Justin: Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!
It is written that Socrates had no use for the written word. Newton did all those calculations without the aid of the calculator. Michael Faraday unified electricity and magnetism without computer modeling. Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity long before anyone thought of googling space time.
All these great minds were stripped of the information technology we enjoy today and yet, they managed great feats of informational mental gymnastics. And while comparing the intellect today with that of the past, maybe a bit of downer in light of our huge advantages, the comparison – much like the following hour of our programming – does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of University of California at Davis KDVS, or its sponsors.
Still we can imagine that if through some trick of time, by some outrunning of the laws of physics in some flipped switch of possibility, even greater accomplishments may have been possible if the great minds of history could spend just one hour a week listening to This Week in Science coming up next.
Good morning Kirsten.
Kirsten: Good morning Justin. We’re back yet again for another Tuesday of science. We got all sorts of crazy stuff going on. This week is award week.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: It’s pretty cool. Is your phone ringing?
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: What is that ringer?
Justin: I got to go.
Kirsten: What’s going on? Are you’re taking a call right now?
Justin: I got to take this. Yeah. I got it.
Kirsten: You’re going to take this call?
Justin: Yeah. I got it. Hello, no, it’s…
Kirsten: Oh, welcome everyone. This is This Week in Science, your weekly dose of science news. Today on the lineup we have lots of fun stuff. The Nobels, the Ig Nobels.
Justin: The Ig Nobels?
Kirsten: The Ig Nobels, yes, the not-so-Nobel prizes. The, I mean, we’ve got some other science about the big BOSS.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: The big BOSS, a little old lady and there are other small stuff that we might get to.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: What’s it? What did you bring?
Justin: I’ve got this week in world robot domination, I’ve got the fastest quarter mile carrot.
Kirsten: Fastest quarter mile carrot? I’m intrigued.
Justin: Quibbling qubits and rather lengthy story of body over mind.
Kirsten: Ooh. I have a short story of electrodes over brain and body.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Huh? Yes.
Justin: Uh-oh. And we have the same stories.
Kirsten: Maybe. We shall see. But as we get into it, let’s get started with the awards.
Justin: Hey, we won this year.
Kirsten: No, we haven’t won.
Justin: What?
Kirsten: We haven’t won anything.
Justin: We didn’t win?
Kirsten: No.
Justin: I thought we – that was going to be the headline.
Kirsten: I heard something about some podcast awards though so.
Justin: Did we win?
Kirsten: No.
Justin: Wooh, we won!
Kirsten: But it is…
Justin: Winners!
Kirsten: …people could vote for us…
Justin: Winners!
Kirsten: …maybe if they felt like it. We might tell you more about that later. Anyway, the Nobel Prizes and the Ig Nobel Prizes. The Ig Nobels, I know, they happen to be a little bit more entertaining than the Nobel Prizes.
But this year, the Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, but not both, are shared by three scientists, Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak. They have won for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Telomeres, telomerase, what’s all that about?
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Well, telomeres are the little, little end caps on our chromosomes, the little segments of DNA that protect our genes from wear and tear.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: And over time they get broken down, broken down, broken down. And when they get to a certain length or basically disappear, your DNA is no longer protected and eventually the cell death is initiated as a result. So, the idea is that hypothetically, if we could extend the life – the shelf life of our telomerase or our telomeres, then we could extend the shelf life of ourselves.
Justin: Let’s do it, I’m for it.
Kirsten: Yeah. This research has a lot of influence into a cancer research, because cancerous cells have the ability to survive, survive, survive and divide, divide, divide. And so their telomeres and the telomerase enzyme is a little bit different than normal cells.
And so, that has opened up a whole realm of research into one of humanity’s greatest diseases that we have to fight. In addition to that, telomeres have gone into aging. So, the idea of whether or not we can fight aging. I guess aging is maybe a little bit more deadly than cancer overall.
Justin: No, nobody dies of aging, nobody. Seriously, I don’t care. I don’t know anybody who’s lived long enough to die of just aging, there’s always something that comes along that takes advantage of the aging.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Or it just gets to you eventually.
Kirsten: It gets you.
Justin: Enough years on the planet, you know, enough rolls of the dice, something will get you.
Kirsten: Right. Stem cells, another area that are highly reliant on telomeres and telomerase. This area of research has opened up tons and tons of interesting areas and Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, thank you very much for your investigation into that area.
Additionally, I actually haven’t gone there yet. I need to check that.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Nobelprize.org. All week long they’re going to be announcing different Nobel Prizes.
Justin: So we might – we’re still in there.
Kirsten: We could still be in the running, that’s right. Today, this morning, just this morning, the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics was announced. It goes to Charles K. Kao for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communications, fiber optics.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yeah, which I heard some number of the total amount of fiber optics on the planet now can encircle the planets some massive number of times. I’m going to get it wrong if I try and try and – let’s see maybe it’s in the press release. We’re digging into the press release here. Mm hmm, which enough to encircle the globe more than 25 thousand times.
Justin: What?
Kirsten: Yeah. We have enough glass fibers, fiber optic fibers. That if we were to make one single thread over one billion kilometers long, it would go around the earth 25,000 times.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: I would say that Charles Kao’s discovery has led to a massive industry.
Justin: Yeah, and actually what I still think is the best and highest use of them is – and it’s an unsolicited promotion for a company whose name I can’t remember so it’s completely unsolicited, obviously. But this is company that makes tiles using – using – so that if you like put your hand over one portion of the tile, a different portion can become darkened because they’re kind of looped in and around in different ways.
Kirsten: Oh. Well, that’s neat.
Justin: It’s very cool, yeah.
Kirsten: It sounds cool.
Justin: It gives you all kinds of crazy ideas of what you could do.
Kirsten: The other two, the other half of the Physics Nobel Prize is going to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, for the invention of an imaging semi-conductor circuit, otherwise known as the CCD Sensor, which is used widely in digital imaging.
