggesting that that is the likelihood or really comes into the, comes into the equation here at all. I suppose it could be, but if you know Avi Loeb, he kind of has a predisposition again for this thing. And so far, all the objects that have come through 1I, 2I, and now 3I as being interstellar spacecraft. Heck, he wrote a book about it.

• 1:14:49Speaker 05

  Extraterrestrial, the first sign of intelligent life beyond Earth, published in 2021. And yeah, so yeah, he has definitely a history of this, but the data is showing otherwise. And again, this is high resolution imaging from Hubble Space Telescope, among other observations that have been made. They're keeping a very close eye on this. Everything is, there's no clear evidence for central condensation from the analysis. It is classic comet behavior attributable to a star-like point source nucleus dominating the light is not the case. This is definitely, definitely what you would see. It's all well

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  within the range, well within the range of how we observe comets and the light it admits. So I really don't know where Avi Loeb is coming up with this, other than he's trying to, you know, do some retrofitting here to, to meet his preconceived.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Evan, my understanding is that the argument is, so it has a coma and it's glowing, but there's no tail. If it were a comet, it should have a tail. Therefore, it's not a comet. Therefore, it's not a coma and it's glowing for some other reason.

• 1:15:59Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  But here's the thing, it has a freaking tail.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  Right. That's everything I've read.

• 1:16:04Speaker 02

  It has, it's a short tail. It's not a typical dramatic cometary tail, but there's one definite and another probable reason for that. The definite one is that it's not that close to the sun yet. Give it time. We would expect, so the closer it gets, it's the more of a tail it's developing, like a typical comet. The second thing is though, that it may not have the same composition as regular comets. You know, this is the first interstellar comet that we have detected. If there's more dust on the comet, on the surface, then that may make, delay the volatiles becoming gas, gaseous and forming a big dramatic

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  tail. And right now, there's the short dusty tail. But once all that dust goes away, then we'll start to see a more of a dramatic, typical comet tail. We'll see. But again, it's all within the realm of astronomy, right? There's no reason to go for, to reach for the alien hypothesis here, unless you're, I don't know, just trying to promote yourself and sell books and get donations and stuff. But yeah, it's just. And every prediction he's made has turned out to be wrong.

• 1:17:15Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  Every time he says, "Oh, it's doing the, you know, it's, it has this feature, it's bigger than it should be." "Oh, it's actually not that big. It doesn't have a tail. Actually, it does have a tail." You know, everything with all these interstellar objects, so it's not, not impressive.

• 1:17:29Speaker 05

  No, not impressive, and he has a bad track record of, of, of doing this, you know. I, I brought up a news item, I think it was two years ago, when they're, you know, they got some of these metal sphericals off.

• 1:17:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 05

  They collected off the floor.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that was a good one.

• 1:17:43Speaker 05

  Right, of the Pacific Ocean, and Avi Loeb said, "Oh, yeah, that was from the interstellar, uh, interstellar meteor that crashed, and here it was." But it turns out it wasn't from that, because he was using data, it was seismic data, basically suggesting that there was a loud explosion over here, there's where the crash was. No, what it turned out is that, uh, where the instruments had recorded that, there was a truck driving by the facility, and it recorded the rumble of the truck, not the, right? So it's like the kind of thing. Right, exactly, bad science and stuff, you know, like, you know, we've seen, what was it, in, uh, Virginia or West Virginia, where the microwave was interfering with, uh, with signals, and they thought it was alien signals, right?

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  So those kinds of ideas, though, don't even come into his entire calculus when, before he's making, suggesting these things. He must certainly know about terrestrial interference on measurements and things.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  He'll bring it up, he'll pay it lip service, but the thing is, you know, you, there's no reason at this point to even hypothesize this could be alien.

• 1:18:43Speaker 05

  Exactly, exactly. Uh, the only, other than to try to retrofit what he's talked about before, because he has said, what, the, uh, Umumua was a, uh,

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  A Umumua, yeah.

• 1:18:54Speaker 05

  Interstellar, interstellar visitor, uh, under, you know, under its own propulsion of some, some system. So that's basically the rehashing of this, again. So, that's it, and, uh, you know, certainly the, the media likes it, they made it, it made it to headlines everywhere, so, uh...

