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Speaker 1: Welcome to House to Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,

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Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at hous to Works. Every week,

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Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the

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Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.

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Speaker 1: This week, researchers have found that some underwater plants are

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Speaker 1: pollinated by tiny invertebrates, just like bees and butterflies pollinate

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Speaker 1: land plants. Unrelated, you can taste garlic by absorbing it

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Speaker 1: through your skin. But First, Senior writer Jonathan Strickland explores

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Speaker 1: a space exploration project. So far, humanities voyages have been

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Speaker 1: confined to the Solar System or just beyond it. But

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Speaker 1: a new concept backed by some serious brains, is looking

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Speaker 1: a whole lot farther. What does Stephen Hawking, Mark Zuckerberg,

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Speaker 1: and billionaire Uri Milner have in common? All three want

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Speaker 1: us to send a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri. They're supporting

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Speaker 1: a project called Breakthrough star Shot to achieve that goal.

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Speaker 1: It's an engineering challenge. Alpha Centauri is four point three

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Speaker 1: seven light years away, which means it takes more than

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Speaker 1: four years for light to travel that distance. We know

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Speaker 1: of nothing in the universe faster than light. In fact,

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Speaker 1: our conventional rockets move slower than a sleep deprived snail.

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Speaker 1: Compared to light, it would take us thirty thousand years

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Speaker 1: to send a rocket to the Alpha Centauri system. The

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Speaker 1: team behind breakthrough star Shot have a different plan in mind. First,

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Speaker 1: the spacecraft will be tiny, measuring less than four centimeters

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Speaker 1: to a side, with a mass of just a few grams. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: it will be a space faring integrated circuit. Second, it

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Speaker 1: will rely on a light sale and lasers for propulsion.

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Speaker 1: When light bounces off a light sale, it transfers a

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Speaker 1: tiny bit of momentum to the sail. Lasers on Earth

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Speaker 1: will provide trillions of photons, which collectively will provide the

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Speaker 1: energy to accelerate the spacecraft. Acceleration will be modest but continuous.

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Speaker 1: Eventually the spacecraft will travel at a blistering one hundred

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Speaker 1: billion miles per hour. The team estimates that it would

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Speaker 1: take the spacecraft twenty years to get to Alpha Centauri.

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Speaker 1: If all goes as planned, the star Shot would be

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Speaker 1: able to capture images and send them back to Earth.

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Speaker 1: This could give us a chance to take a closer

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Speaker 1: look at Proxima B, the planet in a habitable zone

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Speaker 1: orbit around the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Another big

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Speaker 1: challenge is figuring out how to keep the spacecraft safe

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Speaker 1: from radiation. Electronics can malfunction in radiation, which can cause

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Speaker 1: extraneous electric charges to build up on a circuit. The

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Speaker 1: team's solution is to apply a voltage across an electric

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Speaker 1: gate to generate a lot of heat in a short time.

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Speaker 1: As the component's heat up and cool down, they release

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Speaker 1: the electric charge generated by radiation. It may take a

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Speaker 1: few years before the breakthrough star shot spacecraft and the

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Speaker 1: accompanying laser array are ready. Then tack on twenty years

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Speaker 1: to get to the Alpha Centauri system, and another four

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Speaker 1: years and some change for the data to get back

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Speaker 1: to us. That's a lot of weighting, but it's posible

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Speaker 1: that in just over a quarter of a century we

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Speaker 1: may get an up close look at an alien star system.

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Speaker 1: How cool is that? Next up, editorial director Allison louder

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Speaker 1: Milk and our freelance writer Kate Kirshner raise a stink

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Speaker 1: about garlic. The smell of the stuff really does get

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Speaker 1: into your pores, and it can get in through your

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Speaker 1: pores as well. Anyone who's ever enjoyed a delicious hunk

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Speaker 1: of garlic bread knows that the pleasure lasts beyond the

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Speaker 1: actual meal, way beyond. Sometimes it seems as though a

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Speaker 1: garlic emeal doesn't just linger in your thoughts, it takes

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Speaker 1: up residence in your pores, and you're not far off.

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Speaker 1: Garlic contains a compound called Allison, which gives the ball

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Speaker 1: of its distinctive smell. Alison, however, is only released when

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Speaker 1: garlic is cut, crushed, or otherwise disturbed. That's why whole

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Speaker 1: heads of garlic don't stink up the entire produce section

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Speaker 1: at your local grocery store. Here's something else you should

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Speaker 1: know about alison. It's a crazy compound. It acts a

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Speaker 1: it like water thanks to a key oxygen atom, and

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Speaker 1: a bit like oil with its hydrocarbon tails. That means

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Speaker 1: Alison can penetrate human skin in a way that neither

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Speaker 1: oil nor water can. Now, the folks at the American

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Speaker 1: Chemical Society have given us a little party trick to

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Speaker 1: try as a way of explaining why garlic can be

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Speaker 1: so powerful. Here's what you do. Crush or cut half

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Speaker 1: a clove or more of garlic, and then go to

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Speaker 1: a different room that doesn't smell like garlic. Presumably you

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Speaker 1: have one of those. Put one of your bare feet

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Speaker 1: into a plastic bag with the garlic. Tie up the

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Speaker 1: bag to contain the smell. Now hang out for an hour.

