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Speaker 1: Snowflakes are hexagons, and each one is unique. Their amazing

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Speaker 1: symmetry just adds to their mystique.

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Speaker 2: I've heard flamingos are pink because of their diet. What

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Speaker 2: if I ate a flamingo? Would I turn pink?

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Speaker 1: If I tried it, i'dne injections protect from radiation. I

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Speaker 1: saw it on TV, but I don't understand the mechanism.

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Speaker 1: How exactly can that be?

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Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: answers will make it right. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe. Hello. I'm Kelly Winer Smith. I study parasites

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Speaker 2: and space and I am so excited about our flamingo

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Speaker 2: question today.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 1: at UC Irvine, and I've never eaten a flamingo.

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Speaker 2: I haven't either, as we'll see later in the show,

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Speaker 2: we probably ought not to. But so my question for

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Speaker 2: you today, Daniel. So we are recording the day before

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Speaker 2: Google Calendars tells me that it's your birthday.

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Speaker 1: How does Google know that?

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Speaker 2: I'm actually not sure. I must have put it in

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Speaker 2: at some point in the past, because you know, I've

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Speaker 2: been co hosting with you for a while now, But

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Speaker 2: so how do you celebrate birthdays?

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm turning fifty tomorrow, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: a big milestone. But I actually don't really celebrate my birthday.

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Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's that special a day, and

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Speaker 1: I'm not really that intwo birthdays and sort of like

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Speaker 1: being on the spot that way. I sort of prefer

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Speaker 1: to fade into the background. And so to counteract that,

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Speaker 1: I've actually been rounding up my age to fifty for

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Speaker 1: a few years now, are you serious, which Katina is

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Speaker 1: not very excited about. Yeah, especially because when she turned

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Speaker 1: forty six, I welcomed her into the round up to

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Speaker 1: fifty club and she was like, no, thank you.

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Speaker 2: You can stay there alone. Daniel. Wow, I'll have to

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Speaker 2: remember that strategy. I also may fade into the background

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Speaker 2: birthday person, but I hadn't thought about the rounding up strategy.

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Speaker 2: And I think I'm so I always forget how old

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Speaker 2: I am. But I'm forty three, okay, is that right? No,

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Speaker 2: my birthday's in October and it's twenty twenty. I'll be

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Speaker 2: forty three in October, so I'm forty two. So it's

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Speaker 2: not quite time for me to round up yet, but

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Speaker 2: I will. I'll get there soon.

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Speaker 1: Well, Katrina tells me it's ridiculous to round up, but

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Speaker 1: I say, hey, look, it's arbitrary to round up to

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Speaker 1: the year. People aren't super precise about how old they are.

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Speaker 1: When you ask them. They don't say I'm forty two

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Speaker 1: years and seven months and three days. They round up

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Speaker 1: to the year, right, So I think, hey, I just

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Speaker 1: round up to the decade. You know, what's the big deal?

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Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, No, Physicists are always you know, making broad

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Speaker 2: assumptions about things and rounding, and so you might as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Pie is three and Daniel's fifty, what's the big deal?

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Speaker 2: That's right there? You go, Well, I hope you have

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Speaker 2: an amazing decade. Arbitrary though that milestone may be to you.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're not here to talk about Daniel's birthday.

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Speaker 1: We're here to answer your questions about the nature of

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Speaker 1: the universe. How does it all work, how does it

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Speaker 1: fit together? How can we make it click together in

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Speaker 1: your mind? And so, as usual, we invite people to

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Speaker 1: send us their questions right to us to questions at

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Speaker 1: Danielankelly dot org. We write back to everybody with a response,

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Speaker 1: we either give you the answer, or make a joke,

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Speaker 1: or say we don't know, here's something to read.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Lately, often I've been giving a reading suggestions,

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Speaker 2: or if we don't know, we say we'll find out.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes it becomes a question on a listener Questions episode.

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Speaker 2: And today we have a lot of examples of that.

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Speaker 1: That's right, So let's jump right in. Our first question

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Speaker 1: comes from Zach in Minnesota. Zach is a question about

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Speaker 1: why snowflakes are all different.

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Speaker 3: Hey, they're extraordinaries. It's winter here in Minnesota and we

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Speaker 3: just got a ton of snow. My dad took a

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Speaker 3: really great picture of a beautifully symmetrical snowflake. I understand

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Speaker 3: why snowflakes tend to form hexagonally. I think because of

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Speaker 3: the crystallization pattern of water. But I don't understand why

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Speaker 3: snowflakes so often come out looking so perfectly symmetrical. Why

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Speaker 3: should they form exactly the same intricate crystallization on one

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Speaker 3: arm as opposed to the other arm. I know this

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Speaker 3: isn't a universal thing. Some snowflakes aren't symmetrical, but so

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Speaker 3: many are. It just seems unlikely. Is this just because

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Speaker 3: there are so many snowflakes or is there something deeper

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Speaker 3: going on? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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Speaker 2: Now, Daniel. If you and I were really good at this,

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Speaker 2: we would have saved this for a Christmas episode, but

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Speaker 2: instead we're going to release it in the middle of

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Speaker 2: the summer.

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Speaker 1: That's when people want snow, right, That's when they're missing it.

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Speaker 1: You know, in the middle of winter people are like, Ugh,

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Speaker 1: don't talk to me about snow. I'm fed up with it.

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess it depends on where you are on

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Speaker 2: this planet. Right it's winter somewhere. So okay, this is

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Speaker 2: going to be a really good episode for the Australians

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Speaker 2: if they're into snow.

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Speaker 1: Or if you're sweltering in Texas this summer. Listen to

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Speaker 1: this frosty episode about snowflakes.

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Speaker 2: Amazing. All right, So, Daniel, I have to admit that

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Speaker 2: I don't know why each snowflake has a unique shape.