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  Which is probably why it's happening.

• 1:19:11Speaker 05

  We'll know a lot more about it as it gets closer.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  All right, thanks, Evan. Jay, it's Who's That Noisy Time?

• 1:19:18Jay Novella?

  You wanna do that again, huh?

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:19:20Jay Novella?

  All right, guys, last week I played this noisy.

• 1:19:40Jay Novella?

  Yeah, so that's the thing.

• 1:19:42Cara Santa Maria?

  Don't like it.

• 1:19:43Jay Novella?

  I'm not surprised, Kara.

• 1:19:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Don't like that thing.

• 1:19:50Jay Novella?

  Anybody want to take a stab? It's some kind of critter, right?

• 1:19:54Cara Santa Maria?

  Anemocute?

• 1:19:55Speaker 05

  A living organism made those noises. Or it's two living organisms. Donald Duck on meth.

• 1:20:03Jay Novella?

  Somebody wrote in about Donald Duck. Well, the first person here, the name is, they gave me their name phonetically, so I'm loading that into my head. So it's Kiran, Kiran Ru- Ruane, cool name. Said, "Hi Jake, greetings from Dublin. First time guessing. This sounds like a duck laughing at a fountain." I thought that that was a very on-the-nose guess. Somebody did write in something about Daffy Duck. So there is a duck noise in there. Evil Eye wrote in and said, "I don't know why, but my guess is a pissed-off catfish." Catfish. "I know they can make the sound of chewing rubber, but this guy sounds like he's being noodled." Whatever that means. Cooper Parish said, "Howdy, sounds like an underwater recording of a beaver to me."

• 1:20:45Jay Novella?

  Okay, so, straight out of the gate, nobody won this week, and I was certain that this one was going to be easy. Now Kara, you're on to something. I know you, and you know me. So what is it?

• 1:20:56Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, is it a marine mammal?

• 1:20:58Jay Novella?

  It is!

• 1:21:00Cara Santa Maria?

  Wow. My, my dislike for the noises they make is really consistent.

• 1:21:05Jay Novella?

  Yeah, it is. I mean, when you said that, I'm like, "Oh my God," and nobody guessed it. I can't believe it.

• 1:21:10Cara Santa Maria?

  I only guessed it because you said that. I never would have thought that was a marine mammal.

• 1:21:15Jay Novella?

  Yeah, but you still didn't like it.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  Vanity?

• 1:21:17Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly. My brain knew it was a marine mammal.

• 1:21:19Jay Novella?

  From the person who sent it in, Andrew Denman, he said, "Apparently, it's the vocala- apparently, it's the vocalization of a monk seal." But it does kind of sound like a human in there, and he thought it was funny. He said, "It sounds like he's saying, 'Work, work, work, work.'" So listen to it again.

• 1:21:44Jay Novella?

  Work, work, work, work.

• 1:21:45Speaker 05

  It's like a chant, so it's a Gregorian monk seal.

• 1:21:48Jay Novella?

  They make lots of other noises, but you know, the underwater noise was there. It has that same sound as like all the other aquatic animals that, you know, like seals and stuff. So anyway, I'm surprised, but I'm not disappointed because I know how hard this game actually is. I'm the guy, you know, coming from the guy who knows the answers every single time, like even before I listen to it, I usually know the answer. So anyway, good try, everybody. Lots of fun guesses. There was a hell of a lot of not ready for primetime guesses that people sent me that are funny, but I couldn't use for obvious reasons. You know who you are. But still send me that stuff because I laugh. We have a new noisy this week. This was sent in by a listener named, and here we go.

• 1:22:31Jay Novella?

  Good luck pronouncing my name. It's Gabor Fagarashi. Gabor, let me know if I did good on that one. And here it is.

• 1:22:49Jay Novella?

  I did pick that one because it has the same cadence as the previous one. I thought that would be fun. So if you think you know what this week's noisy is, or you heard something cool, you can email me at [email protected]. The only thing I want to tell you is if you enjoy the work that we do, if you think it's important, please consider becoming a patron to help support the work. You can go to patreon.com/skepticsguide and you can join our mailing list. You can go to theskepticsguide.org and you can find a link for that there. Thanks.

