

The Gargle episode mixes science/tech news with comedy, focusing on “chaotic” pigeons, plus headlines on nuclear clocks, stress-linked gut viruses and cancer, a personalized melanoma vaccine, and controversy over energy-hungry data centers in Scotland. It also covers insect biodiversity, academic impersonation fraud, and anti-aging research chatter.
Tom Neenan (British radio comedy performer; co-host; Fringe performer) and Eleanor Morton (British comedy performer; described as having an orthologist father; pigeon enthusiast).
Pigeons don’t learn button-press experiments like other animals; they act randomly and won’t repeat tasks. Personalized mRNA vaccine halves melanoma recurrence risk after five years. Scotland’s planned hyperscale data centers could consume energy comparable to ~1.5x the population’s current use. Insects are vastly undercounted (93–97% remain nameless). Academic fraud involves people using multiple identities/presentations, possibly aided by AI.
Trafalgar Square pigeon feeding vs kicking; hawks used at King’s Cross; Edinburgh Fringe reviews; tufted pygmy squirrel mention.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes.
Alice and the hosts explore the peculiarities of British summer heatwaves.
“Coming up, we have the news, reviews, and the front cover.”
They delve into recent scientific developments including nuclear clocks and cancer research.
“The world's first nuclear clocks have become a reality.”
Eleanor shares fascinating insights about pigeons and their unexpected behaviors.
“Eleanor Morton, you've helped shepherd in some coos before.”
Tom discusses a breakthrough in melanoma treatment with a personalized vaccine.
“has cut the risk of cancer returning after five years.”
Eleanor addresses the impact of proposed data centers on Scotland's energy resources.
“I think that they estimated that these data centres would use up about as much energy as one and a half times our population or one and a half times what we currently use.”
Discussion on the implications of AI technology and data sovereignty.
“when it comes to things like making personalised vaccines for people.”
Tom Neenan humorously reviews the experience of receiving various star ratings.
“And that brings us to our reviews section.”
Eleanor shares her personal experience and review of the long-eared owl.
“If we were limited, I would probably go three stars for one star, two stars for three, one for two.”
Discussion on the discovery of millions of unnamed insect species and their ecological importance.
“Tom Neenan, you've picked up a log and seen things crawling underneath before.”
Discover the phenomenon of individuals pretending to be academics at conferences.
“and I know a lot more people who have been to many academic conferences.”
Explore the cultural implications of pretending to be an academic and its absurdities.
“And then you pull back the curtain and it's our old friend AI, because it seems like some of these presentations have been, you know, generated to look good.”
Examine Silicon Valley's obsession with reversing aging and the lengths they go to.
“I mean, they're just not academics in the thing that they say they're academics in, which is the worst kind of academic.”
Learn about simple lifestyle choices that can effectively reverse aging.
“It's pretty much honed now over that time.”
Investigate the humorous idea of isolating the 'Rudge gene' to combat aging.

Get the gist, explore an idea or ask about something said.
On The Gargle, what are the key points of this episode?
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.
0:00Alice Fraser: Hello, London. The Gargle is coming to London Live on the 26th of June. I will be there. Our co-hosts for The Gargle Live will be Tom Neenan and Alison Spittel. It's going to be a delightful evening with some surprises. Head over to the buglepodcast.com slash live or check out the link in the description below. I will see you there. 26th of June with Bill Murray. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining alfresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70 % off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance.
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0:51Alice Fraser: Wayfair, every style, every home.
0:57Alice Fraser: Welcome to The Gargle, a science and technology podcast brought to you by The Bugle. In the age before ages when the news was too full of politics, there arose from the throat of the shared human experience a sound no god had commissioned, no nation had prepared for. The people of the world cupped about half a glass of water in their hands, tilted back their heads towards the merciless sun and welcomed the gargle. Yes, you're listening to The Gargle, the science and technology pullout section of the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world. I am your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest host for this episode, forged in the fires of British radio comedy, stared into the TARDIS and made it cry.
