Skeptics Guide #1096

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1096 July 9th 2026 Special Guest David Kyle Johnson Segment #1. Quickie with Bob Two States of Water https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-molecular-evidence-liquid.html Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Using AI To Detect AI Cheating https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01358-2 News Item #2 – Teens Using AI Chatbots https://neurosciencenews.com/ai-chatbots-teen-relational-displacement-30971/ News Item #3 – NYT Article on Rapid Prompting Method https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/nyt-article-on-rapid-prompting-method/ News Item #4 – SETI Partly Explains Fermi https://www.iflscience.com/seti-may-have-figured-out-why-we-havent-detected-any-alien-signals-yet-explaining-at-least-part-of-the-infamous-fermi-paradox-83897 Segment #3. Skeptical Philosophy What is “Falsifiability” Segment #4. Who’s That Noisy 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: An analysis of the scat of the California Gray Wolf finds a significant contribution of domesticated pets in their diet. Item 2: A recent study finds that individual human neurons have significantly more computational information than rat neurons, which is likely one mechanism for increased human intelligence. Item 3: A new analysis finds that a bilaterally symmetrical species from the Ediacaran fauna shows signs of “handedness”, or one-sided preference. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.” – Poul Anderson