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Speaker 1: You'll undoubtedly start daydreaming of Italian food soon enough, because

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Speaker 1: you'll start to taste and smell the garlic, not because

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Speaker 1: it's coming out of the bag, but because your souls

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Speaker 1: and your toes have allowed that slippery allison to enter

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Speaker 1: the bloodstream, and you're actually tasting and smelling the garlic

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Speaker 1: through your feet. Bone appetite feet. And if you'd like

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Speaker 1: to see a video of this inaction, check out the

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Speaker 1: American Chemical Society's YouTube channel. Finally, this week, staff editor

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Speaker 1: Christopher Hasiotis and freelance writer al Ya Hoyt brings the

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Speaker 1: story of the bees of the sea. It turns out

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Speaker 1: that we crustaceans help pollinate underwater flowers. Sea bees looks

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Speaker 1: like Sebastian the Crab was right. There really is a

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Speaker 1: lot going on under the sea, But things sub aquatic

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Speaker 1: aren't always so different from up here on dry land.

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Speaker 1: Researchers recently discovered that invertebrate animals actively pollinate flowers found

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Speaker 1: on seagrass underneath the surface of the ocean, much like

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Speaker 1: bees do here on land. Before this revelation, published in

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Speaker 1: the General Nature Communications, science thought that pollen was carried

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Speaker 1: plant to plant by water flow alone. These plants flower

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Speaker 1: at night time, but when water flow just isn't happening,

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Speaker 1: as sometimes is the case underwater, tiny crustaceans visit the

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Speaker 1: plants and help out with the process. These sea bees,

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Speaker 1: as you might call them, may not be holding honey

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Speaker 1: filled hives or ruining picnics as far as we know,

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Speaker 1: but they still perform a vital function to the underwater ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: Think of sea grasses as forming extensive meadows in shallow

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Speaker 1: marine waters. These are amongst the world's most productive ecosystems.

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Speaker 1: As the researchers outlined in their study, they improve water transparency,

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Speaker 1: stabilize coastlines, store carbon, and provide food and shelter to

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Speaker 1: a diverse community of marine animals. In other words, by

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Speaker 1: aiding the sexual reproduction of these flowers, the invertebrate crustaceans

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Speaker 1: are doing everyone a major underwater solid But how has

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Speaker 1: it taken us so long to figure this thing out? Well,

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Speaker 1: the scientists deduced that something fishy was going on when

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Speaker 1: they reviewed video of underwater marine activity and noticed that

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Speaker 1: the male pollen bearing plants enjoyed many more visiting crustaceans

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Speaker 1: than the lady counterparts. Armed with this observation, the scientists

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Speaker 1: established two tanks for their experiment, one with only male

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Speaker 1: and female versions of the sea grass the lassia to studentum,

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Speaker 1: and another with the plants plus these tiny invertebrates. The

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Speaker 1: plants in the animal occupied tank quickly became pollinated, unlike

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Speaker 1: the other tank with plants, no water flow and no animals.

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Speaker 1: This discovery even begat its own new term, zubinthophillis pollination.

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Speaker 1: In Layman's terms, this describes transfer of pollen by invertebrate

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Speaker 1: animals in the benthic zone, which is the community of

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Speaker 1: fauna and flora that call the seabed home. So what's

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Speaker 1: the takeaway here? This new research shows that underwater crustaceans

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Speaker 1: can serve the same role as fine insects, and it's

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Speaker 1: a good reminder that all life on the planet is

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Speaker 1: interconnected and we're still discovering these systems that keep our

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Speaker 1: world ship shape. That's our show for this week. Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. Further thanks to our

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Speaker 1: audio producer Dylan Fagan and our editorial liaisons Allison and Christopher.

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Speaker 1: Subscribed now Now for more of the lated science news

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Speaker 1: and some links to anything else you'd like to hear.

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Speaker 1: Is cover, plus a photo of the best holiday lights

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Speaker 1: in your neighborhood. You can send us an email at

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Speaker 1: now podcast at how stuff works dot com, and of course,

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Speaker 1: for lots more stories like these, head on over to

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Speaker 1: our home planet Now dot how stuff works dot com,

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