Skeptics Guide #1064

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1063 November 25th 2025 With Special Guest Andrea Jones Roy Segment #1. Quicky with Bob Helion Fusion Update https://www.helionenergy.com/polaris/ Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – CRISPR Wheat Can Source Its Own Nitrogen https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251123115435.htm News Item #2 – LLMs and Collective Intelligence https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26339137251367733 News Item #3 – Origins of Theia https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado0623 News Item #4 – Holiday Scams https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/11/holiday-scams-2025-these-common-shopping-habits-make-you-the-easiest-target News Item #5 – Hypervelocity White Dwarves https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/galactic-cannonballs-the-mystery-of-hypervelocity-white-dwarfs-may-just-have-been-solved Segment #3. Who’s That Noisy Segment #4. Your Questions and E-mails Correction 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: Scientific Fraud Item 1: The famous experiment in subliminal advertising in a movie theater, to increase sales of Coke and popcorn, never happened and was entirely fabricated. Item 2: A recent analysis finds the number of fake publications in biomedicine was at least 5.8%, with 15% being suspicious, amounting to over 100,000 fake papers published every year. Item 3: Researchers find that 40% of published peer-reviewed papers show signs of AI co-authorship, with 10% being fully authored by AI. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week "It is easy to get international agreement in science. Scientists have all the same standards - they are set not by beliefs, but by what works best. Of necessity, there is therefore universal unity. And unity makes for goodwill.” Bernd Heinrich - professor emeritu, biology department, University of Vermont, author of a number of books about nature and biology. Heinrich has made major contributions to the study of insect physiology and behavior, as well as bird behavior. submitted by Terry from American Canyon CA