The Universe's Fate: A Big Crunch in 20 Billion Years
A groundbreaking study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics reveals that the universe is approaching the midpoint of its 33 billion-year lifespan and may end in approximately 20 billion years. Lead author Henry Tighe from Cornell University presents new data suggesting that the universe's cosmological constant may be negative, leading to a contraction and eventual collapse—a phenomenon referred to as the "big crunch." This research, based on observations from the Dark Energy Survey and the dark energy spectroscopic instrument DESI, challenges long-held beliefs about the universe's eternal expansion and opens new avenues for understanding cosmic evolution.
Mapping the Milky Way: Gaia's 3D View
The European Space Agency's Gaia Space Telescope has unveiled the most precise three-dimensional map of star-forming regions within our Milky Way galaxy. By analysing data from 44 million stars, Gaia has provided insights into the obscured molecular clouds where new stars are born. This innovative mapping technique allows astronomers to understand the distribution of ionised gas and the dynamics of star formation, offering a fresh perspective on our galaxy's structure and the processes that shape it.
Fungi: The Pioneers of Terrestrial Life
A recent study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution has identified that fungi played a crucial role in preparing Earth for life on land between 900 million and 1.4 billion years ago—much earlier than previously thought. Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology utilised a novel gene swap method to trace the evolution of fungi, suggesting that these organisms were instrumental in creating the first ecosystems and nutrient recycling processes that facilitated the emergence of terrestrial life. This discovery reframes our understanding of the timeline for life on Earth and highlights the importance of fungi in shaping our planet's biosphere.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia
Nature Ecology and Evolution
https://www.nature.com/newe
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spacetime-your-guide-to-space-astronomy--2458531/support.
The Universe's Fate: A Big Crunch in 20 Billion Years
Mapping the Milky Way: Gaia's 3D View
Fungi: The Pioneers of Terrestrial Life
00:00:00
This is Space Time, Series 28, Episode 120, for broadcast on
00:00:04
the 6th of October 2025. Coming up on Space Time, a new study
00:00:09
warns the universe will end in 20 billion years from now, a new
00:00:14
three-dimensional map of our Milky Way galaxy, and how fungi
00:00:18
set the stage for life on land on planet Earth. All that and
00:00:22
more coming up on Space Time.
00:00:26
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
00:00:45
A new study claims the universe is now approaching the midpoint
00:00:49
of its 33 billion year lifespan and will come to an end in
00:00:54
around 20 billion years time.
00:00:56
A report in the Journal Of Cosmology and Astroparticle
00:01:00
Physics says calculations based on new data from dark energy
00:01:03
observatories suggest that after expanding to its peak size in
00:01:07
about 11 billion years from now, our universe will begin to
00:01:10
contract, eventually snapping back like a rubber band to form
00:01:14
a singularity. At the end of time.
00:01:17
The study's lead author, Henry Tai from Cornell University,
00:01:20
says he reached his conclusion after adding new data to a model
00:01:24
involving Albert Einstein's famous cosmological constant, a
00:01:28
factor introduced more than a century ago by Einstein and
00:01:31
still used by cosmologists today to predict the future of the
00:01:34
universe.
00:01:35
Tai says that for the last 20 years, scientists have believed
00:01:38
the cosmological constant was positive and the universe would
00:01:42
therefore expand forever. But he claims the new data seems to
00:01:45
indicate that in fact, the cosmological constant is
00:01:48
actually negative, and the universe will end up in a big
00:01:51
crunch. Right now, the universe is 13.8 billion years old, and
00:01:56
it's still expanding.
00:01:58
According to current models, based on dark energy, its two
00:02:01
simplest fates are that it'll either continue its present
00:02:04
expansion forever, that's if the cosmological constant is
00:02:07
positive, or alternatively, if the cosmological constant is
00:02:11
actually negative, it'll reach a maximum size. Before
00:02:14
contracting, eventually collapsing back to zero.
