The Skeptics Guide #1037 - May 24 2025

Live from NotACon with Guest Rogue Adam Russell; News Items: New Cambrian Fossil, Best Archaeopteryx Specimen, Chimps Using First Aid, Treatment for Baldness, New Color - Olo, The Next Theranos, Bespoke Genetic Therapy; 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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• 0:33Speaker 01

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

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Hello and welcome to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Friday, May 16th, 2025, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. We are live from the second NADACon, the conference that's not a conference, but it is a conference because it's awesome. I am joined today by Bob Novella. Hello, everybody. Hey, everybody. Kara Santa Maria. Howdy. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Evan Bernstein.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Beautiful White Plains, New York. And we have a special guest, Adam Russell, Alan Mulcahy, and you.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Hello there.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Adam, you are, two things that I love, you're a musician and a big fan of Star Wars. Tell me about that.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm a bass player in a band called Story of the Year. We've been around for 20, almost 25 years now.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  So you started when you were five?

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was only five. You should have seen me play bass at five, I was sick. No, I'm aging rapidly.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  As are we all.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Sure you are. My, my other job, my, like, paid hobby is my, my podcast, Thank The Maker, a Star Wars podcast. Um, it's, I mean, Star Wars is like my religion. I say that ha- half, honestly, half just tongue-in-cheek, you know, but Kara was talking earlier about not understanding fandoms and a lot of it is, like, the community, you know, and, you know, if there's one positive thing, you could probably pull out of religion, it's community, you know, so Star Wars in a lot of ways is that for me.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  What, what did you think of Andor?

• 2:29Speaker 03

  Loved it.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Loved it, right?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Some of the best Star Wars of all time, but it's also, we've been hav- we've been having this conversation about how the one potential downside is that it's, it's making adult Star Wars fans so happy that a new bar has been set.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  So now anything that's sort of made for kids, it seems like it has more potential for getting hate because it's like, if it's not Andor, it's shit, you know?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Then maybe they need two brands. They need, like, Star Wars Kids and Star Wars Adults.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Star Wars Zero Sugar.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  That's what Andor was, yeah. So, what you're wa- looking at on the screen is a very unusual creature. Um, any of you guys have a guess of what their creature is from? What kind of creature is it? I, I just read it off your thing, so I can- Oh, yeah, okay. So that is a Mosurafentona. I, I wrote in my notes a radiodont, because that's what it is, a radiodont, and it corrected to radi-dont. Um, but it's a radiodont. Uh, you may be familiar with Anomalous Charis. Does that sound more familiar to you?

• 3:28Bob Novella?

  Anomalous Charis, I love it.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this is related to Anomalous Charis. This is from the Burgess Shale. Does that ring any bells? Yes. So that's from the Cambrian explosion. It's one of the most important finds. It was the first find that really, you know, told us what the Cambrian explosion was. So we're going back 500-plus million years. This is the first time that multicellular life explodes into the fossil record, right? This is when we, when life created hard parts that could fossilize. Then suddenly the fossil record turns on and we're seeing basically every existing phyla, plus a few that don't exist anymore. We're all in existence and over a fairly geologically short period of time. We now know from, from further evidence

• 4:12Speaker 02

  that they, there's a long history there. Again, it was just when they started actually fossilizing that they, it gives, creates the illusion in the fossil record that they suddenly appeared. But anomalous Charis is one of those no longer existing phyla, the radiodons. And that thing was a beast. It was a predator. So this is a newly discovered specimen, very well preserved. These are all in the Burgess Shale, so they're kind of flattened two dimensionally, you know, between pieces of rock. And then paleontologists have to painstakingly reconstruct them three dimensionally. But this creature had better three dimensional detail than older specimens. Also, our techniques are getting better.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  You know, they can examine fossils with X-rays and CT scans and other things to help reconstruct them three dimensionally.

• 5:02Bob Novella?

  How big is it?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  It's big. It's, you know, it's several feet. It's, um, it has three eyes.

• 5:09Bob Novella?

  Three?

• 5:11Speaker 02

  You can see it's got a third eye in the middle there. It's got these two sort of claw things.

• 5:15Bob Novella?

  That's cool.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  A third eye does exist. And it's got the, you know, a bunch of fins down the side, you know, kind of looks like wings.

• 5:22Bob Novella?

  So what would it eat?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  It was, whatever was else was in there. He was a, probably a top predator.

• 5:27Cara Santa Maria?

  Are they actual eyes or are they just eye spots?

• 5:30Speaker 02

  No, they're eyes.

• 5:30Cara Santa Maria?

  They're actual like?

• 5:31Speaker 02

  I mean, I think they're fairly primitive eyes, but they're eyes. They're not, I think they're not eye spots. Yeah, 506 million years ago, this particular fossil. Gorgeous fossil. If you don't know about the Burgess Shale, it's worth reading about. Stephen J. Gould wrote a whole book about it. So really amazing, amazing fossil discovery. There's another fossil I want to talk about really quickly. Anybody recognize this? Any of you guys up here? I know Kara knows what this is.

• 5:55Bob Novella?

  Archaeopteryx.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  It is an archaeopteryx.

• 5:58Bob Novella?

  I like the death pose with the neck curled back.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  That is the latest archaeopteryx specimen. Guess how many, oh, Kara knows this. How many do you think we have now? How many different specific specimens of archaeopteryx?

• 6:10Bob Novella?

  One and a half.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  This is number 14.

• 6:13Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, we have a lot. And they're complete because they're in the, in the, like, is it sandstone, limestone?

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, usually.

• 6:19Cara Santa Maria?

  Lithographica, the limestone?

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Lithographica. So this was found in China. Interesting how this was obtained. It, we actually don't know where it came from specifically. It had, it was sold from one. Private collector to another private collector to another private collector and then to the Chicago Museum. When they bought it, it wasn't, it didn't look like what it looks like now. It was, there was, it was basically completely encased with rock and just the wings were peeking out.

• 6:48Speaker 06

  Oh my god.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  So they knew that it was probably an archaeopteryx, but they didn't, they thought it was crap. And they're like, should we even buy this? This is like, this is probably gonna be the worst archaeopteryx specimen in existence.

• 6:59Speaker 06

  Got a good deal then.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  But, but you know, it's an archaeopteryx specimen, so they, but they bought it. Then they spent, it's a thirteen thousand hours.

• 7:07Speaker 06

  Ah, what the hell.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Reconstructing it and.

• 7:11Speaker 06

  That's a lot.

• 7:12Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, good on all those collectors not destroying it as it was passed around. I mean, yeah, that's a huge problem with private collection.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  It was encased.

• 7:19Cara Santa Maria?

  But that's what I'm saying, good on them not being like, let me, you know.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Oh no, they didn't touch it. Yeah, fortunately. It turned out to be the single best archaeopteryx specimen.

• 7:27Speaker 06

  Why, why?

• 7:28Cara Santa Maria?

  I mean, I'm partial to the Berlin specimen, but I, I hear you.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  The Berlin specimen's gorgeous, and I think this is beautiful too, but it's just, it's more complete, it's almost a hundred percent complete. Like, it's almost one hundred percent complete specimen and it's not crushed. So it preserved three-dimensional anatomy better than any other archaeopteryx specimen. It's the best one.

• 7:51Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 06

  Is it partly the best one because they had awesome techniques to extract it?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, yes, partly. It was just a good specimen, but also we benefit from having the good, you know, techniques for, for, um, for, for exposing it and preserving it. And again, CT scanning and doing other kind of examinations.

• 8:10Speaker 06

  We were at a museum once and the guy was working on a whale fossil.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:15Speaker 06

  You guys all saw it, right?

• 8:16Cara Santa Maria?

  Nick Pyanson, yeah, the Smithsonian.

• 8:18Speaker 06

  And we remember looking at him working on it through the window, right? I was like two feet away from him and there was like the parts that he had already cleared, and then there were the parts that he had not cleared, and they were exactly the same. Same color, same shape and everything, and I'm like. A part of me was like, what the hell's going on here? Because I don't see the difference. And how is anybody seeing the difference?

• 8:39Cara Santa Maria?

  Because they do it all day, every day.

• 8:41Speaker 06

  How does he know when to stop chipping away if it looks exactly the same?

• 8:44Cara Santa Maria?

  Because it doesn't look exactly the same to him.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  They use techniques that will take away the stone.

• 8:48Cara Santa Maria?

  You can also taste it.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  But that's why it's so painstaking.

• 8:50Cara Santa Maria?

  You can, you can taste it.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. So one of the things they discovered here was that they suspected Archaeopteryx had this, but they didn't know from any of the previous specimens. So Archaeopteryx is the first bird, meaning that it's the oldest specimen of a dinosaur that was also a bird, right? Birds are dinosaurs. So Archaeopteryx is a dinosaur, but it's also a bird.

• 9:14Bob Novella?

  What's Proto-avis that pops to mind?

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there are all the other ones that if they're over the line to bird, they are younger than Archaeopteryx, right? Now Archaeopteryx probably was not on the line to modern birds. It was because bird-like dinosaurs were radiated madly, right? So there's lots of evolutionary radiations. And, you know, it would be very, almost impossible to find something that was on the direct line that happened to lead, you know, to modern birds. So everything's going to be an offshoot, right? So it is also an offshoot.

• 9:46Bob Novella?

  Are they sure of that?

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Pretty much, yeah. But it is a bird, and it's the oldest bird. Now we have 14 specimens. So one of the things that they found was it has these secondary flight feathers under the primary flight feathers, which all flying birds have. And again, we thought it flew, so it probably had them. So it's interesting that it does. All feathered dinosaurs who didn't fly do not have these feathers.

• 10:12Speaker 06

  How big was it?

• 10:12Bob Novella?

  Secondary.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  It was, it's pretty small.

• 10:15Cara Santa Maria?

  It's like yay big.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  It's a couple of feet high or something, you know, 18 inches, two feet. This is the smallest specimen.

• 10:22Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, really? It's even smaller?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  This is the smallest one.

• 10:25Cara Santa Maria?

  Did they think it was young?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Don't know. The thing is, so right now, they're considering every, of all 14, as the same genus, Archaeopteryx. But they're probably different species, right? So it may be age, but it may also just be this is a slightly smaller species. Because, you know, they were once found in Germany and China. They're not the same species, probably.

• 10:45Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  So, anyway, gorgeous specimen, just really getting a look at it. This is just coming out now.

• 10:50Bob Novella?

  So cool.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, and new information, very, very well-preserved.

• 10:56Cara Santa Maria?

