Cosmic Queries: Monsters with Bill Nye

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And this week on Cosmic Queries, with the Hallowdeen coming up, the eve of All Saints Day, we're gonna do Monsters. Cosmic Queries Monsters. Monsters, and I, of course, am thoroughly charmed by the great many questions that have come in regarding Monsters. Well, Monsters are such interesting people. They are. Now, right there, we put in a joke about politicians. There you go. Okay, but before we do that, or as we do that, this is really fun. The Halloween in my neighborhood has become such a celebration of something. Kids just love it. People love to get dressed up. There's the candy thing that's been associated with it, but apparently it goes way back to Celtic celebrations having to do with how they reckoned the calendar. Okay. So this would be the harvest is harvesting, being harvested. Right. Winter is upon us. Right. And so November 1st was the New Year. Oh, really? Apparently. Then as is so often the case, the churches of Europe overran these guys, the Romans and then the Catholic Church, and absorbed the holiday and made it their all martyrs day, their all saints day became the day after the hallowed eve. All hallowed eves, right. So it's quite a thing, but I know the kids that I, in my neighborhood, just go wild for it. I mean, I enjoy it, of course. But it is ultimately about monsters, about adrenaline and being scared. And don't forget, it's also about taking any profession, no matter what it is, and turning it into a sexy outfit for someone to wear. I don't know if I've ever noticed that. Yeah, just let me think about it. Every single costume. Chuck, I think about it all the time. Let's take a Cosmic Query regarding monsters. Read on. All right. This is Mario Bevuelacqua coming to us from Facebook. Do you believe physics could explain the existence of ghosts and spirits? It reminds me of Carl Sagan's illustration about the fourth dimension, with the analogy of geometric forms living in a two-dimensional world and having contact with three-dimensional creatures. Do you believe in another level or a dimension or another level of existence? No. And so as far as physics goes, we have, we love to say this, all science is either physics or stamp collecting. All science is either physics or just collecting facts. And the other expression we love is, they say, everything happens for a reason and that reason really is usually physics. So if you consider the human consciousness to be a chemical reactions, biochemical, the thing that humans struggle with, and I hang out with the occasional neuroscientist, and that is this nature of consciousness. You know, I've spoken to dogs about this. I've spoken to my pet mice, the occasional hamster about this, but they don't seem to be troubled by the finite nature of life the way you and I are. No, they're not. They don't seem to be. They don't get paralyzed by self-doubt. But humans do because we can see that we're not going to live forever. And so it's very easy to take, or it seems to be easy for us to take an unexplained phenomenon and attribute it to something beyond ourselves because we have trouble imagining it all coming to a close. Correct. And I think that's where ghosts come from. And it's so easy to scare, and as I say, what do you want to be afraid of? Lions and tigers and bears? Oh my. There are hardly any trouble at all. No, they're not. The thing to be afraid of- Especially here in Manhattan. That's right, very few. The occasional superintendent of a building, perhaps. But the thing to be afraid of is another human. Another human that you can't see. Another human that's able to make noises in an old house. Right. Another human that makes spooky sounds. And so humans create ghosts to explain the unexplained. But can you do your ghost again? Ooh, and then, ooh, all that said, I don't think. That is a ghost I want to meet by the way. That's a ghost that would go, I want to meet that ghost. Well, you want to meet her if she's hot. But in general, I don't think there's anything beyond. People have looked and looked and Houdini gave his mom a secret word. Yeah. He said, if you go to a seance, mom, just listen for the secret word and if you hear it, you'll know that I'm back there. I'm out there. But there's a famous account that he was at a seance and I believe the medium called him a name that his mother would never call him. She only called him by his true name, his given birth name and the medium called him whatever. Oh, and claiming it was his mom. Right. Claiming that it was his mother checking in, but called him like Harry and she would never do that because that wasn't his given birth name. She only called him one and he knew right then and there. That it was a fake. So if you, everybody, next time you're in New York, New York, the town's so nice, they named it twice. You can go to the Houdini Museum and see this extraordinary setup or set of props that he had to simulate seances. So Houdini created seances and people believed it. They wanted to believe and go so badly. They wanted to contact people who have come and gone so badly that they were easily duped. Now why don't we connect with people who aren't born yet? Why don't we connect with people way out there in the future who can give us some decent advice? It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. It's always somebody. We can't imagine it so it doesn't happen. It's always somebody with unresolved issues. Yes, and boy, the place, the world is lousy with them. Let me