WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Tridents, Aliens, Microgravity 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.520 My welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:14.079 Stuff Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.320 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.919 Joe McCormick, and it's time for August listener mail. That's right. Uh, yeah, 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:21.919 we almost forgot to do another one of these, but 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.680 we've been trying to do them more or less monthly 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.800 because that, I mean, that's how much cool listener mail 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:29.680 we get. I mean, we get a lot of just 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.520 nice personal comments about how much people enjoy the show. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.960 And you know, sometimes we read one of those or 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.840 two of those just to give our you know, ourselves 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.600 a pat on the bat. But but we do receive 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.680 a lot of of of of really insightful emails about 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.320 content that we've covered, uh, you know, listeners sharing their 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.640 take on particular topics and occasionally pointing out something we missed. 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:54.760 Even Yeah, you can only patch your own back so 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:56.920 much before it starts to get sore. So maybe we 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.920 should just dive straight into some of the fascinating and 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.520 strange ideas that our listeners have sent us in reaction 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.080 to recent episodes. Let's do it. What do you think 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.160 about going back to the year old ashen light. Oh yeah, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.040 the the strange light on the Dark Side of Venus. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.959 You know, our mail bot Carney has has has seen 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.759 these lights in person. Oh really yeah, yeah, I didn't 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:20.720 hear this. So so he had a life before he 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:22.640 was a humble mail bot. I mean, he was a 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.480 space probe really. Yeah. Not many people realized this from 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.800 from which space program? American Soviet what was very hush 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.800 hush about that, especially given the current political climate. So 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.560 I'm not sure which side he was on. Was a 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:39.400 Bulgarian space probe that went to Venus, found the Action Light, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.160 came back and it's been a cover up ever since. Yeah, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.839 Like he doesn't say much, but I know he's seen 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.760 the claims to have seen the action line. So one 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.680 of the things we talked about in the Action Light 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.560 episode was, of course the possibility that seems like a 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.920 very strong possibility that the reports of the lights on 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.640 the Dark Side of Venus have just been observer error. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.200 You know, that nobody, nobody is actually seeing anything, that 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:05.040 it was just imagination or artifacts of the technology used 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.040 at the time. And then it's kind of occurring at 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.440 like the cutting edge of perception without any kind of 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.040 way to like photograph or record what is being seen, right, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.200 But of course part of the problem has been while 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.080 you've got all these sightings, if you are going to 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.080 assume people were really seeing something, what could it be? 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.200 What could it have been? And I offered a crazy 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.519 idea at the end of the episode, Well, what if 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.760 you actually do have organisms floating in the atmosphere of venus, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.880 suspended in droplets in the atmosphere in the clouds, and 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.880 and they're actually bioluminescent or somehow reflecting or emitting light 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.480 at different frequencies, maybe at times when they bloom, and 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.679 this would explain the strange periodicity of the apparent ash 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.480 and light sightings. Well, we heard from our listener Michael, 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.080 who said, hello, my name is Michael, and I just 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.640 started listening to the podcast three episodes in, and I 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.920 definitely have more than I want to listen to. I 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.239 teach science in seventh and eighth grade, and I love 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.320 how much your podcast makes me explore different ideas. I'm 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.560 writing in about your most recent pod guests because you 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:02.280 said something right at the end that I thought was 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.079 so fascinating. You talked about what if the action light 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.280 was the result of micro organisms in the atmosphere. Now, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.359 this is just total off the cuff thinking about what 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.360 could be possible, But I feel like that's kind of 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.200 exactly what your show is supposed to make you do. Yeah, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.639 I hope. So what if the light is a combination 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.880 of both the solar bombardment and the micro organisms. My 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.040 thought is this, organisms living up in the atmosphere like 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.480 that would obviously be exposed to more solar radiation. They 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.040 would need to have a way to deal with the 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:32.600 excess that they don't use. I'm assuming they would be 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.240 photo autotrophs of some kind. What if their way of 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.640 dealing with the excess energy would be to absorb it. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.640 The electrons would become excited, and then they would admit 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.320 that light when the electrons went back to their ground state. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:46.680 I have no idea if this is possible, because I'm 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.840 pretty sure this is not how bioluminescence occurs on our planet, 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.840 but let's assume that it is possible. If possible, then 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.560 the action light could be the interaction of exponential microorganism 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.760 growth that corresponds to extreme solar activity. The high amounts 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.040 of both microorganisms and solar activity, it may produce a 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.880 light strong enough to be faintly visible to us from Earth. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.240 Having it be the interaction between two rare events would 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.400 explain why this only happens infrequently and does not happen 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.400 with any discernible pattern to us, because even if we 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.039 can analyze solar activity, we wouldn't know when that would 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.520 line up with exponential microorganism growth, and after exponential growth, 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.600 we have a period of severely decreased population since they 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.800 hit their carrying capacity, which would mean that even if 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.680 there was high solar radiation, it would not trigger the 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.280 ash and light. This would also explain why the light 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.880 does not appear to be green as is produced by 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:42.560 the oxygen reactions. Again, pure conjecture, almost certainly incorrect, But 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.280 wouldn't that be cool if astronomers had been seeing signs 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.560 of life on Venus for hundreds of years and did 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.760 not realize it. That would definitely blow my mind. Anyway, 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.280 I'm excited to join your audience and most likely will 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.200 write in every now and then since I'm a science 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.240 teacher and it looks like your podcast is right up 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.560 my alley now. Of what he said there, wouldn't it 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.200 be um? Wouldn't it be interesting if they were if 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:04.800 what they were looking at was really alien life and 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.080 they didn't realize it. Uh, you know, you could say that, well, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.480 some of these individuals were saying it was alien life. 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.760 The the version of alien life they were imagining, uh, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.920 was was certainly not correct, right, it was von groy 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.600 thousand right. He was saying, Well, what it is is 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.640 obviously the coronation of the new Venusian king. Yeah, it's 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.240 all those fireworks they're throwing up over this, uh, this 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.760 dynastic change that's occurring down there. But that certainly not 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.000 the case. But it would be interesting if in a way, 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.800 in a very small way, but a pivotal way, he 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:39.680 was actually right. That would be a great vindication for 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.640 for von groyth thousand. Also, Michael got back after I 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:44.919 responded and said he'd done a little more research on 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.520 this and realized, quote what I was talking about would 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.480 be not would not be biolumin essence, but actually biofluorescence, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.520 the ability to absorb in then a midlight of different frequencies. 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.160 I wasn't positive if there were organisms on Earth that 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.920 could do this, but apparently there absolutely are, so yeah, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.160 this seems theoretically possible. I even found a paper about 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.560 scientists looking into plants on Earth needing to protect themselves 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.239 from increased UV radiation because of the thinning ozone layer, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.440 and it seemed like this is a possibility they were 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.400 looking into. Uh So, yeah, thanks again for getting in 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.800 touch Michael that that is a highly interesting speculative idea. 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.360 I wonder if we already know things that could bat 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.960 down this hypothesis, things already in evidence, or if somebody 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.719 would need to do any new observations or experiments to 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:29.800 see if this, uh this kind of thing were possible. 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.760 I don't know. Carney's very hushed hush on the whole 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.960 situation though. Also just another idea that came to us 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:42.360 from our listener Justin on Twitter. Justin wrote a thought 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.240 that came to his mind is what if the ashen 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.680 light is venus moving fast enough in relation to the 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.279 Earth to blue shift infra red light so heat into 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.839 the visible spectrum? And I thought that was an interesting question. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.400 I don't have a way of evaluating that. My guests 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.400 would be that blue shifted light from the infra red 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.480 would still I mean, you could do that if it's 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.320 moving fast enough. That's possible from the shorter wavelengths of 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.039 thermal emission. But my guests would be probably just that 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.160 it wouldn't be bright enough to see from Earth even 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.440 if it shifted into the visible spectrum. But I don't 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.880 know for sure. That's that's another thing worth checking with 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.080 an expert about. All right, well, I'm gonna call Carney 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.800 over here. A is some some more listener mail here 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.040 for us, and it's relating to our recent episode on 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:29.360 drinking coffee, more importantly, brewing coffee in microgravity in orbit. Uh, specifically, 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.840 you know, aboard the the I S. S SO first 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.960 have to acknowledge, Nathaniel wrote in. Listener Nathaniel wrote in 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.160 and pointed out that I referred to the I S. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.640 S Presso machine as being a four pound machine as 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.240 opposed to a forty pound machine. Okay, well that's an 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.720 order of magnitude of difference, yeah, but just about one zero. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:49.960 It didn't really affect that the rest of the content 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.800 of the episode, but we did put we did tag 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:53.720 that old episode for people who are listening to it 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.920 for the first time. Um. We also heard from a 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.720 listener on Twitter. Uh this as Twitter listener r P 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.600 r P rode in and said, uh, listen this morning, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.160 great show as always, I don't drink coffee, So my 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.440 question is can I have my mountain dew in space? 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:13.800 Apart from all the bad stuff, it does to me 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.880 curious about carbonated liquids in space, and so I thought 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.440 this was an interesting question. Uh, you know, not when 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:22.200 we could do a whole episode on But I looked 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.120 into it a little bit and I did find a 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.560 NASA re NASA page about this. Uh. If you look 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.480 up NASA carbonated beverages in space you'll find this as well. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.400 But the basic answer breaks down to this. So the 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.560 bubbles of carbon dioxide and carbonated beverages, they aren't buoyant 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:43.200 in a witless environment, so they remain randomly distributed throughout 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.120 the fluid even after you swallow it. This means that 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:50.280 carbonated beverages, including soft drinks and of course beers, uh, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.680 they they may become a foamy mess. Uh, NASA says 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.559 during space travel. WHOA, Now this makes me think, do 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.560 you burp in space? I've never thought about this for now. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.760 Bubbles from your digestive system of gas would seem to 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.800 rise naturally through buoyancy so that you could burp. But 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.319 if you're in a microgravity environment or in zero G 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.320 would bubbles rise to the top four? Youtuberp this is 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.480 it's interesting. I don't know they've ever read anything about it, 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.320 or if I did, it was overshadowed by all the 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.280 content about pooping in space. Anyway, that the NASA piece continues. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.240 It points out that the carbonation in the soda will 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.640 also not separate in micro gravity, and in the absence 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.760 of gravity, the carbon dioxide bubbles and carminated beverages go 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.640 through and astronauts digestive system rather than being yeah, rather 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.840 than being belched out as on Earth. So that seems 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.320 to lead that seems to lead some weight to the 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.400 idea that maybe as you're nuts, don't belch um. And anyway, 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.600 they point out that this could cause adverse side effects 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.560 as well. So if you're gonna have mountain dew in space, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.640 um I would I would imagine it would have to 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.360 be flat mountain dew. Yeah. Wow, that that is a 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.880 horrible thing to imagine. But I guess it could still 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.480 be cold or hot. If you're a hot mountain dew enthusiasts, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.440 a hot catheter of mountain dew just letting for you, nothing, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.440 nothing gets you invigorated to to go fix that space 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.400 pro in your little urinal shaped cup. I think what 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.360 we need to design is a machine for astronauts to 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.960 burp with. It would somehow use momentum on the body. 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.079 Would be called like kinetic burp NG. It would be 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.240 kind of like that scene in Willy Wonka with the 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.920 fizzy lifting drink. Yeah, like centerfuge the burps out of here. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.840 But it's just another example of all the various functions 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.959 we take for granted here on Earth, in our our 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.480 our one G of gravity. This comes to us from 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.480 our listener, Evan, and it's about space coffee. Evans says, recently, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.960 I listened to Astronauts and Spaceships Getting Coffee, great episode, 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.319 and I thought i'd write in to share some experiences 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.760 that I had with an experiment testing as zero G 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.600 workaround designed for the I s S, particularly as it 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.480 involves the use of centripetal force to create artificial gravity 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.880 in ways that I don't think you've discussed before. Namely, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.120 rather than creating gravity for the entire space station or 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.880 spacecraft by having the whole thing constantly revolved, instead, you 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.360 can create localized gravity within the station or craft by 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:19.160 spinning platforms etcetera for specific purposes such as exercise. Robert, 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.360 I think we did talk about that a little bit 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.160 in our Artificial Gravity episode, didn't Yeah, I think we did. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:26.600 We may not have. I don't think we discussed it 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.880 in the coffee episode, that's true, But the Artificial Gravity episode, 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.480 I think we explored that angle. But if I'm wrong, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.800 maybe that's worth a look in the future. Anyway. Evan 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.160 continues quote. It was about twelve years ago when I 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.880 was a horrendously impoverished university student. I needed money pretty 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.640 desperately and didn't have much time or willingness to work 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.760 in those days. So a friend of mine in the 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.440 biology department mentioned to me that there was a bulletin 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.400 board for the biosy med School area of the campus 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.800 which listed opportunities for students to take part in faculty 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.439 members experiments as paid subjects. I found one that offered 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.520 decent pay, applied and was immediately accepted, all without inquiring 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.119 about or being informed of the nature of the experiment. