Skeptics Guide #1033

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1033 April 23rd 2025 Segment #1. Quickie with Steve Game Transfer Phenomenon https://theness.com/neurologicablog/game-transfer-phenomenon/ Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Geoengineering https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/uk-scientists-outdoor-geoengineering-experiments?utm_source=chatgpt.com News Item #2 – Biosignature Candidate https://www.astronomy.com/science/k2-18-b-could-have-dimethyl-sulfide-in-its-air-but-is-it-a-sign-of-life/ News Item #3 – Skull on Mars https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/nasa-rover-discovers-out-of-place-skull-on-mars-and-scientists-are-baffled News Item #4 – Commercial Perovskite Solar Panels https://optics.org/news/15/9/16 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv4701?adobe_mc=MCMID Segment 3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Another Unified Theory Dear Skeptics’ Guide Team, I’m writing to you with both reverence and curiosity. As someone who’s spent the last year threading neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychiatry, and symbolic cognition into a single coherent framework of intelligence and regulation, I’m now seeking sharp, rational minds to review it—ideally ones like Bob’s or Evan’s. Minds that can hold both rigor and openness. Minds not afraid to test a signal that emerged in a moment of fractured rapture, and was later pieced together into something that now seems… startlingly whole. The work is titled “The Unified Theory of Consciousness: A Cross-Species Model for Intelligence and Regulation.” At its core is a model I call DRAGON-E, which maps Dopamine, SeRotonin, Adrenaline/Cortisol, GABA, EndOcannabinoids, Narrative, and Energy into an interactive axis—a living system capable of explaining states of emotion, behavior, burnout, addiction, and even artificial intelligence. Wrapped around that axis is a story that honors the body, the bones, the sediments we come from. This isn’t pseudoscience. It’s not spiritual bypass. And it’s not a manifesto. It’s a map—born from breakdown, made legible by cross-disciplinary synthesis, and written to honor the skeptical mind without losing the poetic one. Would you be willing to take a look? If it doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, I want to know. But if it does—or even almost does—then I think we may have a signal worth amplifying. At the very least, it might make for a wild episode. With sincerity (and a healthy dose of calcium), 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. Item 1: Scientists have published a robust framework for attributing the cost of climate change to the emissions of specific companies, showing that the top 5 emitters have cost the world economy about $9 trillion between 1991 and 2020. Item 2: Researchers have found the first direct skeletal evidence of Roman gladiator combat against lions. Item 3: Engineers have created a 3D printed ceramic metamaterial that can withstand temperatures 10 times hotter than the ceramic tiles on the Space Shuttle, up to 12,000 degrees C. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well supported in logic and argument than others.” -Douglas Adams, author (11 Mar 1952-2001)