• 1:23:22Speaker 02

  All right. Thanks, Jay. Going to do a quick email. A bunch of people wrote in about this. I'm going to read one example. This comes from Simon, who says, "Hi, Stephen T. I'm probably not the only one to point out that there are many elemental drugs apart from lithium." While many indications are for replacement in physiological deficiency, for example, iron, these have pharmacodynamic properties used to treat a distinct disorder. And he lists several: magnesium and eclampsia, calcium and hemorrhage and massive transfusion, arsenic and chemo, gold in rheumatoid arthritis, silver in burns, and it's an antimicrobial, iodine in thyroid disease. So I hope this provides some additional information for listeners.

• 1:24:05Speaker 02

  I use many in my work as an anesthetist, anesthesiologist in your parlance. I guess I think he means Americans. Kind regards. So yeah, so and other people wrote in with other examples. Some, I think of the examples that people wrote in with were straight up wrong. Like, somebody was claiming that oxygen is a drug. So it might, in some instances, be a regulatory drug. You might have to write a prescription for it if you're using it to treat something specific. But oxygen is not a pharmaceutical. This is, I think, at the end of the day, let me just say this, at the end of the day, this is about another categorization issue. And how do you categorize a drug? What is the difference between a drug

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  and a nutrient? Or something that is just an electrolyte? Or something that's physiological? What makes it an actual pharmaceutical? And it is actually tricky, right, to have an operational definition that is absolutely consistent. A couple of people mistook things, like they said, well, you know, like diethyl prox sodium is counts because of the sodium. It's like, well, the sodium isn't the active part. That's just makes it into a salt that you could digest. But it's the diethyl prox, which is the drug, right? So the difference is it's lithium, you know, carbonate, or lithium orateate. Lithium is the drug.

• 1:25:24Cara Santa Maria?

  But what about, I take, I take sodium oxybate.

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so for-

• 1:25:29Cara Santa Maria?

  That is sodium.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, what do you take it for?

• 1:25:32Cara Santa Maria?

  Z-Wave. It's my sleep medication.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, but that's what, but so that's the other thing is-

• 1:25:37Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, it's an oxybate of sodium.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  But, does-

• 1:25:41Cara Santa Maria?

  But-

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  Is it, are the properties derived from the sodium? Or are they derived from a new chemical structure?

• 1:25:49Cara Santa Maria?

  It's the sodium salt of hydroxybutyric acid of GHB.

• 1:25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that, is that the active ingredient? So this is where it all gets funny, like, so he's had arsenic and it, and from what I could find, the chemotherapy for, of arsenic is arsenic trioxide. Is that still counted as elemental arsenic? And of course, the lithium is not in its elemental form, it's the salt form. But, but trioxylate does not, is not the same thing as just putting it into a salt so you could consume it. It's changing the chemical properties of it. I do think his gold example is correct. Gold for rheumatoid arthritis, as far as I could see, it is just gold, you know? Different forms of gold, but at the end of the day, it's basically, it's gold the way lithium is lithium.

• 1:26:31Cara Santa Maria?

  What about something like, you know, I take iron, like Venifer, which is just iron sucrose in my vein, because I don't make enough iron, or I don't have enough iron.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would consider that a nutrient, right?

• 1:26:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, but it's, but it's called a drug.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  It's regulated, like, it's a regulatory drug. So, again, so what's a, in the United States, you're a drug if you are, if you treat a disease. That's it. Doesn't matter what it is. And if you make a drug-like claim for it, you're regulated like a drug, no matter what it is. So that, you can't use that, that's like the oxygen thing. You can't use that definition as a, to say that this is scientifically a pharmaceutical.

• 1:27:09Cara Santa Maria?

  So how would you describe a pharmaceutical, like, like, or how would you describe what you would consider a drug?