00:02:17
Tai says this big crunch defines the end of the universe, and he
00:02:21
says that'll happen in around 20 billion years from now. The
00:02:25
findings are based on observations by the Dark Energy
00:02:27
Survey in Chile and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
00:02:31
DESI in Arizona, which are both in good accord with each other's
00:02:34
data.
00:02:35
The whole idea of the Dark Energy Survey of these two
00:02:38
groups is to see whether dark energy, which makes up roughly
00:02:41
68% of the world's energy, percent of the mass energy
00:02:43
budget of the universe really comes from a pure cosmological
00:02:46
constant. The authors found that the universe is not just
00:02:50
dominated by a cosmological constant known as dark energy.
00:02:54
Tying colleagues propose there's a hypothetical particle of very
00:02:57
low mass that behaved like a cosmological constant early in
00:03:00
the life of the universe, but doesn't anymore. And it's this
00:03:04
simple model which fits the data so well, and tips the underlying
00:03:07
cosmological constant into negative territory. Tai says
00:03:11
scientists have said before that if the cosmological constant is
00:03:15
negative, then the universe would eventually collapse.
00:03:18
That's not new. However, here, the model tells you when the
00:03:21
universe collapses and how it collapses. Hundreds of
00:03:25
astronomers are busy measuring dark energy by observing
00:03:27
millions of galaxies across the cosmos and determining the
00:03:31
distance between these galaxies, gathering more and more accurate
00:03:35
data to feed into the model.
00:03:37
DESI will continue observations for another year. And
00:03:40
observations are ongoing or soon begin with several other dark
00:03:44
energy observatories, including the Zwicky Transient Facility in
00:03:47
San Diego, the European Euclid Space Telescope, NASA's recently
00:03:51
launched SPHERE-X Mission, and the Vera C.
00:03:54
Rubin Observatory. Tai says knowing both the beginning and
00:03:58
the end of the universe provides a greater understanding of the
00:04:01
cosmos. As to where the universe goes once it contracts down into
00:04:05
a big crunch, well, the answer's simple. The universe. Goes into
00:04:09
the future.
00:04:11
This is Space Time. Still to come, a new three-dimensional
00:04:14
map of our Milky Way galaxy and how fungi set the stage for life
00:04:19
on land on planet Earth. All that and more still to come on
00:04:23
Space Time.
00:04:40
The European Space Agency's Gaia Space Telescope has created the
00:04:44
most accurate three-dimensional map yet of star-forming regions
00:04:47
in our Milky Way galaxy.
00:04:50
This new map will teach astronomers more about these
00:04:52
obscure molecular gas and dust clouds and the hot young stars
00:04:56
born within them and which ultimately shape them.
00:04:59
It's notoriously difficult to map and study regions of space
00:05:02
where stars form because they're usually hidden from view by
00:05:05
thick clouds whose distances cannot be accurately directly
00:05:09
measured. Now, Guy itself doesn't see these clouds, but he
00:05:13
can measure stellar positions and the so-called extinction of
00:05:16
stars.
00:05:17
This means it can see how much light from the star is being
00:05:19
blocked by dust. From this, astronomers can create
00:05:23
three-dimensional maps showing where the dust is and use those
00:05:26
maps to figure out how much ionized gas is present, a
00:05:30
telltale sign of star formation.
00:05:32
The new three-dimensional map of star-forming regions in the
00:05:35
Milky Way is based on Gaia observations of some 44 million
00:05:39
ordinary stars and 87 spectrotype O blue stars. The
00:05:44
map extends out to a distance of some 4 light-years.
00:05:48
Spectrotype O blue stars are rare.
00:05:51
They're young, massive and extremely bright and hot. And
00:05:54
they shine bright in ultraviolet light. These ultraviolet photons
00:05:58
are so energetic, they can quite literally strip electrons away
00:06:02
from hydrogen atoms when hitting them. In this way, they ionize
00:06:06
the hydrogen gas around hot stars, meaning it becomes a
00:06:09
mixture of charged particles.