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Speaker 2: Can we start there before we get to why they're symmetrical?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that is the right direction to start from.

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Speaker 1: This is a really cool question because I think Zach

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Speaker 1: is thinking about how the snowflakes form, and he's wondering like,

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Speaker 1: how can one arm form the same pattern as the

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Speaker 1: arm on the other side. Is there some global for

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Speaker 1: us controlling it? And so you're right, we need to

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Speaker 1: think about the symmetry and the diversity of these objects.

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Speaker 1: And snowflakes are really fascinating. And as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: the cutting edge of human understanding of snowflakes doesn't have

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Speaker 1: a complete answer to this question. Snowflakes remain mysterious. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's right, fascinating.

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Speaker 2: There's not enough money in snowflakes, man.

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Speaker 1: But if you go out into a snowstorm and you

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Speaker 1: put out your hand and you see snowflakes land on

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Speaker 1: your palm, and you can look at them briefly, just

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Speaker 1: before they melt, and you notice they are not all

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Speaker 1: the same. There's an enormous variety of snowflakes form this

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Speaker 1: pattern and that pattern and the other pattern. And you know,

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Speaker 1: people have known this for a long long time. This

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Speaker 1: is famous quote from Thereaux who says, how full of

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Speaker 1: the creative genius is the air in which these are generated?

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Speaker 2: Beautiful? But the answer is science science.

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Speaker 1: But you know he was presient about this even though

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Speaker 1: he didn't understand it. The answer is something about the

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Speaker 1: chemistry of air, which we'll get to.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you said a word I don't like, but

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Speaker 2: let's let's move on anywhere.

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Speaker 1: So your question was about the symmetry, so let's start

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Speaker 1: with that, like why do snowflakes form this white, weird

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Speaker 1: six prong pattern anyway, And that does come down to

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Speaker 1: chemistry how the water molecules themselves bond to form the

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Speaker 1: nexus of the crystal at the core. But let's back

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Speaker 1: up and start with like, how does snow form, where

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Speaker 1: does it come from? It comes from water freezing in clouds.

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Speaker 1: And the things I understand about water is we're all

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Speaker 1: familiar with ice and then liquid water and of course

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Speaker 1: water vapor, steam, right, But water has complicated chemistry depending

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Speaker 1: on the pressure. So down to the surface and normal

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Speaker 1: atmosphere pressure, water has those three phases. But if you

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Speaker 1: go up into the upper atmosphere or out into space,

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Speaker 1: for example, where pressure is very very low, there is

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Speaker 1: no liquid water. There's only solid in gas. And so

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Speaker 1: if you have solid water and you heat it up,

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Speaker 1: you don't get liquid water. Out in space, you get vapor.

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Speaker 1: It goes directly from solid to gas. So there aren't

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Speaker 1: three phases everywhere you can look up this phase diagram

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Speaker 1: of water to learn more and that's going to turn

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Speaker 1: out to be key. So what happens is you have

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere and there's warm moist air that gets pushed

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Speaker 1: upward when it hits the front, and that water condenses

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Speaker 1: into droplets. So the air is also filled with like

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Speaker 1: tiny dust particles, and each of those like can nucleate

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Speaker 1: a tiny little droplet, and that's what a cloud is.

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Speaker 1: Cloud is all these water droplets that have been nucleated

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Speaker 1: as warm moist air has gone up and the water

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Speaker 1: sort of comes out of the solution.

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Speaker 2: Of the air and nucleated just means it's like surrounding

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Speaker 2: the piece to dust.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm okay, yeah. Like you might ask why do

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Speaker 1: you get a water droplet here and not one centimeter

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Speaker 1: or one micron over? Like why do they form where

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Speaker 1: they form and not somewhere else? The answer is dust.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of like the way in the early universe

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Speaker 1: we had like slight over densities in the plasma and

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Speaker 1: that's what gravity grabbed onto to nucleate the formation of

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Speaker 1: what turned into galaxies and stuff, Like why did galaxies

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Speaker 1: form here and there? There has to be a reason

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Speaker 1: it starts, and in the case of water droplets, it's

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Speaker 1: tiny particles of dust.

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Speaker 2: I heard it was also tiny bacteria that are in

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Speaker 2: the atmosphere, Is that true? Or their bacteria around there

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Speaker 2: forming snowflakes.

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Speaker 1: There are bacteria out there. And dust is a very

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Speaker 1: broad term. It includes lots of tiny stuff, you know,

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Speaker 1: the way like sand does. And if you zoom in

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Speaker 1: on this amazing variety of stuff in the atmosphere, we

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Speaker 1: just call it dust. We can have a whole another

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Speaker 1: episode about it, like what is dust?

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Speaker 2: Sure that sounds fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, you put all these together, you have a cloud.

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Speaker 1: A cloud is like a million tons of water hanging

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Speaker 1: there in the air, sort of amazing. So now temperatures

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Speaker 1: drop right, and some of those droplets freeze, some of

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Speaker 1: them evaporate become a vapor, but some of them freeze

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Speaker 1: and you get a little crystal. And so here's where

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Speaker 1: the chemistry comes in. You have this water molecule, which

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Speaker 1: is like an oxygen and two hydrogens, and the two

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Speaker 1: hydrogens come off at an angle, right, It's not like

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Speaker 1: a line where you have hydrogen oxygen hydrogen. If you

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Speaker 1: seem like a little drawing of water molecule you know,

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Speaker 1: the hydrogen, it's like pulled close together. The angle between

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Speaker 1: them is like one hundred and four degrees or something,

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Speaker 1: and so when these things come together to make a crystal,

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Speaker 1: they click together sort of like lego bricks. Right, there's

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Speaker 1: bonds between them, and that makes a little hexagon. So

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Speaker 1: you link up six water molecules. The oxygens are like

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Speaker 1: the vertices on a hexagon, and then the bond between

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Speaker 1: the oxygen and one hydrogen is like the edge of

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Speaker 1: that hexagon, and then there are six hydrogen molecules sort

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Speaker 1: of sticking out. But it makes this ring, this hexagonal ring,

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Speaker 1: and then you just keep adding water molecules and it

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Speaker 1: builds out and out and out, and you get a

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Speaker 1: hexagonal crystal.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so why do you get six in the center?