1:32Alice Fraser: Legends say he once told a joke so dry it caused a drought in three countries. Welcome the man, the myth about a man, a man about a myth. It's Tom Neenan. Hello. Hello, and hold on to your wigs and your sense of self. Born fully formed from the wardrobe they used to keep Narnia in, raised by a council of increasingly specific regional accents, she once impersonated a woman so accurately that the woman evaporated and was never seen again. It's Eleanor Morton. Hi. I'm very excited to have you both. Coming up, we have the news, reviews, and the front cover. This week is a picture of Europe and the UK clad only in a bikini and a terrible sunburn saying, I'm sure we don't need to make structural changes to the way we conceive of our weather patterns.
2:16Alice Fraser: I mean, you need to, like, you definitely need to make social conceptual changes. When I was a surf lifesaver on Bondi Beach in Sydney in Australia, we used to have a protocol for dealing with sunburned British tourists. Oh, God. Oh, God. Anyone lying in the full sun looking like a lobster passed out directly in, like, a high UV day and the protocol was you had to touch their foot with your foot because the profiling was that they tended to come up swinging and, you know, this is the thing. There's quite a lot of profiling in surf lifesaving and you sort of feel a bit uncomfortable about it when your teachers are telling you what to watch out for.
2:59Alice Fraser: But when the rubber hits the road, you're like, I don't want to get punched in the face. Alice, you've lived in both the UK and Australia. can you attest to the Australians who might not believe you the British summer hits different as in it's worse but not in a hot way just in an unbearable way or are you one of those people who doesn't get affected? There are four features that make British heatwaves more unpleasant than heatwaves or the similar temperature on the dial in Australia Number one, the days go significantly longer the sun doesn't set until 10pm and so at like 5 or 6 p.m. it's still 35 degrees, whereas in Australia the sun would be starting to go down and the heat would be starting to come out of the day.
3:41Alice Fraser: Number one. Number two, nothing is built for it, definitely not the people, so moods are more labile and all of the structures are built to retain heat. So that's – I mean, I feel like most British houses are built as though they could be transferred to the inside of a ship at sea on short notice. That's the plan. Yep. and or a hobbit hole, possibly a floating hobbit hole. Anyway, the third element that makes it worse is that it feels like it's a harbinger of end times in a way that in Australia, like in Australia you're like, yeah, you expect summer to be hot and here it is constantly a surprise no matter how much it happens and so it feels like the death knell of a civilisation.
4:30Alice Fraser: And that brings us to the headlines for this week. Quick headline section. The world's first nuclear clocks have become a reality. Physicists have created the first ticking nuclear clocks using an atom's nucleus for ultra-precise timekeeping. Atomic clocks are now officially obsolete. The new nuclear clock is so precise you could be late for your next meeting to the most minuscule fraction of a second. And very excitingly, stress-linked gut viruses help tumours evade the immune system, which is to say that a study has found that chronic stress helps tumours avoid your immune system's attacks through a chain reaction involving gut bacteria and viruses.
5:10Alice Fraser: So if you were worried about getting cancer, now the only solution is to stop worrying about getting cancer because it's making it worse. Terrifyingly. And that brings us to our top story. Top story this week. Pigeons are chaos, apparently. Eleanor Morton, you've helped shepherd in some coos before. Can you unpack this story for us? I can. I'm excited. I love pigeons. My dad's an orthologist. And when I was younger, every time I saw a pigeon that was in trouble, I'd put it in a box and be like, Dad, we've got another one. And he'd be like, oh, my God, this isn't part of my job. But pigeons have basically failed the, I suppose it's not quite the Pavlov's dog test, But the idea that, you know, most animals and most humans will figure out after a while, if you do the same action, you might get a treat, which is an experiment that's worked on most animals and most humans, you know, press the red button five times, something pops out.
