The Skeptics Guide #979 - Apr 13 2024
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Who is Dustin Bates and what is Starset's sci‑fi mission?
You're listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.
Hello and welcome to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.
Today is Sunday, April 7th, 2024, and this is your host, Stephen Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella. Hey, everybody. Tara Santamaria. Howdy. Jay Novella. Hey, guys. Evan Bernstein. Good evening, everyone. George Robb. And we have a special guest on this episode, Dustin Bates. Dustin, welcome to the SGU. Thanks. Dustin, you are actually one of the few rock stars that we've had on the show, and you are from the band Star Set, correct?
That's it.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, your career.
Star Set is a sci-fi-based... cinematic rock band it's it's basically we're on tour right now we call it immersion we immerse you into what i call up for this tour dark disney and uh just released a novel about four days ago or actually it hasn't officially come out till uh tomorrow with the eclipse and uh personally i started with um i have a master's degree in electrical engineering so i have a love for space, science, and STEM. Part of Star Set is the Star Set Society, so we're always pushing both the sci-fi and the real STEM stuff as well.
So Dustin, here's my question for you. Have you built a working lightsaber yet?
No, but I do have a replica.
A replica, okay. So you're working on the fully functional version, though.
Absolutely.
And you said you have a book coming out?
Yeah, it releases tomorrow. So that's the second novel that our tour coincides with.
What's the name of the book?
It's called A Brief History of the Future, and it's based on a brain-machine interface. So it's like a neural lace story, a dystopia set in about 20 years in the future.
20 years, that's a tough time frame. It is. When you try to predict the future, you go really far, you can say anything.
There's a story device to make it go a little bit further in the future. What's the makeup of your band? How many people are in the band? It just keeps getting bigger. There are seven people in the band right now. Wow. There's a cellist, a violinist, and a guy that I feel sorry for him because we have so much electronics, he's just dancing around various synthesizers and samplers at all times.
If you could magically have any musician be in your band, living or dead, who would you choose to play with you?
Wow. You have ten seconds.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a hard one. Whoever draws the most since we're on tour. Oh, is that what it is? I want to get into the arenas ASAP.
Taylor Swift.
There you go. Done. Let's go. Who plays the theremin in your group?
Funny enough, there is a channel on keyboard guys plays for a theremin. We quickly decided it was a little too cheesy.
A little too cheesy. That's why I asked about it. All right, well, we have a grateful show for you. We're going to start with a little bit of eclipse discussion because tomorrow we're all going to get a great viewing of the eclipse. The weather's going to be perfect. We flew down to Dallas because we were promised that in Dallas there's guaranteed to be nothing but sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, and... Nobody would lie to us, right, about that? Why would they? It's Bob's fault. We all know it. Yep, the curse is in full force. Every time, if you're not familiar with the curse, I've been looking for, like, comet, you know, meteor showers for years and years, and every September is the famous... Perseids.
Perseids. And I would go out there, and for 15 years, it was overcast for 15 years, so... Every time there was something interesting in the sky, there was clouds. So I have developed this hypothesis of a curse that now seems pretty clearly obvious. I mean, it's like, this one hurts. This one hurts, though. It's like, really? The best totality in how many decades? Because there's so many reasons why this one is special. And it's like, I'm going to be looking at clouds tomorrow, apparently. But fingers crossed. There's still a chance. But it goes beyond meteors because we also had the worst viewing of Halley's Comet in 2,000 years.
Literally.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is Dustin Bates and what is Starset's sci‑fi mission?
0:00–13:07
2
Why are eclipses scientifically valuable and what will researchers study?
13:07–39:58
3
How is AI transforming drug discovery and what did the 30‑billion‑compound study find?
39:58–1:00:27
4
How are creators balancing clicks vs. mission-driven content on TikTok?
1:00:27–1:02:15
5
What is aphantasia and how does it affect memory, dreams and creativity?
1:02:15–1:08:05
6
How do hyperphantasia and aphantasia influence musicians and professions?
1:08:05–1:15:46
7
What is the upcoming T Coronae Borealis nova and when can we see it?
1:15:46–1:46:44