Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Mango here. With summer winding down, we
Speaker 1: are taking a little break, but we will be back
Speaker 1: with brand new episodes starting September ninth, and we have
Speaker 1: been working hard on so many fun episodes this summer.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait for you to listen to them. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we are re airing our countdown of the
Speaker 1: twenty five greatest science ideas of the past twenty five years.
Speaker 1: This list was so joyous to make. Mary and Gabe
Speaker 1: did all this extra research for it. We pulled in
Speaker 1: contributors for various places. We got incredible songs written for
Speaker 1: the show. The whole thing is bizarre and delightful and
Speaker 1: fascinating and joyous, and honestly, I just hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: it half as much as we enjoyed making it. Let's
Speaker 1: dig in. You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production
Speaker 1: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess What Will? What's that? Mango?
Speaker 1: I can't believe it, but we are already halfway through
Speaker 1: our countdown to the twenty five best science ideas from
Speaker 1: the past twenty five years. It's crazy. So twelve and
Speaker 1: a half in exactly twelve and a half in and
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I feel like these
Speaker 1: stories keep getting better and better. I mean that's kind
Speaker 1: of how a countdown.
Speaker 2: Works, but I feel like you should tell people what
Speaker 2: is coming up next, preview it.
Speaker 1: Well, today's episode has five stories, including what Nascar does
Speaker 1: to our brains, a clock that changed the way we
Speaker 1: think about time, and our attempt to explain particle physics
Speaker 1: through music. Is that even possible? There's only one way
Speaker 1: to find out, so let's dive in. Hey, the podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm mungkish Heatikur, and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Will Pearson and
Speaker 1: our palam producer Dylan is over there in the booth
Speaker 1: wearing his lucky sunglasses. So I have a good feeling
Speaker 1: about today's episode.
Speaker 2: So in case you're wondering, yes, he does have unlucky
Speaker 2: sunglasses and we had to ask him to stop wearing
Speaker 2: them during the show. Only the lucky sunglasses.
Speaker 1: That's right, it was a whole thing. It was anyway.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the countdown, I just want to
Speaker 1: remind you to subscribe to Part Time Genius on your
Speaker 1: favorite podcast app, which should be iHeart the iHeart app
Speaker 1: and if you enjoy the show, which I hope you do,
Speaker 1: please give us a nice rating and review. It really
Speaker 1: helps us out. And also we actually read the comments.
Speaker 1: Someone has to do a show on three D printing
Speaker 1: and we're planning one in the works. And this week
Speaker 1: someone named Elliott wrote the best podcast My name is Elliott,
Speaker 1: Oh I like that, which is the greatest narrative.
Speaker 2: You know, went from how he felt about the podcast
Speaker 2: to his you know it was good, good stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, Elliott, if you're listening messages on our Instagram, so
Speaker 1: we can send you something fun. But let's get into
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Actually, it just hit me Dylan is probably wearing those
Speaker 2: glasses because you know what's next on our countdown Mango.
Speaker 1: That Dylan is so clever. Okay, so the first thing
Speaker 1: we're covering today is NASCAR. Now, over the years, there
Speaker 1: have been lots of studies on NASCAR to improve the
Speaker 1: safety for drivers. There have been research papers on how
Speaker 1: the car's bodies and safety measures affect injuries. NASCAR also
Speaker 1: a worded a grant to Michigan State University to study
Speaker 1: everything from heat exhaustion and drivers to figure out better
Speaker 1: exercises and diet regimen for the athletes, and there have
Speaker 1: been studies on why fatherhood affects drivers because NASCAR drivers
Speaker 1: often drop one point six places on average the year
Speaker 1: after having a kid.
Speaker 2: Wow, it does kind of make you wonder like if
Speaker 2: it's at all related to the fact that they're probably
Speaker 2: sleeping less.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably part of it. But scientists also
Speaker 1: hypothesized that when you have a kid, you think about
Speaker 1: your mortality money, and so you might be less prone
Speaker 1: to make risky moves on the course. That makes sense anyway.