So our digital cameras are very reliant on CCD technology. Makes use of the photo electric effect that was theorized by Albert Einstein and for which he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize. Light through this effect gets transformed into electric signals.
And those electric signals can then be read and put together in a bunch of points or pixels at the same time. So that’s the Nobel Prize in a nutshell for this week so far. Yet to come this week I believe, what do we have coming up?
We will have tomorrow the Nobel Prize for Chemistry will be released. Thursday is Literature. Friday is Peace and Monday, next Monday, is the prize in Economic Sciences. So we’ll have some more to announce next Tuesday for sure. IgNobel Prizes…
Justin: Ig.
Kirsten: …this…
Justin: Ig.
Kirsten: …they – all of these were announced last week at an awards ceremony that I missed, unfortunately. But let’s go through it really fast. The Veterinarian Medicine Prize was won by Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
Oh, Bessy, Bessy, may I have some milk, Bessy?
Justin: Are the cows all aware of this?
Kirsten: I have no idea. I have no idea. The title of the study: “Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production.”
Justin: Mm hmm. Well now, I can say that there’s probably – that probably does makes sense if somebody cares about their animals enough to name them…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …as opposed to having them have some sort of number or serial number kind of a thing. And chances are they being better cared for in another ways, too…
Kirsten: And probably at all.
Justin: …and probably at all.
Kirsten: Probably it ties in, yes. The Peace Prize, I know this isn’t necessarily science but it’s pretty good. The Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining – by experiment – whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
Justin: What was the result? Just out of…
Kirsten: I don’t know. That’s interesting. We should find out which is better.
Justin: The question, the question process.
Kirsten: Yeah. The title of the study: “Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?”
Justin: Yikes.
Kirsten: Yikes! I know, this looks like…
Justin: Don’t try this at home, kids. This is…
Kirsten: Do not…
Justin: …going to end badly for you.
Kirsten: …do not try at home. The Economics Prize going to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice…
Justin: And back again.
Kirsten: …versa and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.
Justin: I think we’re doing that experiment right now.
Kirsten: I know. Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga, Victor M. Castano of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico – for creating diamonds from liquid, specifically from tequila.
Justin: Oh, that’s pretty handy.
Kirsten: Sounds great. I remember, I reported on that study. Medicine Prize goes to Donald Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand everyday for more than 60 years.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: Yes. The Physics Prize to Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over. The study entitled “Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins.”
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Exciting. Literature Prize for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country, whose Polish name – Prawo Jazdy – means “driving license”.
Justin: What?
Kirsten: Yeah, strange. Public Health Prize was awarded for inventing a brassiere that can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the wearer and one for some needy bystander. So just in case of emergency, make sure you’ve got your emergency bra.
Mathematics Prize was given to the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers – from very small to very big – by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion dollars.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: The Biology Prize was awarded for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.
Justin: What, wait, what?
Kirsten: Panda fecal bacteria…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …reduced the mass of kitchen refuse by more than 90%. That’s some hungry bacteria.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: I got to say.
Justin: That’s wild.
Kirsten: Yes. That’s pretty wild.
Justin: That’s really wild.
Kirsten: Thank you to the Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Science in Japan for that study. Aah! That was it, the Ig Nobel Prizes for this year. Yet again another amazing year of…
Justin: Ig Nobelity.
Kirsten: …Ig Nobel-worthy science.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: If you just tuned in, you’re listening to This Week in Science with Dr. Kirsten Sanford and Justin Jackson.
Justin: This is just a quick word, DARPA, what are they? The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), has this desire for a long time of creating a brain chip.
Kirsten: Yeah, brain chips…
Justin: For insects.
Kirsten: …for insects?
Justin: Yeah, so that they can be remote controlled. The idea is they would create these sort of flying insect spies…
Kirsten: Oh, right.
Justin: …for military usage.
Kirsten: You could fly a beetle into a room and let it land on the wall or a fly…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …a fly on the wall.
Justin: Well, they used a beetle. Their dream is slowly being realized, as engineers have now used radio signals to tell palm-sized huge African beetles to take off to land, to lose altitude or gain altitude while flying to steer left and right. They have to use these giant beetles because smaller species are too weak to take off with the weight of the necessary antenna in the brain muscle electrodes that are on board there.
The Cyborg insects were created at the University of California, Berkeley by Engineers led by Hirotaka Sato and Michel Maharbiz. It’s part of a program funded by DARPA. The next logical step here of course, is to outfit human beings with an up-scaled version of the device throughout for easier crowd control by future robot masters.
Actually that’s just not the way they’re doing it, that’s a joke. We would never use…
Kirsten: Would never…
Justin: …brain controlling electrodes on humans ever.
Kirsten: Right, I don’t believe it.
Justin: Oh, yeah. We will never do that.
Kirsten: Future zombie masters. All right, so the idea that we would never use any kind of brain controlled technology on humans…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …that’s just goes against the study that just came out. I was going to report on so found…
Justin: What?
Kirsten: Yes, Professor Peter Brown from the University College, London in UK has…
Justin: I had dinner with Peter Brown last night.
Kirsten: Oh, did you?
Justin: No, not this one.
Kirsten: Maybe a different one. Published in the journal Current Biology this past week, a study about how he and other people in his laboratory put electrodes on the surface of people’s heads, their skulls…
Justin: Huh? Wait. What, on people?
Kirsten: …and – on people.
Justin: Ooh, it’s already happening.
Kirsten: It’s already happening.
Justin: Run for the hills!
Kirsten: And induced a beta wave oscillation, so in our brain we have different waves that are indicative of different kinds of brain activity. And normally what happens is as we initiate a motion – some kind of action – the motion control area of our brain, the motor control cortex and premotor cortex, kind of get quieted down and the beta wave activation kind of goes away.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: And what they’ve noticed is that in Parkinson’s disease, the beta wave activity doesn’t have that same dampening. And so maybe, it’s the diminishing of the beta wave that actually allows us to be able to carry out activities without having other neural signals get in the way.
