You're listening to the skeptics guide to the universe.

Your escape to reality.

Hello and welcome to the skeptics guide to the universe.

Today is Thursday, November 20th, 2025, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

Joining me this week, or Bob Novella.

Hey, everybody.

Jay Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein. Good afternoon, everyone. Now, Kara is away this week, but I did record her segment previously. So that will, she'll be jumping in in the middle of the show with her news item, but she is not here to participate in the rest of the show. She actually, we did her science or fiction as well.

So I'll be clipping that. Ah. Oh. Uh-huh. She went first. If I had known, I would have sent, I would have texted her and asked her. Yeah, right. Does that mean, though, we get to hear her ramblings before you and her decision before we go? Not at all. Not at all. Why wouldn't she go first? She's in a limbo.

She went, she's done, but I'm not going to play her for you.

Yeah. her decision before we go. Not at all. Not at all. We get no. Why wouldn't she go first? She's in a limbo.

She went.

She's done.

But I'm not going to play her for you.

Yeah. Did you tell her if she got it right or not? Maybe. Oh, Steve, you are clever. All right. So I'm, I, Bob just picked me up at the airport a few hours ago. I just got in from Dubai.

I'm significantly jet lagged.

This will be fun.

I'm mostly awake.

It was a good trip. There was a lot of fun. I did a nine-hour seminar on, you know, primar on scientific skepticism, which is always fun. After that, there was a conference where I was on a panel on the future of consciousness and the mind. It was good. It actually turned out to be a really good panel.

So, yeah, things are happening in Dubai. We may be going back there next year. What's your number one takeaway? So, I mean, there's, you know, Dubai's trying to position itself as, like, the city of the future. You know, they're investing in a lot of technology. They're trying to attract a lot of talent, a lot of investment. And they're motivated to make this happen.

So, you know, they have like the museum of the future there.

It's actually a pretty snappy kind of construction.

Yeah, so, you know, the, the, uh, Muhammad is the guy who's hosting me there, who's the listener of the show, he's a skeptic.

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