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.440 The money was decent, so it seemed too good to 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.680 be true. As it turns out, a professor of surgery, 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.760 I assume it was Dr Anton jessep Uh If I 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.599 recall correctly, had designed a machine to counter the deleterious 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.160 effects of zero G environments on the human body, and 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:23.680 was having it tested to see about trying to get 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.280 it on the I s S. It was basically a 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.240 pillar installed in a small, empty room, fastened at floor 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.479 and ceiling, and outfitted with two arms which ran horizontal 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.320 to the ground. The arms could spin. One of the 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.880 arms terminated in a bicycle and the other in a 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:42.320 small platform. The idea was for one astronaut to pedal 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.640 the bicycle, thus spinning the arms, while another astronaut would 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.360 stand on the platform and do exercises. Both astronauts would 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.679 thereby get in some crucial exercise at a measurable and 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.080 adjustable level of artificial gravity. There was a monitor on 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.079 the bike with a readout about the various relevant forces 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.920 at play, be approximate number of gees to which the 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:06.280 exercisers were subjected, et cetera. Uh something that's small, man, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.200 I would worry about Coriola's forces on that. Yeah, I mean, 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.920 I'm getting a little dizzy and nauseous just imagining this 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.480 in my head. Yeah, so Evan continues. It sounds all 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.400 well and good, but for two facts that in order 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.440 to measure the effects, muscle biopsies were required before and 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.440 after each workout, and that I have a propensity for 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.599 horrible motion sickness. The first time I gave it a go, 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.240 I made it through a few sets of rapidly spinning 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.560 squats that higher than normal gravity. Then when the machine 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.040 began to slow its spin, I got horribly sick and 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.880 threw up everywhere. Vomits flattered on wide swaths of floor 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:42.680 and wall, of course, as I was still spinning fairly 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:47.920 quickly at that point. So I went into the control group. Uh, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.840 he says, he went into the control group, quote, which 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.280 did just normal squats to provide some frame of reference 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.959 for the efficacy of the machine. Is that something you're 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.240 supposed to do, take somebody from your test group and 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.600 then put them in your control group. Or is he 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.439 just like wandering, uh like dizzally into the into the 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.439 control group. Oh maybe I don't know. I don't want 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:10.480 to be unfair. That seems like something that might not 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.400 be something you're supposed to do, But I don't know. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.920 Evan continues. It still wasn't a great experience, though, as 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.280 the muscle biopsies were pretty rough, since we were testing 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.280 out the efficacy of squats. They had to cut into 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.080 the skin of my calf, then screw a kind of 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.840 small metal tube down into the muscle. It was a 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.080 fun feeling, even with local anesthetic. The tube would then 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.480 engage a bit of suction to get some of my 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.080 muscle into it and kind of cap itself with a razor, 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.800 thus trapping a small standardized amount of leg muscle inside, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.960 about the size of one piece of Kicks Cereal my kicks. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.440 It's just a standard measurement of muscle tissue. Right, car 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:56.120 gets forty kicks to the hogshead and um Evan writes, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.440 it's strange to look at one's own leg muscle. Yeah, 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.520 I bet it was much whiter than I expected, more 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.760 like chicken than pork or beef. So yeah, I would 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.000 get these muscle biopsies before and after the workout every 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.560 day for two weeks. If you think your legs are 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.920 sore after an ordinary workout, you get the idea. At 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:15.480 the end of two weeks, I got a check for 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.080 about four and fifty dollars. Not sure if it was 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.080 worth it. The money's long spin, but I still have 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.720 the little regularly spaced incision scars on my leg makes 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.000 a good story. Though. To sum it up, I don't 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.200 know if the machine made it to the I s S, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.560 but from what the professor was saying, it seemed like 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.400 the results were looking pretty promising, at least as the 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.600 experiment was finishing up. Hope you found this interesting and 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.000 thanks for your podcast. It keeps me company in my 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:44.520 long idle evenings. More episodes per week. Please, As you're 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.600 stitching up your test subjects, it's probably a good idea 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.600 to tell them that this looks promising. I don't want 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800 to say, like, yeah, I guess this is a loud 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.160 goose chase. Uh yeah. Thanks for the leg though, thanks 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.920 for the leg muscle kernels, Thanks for the vomit samples. Yeah, well, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:00.480 this I have to say this is one of This 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.000 is a thoroughly enjoyable bit of listener mail, but also 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.240 one of the more um uh kind of nauseating list 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.640 your mails because we had the spinning contraption, the vomiting, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.560 the the the leg muscle samples. There was a lot 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.200 of squeamish content. So you know, five stars, I'm gonna 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.520 go to six best new email. Oh yeah, okay was 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.760 our scale. We've we've not established the scale is Wait, no, 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.440 we got the Pitchfork scale, so I I'd say eight 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.760 point three best new email. Okay, we got a lot 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:31.760 of great emails on the way, so maybe it'll get beaten. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.440 Who knows. Here's another one related to the coffee episode, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:36.960 and this is just an answer to some of the 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.880 sci fi questions we had. This comes from Theodore. Theodore 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.080 says quote, I'm sitting here drinking a hot black cup 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.360 of coffee, listening to your most recent episode on coffee 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.320 and space. I just wanted to write in and include 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.560 some other books with space coffee. You missed Dune spice coffee. This, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.320 of course, is a big one that I'm kind of 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.640 shocked that we didn't bring it up, given we've we've 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.280 done whole episodes on Dune. Now imagine we mentioned uh 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.760 spice coffee in those episodes. But in anyway, he says, 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.920 quotes said to be mixed with the spice milans, giving 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.439 it a cinnamon flavor. It has never made clear if 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.040 the coffee in question here is the same beverage we 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.639 drink now, or if the word has morph to refer 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.040 to other hot beverages. That's a good point Ring World, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.520 a book I was going to write in about for 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.440 the summer reading episode, features basically a replicator on board 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.879 the ship that can produce coffee. I highly recommend this 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:30.960 book for you guys, not because of the coffee, but 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.320 the imaginative aliens and the artifacts left behind by ancient 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.600 super galactic civilizations. I do have to say, this is 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.560 a book that's long done on my reading list and 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.720 I've never picked it up. But it's it's a famous work. 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:45.840 This is one of the ones where I think we 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.480 must have had at least a half dozen listener males 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.000 tell us, we've got to read this one lately. I 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.080 don't know why. I must be good. It must be good. Yeah, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.239 I mean it is. It is a famous work. Like, 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.520 there's no reason for me to be I'm not, you know, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:03.880 actively avoiding. Uh. The next one is Um Artemis and 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.399 it has lunar coffee. Says that this book was written 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:10.720 by Andy Weir, writer of The Martian. Both books are great, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.600 but Artemis has better or more interesting coffee. In the 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.200 Lunar City, the primary industry is aluminum production. A waste 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.399 product of that is oxygen, and the city uses that. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.800 The city uses to breathe. However, to replicate Earth's atmosphere, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.320 they would need to bring tons of nitrogen up to 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.040 the Moon from Earth, too expensive. Instead, they have a 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.560 pure oxygen environment with of the air pressure of Earth. 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.240 This lowers the boiling coin of water to something like 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.400 sixty five degrees celsius, meaning that all coffee comes out 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.520 weak to earthling taste. That's a bummer. And then Hitchhiker's 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.360 Guide to the Galaxy something almost but not quite entirely 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:51.760 unlike tea. The replicator in h h G G is 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:55.240 unable to replicate Earth tea, and when Arthur finally gets 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.240 it to work, it shuts down the computer, nearly killing 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.439 everyone on the ship. You know, this is something that 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.479 I feel like doesn't get explored enough. Uh, The idea 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.800 of cooking and preparing food and everything in space. We've 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.199 talked about how foods and drinks don't necessarily taste the 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.440 same in space because if you're in a microgravity or 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.600 zero G environment, you're often congested and stuff like that, 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.679 Like it changes you. The environment changes your ability to 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.800 taste things. But if you are cooking in space or 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:27.320 preparing hot beverages, it also changes the fundamental properties of 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.320 chemical reactions. Things happen in different temperatures. You might not 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.360 be able to achieve the same tastes in prepared foods, 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.200 even if you could taste them the same way. Yeah, 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.000 I mean it is ultimately a fool's errand to to 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.800 try and create good space food, Like space food is 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:46.920 always going to be space food, or maybe it's maybe 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:48.520 it's just a different kind of thing. I mean, who's 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.280 going to be the first great chef beyond Earth? It's 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.080 a great question, but there's gonna also going to be 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.120 a pretty low bar to set, right, Like the first 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.160 chef on Mars is going to be the greatest mart 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.960 and chef. Ever, what do you what do you think 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.520 the first restaurant beyond Earth? What is that going to be? Like? 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:06.520 What kind of food will it serve? Well, I would 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.879 hope it would be like a Taurus pizza. I'm thinking, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.280 you know where it spends, because it has to spend 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.199 to keep the toppings on it. So the the like 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.399 the outside of the Taurus is just the bottom of 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.480 the crust. The inside of the Taurus is the surface 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.399 of the pizza, and so the toppings are held in 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:23.919 by what's the trifcal force I think it's gonna be 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.520