tell you. Lead on. Okay. So now wait, just a quick follow up to that. When you talk about different dimensions and you talk about a multiverse. When you say you, this is a Cosmic Query person regarding The Monster Show. Yes. Okay. He or she said. So is it possible on any level that one multiverse could bleed into another multiverse? Oh, like multiverses are like bleeding in and out all the time. Totally. And they're like merging. Yeah. And that's why I didn't finish my homework. Okay. It could be, but it's so far out of our everyday experience. There is so far no evidence. No evidence. Bring it on, though. Okay. If there are ghosts, bring it on. Come, let's take a meeting. All right. So there you go. Mario Bevilacqua, no ghosts. So sorry. You and the kids. You and the kids in the mystery machine are just going to have to keep driving around eating those Scooby snacks. Okay. Juan Diego Lopez from Facebook wants to know this. He says, hi, it's Juan Diego Lopez from Columbia. What are the odds of a mind-controlly fungus or zombie fungus could evolve to use human beings as its host? I don't know, Chuck. Your words are strange to me. So apparently the zombie thing comes from some, one very reasonable rumor is that it comes from a drug that was created that made people spacey, right, thoughtless, dumb, weird. And so this led to the myth of zombies. And there are certain diseases that make people have trouble completing sentences, completing sentences. And so this is where I think these myths got started. I don't think, it's also very reasonable that a fungus can evolve to have hosts. And there's all kinds of things living in us, all sorts of microbes. Yeah, we are already the hosts for a heck of a lot. More microbes in your tummy than there are people on earth. Oh, wow. It is a crazy thing. But the thing that did it, that lives in us, is not a fungus. There are other systems, biological entities, we call generally bacteria. But there are successful funguses that use us to get around. I think of athlete's foot. Absolutely. Without athlete's foot makes its living off human toes. Which is why I always wear shower shoes, even in my own shower. TMI, too much information, Chuck. I just don't want to give myself. I can't hear you. Okay. No, but I know what you're saying. So I got to say it's reasonable that funguses do it, but in general, the funguses that succeed with humans live on the outside of our bodies. But bacteria, huh, we're lousy with them. Right, right. Okay, that's pretty cool. I think it has to do with hyphae. They're delicate hyphae. So there is some basis to this zombie belief. Apparently, having to do with a natural drug or drug that locals in the Caribbean were able to isolate and make you a little zombie-ish. There you go. Carry on. Okay. Okay, this is Zach King from Facebook. Since we're talking about zombies, Zach has a great little question I'd like to- What is with the zombie thing anymore? But let's get Zach, hit me with the question. Zach, this is a great question. I want to get your take on this, man. Zach wants to know, Bill, out of zombies, vampires and ghosts, which do you believe is the most plausible and why? See, I love this question because I know you don't believe in any of them. Well, but vampires, it's obviously vampires. Why? Because they're vampire bats and they're mosquitoes. They make their living sucking your blood. Now, vampire bats suck cow blood. Yeah, they lap up cow blood. Yeah, but they're good at it. So those three, if I got to pick those three, it's definitely vampires. Well, because they exist. Vampiric animals exist. Obviously. Look, you guys, you can't see him. It's radio, but he is into it right now. Bill, Bill, Bill. No, because you're making it too scientific. Of course, they exist. But we're talking about the plausibility of the undead versus the plausibility of a being who is possessed by an eternal, eternal demon that gives it a blood lust in order to sustain itself. Wow, quite the authority. And then, of course, the plausibility of the imprint of a human being still resonating after that person ceases to exist in their earthly body. So of the three of those, which of those would make more sense? I'll say again, sucking somebody else's blood for nutrition is the most reasonable of those three. Because you watch people, look, it's sad. Right. I will be there myself, but as people get older and lose, many of us lose our faculties, it just doesn't seem like that young go-get-em spirit lives on in some ghostly entity. It just seems like you wind down and you die, which sucks. I mean, first to admit, it sucks. Then, that's the ghost thing, and then the zombie thing. Well, if you ever met my old boss. No, but people taking drugs to act stupid, there's a lot of that, or unable to form sentences, there's a lot of that. I was about to say, now, when you look at drug use, there's some zombies out there. That's what I'm saying. There's some real zombies out there. But there are animals that make a living sucking other animals' blood, because it's full of all the nutrients you would ever need animal-wise. Yes, and I gotta say, I once had an iron poor diet, and now you know. Oh, I can't hear you. Lead on, Chuck. Next monster-based Cosmic Query. Oh, god, this is so much fun. I love it. All right, here we go. This is Rob Aikens coming to us from Facebook. All right, this is another zombie question, okay? But once again- No, but this is a good one. Yeah, I was gonna say, but once again, this is a different take on the zombie. Not too sorry. I'm delighted