And so what they did is that they induced beta wave in the motor cortex while people were trying to do an action, so used a mouse to move it and click on a point on a screen. They were able to slow people’s movements down by 10%.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: So by initiating the beta stimulation, by putting this electrical stimulation – and this isn’t even electrodes in the brain, this is just on the surface of the head…
Justin: So this is something with a really powerful antenna they can do to large groups of people all at once?
Kirsten: Everyone’s in slow motion.
Justin: Well can you think of the – can you imagine the advantages, if everybody around you is 10% slower?
Kirsten: Oh, yeah, and you were drinking coffee.
Justin: And you had coffee? Ooh, my goodness.
Kirsten: Aah, I win, I win, I win!
Justin: Mr. Jackson, you’re late to work again? Yes, but everybody else is going to be here in ten minutes so…
Kirsten: I know. This is a new…
Justin: …what are you going to do?
Kirsten: …what are you going to do?…
Justin: I’m early.
Kirsten: …this is a new way to cheat at the Olympics. The track and field will never be the same.
Justin: They flip the switch and everybody is running slow.
Kirsten: Yeah, so what Professor Brown – Dr. Peter Brown – says is that they have…
Justin: I think I know him as a doctor.
Kirsten: …a direct experiment showing a causal link the beta oscillations and the behavior. So now knowing that there’s this direct link, now potentially they can go forward and try and look for ways to suppress beta wave activity in people with Parkinson’s disease or with other motion disorders.
Similar to Parkinson’s, it’s kind of interesting. This isn’t, I mean, the BBC has the title that’s basically like Scientists Control People or Slow People Down, blah, blah, blah, you know, it’s not that kind of a technology and that’s not necessarily what it’s for.
They’re going to try and figure out how to help people…
Justin: Can I ask you like…
Kirsten: …help people.
Justin: …an on the spot unprepared for question, here over?
Kirsten: Oh dear, no.
Justin: Okay, never mind.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: What, what’s a brainwave? Like I’ve heard it, like we have the alpha waves, the beta waves…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …the beta carotene waves.
Kirsten: No beta carotene waves.
Justin: No beta carotene? What is a brainwave? What do they mean by that?
Kirsten: So a brainwave – your brain is a mass of thousands, tens of thousands of neurons, right? We’ve got neuron, neuron, neuron.
Justin: I know.
Kirsten: And all of them are talking all the time, they’ve got…
Justin: I can hear them.
Kirsten: …electrical, there’s electrical activity that’s shooting through all of them. Now if you record the summed activity of the brain from, you know, we have electrodes on the outside of the head and you kind of get a picture, an electrical picture of the brain during any particular kind of state.
So if you’re awake and you’re doing something or if you’re awake and you’re just resting or if you’re sleeping, the brainwave is actually the type of electrical activity that’s going on in your brain. So…
Justin: My brain has a…
Kirsten: …it’s actually – they call it a wave because it’s like a…
Justin: …it’s a frequency.
Kirsten: …it’s the frequency of activation.
Justin: I’m have – I’m really sure I have magnetic frequency in my brains at all times?
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: What happens if you meet a matching resonant frequency from somebody else? Is that true love at first sight or is it…
Kirsten: I don’t know these things, Justin.
Justin: Do you read each other’s minds…
Kirsten: I don’t…
Justin: …if you’re in tune?
Kirsten: I don’t think so.
Justin: If you put your heads together do you dream the same dreams?
Kirsten: Mm hmm. I don’t know these things.
Justin: Incredibly sexy, fun, fast and smelling of chocolate, no, it’s not a description my co-host taking chemistry test.
Kirsten: Haha.
Justin: It is the latest in automotive technology. If you are like me watching an auto race, in which moving billboards covered in advertising make 400 left hand turns at 200 mph, your first thought is, who watches this? And then, you’re thinking that might be what a waste of fuel in a pointless output of carbon emissions.
But the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council may have found a way to get people like you and me into the bleachers. The new entry into the competitive racing field, the invent of the first fully-sustainable Formula 3 raising car.
This is kind of cool. This isn’t sustainable putt, putt around town, don’t go more than 30 miles.
Kirsten: This is vroom, vroom…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …vroom, except now – was it going to be that loud?
Justin: Ooh, yeah.
Kirsten: Oh, okay.
Justin: This car’s made of woven flax, recycled carbon fibers, recycled resins, carrot pulp is used for the steering wheel.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: It runs on a biofuel made of chocolate and animal fats; and is lubricated with plant oil. It’s not just environmentally friendly, it is also very fast. The car is currently at top speed of 135 mph. It can go 0-60 in 2.5 seconds and is turbo charged to give it more torque.
Kirsten: And it’s nutritious.
Justin: Yeah, I mean, it has a lovely chocolatey animal fat smell.
Kirsten: Yeah, all at once.
Justin: Interesting.
Kirsten: Eww.
Justin: A video of this car in action could be found at impact world, www.impactworld.org.uk. The website also features a variety of other cool little short snippets of case studies highlighting the impact of science and research technology in UK.
The engineering and physical sciences research council is using this website, reaching out to new audiences to communicate the impact that research has on our world around us. And to show why engineering and physical sciences are vital for our future. Huh, reaching out to audiences to communicate impact of science in our lives, that’s so crazy, it just might work. People might actually tune in for something like that.
Kirsten: They might, they just might. How is that? That’s exciting. I want to see it race.
Justin: You can.
Kirsten: All right.
Justin: You can go at www…
Kirsten: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know…
Justin: …whatever the address, through the address across the room.
Kirsten: …know, but I want to be there. I wanna see it race.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: I wanna be there.
Justin: It’s a Formula 3, which I think is like the slower of the fast cars, because Formula 1…
Kirsten: Really fast.
Justin: …is what I always think of. I did – I’ve never heard of Formula 2, but maybe they got rid of that one.
Kirsten: All different levels. So we’re moving on from fast vegetable cars to the BOSS of the universe.