  Aren't they speculating that they think it flew like a chicken? I'm reading that a lot. Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  It was a poor flyer. It was a poor flyer, certainly doesn't have, doesn't have the modern adaptations of modern birds. It's like specifically like its sternum, you know how like a bird's sternum is? And they have an anatomy that allows them to do something that's called a wing-flip maneuver. That's how they take off from the ground. Archaeopteryx does not have that. So it probably would have a lot of trouble and maybe couldn't even take off from the ground. But it had claws that would have allowed it to climb trees. So it probably still was spending a lot of time walking on the ground and probably also could climb trees and then could fly or glide from there.

• 11:37Cara Santa Maria?

  It's a beautiful intermediary.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  It's a perfect...

• 11:40Cara Santa Maria?

  It's got like a beak and teeth.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  It's got teeth, it's got a bony tail, but it has feathers and it flew. It is pretty much as close to halfway between a theropod dinosaur and a bird dinosaur as you can get. It's my go-to example of a transitional fossil for that reason.

• 11:57Cara Santa Maria?

  That's why it's tattooed on my arm.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, love it.

• 11:59Speaker 06

  So Steve, it's trans.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's absolutely trans.

• 12:02Cara Santa Maria?

  It's a transitional dinosaur.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  So does Archaeopteryx also have sort of like the few fingers that are at the end of the wings kind of thing?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 06

  So it can move out to its fixed claws?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  It does. And so, you know, a couple of them are kind of fixed for the wing purposes, but one of them is loose and that's the one it probably was using to climb trees with. So, yeah, it has that combination anatomy. It was land-dwelling, but also flying and probably climbing and was half, you know, halfway between a theropod and a bird.

• 12:30Cara Santa Maria?

  And don't we know that at least some of its feathers were also black? Or is that still contested? But I think there's some pretty good evidence.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  We have evidence now of the colors. I know because of, I'm not sure about what the color of the archaeopteryx is without checking, you know, just to update myself.

• 12:44Cara Santa Maria?

  I think it's black, yeah. But I know we have. The original discoverers, black.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  We found pigments for black, for red, and for blue. And so, there are some birds where we can say, yeah, look, I mean, this had really good soft tissue preservation, too.

• 12:55Cara Santa Maria?

  That's very cool.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Really? This is going to be studied for years. We're just getting started. It had both skin and feathers, really good soft tissue preservation. Oh, man. So, but it's, but it's the proteins that allow them to, to tell the colors. Because they're, the proteins are, they react to light in such a way, we could say this was, this would, you know, bestow the color red or whatever.

• 13:16Speaker 06

  Is it too old to have any genetic material?

• 13:18Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 06

  That sucks, man.

• 13:21Cara Santa Maria?

  It's rock.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Oh, it's like 150 million years old.

• 13:25Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's a rock.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. All right, let's move on. Kara, what are these chimpanzees doing?

• 13:32Cara Santa Maria?

  They're so cute. Okay, so I, I came across a, a new study, a new publication, that reminded me of an episode of my podcast, Talk Nerdy, that I recorded in 2017. Oh, my God, I'm doing this way too long, you guys. So, in 2017, I interviewed a woman named Rebecca Atencia, who is a Spanish veterinarian and scientist, who, at the time, was the manager and the head veterinarian at Chimpaunga, which is a chimp rehab center, a Jane Goodall Institute chimp rehab center in the Congo. And we talked about her experience with orphaned chimpanzees.

• 14:17Cara Santa Maria?

  The model at Chimpaunga was that they were open to the forest, so a lot of these chimpanzees didn't have chimpanzee parents. They were, again, orphaned, so they were hand-raised and fed, which means that they weren't quite comfortable going back into the wild, but they also didn't want to keep them captive. So, so they left them open to the forest with their own choice, whether they wanted to come back for food or for shelter. And one of the things that she told me, which blew my mind back in 2017, was that as their veterinarian... They developed a relationship and these chimps would go out into the wild. They would get injured. They were juveniles. They would be, you know, play fighting and doing whatever. They would get injured and they would come back to her and they would show her their wounds, like offer their wounds to her for, for healthcare.

• 15:00Cara Santa Maria?

  And at the time, I mean, this is, you know, anecdotal, but it was like incredible to hear about. And, and you, you did periodically kind of hear these chatters of different animals like self-medicating, whether we're talking about using substances, psychoactive substances, like the elephants that drink the marula or just different organisms doing that. We also hear about animals self-medicating sometimes with, with bugs or tinctures. But in this new study, which was published, I have it open here, which was published in Frontiers in Ecological Evolution. The study was called Self-Directed and Pro-social Wound Care: Snare Removal and Hygiene Behaviors

• 15:44Cara Santa Maria?

  Amongst the Budongo Chimpanzees. So these researchers looked at two groups of chimpanzees in the Budongo forest in Uganda over the course of four months, the Sosso and the Wibera chimpanzee communities. And they observed a couple interesting findings and they were like, oh, this is cool. Like I want to dig deeper into this. What they saw that really blew their minds were individual chimpanzees administering self, administering first aid to other chimpanzees. Wow. So there had been some examples of chimpanzees doing their own wound care. And there had been some examples of chimpanzees doing kind of like hygiene, like tool-oriented hygiene behaviors.

• 16:27Cara Santa Maria?

  But when these researchers noticed that the chimpanzees were administering first aid to one another, they decided to go back and like comb over all of these observations and document all of the different sort of medical observations that they could make over the, the four-month period. And they found some really interesting things. So they found self-directed wound care, like wound licking, leaf dabbing, pressing fingers into wounds and applying chewed plant material. ...into wounds. They also found self-directed snare removal, and these were human-laid sadly, like poacher snares, or snares for other animals that the chimpanzees found themselves injured by. So they would remove the snares on their own. They also

• 17:10Cara Santa Maria?

  found self-directed hygiene behaviors, which every article I've seen is like, and hygiene, and then they like move on. But in the article, they dig deep into it. They were literally wiping their asses. So they were using leaves to wipe after defecating, and they were also using leaves to clean themselves after sex. So like genital wiping after sex. And then they also found licking, finger pressing, and applying chewed plant material to the wounds of others. So one chimpanzee is injured, another chimpanzee licks their wounds, or they press on their wounds, or they chew up plant material and they make a tincture and they would pat it onto their wounds.

• 17:49Speaker 06

  Kara, do they say that they actually discovered like a plant that actually has some medicinal properties?

• 17:54Cara Santa Maria?

  No, I mean, they have gone back at some of the examples of self-medication and looked for what could be an antimicrobial or antibiotic property within their wounds. But in this study, because it was observational, they can't say, and they're explicit about this, we cannot say if their wounds would have healed faster with or without these behaviors. They might have naturally healed on their own.

• 18:14Speaker 06

  Do they prefer some plants over others to use?

• 18:17Cara Santa Maria?

  They absolutely prefer. They do seem to preferentially choose plants. And historically, you know, there's a good introduction, like all good papers have like a deep literature review. Historically, specific plants have been identified as good candidates for those kinds of things. They also did find one case of pro-social snare removal. So one chimpanzee is stuck in the snare, and another chimpanzee is helping them to be removed from the snare. And so, you know, not only is this an important finding, just because it's like really interesting, but as the authors argue, when we talk about like the, I guess, the predecessor or like early modern medicine, we often are attributing that to human behavior. But quite possibly

• 19:01Cara Santa Maria?

  before we were even Homo sapiens, our ancestors. ancestors, our hominid ancestors, were engaging in medicinal practices for, for wound healing.

• 19:10Speaker 06

  I mean, it makes perfect sense. I mean, the anethals were intelligent enough. I mean, you know, we have a pain response, I'm in pain. So, look, you know, everybody gets a cut or whatever, of course, you're going to go to someone in your tribe and ask for help.

• 19:22Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and we've said, we, we know that this happened in hominid species because we have examples of organisms with healed wounds, right? So, we know that either they naturally were able to heal those things, or they were engaging in some sort of medical care of first aid. But to see this in extant chimpanzees, obviously, we know they're good with tools. Obviously, we know that they are, we already know that they're self-medicating, or I had this anecdotal story of them asking a human being for help with a wound that was, you know, either causing them distress, or that they were concerned about. But then you add to it pro-social wound care within a spee-- we're not talking about bonobos. We're talking about chimpanzees.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  And these are unrelated, genetically unrelated chimps, right?

• 20:07Cara Santa Maria?

  They were within, in, in peer groups. So, I, I don't, I don't know if, like, the one was related to the other.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  I think one article I read said that, at least one of the instances.

• 20:14Cara Santa Maria?

  At least, in at least one example.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Genetically unrelated chimp.

• 20:17Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 20:18Speaker 06

  Kara, didn't they also observe one monkey giving an IV to the other one?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  They're not monkeys.

• 20:23Speaker 06

  Chimpanzees, come on, you're wrong. Just a joke.

• 20:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Where, where are you going with that?

• 20:27Bob Novella?

  Jay, I got a, I got a better joke.

• 20:28Speaker 06

  My god, what's happening in this room?

• 20:30Bob Novella?

  Kara, have they, have they observed any chimpanzees engaging in medical pseudoscience yet?

• 20:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, we don't know yet if this is pseudoscience, right?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Pseudoscience may be the last human behavior that we don't find a precedent in.

• 20:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Right, right. But we also have to remember that some things that we consider pseudoscience now were precursors to legitimate science then, right? So, even phrenology led to important things, bloodletting at the time. It was the best we had, based on what we know.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  You're saying chimps were doing phrenology?

• 20:56Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, it, they may be chewing up a plant that actually has no medicinal purpose. They don't, they don't know. But they're, they're throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. And that's really incredible. I mean, that shows good problem-solving behavior.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  It probably feels better, if nothing else.

• 21:08Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, like, like, packing a wound can feel better.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Packing a wound is reasonable. Yeah.

• 21:12Cara Santa Maria?

  Absolutely.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Helps at getting secondary infections and everything.

• 21:14Speaker 06

  I mean, lots of animals.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Keeps it moist.

• 21:16Speaker 06

  Lick wounds, too. I mean, I guess the licking thing is like.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  There's antibi-- there, there are antimicrobial, like, antibodies and stuff. Saliva's actually not bad for that sort of thing.

• 21:25Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. But we have better medicines than that.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  We have better.

• 21:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Don't, don't lick your wounds.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  We can do better. Yeah, don't lick your wounds.

• 21:30Speaker 06

  Now, we know where Dr. Zayas came from.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  So speaking of licking...

• 21:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, I didn't get, I didn't get that.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Licking wounds of others, you think about dogs who will come, you know, anytime there's any kind of scratch or anything on me, one of our dogs is licking it.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  I mean, that seems like the same behavior and clearly like an animal that co-evolved with us that, you know, kind of self-domesticated like we were talking about earlier. That makes a lot of sense.

• 21:56Cara Santa Maria?