Speaker 1: The most interesting study I read about was done by
Speaker 1: this psychologist, Guy Vidioloni from West Virginia University Institute of Technology,
Speaker 1: and it's a four year study called quote Driving under
Speaker 1: the Influence of Nascar. It isn't so much about what
Speaker 1: happens on the track as it is how the races
Speaker 1: influence people watching at home. So according to NPR, Vidilioni
Speaker 1: looked at all the traffic accidents that took place in
Speaker 1: West Virginia and then whittled it down to accidents that
Speaker 1: mimicked what happened on a racetrack. So these were things
Speaker 1: like pile ups of multiple cars or accidents where there
Speaker 1: was aggressive driving and His conclusion was that five days
Speaker 1: after major NASCAR races, there's a big spike in traffic accidents. Now,
Speaker 1: VIDILIONI actually put in a whole bunch of controls to
Speaker 1: make sure he wasn't just saying something wild. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be really conservative about his conclusions, but he counted
Speaker 1: about six hundred and fifty extra accidents on West Virginia
Speaker 1: roads in the days after the races, essentially because people
Speaker 1: were quote acting out NASCAR in their own driving this wild.
Speaker 2: Although the thing that stands out to me Mango is like,
Speaker 2: why is this on the fifth day after a race
Speaker 2: instead of like immediately after.
Speaker 1: I don't think he figured that part out exactly. Like
Speaker 1: he theorized that maybe it's because races tend to take
Speaker 1: place on weekends, and so a Thursday or Friday after
Speaker 1: tends to be the days that you let loose after
Speaker 1: a rough week. But his study is really pointing to
Speaker 1: the subtle ways that media affects behavior in the real world. Now,
Speaker 1: NASCAR is just one example of this. Another famous case
Speaker 1: is of the MTV show sixteen and Pregnant, where the
Speaker 1: reality show actually captured the difficulties for high school students
Speaker 1: trying to raise kids, and people were really affected by it.
Speaker 1: The show led to a five point seven percent reduction
Speaker 1: in teen births, which apparently was a third of the
Speaker 1: overall decline in teen births in the country.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Academics actually sometimes refer to it as the you are
Speaker 2: what you watch phenomenon, And it's pretty interesting to see,
Speaker 2: sort of like how MLK talked about the interracial kiss
Speaker 2: on the original Star Trek being one of the most
Speaker 2: important moments on television, or how President Joe Biden credited
Speaker 2: Will and Grace with changing America's perception of gays more
Speaker 2: than just about anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. So anyway, this whole NASCAR thing won't
Speaker 1: be a problem ten to fifteen years from now when
Speaker 1: we're all taking way mos everywhere and getting the chauffeured
Speaker 1: around and robotic cars. But until then, all you NASCAR
Speaker 1: watchers out there, he doctor Villlioni's advice, and be a
Speaker 1: little mindful of how you're driving the week after a
Speaker 1: big race. We want to keep you safe.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, all right, Mango, let's say you are a clockmaker.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to say that. Okay, Now, you've built
Speaker 2: a beautiful time piece that counts hours and minutes. But
Speaker 2: now you've got a problem. You want your clock to
Speaker 2: count each second with pinpoint accuracy.
Speaker 1: So how do you do it?
Speaker 2: It turns out you need to crack open the periodic table,
Speaker 2: because according to the International System of Units, this is
Speaker 2: how you measure a second.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: The second is defined by taking the fixed numerical value
Speaker 2: of the caesium frequency the unperturbed ground state high perfine
Speaker 2: transition frequency of the cesium one thirty three atom to
Speaker 2: be nine billion, one hundred and ninety two million, six
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty one thousand, seven hundred and seventy when
Speaker 2: expressed in the unit hurtz, which is equal to s
Speaker 2: the power of negative one.
Speaker 1: You got it. So that is the definition of a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the definition of a second. I got lost in
Speaker 1: the reading of it.
Speaker 2: But as you may have noticed, it's a little bit complicated.
