The Skeptics Guide #1002 - Sep 21 2024

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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe 1h 40m 6 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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What is the show's opening and who are the hosts on SGU #1002?

Unknown 0:00
You're listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 0:09
Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, September 18th, 2024, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. Joining me this week are Cara Santa Maria. Howdy. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein.
Evan Bernstein 0:23
Hello, everyone.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 0:25
What, someone's missing? Bob is in Italy right now. I think at this moment he's in Florence. Ooh.
Cara Santa Maria 0:31
Bob doesn't miss the show very often, does he?
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 0:34
No, not often.
Cara Santa Maria 0:34
Yeah, because that felt weird, you saying my name first.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 0:36
Yeah.
Evan Bernstein 0:37
Yeah, that's right.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 0:38
Yeah, but he does go to vacation every now and then.
Cara Santa Maria 0:41
Yeah, yeah.
Evan Bernstein 0:41
Florence is just wonderful. The entire Tuscany region.
Bob Novella 0:45
Jay, you've been to Florence, right? Steve, you know damn well that Florence is my favorite place on the planet. Favorite city, favorite place on the planet, yes. Wow. They have the best bread, right? No, they don't have the best bread. Unbelievably, they have very – it's not my kind of bread. It's flavorless bread. It came to be because at some point they decided that they're not going to use salt in the bread making because bread is intended to be used for dipping and for sauces and things like that. Which it works fine. I still think that flavorful bread tastes really good when you use it with sauces. Yeah, it's a cultural thing, though. But every single thing else I love.
Cara Santa Maria 1:23
So your favorite place on the planet has shit bread. It's not good. It's just not good.
Bob Novella 1:29
Did you guys know that Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance?
Evan Bernstein 1:34
Oh, yes. Which is kind of a big deal.
Cara Santa Maria 1:35
What was the first moment of the Renaissance? If we can pinpoint a place.
Bob Novella 1:39
You know, for anybody who's into history, the Medici's had a huge influence in Florence. And the last home of that family still stands, and they turned it into a museum. And it is an incredible place to visit.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 1:53
So, guys, there's been an update on the Titan disaster. You remember that the sub that was taking people down to the Titanic that just imploded?
Evan Bernstein 2:03
The one they controlled with a Nintendo remote controller? Yeah.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 2:07
Yeah, so they're still investigating that. The update is, so the question was, were the people in the sub aware that they were in trouble? Or was the implosion instantaneous and they died without ever having the slightest clue that they were in danger?
Bob Novella 2:25
Tell me this is good news. Oh, I thought we knew that it was sudden death.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 2:28
Well, no. There was, in fact, the possibility that they knew that they were in trouble. And this comes from the fact that—so the submarine has weight on the bottom, right? It carries weights. Yeah, ballast. Yeah, the weights drag it down to the bottom. And then when they get to the bottom, they drop enough weight so that they're neutral buoyancy so they could then navigate around the bottom. And then when they want to come back up, they drop more weight so then they become lighter than water and then they float back up to the surface. So they dropped their weights right before they imploded or some of their weights. Right. So the question was, well, maybe they knew they were in trouble and therefore they were they were dropped their weights and were trying to make an emergency ascension.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 3:19
And that's when they imploded, which means that their last moments were probably panic filled. And this fact apparently is important for the lawsuits. Right. Because if they were, you know, suffering and panicking at the end, that adds to the damages. But a more recent analysis, this is now one of the updates show, you know, some people now say that, well, they only dropped enough weight to maintain neutral buoyancy. So they probably were doing that so that they could navigate near the bottom.
Evan Bernstein 3:52
Okay, so they were just— And they were not trying to ascend. So it's just a fluke. Going along as if everything was fine.
Dr. Steven (Steve) Novella 3:57
Yeah, so they dropped two weights totaling 70 pounds when they have a total of 200 to 300 pounds of ballast. And so that's not a panic. We got an ascend move. That was just, okay, we can go to neutral buoyancy so we can navigate a round move.

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