00:06:11
Astronomers call these ionized hydrogen clouds hydrogen-2
00:06:14
regions. A characteristic signal that can be picked up from these
00:06:18
regions is the hydrogen-alpha or H-alpha spectral line. At a
00:06:22
wavelength of 656.3 nanometers.
00:06:25
This is one way that astronomers can identify regions in space
00:06:29
where stars are being born. Many telescopes have observed these
00:06:33
regions, so astronomers have a good idea of what they look
00:06:36
like. But no one really knew what they looked like in three
00:06:39
dimensions, or from an outside perspective.
00:06:41
And that's where Gaia comes in. Gaia has mapped the positions,
00:06:45
velocities and motions across the sky of billions of celestial
00:06:49
objects, including millions of stars. The result is the most
00:06:53
accurate multidimensional map of the Milky Way galaxy ever
00:06:56
created, and it's giving astronomers the data to infer
00:06:59
what the galaxy would look like from the perspective of someone
00:07:01
outside the Milky Way.
00:07:03
Gaia's sky maps in all three spatial coordinates, plus three
00:07:06
velocities that he's moving towards or away from the Earth
00:07:09
and moving across the sky, have revealed the precise motions and
00:07:12
positions of millions of nearby stars.
00:07:15
With this, the telescopes already revolutionized science's
00:07:18
view of the solar neighborhood. Allowing astronomers to
00:07:21
comprehensively map the stars and interstellar material near
00:07:24
the Sun in a way that they were simply unable to do before.
00:07:28
One of the study's authors, Lewis McCallum from the
00:07:30
University Of St. Andrews, says Gaius providing the first
00:07:34
accurate view of what our section of the Milky Way galaxy
00:07:37
really would look like from above. He says there's simply
00:07:40
never been a model of the distribution of ionized gas in
00:07:43
the local Milky Way that matches other telescopes' observations
00:07:46
of the sky so well.
00:07:48
That's why astronomers are so confident that Gaia's top-down
00:07:52
view and fly-through of the galaxy are a good approximation
00:07:55
of what these clouds would really look like in three
00:07:57
dimensions.
00:07:58
Lewis's new map includes three-dimensional views of the
00:08:01
Gunn Nebula, the North American Nebula, the California Nebula
00:08:05
and the Orion-Eridana Superbubble. This data will
00:08:08
allow astronomers to learn more about how giant spectrotype
00:08:11
O-stars energize gas and how far out their influence can reach.
00:08:16
Lewis and colleagues already noticed that some of the clouds
00:08:19
in the star-forming regions seem to have broken open, and streams
00:08:23
of gas and dust are likely venting into a giant cavity. The
00:08:27
map also shows how radiation from massive stars ionizes the
00:08:31
surrounding interstellar medium, and how dust and gas interact
00:08:34
with this radiation.
00:08:36
The 3D model provides a detailed look at the processes that shape
00:08:40
our local galactic environment, and it helps astronomers better
00:08:43
understand interactions between the warm and cold. Cold
00:08:46
components of the local universe. In the future, this
00:08:49
map, which requires huge computational power to develop,
00:08:52
will expand even further, including an even larger area of
00:08:56
the home galaxy.
00:08:58
This report from ESA TV.
00:09:00
What does the Milky Way look like from the outside? No
00:09:04
spacecraft can travel beyond our galaxy, so we can't take a
00:09:07
selfie.
00:09:09
But during its lifetime, Gaia made 3 trillion observations of
00:09:13
two... Billion stars and other objects, giving us the best
00:09:18
insight yet of what our home galaxy looks like. We can
00:09:22
identify the Milky Way's central bar and its spiral arms. Based
00:09:26
on Gaia data, we see the galaxy edge on and can identify its
00:09:31
bulge and disc.
00:09:32
Gaia shows that our galaxy's disc is warped and wobbles,
00:09:37
possibly caused by a collision with another smaller galaxy.
