Hello and welcome to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Today is November 16th, 2005. This is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society.

With me today are Bob Novella. Hello everyone. And Perry DeAngeles. Good evening.

Evan Burstein, who normally joins us, is not able to make it tonight. So let's start by going over some Skeptical News items.

There's a few items caught my attention this week. The first is about James Doohan, who many of you may know as Star Trek's Scotty.

He died recently and you may have heard that according to his wishes, his ashes were to be blasted into outer space.

It's sort of a full, a final tribute to Scotty. Scotty, his character, he was the engineer of the Enterprise and sort of a running bit in the show, was the conflict between Captain Kirk and Scotty.

Kirk was always demanding that he fixed the ship and the engines in half the time then was feasible and Scotty would always do it.

Well, he said that he would double his time. He doubled his estimates so that he can have it.

So he was to be launched recently in a Falcon 1 rocket. However, ironically the launch was delayed due to engine trouble.

So now that it was on the job, that wouldn't happen. So the rocket launch is now delayed. It's not going to come with the dilithium chain.

I think the dilithium crystals were cracked and the phase reversal was all out of whack.

Damn harmonics.

So it's not going to fly any sooner than February of 2006. So we will keep you updated about Scotty's final trip into space.

Another item that was sent to me by a colleague this week is about... You have colleagues?

I do. Okay, they're out there somewhere.

The state of Florida has recently launched a study into the benefits of magical or supernatural water as a cure for citrus canker.

Now, the canker is... It's basically...

That's a disease on a fruit. Yes, it's a disease of citrus fruit trees. It is a bacteria to bacteria.

It's a pretty nasty. Apparently the only thing you could do is destroy the tree and dispose of it properly.

That's right. There's no cure for the bacteria.

There's no sav for the canker or anything like that, I guess.

But because anything incurable that attracts the quacks and the charlatans and people are always offering up their miracle cures,

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