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Speaker 2: Is that just available binding sites?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I think it's because chemistry.

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Speaker 1: Man, you get six because the angles. So imagine your

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Speaker 1: oxygen atom and has two hydrogens coming off and there's

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Speaker 1: one hundred degrees between them, which means is like two

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty degrees on the other side, right, So

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Speaker 1: the other water molecule comes in with its hydrogen. It

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Speaker 1: comes around the back on that big open space and

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Speaker 1: it splits that in half, and that's what determines the angle.

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Speaker 1: So half of two sixty you get about one hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty and that's the angle there that you build

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Speaker 1: up to make the hexagons.

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Speaker 2: Got it? Okay? I remember in organic chemistry there's a

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Speaker 2: reaction called a backside attack, and the biologists in that

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Speaker 2: class we could not get over that anyway.

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Speaker 1: All right, moving on, all right, So initially you have

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Speaker 1: this tiny, tiny crystal. It's like microns wide. And by

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Speaker 1: the way, if you are out chopping and you see

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Speaker 1: something called hexagonal water, that's a scam. It's not better

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Speaker 1: for you. It's just pseudoscience, supplemental nonsense.

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Speaker 2: I've never heard of that. What do they claim me?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even want to give them

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Speaker 1: more airtime.

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Speaker 2: Okay, save your money people, exactly.

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Speaker 1: All right. So what we're talking about so far is

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Speaker 1: just the core of the snowflake, right, it's this hexagonal crystal,

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Speaker 1: and that can require like a million of these droplets. Wow,

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Speaker 1: you have a tiny number of snowflakes compared to the

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Speaker 1: number of droplets. It really takes a lot of droplets

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Speaker 1: to make one snowflake.

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Speaker 2: So why doesn't the snowflake just become infinite. Why did

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Speaker 2: at some point does it stop accumulating more waters.

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Speaker 1: Well, it has limited time in the cloud. So what

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Speaker 1: happens next is you have this seated crystal which blows

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Speaker 1: around inside the cloud, accumulating more and more, and then

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Speaker 1: eventually it gets so heavy that it drops, right, And

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Speaker 1: so it's a limited time in the cloud. Otherwise it

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Speaker 1: would form like a cloud sized crystal, which should be awesome,

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Speaker 1: and maybe that happens on some alien planet, but then.

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Speaker 2: It falls on your head and that would be too much.

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Speaker 1: So we're set up now to answer Zach's question. Right,

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Speaker 1: we start with his crystal, and we understand why it's

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Speaker 1: a hexagon, But then why does it form six identical arms,

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Speaker 1: each of which are the same on one crystal, but

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Speaker 1: different from all the other crystals? Right? And when I

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Speaker 1: was first reading about this, my hypothesis was maybe it's

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Speaker 1: some like impurity in the crystal, where like something has

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Speaker 1: happened at the core, which then determines how it grows outwards. Right,

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Speaker 1: you need something coordinating across the arms. But it turns

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Speaker 1: out it's not that at all. And we know that

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Speaker 1: because of amazing experiments done by a physicist Ukichiro Nakaya

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Speaker 1: in Hokkaido in Japan in the nineteen thirties. He was

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Speaker 1: really curious about snowflakes. He just like went for walks

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Speaker 1: and saw snowflakes, and he asked the same question, but

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Speaker 1: he wanted to figure it out. He did all these experiments,

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Speaker 1: so he replicated the conditions of a cloud in the lab,

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Speaker 1: and what he saw was that the formation of the

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Speaker 1: crystal beyond the initial seed depends extremely sensitively on the

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Speaker 1: temperature and on the density of water vapor. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: you can get these like weird long needles that form,

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Speaker 1: and you crank up the temperature a little bit and

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Speaker 1: you get thin plates, or you get dendrites, or you

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Speaker 1: get another formation. You crank it up another little bit

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Speaker 1: and you get back to needles or back to columns.

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Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of really complicated like chemistry

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Speaker 1: and solid sat phistics that's happening there where these crystals

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Speaker 1: are forming in certain patterns. Again super duper sensitive to

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Speaker 1: the density and the temperature.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm following you there, but I still feel like

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Speaker 2: there's a jump to make, yes to hit symmetry.

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Speaker 1: So now start with you or quarter crystal, right, the

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Speaker 1: quarter crystal, some hexagon. Now it's going to blow through

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Speaker 1: the cloud. The cloud is not uniform in density and temperature.

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Speaker 1: There are regions of higher density, there are regions of

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Speaker 1: lower density. There are colder and moral regions. As that

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Speaker 1: snowflake blows through the cloud, its crystals grow depending on

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Speaker 1: the density and temperature it's experiencing moment to moment. So

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Speaker 1: like right now it grows in this certain pattern. Ooh,

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Speaker 1: then the density drops and now it's going to make needles. Oh,

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Speaker 1: now the density goes up. Ooh, now it's back to

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Speaker 1: making these flat things. And so that's what controls the

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Speaker 1: growth of each of the arms. And because all of

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Speaker 1: the arms experience the same unique path through the cloud,

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Speaker 1: which gives it a unique temperature and density history, that's

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Speaker 1: why every snowflake is different. If two snowflakes had exactly

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Speaker 1: the same trajectory through the cloud, you would expect them

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Speaker 1: to be exactly the same. And that's probably true, but

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Speaker 1: impossible to test, right, So we think the variety of

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Speaker 1: snowflakes comes from their individual experience through the temperature and

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Speaker 1: density fluctuations in the cloud which control their growth. And

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Speaker 1: that also explains why they're the same on individual snowflake

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Speaker 1: because on an individual snowflake, all the arms have the

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Speaker 1: same experience, the same history through the density and the temperature.