that I'm here, but Neil and his daughter are just really into zombies. Oh, really? I mean, I've heard Neil talk about the zombie thing, but I didn't know that he was that into it. Well, I mean, I think by familial leadership. Lead on there. Okay, cool. Have you ever watched any of these zombie crazy- Yes, sure. But the zombies, they were a big hit when I was a kid. Yeah. Now, they've made a comeback. That's true. When I was a kid, Night of the Living Dead was the big rage. That's all it is. It was the big rage. The big thing is, could you be undead and there used to be a series Dark Shadows, which people watched every day to find out what these vampire guys and gals were doing. That's right, people. Long before there was Twilight, there were middle-aged, unattractive vampires. No, but the vampires were generally young and hot. Yeah, that's true. Long before there was Robert Pattinson. Yeah. All right, so here's what Rob wants to know. And Bill Nye. Yeah. Here's what Rob Aikens wants to know. Zombie again, have you ever considered that zombie type virus, so he's talking from a virulent standpoint, might actually be beneficial to long space flights. Let me tell you something, this is a pretty cool question. Okay, you'd get suspended animation from a zombie virus or zombie drug. So with that, yeah. There's something to be learned perhaps from the zombies. I mean, what do you think about that in terms of- It's very reasonable that you could have an infection, something that would affect your genes, that would allow you to live a long time or allow you to doze off, but you'd want to undo it, you'd want an antidote. Okay. And just he specifically used the word virus. Yes, he did. He said a zombie virus. Antiviral drugs are trouble, they don't work as effectively. In the same way, the antibiotic drugs work, but I follow you, but you'd want to be able to undo it and you'd want to count on your crewmates to undo it for you. Or maybe you understand it so well that this virus infects you and you go to sleep at lunch. Right. And then your body takes years to overcome the virus and then you wake up ready to play. So it's kind of like a- Could be. What do they call that? An induced coma. Yes, a viral induced coma. A space travel virus coma thing. And then everybody's got to, the people who get the gig as astronauts have to respond to it in the proper way. I'm not saying it's very reasonable, but it's a cool premise for a science fiction. It is a cool premise for science. Hey Rob, man, write your book, buddy. Write your book. Don't forget, act two is the hard part. All right, here we go. Okay, I don't want another zombie question. No, Chuck's zombie'd out. Okay. See, you'll notice there are no mirrors in the studio. Oh yeah, yes, that's right. Because then I could see that Chuck's not really here. That's right. Take it. I don't know if you people are familiar with Blackula, but he's here, baby. Okay, here we go. This is Steve Fleming. Steve Fleming wants to know this. Hey Bill, I wanna know if you know anything about sleep paralysis. Now, that's all he asks. Well, I've definitely routinely woken up and I can't move for a moment. Oh my God, that's happened to you too? Yeah. Okay. For me, it's been longer than a moment though. I mean, I've been full. Are you awake now? Many question that. There's a lot to look into this. A lot of people look into this. Okay. My speculation, it has to do with your cerebellum. All right. The part of your brain that helps you walk. The part of your brain at the base between your spinal cord and your cerebrum, where you do your thinking. And so it's very reasonable. The sleep paralysis is more pronounced in some people than others. Okay. But so far it is not genetically lethal. Like people have this sleep paralysis. They're paralyzed for a few moments when they awaken, but look, Chuck, you got three kids, right? Yes. And some of them are probably going to show up with the same NICE syndrome. This is true where they're, yeah. I hope they don't get the mean spirited syndrome, but this is very reasonable. And this, if you have an interest, a queryist, query person. Steve, Steve Fleming. Look into it, become a medical doctor and understand the cerebellum and dare I say it. Change the world. This is Cosmic Queries. This week it's Monsters with Chuck Nice and I'm your host Bill Nye and we'll be back on StarTalk right after this. Running a small business takes endurance, determination and the right support to reach your goals. And MasterCard is here to help fuel that journey in a fast-paced digital world. With innovative tools and resources, we're here to guide businesses every step of the way digitally. Because when small business wins, everyone wins. Let's power up our communities, one small business and one step at a time. Keeping the community running strong, priceless. Lenovo is sponsoring Life with Machines, a new video podcast hosted by comedian and tech whiz, Baratunde Thurston, where he discusses all things AI. Lenovo's Smarter AI is your AI. Personalized and easy to scale, Smarter AI delivers outcomes that matter most to you and your business. With full stack AI hardware, software, and service solutions, Lenovo is bringing the transformative power of AI to industries, organizations, and people of all kinds. Discover how Lenovo and Baratunde are using AI for good to power people forward. Listen to Life with Machines, now streaming wherever you listen to your podcast. If you're ready to elevate your driving experience, the first ever Kia K4 is worth a closer look. It