Justin: The BOSS of the universe. Now, what is this BOSS of the universe? Because I’m already, the old boss has just got. I used to the old boss than the new boss.
Kirsten: The new BOSS – you got to get used to this new BOSS – the new BOSS known otherwise as the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: It’s going to create a 3D map of space and hopefully, it will be the largest 3D map of space to date. And scientists will hopefully be able find a remnant 500 million light years in size from the beginnings of the universe.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: Yes, so what they’re going to do it is taking data from all over. But it’s started taking in data from the hundreds of galaxies quasars in the constellation Aquarius. It’s going to image in total two million galaxies and quasars, eventually – I mean that’s a lot – two million galaxies and quasars.
Putting all of the data together, they are going to create this big map of the sky. And the researchers who are involved say, “We’ve rebuilt this telescope to make a much bigger map of the sky. We put in more optical fibers, we jammed in as many as we could fit.”
“It’s a mixed of high-tech and low-tech. Every object we observe, we machine these plug plates and plug in these optical fibers. And the optical fibers will allow, you know, light signals from outer space from millions of light years away, from these two hundred million galaxies and quasars to be imaged and reconstructed as a 3D image.”
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Now, what they’re looking for are waves. This Baryon Oscillations or what’s the other – Baryon Acoustic Oscillations – so when the Big Bang occurred there were oscillations, these acoustic, these sound waves. Basically…
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: …Baryon Sound Waves that reverberated throughout space. And this BAO or Baryon Acoustic Oscillation should be visible throughout the universe. And so they should be able to see these waves in the image that they’re creating.
And so they’re hoping that’s it going to become a big ruler. That this image is going to give them a ruler that’s going to be five hundred million light years in size. Giving them some idea of the scope of the universe to be able to measure things, measure distances in space and be able to know where things are located.
They want to hope – they want to understand the period of accelerating expansion that we’re now in. We’re in this accelerating expansion.
Justin: If we really are. I don’t know, I’m having this – there’s something not right. I don’t know.
Kirsten: Yeah, but their hope – another hope is that because if they can get a handle on why or how the universe started accelerating in its expansion all of a sudden, maybe they’ll be able to learn something about dark energy in addition.
Justin: Right.
Kirsten: Which is supposedly the force that’s causing the acceleration. Yeah, so the BOSS of dark energy – the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey – its eyes are wide open taking a look at the universe hoping that it can get, you know, an idea of these waves throughout the universe and…
Justin: But that’s if we’re expanding.
Kirsten: …dark energy.
Justin: I’m not convinced we’re expanding anymore.
Kirsten: You’re not convinced.
Justin: I’m not convinced to the expansion. I’m starting to – I’ve got doubts now.
Kirsten: Well it is a question whether or not maybe there are certain areas that are expanding and maybe other areas aren’t. So maybe we’re in a small area of space that’s expanding.
And maybe a lot of the rest of the space is not. And it’s just, it’s not an even expansion throughout the universe but maybe there are just clumps of space that are doing different things.
Justin: Could be, but if – so much of it is all based on that redshift.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: It’s just a redshift. I mean, what we need is otherwise – and this actually might be very interesting.
Kirsten: This might be a way to measure it.
Justin: Right. Because the hardest thing about space, this is one of the most difficult thing to imagine about figuring out where things are in space, is there’s no point of reference.
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: Is there’s no place where there’s a thing where it’s stuck there. Where we can say, “Okay from this point everything is moving this way, that way doing…”
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: There isn’t because everything that’s in motion is just relative to other matter that’s out there moving. We have no idea. We’ve used the redshift for a long time and we’ve…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …placed a lot of theory on that. And there have been things that saying – that have come out and say, “Well maybe redshift isn’t the best way to calculate the size and scope and motion of the universe.”
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: There are may be other tools that we need. This maybe is one of them.
Kirsten: Yeah. They’ve been using supernovas – the Type Ia supernovas – they have become kind of what they call the standard candle. But now they’re even realizing…
Justin: Right.
Kirsten: …that those aren’t standard that there’s a wide variation in how…
Justin: There’s a variation.
Kirsten: ….and when they go supernova.
Justin: And when you have that standard candle, by which you’ve been measuring the distance of things in the universe for so long. And everything that you got is built on that. And you’re including that into the data with the redshift and everything else. Some of your standard candle, it means your ruler…
Kirsten: The ruler’s broken.
Justin: …this might plop, rock and your ruler’s like, oh it’s stretchable. It’s moldable. It can – then all of a sudden, our bets are off. You have no idea where you are. And you’re asking for directions from people who are also just new to town.
Kirsten: It’s time for us to take a break.
Justin: We will be back though with more of This Week in Science after this.
Kirsten: We will, stay tuned.
If you are enjoying today’s show, if you learned something new or if you would just like to support our attempt at infotaining you, feel free to donate to the podcast by visiting www.twis.org and clicking on the Donate button. Donations of any size are always welcome. Thank you for listening.
Justin: From a talent so unproven no agent would touch him, comes a book so confusing no publishing house would publish it. “Ome” – the new book by Justin Jackson that boldly predicts the failure of Large Hadron Collider and gives you a what-if scenario for parallel worlds. Check it out, www.twis.org., there’ll be a link. You can click the link. Go buy the book.
Welcome back to our solar system.
Kirsten: Welcome back. We know we sent you out there. But let’s get – come on home, come on home to earth in This Week in Science. We have more science to talk about in this next half hour. And a little bit of listener mailbag at the end.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Ooh. Bring it.
Justin: Oh yeah, Quantum Computing is coming up sixes, whatever that means. Exploiting quantum mechanics for transmitting information is the thing that they’ve been working on for these quantum computers, high-speed communications.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Yeah. Unfortunately, the fragility of the methods for storing and sending quantum information has though so far been just not working out. Now a team of physicists in Sweden, Poland have shown that photons that encode data have strength in numbers.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Experiment is reporting the physical reviews, letters and physical review A in highlighting the October 5th issue of Physics, check it out physics.aps.org. In classical communications a bit is represented in two states – you got the zero and the one, right? We’ve turned it on and turned it off and there it is. But because photons are quantum mechanical objects they can exist in multiple states the same time.