6:09Rats, they all figure out what to do. Not pigeons. Pigeons, pigeons are just doing their own thing. They pick randomly. They haven't figured it out at all. And scientists are baffled. But I don't think they should be baffled. I think if you spend any time with a pigeon, you'll know that they are crazy creatures and they can't be tamed. So I'm not surprised. And I also think good for them, you know, good for them not not adhering to our systems and our experiments. I think I think that's, you know, the last frontier against being part of a part of a system.
6:47Alice Fraser: Yeah, it doesn't seem to come out of stupidity. It's like bloody mindedness. seemingly it's an extraordinary they don't seem to lack intelligence they seem to lack a willingness to repeat any experiment i'll push your button in hell but like but a pigeon's life is like that right because if you go to like trafalgar square half the people are feeding pigeons for being pigeons half the people are um trying to kick pigeons for being pigeons if i was a pigeon i would not know if I was doing a good job or a bad job based on the input of the humans around me I would just be like yeah am I okay this random woman seems to think I'm doing a good job because I'm getting fed this other person wants to run me over with a street cleaner um and this dog wants to kill me and I wouldn't I wouldn't know what any of those inputs meant all I would really think is that like I it's fun pooing on statues that's that's the only consistent in my life so that's all i stick with really i mean that sort of makes it amazing that they're not if they're not building habits in order to get something that means they must spontaneously decide that that statue is worth shitting on i uh um i saw a thing quite recently about how we've kind of failed pigeons as humans because we spent years and years hundreds of years training them you know we kept them in in in dove cuts and uh we sent them out in the war as carrier pigeons and then in the last 50 years we've kind of gone you know our pigeons fuck you guys and you just kind of abandoned them and i think i think that they're reacting as i would uh confused and angry um have you ever seen a pigeon nest i know they're incredible um the pigeon nest i think there's a whole reddit subreddit for them actually it is just like the minimum um you could possibly call a nest it is like four twigs in a in a square and they'll and they'll lay an egg in that they'll do um it's so it's actually if you think about their nests the way they react to buttons doesn't doesn't not a surprise at all the fact that like i hadn't thought about that before but they were our allies during world war ii i know this is it and now we try and ham them with hawks at train stations we used to give them little medals which again i don't think they really cared about um and now And now we pay a hawk, the evilest looking bird, to kill them in King's Cross to the delight of tourists who think it's part of the Harry Potter experience.
9:17Yeah.
9:18Alice Fraser: To be fair, that's sort of what we did with violent men. Like historically speaking, violent men, you're like, here, have a medal. Here, have an army. Here, be the chief of a castle. You can't control your impulses. Just have all the rewards. and then we turned around and were like, actually, you're not meant to punch out your frustrations. No wonder. I mean, yeah, they still get invited on Jimmy Fallon though, don't they? So that's... Whoa! Whoa! Boom, boom, boom! And that brings us to our next top news story. A personalised vaccine for melanoma has cut the risk of cancer returning after five years.
10:00Alice Fraser: Good news for a mate is back on the menu you guys. We can go out and I don't think this is a suggestion. We should all be going out and sunburning ourselves again, but it is a suggestion that maybe it's going to be more survivable to have a skin cancer. I am pretty delighted about this. Tom Neenan, you've squinted at the sun before against doctor's advice. Can you unpack this story for us? I certainly will. I came very close reading this to doing the most cloying thing anyone can ever do, which is go, guys, there should be like a news report that's only good news uh you know that awful guy that you hear about and so i basically became that because i was like i didn't know about this until um we were sort of doing doing the research we sort of sent over the links and i was like this is genuinely good news and i wonder if it will be covered in the news or if it will be death and destruction i'm going to get this absolutely right because i want i don't want to get it wrong uh the research presented on uh monday at the american society clinical oncology's annual meeting found that a personalized mRNA vaccine halved the risk of melanoma returning after five years.
11:03The results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This is incredible. This is not quite the cure for cancer, but this is certainly something which will do a huge amount of good for people. Apparently, this is the most aggressive form of skin cancer, and it's going to be brilliant. And it's going to help exactly the kind of people that you are trained to look after on the beach, which is mainly British people. You fall asleep in the sun. When you were talking about the protocol of waking them up, I was so relieved the protocol wasn't just a big hand and just slap on the chest and see what happens.