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Speaker 1: So it's really kind of an awesome like probe through

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Speaker 1: the cloud.

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Speaker 2: That's amazing, yeah, and beautiful and I'm trying to pull

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Speaker 2: together like the Hallmark version, like we're all a result

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Speaker 2: of the unique paths that we take. Anyway, very cool.

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Speaker 1: It's very cool, and it's sort of amazing and lucky,

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Speaker 1: and it's another example of how amazing complexity emerges in world.

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Speaker 1: You know, this could have been totally boring. It could

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Speaker 1: have been that snowflakes all just form hexagons and then

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Speaker 1: drop and they're all the same, and like, yeah, hexagons

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Speaker 1: are cool. But because they're so sensitive to density and temperature,

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Speaker 1: we get this incredible variety of beautiful forms. It amazes me.

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Speaker 1: It makes me wonder about that same philosophical question we've

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Speaker 1: talked about before, like why do we think that this

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff is beautiful? Are we programmed to do

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Speaker 1: it somehow? Is it because we evolved on this planet

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Speaker 1: or is it just something deep about being alive and

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Speaker 1: aware in the universe? Like do aliens find their ugly

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Speaker 1: planet beautiful.

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Speaker 2: Also well, it is now the peak heat and humid

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Speaker 2: period in Virginia, so I am looking forward to seeing

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Speaker 2: the snow. As you said, let's see if Zach feels

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Speaker 2: satisfied with this unique answer.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for the beautiful answer

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Speaker 3: to my question about these beautiful crystals, especially since it

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Speaker 3: meant wading into a bit of chemistry to do so.

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Speaker 3: I too was surprised that the crystal shape was not

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Speaker 3: intrinsic to the nucleation dust, but rather a kind of

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Speaker 3: record of the snowflake experience as it drifts through its cloud.

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Speaker 3: It makes me wonder if there are other polar molecules

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Speaker 3: that could form snowflakes with other basic patterns instead of hexagons,

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Speaker 3: like squares or triangles, or if there would be some

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Speaker 3: molecules that would tend to make three D structures instead

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Speaker 3: of planer ones. Anyhow, on a personal note, my son

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Speaker 3: was born just a week ago, and you have me

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Speaker 3: smiling thinking about how he's going to gather experiences as

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Speaker 3: he grows to become something unique and beautiful as well.

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Speaker 3: Thanks again, guys.

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Speaker 2: All Right, Daniel, this is quite possibly the most important

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Speaker 2: question we've ever answered on the show.

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Speaker 1: Solunny because it determines what you're gonna have for your

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Speaker 1: birthday dinner.

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Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, and also his biology, so that automatically puts

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Speaker 2: it in the top fifty percent. But let's enjoy this

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Speaker 2: amazing question from Bernard and Munich.

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Speaker 4: Hi, Danielle and Kelly. This is Bernhardt from Munich in Germany.

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Speaker 4: I understand that flamingos are pink because of their diet,

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Speaker 4: but it's the pink color just in their feathers or

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Speaker 4: also in their flesh. And could I become pink if

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Speaker 4: I would start eating flamingos instead of my usual vegetarian food.

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Speaker 2: Love your show by incredible.

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Speaker 1: How seriously do you think Bernard is considering abandoning his vegetarianism.

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Speaker 1: Do we have a weighty responsibility here?

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Speaker 2: You know? So I was reading about the frequency at

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Speaker 2: which people drop vegetarianism, and it is pretty high. I

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Speaker 2: think it's something like sixty to seventy five percent of

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Speaker 2: the people who become vegetarians will not stay vegetarians. But

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Speaker 2: I really doubt that he's going to drop his vegetarianism

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Speaker 2: for flamingos, and not least of all because it would

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Speaker 2: be very hard for him to get his hands on

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Speaker 2: a flamingo.

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Speaker 1: Well, your husband is a dedicated vegetarian, isn't he.

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Speaker 2: He is, Yeah, he's been a vegetarian for twenty years.

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Speaker 2: And I think the worst thing that I have done

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Speaker 2: to him during our relationship is I once left a

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Speaker 2: few pounds of ur ducan in his fringe when we

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Speaker 2: were dating, and I forgot it was there, and so

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Speaker 2: he found what is it a turkey inside of a

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Speaker 2: duck inside of a chicken.

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Speaker 1: I think you have that backwards, but say, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, chicken, it's that you are right anyway, in his refrigerator,

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Speaker 2: and he was pretty grossed out anyway, Sorry, honey.

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Speaker 1: Good thing there wasn't a flamingo in there as well.

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Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. We did look up. Somebody had

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Speaker 2: managed to get like twenty four creatures inside of each

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Speaker 2: other and that was the max.

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Speaker 1: But all right, well, let's get an answer to Bernard's question.

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Speaker 1: Tell us, okay, from the beginning, why are flamingos pink? Anyway?

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Speaker 2: Right? All right? So there are actually six different species

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Speaker 2: of flamingos, and they are all rose colored. They get

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Speaker 2: their color through their diets, and so they eat algae.

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Speaker 2: They eat crustaceans, and these organisms make their own colors

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Speaker 2: called krotenoioids, so they have pigments, but they aren't necessarily pink.

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Speaker 2: So some organisms have ways of metabolizing carotenoids to get

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Speaker 2: them to be particular colors. And so the way that

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Speaker 2: the flamingos metabolize the carotenoids that they get from their

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Speaker 2: food turns them pink.