00:09:40
Moving further out, Gaia also studied other galaxies around
00:09:45
the Milky Way, such as the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds,
00:09:51
and 40 other companions.
00:09:52
Gaia revealed our galaxy's turbulent history by tracking
00:09:56
the movements of streams of stars. Gaia gives a unique view
00:10:00
of our Milky Way, scanning our galaxy from the inside out,
00:10:04
building a more detailed map than ever before, fundamentally
00:10:08
changing what we thought we knew about our home galaxy. Where our
00:10:12
Sun is embedded among billions of stars.
00:10:17
This is Space Time. Still to come, how fungals set the stage
00:10:22
for life on land on planet Earth, and later in the science
00:10:25
report, a new study says people whose parents have mental
00:10:28
illnesses are more likely to die prematurely. All that and more
00:10:32
still to come on Space Time.
00:10:50
A new study examining life's evolution on planet Earth has
00:10:53
found that fungi set the stage for life on land somewhere
00:10:57
between 900 million and 1.4 billion years ago. That's
00:11:00
hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought.
00:11:04
The findings, reported in the Journal Nature, Ecology and
00:11:06
Evolution, used a novel gene swap method to shed new light on
00:11:10
the timelines and pathways for the evolution of fungi. The
00:11:14
discovery, by researchers from the Okinawa Institute Of Science
00:11:17
And Technology, provides evidence for the evolution of
00:11:19
fungi-run terrestrial ecosystems and therefore the emergence of
00:11:23
life on land.
00:11:25
It suggests these ecosystems recycled nutrients and possibly
00:11:28
partnered with other organisms. Pinning down their timelines
00:11:32
shows fungi were diversifying long before plants and
00:11:35
consistent with early partnerships with algae that
00:11:38
likely helped pave the way for terrestrial ecosystems.
00:11:42
Complex multicellular life, that is organisms made from many
00:11:45
cooperating cells with specialised jobs, evolved
00:11:48
independently on Earth on at least five major occasions.
00:11:52
Animals, land plants, fungi, red algae and brown algae.
00:11:56
Understanding when these groups emerged is fundamental to
00:12:00
piecing together the history of life on Earth.
00:12:03
See, complex multicellular life wasn't simply a matter of cells
00:12:06
clumping together. It was the dawn of organisms, where cells
00:12:10
took on specialised jobs and were organised into distinct
00:12:13
tissues and organs. For most of these groups, the fossil record
00:12:17
acts as a geological calendar, providing anchor points in deep
00:12:21
time.
00:12:22
For example, red algae shows up as early as 1.6 billion years
00:12:25
ago in candidate seaweed-like fossils from India. Animals
00:12:29
appeared around 600 million years ago based on Ediacaran
00:12:32
fossils such as the quilted pancake-like Dickinsonia. The
00:12:36
first land plants took root roughly 470 million years ago
00:12:40
based on the discovery of tiny fossil spores.
00:12:43
And brown algae such as kelp, diversified tens to hundreds of
00:12:46
million years later still. And based on all this evidence, a
00:12:50
chronological picture of life's complexity starts to emerge. But
00:12:54
the notable exception to this fossil-based timeline has always
00:12:57
been fungi. The fungal kingdom has long been an enigma for
00:13:01
paleontologists. Their typically soft filamentous bodies means
00:13:05
they rarely fossilize well.
00:13:07
And unlike animals or plants, which appear to have a single
00:13:10
origin of complex multicellularity, It seems fungi
00:13:13
evolved this trait multiple times from diverse unicellular
00:13:16
ancestors, making it difficult to pinpoint a single origin
00:13:20
event in the fossil record.
00:13:22
To overcome the gaps in the fungal fossil record, scientists
00:13:25
are relying on the steady rate at which genetic mutations
00:13:28
accumulate in an organism's DNA over generations. By comparing
00:13:34
the number of genetic differences between two species,
00:13:36
scientists can reach an estimate of how long ago they diverged
00:13:39
from a common ancestor. The problem is this molecular clock
00:13:43
is still uncalibrated.
