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, April 16th, 2026, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

Hey, everybody.

Kara Santa Maria.

Howdy? Jay Novella. Hey, guys. And Evan Bernstein. Good afternoon, everyone. Evan, you finally emerged from your tax hell. I liken it to a cocoon, you know, when a... Chrysalis. Yeah, chrysalis. Thank you. An insect has to go into the state and makes a hard shell around them and only whatever

exists in their world is inside of that show and then crunch crunch on april 15th at the end of

the day you can finally start to break out now you're saying you're a butterfly is that what

i'm here absolutely i'm spreading my wings or moth or moth can? If you were a moth, what kind of moth would you be?

Ooh, not the death's head moth.

Oh, I would. I do mothra. Mothra? Nice, Jay. I'm over here Googling. Preetiest moths. Okay, it's easy. Lunar moth. Oh yeah, those are the big furry ones, right?

Oh, those, right?

Is that the one that Gandalf had in, uh, in fellowship of the ring? No. Remember, he talked to a moth and sent it away? That look like they have birds on the tips of their. They got big eyes. There's a lot like that, actually. There's a lot of moth. The kind of moths you don't want are the ones that, you know, hide in your clot, pantry moths are they called?

Yeah, tantry moths you don't want are the ones that, you know, hide in your, pantry moths are they called?

Yeah, pantry moths are horrible if you get them. Oh, yeah, don't you have to like burn down your house? No, you have had them once. It was basically like a one-year campaign of search and destroy. Oh, my. And you also have to put all food that comes into your house or that already is in your house in the freezer. Oh, my gosh. It's like having bed bugs. To stop the eggs from hatching? Well, that will kill them. That will freeze and kill them. So things like a box of pasta, forget about it. There's no way you can keep them out of there. But if you put it in

the freezer for three days, you know, you're not bringing it into your house. And if they were in there, they're dead. So you got to do that. Basically, everything's got to pass through the freezer. And then you also have to just, you know, just every time you think you might see one, you kill it. And you have to look in the corners of your pantries and look for their little egg sacks and you've got to eradicate them constantly until eventually they'll just stop seeing them. That is awful. Oh, and I thought tag season was uncomfortable. Imagine having to deal with pantry moths. Oh, the Atlas Moth. That's the one. The Atlas Moth.

I remember that now.

That's my pick.

The Madagascan Luna,

well, moon moth is very pretty. That's no Moth. Wow. That's my new favorite. So I got the Luna Moth and the Madagascan moon moth. Those are my two favorite. You like the, oh yeah, that one's cool too. Check out it's also known as the comet moth. Check out the Atlas, Steve, I think you'd like it too. Because the top wings are very mimic-mimicky. They look like snakes, almost. I'm kind of grossed out by moths. I mean, they're not in the area of favorite insect, for sure. Really? Oh, I love them. They're so like, I don't know, witchy.

They're fuzzy butterflies. Yeah. Well, you know, we have a day to celebrate moths in the United States. It's the, what, the second Sunday in May, that mothers day? Oh, no. I was waiting. I was like,

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