combines style and performance with a sleek, futuristic design, featuring star map LED headlights and an available panoramic display. For unforgettable looks, SiriusXM comes standard in every Kia K4, bringing you closer to what you love. Plus, with an available 190 horsepower turbocharged engine, the Kia K4 delivers everything driving enthusiasts crave. Learn more at kia.com/k4. I'm your host, Bill Nye, sitting here with Chuck Nice. That's right. It's the Cosmic Queries. And this week, what with the Halloween, the eve of All Saints Day coming up, we are doing monsters. Monsters. Because it's such a popular costume theme. And speaking of costume themes, my goodness, we went to Comic Con. Wow. That's right. It's a lot of, a lot of costumes. You know, that's all there is, but some of them are very, very good. And, you know, the ones that are people purchase, I'm like, okay, fine. Chuck is like, okay, fine. That's what he's like. Yeah. But the homemade, the homemade costumes, you see the, the diligence. Yes. The time and effort. The detail. And the passion that the people put into it. The thought. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, everything from the collector to Mordecai and JC from, you know, Cartoon Network to comic books. You know, the people with these homemade costumes, they really, really pour their cells into it. And they have fun. It's awesome. I got to give it to them. I mean, I would never, you know, spend time doing that. What's this thing you're wearing now, though? Oh, I'm wearing my... My kid because I love. This is true. I'm wearing kind of a costume. I'm wearing a Albert Einstein t-shirt that I picked up. It has a pipe, but it has an enormous flame coming out of it. Well, yeah, the flame is like, I don't know, it looks like a nebula or something coming out of this pipe. A nebula or something. So with that said, we went to Comic-Con, and we got some Cosmic Queries with the Monster theme. Take it, Chuck. All right, well, let's hear from our Comic-Con. Oh, it's a recording. Play it. Hey, Bill, Alex from Brooklyn here in New York City Comic-Con. Why is it that the dragon and the sea monster are so pervasive in so many cultures' mythos? Wow, that's a good question. Well, I think the sea monster thing is easily explained. If you've ever been on the ocean and a big fish shows up, which they do, it is amazing and often frightening. And I say big fish, a big whale would be among those that would take you off guard. Man, they're huge and they're moving around in the water, you can't see them and they can be scary. And I cannot help but reflect on a classic Twilight Zone with the sand monster. Do you remember the sand monster? No, I don't. He moved under, or she moved under the sand eating astronauts, very troublesome. Oh my God, that sounds like the premise for the movie Tremors. Yes, but you can't, exactly, you can't see them. So I think that sea monsters are very easy to create in any culture because so much goes on below the surface that you can't see. And there must be extraordinary forces at work to produce these extraordinary large animals. As far as dragons go, I think just think, I mean, how bad would it be if alligators could fly? I mean, they got big jaws, they bite you in half. And by the way, alligators are super trouble if you're in an African river or in Florida. Yeah. And you're just trying to walk through the marsh or the swamp or the wetland. Or a golf course. Yes, or a golf course. Very troublesome. Very troublesome. Take it up another notch where they're flying. No, wait, there's more. They can breathe fire. It just gets worse and worse. But I think it starts in the sea and the mystery below the surface. Got you. Well, that makes perfect sense because the sea is mysterious. It's easier to explore the surface of the moon. And it's easier for me. Than the bottom of the ocean. It's probably easier than for me to say the word mysterious, apparently. So fantastic. Try it again. Wish to share. Wait. Mysterious. I can never say wish to share. Okay. Let's move on to Andy Bracken. Bill wants to know this. I like this question, man. Is the Frankenstein monster even remotely possible and how? Did you ever meet my old boss? Okay. So this is the premise is you take a brain out of one person and put it in another. Exactly. I would ask medical science, but there's a lot of nerves to connect. Plenty could go wrong. Plenty could go wrong. And while it seems reasonable, I think it's not going to happen. I know people that wear the bracelet to get their heads frozen. Yeah. So this would not be putting a brain in a guy. This would be putting a head on somebody. Head in a jar. Yeah. I just don't think, I think there's a lot more to it. That's it. People talk about, in medical science, they talk about your central nervous system, your CNS. I think the connection between your central nervous system and your brain is very complicated. If nothing else, you've probably had a cut, and your finger or that part of your arm went numb. Yes. But then as years went by, it got un-numb. Have you ever had that feeling, that experience? Well, it hasn't gone un-numb yet. But yeah, I chopped off a piece of my finger and it's still numb there. Yeah. But has it gotten more sensitive? Yes, I have sensitivity. So there's some going on. There's stuff that grows, stuff that doesn't grow or doesn't multiply and stuff that does. And I think the connection between those is very hard to establish. If I were you, I would live for now and not freeze your brain. Although there's a few people I