  And dogs, we know are social animals, like deeply, deeply social animals. Chimpanzees are really complicated, right? Because they do have hierarchies, they do have societies. By definition, they are social, but they are also often seen as very conflict-oriented animals. And so, like you mentioned, Steve, if this is an animal that I'm not directly related to or I don't know that I'm directly, and I see you as a potential, I don't know, threat, or I might be fighting with you for food or for resources or for mates, but I see that you're injured and I want to help you, that's like a pretty incredible find day.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:33Cara Santa Maria?

  Instead of just like, "I'm gonna let you die," you know?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Well, there's probably a lot of reciprocal altruism.

• 22:38Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, and we see that with grooming behaviors too.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Apes and monkeys in general.

• 22:42Cara Santa Maria?

  And that's the thing, when I saw hygiene behaviors in here, and I was like, they only observe like a handful of hygiene behaviors. In the articles, they don't say what those are, and I'm like, "Well, aren't they constantly grooming each other?" And then I recognize, no, they're literally talking about cleaning up after going to the bathroom or after engaging in sex. Flossing. Yeah, flossing, yeah, yeah. And that's a pretty incredible hygiene behavior as well.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  That's unusual, yeah. Jay, have they finally cured baldness?

• 23:07Speaker 06

  Well, before we go...

• 23:08Speaker 02

  This is like almost a cliche, like...

• 23:10Speaker 06

  I want to talk to people.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Tableau kind of thing.

• 23:12Speaker 06

  I need to talk to people out there.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 06

  First of all, you know, if you guys... Bob, your hair is thinning, my hair is thinning, Steve, your hair is thinning.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  No, it's not. What?

• 23:21Speaker 03

  You gotta put him on blast up here.

• 23:22Speaker 06

  Is there any social thing that's happened? You feel self-conscious in any way?

• 23:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:26Speaker 06

  Anything?

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Only when I'm walking away from people.

• 23:30Speaker 06

  Because I used to have hair like Adam and I don't anymore.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Jay, don't you dare complain, stop it. Look at your hair, I can't, but look at...

• 23:38Speaker 06

  George!

• 23:40Speaker 06

  George, help me out here.

• 23:44Speaker 06

  Where can I buy a coat like that? No, but George, I want to know. It's not a coincidence you have that microphone in your hand. Because I asked Ian to give it to you. And I'm going to impose on you a little bit to answer a couple of questions. You went through the whole thing. You had a beautiful head of hair.

• 24:01Speaker 07

  I did. I had, I had manured like hair. It was like sailors would look at me pining that they could use.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  They still do, George.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  How old were you when it started to go?

• 24:11Speaker 07

  Uh, I was about thirty. I lost about forty pounds when I was thirty years old. Uh, like consciously really went for it. And it worked, it was great. Most of it was hair.

• 24:23Speaker 06

  So, what did it do to you emotionally? Like, what was that like?

• 24:26Speaker 07

  It was the worst. It was the worst. It was, yeah, I mean, it really affected me. You know, I mean, I was dying it blonde for a long time. Kind of hide it. And then shorter and shorter and shorter. And then just thought, alright, I'll start shading it. And my first change, I just, I hate it. I still hate it. I hate it. Who's talking?

• 24:44Speaker 06

  So you...

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Which is ironic, because everyone thinks you look fabulous.

• 24:48Speaker 06

  Well, that's all we know. We don't, you know...

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I'm just saying, it's just...

• 24:52Cara Santa Maria?

  We all see something very different in the mirror.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:55Cara Santa Maria?

  We all do.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  It's interesting.

• 24:56Speaker 06

  Because of this news item, I was doing some research and, you know, just reading. And like, there's a massive emotional response to almost everybody.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  That's why it's such a common target.

• 25:07Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and I experience it, not to interject too much, but when I'm doing therapy with individuals going through chemo, whether we're talking about men or women, even though, it's not always temporary, but even though it is often temporary, sometimes the emotional reaction to losing their hair is like more intense than the reaction to having like, you know, violent emesis or like being very, very ill from the chemo. And people will go to these... I thought about it. What would I do if when I had cancer I had to have chemo? I don't think I would cold cap. At like, and cold capping, if you don't know, is you're wearing this freezing cold like helmet thing on your head the whole time you're going through chemo

• 25:50Cara Santa Maria?

  in an effort to try and save some of the follicles. And there's some evidence that shows it works, it's not complete. It's oftentimes people still lose some of their hair. But the violent pain, you're already so sick from the chemo. And it's so uncomfortable to sit there with the cold cap on. But it's worth it to a lot of people because the idea of losing their hair and the idea of going bald during that experience, even temporarily, is so emotionally taxing.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  My wife just shaved, just shaved.

• 26:14Cara Santa Maria?

  That's what I would do too. I want a warm blanket, I want to be able to take baths.

• 26:18Bob Novella?

  Connection to this, I experienced a variation of this whole scenario. I was using Rogaine foam to just maintain what I had and maybe not lose a little more. And I had a cosmically ironic reaction to it. It caused an area this big, palm of my hand in the back of my head, to fall out in a month, in like 30 days. This was basically gone back there. And I didn't know what it was. My doctor's like, oh, it's male pattern baldness. Well, it didn't seem like it because it doesn't happen in a month. You know, over years is one thing, but in a month, it really affected me. I thought, I considered every conceivable way, you name it. I thought about, I'm gonna do this, I'll try this, I'll try that, I'll try that. And my realization was, just embrace it.

• 27:00Bob Novella?

  People don't notice or care that you're bald, but they will notice that you are trying to hide it. That's the key realization right there. And after a year and a half, two years, it grew back. I found out it was alopecia areata, it was some weird immune reaction to it. I didn't know at the time it was ever gonna come back. And it mostly came back, but it was like a weird experience.

• 27:19Speaker 07

  That's what you approached me, you were like, dude, look at this, look at this.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  What's going on?

• 27:23Speaker 07

  I'm like, I don't know, I have this, but I don't know what it's like.

• 27:27Bob Novella?

  And my stupid doctor, my doctor's like, oh, male pattern baldness.

• 27:32Speaker 06

  Your primary care doctor, you should...

• 27:33Bob Novella?

  He was a putz. I said, alright, fine, fine, but why is it, why is, what hair is there like white? Why, what's going on with that? You know, it was, I wasn't gray like I am now. And he's like, I don't know, go to a specialist. And the specialist looked at me for three seconds, yeah, alopecia areata.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  That's what specialists are for. But also, seriously, it's night and day sometimes. But also, to be fair... Physicians have a steady stream of people whose complaint is, "I'm getting older." They're having symptoms that are age-related.

• 28:06Bob Novella?

  I'm not buying it.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  And so I'm just saying, yes, there's that 1% where, or 2% or 3%, whatever, where it's something else, and we have to sniff that out, but it's easy sometimes for that to get lost in the background of, "Why aren't I 20 anymore?"

• 28:20Bob Novella?

  No, I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that.

• 28:23Speaker 06

  You can't complain to our doctor.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying for context.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  If I can't go to my doctor and bitch about what I don't like about being old...

• 28:30Speaker 02

  I didn't say that either.

• 28:32Speaker 06

  Well, what are you saying, Steve?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  I'm just giving you some...

• 28:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Can we get back on topic?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Another point of view, Jay.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  I gotta click back to George.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 28:42Speaker 06

  Now, I've already pushed you, but I'm gonna push you further. Did you try anything really stupid to get your hair back?

• 28:48Speaker 07

  No, I investigated everything. I knew everything about hair dandruff, you know. I knew that Rogaine does what Rogaine does, but Rogaine's only for the crown of the bat. So there's no point.

• 28:58Bob Novella?

  Except in my case.

• 28:59Speaker 06

  Right.

• 29:00Speaker 07

  Right. I knew that stuff that was being recommended to me by hair salon people, I knew it was all bunk. I knew it was nonsense. So I didn't invest any money. I think...

• 29:09Bob Novella?

  I did.

• 29:09Speaker 07

  Apart from dying it blonde, just to kind of hide it, yeah, I knew that this is where it's at.

• 29:14Cara Santa Maria?

  But no interest in like a transplant? Because that is a thing, right?

• 29:19Bob Novella?

  That's the only potential...

• 29:22Cara Santa Maria?

  That's a real thing.

• 29:22Bob Novella?

  Something that could really make an impact?

• 29:24Cara Santa Maria?

  Until now.

• 29:26Speaker 06

  Alright, so I was gonna read off a bunch of weird things that people did. There's just a couple here.

• 29:31Bob Novella?

  Yeah, we covered some of them.

• 29:32Speaker 06

  I mean, it's funny when we, you know, in modern times, you look back, the Egyptians used to make a mixture of dates, donkey hooves, and dog paws. And they'd rub it on their heads. Trying to do anything, you know what I mean? It was all pseudoscience, it was all, you know, people like... I bet there was a lot of lying and a lot of people spending a lot of money. Old remedies. The baldest cures in the Middle Ages, they would boil nettles in vinegar. What are nettles?

• 29:56Cara Santa Maria?

  It's a plant.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Little parts of plants, yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 06

  And they would use onion juice, salt, and bear grease. Bear grease, right?

• 30:05Cara Santa Maria?

  I don't wanna know.

• 30:06Speaker 06

  And today, and today... You thought that was weird. People use urine today. To regrow hair. They use cayenne pepper and garlic paste. Now, I know a freaking recipe that that would be awesome.

• 30:20Bob Novella?

  Cayenne pepper, who are we?

• 30:21Speaker 06

  You don't want to put pepper on your head? Anyway, onion juice, cow dung and banana mixture.

• 30:27Bob Novella?

  A little bit of onion.

• 30:28Cara Santa Maria?

  Onion, cayenne pepper.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  So, okay, what's we're... What's actually happening, and I mean, this is the first time I've actually been a little encouraged by anything hair-related. Um, there was a team at UCLA, William Lowry, Heather Chris, Chris Fulk and Michael Jung, and they identified a molecule called PP405, and...

• 30:47Bob Novella?

  So, there is P in it.

• 30:48Speaker 06

  It's PP.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Go to shower treatment.

• 30:51Speaker 06

  How did I know?

• 30:54Bob Novella?

  Yeah, PP therapy. Come on, that was good, Jay, that was good.

• 30:57Speaker 06

  I have...

• 30:58Speaker 07

  It's like an 80's, like, I miss PP405.

• 31:00Speaker 06

  Damn. I hate when I miss the obvious ones.

• 31:03Bob Novella?

  Come on!