• 1:27:17Speaker 02

  So, again, it's hard to come up with an absolute, an ironclad operational definition, but I would include it's something that has pharmacological-like activity in the body. It is doing something beyond its effects physiologically as just a nutrient. It right, it's not just a source of calories. It's not just a balancing your electrolytes. It's not just, again, something, a vitamin or, or something that's a basic nutrient. And it is, you know, it is acting, it is having specific, you know, pharmacological activity in the body. It's binding to a receptor or something like that. But granted, there are things in the gray zone, 100%.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  So silver for as an, as a topical antimicrobial. Antimicrobials are interesting because they could do nothing to your body. Their activity is against bacteria or viruses, right? Something else. And if it's topical, well, a lot of things could be a topical antimicrobial that aren't really drugs. You know what I mean? Is honey a drug if you put it on a wound in order to have antimicrobial effects? And here's one that's, I think, solidly in the gray zone. And again, I hate the name nutraceutical for how overused it is. Right. But if there's anything that I think legitimately is a nutraceutical, it's this, and that's magnesium. So magnesium is an electrolyte, right? You get it in food.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  It's a nutrient. It's a micronutrient. However, if you take it in a high dose, it begins to have drug-like activity, right? So magnesium at 400 milligrams a day can treat seizures or migraines or eclampsia or cardiac rhythm. What's eclampsia? It's hypertension at the end of pregnancy. And it could also give you, it could treat constipation. It could loosen your stools. It could even cause diarrhea if you take too much of it. So it's really having not just nutrient effects, but pharmacological effects in high enough doses. Yeah. But that's true of, of most nutrients, right? In a high enough dose, it becomes a toxin, and toxins are drugs. That's basically the same thing.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  So definitionally, it's tricky. And you, and you, there's lots of things that you could say are having, are drugs and from one perspective or another. But I think their primary action really is as a nutrient. Lithium, I think, still is kind of different, you know, in that it really is just lithium that is having real, straight-up pharmacological effects. They're not nutrient. They're not radiation. Another one, like saying, you know, radioactive elements, if it's that, the radioactivity, does that make it a drug? That's, that's, right? That's, that's interesting to think about that.

• 1:30:04Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, I mean, because the, it, again, it totally depends. Because I think for a lot of people, their definition of a drug is it's something that treats something.

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  That's a therapeutic, but isn't a pharmacological agent. So iodine's a great one, because iodine is just really just a nutrient. But if you take iodine when you're exposed to radioactivity, it could block the uptake of radioactive iodine and protect you from that. But also, you can give people radioactive iodine to just to kill their thyroid gland. And is that a drug? Or is that just a way of delivering radioactivity to a targeted location? There's no right or wrong answer here. It's like, how many continents are there, right? It's like, there's no necessarily objectively right or wrong answer. But it did bring up this categorization thing yet again, where it's like, wow, really is hard to fully, fully operationally define like a pharmaceutical. You know what I mean?

• 1:30:56Speaker 02

  We tend to use a little bit of wiggle room verbiage when we describe things like that. Then like it typically has this or, but we leave, leave the room open for these edge cases, like high doses of magnesium or radioactive isotopes or whatever. You know what I mean? Interesting. Okay.

• 1:31:15Speaker 05

  Google's AI says there are seven continents.

• 1:31:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:19Speaker 05

  Just saying.

• 1:31:21Speaker 02

  We've had that conversation on the show before.

• 1:31:22Speaker 05

  Oh, yes. We'll get 12 emails on this one.

• 1:31:25Speaker 02

  Like, is Europe and Asia one continent or two? Why is it two?

• 1:31:28Speaker 05

  New Zealand, Zealandia.

• 1:31:30Speaker 02

  Did, my favorite is, so when they made the Panama Canal, did they separate North America and South America into two continents? Was it one continent before? How thin does the land bridge have to be for it to not count as one continent? There's no right or wrong answer here, right?

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  All right, let's move on with science or fiction.

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  Each week I come up with three science news items, or facts, two real and one fake, and then I challenge my panel of skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. Just three regular news items this week. Y'all all ready? Yep. Here we go. Item number one: Astrophysicists have published exact solutions to Einstein's gravity-relativity equations that allow for pre-Big Bang cosmology. Item number two: Scientists observe a unique supernova that observationally confirms for the first time the layers of different elements that make up the deep internal structure of massive stars. Item number three: Researchers have created a protein qubit that can function inside biological

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  systems and potentially be used for imaging inside living cells. Jay, go first.

