Episode #1086

Episode #1086

News Items

• Smart Watch Health Metrics Errors
• Space Debris Hitting the Moon
• Evolving AI
• Merging Quazars
• Longevity Escape Velocity

Back to Basics

Pareidolia and Apophenia

Questions and Emails

Hello SGU, I’m a faculty member at the University of Colorado-Anschutz. I’m a new recruit starting my lab 2 years ago. I have been listening to the SGU since 2011 when I was a young technician, and through graduate school and postdoctoral training in stem and developmental biology. My expertise is in stem cell biology and reproductive biology, and my lab generates in vitro models of placental and embryonic development. We study the process of implantation and early placental development. My lab’s mission and the goal of my career is to cure preeclampsia with my research. Listening to your show just now on the way to lab, I could not keep myself from shouting ‘NO YOU ARE WRONG!’ in my car like an insane person when Steve said that we’re ’25-30 years after the stem cell hype, and not that we haven’t made a lot of progress in stem cell research, but we don’t have ANY of the promised breakthroughs- medical miracles that people were talking about in 2001….’ Many embryonic stem cell therapies are currently being developed and are in late stage clinical trials for diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Epilepsy, Type I diabetes, and macular degeneration. The results of these new technologies so far are amazing to say the least! It is too much to write or describe, so I will point you to this official response from the International Society for Stem Cell Research to the request for information released by the NIH regarding continued funding for embryonic stem cell research. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/611faaa8fee682525ee16489/t/69ebb23d15e048446a9b918f/1777054271782/ISSCR_NIH_NOT-OD-26-031_hESC_RFI_signaturecopy.pdf Please read the section on page 7 regarding the latest data from clinical trials with relevant citations. Currently, hESC research is under threat of being defunded by this NIH administration, and opinions like Steve’s are exactly what will kill funding and developing the medicine of the future. Dr. K

Science or Fiction [ Show Answers ]

• Item #1 Science

  Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/what-country-has-the-most-lakes

• Item #2 Science

  Although the Aztecs ground peanuts into paste, the first modern patent for doing so was held by Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, which is why Canadians consider him the inventor of peanut butter. https://physicalculturestudy.com/2025/06/18/the-history-of-peanut-butter-3/

• Item #3 Fiction

  While it maintains a symbolic connection to British royalty, Canada became fully constitutionally independent in 1867, almost a century after the US. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-1/canadian-independence-day

Skeptical Quote of the Week.

‘Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.’ Rabindranath Tagore, first Asian recipient of a Nobel Prize (literature 1913)