11:36That's no more than we deserve. I do wonder if our reaction to this, which is excitement, is disproportionate given that we are the key demographic for this, which is an Australian, a redhead and a pale man. so yeah that's all people who would be the most thrilled about this research uh i i for one am
11:57Alice Fraser: delighted uh at this news and i hope that it you know as with all these pieces of news it still needs a little bit of testing to be brought to market but i'm quite excited about the possibilities uh speaking of the possibilities uh scottish data center news now ellen and morton you're incredibly energy intensive to run can you unpack this story for us i am indeed um the basically i mean this is happening across britain but um i'm in scotland so that's what matters to me there have been 24 um hyper scale data center applications to various different scottish councils across the central belt um all all within a fairly short time frame i think from the start of the year till now and essentially people like myself are trying to fight back against it because Scotland is a small country.
12:51I think that they estimated that these data centres would use up about as much energy as one and a half times our population or one and a half times what we currently use. They're all being built in places that are very close to where people live but there's no upside in my opinion to these data centers and uh what we're seeing as well is kind of i think a lot of the time because the technology is moving faster than the legislation you're seeing counselors and msps um not really being aware of the implications of the thing and sort of the developers trying to get in there before the research is done about the development so so we're trying to we're trying to push back against it because um i don't know if this is me being too self-righteous but i do not think the people of scotland deserve to have their noise uh their atmosphere their land polluted uh just so you can make um a fun picture of a dog riding a bicycle um although you know what if it was a chihuahua then actually that would be fine that would be
13:57Alice Fraser: fine for me yeah well this is the thing there's so many cool things that ai can do particularly when it comes to things like making personalised vaccines for people. But it does feel like a lot of what AI is being used for is to make PowerPoint presentations for bosses who will not look at them. Yes, yes. And I think as well, I feel like we're going towards a bit of a bubble burst and I feel like a lot of these things are getting their proposals in as quickly as possible. and I do not see a positive outcome for anyone in Scotland. Luckily, it's been pretty widely rejected by the public. We just need to galvanise that and make sure that we actually use that to contact the councils, contact the government and direct it at them and not just complain on, ironically, AI-driven sites.
14:57But yeah, there's probably one near you, Tom, as well. Well, there's definitely loads in Australia as well. I think Ireland is kind of our case study for how not to do it.
15:08Alice Fraser: There's an argument that there should be data centre sovereignty and local AI after America first launched and then shut down for security reasons some of the more cutting-edge models and now only Americans are allowed to use these most cutting-edge information models and businesses that are in the UK that want to use cutting-edge models are reliant on American or Chinese technology to do that. So there's this like security argument that this is like military technology. But yeah, that it does feel a little bit like a nuclear race. Yeah. That we're all rushing to build this technology that everyone who is like deep in the technology and whether this is like boosterism to raise funds seems to think could destroy the world.
15:54And we're rushing to be the ones who can destroy the world first
15:58Alice Fraser: so that we can tell other people not to destroy the world seems to be the logic. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what each of these specific data centers will be, what the AI data is being used for at each of them. I would be surprised if it was good things. But listen, if they want to say, if they want to be like, actually, we're only building cancer curing AI data centers, then sure, bring it up to John Swinney and we'll talk more. But I mean, this is really the core question, right? The core question is whether you believe that there are other sinister forces that you need to be capable of fending off with your more sinister AI.
16:38Alice Fraser: Yeah. I don't think any of these companies, cynically, I don't think any of these companies have anyone's interest apart from making money at their heart. The good news is that Erin Brockovich has started to map all the data centers in America. She's putting together this huge thing. and so even if they do build all of them, we might get a really nice Julia Roberts film out of this. I sincerely hope that by the end of 2030, Scotland is data centres only broken up by Trump golf courses. That is its destiny. That's the American dream. Yeah. And that brings us to our reviews section. section as we know each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars tom neenan what have you brought for us well the edinburgh fringe is coming up um and so i thought i would take this opportunity to review the experience of receiving various different star ratings for your show so review the reviews so uh first of all i'm going to give one star to receiving two stars because no one wants to receive two stars.