• 1:32:55Jay Novella?

  Okay, Steve. Astrophysicists, they have published exact solutions to Einstein's gravity-relativity equations and that allow for pre-Big Bang cosmology. I mean, come on. Do I even have to read the other ones? I don't know about you guys. Like, that just seems utterly impossible.

• 1:33:15Speaker 05

  That's what the cow said.

• 1:33:16Jay Novella?

  Item number two: Scientists observe a unique supernova that observationally confirms for the first time the layers of different elements that make up the deep internal structure of massive stars. I completely believe that one. I think that one is science. Researchers have created a protein qubit that can function inside biological systems and potentially be used for imaging inside living cells. A protein qubit. I don't understand that.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  A qubit is the fundamental component of a quantum computer. It's like a bit to a conventional computer.

• 1:33:49Jay Novella?

  They created a protein one. That's incredible. I don't know, Steve. I mean, I gotta go with the first one here about the astrophysicists. I mean, how could they possibly, how could they absolutely claim that they can do... Nope, that one's a fiction. I can't imagine that there's anything based on reality with that.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  Okay, Bob.

• 1:34:11Bob Novella?

  Exact solutions to Einstein's gravity-relativity equations. I mean, just pre-Big Bang cosmology. Well, that allow? Oh, man, you're just... Fuck, y'all. That one might be worded in a way that allows for pre-Big Bang cosmology. Let's see.

• 1:34:35Speaker 05

  Bob's brain went blast.

• 1:34:37Bob Novella?

  Two, two sounds reasonable. See, but even this one, you've got a supernova, a unique supernova that where you could actually see the layers where you have enough information. I mean, and we're talking about a supernova that's almost certainly not in our galaxy. And they're getting that level of detail, but was it a, um, see, but even that one's tricky in the third one, really a qubit inside biology that that doesn't interact with the environment in, you know, microseconds? Where are you getting this crap? I mean, this would decohere in moments. It would be utterly useless. That's why you need super exotic conditions for qubits.

• 1:35:19Bob Novella?

  You know, whether it's a typically ridiculously cold that can function inside. Yeah, you'd do some tricky bullshit here and potentially be imaging. I mean, I'm just going to do some meta crap and just go with the, the, the star and say that that's fiction. I don't know what to think about any of this crap. So I'll say, I'll say number two, the layers, that's fiction because there's some tricky stuff about the other ones that are just make them see that make them somewhat reasonable because they don't seem reasonable right now. Okay, Kara.

• 1:35:56Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, I'm always trying to look for like language that you're using. Obviously I don't really know enough here, but okay. It's pronounced qubit, right?

• 1:36:05Bob Novella?

  Qubit, yeah.

• 1:36:06Cara Santa Maria?

  Qubit, yeah. So a protein qubit that can function inside biological systems and potentially be used. Okay, so.

• 1:36:15Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 1:36:15Cara Santa Maria?

  How long is it functioning? You know, how long does it last? Like that, that's really left out. So that's like, okay, maybe that's possible. The first time is interesting in the supernova one. So scientists observe a unique supernova that observationally confirms. Okay, so there's an observation there that confirms for the first time the layers of different elements that make up the deep internal structure of massive stars. That sounds like something we absolutely wouldn't be able to do. I would think that we need like, that this is all inference. And then I have no. My take, okay, astrophysicists have published exact solutions to Einstein's gravity relativity equations. What is this, an exact solution to an equation? I don't even know what that means.

• 1:37:00Cara Santa Maria?

  But my guess is that that's like a real thing in physics. Like, an exact solution is something. And that if they did an exact solution, it doesn't mean they have, that they solved the grand unified theory. It means that they have some sort of solution. So, I think I'm gonna go with Bob on this, because it feels like that the observational confirmation, for the very first time, seems harder to achieve.

• 1:37:24Speaker 02

  Okay, and Devin?