• 31:06Speaker 06

  So, it's a molecule, um, I could not find whether or not they found it or made it. I would imagine that they found it. Um, now, this is not a hormone. This has nothing to do with hormone intervention, right? So, the, the hormone interventions that are out there, you know, Rogaine and Oxidil, and they come with side effects, and some, some people don't get them, and some people get them, and they could be really bad, like, the side effects are, could be really intense because it messes with your hormone levels. And a lot of the reasons why people go bald is because of hormones. You know, when you get older and your hormone levels change and all that, you know, it's, it's, so, I, the older I get, the more I'm like, I don't want to mess with my hormones. It's one of those things that I think we should leave alone.

• 31:47Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and also, don't a lot of the drugs like Propecia stuff, they, they sort of prevent future hair loss?

• 31:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 31:53Cara Santa Maria?

  Or slow it. They don't actually make you grow a lot of new hair.

• 31:56Speaker 06

  Some can, but yeah.

• 31:57Bob Novella?

  Oxidil can make you grow bad. A reasonable expectation is main, maintenance.

• 31:59Cara Santa Maria?

  Maintaining what you have. Yeah, so you start it young.

• 32:01Bob Novella?

  Yes.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  The basic info on, on going bald, we have hair follicles, right? And these hair follicles, it's common, it's totally typical, everybody's hair goes through a, a growth cycle and a rest cycle, and when the rest cycle happens, the hair falls out. So, as we get older, like I said, we have hormone changes, um, stress can also be a factor in this, where, what happens is, the hair follicles stop reactivating. They just, you know, they, they take their rest period and then they go on permanent vacation. So, the fact is, though, those hair follicles aren't dead, they're getting a blood supply, they're, they're still viable, they just are kind of, they're basically hormonally turned off. And PP405...

• 32:43Bob Novella?

  Can't say no. Right there, Jay, right there. Sometimes you're just too close to it.

• 32:48Speaker 06

  I have the word, I literally have the word during one paragraph above PP.

• 32:54Cara Santa Maria?

  He's so mad at himself.

• 32:57Bob Novella?

  Jay, I got you.

• 32:58Speaker 06

  If you didn't hear the private show today, right, George, holy shit. Whoever was there, please, it was an adult woman. That's all.

• 33:12Bob Novella?

  That was great.

• 33:13Speaker 06

  I'm still a little like, what the hell was that?

• 33:15Bob Novella?

  But Jay, regarding the PP, I got your back. I got your back.

• 33:18Speaker 06

  Thanks, Bob. So, the, this chemical, you guys know what the name of it is. The mechanism targets a particular and very specific cellular component known as mitochondrial pyruvate carrier, MPC, and I will refer to MPC in a minute. So they say it's a protein complex that regulates metabolic activity in stem cells, right? So there is a stem cell component to this, which is pretty cool. So the chemical that they're using, it inhibits MPC, it shifts, it shifts the cell's metabolism in a way that triggers the follicle to re-exit dormancy, which is perfectly normal, right? And it will begin producing terminal hairs. Now, terminal hairs sound like the hair that's about to fall out, but for some reason they

• 34:03Speaker 06

  picked terminal to mean pigmented, strong, healthy hair, not peach fuzz. So this is like your best hair, right? The best version of the hair that you can grow.

• 34:12Cara Santa Maria?

  Wait, could this reverse gray, too? You said pigmented?

• 34:15Speaker 06

  It says pigmented.

• 34:16Cara Santa Maria?

  Wow.

• 34:17Speaker 06

  So this is a heavy hitter here. They spent, they spent a decade developing this one chemical or working with it. Again, I haven't found out if they created it or not.

• 34:26Bob Novella?

  Ten years.

• 34:27Speaker 06

  And guess what, guys? And this was the part that blew my mind.

• 34:29Bob Novella?

  It doesn't work.

• 34:30Speaker 06

  They, they, in 2023, they completed the phase one human trials in California, and the participants that applied the topical cream, I think they did it for a week, for one week before bedtime, and the results were described by researchers as statistically significant. And I want you to realize that statistically significant means... Good. Like. It's not just all statistics. It sounds like it was fifty, you know, it was a small percent. No.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but keep, but for context, a phase one trial is a safety trial. It's not an efficacy trial. So it means it probably wasn't blinded and, you know, it wasn't powered to show that there was an actual effect. It just means it was safe.

• 35:14Cara Santa Maria?

  And statistically significant means it is more likely than chance alone to have that effect.

• 35:19Speaker 06

  What was the p-value?

• 35:22Cara Santa Maria?

  I know.

• 35:25Speaker 06

  I missed all of that.

• 35:27Bob Novella?

  Jay, we got you, man. That's why we're here.

• 35:30Speaker 06

  So wait, so there was more because I was not satisfied with statistically significant. So they said in.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  What was the effect side?

• 35:37Speaker 06

  I went to the study.

• 35:38Bob Novella?

  How did I miss p-value?

• 35:39Speaker 06

  And then I used, I used ChatGPT to, to read the original study, but I used the research one, which like does a huge analysis and actually does a lot of other checking and everything. And then it gave me a wonderful summary. So what they, what they found was that there were, there were absolute signs of follicle reactivation, which means they were, they were seeing the, the hair follicles, there was growth happening and there were no signs of toxicity or follicle damage, which was something that they were like being extraordinarily aware about because anytime you do this, you know, they want to know, is there side effects? Are we actually damaging the hair follicles? Is there, is there anything entering the bloodstream? They didn't detect any of that, which is good. This is all really nice to hear. And on top of that, Steve, phase one, they're at phase two A now. You know what phase two A is?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the, through phase one. So phase two, it's, it's a preliminary, I actually, true story, very quick courtroom drama thing. A minute, I was getting sued, I'm in the courtroom and the, the, the, um, the other side had, had a researcher, um, being an expert witness for them. And I knew they knew nothing about clinical medicine. So I told my lawyer, ask them what a phase three clinical trial is. And their answer was, it's the one after phase two.

• 36:58Bob Novella?

  Awesome.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Anyway, it's a preliminary.

• 37:01Bob Novella?

  Was he right? Was he right?

• 37:03Speaker 06

  So they're doing it. They're doing it now. They have 60 participants. And this is the part that I knew Cara was gonna do a backflip for. They deliberately picked various genders, hair types, and ethnic backgrounds.

• 37:16Cara Santa Maria?

  They need to, yeah. It can't be a study on white men.

• 37:18Speaker 06

  Because everybody goes bald. There's people of all.

• 37:21Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and women, yeah, women experience hair loss. Like, a lot of women experience hair. Just because we don't have male pattern baldness necessarily doesn't mean that our hair doesn't thin significantly as we age.

• 37:30Bob Novella?

  And some women, especially devastating because they're not supposed to lose hair.

• 37:34Cara Santa Maria?

  Right, right, yeah, yeah, culturally.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  A lot of women do have pattern baldness. Not again, not the same as men, but they wear wigs. You know, so we don't see it. You don't see it as much as you would with a man.

• 37:42Speaker 06

  Well, I have a statistic on that. So 50% of men experience some type of patterned hair loss. 25% of women by age 50 experience some type of hair loss. Those are not insignificant numbers. And then it goes into, they were talking about the psychological distress and everything. I think we covered that. So to give you the overview, Phase 1 trials were completed in 2023. Phase 2 trials are underway and they're gonna be ending this year. And they have more people and more diversity going on. And then if the Phase 2 results are good, then they're gonna move forward into Phase 3, which is the one that I think is like, that's where we really.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  That's the one you need to get FDA approval.

• 38:19Speaker 06

  And then they're saying, the best-case scenario, if everything goes great and they did find, you know, something that really works, it could be out around 2027. Worst-case scenario, 2029. So I'm thinking like, man, I might actually like make the curve.

• 38:33Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  I think it just might save me.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  Here's the question. It works, it's safe. Are you rocking a new head of hair?

• 38:40Speaker 07

  No question.

• 38:41Speaker 06

  Right?

• 38:41Cara Santa Maria?

  Really?

• 38:43Speaker 07

  I mean, if it's, again, the problem is, something like this, they can, they will literally be able to name their price.

• 38:50Bob Novella?

  Yes.

• 38:51Speaker 07

  I probably will not be able to afford what it is in the first 10 years of its existence. Because this is, this is the moon landing. It's like boners and hair.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  George, go fund it.

• 39:02Speaker 07

  Boners they got, they took care of 20 years ago. And that, you know, that is a. Almost trillion dollar industry in terms of what it was.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  This will be the same.

• 39:10Cara Santa Maria?

  But it's.

• 39:11Speaker 07

  It's not even big.

• 39:12Cara Santa Maria?

  But there's all, I mean, I don't, I don't want to get into the nuances of the way that our very broken healthcare system works, but if it is an FDA, if it becomes an FDA approved pharmaceutical drug, physicians can.

• 39:27Speaker 06

  Prescribe it?

• 39:27Cara Santa Maria?

  Prescribe it, right?

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that doesn't mean your insurance company would have to pay for it.

• 39:31Cara Santa Maria?

  True, true.

• 39:32Speaker 07

  Who owns the patent on it, though? That's the thing, like, that.

• 39:35Speaker 06

  Well, UCLA is doing it, but, you know, who knows? It's going to end up in some pharmaceutical company's catalog.

• 39:40Cara Santa Maria?

  But, but if you can find a physician that deems it medically necessary and that argues for it, there may be a chance that an insurance company will cover it and that it may be affordable.

• 39:47Speaker 07

  So, basically. What's the medical necessity?

• 39:49Speaker 06

  No, no, what it is, is you, if your, your job counts, like, we all need to get jobs where you need hair.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  No.

• 39:54Speaker 06

  And then we'll be good. All right, one more quick thing, Steve, before we change. If you're comfortable, you don't have to get involved yourself in this, but if you're, if you're experiencing any hair loss, raise your hand.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  Or clap, because this is a podcast.

• 40:07Speaker 07

  Here we go, one big clap. All right, fellow baldies, here we go. There it is.

• 40:11Speaker 06

  Which of you that are experiencing?

• 40:13Speaker 07

  That was them hitting their foreheads, by the way.

• 40:18Speaker 06

  Which of you, if you're experiencing it, is, is it make you sad and uncomfortable?

• 40:24Speaker 06

  Wow, all right, the opposite. Which of you that have some type of baldness don't care and you're cool with it? That's fantastic. There you go. That is fantastic, guys. Smart. I, I don't like it.

• 40:37Bob Novella?

  What I want to see, I want to see, all these phase one, two, whatever, I want to see the number one, before and after, the, the best response anybody had, I want to see before and after. Wouldn't that tell you, if you're going from, from bald to something that's got some hair, the answer, that's the answer. We would know now.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  You want to see an obvious effect size?

• 40:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, you want a Bosley commercial for this. Yeah, a guy coming out of the pool.

• 41:00Bob Novella?

  Right.