Speaker 2: So the only way to measure it is with an
Speaker 2: atomic clock. And the way this work sounds completely made up,
Speaker 2: but I promise it's actually real. Basically, an atomic clock
Speaker 2: is a machine that shoots laser beams at caesium ions,
Speaker 2: measures frequency at which their electrons jump to different energy levels,
Speaker 2: and then sends the readings to a place called the
Speaker 2: International buz Ro of Weights and Measures.
Speaker 1: So this is a real place.
Speaker 2: It's a real inner governmental organization. Yeah, and it's actually
Speaker 2: based in France.
Speaker 1: So we've got laser clock sending data to friends. I
Speaker 1: guess I'm with you that far.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm glad you're keeping up. So there are around
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty atomic clocks in the world, all
Speaker 2: sending these readings. So timekeepers at the International Bureau of
Speaker 2: Weights and Measures they crunch these numbers from the clocks
Speaker 2: and then vote on the quote official time, which they
Speaker 2: publish in a monthly publication that comes out monthly called
Speaker 2: Circular Tea.
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd say this about anything that involves caesium,
Speaker 1: but uh, that is pretty adorably whimsical.
Speaker 2: It is in a way, but it's also pretty serious.
Speaker 2: Stuff like this process is how we determine what's called
Speaker 2: international atomic time. And a standard atomic clock made with
Speaker 2: caesium is so accurate it can keep time for about
Speaker 2: one hundred million years without skipping a beat.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But starting in the mid adds, researchers at the National
Speaker 2: Institute of Standards and Technology or in IST, a federal
Speaker 2: lab in Colorado, they began developing a new generation of
Speaker 2: atomic clocks that could make caesium seem outdated. Actually, so
Speaker 2: what makes these atomic clocks so special? Well, they use
Speaker 2: aluminum instead of caesium, so basically a positive aluminum twenty
Speaker 2: seven ion. In two thousand and eight, NST scientists built
Speaker 2: something they call the quantum logic clock.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: It contains a single aluminum ion cool to nearly absolute zero,
Speaker 2: shot with an ultraviolet laser, and the aluminum ion acts
Speaker 2: like the second hand on a clock, so it ticks
Speaker 2: by jumping up and down between energy levels. But instead
Speaker 2: of ticking once for every second, it ticks a quadrillion
Speaker 2: times per second.
Speaker 1: That is a big number, make note.
Speaker 2: And it's so accurate it won't lose a second for
Speaker 2: thirty three billion years. That's almost triple the age of
Speaker 2: the observable universe.
Speaker 1: That is really hard to imagine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or hard to put to the test, I think.
Speaker 2: And this aluminum clock does more than just tell time.
Speaker 2: It's even changing our understanding of space time because researchers
Speaker 2: have used it to test Einstein's theory of relativity. According
Speaker 2: to Einstein's theory, gravity affects the passage of time so
Speaker 2: the stronger the pull of gravity, the slower the time.
Speaker 2: And as a result of this, somebody who lives in
Speaker 2: the mountains of Colorado, where gravity's pull is slightly lower,
Speaker 2: they'll age faster than somebody who lives at sea level. Now,
Speaker 2: the quantum logic clock is so sensitive it actually proved
Speaker 2: that a person standing at the top of a staircase
Speaker 2: or someone standing on a stool experienced a faster passage
Speaker 2: of time. It showed that each additional foot of height
Speaker 2: adds about ninety billions of a second to your lifetime.
Speaker 1: So NBA players would live longer than jockeys. I have
Speaker 1: a dumb question to ask, why do we need clocks
Speaker 1: to be this accurate.