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Speaker 1: So metabolized means does chemistry on them, does chemistry and

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Speaker 1: basically changes their color. So the things they eat are

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Speaker 1: not pink, but they eat this stuff and the stuff

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Speaker 1: has something in it and they do chemistry inside and

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Speaker 1: that makes them pink. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: That's right? Yep. So they're filter feeders and so they're

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Speaker 2: eating lots and lots of tiny little things with carotenoids

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Speaker 2: that they turn pink.

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Speaker 1: And is it good for the flamingos to be pink?

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Speaker 1: Do they care? Is it helpful in some way? Or

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Speaker 1: are just like a weird oddity in our universe.

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Speaker 2: There's some debates over why they're pink, but it does

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Speaker 2: seem that being pink is an indicator of how healthy

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Speaker 2: you are, so because they get the pink from their diet,

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Speaker 2: If you are super extra pink. That is a great

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Speaker 2: way of showing people.

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Speaker 1: That's like a Flamingo Valentine card to my extra super pinker.

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Speaker 2: That's right, something like that. Yeah, and so if you

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Speaker 2: are like a super pink dude, then you are showing

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Speaker 2: that you've got the best territory with the best food

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Speaker 2: and you're able to get loads of food. So you'd

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Speaker 2: probably be able to get loads of food for your offspring,

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Speaker 2: and so it's sort of an indicator of quality that

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Speaker 2: is honest, because it's showing you essentially that they've been

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Speaker 2: able to get a lot of food. So anyway, it's

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Speaker 2: a signal for them to communicate with other Flamingos.

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Speaker 1: And if you're a Flamingo listening to this podcast, you

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Speaker 1: are now also getting dating advice.

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Speaker 2: That's right. There you go. And the Flamingos also do

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Speaker 2: pretty cool dances and so like buy good outfits and

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Speaker 2: learn to dance. You're welcome. But the babies are actually

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Speaker 2: not pink when they're born.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Is that because they haven't eaten this stuff yet?

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Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, they are dull colors, and then

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Speaker 2: eventually they'll become pink when they get it from their diet.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know any of this. I learned it from

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Speaker 2: doing a little bit of research. But what I really

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Speaker 2: did for this question was call in an old friend

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Speaker 2: of mine who is an expert. So I called my friend, well,

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Speaker 2: and by call I mean I contacted on Facebook Messenger

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Speaker 2: my friend Caitlin Kite, who in twenty fifteen released a

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Speaker 2: book called Flamingos about flamingos ooh shocker. And I shared

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Speaker 2: the question with her and she was sort of a

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Speaker 2: pulled like.

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Speaker 1: At the idea of eating baby flamingos.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think you've made Bernard out to be

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Speaker 2: a little bit worse than that. He didn't say he

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Speaker 2: was gonna eat baby flamingos in particular, and they're not pink,

433
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:31,400
Speaker 2: so you know that wouldn't make sense, all.

434
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,359
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, okay, eat the old grampa flamingos, Bernard.

435
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. No, the robust flamingos with

436
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:38,159
Speaker 2: good territories.

437
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:39,439
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, exactly.

438
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 2: Anyway, so she she said, you know what a question,

439
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:46,520
Speaker 2: and she her understanding was that carotenoids can permeate lots

440
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,440
Speaker 2: of stuff. For example, the egg yolks are richly colored

441
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 2: and they have reddish what's called crop milk, and so

442
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:55,679
Speaker 2: this is essentially birds often feed their babies by eating

443
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 2: food and then throwing it up into the baby's mouth,

444
00:21:57,880 --> 00:21:59,000
Speaker 2: and they call that milk.

445
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,639
Speaker 1: Oh man I, Well, hey, look, if they're gonna make

446
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 1: milk out of oats and almonds and call that stuff milk,

447
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 1: then hey, why not?

448
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 2: Yes, why not? And so she noted that part of

449
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:11,440
Speaker 2: how they get that coloration isn't just by actually having

450
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 2: it in their feathers, but they extract the carotenoids, they

451
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 2: process the crotenoids, and then they have a gland and

452
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:21,639
Speaker 2: they can extract this like oil from the gland and

453
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 2: then rub it on their feathers and it makes their

454
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 2: feathers even pinker. And so her hypothesis is that the

455
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 2: pink is only skin deep, and so you wouldn't end

456
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,360
Speaker 2: up with pink muscles. So Bernard couldn't turn pink by

457
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,000
Speaker 2: eating the pink muscles. But when she was researching flamingos

458
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,879
Speaker 2: her book, she reached out to Paul Rose, who is

459
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 2: now a colleague of hers at the University of Exeter.

460
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 2: Paul works on flamingos and has dissected some. So she

461
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 2: was like, you know what, let's connect you to another expert.

462
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,679
Speaker 2: So this next trip in the journey brought me to Paul.

463
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:57,200
Speaker 1: Who maybe has actually seen a flamingo filet.

464
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 2: Who has in fact filayed flamingos. So here is Paul's answer.

465
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,479
Speaker 2: All of the flamingo's soft tissues, integument, and feathers are

466
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 2: stained by carotenoids from their diets. Okay, so right there

467
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 2: we know they are pink.

468
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 5: Oh.

469
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:14,719
Speaker 2: The base carotenoid ingested by the flamingo from crustaceans, algae

470
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 2: or cyanobacteria is metabolized within their liver to form a

471
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 2: range of pigments that create pink, orange, red, yellow, and

472
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 2: purple hues. Wow, the whole rainbow, the whole rainbow. As

473
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 2: a flamingo ages, you see a saturation of their skin, fat,

474
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 2: and integument with carotenoids, so the internal organs of the

475
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 2: bird can look quite bright. Okay, so Caitlin was right

476
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,120
Speaker 2: that they can wipe this pink oil to make them

477
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:43,400
Speaker 2: more pink. But they are all pink on the inside,

478
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 2: which is maybe good news for Bernard.