• 41:01Speaker 07

  I'm not just the president, I'm also the president.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  So, George, what's the first hairstyle that you get once you have the full head of hair back? Are you just going to go fucking wild, or what?

• 41:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I, I don't care. Like, it literally could be anything. It could be, it could be a crew cut. It could be, like, tiger stripes. I don't care. It could be a bad haircut, but I wouldn't give it for, like, a mullet.

• 41:25Cara Santa Maria?

  For, like, a bowl cut?

• 41:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. All right, there it is. It's a mullet, it's a mullet. Case closed.

• 41:30Speaker 07

  Sun in orange mullet.

• 41:34Bob Novella?

  George, a coxcomb. But you're so handsome right now.

• 41:37Speaker 06

  George, to me, you're beautiful and handsome, and I love you the way you are.

• 41:42Speaker 07

  No, no, no, no, no. I appreciate it. I really appreciate it. But it's like, I'm like 10 years into no relationship, right? So it's like, obviously, I'm an asshole, or like, it's like the no hair thing.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  Well, we know which one it is.

• 41:55Speaker 07

  So that's what I'm...

• 41:57Speaker 02

  We don't want to burst your bubble there, George.

• 42:00Speaker 06

  George, we gotta talk after the package.

• 42:02Speaker 07

  Yeah, I appreciate it.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  All right, Bob, what color is this? What a color am I looking at right now?

• 42:07Bob Novella?

  I have no idea. I'm not gonna answer that question. I'm gonna do my... All right. Let me just start by saying this. I'm gonna address that, but I got an opener. Then I'm gonna...

• 42:16Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 42:17Bob Novella?

  Then I'm gonna do that.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  All right, Bob, give me your opener.

• 42:22Bob Novella?

  Wait, what are you trying to say? Reject your setup. Researchers at UC Berkeley and University of Washington have developed a machine called Oz that can kind of hijack a person's visual system to see something that is otherwise unseeable, the color olo. This, Steve...

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:41Bob Novella?

  Is a representation of the color olo.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  It's not real olo. It's fake olo.

• 42:47Bob Novella?

  It's a representation of the color olo. If you're listening and not seeing this, it's basically blue-green or teal. If you're a real geek, it's light at a wavelength of 540 nanometers. Well, more like 542, right? Wouldn't you say it's more 542?

• 43:04Bob Novella?

  But make no mistake...

• 43:05Speaker 02

  541, 542, whatever it takes.

• 43:08Bob Novella?

  But make no mistake, that is not olo. It's not even close to olo. One way to look at it is the creation of a three-dimensional object as a shadow of a four-dimensional object. So to try to understand that four-dimensional object, scientists will often look at its shadow, a three-dimensional object that is really a shadow of it.

• 43:29Cara Santa Maria?

  That is not helpful.

• 43:32Bob Novella?

  I bet it's helpful to some people.

• 43:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Is this like how when we, like, we can't see ultraviolet light, so we make it purple? And then we go, "Oh, there's a UV light on."

• 43:41Bob Novella?

  Yeah, it's kind of like a representation. It's a representation of something that you can't see or imagine, but that helps give you, it's a shadow of the real thing. It gives you a hint of the real object, an object that you can't appreciate. And this is just an attempt to do that. So there is no printer conceivable that can print OLO. There is no digital display that can display OLO. It's not a limitation of what's coming into your eyes. It's a limitation within the eyes. The retina itself does not have the evolved hardware to see OLO. Would a bird be able to see it? With what? Birds or other animals? Do you think they would be able to possibly see it? I think it would be difficult. You would not have trichromatic vision like a human and see it, I don't think.

• 44:26Bob Novella?

  So it's not a cold, dry issue? It is, it is. But it's not just specifically, and this is exactly what I'm going to cover. So there are, yet, despite all of this, there are five people that have seen OLO. And that gets us to Oz. This is the device that they created. Of course, the inspiration was The Wizard of Oz. And it was hard to find out exactly what they meant, but in the books, if you had to put on green filters, glasses, to downgrade the utter brilliance of the green color of Oz. The other obvious connection is that if you watch The Wizard of Oz, they go from black and white to color, right? That's another, that's another connection. So to better understand this, though, you need to understand photoreceptors to a certain degree to really appreciate this. Photoreceptors are the specialized cells in our retinas, right?

• 45:11Bob Novella?

  We've got the rods and cones. The rods are for low light, but they don't deal with color. It's the cones that produce the color vision for us. But there's three types of cones. There's the short wavelength, there's the medium wavelength, and then there's the long wavelength. So blue, green, red, basically. So there's S cones, M cones, and L cones. Now, so all the million colors, you could, we could all see approximately about a million colors. Those colors come from the activation of two or three of these cones together. They always activate together. The key point here is that they never, they are never stimulated by themselves.

• 45:52Bob Novella?

  It's always either an S and M cone, and, oh boy, an M and L cone. The PP cone. PP cone. It's never a single type of cone. Could I get the next?

• 46:03Speaker 06

  Can you stimulate an L and an S? Like the two ends but not the middle? The long and the short?

• 46:09Bob Novella?

  Well, let's take a look at this chart then, shall we, Steve?

• 46:11Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 46:12Bob Novella?

  So what, the key takeaway here is that, is you've got this overlap. And because you have this overlap, you cannot stimulate one cone type without stimulating at least one other one. So what that means is that you can never purely isolate, say, if you could see the peak of the M cone there at like 400 and whatever, 500 whatever nanometers, it could never be stimulated by itself because, because you're going to always have a little bit of stimulation of the other cones. So when you see a color like, say, green, you are, it's, it's basically attenuated because there's other colors thrown in the mix because the other receptors are being stimulated.

• 46:54Speaker 06

  Bob, can I ask a question?

• 46:55Bob Novella?

  Yeah, please, please do.

• 46:56Speaker 06

  I was under the impression, it's kind of like the LEDs in TV where like the combination of the three, the three color groups make the color. It fashions the color, right?

• 47:06Bob Novella?

  Right, exactly.

• 47:07Speaker 06

  I thought that was by design, that we want them to be stimulated at, you know what I mean?

• 47:12Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Speaker 06

  That's how we evolved. That we want them to be stimulated at the same time because they have to in order to create the color that you're seeing.

• 47:18Bob Novella?

  Right, right. That's part of it, and that's why we can see so many colors because there's, there's so much overlap that you're having various amounts of the receptors being stimulated. So you got all the, the million, literally like a million potential colors that we can see. So the overlap is important, but it also means that we can't, you cannot see a pure color, a pure hue, without having some other colors in the mix. And because of that, that color will never be as vivid as possible.

• 47:43Speaker 06

  Got it.

• 47:43Bob Novella?

  Okay? Now, the way that Oz deals with this is that it literally, keeping your head very still... It literally will map these M cones in your retina. It maps them individually. It says, here's an M cone cell, here's an M cone cell. And it finds a thousand or so of these and it maps them. It knows exactly where they are because this is like a fingerprint. Everybody's retina here will have a different distribution of these M cones on their retina. And this machine can actually stimulate every M cone cell and no other cell is being stimulated.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  So OLO is the color of pure M cone stimulation?

• 48:18Bob Novella?

  And that's where OLO comes from because on the left S is zero because it's not stimulated. The M is stimulated, so that's a one. And then the L is not stimulated, that's another zero. So O10, OLO. That's where OLO comes from.

• 48:34Cara Santa Maria?

  Is it, sorry to interject, but like

• 48:35Bob Novella?

  No, please do.

• 48:36Cara Santa Maria?

  From what I understand, color blindness is caused by one or more cone deficiencies. So somebody who's red-green colorblind has either a deficiency, like an anomaly, or a difficulty with like just their L cone, for example. I don't know which cone it is, but with one cone. And then there's deuteropia and then there's tri, it's like the, what are the words?

• 49:03Bob Novella?

  With dichromatic, monochromatic.

• 49:05Cara Santa Maria?

  Tritonopia, yeah, deuteranopia and protonopia. So are there not people in the population who can do this? Because they have deficits in specific cones but not others?

• 49:16Bob Novella?

  No, I didn't specifically study color blindness for this talk, but no, I can confidently say that they're not seeing OLO.

• 49:24Cara Santa Maria?

  I feel like there's got to be people who just don't have one of the types of cones.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  But you would have to not have L or S and have only M cones?

• 49:30Cara Santa Maria?

  That's the difference. It has to be just the M cones to be OLO.

• 49:34Speaker 06

  Everything would be green and you would only see green?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Like blue, this teal, various.

• 49:38Speaker 06

  Question, Bob.

• 49:39Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 06

  We have a hell of a lot more of those in our eyes than a thousand.

• 49:43Bob Novella?

  Right, right. So yeah, so that, there's, this is, imagine you're looking into the retina and you're identifying specific cells that you then stimulate. They can only map out, say, a thousand or 2,000 of them, but there's 2 million, there's 2 million of them. They're stimulating a subset of these M cones. So that's what it does, though. What they do is they look at your red dot and they say, alright, here's a thousand M cone receptors, and they stimulate them. So the short and long wavelengths are not stimulated at all. That never happens. No matter what you're looking at, anywhere, anywhere, you will never reproduce that because you always have some of the other receptors being stimulated. So it makes any color you see paler than it potentially can be.

• 50:28Bob Novella?

  So what you end up seeing is a blue-green or a teal that is so ridiculously vivid that you cannot really imagine it right now. My big question is, if you've seen it, can you really reimagine it faithfully? And you probably could. So here's some quotes. You're probably wondering, well, what do these people say? These five lucky bastards that saw Olo? What do they say? So one person said that it was a profoundly saturated teal. Somebody said, "It's blue-green but with unprecedented saturation." Saturation means that it's vivid. It's just like more of that color. Did you know that pink is essentially a light red? We treat it colloquially as another color. It's not technically another color.

• 51:12Bob Novella?

  It's just a pale version of red. Red is a super saturated pink, in a sense. So, Kair, you wanted another analogy. It's like having somebody look at pink, somebody who has never seen red ever, and saying, "Here's pink. I want to show you a super saturated version of it called red." Do you think you could extrapolate in your mind what deep red looks like by only knowing pink? You probably couldn't do it justice, right?

• 51:36Cara Santa Maria?

  But I also wonder, are the five people who saw this color researchers? Are they these researchers?

• 51:41Bob Novella?

  A couple of them were the researchers themselves.

• 51:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Only a couple?

• 51:44Bob Novella?

  No, yeah, not all of them.

• 51:45Cara Santa Maria?

  Because I would think that there would be a percentage of the population who like, "Yes, this is so cool scientifically." But you show them and they go, "Yeah, it's bluish-green."

• 51:55Bob Novella?