17:53It is the mayor of reviews. It is just the, I could barely give a hoot about this show. So that's two stars. I am going to give two stars to getting one star because while it isn't great to have one star, at least you made the reviewer feel something. At least you really made them hate what you were doing. And that at least means that your creation what you're doing had some impact on the world so that feels good i'm going to give receiving three stars two stars because it sits firmly in the middle it's uh it's fine um and yeah it's just one star i think that's the worst one you can get three star okay receiving three stars gets one star uh in that case receiving four stars gets three stars uh because that feels nice and receiving five stars gets four stars uh and i'm gonna get award five stars to uh just being proud of your show and not concentrating on what reviewers are saying oh yeah that was a bit sincere wasn't it i'm gonna give i'm gonna give five stars to getting drunk at brooks bar
19:01Alice Fraser: whoa did you comedian tomney in it i mean i i you threw me there because i thought we were limiting like i thought we couldn't give what the same star rating to any of the stars and then and it was like a puzzle that we were figuring out, but you gave yourself some leeway there to give multiple one-star experiences to the different star experiences. Yes. If we were limited, I would probably go three stars for one star, two stars for three, one for two. Yep, yep. Three for four, four for five, because, of course, it could be better. Yeah. I'll get your headache. I think five stars is three stars because after the initial euphoria of the five stars there's nowhere to go but down you know and then that and then you start to think well i'll never do better than that and then so that's why i think but depending on where your five stars is like i'm the kind of person who definitely you know i'll occasionally like get a five stars from like kagool monthly and then just have the most like quiet audience for the next like month oh here we go clang he's always mentioning his kagool monthly five stars I'm quite frankly sick of it.
20:04Some of us can't get Cagoule monthly in. That's true. I recognise my privilege.
20:11Alice Fraser: I mean, I just think it's a sad come down from Cagoule Weekly that now it's probably only online. Very sad. The true comedy fans know where to look. The true Cagoule fans. It used to be raining Cagoule weeklies and now... Eleanor, what have you brought in to review? uh well continuing with a bird theme i'd like to review the long-eared owl as a species um it is currently lasting near where i live in edinburgh um and my boyfriend has always wanted to see an owl he's never seen an owl he's seen owls like on tv obviously in in zoos but he's never seen a wild owl and um so the other week we went out to find the the owl and it did it did the thing first of was a bunch of people like sort of like sidling up to us in the middle of nowhere and being like are you here to see the owl it was the most sort of middle class sort of um drug deal equivalent i was like this is how people must feel when they do drugs um yeah we're here to see the owl because you know you don't want too many people because it'll scare the owls anyway and we were waiting for ages but didn't see the owl and then we thought well we'll go home and as we were going home just like in a nature documentary it flew out of the tree and it perched on a stick in the middle of middle of a bog so you couldn't you couldn't miss it it was like it came out you know they will say in the world life documentaries like i really feel like he knew we wanted to see him um and that was great so i've got loads of very blurry the pictures are terrible you can just about figure out it's an owl they're not good but i saw the owl i'm giving it five stars i was picturing something quite big but long-haired owls are actually quite petite um so fantastic experience we will be back to see the owl again do you think it's maybe a misnaming that it's actually just a normal size ear but the owl is too small for it that could be it i mean it's actually completely a misnaming because they're not even ears they're just little um tufts of feathers that their ears are just these kind of holes that don't shave an owl it's horrible One star for shaving an owl.
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22:47Alice Fraser: Wayfair, every style, every home. That brings us to your ad section. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. And this episode of podcast is brought to you by Roll the Die, Die, Die doctors. Wait for six hours to be told to take some Panadol and see if it gets worse in the almost full assurance that you've seen a doctor? 60 % of the staff in our clinic who are dressed as doctors are doctors and the other 40 % are people who have changed their first name by deed poll to doctor which is not technically a lie half the price of a regular doctor is like gachapon or pokemon or any other gamified gambling experience where you're statistically unlikely to get the thing you actually want but here it's a medical diagnosis thrills thrills thrills for the kills kills kills roll the die die die doctors available online And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Hush, the mattress that sleeps for you.