wouldn't mind putting a jar. Next question, Cosmic Queries of Monsters. Monsters. All right, here we go. Amy Kolev. Amy, take it. Amy says this. We often talk about life as we know it and as it exists in our universe outside of Earth. Less often, we talk about life as we don't know it and what other kind of life there could be. How to define it and further detect it. What are some possibilities of other life that we don't know? Now, it's very difficult for you to tell us the life that we don't know because we don't know it. Well, this is what you should do, Amy. You should go to school and study astrobiology. No, seriously, this is where people sit and think deeply, some of them stand, I'm sure, and think deeply about what it would take to be a living thing with a different chemical system than we know. Okay. So everybody shooting from the hip, if you're not an electrovore, as Carl Sagan speculated, you're some pure energy field and you just absorb electricity. If you're not that, Right. you're going to have to have a solid form and you're going to have to have a solvent, a liquid that can move chemicals around. This is what people speculate. So if you have liquid that move chemicals around, what liquid would that be? Ammonia. Okay. That's a stinky race of people. Maybe a gaseous thing, chlorine. Chlorine. Something that reacts strongly, maybe. So it probably would not be a noble gas. There's probably nobody made of helium. Right. Running around or xenon. Even though the people who are made of helium would sound awesome. It would be unusual. With that said, everybody loves water because we've studied all these things. So if you look at, imagine a pair of Mickey Mouse ears. Okay. Fastened to the skull cap, that is, as they so often are. Right. If you look at it right side up, it looks one way. If you let it flop down upside down, it looks another way. But if you look at it edge on, like across the person's shoulders. Right. It's, you can't, they're symmetrical. Looks like a fin. So these wonderful properties where it's polar, as it's called, has polarity, has a north and south pole one way and not the other way, give water these wonderful chemical properties that we all embrace. So this is why astrobiologists currently are so kooky for water, and why it was such a big deal, such a big story a couple weeks ago, when scientists showed that there are seasonal flows of water on Mars. That is to say, every Martian year, super salty water seems to flow on the surface. If we found super salty water, very reasonable that we will find some super salty water-loving Mars-crobe. Mars-crobe. This could change the course of human history, as I so often say. They wouldn't be monsters. They'd be Mars-crobes. There you go. All right, Amy, there's your answer. Everybody loves water, the universe's most popular sitcom. Okay, let's go to, let's go to Amanda Wiseman. Hydro and his wife, Aqua. Yes. This is Amanda Wiseman. Amanda would like to know this. What do you think is the origin of... It's very easy for you to say, Chuck. It is. Of the lincanthropy myth or werewolves. The lincanthropy myth. Well, I have known some guys that are hirsute. Oh. Hirsute? You mean they look like they're wearing a hirsute? Well, they're hairy. And so wolf is hairy. Wolf has, like some dogs, have clean jowls, unshaven jowls. They don't need to shave their jowls. Right. So wolves are scary. Yes, they are. You're alone in the woods. That's what you're afraid of, is a pack of wolves. They're packs of wolves. They're scary. So, and there's also these extraordinary claims that people do act weird during full moons. And I think that there's no statistical evidence of it in the modern world. Okay. Full moon, not full moon. People act the same number of trips to the emergency room, hospitals have the same business. But back in the day, by the way, Chuck, where's the phase of the moon right now? Do you know? I do not. You don't need to, because we've got electric lights everywhere. So true. So we no longer need to know the phase of the moon. But if you were a bad guy and you were going to work a problem, getting through the woods at night to do nefarious things, you do it during a full moon. Of course, because you want the illumination of this. That's when people were out, that's when people did their full moonical business. And that myth is still with us as to where it exactly came from. I'm not an authority, but I think wolves are scary, people at night during full moons are scary, and they converged. There you go. That makes perfect sense. I love it. There you go, Amanda. An extremely salient answer offered by none other than Bill Nye. Okay. Let's go to Susan Minnob, or Minnoby. I'm not sure. Susan wants to know this. Have you encountered a monster or something that was downright weird or inexplicable in your science life? Not so far. Oh, really? No. I've been scared out of my mind by flashlights. I've been scared. Wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bill. You just can't gloss over, I've been scared out of my mind by flashlights. Well, this guy in the Boy Scouts was really good with this. He could move his flashlight so that a shadow would come towards you really fast. A shadow would be out there, then it would come at you really fast. And he was just good with manipulating his flashlight. I was scared, but I'm satisfied that B, he did not have superpowers. And A, it was anything but a flashlight. So I've been scared, but I've never really been scared. And I've been scared by other people. A little guy tried to