479
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 1: But wait, now we're leaning towards eating the flamingo meat.

480
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 2: Right right, That's right, that's where we are right now.

481
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 2: I know. So Paul goes on to say, we know

482
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 2: that the greater flamingo uses carotenoid saturated prene oil to

483
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 2: enhance the color of its plumage during breeding season, but

484
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 2: this has yet to be described in the other species,

485
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 2: although it's highly likely they too have saturated pre and oil. Okay,

486
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,160
Speaker 2: so that's the oil stuff we already talked about. Here's

487
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 2: the kicker. If you ate a flamingo, that's right, we've

488
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 2: made a professional scientist go here. If you ate a flamingo,

489
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 2: you would not turn pink, as we are unable to

490
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 2: metabolize carotenoids in the same way as the birds do.

491
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 2: You would likely die though, as they consume some very

492
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 2: noxious blue green algae that are often neurotoxic.

493
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: Wow.

494
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 2: So, Bernard, Bernard, you you've been misled. This is not

495
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 2: a good idea. Do not eat the flamingos. You will

496
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 2: not turn pink, and you might die.

497
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: Go have a nice eggplant dish or some portabellos if

498
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: you need umami. But flamingos do not seem to be

499
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 1: something that you should be eating.

500
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 2: Leave those beautiful birds alone, Bernard. All right, So let's

501
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 2: go ahead and see if we've convinced Bernard, whose name

502
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 2: I I hope I've said correctly because I've said it

503
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 2: many times. Now let's go ahead and see what he

504
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: has to say and if we've convinced him to not

505
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 2: raid the local zoo in search of flamingos.

506
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,640
Speaker 4: Thanks Kelly and Daniel for all the insights, both from

507
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 4: your personal life and zoology. It was not only an

508
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 4: interesting and most useful answer, but the journey there also

509
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 4: helped me to get rid of some misconceptions I had.

510
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 4: I'm quite relieved that I can stick to my lifestyle,

511
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 4: and so is the very attractive flamingo community here in

512
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 4: the Munich Zoo.

513
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we are answering questions from

514
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: listeners like you. If you have a question about the

515
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 1: nature of the universe, whether you should have a flamingo burger,

516
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: or how to protect yourself from nuclear fallout, please write

517
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: to us. We love answering your questions. And this last

518
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: question comes from a longtime listener who's asked us lots

519
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: and lots of questions over the years. This is a

520
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: question from Petrie in Waterloo.

521
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:17,600
Speaker 2: Petrie always asks fantastic questions and provides fantastic answers. For

522
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 2: our Person on the Street's responses at the beginning of

523
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 2: some of our episodes, and you too can share your

524
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 2: responses if you write us at questions at Danielankelly dot org.

525
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 5: Hi Daniel and Kelly, this is Petri from Waterloo, Canada,

526
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 5: and I have a question that I think relates to

527
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 5: the both of you. I was watching some science fiction recently.

528
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 5: In the show, the characters were exposed to what they

529
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 5: called hard radiation. To keep themselves alive, they injected themselves

530
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 5: with iodine. So my question is this, From a particle

531
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 5: physics perspective, what is hard radiation and what role, if any,

532
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,439
Speaker 5: would iodine play in protecting us from it? From a

533
00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 5: biology perspective, how does radiation exposure cause injury? And what

534
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 5: is happening physiologically? How can damage at the molecular level

535
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 5: cause issues at the organ level? Thank you very much.

536
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: I love this question because it's something you see in

537
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: science fiction and you hear in popular science all the time,

538
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: and hey, that might actually be important these days. You

539
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,479
Speaker 1: never know what's going to happen. Yeah, so it's important

540
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: that people are well informed.

541
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, especially with all of this chat about

542
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 2: moving to Mars. If you could just take iodine and

543
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 2: radiation would not be a problem anymore. We wouldn't have

544
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 2: to live underground. So there's a lot hanging on this

545
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 2: answer being correct.

546
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: All right, So Petrie's first question is what is hard

547
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: radiation exactly? And the way you think about radiation is basically,

548
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,640
Speaker 1: like tiny little bullets. These are high energy particles. They

549
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: can be photons, they can be electrons, they can be

550
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: helium nuclei, they can be protons, they can be anything, essentially,

551
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,239
Speaker 1: but they are high energy particles, and some of them

552
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: penetrate into your body more deeply. Some of them absorb

553
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: on the surface. Episode recently about the different kinds of

554
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: radiation being used to treat cancer and so like X

555
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: rays versus electrons versus protons all have a different deposition pattern,

556
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: but basically all of them tear through your body, deposit

557
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: some energy, and do a bunch of damage. And so

558
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: you don't want radiation in your body, unless, of course,

559
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: you're trying to kill a cancer tumor, in which case

560
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,239
Speaker 1: you want to aim it very very tightly, so that

561
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: it does damage to the cancer tumor and not to

562
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: something important like your spleen.

563
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 2: Very delicate process.

564
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: Yes, and radiation could hurt you both from the outside

565
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 1: if there's like radioactive decays happening around you, like you're

566
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: standing next to plutonium or something, and also inside you

567
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: if you ingest something, it can do its radioactive thing

568
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: while inside you. It's like bringing little guns inside you

569
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: and shooting. So this is the way, like the Russian

570
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: regime likes to kill people and of put like polonium

571
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: or something in their coffee. They drink it. It's not

572
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: part of your body, and those plonium atoms are now

573
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: decaying inside you, creating a radiation's out from within you.

574
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: So that's pretty bad.

575
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 2: It was Britain's so it was tea, right, not coffee.

576
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: Oh it was a tea, yes all right, so be

577
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: careful if you're all out there enjoying your tea. Kelly

578
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: just ruined it for you.

579
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, drink coffee instead problem salt.