For instance a one and a zero, and the color blue, a wiffle ball and a picture of the Eiffel Tower. They can be all these things at once, apparently.
Kirsten: It’s a lot of things.
Justin: Yes, power photons can also be combined in a process known as entanglement to store one-bit of quantum information – so that’s a qubit.
Kirsten: Qubit?
Justin: Qubit.
Kirsten: Qubit.
Justin: Qubit. Unlike electronic data stored on a computer, typically sent through conventional slow-moving fiber optic cables…
Kirsten: Yeah, slow, what?
Justin: I mean, well in comparison of what they’re trying to do.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: Qubits are extremely fragile and any kink in the cable, any defect in the cable’s material, changes in temperature even can corrupt the qubit. Destroy the information…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …it was containing. Now a group led by Magnus Radmark of Stockholm University shown that if you have six of these entangled photons together, they can encode the information that will stand up to getting knocked around.
Kirsten: That’s important because the majority of, I mean, just laying the cable out just the technology that’s used, the majority of the time that it’s going to be in any kind of application and useful anyway, whatsoever. It has to be able to stand up to real world stresses.
Justin: Right. And yeah, and so this is it. At least they proved experimentally that their six photon qubits are robust and should be …
Kirsten: Nice.
Justin: …able to reliably carry information over long distances. The technology to encode useful information on the qubits and subsequently read it back is still lacking, but once those problems are overcome, we will be well on our way to secure, reliable, and finally speedy, quantum communications.
Kirsten: Ooh.
Justin: Tadaaa! I think the lesson there is if something doesn’t work, do it over and over – do more of it. And you’ll get a better result.
Kirsten: Do it over and over and over again.
Justin: So keep doing it and do more of it. And then you will get the right result.
Kirsten: What is it, try and try again, yes.
Justin: I think I can, I think I can.
Kirsten: Yeah, don’t give up, don’t give up, keep trying. That’s what the mushroom said when it wanted to glow in the dark.
Justin: Huh?
Kirsten: Researchers just found – it was a bad segue. I’m sorry. I got nothing. Researchers recently discovered seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species.
Justin: This is my favorite story this week. And I totally – I’ve never even…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …yeah, this is it. This is awesome.
Kirsten: Your favorite story?
Justin: This is one of those – this is filed under one of those I can’t believe that it’s existed and I didn’t know about it.
Kirsten: You didn’t know about it. There are 64 existing fungi species that were already known.
Justin: That glow…
Kirsten: That glow in the dark.
Justin: …in the dark.
Kirsten: Luminescent fungi.
Justin: Mushrooms that glow.
Kirsten: Mushrooms, yes.
Justin: That’s amazing. I had no idea. I have never seen that.
Kirsten: And now…
Justin: That’s awesome.
Kirsten: … the numbers brought up to 71…
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: …they have reported in the journal, Mycologia, that they found them. These species include two new ones that have been named after movements in Mozart’s Requiem. And an interesting…
Justin: Mozart’s requiem.
Kirsten: …side to this is that understanding the lineage or the phylogenetic tree, understanding where these species fall into the tree of mushrooms – it gives a little bit more information about how luminescence in these species and others may have evolved, where it might have come from.
So this comes out of San Francisco State University – the Laboratory of Biology Professor Dennis Desjardin and his colleagues – all over the world pretty much. What he says is, “What interests us is that within Mycena, the luminescent species come from 16 different lineages, which suggests that luminescence evolved at a single point and some species later lost the ability to glow”.
What they think is that some of the glowing fungi – they actually glow in it – the luminescence might have evolved to attract predators or not predators but to attract nocturnal animals that would have eaten them and…
Justin: And spread them.
Kirsten: …spread them.
Justin: It’s brilliant.
Kirsten: Exactly. So the dust dispersal of the mushroom spores may have been aided by the luminescent…
Justin: And…
Kirsten: …attraction.
Justin: …and maybe aided even further. If I can get a hold of these spores, I would grow them all around.
Kirsten: You were good.
Justin: I would just.
Kirsten: I want the glowy mushrooms.
Justin: I’d be Johnny Apple Mushroom. All right, right? Johny Apple Spore, whatever it is. I would just like, yeah, because that’s so amazing. Like I was playing with the idea with some friends talking about how we…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …could develop a glow-in-the-dark like ivy. Because then you can sell that to like all these large landscaping companies that have like lighting problems on the – you know, you can save on energy. Yeah, if you could grow it up on a whole wall at have that whole wall glowing at night, it’ll just be awesome.
Kirsten: Oh, it would be awesome.
Justin: You could cut it into an advertisement or whatever, you know, it’s like so many functions.
Kirsten: The researcher Desjardin named two of the species I said earlier after movements in Mozart’s Requiem, one of them is called Mycena luxaeterna.
Justin: Which is light eternal.
Kirsten: Yes, eternal light, and Mycena luxperpetua…
Justin: Light perpetual.
Kirsten: …yes, perpetual light. And they were inspired by the requiem and because they glow 24 hours a day.
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: Yeah, Desjardin has had the – not luxury – the honor of discovering more than 200 fungus species and himself, he has discovered nearly quarter of all known luminescent fungi.
Justin: Wow, that’s quite an accomplishment.
Kirsten: It’s very, yeah.
Justin: I’ve never seen…
Kirsten: This guy is dedicated.
Justin: …a mushroom glowing in the dark. So they must not grow around here, at least.
Kirsten: No.
Justin: But if I was allowed…
Kirsten: Probably in tropical areas.
Justin: …if I was allowed to have an invasive species that I could – no, see it’s just going to end badly. But that is just too cool. I want…
Kirsten: Maybe we can take…
Justin: …like a pet mushroom.