23:41Alice Fraser: Using a patented network of certified surrogate sleepers, Hush absorbs your eight hours of rest and uploads them directly to your nervous system while you go about your day. Hush. Don't think about it too much. And that's our ad section for today. Millions more insect news now, but like in a good way, This is the news that much though we were attempting to extinctify almost everything on Earth, there are millions more species for us to do that, too, according to researchers. Tom Neenan, you've picked up a log and seen things crawling underneath before. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, indeed.
24:23So this is the exciting news that there may be millions more bugs out there in the world than we had any idea that there would be. so this is the research from the university of plymouth and uh so apparently there's all these incredible um creatures out there the team analyzed more than 1.6 million dna barcoded insects now if i thought but the other day i was trying to um get one of those fobs uh that you have when you want to like if you've got a house alarm and you need to like put the house put it on the house alarm so it turns the alarm off i was trying to put one of those fobs on my key ring and the little hole i have to go through is so small and i was getting very frustrated and i thought there's no job worse than this and then i discovered that there is someone who barcodes the dna of insects and i was like okay that's the fiddliest job in the world that is that is irritating only only less fiddly than the person who has to scan them all at the chat exactly well now there are some unexpected bugs in the flying area because it turns out there's loads of bugs out there and this is a really sad fact 93 to 97 of all insects remain nameless isn't that sad yeah yeah sorted um so yeah so there's all these bugs out there that no one existed and have been thriving, apparently.
25:51And this is good because, aside from the fact that no one likes bugs, they are technically good for the environment, aren't they? And for biodiversity and things. So it's kind of a good thing, and we should be pleased about this.
26:05Alice Fraser: Well, my favourite part of this whole story was the quote by Dr. Robert Pushendorf, who's this professor at the University of Plymouth, and he said, diversity is really hard to quantify. but what this new study shows is that we have completely underestimated the insects and and what have they got planned that's the question um it does feel like a general at a strategy meeting yeah um i am as a lover of biodiversity and nature i'm thrilled and as a hater of bugs i'm terrified but um i do kind of like the fact that every time i think i've pretty much learned about every animal on the planet another one pops up and it's weirder than i could possibly have imagined and um that is one of the only things keeping me going uh if you guys want a fun i mean you might already know but i didn't know about the tufted pygmy squirrel you want to google that um and it'll make your day because they are fantastic little guys and i didn't know they existed and now they do so i'm really happy um but a lot of these like are just tiny variants right there must be like it's a fly and then there's like a two and a half winged fly and then there's like a three winged fly and stuff and they're all just like surely they can't all be so different and magical and weird these bugs they're actually all very unique and special tom it's very rude of you to suggest they're not so i'm so sorry a participation medal for every for every bug exactly they all have a podcast yeah
27:37Alice Fraser: international fraud news now eleanor uh indonesian authorities have been probing a suspected web of lies at a denmark scientific conference uh you're you're an expert in impersonation can you uh let us know a bit more about this story this is um this is bonkers and fascinating and um baffling because I've been to a couple of academic conferences and I know a lot more people who have been to many academic conferences. And so basically what it is, is it seems to be a small group of people turning up at multiple conferences with different names and identities and different presentations, which they then don't seem to be able to explain like when they're questioned further.
28:24And it seems like they are pretending to be academics and they are getting grants in order to do these, go to these places. But I'm still trying to figure out the overall benefit because academic conferences are expensive. Like you don't get paid to go. You have to pay to be there. So they've all been getting these grants.