• 1:37:25Speaker 05

  A qubit was the length of measurement for Noah's Ark. So therefore, that one about protein qubits, it must be the fiction. No. I will just jump right to it. I'm going to join and lock arms with Jay. And I have a feeling that, yeah, exact solutions, I think "exact" could be the key word here about that. And it almost sounds, how this is written, Steve, that if this were to have happened, this could have been some kind of enormous news in science. And, I don't know, I haven't seen it across my desk.

• 1:38:09Speaker 05

  So therefore, I'll use that personal bias to declare that it is fiction.

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  All right, so even split, so you all agree on the third one, on the qubit one. Researchers create a protein, create a protein qubit that can function inside biological systems and potentially be used for imaging inside living cells. You all agree that this one is science, and this one is...

• 1:38:34Speaker 05

  Tell it.

• 1:38:35Speaker 02

  Science, it is science.

• 1:38:36Speaker 05

  Oh, my god.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  This is a fluorescent protein spin qubit.

• 1:38:42Cara Santa Maria?

  Okay.

• 1:38:43Speaker 05

  A spin qubit?

• 1:38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a protein. So the part of it that is...

• 1:38:49Speaker 05

  Qubit?

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  That is the...

• 1:38:51Speaker 05

  Cupid?

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  That is the...

• 1:38:53Speaker 05

  Superposition? What's in superposition here?

• 1:38:55Speaker 02

  Is the spin of electrons in one particular part of the protein. Right, so another way that they've done this spin qubits before is to have the voids inside is the nitrogen vacancy centers in diamonds. That's another spin qubit material, right? So the reason why they were using fluorescent proteins is because they're genetically encodeable, right? And they could be used in biological systems. So this could be potentially used for to make a quantum sensor. And which and it functions at room temperature, right? And that therefore they could use optically detected magnetic resonance in order to image even inside living cells, potentially.

• 1:39:41Speaker 02

  So yeah, this is the thing. This is again, this is the basic science. They made the protein and they showed that it functions as a spin qubit. The applications are to be determined, right? That's down the road.

• 1:39:53Bob Novella?

  Yeah, I don't know enough about those. I don't know enough about those spin qubits, I guess.

• 1:39:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, there were. I had to do. I had to spend some time trying to figure out. But the basics, not that I fully understand, just to say what I said. All right, let's go back to number one. Astrophysicists have published exact solutions to Einstein's gravity relativity equations that allow for pre-Big Bang cosmology. Jay and Evan think this one is the fiction. Bob and Kara think this one is science. And this one is. Now, what do you think I mean by pre-Big Bang cosmology specifically? Oh, I didn't even get that far.

• 1:40:31Speaker 05

  Cosmology, cosmology that goes beyond the observable.

• 1:40:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just means that they could think about, they could pose questions about what came before the Big Bang. And they have.

• 1:40:42Bob Novella?

  Yeah, that's all. That's all it means.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  They have some basis in asking whether or not one or another thing is viable or consistent with.

• 1:40:53Bob Novella?

  You know, this is bullshit, Steve. Come on.

• 1:40:55Speaker 02

  So what happened before? There was time. How does that work? So this one is.

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  The fiction.

• 1:41:04Speaker 07

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  But not necessarily.

• 1:41:07Bob Novella?

  Finally.

• 1:41:07Speaker 02

  Not necessarily for the reason that you think. Evan actually, come on, pretty much hit the nail on the head.

• 1:41:14Bob Novella?

  Oh, did I? Holy crap.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Because they did come up with, they did publish a paper looking at Einstein's gravity equations. They didn't come up with an exact solution. They came up with a numerical solution, which means that it's just, they basically used what's called numerical relativism. So instead, they just use simulations to brute force, like what the answers could be, not solving the equations themselves. Does that make sense? And they said, with this, you can, you know, address questions about big cosmological questions, such as what was, what happened before the Big Bang? What's the ultimate fate of the universe? Are we going to come up, is there going to be a big rip? All these kinds of things, they said.

• 1:41:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you just forget about trying to solve the equations, because that's where physicists have been focusing on trying to come up with specific, exact, you know, solutions to general relativistic equation, you know, to come up with the quantum loop gravity or whatever, whatever. The ultimate unifying solutions.