580
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: And it is really quite dangerous because these metals can

581
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: be very very hard to get out of your system.

582
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: So it really can be like a death sentence if

583
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,719
Speaker 1: you get this stuff inside of you. It's really terrible

584
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: and there's really horrible stories about people putting radioactive elements

585
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: in like other people's coffee in the lab when they're

586
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: competing with them, and like, yeah, really really bad stuff.

587
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: That was a physicist, right, I'm guessing.

588
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: I think it was a chemist. I think it was

589
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: a chemist. I don't want to slander anyone, but probably

590
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: a chemist.

591
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 2: Oh that makes sense.

592
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: All right. So that's what radiation is. It's energetic particles

593
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: tearing through you, depositing energy, probably breaking up your DNA,

594
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: up drink cell walls, all kinds of bad stuff. And

595
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, radiation is all around us. We are surrounded

596
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: by radiations. Radiation on peanut butter, there's radiation from bananas,

597
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: there's radiation from the ground, there's radiation from the sky.

598
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: Is constant grates hit the atmosphere and the cane to

599
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: muons which tear through you. This neutrinos passing through you.

600
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: Not all of it hurt too. Somebody goes right through

601
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: you and at certain levels just sort of like what

602
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: we've evolved to withstand. And it's important as part of

603
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: like mutation. The reason my sun is better looking than

604
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: I am and faster than I am is maybe because

605
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: of cosmic gray mutations. I can't explain it any other way.

606
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 2: I think it's Katrina's genes is what it is.

607
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: I think maybe she just cloned herself in the lab,

608
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,719
Speaker 1: and I don't think I was involved at all. No,

609
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: I love that kid, and I hope you got the

610
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: best of me. Anyway, const mutations are important in creating

611
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: new opportunities and trying new stuff in the next generation.

612
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: So it's not like all radiation bad, right, It's like

613
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: a lot of things. It's too much radiation, it's bad.

614
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even a little bit of radiation could

615
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: cause a bad mutation. I think, you know, the probability

616
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 2: that you get a mutation that makes things better as

617
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 2: opposed to makes a new neutral or a worse change

618
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 2: is pretty low.

619
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

620
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 2: So I think in general you want to protect yourself

621
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: from too much radiation.

622
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yes, Now I was thinking more globally on

623
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: a philosophical scale, like if you could go back and

624
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: shield the Earth from all radiation from space a few

625
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: billion years ago, what would the Earth look like now?

626
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: We don't know. It might have a lot less diversity

627
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: on it, we might not be here. And so radiation

628
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: plays a role in evolution. But yeah, you should never

629
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: choose radiation. It's not like a little bit is good

630
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: for you and a lot and it's bad for you, yeah.

631
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 2: Right, and our bodies have ways of trying to fix

632
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: the damage that radiation causes.

633
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

634
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: But anyway, so you would not want to be living

635
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 2: on the surface of Mars without any protection from radiation exactly.

636
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 6: No.

637
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: I would want to bring a lot of flamingos with

638
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: me to form like a shield, you know, like a

639
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: dome of flamingos between me and the radioactive source.

640
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 2: Yeah no, And then you have your food source also,

641
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 2: and it's very convenient. But I'm not joining your settlement, Daniel.

642
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: All right. So the lore is that iodine can protect you,

643
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: and people say you should take iodine if there's been

644
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: a nuclear disaster or whatever. So what are we talking

645
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: about here, Well, iodine is something that your body needs

646
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: but doesn't produce, and it absorbs it as you eat it.

647
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: So there's like trace amounts of food and water, and

648
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: you need it for all sorts of chemistry that's happening

649
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: in your body, and so you take it in as

650
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: you eat it or drink it or whatever. So your

651
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: body absorbs it and a lot of it ends up

652
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: in your thyroid because that's the part of your body

653
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: that needs iodine, and a problem is that a lot

654
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: of nuclear disasters can create radioactive iodine. So, for example,

655
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: iodine one thirty one and iodine one thirty three. Iodine

656
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: one thirty one is a major fission product for uranium

657
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: and plutonium. So like Fukushima and chernobyl, there's a lot

658
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: of iodine one thirty one produced. It's like three percent

659
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: of the total fission products by weight are iodine one

660
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: thirty one and iodine one thirty one is radioactive. Half

661
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 1: life is like eight days, and it shoots off an

662
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: energetic electron or a positron, depending on the charges, and

663
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: you end up with photons and decays into radioactivized tope

664
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: of zenome, which is then the case again emitting another

665
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: gamma particle. And so basically, if you have this around,

666
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: your body's going to take it in, because your body

667
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: takes in iodine and stores it because it needs it.

668
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: And if the idone one thirty one around, your body's

669
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: going to take that in and store it. Now it's

670
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: going to be inside you doing it's a radioactive thing,

671
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: which is bad.

672
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 2: And so we're talking about one kind of radiation, and

673
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 2: there's lots of kinds of radiation. So we are only

674
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 2: really honing in on when iodine causes thyroid cancer.

675
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can take iodine, and the theory is

676
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: that if you take good, normal, non radioactive iodine, you'll

677
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: fill up on iodine, and then if radioactive iodine comes

678
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: into your system, your body won't store it and it

679
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: won't keep it in your thyroid, which would cause you

680
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: thyroid cancer. But having iodine in your body doesn't protect

681
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: you against radiation from the outside or other kinds of

682
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: things you might absorb. You can't just like take iodine

683
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: and then have a snack of plutonium and be fine,

684
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: for example, or stand in front of an X ray

685
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: machine and then be like ping ping ping. This doesn't

686
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: bother me. There's no protection against radiation. It's not like

687
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: it builds a shield or prevents damage or does anything

688
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: like that. The only thing eating iodine can do is

689
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: prevent your body from absorbing radioactive iodine. So you just

690
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: make sure you're filled up on iodine.

