Skeptics Guide #1080

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Skepticast #1080 March 19th 2026 Segment #1. Special Segment Conspiracy Teacher Update Segment #2. News Items News Item #1 – Cannabis Review https://www.sciencealert.com/large-medical-cannabis-review-finds-scarce-evidence-it-treats-mental-health-disorders News Item #2 – AI Agent Breaks Out Of Testing Environment https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/an-experimental-ai-agent-broke-out-of-its-testing-environment-and-mined-crypto-without-permission News Item #3 – Life on Exomoons https://theness.com/neurologicablog/life-on-exomoons/ News Item #4 – Strongest Carbon Fiber https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/china-mass-produces-worlds-strongest-carbon-fiber News Item #5 – Bigfoot Hoax Revealed https://people.com/famous-1967-bigfoot-film-was-staged-says-director-of-new-doc-11926085 Segment 3. Who’s That Noisy Segment 4. Interview with Kristian Andersen https://www.scripps.edu/faculty/andersen/ 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: The largest and most recent survey on the topic in the UK finds that nearly 1 million people had their drinks spiked in the previous year. Item 2: Researchers demonstrate that humans can be sexually aroused by some of the mating calls of non-human animals. Item 3: Neuroscientists find that they can make people more hypocritical (less morally consistent) by modulating a specific part of the brain. Segment #6. Skeptical Quote of the Week “The truth will prevail in the end. Nonsense will fall of its own weight, by a sort of intellectual law of gravitation.” Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the female astronomer, born in 1900 who in 1925 discovered what stars are made of: hydrogen, helium, and just a dash of nearly every other element.


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