• 1:42:15Bob Novella?

  Quantum gravity, yeah.

• 1:42:16Speaker 02

  To quantum gravity, basically. They said, forget that, we're just going to come up with probabilistic ones based upon simulations and then use those to test.

• 1:42:25Bob Novella?

  How helpful could that possibly be?

• 1:42:27Speaker 02

  Well, you know.

• 1:42:27Jay Novella?

  Steve, aren't there certain questions that immediately turn into a blue screen of death? I mean, this is like, this is one of them. Like, you can't even begin to ask that question.

• 1:42:36Speaker 02

  You can, because even though like the universe began with the Big Bang, you could ask like, all right, from what happened at the, you know, within tiny fractions of time after the Big Bang, can, does that tell us anything about maybe what happened before the Big Bang? It isn't necessarily this absolute stopping point.

• 1:42:56Bob Novella?

  What's on the other side of dividing the universe by zero?

• 1:42:59Speaker 02

  Right, but that's the equation part of it, right? We, that's where you, you can't.

• 1:43:03Bob Novella?

  Yeah, but you gotta go through that. You gotta go through that shit, man.

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  That's the point, that they solve that problem by not trying to come up with solutions to the equation itself.

• 1:43:12Bob Novella?

  Oh, so they're, so they're, so they're pulling a data move of not, of not trying to win, but just trying not to lose.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Basically, I guess, you could put it that way. But again, this is the fiction, which I don't have to endorse any of this. I'm just telling you, this is where I got it from.

• 1:43:25Speaker 05

  I had one question though, Steve. If it were, if it were science, if there were, was an exact solution, would that not be enormous?

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The part, what Bob is saying is correct. We don't have exact solutions because they don't work. Right? That's the problem.

• 1:43:40Speaker 05

  Right. And, and there won't be a urea moment for something like this.

• 1:43:43Speaker 02

  Unless we come up with a deeper equation, the quantum gravity, basically. Alright, which means, oh Jesus, a unique supernova that observationally confirms for the first time, the layers of different elements that make up the deep internal structure of massive stars. Now, what am I talking about here? So you know- No idea. -that stars begin their life as mostly hydrogen, and as they fuse that hydrogen to helium, helium collects at the core, until, um, so much of it collects that there isn't enough heat and pressure to fuse more hydrogen. The star collapses until the helium gets so hot and dense that it starts fusing into even heavier elements. And then that cycle

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  goes through again until each successive time, the heavier element at the core of the star starts to fuse into still more heavier elements. And the bigger, the more massive the star, the farther you can go, until the most massive stars can, can fuse down to what? What's the stopping point? Lead? Iron. Iron. Because iron, it costs energy to fizz or fuse, right? That's sort of the bottom of the trough. So you can't get any energy out of it, nuclear wise. And so that's it. So you end up with, this is the theory, right? So you have this layer, you know, the massive stars will have this onion layer structure where you have hydrogen, then helium, then

• 1:45:11Speaker 02

  lithium, then whatever, then heavier, yeah, then all the way down to iron. But the thing is, we've never observed this. This is just theory. Wow, so that, that's what they saw. We haven't directly observed it. Or inferred. We have observed, now in a supernova, right? When a star blows out its outer layers-

• 1:45:28Speaker 05

  Kaboom.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  -we can see the inner layers. But, we can only see a couple of layers deep. We've never gotten to the deep internal layers of the most massive stars, until this most recent supernova, which had the deeper layer. When it exploded, we were seeing, oh my God, there's the deeper layers. That's, so how did that happen? So they're not sure, but it seems as if- Before it went supernova, something happened to cause it to shed its outer layers. So when it did go supernova, it was already stripped down to silicon and sulfur. And those are the ones that we could see when it blew those layers away, right? Does that make sense?

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  So it was just, we happened to catch a supernova of a stripped down star that had the inner layers exposed. And that allowed us to visually confirm, like, yep, those are the layers. When you get a star that big, it will have those layers on the inside. And specifically, it was silicon and sulfur. So, cool.

• 1:46:32Speaker 05

  Spectroscopy.