Speaker 2: It's a fair question, but take GPS for example. GPS
Speaker 2: isn't just a location tracking technology, it's also a type
Speaker 2: of clock. So if you're driving down the highway and
Speaker 2: the GPS is five seconds late telling you to take
Speaker 2: an exit, you'd be pretty mad about this. Right, for
Speaker 2: the GPS to be useful, it needs to show both
Speaker 2: an accurate location and an accurate time. It needs that
Speaker 2: time to be precise down to the second. And it
Speaker 2: turns out that's true for a lot of other technologies
Speaker 2: as well. Take telecommunications, satellite networks, radio signals, lots more
Speaker 2: things like this. Anyway, it's hard to overstate the importance
Speaker 2: of this quantum logic clock in the nerdy and wonderful
Speaker 2: world of time keeping. Those caesium clocks that impressed you
Speaker 2: at the start of this segment will eventually end up
Speaker 2: being obsolete. And while experiments with other elements are ongoing
Speaker 2: right now, aluminum is the leading contender to become the
Speaker 2: ticking heart of what we call a second.
Speaker 1: Hey, listeners, do not go anywhere. We've got to pause
Speaker 1: for a quick break. But there is so much weird
Speaker 1: science right after Welcome back to part time Genius. When
Speaker 1: we're talking the twenty five greatest science ideas of the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years, and we're up to number so
Speaker 1: it probably won't surprise you to learn that water is
Speaker 1: the most consumed material on Earth. But can you guess
Speaker 1: what comes in second? Mm? I'm gonna go with coffee.
Speaker 1: You know I might have guessed that too, but know
Speaker 1: the answer is concrete. Oh really? Since the Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: humans have poured nearly nine hundred billion tons of concrete,
Speaker 1: and nowadays we're pouring the stuff at a breakneck speed,
Speaker 1: especially in the developing world. For example, in the time
Speaker 1: period between twenty eleven and twenty thirteen, China poured more
Speaker 1: cement than the US did during the entire twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Isn't that incredible? But all that concrete has a big downside.
Speaker 1: It's responsible for eight to nine percent of global carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide emissions.
Speaker 2: I never thought of concrete as being such a big
Speaker 2: pollution problem. I know, it's not a great thing. I
Speaker 2: think of, you know, the sidewalks and things that cars
Speaker 2: drive on, But I didn't think of it in that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't realize it either. But apparently making concrete
Speaker 1: is an energy intensive process. So it starts by taking
Speaker 1: limestone and baking it to temperatures over twenty six hundred
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. That kind of heat requires powerful kilns fired
Speaker 1: by fossil fuels, and that's just to make cement. To
Speaker 1: turn cement into concrete, you have to add aggregates like sand,
Speaker 1: and really lots of it. As a result, sand mining
Speaker 1: is a big business around the world. We've actually talked
Speaker 1: about this before. There's even a burgeoning black market for sand,
Speaker 1: backed by so called sand mafias. Anyway, this dangerous mix
Speaker 1: of pollution, mining and mafia's got scientists wondering how to
Speaker 1: make concrete production more green, Like, what if we supple
Speaker 1: minute sand with something else, something more sustainable, something that
Speaker 1: could reduce concrete's carbon footprint. And it's something that you
Speaker 1: mentioned just a few minutes ago. Wait, coffee. Yeah, so coffee.
Speaker 1: Every day, humans drink two billion cups of coffee and
Speaker 1: most of the coffee grinds just end up in a landfill.
Speaker 1: But in twenty twenty three, Australian engineering researchers had an idea,
Speaker 1: what if we used those ground up beans to make concrete.
Speaker 1: So that's what they did. They scorched coffee grounds to
Speaker 1: about six hundred degrees, which made the grounds break down
Speaker 1: into a substance called biochar, which is basically charcoal. And
Speaker 1: when they began testing, they discovered that if you replaced
Speaker 1: just fifteen percent of the sand in concrete with coffee
Speaker 1: fueled biochar, the concrete becomes thirty percent stronger. And how
Speaker 1: does that actually work. It turns out the biochar retains
Speaker 1: water better than sand, and as a result, the concrete
Speaker 1: cries slower than usual, which reduces the risk of shrinking
Speaker 1: and cracking, helping it maintain its strength. There are actually
Speaker 1: two benefits to this discovery. One, by using spent coffee,
Speaker 1: it reduces the demand for sand, and two, by making
Speaker 1: concrete stronger, it reduces the amount of cement required for
Speaker 1: each bag, and with less cement and sand required, the
Speaker 1: total carbon footprint of each bag of concrete could drop significantly.