Kirsten: …maybe we can take the luminescent gene from the fungus species and add it into things like flowers.
Justin: You know what I would like? Actually, I wonder if I can get away with an aquarium of glow-in-the-dark mushroom.
Kirsten: Yeah, roses. I want roses, no one knows why the rose bush glows.
Justin: No one knows why the rose bush glows.
Kirsten: That’s right, I’m just changing poetry here.
Justin: Listen up and listen tight. If you are slouching or slumping at the moment, knock it off. Back straight. Shoulders back. Chest out. Chin high. Now!
Kirsten: Now!
Justin: Doesn’t that feel better?
Kirsten: Maybe.
Justin: Yeah, sitting up straight in your chair isn’t just good for your posture according to research. It also gives you more confidence in your own thoughts.
Kirsten: Ooh.
Justin: Yeah. Researchers told these people to sit up and while…
Kirsten: Just sit up.
Justin: …while on that posture they have them write down thoughts concerning whether or not they are qualified for a job. So this whole thing was sort of a put on, had a bunch of business students come in to take a business test sort of a thing. It was basically self-evaluations for how they would do in the professional world, right?
And at the same time they’re like, “Oh, and in the Arts Department – the actors – I want to do this acting experiment to see that if you held a posture, you know, how long can you hold the posture and still perform a task.” Which wasn’t really…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …what the experiment was but that’s what they told them. So they had a one group slouching and slumping and kind of looking at their knees or their desks.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: While they – while they answer these self-evaluation questions.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: And yet another group, standing up, they’re sitting up. Shoulders back, chest out…
Kirsten: Nice posture.
Justin: …straight up. And what they found was the people with the upright posture were more confident in their answers. So they had them write down positive traits about themselves and negative traits about themselves and then they rated themselves afterwards.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: And what was kind of interesting, it’s sort of a mix. Actually it sort of, the confidence survey mixed bad because of they were writing down negative things, they were a little bit more confident that those were correct.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: But in the positive ones they’re much more confident, that they were correct in their positive assessments.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Whereas the slouchers and slumpers overall had a lower self-rating. But yet also had less confidence in their negative ratings, right?
Kirsten: Well, I think…
Justin: That’s like…
Kirsten: …that wasn’t a good rating. But I’m not really sure.
Justin: I’m kind of like…
Kirsten: I don’t, I don’t.
Justin: …yeah, I’m not a good decision maker. But I don’t know if that’s really true.
Kirsten: That looks bad but I don’t know.
Justin: Yeah, it was kind of like – yeah they were like, their thoughts were slumping. Their confidence was slouched.
Kirsten: This kind of goes along though with another study recently that talked about the fact that it takes more energy to slouch than it does to stand up, to sit up straight. So if you can actually sit up straight because of how much your head weighs….
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …if you’re sitting up straight your head is nicely balanced on top of your body and so that balance, it doesn’t take as much muscular energy to actually keep yourself upright. So maybe you have more energy for your thoughts and for your brain. And if that slouching there’s all this energy pulling your head…
Justin: Ooh my.
Kirsten: …down to ground and you have to counteract that to keep it up. And so you’re using less energy for maybe your thoughts and more energy just to sit up.
Justin: So if you’ve got a child who’s ADD, you actually want them to slouch because they’re using energy…
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: …up that way and they can pay attention better because they’re being more active. So if your kid’s…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …ADD don’t have them sit upright.
Kirsten: This is…
Justin: Oh, we’re getting there.
Kirsten: …you’re stretching.
Justin: Wait, no, no, no. I’m connecting dots. That’s all, that’s all. So they actually did another thing in here that we’re really talking about in taking tests. If you have more confidence in your thoughts – because they always tell you, you know. When you’re doing large multiple choice and you become unsure of one, go to your first answer.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It’s probably right. So if you’re slouching and you’re taking a multiple question test and you put your first answer down there. And then you’re not…
Kirsten: And then you’re not sure.
Justin: …having confidence in your thoughts. You might spend too much time evaluating that one and may be even second guess yourself; versus if you’re sitting upright and you’ve got confidence in your thoughts, “I’m bold. I’m going into the future. I can do no wrong.”
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: And you’re – put your arms – yeah, it’s probably right, that will be going on and on.
Kirsten: That’s nice.
Justin: These folks also did earlier a study about the influence of head nodding or people have more confidence in thoughts they generated when they nodded their head up and down, compared to when they shook their head from side to side.
Kirsten: Right, so that positive…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …agreement, you’re getting that agreement area of your brain going.
Justin: Right, which is…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …which is hilarious because it’s called “the nod” in the car sales business…
Kirsten: Right.
Justin: …which I don’t really see people doing anymore. But in many years ago when I started in the car business, I saw a lot of people. You can see a lot of the older sales guys were still kind of do it…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …or when they’re conversing with somebody for no apparent reason. They’re like nodding their head up and down. And it become – it generates agreement…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …and from the other person because they’re mirroring. People naturally kind of mirror each other.
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: It’s almost like a compulsion we have.
Kirsten: And so if the buyer, the customer, is…
Justin: Starts nodding their heads…
Kirsten: …starts nodding…
Justin: Yes, there’s thinking yes, and acting yes. And conversely, it’s something that I…
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …well just not to give away. In selling cars, something that I’ve done is when I think there’s a lot of money to be made in a car deal. I will immediately slouch back into my chair and become – try to appear as disinterested as possible while they attempt to overcome, you know, price objection.
And what I didn’t realize – well to me it was like showing well, you know, I was trying to illustrate that there’s – I’m losing interest in the deal because we’re not going to be able to make it.
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: Whereas, what I may also have been doing is reducing their confidence and their arguments against the price. If…
Kirsten: That’s possible if they are mirroring you.
Justin: …they’re mirroring visually my slouching….
Kirsten: Mm hmm.