• 1:46:33Bob Novella?

  But they were looking at it after it already blew. So they're pulling this information out of, you know, an exploding star. So, yeah, that's really cool.

• 1:46:42Jay Novella?

  Do you know what they were using for that, Steve?

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  They used spectro photometry. The Lick Observatory and the Keck Observatory.

• 1:46:49Speaker 05

  Ah, the Keck, that's the one in Hawaii, right?

• 1:46:51Speaker 02

  The European Southern Observatory. So they had multiple observatories collecting data. Cool. I didn't realize that we didn't really have any observational confirmation of that, you know, that notion. Pretty cool.

• 1:47:05Bob Novella?

  Yeah, but if they could detect all those layers after the explosion, why can't they detect those layers with a regular explosion?

• 1:47:11Speaker 02

  I guess because they don't get blown away because they just collapse, I guess, into the core. You lose the outer layers. So that's the thing, they didn't know if these inner layers could themselves explode into a supernova, but apparently they can.

• 1:47:22Bob Novella?

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  But they didn't know that before.

• 1:47:25Jay Novella?

  Can we get back to the fact that me and Evan won?

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, you guys did it. Good job.

• 1:47:31Speaker 05

  Thanks for leading the way, Jay. I appreciate it.

• 1:47:34Speaker 02

  I thought you might be a solo win this week, Jay, but Evan joined you.

• 1:47:37Jay Novella?

  No, I'm happy to be joined.

• 1:47:39Speaker 02

  These were three hard items, I guess, this week.

• 1:47:42Speaker 05

  Very, very challenging.

• 1:47:43Bob Novella?

  They were effing ridiculous.

• 1:47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you guys have been kicking my ass this year, so that's what you get.

• 1:47:47Bob Novella?

  Give me a break, yeah.

• 1:47:51Speaker 02

  All right, Evan.

• 1:47:52Bob Novella?

  You're welcome.

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  Gives a quote.

• 1:47:53Bob Novella?

  I should have just totally gone with the pre-big bang bullshit. That's what should have made me pick that. He's gonna be talking about that all night.

• 1:48:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what made your brain kinda go brrr, right?

• 1:48:02Bob Novella?

  That was like, yeah, no way. But, ah, see, Steve is evil.

• 1:48:10Bob Novella?

  I can hear him chuckling. This is really gonna get Bob.

• 1:48:14Speaker 02

  I don't target you specifically, Bob.

• 1:48:17Bob Novella?

  Oh, it's just a icing on the cake for you.

• 1:48:20Speaker 05

  All right, here's this week's quote. I'm gonna get Bob. Steve Novella. No.

• 1:48:28Speaker 05

  "The human understanding is unquiet. It cannot stop or rest and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore, it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world. But as always, as of necessity, it occurs to us that there is something beyond." That was written by Francis Bacon, a very, very early scientist.

• 1:48:49Bob Novella?

  He was pretty awesome.

• 1:48:50Speaker 05

  English philosopher, born in 1561, he died in 1626. Essayist who is considered a founder of modern scientific thought.

• 1:48:59Speaker 02

  There's always something we don't know. What a legacy.

• 1:49:02Speaker 05

  Right, and you keep going, and it's unquiet. You'd never rest, you'd never stop. That's, that's the nature. We have to keep going. We can always learn. There's always, always, 100% of the time, more to learn.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, what that comedian, or Brian, or something, he said, "If science knew everything, it would stop."

• 1:49:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:49:23Speaker 05

  "Science was wrong because it got this wrong. No, it evolved and added to its body of knowledge." I mean, how often have we heard that throughout our lives?

• 1:49:33Speaker 02

  They used to think X, now they think Y. Yeah, that's what happens when you gather new information. What do you do?

• 1:49:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, right. Welcome to reality.

• 1:49:41Speaker 02

  Doggedly stick with your, with your old beliefs, no matter what, I guess. All right, well, thank you guys for joining me this week.

• 1:49:47Bob Novella?

  Of course. Thanks, Steve.

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  And until next week, this is your Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.

• 1:49:55Speaker 02

  Skeptics Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to [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.

• 1:50:32Speaker 07

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