Skeptics Guide #1056

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1056 October 2nd 2025 With Special Guest: Lee Mosbacker Segment #1. Quickie with Bob Giant wave moving through our galaxy https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/a-great-wave-is-rippling-through-our-galaxy-pushing-thousands-of-stars-out-of-place Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Redrawing the Human Family Tree https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado9202 News Item #2 – Fig Wasps https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/do-figs-really-have-dead-wasps-in-them News Item #3 – ALS May Be Autoimmune https://neurosciencenews.com/als-autoimmune-disease-29757/ News Item #4 – Complex Chemistry on Enceladus https://phys.org/news/2025-09-cassini-complex-chemistry-enceladus-ocean.html News Item #5 – Genius Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GENIUS_Act Segment #3 Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Question #1: Parrot as intelligent as a chimp? Link is to some experiments done with Kea. https://youtu.be/Yj718A7_s4A Gary Rees New Zealand 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: Evolution Item 1: Leglessness has evolved independently in lizards at least 25 times. Item 2: Although the precise number is debated, camera-type eyes have evolved from more primitive eyes independently in vertebrates about 4 times. Item 3: Complex multicellular life has evolved independently on Earth at least 5 times. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “The chimpanzee study taught us perhaps more than anything else to be a little humble; that we are, indeed, unique primates, we humans, but we’re simply not as different from the rest of the animal kingdom as we used to think.” - Jane Goodall