691
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 2: So like, if the Russians are after you, you can't be

692
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 2: safe just because every morning you take an iodine pill.

693
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: That's right. Seven does not fill up on iodine to

694
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: protect themself from being poisoned. By the Russians if But

695
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: it is true right that if you are filled up

696
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: on normal, good iodine, you are protected against absorbing bad

697
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,720
Speaker 1: radioactive iodine. So it's not a complete protection against all radiation,

698
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 1: but it does prevent you from absorbing bad iodine which

699
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 1: would give you thyroid cancer in the future, and that

700
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: would be bad. And so like Germany's Federal Ministry for

701
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: the Environment says, iodine supplements can help after a nuclear

702
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: power plant accident inner radius of about one hundred kilometers around,

703
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: so it's not nothing. It can protect you and any

704
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: protection you have is good protection. Right. You should know

705
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 1: also that your thyroid doesn't store iodine for very long,

706
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: so you need to have taken it very recently. Right.

707
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: So experts say the iodine block only has a chance

708
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: of helping if the good iodine is taken just before

709
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 1: contact with radioactive iodine. And also be careful. Too much

710
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: iodine bad for you, right, Like lots of things, it

711
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 1: becomes poison. So it's complicated, right, Yes, it can protect

712
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: you from absorbing bad radioactive iodine if you have taken

713
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: it just before the radioactive iodine shows up and you

714
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: didn't take too much. But it doesn't protect you against

715
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: basically any other form of radiation boom, including radioactive iodine

716
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 1: that the case just outside your body and shoots its

717
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: little radioactive bullets inside you.

718
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, what a pain in the rear end.

719
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 2: So you should take the German Federal Ministries advice you

720
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: should take your iodine. But while you're taking it, you

721
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 2: should be heading out of that one hundred kilometer radius

722
00:35:58,520 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 2: and get out of there as soon as you can.

723
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so like there's a scene I remember

724
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: on this show for All Mankind, which in general is

725
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: great and gets the science right, where they're going to

726
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: have to walk on the surface of the Moon and

727
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: be exposed to radiation and they're like, take idi. Oh,

728
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: it's you know all right, it's not going to prevent

729
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 1: you from being shredded by cosmic rays, etcetera, etcetera. So

730
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: anybody living on the moon right now, be very very careful.

731
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: Okay, you're going too far in the other direction. I

732
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 2: was talking to some people the other day who don't

733
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 2: think Americans have landed on the moon. So anyway, there's

734
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 2: none of us up there right now.

735
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: Well, there was some news segment recently where an American

736
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: politician I named him said he had recently spoken to

737
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: an American astronaut on the moon. He just misspoke, he

738
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 1: meant somebody in the space station. But the Internet went

739
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: crazy with theories about like, oh, he's just revealed the

740
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 1: fact that we have a secret moon base and that's

741
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: where we're talking to the aliens. And the Internet. Oh,

742
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: I love you the Internet, but sometimes you're crazy.

743
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I'm not a politician. Every once in

744
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 2: a while they've said like little slips and the Internet

745
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 2: has gone crazy, and I'm like, man, the number of

746
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 2: times I slip up in a day is colossal. I

747
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 2: can't imagine being on the hook for every word that

748
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 2: I said.

749
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: Did you hear that time? Recently, some politicians said we

750
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: now have technology that allows us to control space and time,

751
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: by which he probably meant like, we can make phone

752
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: calls and we can travel around the Earth. Yeah, but

753
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: the Internet was like, see they make wormholes.

754
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, oh gosh.

755
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: Anyway, the Internet, if you have questions about what the

756
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: American government can and cannot do, please write to us.

757
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:35,719
Speaker 1: We're happy to talk to you about it, to give

758
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: us answers. I actually did get a phone call once

759
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: from a US congress person who heard some of these

760
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,360
Speaker 1: crazy internet theories and he's a listener of the podcast,

761
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 1: and he called me up and he's like, hey, tell me,

762
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 1: is any of this real physics? And we had a

763
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 1: great conversation about it. Even though he and I would

764
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: not vote the same way on basically any political issue,

765
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: we came together to talk about physics. And so I

766
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: like to believe physics is the great uniter. We all

767
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 1: want to understand the universe, and we can all talk

768
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: calmly and productively about what we do and don't know

769
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: about it.

770
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: And we are all squishy meatbags. So biology brings us

771
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 2: together as well. And so I am also always available

772
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 2: to answer science questions to anyone of any political stripe

773
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 2: who has them.

774
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: That's right. Are you a pink meat bag? Do you

775
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: want to become a pink meatbag? Kelly has got you covered.

776
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Doesn't matter what country you are from.

777
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 2: Send us your meatbag questions.

778
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: We really do want to hear from you. So send

779
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: us questions to questions at Danielankelly dot org. And in

780
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: the meantime, think deeply about the universe, ruminate on how

781
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 1: it all works and what we do and do not understand.

782
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Join us next time.

783
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 2: We look forward to hearing from you.

784
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 6: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for answering my question

785
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 6: on the podcast. It makes perfect sense that an individual

786
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:46,879
Speaker 6: would not want to be low on idine when there's

787
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 6: an unstable isotope present in the environment, and it clearly

788
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 6: does not provide protection against all types of radiation exposure

789
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 6: like it is sometimes portrayed in the media. Keep up

790
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 6: the great work. Thank you again for your answer and

791
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 6: for the great podcast.

792
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

793
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you.

794
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: We really would. We want to know what questions you

795
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: have about this Extraordinary Universe.

796
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

797
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,480
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

798
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 2: back to you.

799
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

800
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly.

801
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 2: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

802
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on

803
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 2: all of those platforms. You can find us at d

804
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: and Kuniverse.

805
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: Don't be shy write to us