Speaker 1: As it happens, a major industry group called the Global
Speaker 1: Cement and Concrete Association has pledged to go carbon neutral
Speaker 1: by twenty fifty and thanks to those coffee loving Aussies,
Speaker 1: they've got a really strong foundation to work with. It's
Speaker 1: an incredible discovery and asso pun mego. I'll take it
Speaker 1: all right now, mego.
Speaker 2: We happen to be living through one of the most
Speaker 2: polarizing moments in recent history. IM sure if you've noticed this,
Speaker 2: But I think one thing we can all agree on
Speaker 2: is that dinosaurs are really, really cool. That should be
Speaker 2: the thing that brings us together. In fact, that might
Speaker 2: be some of the firmest common ground we have left
Speaker 2: at this point. What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'd like to think a little more
Speaker 1: positively than that, but in general, yeah, I mean, everyone
Speaker 1: loves dinosaurs.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it's always struck me that even though we're
Speaker 2: dealing with creatures that are over one hundred million years
Speaker 2: old in some cases, to this day, we are still
Speaker 2: finding new things out about them. And the last quarter
Speaker 2: century has been particularly generous. We've on earthed so many
Speaker 2: new fossils and developed so many breakthrough research techniques that
Speaker 2: some scientists are now calling this the Golden Age of paleontology.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: There are way too many of these dino revelations for
Speaker 2: us to cover today, but singling out just one didn't
Speaker 2: seem right either, So instead, I thought I would walk
Speaker 2: us through some of my favorite highlights and they can
Speaker 2: kind of all share this spot together.
Speaker 1: What do you think, I love it like a big
Speaker 1: heap of dino discoveries is exactly what this science series needs.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I thought you'd approve of this. So what stuck
Speaker 2: out to me most is all this research that sort
Speaker 2: of challenges what we thought we knew about dinosaurs, which
Speaker 2: for most of us is just what we saw in
Speaker 2: the Jurassic Park movie.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: For instance, in one of the most famous scenes of
Speaker 2: the original movie, we see a t rex chasing after
Speaker 2: a speed jeep and nearly catching up to it.
Speaker 1: So that didn't happen in real life. That was just
Speaker 1: a movie, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: In fact, she was even closer than she appeared to
Speaker 2: remember because of that whole mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we all remember that.
Speaker 2: That scene was considered plausible for nearly a decade after
Speaker 2: the film's release, with many paleontologists speculating that a real
Speaker 2: t rex could run as fast as forty five miles
Speaker 2: an hour. But in two thousand and two, researchers John
Speaker 2: Hutchinson and Mariano Garcia used some clever math to show
Speaker 2: that the rex likely had a much slower role than
Speaker 2: we previously thought. So, using biomechanical data from the dinosaur's
Speaker 2: closest living relatives those would be birds, now, the pair
Speaker 2: was able to extrapolate just how much muscle mass it
Speaker 2: would take for an animal the size of a t
Speaker 2: rex to actually be able to run. As a general rule,
Speaker 2: no more than fifty percent of an animal's body mass
Speaker 2: is composed of muscle in only a fraction of that
Speaker 2: muscle is allocated to the legs. But for a t
Speaker 2: rex to run forty five miles an hour, its leg
Speaker 2: muscles would need to account for eighty six percent of
Speaker 2: its total body. Right, some real masks.
Speaker 1: Those are monster legs. It feels like the leg muscles
Speaker 1: would be up to its eyeballs. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in that case, there's no room for anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't add up there. So even though the
Speaker 2: researchers had poked a giant hole in one of Jurassic
Speaker 2: Park's best scenes, the filmmakers didn't hold it against them.
