Skeptics Guide #989

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #989 June 19th 2024 Segment #1. Juneteenth https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Sun’s Magnetic Field About to Flip https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/the-suns-magnetic-field-is-about-to-flip-heres-what-to-expect News Item #2 – Kids and Gun Safety https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/health/gun-storage-homes-children.html News Item #3 – Gates Goes Nuclear https://theness.com/neurologicablog/bill-gates-backs-nuclear/ News Item #4 – Nanodroplet Drug Delivery https://phys.org/news/2024-06-ultrasound-triggers-nanodroplets-drugs.amp News Item #5 – Potential Dyson Spheres https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/science/dyson-spheres-alien-life-evidence-scn/index.html Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. From TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@mrcultdaddy/video/7377793798094753070 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: Item 1: A recent analysis confirms that the current red spot of Jupiter is the same spot first observed by Cassini in 1665, making it at least 360 years old. Item 2: By analyzing tool-making researchers find that humans began cumulative culture around 600,000 years ago. Item 3: For the first time astronomers witness the activation of a massive galactic black hole into an active galactic nucleus. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “The downside of skepticism: it can easily turn into an arrogant position of a priori rejection of any new phenomenon or idea, a position that is as lacking in critical thinking as the one of the true believer, and that simply does not help either science or the public at large.” ― Massimo Pigliucci, Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk