Skeptics Guide #1053

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1053 September 10th 2025 Segment #1. Quickie with Evan Earth Quasi-moon https://earthsky.org/space/earth-quasi-moon-2025-pn7/ Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Guiding Tiny Robots https://www.science.org/content/article/microscopic-robots-navigate-artificial-spacetimes News Item #2 – Tylenol and Autism https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/tylenol-and-autism/ News Item #3 – Music Choices as we Age https://phys.org/news/2025-09-older-favorite-songs.html News Item #4 – Mind Reading Wearable https://www.techtimes.com/articles/311889/20250910/alterego-introduces-worlds-first-near-telepathic-wearable.htm News Item #5 – Decreasing Science Scores https://edsource.org/2025/science-scores-decline/740293 Segment #3 Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Gold Nanowire Gel Batteries Have you or can you cover Gold nanowire gel electrolyte batteries pros and cons? Thank you for your very informative and entertaining show. Curtis Wichita, Kansas Question #2: Otters are Monsters I get the appeal. I personally like river otters more than sea otters. But... otters are monsters. Otters: the violent, necrophiliac, serial-killing fur monsters of the sea | Vox https://share.google/WQH3mkaMHXWgAoS67 Segment #6. 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: Gravitational Waves Item 1: Gravitational wave detectors are the second most precise measuring instruments in science, in terms of relative uncertainty, second only to atomic clocks. Item 2: A recent detection by LIGO of colliding black holes confirms Stephen Hawking’s theorem that the surface area of the event horizon of black holes cannot decrease, and the combined area of the merged black holes will be greater than the sum of the two areas. Item 3: The “smallest” gravitational type of event current gravitational wave detectors can detect is the merger of two neutron stars. Segment #7. Skeptical Quote of the Week "The word is mightier than the sword." Ahiqar, the Assyrian Sage, from the folklore titled The Story of Ahiqar, (earliest written version in the 5th century BCE)