Speaker 2: In fact, Hutchinson was even hired to consult on one
Speaker 2: of the Jurassic Park sequels based on the strength of
Speaker 2: this breakthrough.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. But I'm curious, do we know what
Speaker 1: a t rex's top speed would be?
Speaker 2: Well, the two thousand and two study concluded that t
Speaker 2: rex would have had a hard time topping twenty five
Speaker 2: miles an hour, and according to a twenty seventeen study
Speaker 2: from the University of Manchester, they probably can only reach
Speaker 2: speeds of around twelve miles a mile, so any faster
Speaker 2: and the seven ton predators would risk shattering their bones.
Speaker 1: Actually. Wow, so it's almost like at speed that a
Speaker 1: human could outrun. At this pace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember that's the top speed. The t Rex
Speaker 2: was even slower when walking exactly how slow remained a
Speaker 2: mystery until twenty twenty one, when Dutch researchers built on
Speaker 2: those earlier findings and used computer modeling to prove that
Speaker 2: Rex walked at a leisurely pace of between two and
Speaker 2: three miles an hour. Now, another point of departure from
Speaker 2: the Jurassic movies is that the predatory dinosaurs, including t Rex,
Speaker 2: did not have permanently exposed teeth. Researchers and artists have
Speaker 2: long believed that bipedal carnivores have lipless mouths where their
Speaker 2: upper teeth would hang over their lower jaws, not unlike
Speaker 2: you know, maybe like a crocodile or something like that.
Speaker 2: But according to a twenty twenty three study from the
Speaker 2: University of Portsmouth, the dinos actually kept their choppers discreetly
Speaker 2: covered with a pair of thick lizard lips. Isn't that
Speaker 2: kind of funny to imagine? So the researchers found that
Speaker 2: toothwaar and lipless reptile groups was much different from that
Speaker 2: of carnivorous dinosaurs, and based on computer modeling, it would
Speaker 2: have been impossible for a lipless t rex to close
Speaker 2: its mouth without the lower jaw actually crushing the very
Speaker 2: bones that supported it.
Speaker 1: That is really interesting, And you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: with all these breakthroughs, they've kind of defanged this idea
Speaker 1: of a really frightening t rex, right, but like suddenly
Speaker 1: they're like only strolling around at two miles per hour.
Speaker 1: Like they don't have those goofy grins anymore, right, you know,
Speaker 1: bearing their teeth and a dinosaurs supposed to have feathers,
Speaker 1: right like on top of everything else, they're fluffy.
Speaker 2: Actually, I've got some good news on that front because
Speaker 2: while many dinosaurs are now believed to have sported feathers,
Speaker 2: including raptors and a few of the t rex's cousins,
Speaker 2: the rex itself is thought to have had this smooth,
Speaker 2: more scaly skin. The exception would have been juvenile t rexes,
Speaker 2: whose small bodies may have needed feathers for thermal insulation
Speaker 2: by the time they reach adulthood, though their forty foot
Speaker 2: long bodies were so good at retaining heat that they
Speaker 2: know or needed those downy coats. So if anything, an
Speaker 2: adult t rex may have had a stripe of bristles
Speaker 2: on its back and shoulders, but those would have been
Speaker 2: used to attract a mate rather than to keep warm.
Speaker 1: All right, So that's at least one thing the movies
Speaker 1: seem to have gotten right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's there's still room for improvement on that
Speaker 2: front too, because while the t rex was scaling, they
Speaker 2: likely weren't the drab uniform color they're often depicted as
Speaker 2: you know, you always picture that exact colors. Recent analysis
Speaker 2: of t rex fossils have turned up evidence of melanin,
Speaker 2: the same pigment found in human skin and bird feathers,
Speaker 2: and that suggests that the rex's skin may have had
Speaker 2: patches of several different colors, possibly even like a camouflage pattern,
Speaker 2: which makes sense you think about the stripes and spots
Speaker 2: of modern predators.