28:46Alice Fraser: Yes. In order to cover their costs and presumably make a little bit extra. Yeah. I mean, how much extra is it? Okay. I would be less surprised if it turned out that what they were really trying to do was get as many free buffet breakfasts. That would make more sense to me. But it's also one of those stories where you're like, oh, academic fraud, interesting, fascinating. And then you're like, what's that over there? It's a man behind a curtain. And then you pull back the curtain and it's our old friend AI, because it seems like some of these presentations have been, you know, generated to look good.
29:30But if you know anything about the subject, immediately you can say that's what's happening there. Which AI is quite good at doing. Generally, AI is quite good at kind of looking clever to people who don't know enough about the subject. But if you know about the thing, you can immediately go, I don't know what this is. but isn't there already like a kind of academic fraud like presentation system in place which is like motivational speaking which is like if you like really got anything to say and like you just want some money you just go okay i'm doing like a be you know own your own truth symposium and get you know very gullible people to come along and just tell them to follow their dream and they'll be like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah if you if you want to wear a pastel suit and sort of put your fingertips together on a stage that's possible yeah i mean the thing about it to me is that it's
30:23Alice Fraser: sort of been done so ineptly as people coming and delivering a paper and then like literally changing their name tag and delivering a different paper 10 minutes later on the assumption that the same people aren't at the same conference and might like yeah i feel like it yeah it feels quite a lot of work for quite a low stakes benefit. I don't know if this is specifically an Indonesian thing or that the article was focused on Indonesia, but it would be very funny if this was just an issue in Indonesia and nowhere else. They were like, we don't know what it is about us, but we can't stop pretending to be academics.
30:59That is my one racist thing now. We'll just be, you know, Indonesian people, they love pretending to be academics. I love academic.
31:09Alice Fraser: I mean, I think they are academics, but they're committing academic. I mean, they're just not academics in the thing that they say they're academics in, which is the worst kind of academic. So weird. That's such a weird choice. It's fascinating. I'm fascinated. I want to see how this plays out because, and I want to know specifically what the benefits are. If they say it was just to have nice hotel room stays, I totally get it. You may live to see this whole story play out because apparently we are on the edge of reversing aging. As long as the billionaires can figure out how to share some of the N equals one data that they are collating for millions and millions and millions of dollars a year each.
31:48Alice Fraser: Tom Neenan, you're interested in Doctor Who. Can you tell us more about this story? That's all I need. Sam Altman, man. Sam Altman's like, I'm going to tread carefully. He's a weird guy. I think he would say he's a weird guy. this is the idea that like everyone in silicon valley the one thing they can't control is the fact that they're going to die one day um which is the one thing they have in common with all of us they can have the most rarefied life of anyone who's ever existed you me elon musk and sam altman are all at some point going to uh going to pass through the veil and join the choir invisible um and that's fine that's what makes it all fine but the idea that you spend your entire life trying to reverse the aging process, which is a perfectly fine process.
32:33It's pretty much honed now over that time. Also, we have sort of reversed the aging process. Have you seen Dick Van Dyke? Have you seen David Attenborough? These people are 100 years old. Mel Brooks, these people are 100 years old. And a lot of them are still up and about and still have all their mental faculties. And they might not be as active as they once were, but they're still doing pretty well. we are sort of reversing the aging process, but obviously not as quickly as these people would like. Sam Orton does really weird things. He'll measure the density or the pressure of his erections and compare them to his sons.
33:11Oh, I think that was the other one, Brian Johnson. Oh, is that Brian Johnson?