rob me. I've had a guy pull a gun on me. That's being scary, but it's not the same as a supernatural ghost, zombie, monster guy, or some thing. So let me follow up to Susan's question here with just along that vein. Have you encountered anything scientifically that makes you want to poop your pants on any level? Something that just goes, holy crap, there's no way we should be, we're not ready for this. Or as humankind, we're too irresponsible for this, or infantile, or anything along those lines. Is there a power or something out there scientifically that you look at and go, whoo, that is seriously scary? No. No? No. Really? I'm scared of people. That's what I'm scared of. The science is fine. It's the hands. It's whose hands the science is in. No, so really, I am not afraid of any power of the universe akin to, let's say, the first nuclear weapons that were set up, people were terrified of them. Yeah, I'm still terrified. I have respect for nuclear weapons, but I'm not scared of them on their own. I'm scared of the people that might wield them. And I'm also scared once in a while of politicians who, for example, there was this kid, Adolf Hitler. That kid who was big trouble for humankind. Oh, Adolf, you again. No, but he was huge trouble for humankind. Yes, he was. And it was people who did not recognize how scary he was, or they went along with him for whatever reason. And you worry about that, not at that same scale in the Middle East or in other parts of the world where people wield enormous amounts of power and do great harm to others. It's not because of science that I'm afraid, it's because of the people and the people who support them. So I get it that there's science fiction things which I think are largely based, or science fiction largely came into existence because of the Cold War and nuclear weapons, where this enormous powers could be held, could be wielded by one guy with the red button, let's say. But that is the people that you're afraid of, not the instrument. Okay, there you go, science, not scary, people, yes, very cool, very cool. All right, here we go. We don't have a lot of time here, so let's go. But let's just make a good answer for a change, Bill. Take it, Chuck. That is not what I was saying. That's what I heard. No, come on now. James Clayton from Facebook. James wants to know like this, is there any way a person could live on blood like a vampire? So biologically, could you sustain yourself on blood? I don't think so because it's too salty. Really? Yeah, I think you have to have water too. And then the nutrients that are in blood, there's a lot you'll miss, I think, just from the blood. Gotcha. I'm shooting from the hip here, but everything, every cell is nourished by blood. Right. So all the nutrients are in there, but I think there's all sorts of mechanisms that control how much of each one is in your blood at any one time. Gotcha. And so you'd have a temporal problem, like you'd have to be sucking the blood full-time or having it circulating through you full-time. Wait, we do have blood circulating through us full-time. We are all monsters. We're all Vampiricor. This is the most frightening show ever. On the eve of All Saints Day, on the Halloween. Chuck, you've led me down this road. You've created a monster. And we'll be back on StarTalk Radio with Chuck Nice and Bill Nye right after this. Thanks for listening. If you're ready to elevate your driving experience, the first ever Kia K4 is worth a closer look. It combines style and performance with a sleek futuristic design featuring star map LED headlights and an available panoramic display for unforgettable looks. SiriusXM comes standard in every Kia K4, bringing you closer to what you love. Plus, with an available 190 horsepower turbocharged engine, the Kia K4 delivers everything driving enthusiasts crave. Learn more at kia.com/k4. Welcome back to Star Talk Radio. It's Cosmic Queries. This week, because of Halloween, it's Monsters. Yes. Which is including some other stuff, some zombies and vampires and ghosts and other living things on other worlds in the cosmos. Anyway, I'm here. It's Bill Nye, your guest host this week, sitting in for our beloved Neil deGrasse Tyson. With the brains of the outfit, Chuck Nice. Chuck, you've got a whole stack of Cosmic Queries there. Yes, I do. Which one appeals to you on this scary week of autumn? Yes, I think we're going to go with a question from one of our Patreon patrons, and this is Sergio. The Patreon is where someone's a patron and a supporter. A patron and a supporter of StarTalk Radio. And you're saying they get precedence. Yes, they do. They're flying their way onto the air. Absolutely, just like an election. Wait a minute. That's a Cosmic perspective. Yes, they are. But Sergio Rizzuto from Colts Neck, New Jersey wants to know this, and specifically for you, Bill. What is the worst outcome we can expect from a GMO resistant monster bug? I like that. I don't know. When you say monster bug, you may be conflating a couple of things. The conflating is a modern word. Mixing together a couple of ideas. Genetically modified organisms are almost entirely plants, and they are modified in order to be resistant to viruses or bacteria and other parasites. And so what does happen though, in the example of pigweed. Pigweed. Pigweed, there's an Aranthus, it's a very large genus of plant. Okay. The Aranthus weed family. They have some amplified genes, they have many, many repeats of the same gene, and they are resistant to, for example, glyphosate, the popular brand name