Speaker 1: That is crazy, you know. I kind of imagine like
Speaker 1: being given like a t rex as a kid and
Speaker 1: told to color it, and like, you know, you pined
Speaker 1: with fancy colors, and that seems completely wrong, right. I
Speaker 1: also had no idea that melanin could fossilize.
Speaker 2: Well, paleontologists didn't eat either until two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: and since then discovery has led to all kinds of
Speaker 2: new insights about the appearance of dinosaurs, including some pretty
Speaker 2: solid guesses about the exact colors of their skin and
Speaker 2: feathers now more than anything.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: All the advances we've talked about show us that the
Speaker 2: dinosaurs weren't the straightforward terrors that we often see in
Speaker 2: pop culture. Like any other animal, they live full lives.
Speaker 2: That included some quieter moments as well.
Speaker 1: I like how you're trying to make it seem like
Speaker 1: we should all be adopting them from shelters. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's the right thing to do. I would still
Speaker 1: be a terrified one. Oh totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know me, I'm terrified when I see
Speaker 2: a cat, can imagine a dinosaur?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Well, because dinosaurs are so cool, we decided today on
Speaker 2: our Instagram we're going to give away some super special,
Speaker 2: scientifically accurate dinosaur action figures. It is important to call
Speaker 2: them action figures. I called it a dolt earlier. Gabe
Speaker 2: got very like that.
Speaker 1: I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: He is our resident toy expert, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: have to lean on that and I will agree to
Speaker 2: ill at an action figure. So head over to our
Speaker 2: instagram at part Time Genius and find out how you
Speaker 2: can win.
Speaker 1: Okay, listeners, you've got to pay for the show with
Speaker 1: some ads, but uh, we'll be right back after this
Speaker 1: quick break. Welcome back to part time Genius, where we're
Speaker 1: listing out the best ideas in science in the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Nay, okay, well, so how much do
Speaker 1: you know about sub atomic particles?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, my knowledge of subatomic particles would, if
Speaker 2: I'm being honest, probably fit inside a sub atomic particle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I thought. So here's a quick overview
Speaker 1: that'll help you understand our next great science discovery. So
Speaker 1: let's start with protons. These tiny particles hang out in
Speaker 1: the nucleus of every atom, and they're made up of
Speaker 1: even tinier particles called quirks, which in turn are held
Speaker 1: together with even tinier particles called gluons. Now, gluons have
Speaker 1: no mass, but they do carry energy, specifically something called
Speaker 1: the strong force, and in terms of nuclear physics, it
Speaker 1: basically means it holds stuff together. Now stay with me,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you know that deep in a tunnel
Speaker 1: near Geneva there's something called the large hadron particle collider.
Speaker 1: And a hadron is any clump of two or three quirks,
Speaker 1: And what this thing does is it blasts particles like
Speaker 1: protons at each other at insane speeds, so scientists can
Speaker 1: find out what happens when they crash into each other.
Speaker 1: And even before this technology existed, scientists have been thinking
Speaker 1: about the outcomes of proton collisions. So one hypothesis they
Speaker 1: came up with was that protons might exchange a couple
Speaker 1: of the gluons that hold them together, creating a super weird,
Speaker 1: massless little particle made up of only gluons, which they
Speaker 1: called and this is true a blue ball glue ball?
Speaker 1: Is that the actual scientific term, though it is so
Speaker 1: ah way, In nineteen seventy three researchers put forward a
Speaker 1: very specific version of this theory. They said that it
Speaker 1: was possible for three gluons to briefly stick together after
Speaker 1: a collision. Now, at the time, there was no actual
Speaker 1: proof of this, It was just an idea. And they
Speaker 1: call this hypothetical particle the odderon.
Speaker 2: All right, so I want to make sure I understand.
Speaker 2: So an oduron is what like a triple glue ball? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's weird. I had never thought of particle
Speaker 2: physics involving this much fun vocabulary.
Speaker 1: I feel like I might have majored in it if
Speaker 1: I had known all this.
Speaker 2: But all right, So are you going to tell me
Speaker 2: that someone finally proved this odoron thing is real?