00:13:45
It can reveal relative time, but not absolute years. To set the
00:13:49
clock, scientists need to calibrate it with anchor points
00:13:51
from the fossil record. And given the scarcity of fungal
00:13:54
fossils, this has always been a major challenge. The new study
00:13:58
addressed this by incorporating rare gene swaps between
00:14:02
different fungal lineages, a process known as horizontal gene
00:14:05
transfer.
00:14:07
While genes are normally passed down vertically from parent to
00:14:10
child, Horizontal gene transfer is like a gene jumping sideways
00:14:14
from one species to another. And if a gene from lineage A is
00:14:17
found to have jumped into lineage B, it establishes a
00:14:20
clear rule. The ancestors of lineage A must be older than the
00:14:24
descendants of lineage B.
00:14:26
By identifying 17 such transfers, the authors
00:14:29
established a series of older-than, younger-than
00:14:32
relationships that, alongside fossil records, have helped to
00:14:35
tighten and constrain the fungal timeline. The analysis suggests
00:14:39
a common ancestor for living fungal dating to between roughly
00:14:42
900 million and 1.4 billion years ago. That's well before
00:14:46
land plants.
00:14:47
That timing supports a long prelude of fungal-algae
00:14:50
interactions, fundamentally reframing the story of life's
00:14:54
colonization of land. It suggests that for hundreds of
00:14:57
millions of years before the first true plants took root,
00:15:00
fungi were already present, likely interacting with algae in
00:15:03
microbial communities. And this long preparatory phase may well
00:15:08
have been essential for making Earth's continents habitable.
00:15:11
By breaking down rock and recycling nutrients, these
00:15:14
ancient fungi may well have been the first true ecosystems
00:15:18
engineers, creating the first primitive soils and
00:15:21
fundamentally altering the terrestrial environment. It
00:15:24
means plants didn't colonize a barren wasteland, but rather a
00:15:27
world that had already been prepared for them over eons by
00:15:30
the ancient and persistent activity of the fungal kingdom.
00:15:35
Meanwhile, a report in the Journal Of The Proceedings Of
00:15:37
The National Academy Of Sciences has unearthed new evidence in
00:15:40
the ancient rock record suggesting that some of the
00:15:42
first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the
00:15:45
modern-day sea sponge.
00:15:47
The study's authors identified chemical fossils that may have
00:15:50
have been left by ancient sponges in rocks that are almost
00:15:53
541 million years old. A chemical fossil is a remnant of
00:15:57
a biomolecule that originated from a living organism that has
00:16:01
since been buried, transformed and preserved in sediment,
00:16:04
sometimes for hundreds of millions of years.
00:16:06
The newly identified fossils are special types of steranes, which
00:16:10
are a geologically stable form of sterols, such as cholesterol,
00:16:14
that are found in the cell membranes of complex organisms.
00:16:17
The storanes were found in rocks formed during the Ediacaran
00:16:20
period, between roughly 541 and 635 million years ago.
00:16:25
That's just before the Cambrian Explosion, when planet Earth
00:16:28
experienced a sudden global explosion of complex
00:16:31
multicellular lifeforms. The authors traced these special
00:16:34
storanes to a class of sea sponges known as demosponges.
00:16:38
Today, demosponges come in a huge variety of sizes and
00:16:41
colors, and they live throughout the oceans of the Earth as soft
00:16:44
filter feeders. The new discovery offers strong evidence
00:16:48
that the ancestors of demo sponges were among the very
00:16:51
first animals to have evolved, and they likely did so much
00:16:55
earlier than the rest of Earth's major animal groups.
00:16:58
This is Space Time.
00:17:16
Time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making
00:17:18
news in science this week with a science report. Scientists have
00:17:22
found a significant link between drinking soda beverages and
00:17:25
depression.