  No, no. I don't think they had any of that reaction at all.

• 52:00Cara Santa Maria?

  But were they primed to think this is freaking awesome? You know what I mean? Like, you sound so excited. But I feel like there have got to be people who are like, "Yeah, it's like, it's like..."

• 52:08Bob Novella?

  No.

• 52:09Cara Santa Maria?

  Color.

• 52:09Speaker 06

  There are people that watch Star Wars and basically were like, "Yeah, so..."

• 52:15Speaker 02

  What we learned is, they don't get to see the movies anymore and we're never gonna ask them to see Olo, that's it.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:23Bob Novella?

  I doubt they were as excited as me, but I would bet that the researchers that partook, partook, were very excited.

• 52:29Cara Santa Maria?

  I'm sure they were very excited.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  I wonder if this would ultimately be leveraged in like, virtual reality, where you actually have goggles that are fixed to your head, and they map out your retina, and then they could, they're stimulating your rods and cones, individual lasers.

• 52:42Bob Novella?

  Yeah, it's interesting to contemplate.

• 52:43Cara Santa Maria?

  I feel like this is a solution to a problem we didn't have.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  Those are the best ones, those are the best ones to solve.

• 52:49Bob Novella?

  I disagree, I disagree, but I'll, I'll give you some other ideas on that, Karen, but let me finish with the, with my favorite quote, my favorite quote. Significantly more vivid than a green laser light, you've all seen laser light, it's like ridiculously vivid, they're saying it's, it made laser light look pale, that's how, that's how intense this was. In the future, it, it could help with color vision research, color blindness treatment, and retina disease modeling, this could be extremely helpful. I wanna see this, I don't wanna see Olo, I wanna see Ool, O-O-L, I wanna see this with red light, a hyper vivid, a hyper saturated red, I think would be a lot more interesting than teal, you know, that's, it's my opinion.

• 53:31Bob Novella?

  Alright, question for this quick discussion, is this a new color, or is it not a new color? My opinion is, this is not a new color, this is blue green, we know blue green, we know teal, this is just a hyper saturated teal that's beyond the mechanisms of our, of our retina, but it's not a new color, everyone here is saying, it's a new color, it's technically...

• 53:50Speaker 02

  It is a new color, because all colors are just different versions of the, of the three colors.

• 53:55Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, like, more fundamental question, what is a color in terms of how you divide up this continuum of light, you know, isn't it arbitrary to some degree to say, we can see a million colors, couldn't you divide that in half again and now we can see two million colors?

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:09Cara Santa Maria?

  There are physiological measurements of what is the least noticeable difference, like, that's an actual measurement in physiology, so it could be that, yeah, there's a least noticeable difference between a million colors.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  Right.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Alright, let's move on.

• 54:21Bob Novella?

  Wasn't that cool? I love it.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  I know, I hear you. That's why I moved on.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Here she is.

• 54:25Speaker 07

  Who's that?

• 54:26Speaker 02

  All right, Evan.

• 54:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Who, sorry, we got, this is Elizabeth Holmes.

• 54:31Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's Elizabeth Holmes.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Yes, a nefarious character.

• 54:34Speaker 07

  The former chief executive officer of Theranos.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Isn't she in the Huskau? Why is her news related to her?

• 54:40Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. She's in the Huskau. But, that's right, she is in the news. So Theranos, we have covered this before on the show. The now defunct health technology company that once soared in valuation. Nine billion, I think, at its crazy peak valuation, however they did that. This was after the company claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods that could use a very small volume of blood, such as from a finger prick. Whoop, that's it. One little drop of blood, Steve.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:12Speaker 07

  Figure it all out, right?

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Yep, which I instantly knew was bullshit.

• 55:15Speaker 07

  Right. It took you about a second to smell that one out. So, yeah, she's in jail. Back in early 2022, she was found guilty of defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 55:26Speaker 07

  Three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for lying to investors about the devices developed by Theranos.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  But no counts of harming patients, only investors. Because that's what's more important, right?

• 55:41Speaker 07

  Not guilty on the four other fraud charges related to the allegations that she duped patients.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:47Speaker 07

  Who received false or faulty results from the tests conducted by Theranos. Eleven years in prison, and she has to give back, over the course of her life if she can, four hundred fifty-two million dollars. She is, her quote is, "Failure is not fraud," and she stands by that still to this day. She believes that she's innocent, that she worked, everything she did was with correct and good intentions, and, yeah, it was, it merely, it just didn't work, and that's not fraudulent. But she also, you know, exaggerated the accuracy and reliability of the testing technology. She falsely claimed partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.

• 56:29Speaker 06

  And the United States military and you know she kind of made up these fake demonstrations and altered lab reports.

• 56:35Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, she straight up used other people's machines and put her logo on it and was like, "Look, it works."

• 56:39Speaker 06

  Right, so I think she needs to go back to school to figure out what the real definition of fraud here is, but the reason she's in the news is because, well, she's married. Before she went off to jail, she married a person by the name of Billy Evans. Billy Evans is one of the heirs to the Evans Hotel Fortune. People in the San Diego area, I'm not familiar with this, apparently it's a family-owned group of hotels. His background is that primarily he was with a company called Luminar Technologies, a company specializing in self-driving car technology. He, this is Elizabeth Holmes' husband, Billy Evans, has founded a new blood testing startup called Hemanthus.

• 57:21Speaker 06

  Hemanthus, H-A-E-M-A-N-T-H-U-S, which means what? Blood flower, blood. Blood lily, I believe is what it is. The company aims to develop diagnostic technology that analyzes small samples of blood, saliva, or urine using artificial intelligence. And they have so far raised twenty million dollars.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Twenty million?

• 57:43Speaker 06

  I mean, hold on a second. So you got this woman who the world knows who she is. Yep. You know, it was a huge scandal. She gets married. Yep. Goes to prison. Yep. Her husband basically says, "I'm gonna make the same thing she did." That's pretty much what's happening here. And people gave him money?

• 58:00Speaker 02

  No, but Jay, this has AI, though.

• 58:01Speaker 06

  Ah.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Now with artificial intelligence.

• 58:05Speaker 06

  You think the first thing you would do if you're about to hand over, like, I don't know how many investors there are, but let's say one person gave them a million bucks. Would you at least do an internet search on who they are?

• 58:15Speaker 02

  I mean...

• 58:16Speaker 06

  They have to know. How can you not?

• 58:18Speaker 02

  This is a whole thing, but you know, sometimes investors have, you know, the FOMO, right? The fear of missing out. And they invest a lot of money knowing that nineteen are gonna fail, but one is gonna hit. And so if they're with open eyes saying, "All right, this..."

• 58:35Bob Novella?

  Rolling the dice.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  They're rolling the dice. That's on them. You know what I mean? As long as they're not being lied to, right? As long as they're not...

• 58:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Isn't there also like, and I don't know what her settlement or her court outcome was. I mean, clearly, they're able to do this. But you often do see in these like fraud cases, you know, some sort of Ponzi scheme banker. It's like, and you are banned from practicing banking, you and your immediate family, you know? But they clearly didn't.

• 59:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I don't know if this is her husband.

• 59:02Cara Santa Maria?

  It's her husband.

• 59:03Speaker 06

  I don't know if he was included in any kind of.

• 59:05Cara Santa Maria?

  It should have been, yeah. It should have been you and your immediate family, but it clearly wasn't.

• 59:09Speaker 07

  Her sentence is she's not allowed to hold a corporate position until like the year 2037 or something. It is part of.

• 59:15Cara Santa Maria?

  But it wasn't like, no, no more blood companies in your core group.

• 59:21Speaker 07

  I didn't, I didn't read that specifically.

• 59:24Speaker 06

  Oh my God, I mean, I just, to me, it's like, this is the husband of the woman who, you know, had a $9 billion fake company. And people are gonna throw money, even with that, Steve, like, I'll just pick one of the other 3,000 venture things that are happening out there.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  I'm not defending the decision.

• 59:41Cara Santa Maria?

  Fool me once, right? Fool me once, shame on me.

• 59:45Speaker 06

  I appreciate it.

• 59:46Cara Santa Maria?

  You, fool me twice, yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 07

  The company tweeted the other day, sort of in response to the very question you're asking about, you know, how, why is this happening? Here's what the tweet says. Yes, our CEO, Billy Evans, is Elizabeth Holmes' partner. Skepticism is rational. We must clear a higher bar. We prefer to build first, talk later. The science, when ready, will stand on its own. Does that not sound like, oh my gosh?

• 1:00:12Speaker 06

  We want peaceful coexistence. It's like, no, you don't, you want to eat us.

• 1:00:17Speaker 07

  Here's, here's the next tweet. This is not Theranos 2.0. Theranos attempted to miniaturize existing tests. Our approach is fundamentally different. We use light to read the complete molecular story in biological fluids. Same patterns current tests can't detect. Not an improvement, a different paradigm.

• 1:00:37Speaker 06

  I mean, it's superficially, it's fine. And if it weren't coming from the, you know, the partner of Elizabeth Holmes, it'd be like, all right, just show me the data, show me the science behind it. But sure, we could use light to invent, to see what stuff is made of, and sure, we could

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  AI to look for patterns and

• 1:00:56Cara Santa Maria?

  That's mass spec.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  That's fine, yeah. Yeah. Superficially, it sounds fine and maybe, maybe we're being too harsh. Maybe this will eventually work out, but at the end of the day, they're right in that the science will speak for itself, both positive and negative, right?

• 1:01:11Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah. But the way that we have structured startup culture in this country is give us money now, you know, ask questions later. And so where, where's the line with fraud? You know what I mean? Like if this is a nothing burger.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  That's her point.

• 1:01:26Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  She's like, this is the fake it till you make it culture is just inherent. Her, her point was that this is what everybody does. You're only coming after me because I'm a woman. Right? That was her point. There may be an element of truth to that, but I do think that she was way over the line to actual fraud. Not just, not just hype or, you know, doing the thing that they do, you know, like we're like, we have a guy in a costume pretending to be the robot, you know what I mean?

• 1:01:51Cara Santa Maria?

  That's different, right?

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  So why wasn't that fraud? Like, why is, you know what I mean? So there's, there's

• 1:01:55Cara Santa Maria?

  Because when you finally have a prototype and your prototype is fake.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a fake prototype, but it's just a demonstration though, Karen.

• 1:02:01Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly. It's always just a demonstration. Because they were, they were already in Walgreens. Yeah, they were already like using consumers. Yeah.

• 1:02:07Speaker 06

  Apple was doing it, you know, Steve Jobs, when he, when he demoed the first iPhone.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  It was fake.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  It was on rails at least.

• 1:02:14Speaker 06

  It was like totally on rails and it crashed like, it was like, you know what I mean? Like there was, that almost didn't happen.