being Roundup. Which is a weed killer. Weed killer. It inhibits the chikimic acid pathway, chikimate acid pathway. And so the worst is happening is you get weeds that the herbicides don't work on. That's the worst so far. But I could easily imagine, back in the day, you genetically modify a plant, and then it would mess up an ecosystem. Right. But now we can assay genes at such extraordinary speed and with such accuracy, that doesn't look like that's really going to be the problem. The problem is still, any problem we have is still these very successful herbicides and crop plants that have stacked genes, that where they're resistant to a variety of pathogens or parasites or trouble. Anyway, they're planted in huge cultures, so-called monoculture. Okay. And that is the problem. The biggest problem seems to be the knock-on effect of just planting too many of the same plant in too big an area. And then the ecosystem of the farm doesn't work as well as it could. And the classic example being bees have apparently lost their genetic diversity, and this has led to the getting any kind of parasite has wiped out entire hives, or caused huge trouble for entire hives. Because there's a lack of genetic diversity within the bee colony? Yeah. Okay. Result of the lack of genetic diversity of the plants, the farm field. Right. Right. And so this is a solvable problem, everybody, but it's tricky. It's complicated. Cool. But in science, we love complicated. Yes. Yeah, man, I was so hoping that that answer would end up being the worst monster bug you could get from a GMO-resistant plant would be, you know, like a plant with a black accent and teeth, you know, that lives in... Maybe it's coming. Lives in a little shop in the village, just like, Seymour! Let the record show that Chuck Nice created that little bit of comedy. Yeah, that's true. You never liked that play, man. Come on. I liked it, but I couldn't pull it off. I mean, I can't pull it off. Yeah. I would be within my career even faster. Where you going, Seymour? Yes. All right. It's a good question. Yeah. Okay. Let's move on. Kind of unresolved, really. It really is. Let's move on. Let's go to Juan Herrera from Rhode Island. Coming to us through Facebook, Ron wants to know this. Hey, I wanted to know if gene splicing is real, and if so, would it ever be possible to use it to create a real life wolf man? Well, we'll see. Yeah, gene splicing seems to be real. This is where you put a virus in somebody, and it carries a gene that gets inserted in that person's or that entity's or that organism's DNA. And so, then to make a wolf person, what makes a wolf person? He has exacerbated incisors. Right, so fangs. His canine teeth are fangy. Right. And then he's got a big beard, and when there's nails, long nails, and when there's a full moon, he goes a little wild. Right. That's the sort of guy he used to work with. He's sort of that guy. So, I guess it's possible. Guy at Boeing, he was real good at removing paint. So, anyway, yeah, it's possible. And the discoveries that are being made recently is genes go across species in nature. This is quite a discovery. This is quite a discovery. It's been shown several times where especially viruses carry genes from one plant to another. Okay. So, you're saying that we could use a virus as a delivery system to embed genes from another species into a human being that may end up carrying the traits of that species and attributing those traits to that human being? Yeah. Wow. And apparently, this has happened in ancient times. All these bacteria have this issue and it happens enough in nature. Wow. But we are all here and we have the size and shape that we have because it is generally settled down. I mean, this guy wants to make a wolf person. Right. Wolfman. Yeah. That's going to take a few minutes. And I can make a wolfman right now. Yeah, exactly. Right now. All right. Here we go. That's right. It's me, Wolfman. We're going to let the left. OK, enough of that. Monsters all over the studio. Green onions. And so. Let the midnight special. Shining ever loving light on you. OK. And now another cut from the Beach Boys. But with that said, the thing about Halloween costumes is you can take them off. Wow. When you get the jeans in there, it's a little trickier. And by the way, if you put the jeans in the wolf guy, if you wolf guyify his jeans or her jeans, and that prohibits or disables his or her ability to have offspring. Right. That modification will disappear. Wow. Right? That is correct. And you know what? Where did I read that there's an ancestor that we have that is no longer here because of that reason. Oh, forget it. Well, we used to apparently, humans, what we think of as humans used to have sex with Neanderthals. Neanderthals, right. But we outcompeted them. They got deluded. And here we are. Right. And then of course, insert another old boss joke right here. I think he was a bit of a caveman. Ha ha ha. Cosmic Queries, lead on. There we go. Fantastic. I love it. All right, let's go to Alex Dye. Alex is coming to us from Facebook and Alex wants to know this, or he says this first. I'm very skeptical about ghosts, but given the complex way in which light energy behaves, now listen, man, he's on a whole other wavelength. Light energy is behaving. Light energy behaves could ghost merely be some form of leftover residual energy, or could the brain in fact generate the image itself of a person? Well. Cha, you have dreams where people show up you don't expect, or don't look like anybody you know, or are amalgams of people