33:15Alice Fraser: He also published his girlfriend's vaginal microbiome. Wow. And there were more bugs in there than anyone knew. A million more bugs. That's why they decide. I feel like there's two things with this. Firstly, I was fascinated by people who are obsessed with countering aging and looking younger because sometimes, and, you know, maybe this will sound cruel, but sometimes you didn't look that great when you were young either. Like, listen, Jeff Bezos, whatever. but I mean was 25 year old Jeff Bezos quite the ladies man I don't know and the other thing is that it appears that scientists have been saying the best things to reverse aging are pretty simple stuff like you know don't smoke eat healthy get lots of sleep and those are all things that all of us can do so it's sort of like it's not just that they want to reverse aging it's that they want to do it in a way that us normies could never do And having friends apparently Having some good close friends For about 11 years And just be normal, just be a normal person I think Or be a Hollywood dance star Apparently if you're Dick Van Dyke Or Mel Brooks Of all the people he should be the one To get cancelled for doing a naughty Absolutely no mind Only one who can get away with it I don't know why they haven't I'm just seeing here that apparently what they're trying to do is there's a new breakthrough in anti-aging where they're all trying to isolate this thing called the rudge gene which is the paul rudge whatever it is in paul rudge dna as soon as they isolate the rudge gene it's over for aging completely yep rudge and keanu together yeah together they could be more powerful than we could ever imagine and we must it must never happen kiss kiss Yes.
35:42Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at wayfair.com.
35:47Alice Fraser: Wayfair, every style, every home. And that brings us to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle. I'm flipping through the ads at the back. Eleanor Morton, have you got anything to plug? Yes, The Fringe. Come to The Fringe. Go to The Fringe. The Fringe in Edinburgh, in Scotland. You know, it's the biggest art spust in the world. I am there every day in August, apart from Mondays and Tuesdays. 1pm Monkey Barrel Cab Bowl 1 The Mermaid it's a show about mermaids and I'll also be selling my book there Life Lessons from Historical Women if you want to buy a copy of that that sounds excellent Tom Neenan where can people find you?
36:27what a coincidence I am also at the yeah well at the odds I'm at the fringe I will be there every day and Monday and Tuesday and the day off and the last Monday because I'm an idiot and I will be there 3.15 every day and that will be my show, Tom Neenan. What is it called? I don't even know what my show's called. Portrait of a Thomas Young Neenan. That's it. I went into a fugue state just then. 3.15 at the Underbelly George Square. See you there. You could do a nice little double bill if you were. Oh, hello. Or a couple bill if Alice is. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. That's exciting.
37:11Alice Fraser: Let's get our people to talk to each other. We don't have any. You can find me, of course, at The Fringe. I will be in Leeds on the 9th of July in Peterborough on the 10th of July where tickets are selling very badly. So if you're anywhere near Peterborough, please come along and watch my work in progress of the show called Oh Man. If you are in Cardiff, I'll be there on the 19th of July filming both Passion for Passion and Oh Man. So Cardiff, 19th of July. I'll be downstairs at the King's Head in London. on the 21st of July and at the Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch, making a tour of all the royals on the 23rd of July.
37:47Alice Fraser: Then I'll be in Oslo. I said Copenhagen on the Bugle, but it's Oslo. I'll be in Oslo on the 31st of July at 9pm at New NIEU, which is going to be heaps of fun. And then I'll be doing Edinburgh Fringe at 8.40pm at O 'Neill's, the Tron, doing Old Man every night, including the last Monday, Tom Neenan, you're not the only one. Yay. I mean, I'll be in Edinburgh on the last Monday because I live here. So I can just come and laugh at you guys for your poor choices. Yeah, please. Please do a marathon of Gargle and Realms Unknown people. We've got a bunch of people there. We should put out a post with all of the people who will be there.
38:30Alice Fraser: Follow us on The Blue Sky and various other social media. This is a Bugle podcast, an Alice Fraser production. Your editor is Harry Gordon. Your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next time.
39:09Plus, surprise flash deals July 6th. Don't wait! Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com.
On this week's issue of the glossy newspaper pullout The Gargle, Alice is joined by co-hosts Eleanor Morton and Tom Neenan as the trio jump into this week's science and tech news from Chaotic pigeons helping to redefine what we know about learning, breakthrough as scientists create personalised vaccine for melanoma. PLUS, An Indonesian researcher's fishy behaviour spotted by her compatriots at conference, and New research has found the Earth has millions more insects species than previously thought.
Alice Fraser: https://www.patreon.com/AliceFraser
Eleanor Morton: https://eleanormortoncomedian.com/
Tom Neenan: https://www.tomneenan.com/
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