The Skeptics Guide #1076 - Feb 21 2026

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Dr. Steven Novella MD

Fringe-science, Skeptic, Skepticism, Psuedoscience, Science, Paranormal

4.7 • 7.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2026

⏱️ 119 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

News Items: Banana Resistance to Fungal Disease, Drug Advertising, AI Powered Prosthetics, Laser Written Glass Storage, UFO Balloons; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Mental Illness and Culpability; Name That Logical Fallacy; Science or Fiction

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
0:06.4	Your escape to reality.
0:09.6	Hello and welcome to the skeptics Guide to the Universe.
0:12.8	Today is Thursday, February 19th, 2026, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.
0:17.5	Joining me this week are Bob Novella.
0:19.4	Hey, everybody.
0:20.1	Kara Santa Maria. Howdy? Jay Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein. Good evening, everyone. So, Bob, your predictions about the quint. We didn't really make a prediction, but Ilya Malinen crashed and burned, man. I don't want to talk about it.
0:53.8	Wait, I don't know anything that you just said. You just said a bunch of words that mean nothing. Was this from last week? Maybe Kara wasn't. Yeah, so this is about the Olympics. I don't know if you're watching. Let's relive it. Let's relinquish. Bob's piece was about whether Ilya Malanin, who was the lead American male figure skater.
0:54.2	Yeah.
0:55.7	He was going to do a quint.
0:56.7	He's the quad god,
0:57.7	so he's the only guy.
0:55.7	And he's, who was the lead American male figure skater. He was going to do a quint.
0:56.7	He's the quad gods.
0:57.7	He's the only guy.
1:02.5	And he's the only one in competition who's doing quad axles, which is like a four and a half.
1:04.5	Yeah, nobody on the planet can do it. And he claims to have done a quint, a quintuple in practice.
1:09.9	In practice.
1:10.6	Like five rotations.
1:12.9	Wow.
1:13.7	I see.
1:14.6	It was possible.
	...

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