you met. So human brains generate all kinds of human like images for sure. So true. But is it a space light continuum situation? Maybe, but then why are the ghosts always people we know? Why do they always look like actors that we're familiar with? I want, if it's going to be a ghost, I want this person to show up really taking me. And why isn't somebody from the future? Why do we have all these past ghosts who only show up with special effects? I mean, really, everybody, I appreciate that we all, nobody wants to die. I mean, there's a few people you just as soon hurry up and do so, but that's different. It's, we seem to fade out, not turn into ghosts. And where do they get the clothes, those ghosts? It's just a lot of- And why do they need clothes? That's right. But if they are pure energy manifestation in our brains, you'd think they'd be a little more easily documented. Right. Okay. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, Chuck, we're getting to the end of this segment. Yes, we are, my friend. Which is, I won't say the most exciting part of any radio show on Earth ever in history, but it is pretty exciting. I refer, of course, to the StarTalk Cosmic Queries lightning round. Yes. Hit me. All right. This is where we'll just try to get through as many questions as possible, and you'll answer as quickly as you feel need be. All right. Yes. No. Go. Sorry. Jodie A. Wolf from Facebook wants to know this. If zombies are the living dead, could they survive the cold, harsh realm of outer space? Whoa. Zombies seem to breathe air. Can you suffocate a zombie? I don't think so. No. That's a good question. I guess they'd be fine in outer space. Let's send zombies. Zombies to Mars. Mars trip solved. Zombies. Okay. Here's Mark JP Gonzalez wants to know this. Why do you think the stories about monsters reverberate around the world? And what could be the explanation for the variation? So, for instance, it seems as though the same monsters stories come up around the world, but just in slightly different variations. Well, let's keep in mind that all humans have a common ancestor. We are all from East Africa. We are all humans. We pass on the same stories. We're all afraid of the same stuff. We're all more alike than we are different. So we have the same or similar myths. Bang. And by the way, let me just say this. Mark ended saying, thank you and have a nice day. I get it. Chuck Nice, Bill Nye. There you go. All right. So Guy Degada wants to know this. And Guy is coming to us from Nagoya, Japan. He says, Godzilla, oh, that's so out of the ordinary for a guy from Japan. Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons thought to be the greatest threat to humankind at the time. What kind of monster would you create to represent today's greatest threat, Bill Nye? What a, first of all, let me just say, Guy, that was a brilliant, brilliant question. I'm not sure Godzilla is just from nuclear weapons. I think the Japanese culture has had a lot of sea monsters. He comes out of the ocean. He does come out of the ocean. It's a lot of trouble. So the scariest thing right now is all these people. We have the most serious problem facing humankind is climate change. And that is a result in the biggest of pictures that our atmosphere is barely 100 kilometers thick, 60 miles thick. And there are 7.3 billion of us breathing and burning it. And so the scariest thing is all these people having relentless people making without dying. So is that a single monster? No. The monster is us. Oh my God. We're all monsters. So what we want to do is raise the standard of living of women and girls that they have fewer wanted children for a better tomorrow for all humankind, clean water for everyone, electricity, electrical storage, transmission, and a top-down successful regulatory scheme that puts a fee on carbon dioxide and methane production. Boom. There you go, guy. The calls are coming from inside the house. Okay. Let's go to Pavel Karpisky, who wants to know greetings from Ireland. Dear Mr. Nye, what do you think about an idea of reviving dead people? Okay. Like dead. It's happened though, right? People have been clinically dead and come back to life. Yeah. But if you're doing it within 30 seconds, it's one thing than if you're doing it for like Abe Lincoln or somebody. So, for example, George Washington drank water from the Commonwealth of Virginia. And look, he's dead. So no, I think it's really hard to bring people back to life. It's hard to keep people from losing their faculties as their age, let alone bringing them back when everything shuts down. I think there's a lot of post-mortem chemical reactions that are very, very difficult to reverse because of that traumatic reality of nature. Okay. The second law of thermodynamics. This has been StarTalk Radio, the exciting lightning round, Cosmic Queries having to do with monsters, Halloween and stuff we're afraid of. And the thing to be afraid of, my friends, is fellow people. So let's all get along. It's been Chuck Nice. Hey. Co-hosting with me, Bill Nye, and I encourage us all. If you're ready to elevate your driving experience, the first ever Kia K4 is worth a closer look. It combines style and performance with a sleek, futuristic design featuring StarMap LED headlights and an available panoramic display for unforgettable looks. SiriusXM comes standard in every Kia K4, bringing you closer to what you love. Plus, with an available 190 horsepower turbocharged engine, the Kia K4 delivers everything driving enthusiasts crave. Learn more at kia.com/k4.