00:17:26
The findings reported in the Journal Of The American Medical
00:17:29
Association also showed that this effect could be
00:17:32
significantly mediated by how much of a specific bacterium
00:17:35
called eggophilia existed in a person's intestinal tract. The
00:17:39
authors looked inside the soft drink habits and microbiomes of
00:17:42
almost a thousand people.
00:17:44
Just over 400 of whom had been diagnosed with major depressive
00:17:47
conditions. They believe that drinking pop may contribute to
00:17:51
the condition through microbiome changes, especially those
00:17:55
involving eggothelia in female patients.
00:17:57
While this kind of study cannot prove a direct connection
00:18:00
between soft drinks and depression, the authors are
00:18:02
suggesting prevention strategies that reduce consumption of these
00:18:05
drinks and target the microbiome in treatment.
00:18:10
Scientists say people whose parents have mental illnesses
00:18:13
are more likely to die prematurely up to middle age.
00:18:17
The findings, reported in the Journal Of The American Medical
00:18:19
Association, examined medical records for more than 3.5
00:18:23
million Swedish people, around 1.2 million of whom had parents
00:18:26
with mental illnesses.
00:18:28
They say the link between parental mental illness and
00:18:31
premature death held true for all mental disorders and was
00:18:34
strongest for unnatural deaths, which include suicides, murder
00:18:37
and accidents. And if both parents were diagnosed with
00:18:40
mental disorders. The findings highlight the importance of
00:18:44
providing support for families with parents with mental
00:18:46
disorders in order to minimize premature deaths among their
00:18:50
children.
00:18:52
One of the oldest people in the world who died just last year at
00:18:55
the ripe old age of 117 may have survived so long because her
00:18:59
body was still working as if she was at a much younger biological
00:19:02
age. Among signs of a healthy body, the Journal Cell Reports
00:19:06
Medicine found that her DNA had markings.
00:19:09
Usually found in younger people, and that she had rare gene types
00:19:12
linked to long life. They also found differences in her
00:19:15
microbiome, including having more of a type that people
00:19:18
typically lose with older age. The researchers say this shows
00:19:22
that old age doesn't always have to be linked with disease.
00:19:27
The glittering highlight of the Australian Skeptical Calendar is
00:19:30
the annual Skepticon Conference, which this year was held in
00:19:33
Melbourne. Of course, one of the highlights of the event is the
00:19:36
highly coveted Bent Spoon Award.
00:19:38
Which is presented annually to the perpetrator of the most
00:19:40
preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle. The
00:19:45
award is rumoured to have been fashioned out of a piece of
00:19:48
gopher wood salvaged from Noah's Ark.
00:19:51
Upon its sturdy base is affixed a spoon rumoured to have been
00:19:54
used at the Last Supper. The spoon was allegedly bent by Yuri
00:19:58
Geller using old magic, energies unknown to science.
00:20:02
Past winners of this elegant trophy for displaying a total
00:20:05
lack of scientific understanding or an ability to pile the bull
00:20:08
up high, have included the Australian Broadcasting
00:20:11
Corporation, the ABC, for demonstrating new lows in
00:20:14
journalistic standards, with their motto, Never let the facts
00:20:17
get in the way of a good story.
00:20:19
The University Of Wollongong, for proving once and for all
00:20:21
that you don't need to be smart or even right, or for that
00:20:24
matter, scientifically accurate, in order to get a doctorate.
00:20:27
Then there was the Adelaide psychic Anne Dankbar, for her
00:20:30
discovery of the Colossus of Rhodes, which created something
00:20:33
of a media frenzy, till it was shown to be nothing more than
00:20:35
modern builder's rubble.
00:20:37
The ABC won it again for their television show Second Opinion,
00:20:40
which promoted so much unscientific quackery, that they
00:20:43
really should have gotten a few more opinions. Southern Cross
00:20:46
University was another award winner, for offering a degree
00:20:49
course in naturopathy.