Justin: …they may – I may have been generating a lack of confidence in their own thoughts around why they should have a lower – but that’s something that just maybe accidentally was playing into it over the – yeah.
Kirsten: Some good psychology there.
Justin: Yeah, that was…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …that was a great study, I love that.
Kirsten: That’s awesome. Be on guard when you go buy a car.
Justin: No, no, let your guard down. Go have fun. Buy the car you want. Ignore the payment.
Kirsten: Ignore the payment, yeah right.
Justin: You deserve it. You’ve done well. Of course the payment’s high, all your bills are high, right? Yeah and so is your paycheck, isn’t it? It’s higher than it’s ever been because you’re successful. If you were not successful all the numbers would be lower.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: Hey.
Kirsten: Last week scientists announced the discovery of the oldest, the world’s oldest female fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. They’ve named her…
Justin: Joan Rivers.
Kirsten: …Ardi after her scientific…
Justin: I’m a landslide.
Kirsten: …name Ardipithecus ramidus. She was a small-brained 110-pound – 50-kilogram, for those of you in other parts of the world and in the United States – female and…
Justin: She may well be the missing link to the missing link.
Kirsten: …she will – that’s right, she may be the missing missing link.
Justin: The missing link to the missing link which is still missing.
Kirsten: Which is still missing.
Justin: Yes.
Kirsten: Right. That’s the thing about every time there’s a headline that says, “The Missing Link Has Been Found.” It’s like well, it’s just one…
Justin: There’s a lot of links.
Kirsten: …there’s a lot of links.
Justin: And if we started with the missing link, we’d still have to fill in the links between the missing link and the links that we have now, which would be…
Kirsten: It’s good.
Justin: …then become the missing link.
Kirsten: Exactly. Yes. So don’t take those headlines seriously, people. This is a very important fossil find. The fact that she was found and she’s like a million years older…
Justin: A million.
Kirsten: …than Lucy.
Justin: A million.
Kirsten: Yeah, which is highly significant, highly significant. It shows human ancestors going back even further than we had thought. We’d hoped that we would find stuff like this. But now we have. The researcher, Alan Walker, paleontologist who – not part of the study – says, “It shows that the last common ancestor with chimps didn’t look like a chimp, or a human, or some funny thing in between.”
Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in Ethiopia’s harsh Afar desert in a site called Aramis – 46 miles from where Lucy was found. The fossils – this is what is getting me – they’re announcing it now…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …and publishing it in Science. They found these fossils years ago…
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: …they found them years ago. They were discovered, yeah, they were discovered what is it…
Justin: But the thing is they weren’t dated properly. And I think…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …I think that’s where we keep running into is we probably have the missing link in a box somewhere in the university gathering dust…
Kirsten: And that’s…
Justin: …in the University of Chicago or in the Smithsonian somewhere. And it’s going to take some young researcher who’s like, “All right I’ll go through the dusty…”
Kirsten: The young grad students, yeah…
Justin: …yeah, young grad students who’s going through…
Kirsten: …looking through the doors.
Justin: … the dusty boxes. And file like the ten thousandth fossil of the same kind that’s already known to science and…
Kirsten: But this is something also that happens within paleontology and anthropology – is that fossil finds, things get held in laboratories. Things get labeled and put in a box…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …for later study. Or, they find them and they keep them and they study them for years to make it sure they’ve got it right.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: This is a very interesting find. We’re going to be running out of time here so I can’t really go into it much more. But they say also the evidence for bipedality – so bipedalism – walking on two feet is limited at best. Big toes are associated with grasping. And this has one of the most divergent big toes you can imagine.
So the question is, asks William Jungers, an anatomist at Stony Brook, “Why would an animal fully adapted to support its weight on its forelimbs in the trees elect to walk bipedally on the ground?”
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Those is an interesting question. She had canines reduced in size, feminized to stubby, diamond shape, according to the researchers and they suggest that there may have been…
Justin: Stubby, diamond shaped – that sounds carnivorous.
Kirsten: …stubby, diamond shaped canines. Yes, they say that these changes might have been part of a shift in social behavior. So instead of fighting for access to females, males of the species would have supplied the females and her offspring with food…
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: …in order to gain sex. They’re suggesting…
Justin: Wow.
Kirsten: …it’s a food for…
Justin: So much has changed in millions of years.
Kirsten: Yeah, yeah, take me out to dinner. Yeah, very interesting, interesting fossil find. Just more pieces to the puzzle of human evolution, and also just primate evolution in general. Hominin primate evolution.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Did you have any more stories?
Justin: No, I’m good.
Kirsten: All right, I want to dig in to the listener mailbag then. I got some things to go over last week. Several people Twittered and e-mailed me to correct my error about the moon.
Justin: Yeah, you had the moon of Gominus.
Kirsten: All wrong.
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: All wrong.
Justin: Yeah, and the circle around it.
Kirsten: No, I was mostly wrong. I was talking…
Justin: I thought you’re wrong but I wanted to correct you but then I was like, “Well, she’s smarter than me so I’m probably wrong.”
Kirsten: Yeah and I knew I was getting something wrong as I was trying to explain it but I just – my mouth kept going. I didn’t think – it’s making sounds…
Justin: But in fairness…
Kirsten: …like were words.
Justin: …you were explaining to me. You were correcting to me and saying that one side of the moon is always dark.
Kirsten: Yes.
Justin: Nice to know.
Kirsten: Which is not true.
Justin: I know it’s not. It’s totally not. And like, yeah, and right after I said I’m like, “Oh, no. That’s…”
Kirsten: One side of the moon is not seen by us.
Justin: “…that’s not how it works.”
Kirsten: I got it wrong. But I need to correct myself so that it’s known…
Justin: You got it more righter…
Kirsten: …so that in case I got…
Justin: …than I did.
Kirsten: …in case I got in case I confused people I need to correct it. So let’s revisit what goes into creating the phases of the moon, please? All right, the sun sends light to the earth and the moon, right? Beams of light coming from the sun.
