Skeptics Guide #954

Segment #1. Swindler’s List The IT Scam Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Driverless Cars https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/update-on-self-driving-cars/ News Item #2 – Dead Whale Mystery https://www.sciencealert.com/unusual-mystery-of-dead-whales-washing-up-on-us-coast-may-be-solved News Item #3 – Filtering Wildfire Air https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/10/air-purifiers-arent-enough-to-clean-your-home-from-wildfire-smoke/ News Item #4 – New Law of Nature Proposed https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-propose-sweeping-new-law-nature-expanding-evolution-2023-10-16/ News Item #5 – The Real Count Dracula https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/998653 Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Question and E-mails Question #1: Life After Big Bang Hey folks! I listen to the show every week and I recently came across this video / research speculating that life may have started almost immediately after the Big Bang so I want to send it along and ask for your thoughts. To me I find it absolutely fascinating and while I know it’s highly speculative I find the idea that we could be connected to life everywhere… almost comforting, in a way. Anyway, here’s the video and it has research linked from it. https://youtu.be/JOiGEI9pQBs Kris Siegel CA Segment #5. Science or Fiction Each week our host will come up with three science news items or facts, two genuine, one fictitious. He will challenge our panel of skeptics to sniff out the fake – and you can play along. Theme: Infectious Disease #1) A new study finds that the risk of getting Guillain Barre Syndrome within 6 weeks after COVID increases by six times, and decreases by more than half after getting the BioNTech vaccine. #2) A new study finds that approximately 50,000 deaths per year in the Americas can be attributed to antimicrobial resistance. #3) Since 2010 the number of reported tick-borne infections in the US has increased 10 fold. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week "Our ignorance is profound, forgivable and temporary. There are only two true errors: One is believing that we have no errors left to make, and the other is believing that those errors are permanent and irreversible.” Adam Mastroianni, experimental psychologist, author of the science blog Experimental History