00:20:51
Even the once exalted CSIRO has been awarded, with its chief,
00:20:55
Larry Marshall, getting a special mention for his support
00:20:58
of water divining. The ABC won the award yet again for spending
00:21:02
taxpayer money on psychic investigators. Then there was
00:21:05
racing driver Peter Brock, whose highly touted energy polariser
00:21:09
generated more heat from the motoring media than what it did
00:21:12
energy in his car.
00:21:13
The special broadcasting service SPS won the award for their TV
00:21:17
program Medicine or Myth. They were promoting alternative
00:21:20
medical treatments as if they had some actual scientific
00:21:22
credibility. As opposed to being nothing more than an occasional
00:21:26
placebo effect. The Melbourne Metropolitan Board Of Works won
00:21:29
their award for hiring a US psychic archaeologist to help
00:21:33
detect non-existent electromagnetic photo fields.
00:21:36
Oh, and once again, the taxpayer-funded ABC won the
00:21:39
award, this time for their television show The New
00:21:41
Inventors, which seriously considered the pseudoscientific
00:21:44
benefits of an anti-bio-water conditioning system, which
00:21:48
probably should have been filtered through the kidneys a
00:21:50
few more times. In case you're wondering, that's more than a
00:21:52
billion dollars of Australian taxpayers' money spent by the
00:21:56
ABC every year.
00:21:58
And of course, there was Paleo Pete Evans for his promotion of
00:22:01
the BioCharger, a miraculous device that, according to its
00:22:04
manufacturers, has been proven to restore strength, stamina,
00:22:08
coordination and mental clarity. Like the ABC, Evans was a
00:22:12
multiple winner.
00:22:13
He previously won the spoon back in 2015 for his Paleo Diet
00:22:16
Advocacy, which included promoting bone broth as a
00:22:19
formula replacement for babies. As well as his campaigns against
00:22:22
fluoridation and vaccination. Tim Mindum from Australian
00:22:26
Skeptic says this year's exalted winner was banned naturopath
00:22:30
Barbara O'Neill.
00:22:31
The Ben Spoon Award went to a lady named Barbara O'Neill.
00:22:34
Barbara O'Neill is a self-entitled naturopath, even
00:22:38
though she doesn't have any qualifications, who was running
00:22:41
a retreat in New South Wales, up in the sort of forested areas in
00:22:45
the north, and various people, including a number of skeptics,
00:22:48
complained about her activities and what she was saying.
00:22:50
And then the New South Wales Healthcare Complaints Commission
00:22:53
took action, looked at what she was saying, realised what she
00:22:56
was saying was extremely dangerous, totally unqualified
00:22:59
and wrong, and they actually banned her for life for
00:23:01
practising in Australia in any medical capacity at all. So what
00:23:05
she's done now is she goes Overseas and streams stuff.
00:23:08
She's been big in Ireland and the UK and in the US. She has a
00:23:11
tendency to suggest people rub garlic and onions and things
00:23:16
like that on them. It's a bad advice, isn't it? To get rid of
00:23:18
vampires, if only, it would be very handy. To cure all sorts of
00:23:22
things, everything from cancer to medical conditions of some
00:23:26
sort or another, mental conditions even.
00:23:28
We always have the suspicion that because she's recommending
00:23:30
so many vegetables, she's being paid for by big pharma.
00:23:34
But she is totally unqualified, even though she occasionally
00:23:38
allows herself to be called doctor. She is not. She's been
00:23:41
very active in the last year. A lot of people see as what she's
00:23:44
suggesting as not being. Dangerous in its own right.
00:23:47
Rubbing onions on your foot is not going to kill you. But the
00:23:49
trouble is she is saying, don't go, don't do chemotherapy. Don't
00:23:52
do this therapy. Don't do that therapy.
00:23:54
It's going to kill your social life.
00:23:56
But it also sort of means you're turning away from actually
00:23:58
medical procedures that do work in favour of these quack cures
00:24:01
that she promotes. And that's where the danger is. She's
00:24:04
anti-vaccination. She's all the usual anti-things.
00:24:06
That's Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics.
00:24:25
That's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday,
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