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The Breaking Bad Effect, Obstetric Chainsaws and AI Trip Sitters
Tuesday, 31 March, 2026
Breaking Bad looks a little more plausible than you would hope, the chainsaw has a deeply unsettling medical origin story, and people are now asking whether AI can guide them through a psychedelic trip. This week, we bounce between crime, childbirth, and chatbot consciousness, which is not a sentence anyone should have to write, but here we are. We start with the so-called Breaking Bad effect, looking at research from Denmark suggesting that a life-changing diagnosis like cancer can increase the likelihood of criminal behaviour. When people feel like time is running out, the usual rules can start to look a lot less solid, which makes Walter White feel slightly less fictional than anyone would like. Then we head into the darkest corner of medical history, where the chainsaw turns out to have been invented for childbirth. Long before it became a tool for cutting timber or starring in horror films, it was used in procedures designed to make difficult deliveries possible. It is grim, fascinating, and a very effective way to make modern medicine look fantastic. Finally, we look at the strange idea of AI as a psychedelic trip sitter. While a chatbot might be able to offer calm prompts and simulated reassurance, it still has one major limitation. It has never had a body, never been high, and never experienced consciousness the way humans do. Like, subscribe, and tell us which weird science story we should chase next. 00:00 Breaking Bad Setup 01:10 Science Show Preview 02:03 Danish Cancer Crime Study 04:36 Why Crime Increases 06:23 Shorter Survival More Crime 07:44 Chainsaw Origins Quiz 09:16 Childbirth Before Modern Medicine 14:09 First Medical Chainsaws 16:00 From Obstetrics to Amputations 18:21 Portable Chainsaws Arrive 20:05 Time Travel Tradeoffs 20:40 Contact Lens Horror Story 24:31 AI Trip Sitters 27:44 Can AI Get High 28:57 LLMs Simulating Psychedelics 33:06 Brain Cells Play Doom 38:07 Mailbag Strandbeests Gelatin 41:10 Wrap Up And Ratings SOURCES: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40630852 https://www-bmj-com.virtual.anu.edu.au/content/358/bmj.j2783 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1633599/full?ref=404media.co https://www.sciencealert.com/the-breaking-bad-effect-from-cancer-is-real-study-finds https://www.iflscience.com/can-artificial-intelligence-get-high-and-why-are-scientists-even-trying-82560 https://futurism.com/ai-therapy-psychedelic-trip-sitter https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8682370/v1 https://erowid.org/experiences/exp_info3.shtml https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/why-were-chainsaws-invented.htmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
