Skeptics Guide #1003

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1003 September 25th 2024 with guest Rogue Andrea Jones Roy Segment #1. What’s the Word Pitch Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Crystal Genome Storage https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-case-humans-go-extinct-this-memory-crystal-will-store-our-genome-for-billions-of-years-180985114/ News Item #2 – How Reliable are Presidential Forecasts https://osf.io/preprints/osf/6g5zq News Item #3 – Myopia Epidemic https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/myopia-epidemic/ News Item #4 – Biotwang Explained https://www.livescience.com/animals/whales/mysterious-sound-coming-from-the-mariana-trench-has-finally-been-explained Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. 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. Item 1: A recent analysis finds that mammal-like jaw anatomy evolved first in therapsids, at least 20 million years before the first cynodonts, which were mammalian ancestors. Item 2: Scientists have recently demonstrated that single bacterial genes can flip a portion of their genetic sequence so that they code for a different protein. Item 3: A recent clinical trial shows that a single infusion with gene therapy was able to effectively treat hemophilia B for at least 15 months of follow up. Segment #5. Skeptical Quote of the Week "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion." L Ron Hubbard