• 1:02:20Cara Santa Maria?

  But when he sold the first iPhone, he wasn't selling an iPhone on rails.

• 1:02:23Speaker 06

  No, exactly.

• 1:02:24Cara Santa Maria?

  That's the difference.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  He wasn't selling a BlackBerry and putting an iPhone.

• 1:02:27Cara Santa Maria?

  A product that didn't work.

• 1:02:28Speaker 06

  They knew they were going to get there, but I don't know. I don't, I don't trust this.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  And I think that the whole conversation about where's the line between a demo and fraud or whatever can, can just be avoided by just creating a clear demarcation between something that's health related, where the fake it till you make it equals death.

• 1:02:42Cara Santa Maria?

  Exactly.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  And on this side, the fake it till you make it equals you got a shitty phone.

• 1:02:46Speaker 06

  Right, right. I know.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Exactly. But which is why it's so interesting to me. And again, but for investors, you could say, as long as you're not committing, you're not like doing certain things like lying, outright lying or misrepresenting to investors or whatever, then it is like buyer beware kind of thing. You're just, it's all a gamble and they're gambling. Something you're saying, "I don't have it now. This is just my plan to do this."

• 1:03:08Cara Santa Maria?

  Because we do have an FDA, right?

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  But the patients who were harmed by fraudulent, actual medical care didn't-

• 1:03:15Cara Santa Maria?

  Well, and that's a different thing. Like, if we have ostensibly a Food and Drug Administration that has to approve certain types of devices or certain types of procedures, anything before it receives approval is research.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Is research.

• 1:03:28Cara Santa Maria?

  And once it receives approval and it's, you know, open to the public, at that point, you're committing fraud.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:03:34Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  Evan, anything else to wrap this up?

• 1:03:35Speaker 07

  Yes, here's the wrap-up line. You mentioned the prototype, right? The prototype of the machine, the one... This company, this new company, also released a photo of their prototype, and according to the NPR article, I'll quote, "It looks suspiciously like Theranos's defunct testing machine."

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  But Evan, this is not Theranos 2.0.

• 1:03:53Speaker 07

  This is not Theranos 2.0, as long as you get that straight.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  As long as you keep saying that, you're good.

• 1:03:58Speaker 07

  That's right.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  All right. All right, look at this cute little guy. So this is KJ, this is KJ. He has a genetic disorder. CPS1 deficiency, carbamylphosphate synthase 1 deficiency. This is a urea cycle disorder, so, you know, we break down proteins into ammonia, then the ammonia gets converted to urea, and then you pee the urea out, right? That's normal metabolism. This enzyme is what turns ammonia into... Gets ammonia into the urea cycle, right? So it eventually spits out urea. So if this enzyme isn't working, you don't make urea, ammonia builds up. Ammonia is a toxin.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  It can damage the brain, it could damage the liver, and it can cause permanent brain damage, and it can cause death. Fifty percent of children born with this disorder die. They don't... So fifty percent mortality. The ones who survive, mostly survive because they get liver transplants. The idea... So you have to keep them alive until they're old enough to get a liver transplant. It depends on how fast they grow and how much they thrive, but you know, they have to, you know, be like one, two years old.

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  But is that where the problem is? It's in the liver?

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  It's that enzyme. It's a genetic mutation of that enzyme.

• 1:05:12Speaker 06

  But if they have a new liver?

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  In the liver, yeah. It's in the liver. It's in the liver, yeah. And one of the treatments to keep them alive is you have to reduce their protein intake, which, you know, you kind of need protein to grow. So they're, you're giving them the least amount of protein we can to have them kind of survive long enough to get a liver transplant. You also have to give them drugs that scavenge the nitrogen, right? That scavenge the ammonia to try to get rid of that as much as possible. It's, you know, it's expensive, it's dodgy, again, 50% mortality rate. And the thing is, like, with an enzyme like that, there could be hundreds of mutations that inactivate that enzyme, right? So it's not one specific genetic mutation, it's just anything which makes that enzyme not work. Could be hundreds of different mutations.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  All right, so KJ was born with this disease. He has his own unique mutation that is in activating this enzyme. When he was born, you know, his pediatricians who, you know, had been working with CRISPR and genetic, you know, treatment were like, maybe we can design a CRISPR to treat KJ's specific mutation.

• 1:06:18Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  But we'd have to do it fast, you know, because he's not going to live that long, or he's not going to live that long without a liver transplant. Took them six months to basically make the CRISPR.

• 1:06:27Cara Santa Maria?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  Wow. They then gave him three infusions of the CRISPR. Remember, CRISPR is a genetic engineering tool, yeah, and it...

• 1:06:37Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  Remember what it stands for, Bob?

• 1:06:39Bob Novella?

  Shut up.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Clustered? Clustered. Repeating?

• 1:06:43Cara Santa Maria?

  Palindromic repeats.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Oh, no, not repeating. Clustered? Interspace palindromic repeats. Okay. Oh.

• 1:06:49Cara Santa Maria?

  I knew two of the letters.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  That's CRISPR. CRISPR. What's the R?

• 1:06:53Speaker 06

  Keep going.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Okay. Repeats. Oh, repeating, yeah. Yeah. So, anyway. So they did it, they packaged them in these liposomes, right? We talked about that before as well. They got it to the liver. I suspect, I couldn't find this, but I think the liver has its own venous system, blood supply through the, because it, basically, yeah, the portal system, because it drains the, everything you absorb in your gut goes to your liver first, so the liver can detoxify it. So, but anyway, they got it to the liver. They did it three times, over like from February to April of this year. Um, and basically to try to fix this mutation in as many of the liver cells as possible. And it freaking worked.

• 1:07:34Bob Novella?

  Wow.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Now,

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  it's not a hundred percent cure, because it didn't fix every cell, but it did enough that, at least so far. He is able to eat more protein, so he's growing better, he's thriving. And they were able to cut the dose of his medication in half. And so it's probability, I don't know if this is going to be enough to keep him from getting a liver transplant, or if it'll just really maximize his chance of surviving long enough to get one. And again, this was the first treatment. This is the first one.

• 1:08:05Cara Santa Maria?

  And he, I mean, it was only three infusions, like he could get more infusion.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  He could get more infusions, right. Keep doing it until you had enough of those cells.

• 1:08:11Bob Novella?

  They didn't give the parents a bill for thirty million dollars, did they?

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  The parents agreed to do it, and of course, this is research, right? Basically, this is a milestone, right? This is a milestone, just like the first IBF baby was a milestone. This is the first time we've done bespoke genetic therapy to, to treat a genetic disorder. And we did, again, we was done within a timeframe that could work therapeutically.

• 1:08:35Bob Novella?

  For one kid, I mean, there might not be any other kid that has that specific mutation.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  No, they'll have to engineer it for each person.

• 1:08:41Cara Santa Maria?

  And it's not just bespoke, it's not just the first time we've done a bespoke version. It's the first time we've done it in a, in vivo, in a living child, not, not in utero.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  This is a game changer. This is the, this is the first, this is opening the door to potentially treating any genetic disease. This is an absolute game changer. I think we will look back on this one case as like the seminal case, the first case in this.

• 1:09:07Bob Novella?

  But this had a good vector, though, right? I mean, that's, not all of these diseases have good vectors.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  You're right, but the liposome, yeah, you're right. I don't know if this would work in the brain, for example, but the, what this, this is the, the vector technology, so you have like, the CRISPR is the genetic engineering technology. The vector is how you get it to the cells you need to get it to. With the FDA-approved treatments, thalassemia and sickle cell, we take the cells out and then we do it in vitro. This is doing it in vivo, in a living organism. And again, it depends on where in the body it is. And as I said, the liver's kind of convenient to get access to. But still, this is an absolute game changer. The vector worked, the CRISPR worked. Amazing. The targeting worked. And it improved this child's life and their chance of success.

• 1:09:55Cara Santa Maria?

  And whether they do it in the body or they take the cells out, CRISPR them, and then re-infuse them, for all intents and purposes, it doesn't matter. Like CAR-T cell therapy, we're doing these things outside. It doesn't matter. You're still re-infusing these things into the body.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  Whatever works for whatever specific thing you're trying to treat. Anyway, we had to talk about this. This is an absolute game changer. Let's move on with science or fiction.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  It's time for Science or Fiction.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  Each week I come up with three science news items. There are facts, two real, one fake. And then I challenge my panel of expert skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. And you guys can play too. All right, well, first, we're going to ask the rogues to give their answer. Then we'll see how the audience voted. Are you guys ready? So there's the theme. The theme, because I had to prep four shows in basically eight days. I couldn't do all news items. All right, here's the theme. The theme is dwarf planets.

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Here we go. Dwarf planets are cool. Number one, the most massive dwarf planet is Pluto, about 27% more than the next most massive, Eris. All right, number two, Halmaia is the fastest-rotating planet or dwarf planet in the solar system, resulting in an equatorial diameter about twice as long as its polar diameter.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  And I, number three, of the five official dwarf planets, four have one or more moons, while one has a ring. Okay? Adam, as our guest, you get the privilege of going first.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  I was so quiet, I didn't make a single sound.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  You did very well.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  God, okay, I don't think it works sometimes.

• 1:11:47Cara Santa Maria?

  I know.

• 1:11:48Speaker 03

  All right. Okay, so the last one, number three,

• 1:11:53Speaker 03

  one of the five official dwarf planets, of the five official dwarf planets, four have one or more moons, while one has a ring. That sounds very familiar. That sounds... I don't see why that couldn't be possible. The middle one, I have no idea. I'm so completely confused on what this means at all. And the first one...

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  So I'll tell you what it means. So, Haumea is one of the dwarf planets. So it's spinning so fast that it's squashed, right? So that the equatorial diameter is twice the polar diameter.

• 1:12:21Bob Novella?

  So like an oblate spheroid.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  Really oblate. It's like...

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Polar diameter being like...

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  So like the north pole to south pole is half the distance of the equatorial diameter. So it's twice as wide as it is high.

• 1:12:34Cara Santa Maria?

  It's short and fast.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  It's a chode, okay.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  That, that seems like a pretty crazy, fast rotation. Almost too much to be possible, but the top one seems so familiar, and it seems familiar in the way that that makes me feel like the opposite is true. Like it's, uh... I don't know, one seems like fiction to me. I think I've heard that it is absolutely not the largest dwarf planet. It just happened to be the first one that we categorized that way after we started to find other things in the Kuiper Belt and so on. I'm gonna say number one is fiction.

• 1:13:13Speaker 02

  The Pluto being the most massive dwarf planet.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:13:16Speaker 02

  All right, we're gonna skip over to Evan.

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  Because I am the lord of science or fiction.

• 1:13:22Bob Novella?

  It's one, two, or three. There's no letters here.

• 1:13:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't recall Pluto's relative size to the other ones. It may be bigger. I don't know if it's 27% more. So that one could be the fiction. Also, Halmae, the fastest rotating planet. I'd never heard that before. I have a feeling that one will be science. And five dwarf planets, four have one or more moons, while one has a ring? I don't remember a ring. One had a ring? I don't recall that being the case. Doesn't mean it's not, right? But I'll say the one dwarf planet with a ring, that's the fiction.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Okay, Kara.

• 1:14:10Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, so the thing that I'm noticing is that you're saying Pluto is the most massive dwarf planet, not the largest, right? And I think that's an important distinction. I don't know if Pluto's the largest in terms of size, but it may be the densest, right, or the most massive. So that one might still be true, even though it's not true if you read it, like, quickly. So Halmae being so, like, spinning so quickly that it squished it. Would it squish it in that direction? Or would it squish it in this direction if it was spinning really, or sorry, so fast? Squish it this way? Something spinning fast, or squish it this way? I'm not good at physics.

• 1:14:52Speaker 02

  I know, but I can't tell you.

• 1:14:54Speaker 06

  It says equatorial.

• 1:14:56Cara Santa Maria?

  No, I know. I'm saying, but would that happen if it was spinning really fast? Would it flatten into a pancake? Or would it, I mean, yeah, probably. It's like a spirally, like, a thing. But that would have to happen after it formed, that it would be squished, right? Unless it's spinning while it was forming and congealing? That's not the right word. Aggregating? I don't know. So five of fish? I don't even know if there are five official dwarf planets. Four with, so moons on dwarf planets. Moons on dwarf planets? Or are they moons of other moons? I don't know. Maybe it's the moon thing that's getting me? Could they be moons of other moons? I think I'm gonna go with Evan and say this one is the fiction, because there are so many details in that one that could be wrong.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  Okay, Jay.

• 1:15:42Speaker 07

  About Hamaya, I mean, I'm fairly confident that that one is science. I mean, I was definitely remember reading about this, something like this happening, and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say that that was what I was reading. The one about the, so we have, we have five official dwarf planets, right? So one of them being Pluto. Four have one or more moons, okay? And while, while one has a ring, now, to be specific, Steve, you're talking about the dwarf planet has a ring, not one of the moons.

• 1:16:12Speaker 02

  Yes, one of the, one of the five dwarf planets has a ring.

• 1:16:15Speaker 07

  I have absolutely no reason to doubt that a dwarf planet could have a ring. I mean, at one point, I think our moon had a ring. So I, hey, slow down there.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Jay, hurry up, we got 10 minutes.

• 1:16:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think I'm the one.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  All right, Bob, go ahead.

• 1:16:33Bob Novella?

  Oh, man, I'm embarrassed. I haven't really looked at dwarf planets in so long. I focus like on deep space and not that close, so it's like crap.

• 1:16:40Speaker 02

  All right, whatever.

• 1:16:40Bob Novella?

  Yeah, whatever. Just setting the stage here, Steve. So for me-

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Just lowering the expectations a little bit.

• 1:16:47Bob Novella?

  Yes, a little bit. Gotta, gotta do it in this case, you bastard. So, yeah, the number one here with Pluto, it sounds right. I forget some of the, the later discoveries, though. I could be wrong on that, but that sounds pretty good. For the third one, dwarf planets having moons and a ring, kind of rings, kind of rings a bell. Oh, and so that, that could work. The one that just struck me viscerally was the second one. I, I think a rocky planet spinning that fast and make, making it so that it's twice, the equatorial diameter is twice the polar diameter, that's a hell of a, of a spin, of a rotation there to be, to make such a dramatic oblate

• 1:17:30Bob Novella?

  shape there, that, so that one's rubbed me a little bit. I mean, I could, I'm not, I'm not very, very confident here, it's annoying the hell out of me. But I'm gonna say the, that one, number two there is-

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  The Hamaya spinning is the fiction.

• 1:17:40Bob Novella?

  Yeah, is the fiction.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  All right, so good, so we have a good spread. So the rogues were not very helpful to all of you.

• 1:17:46Cara Santa Maria?

  I picked the one. How maya? Oh, you picked, oh, you picked with Adam.

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  You picked Pluto, so Pluto, Pluto, Pluto, Hamea, and then, no, you picked Pluto.

• 1:17:55Cara Santa Maria?

  No, it's Pluto, Pluto, Hamea, and then we picked Moons and Rings.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Moons and Rings, Pluto, Pluto, Hamea. All right. So we're gonna do the George Robb single clap method. George, you wanna do it or you want me to just do it? All right, I'll do it. So, in the audience, if you think that number one about Pluto being the most massive dwarf planet is the fiction, clap.

• 1:18:17Speaker 02

  If you think that Hamea spinning fast is the fiction, clap.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  And if you think that the Moons and Ring one is the fiction, clap. So I'm hearing two, one, then three. Two, one, and then three. All right.

• 1:18:34Bob Novella?

  You sound happy with that.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  So let's...

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  We'll start with the one that got the least amount of votes. Number three. Of the five official dwarf planets, four have one or more moons, while one has a ring. Evan and Kara think this one is the fiction. A minority of the audience thinks this one is the fiction. And this one is science.

• 1:18:59Bob Novella?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:00Speaker 02

  This is science.

• 1:19:01Cara Santa Maria?

  Cool.

• 1:19:02Speaker 02

  So Pluto has five moons.

• 1:19:06Bob Novella?

  Yeah, five.

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  Hamea has two moons. It's no moon. Eris and Maki Maki have one moon.

• 1:19:14Cara Santa Maria?

  Each, or they share a moon?

• 1:19:15Speaker 02

  Each.

• 1:19:16Cara Santa Maria?

  Okay.

• 1:19:17Speaker 02

  And Ceres, which is the only one, only dwarf planet that's in the inner solar system, right? It's in the asteroid belt. It is not a trans-Neptunian plutoid dwarf planet.

• 1:19:27Bob Novella?

  Plutoid?

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  Has no moons, right? So four have moons. One has a ring. Hamea has a ring.

• 1:19:34Bob Novella?

  That's cool, that's cool.

• 1:19:36Cara Santa Maria?

  That might be telling of...

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  It may be related to other things happening.

• 1:19:41Cara Santa Maria?

  Shit.

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  Let's go back to number two. Hamea is the fastest rotating planet or dwarf planet in the solar system, resulting in an equatorial diameter about twice as long as its polar diameter. Bob, you think this one is the fiction? The clear majority of the audience thinks this one is the fiction.

• 1:19:57Bob Novella?

  And stop smiling, bastard.

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  And...

• 1:20:02Speaker 02

  That is Halmae.

• 1:20:02Bob Novella?

  What the hell, and that's rotating like...

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  That is Halmae. So, the upper left-hand pic... So, this is science. The upper left-hand picture here is an edge-on view, like an equatorial view of Halmae. Look at that thing!

• 1:20:18Bob Novella?

  That's nuts.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  That is really squashed.

• 1:20:20Bob Novella?

  How could I not see that before?

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  The second picture is a polar view. My question is, and I could not find an answer to this question, so if there's an astronomer who can answer, let me know. Why is that not circular from the polar? Why is it also ovoid in that direction?

• 1:20:38Speaker 06

  Because it's all screwed up. Something's pulling on it.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Now, what's interesting is, every single site I went to described Halmae as either egg-shaped or oval. But it's not egg-shaped. It's not. It's a flattened egg. Right? I don't know why it's not just a flattened sphere. I don't know why it's a flattened egg, but it is.

• 1:21:01Bob Novella?

  It might have mass anomalies.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, there could be... It's gotta be some other kind of material anomaly.

• 1:21:05Bob Novella?

  Some density anomalies within the crust.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, interesting.

• 1:21:07Bob Novella?

  Or the mantle, probably.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  But it's spinning super... Four hours. That's with one rotation every four hours, which is fast for something that big.

• 1:21:15Bob Novella?

  What's the long diameter?

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  I think it's like 2,000 kilometers or 1,000 kilometers, something like about that.

• 1:21:22Bob Novella?

  Which means...

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Which means that the most massive dwarf planet is Pluto, about 27% more than the next most massive, Eris. Is the fiction! So, congratulations, Jay and Adam.

• 1:21:34Bob Novella?

  Nice.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  I'm the smartest man alive!

• 1:21:37Bob Novella?

  Good get, man.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  Kara, you hit upon the magic word. Yeah, but backward. But you got a backward. Yeah, damn it. So Pluto is the largest dwarf planet.

• 1:21:49Bob Novella?

  That's what I was thinking.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  But it's not the most massive. The most massive is Eris, which is 20% more massive than Pluto. But it's a little smaller, because Eris is a lot denser than Pluto. So, sometimes, these turn on one key technical word. And you did hit upon that, so congratulations.

• 1:22:09Speaker 06

  I attribute this win, and me and Adam both winning, to the fact that we're both bass players.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  I thought it was because you're both Star Wars fans.

• 1:22:16Speaker 06

  And Star Wars fans.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have both those things going for you.

• 1:22:18Speaker 03

  Both those reasons are valid, yes.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:22:21Cara Santa Maria?

  I am just really sick of being right for the wrong reasons and wrong for the right reasons on this show.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  That's your existence, Kara.

• 1:22:27Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's my skill.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  You have the best record almost every year, though.

• 1:22:29Speaker 02

  That's your mojo.

• 1:22:30Cara Santa Maria?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  All right, Evan, give us a quote.

• 1:22:34Speaker 06

  "The true function of reason is not to find beliefs, but to eliminate false ones." Julianne Bageeny.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Julianne Bageeny. Who is that?

• 1:22:44Speaker 06

  English philosopher, journalist, author of 20 books about philosophy written for general audiences. He's written extensively on philosophy and books on atheism, secularism, and the nature of national identity.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Is he alive today?

• 1:23:00Speaker 06

  I'm sorry?

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  Is he alive today?

• 1:23:01Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:23:02Speaker 06

  I like it. He's a patron of the Humanists UK and organization promoting secular humanism. So, Julianne Bageeny.

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  I like it. That's true. That's what science is all about, eliminating the false stuff. Not proving yourself right. All right, well, thank you guys all for joining me this week.

• 1:23:19Cara Santa Maria?

  Thanks, Steve.

• 1:23:20Speaker 06

  Thank you, Steve.

• 1:23:20Speaker 02

  Good to thank you all for coming.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  Good job.

• 1:23:29Speaker 02

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

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  Skeptic's Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to [email protected]. And if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/skepticsguide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

• 1:24:28Speaker 07

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