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty one, a group of scientists using
Speaker 1: the Large Hadron Collider did in fact find evidence of odon.
Speaker 1: So yes, when protons collide in this thing, about three
Speaker 1: quarters of the time they get smashed apart, but about
Speaker 1: twenty five percent of the time the protons survive intact.
Speaker 1: They just kind of bounce off each other. And because
Speaker 1: at the point of impact, they exchange gluons, sometimes two,
Speaker 1: sometimes three, and those gluons keep them together. So are
Speaker 1: you still with me here? I think so? Right. So,
Speaker 1: quirks carry a charge kind of like a positive or
Speaker 1: negative electric charge, but this is expressed in terms of color,
Speaker 1: so they can be red, green, or blue, and when
Speaker 1: you have all three of those stuck together, the charge
Speaker 1: is said to be white or balanced. But there's also
Speaker 1: something called an anti color, which is the property of
Speaker 1: anti quarks. Is this like antimatter, Yeah, So the antiquirk
Speaker 1: is the antimatter evil twin of the quirk, and it's
Speaker 1: either anti red, anti green, or anti blue. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting is gluons have both colors and anti colors, so
Speaker 1: you could have a gluon that carries red and anti green,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a very strange Christmas ornament. A spokesperson
Speaker 1: for the Oderon experiment told Gizmoto that the math of
Speaker 1: Vaulteer is quote too hard to explain, but suffice it
Speaker 1: to say, su Suer has observed frequency differences in proton
Speaker 1: proton collisions versus proton anti proton collisions, and they realized
Speaker 1: the difference had to do with changing color balances that
Speaker 1: could only be explained by the existence of a triple
Speaker 1: gluon clump. The odder On I'm trying real hard here, mango,
Speaker 1: but I gotta be honest. This is making my head
Speaker 1: heart a little bit. I know it is complicated stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's also an incredible discovery. But to make the
Speaker 1: story a little more personal, we asked our pal David Nagler,
Speaker 1: who is an incredibly talented musician and composer, to write
Speaker 1: a song about it, Hiding in.
Speaker 3: Plain sight Now I'm in the light light because of
Speaker 3: a proton proton and a proton anti proton condition. That's
Speaker 3: the difference between the two. Three good on stuff like good.
Speaker 3: Thanks to the particle physicists for clearing up being decision
Speaker 3: I'm an a lot, but I'm not that odd and
Speaker 3: out un. I'm a real hot rod. It's not monochromatic light.
Speaker 3: I'm red, green and blue making white. It may seem
Speaker 3: like a fax, but it's only quantum chromo dynamics. Folks
Speaker 3: deep in the particle e Sallerator keeping proton longevity greater.
Speaker 3: So I can agree. The force is.
Speaker 1: Strong in me strong.
Speaker 3: Autobun, but I'm not that and autorum. I've got a
Speaker 3: real hot bond man. Aut'm not that and auto um.
Speaker 1: It's not that b.
Speaker 3: And it's.
Speaker 1: Wow. It seems so complicated, but you know what mego.
Speaker 1: It also makes me want to dance. Yeah, the song
Speaker 1: or the science that you know, all of it. I'm
Speaker 1: just feeling good after this. I couldn't agree more. And
Speaker 1: big thanks to David Nageler for helping us out with this.
Speaker 1: We'll put a link to his website in the show
Speaker 1: notes so that you can check out his music. It's
Speaker 1: not usually about physics. Okay, that's it for today's episode,
Speaker 1: but be sure to tune in tomorrow when our countdown
Speaker 1: continues with a scientific secret Lurking and home depot, some
Speaker 1: lively molecules and a medical treatment that began in a really,
Speaker 1: really gross place. You won't want to miss it. And
Speaker 1: if you'd like to win that realistic dinosaur action figure,
Speaker 1: head on over to our instagram at part Time Genius
Speaker 1: to check out today's giveaway contest. As always from Will, Gabe,
Speaker 1: Mary and Dylan, thank you so much for listening.