When the moon is dark or it’s a new moon, it is situated when it’s dark and we can’t really see it – it’s called the new moon. It’s situated between the sun and the earth. We see the dark side of the moon in this case.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: The light from the sun is illuminating this side of the moon that we can’t see and so in effect we see the dark side of the moon. As the moon orbits the Earth, the angle of incidence between…
Justin: I don’t know if you call that the dark side of the moon, because I think the dark side…
Kirsten: The dark…
Justin: …of the moon is still the side of the moon that we don’t ever…
Kirsten: Yeah.
Justin: …isn’t ever facing us…
Kirsten: It is never facing us…
Justin: …kind of get more convenient.
Kirsten: …but you know, I think it’s…
Justin: But then we…
Kirsten: …interesting that we do see the dark side of the moon technically…
Justin: We don’t see the dark side of the moon. We see…
Kirsten: …the side of the moon is shadow.
Justin: …the same side of the moon but it’s in a shadow, yeah.
Kirsten: Yes, yes. So as the moon…
Justin: How can the moon be so confusing?
Kirsten: …shhhh! As the moon goes around the Earth, the angle between it and the sun changes, so instead of being in a line between the earth and the sun it starts moving around. So it goes 10 degrees, 15 degrees, 45 degrees, the angle of our view of the moon and how the sun is hitting the moon changes.
And we start to see the side of the moon that is illuminated. And when the moon is at 90 degrees to the Earth and the sun so that there’s like a triangle between us, we see both the illuminated and the dark half of the moon. So part of it that the sun is shining on to and then the side that’s in shadow. And we call that a half moon.
The illuminated portion then increases until the sun is between – till the Earth is between the sun and the moon. And when we see that then we see the full moon because the sun is fully hitting what we see – we see the fully illuminated side of the moon, it’s a full moon.
However, it’s only during lunar eclipses that the Earth is directly between the sun and the moon. And its shadow – the earth’s shadow – is able to fall on the moon.
Alternatively, when the moon is directly between the sun and the Earth, we get a solar eclipse. The rest of the time there is a slight misalignment between the three heavenly bodies so the moon can be illuminated irregularly.
So instead of being an exactly straight line – sun, earth, moon – the moon is kind of at a – it’s shifted a little bit. So there’s, you know, a little bit of a triangle in there. So the light goes past to the Earth and hits the moon completely.
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: Does that makes sense?
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: Better?
Justin: Yeah.
Kirsten: All right, better.
Justin: Much more betterer.
Kirsten: Much more betterer. (David Wheeler) reminded me that LCROSS – the LVROSS NASA mission – is smashing into the moon this Friday.
Justin: Blowing up the moon! Yay!
Kirsten: That’s great, that’s right. Friday morning here on the West Coast I think it’s like 4:30 in the morning or something like that. You can follow the LCROSS Mission on Twitter, lcross_nasa. You can look for LCROSS if you got to Twitter. You can also go to lcross.arc.nasa.gov to find out more about the mission.
Hiroshi Wada voted for us.
Justin: Yay, we won!
Kirsten: Yay, we won!
Justin: Wooh, we won! Winner, winner, winner!
Kirsten: Winner, winner, winner. He says – you probably you know this already but Google accepts votes for Project 10^100. I don’t know what Google really does for it but hope they invest some of their money to change the world.
One of the ideas is to encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists. And it proposes to support groups that work toward encouraging positive images of engineering and science in pop culture.
He says, “That’s you! I voted for it.”
Justin: Mm hmm.
Kirsten: “I hope it somehow has a positive effect on your activity and TWIS.” So, you know, maybe that’s something out there – the Project 10^100, 10^100. It’s a Google project. Exciting. Maybe people can vote for us.
Alternatively, there are other podcast awards. They’re taking nominations right now, Podcastawards.com. You can nominate us for…
Justin: They’ve already told me I can’t nominate myself.
Kirsten: You can.
Justin: So…
Kirsten: So…
Justin: …somebody else got to do it I guess.
Kirsten: …here we go. Yes, someone’s got to do it. The nominations are open until the 18th of October. And finally, I want to let people know about a Special TWIS Live.
Justin: Hah.
Kirsten: TWIS Live, we’re going to be recording a special TWIS live from the Cali Academy of Sciences next Thursday evening, October 15th at 8 pm.
Justin: Next, next Thursday always bugs me because that doesn’t mean it’s the next Thursday that’s going to happen…
Kirsten: It is, two…
Justin: …it’s the Thursday after the next Thursday.
Kirsten: …two Thursdays from now.
Justin: So after next Thursday would make sense because the next one’s in a couple of days…
Kirsten: Shhh, shhh, we’re running out of time.
Justin: …and it’s not that – but it doesn’t.
Kirsten: Shush! October 15th at 8pm.
Justin: That’s better, thank you, people can use dates. We don’t have to use this confusing next word.
Kirsten: All right. And we’re pretty much done with the show for this week. On next week’s show, more science.
Justin: Thanks for listening. We’re available via podcast. Go to our website www.twis.org. Click on Subscribe to the TWIS Science Podcast or you can just google us in the iTunes.
Kirsten: That’s right. For more information on anything you’ve heard here, today’s show notes will be available on our website www.twis.org. We also want to hear from you so e-mail us at kirsten@thisweekinscience.com or justin@thisweekinscience.com.
Justin: You can find this on Twitter @jacksonfly or @drkiki.
Kirsten: And I just want to say thanks to everyone who’s written in suggesting stories or comments to our comments. And also to all of you who have donated. We really couldn’t do it without you.
Justin: Yup. And we’re going to be back here next Tuesday 8:30 am Pacific Time. We hope you’ll join us again for one more show of great science-y news.
Kirsten: And if you – oh, this is yours. What am I doing?
Justin: Oh, if you learned anything from today’s show, remember…
Kirsten: It’s all in your head.
Podcast:http://www.twis.org/audio/2009/10/06/391/