Speaker 1: Snowflakes are hexagons, and each one is unique. Their amazing
Speaker 1: symmetry just adds to their mystique.
Speaker 2: I've heard flamingos are pink because of their diet. What
Speaker 2: if I ate a flamingo? Would I turn pink?
Speaker 1: If I tried it, i'dne injections protect from radiation. I
Speaker 1: saw it on TV, but I don't understand the mechanism.
Speaker 1: How exactly can that be?
Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's
Speaker 2: answers will make it right. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe. Hello. I'm Kelly Winer Smith. I study parasites
Speaker 2: and space and I am so excited about our flamingo
Speaker 2: question today.
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
Speaker 1: at UC Irvine, and I've never eaten a flamingo.
Speaker 2: I haven't either, as we'll see later in the show,
Speaker 2: we probably ought not to. But so my question for
Speaker 2: you today, Daniel. So we are recording the day before
Speaker 2: Google Calendars tells me that it's your birthday.
Speaker 1: How does Google know that?
Speaker 2: I'm actually not sure. I must have put it in
Speaker 2: at some point in the past, because you know, I've
Speaker 2: been co hosting with you for a while now, But
Speaker 2: so how do you celebrate birthdays?
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm turning fifty tomorrow, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a big milestone. But I actually don't really celebrate my birthday.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's that special a day, and
Speaker 1: I'm not really that intwo birthdays and sort of like
Speaker 1: being on the spot that way. I sort of prefer
Speaker 1: to fade into the background. And so to counteract that,
Speaker 1: I've actually been rounding up my age to fifty for
Speaker 1: a few years now, are you serious, which Katina is
Speaker 1: not very excited about. Yeah, especially because when she turned
Speaker 1: forty six, I welcomed her into the round up to
Speaker 1: fifty club and she was like, no, thank you.
Speaker 2: You can stay there alone. Daniel. Wow, I'll have to
Speaker 2: remember that strategy. I also may fade into the background
Speaker 2: birthday person, but I hadn't thought about the rounding up strategy.
Speaker 2: And I think I'm so I always forget how old
Speaker 2: I am. But I'm forty three, okay, is that right? No,
Speaker 2: my birthday's in October and it's twenty twenty. I'll be
Speaker 2: forty three in October, so I'm forty two. So it's
Speaker 2: not quite time for me to round up yet, but
Speaker 2: I will. I'll get there soon.
Speaker 1: Well, Katrina tells me it's ridiculous to round up, but
Speaker 1: I say, hey, look, it's arbitrary to round up to
Speaker 1: the year. People aren't super precise about how old they are.
Speaker 1: When you ask them. They don't say I'm forty two
Speaker 1: years and seven months and three days. They round up
Speaker 1: to the year, right, So I think, hey, I just
Speaker 1: round up to the decade. You know, what's the big deal?
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, No, Physicists are always you know, making broad
Speaker 2: assumptions about things and rounding, and so you might as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Pie is three and Daniel's fifty, what's the big deal?
Speaker 2: That's right there? You go, Well, I hope you have
Speaker 2: an amazing decade. Arbitrary though that milestone may be to you.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're not here to talk about Daniel's birthday.
Speaker 1: We're here to answer your questions about the nature of
Speaker 1: the universe. How does it all work, how does it
Speaker 1: fit together? How can we make it click together in
Speaker 1: your mind? And so, as usual, we invite people to
Speaker 1: send us their questions right to us to questions at
Speaker 1: Danielankelly dot org. We write back to everybody with a response,
Speaker 1: we either give you the answer, or make a joke,
Speaker 1: or say we don't know, here's something to read.
Speaker 2: That's right. Lately, often I've been giving a reading suggestions,
Speaker 2: or if we don't know, we say we'll find out.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it becomes a question on a listener Questions episode.
Speaker 2: And today we have a lot of examples of that.
Speaker 1: That's right, So let's jump right in. Our first question
Speaker 1: comes from Zach in Minnesota. Zach is a question about
Speaker 1: why snowflakes are all different.
Speaker 3: Hey, they're extraordinaries. It's winter here in Minnesota and we
Speaker 3: just got a ton of snow. My dad took a
Speaker 3: really great picture of a beautifully symmetrical snowflake. I understand
Speaker 3: why snowflakes tend to form hexagonally. I think because of
Speaker 3: the crystallization pattern of water. But I don't understand why
Speaker 3: snowflakes so often come out looking so perfectly symmetrical. Why
Speaker 3: should they form exactly the same intricate crystallization on one
Speaker 3: arm as opposed to the other arm. I know this
Speaker 3: isn't a universal thing. Some snowflakes aren't symmetrical, but so
Speaker 3: many are. It just seems unlikely. Is this just because
Speaker 3: there are so many snowflakes or is there something deeper
Speaker 3: going on? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Now, Daniel. If you and I were really good at this,
Speaker 2: we would have saved this for a Christmas episode, but
Speaker 2: instead we're going to release it in the middle of
Speaker 2: the summer.
Speaker 1: That's when people want snow, right, That's when they're missing it.
Speaker 1: You know, in the middle of winter people are like, Ugh,
Speaker 1: don't talk to me about snow. I'm fed up with it.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it depends on where you are on
Speaker 2: this planet. Right it's winter somewhere. So okay, this is
Speaker 2: going to be a really good episode for the Australians
Speaker 2: if they're into snow.
Speaker 1: Or if you're sweltering in Texas this summer. Listen to
Speaker 1: this frosty episode about snowflakes.
Speaker 2: Amazing. All right, So, Daniel, I have to admit that
Speaker 2: I don't know why each snowflake has a unique shape.
Speaker 2: Can we start there before we get to why they're symmetrical?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that is the right direction to start from.
Speaker 1: This is a really cool question because I think Zach
Speaker 1: is thinking about how the snowflakes form, and he's wondering like,
Speaker 1: how can one arm form the same pattern as the
Speaker 1: arm on the other side. Is there some global for
Speaker 1: us controlling it? And so you're right, we need to
Speaker 1: think about the symmetry and the diversity of these objects.
Speaker 1: And snowflakes are really fascinating. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of human understanding of snowflakes doesn't have
Speaker 1: a complete answer to this question. Snowflakes remain mysterious. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, fascinating.
Speaker 2: There's not enough money in snowflakes, man.
Speaker 1: But if you go out into a snowstorm and you
Speaker 1: put out your hand and you see snowflakes land on
Speaker 1: your palm, and you can look at them briefly, just
Speaker 1: before they melt, and you notice they are not all
Speaker 1: the same. There's an enormous variety of snowflakes form this
Speaker 1: pattern and that pattern and the other pattern. And you know,
Speaker 1: people have known this for a long long time. This
Speaker 1: is famous quote from Thereaux who says, how full of
Speaker 1: the creative genius is the air in which these are generated?
Speaker 2: Beautiful? But the answer is science science.
Speaker 1: But you know he was presient about this even though
Speaker 1: he didn't understand it. The answer is something about the
Speaker 1: chemistry of air, which we'll get to.
Speaker 2: I mean, you said a word I don't like, but
Speaker 2: let's let's move on anywhere.
Speaker 1: So your question was about the symmetry, so let's start
Speaker 1: with that, like why do snowflakes form this white, weird
Speaker 1: six prong pattern anyway, And that does come down to
Speaker 1: chemistry how the water molecules themselves bond to form the
Speaker 1: nexus of the crystal at the core. But let's back
Speaker 1: up and start with like, how does snow form, where
Speaker 1: does it come from? It comes from water freezing in clouds.
Speaker 1: And the things I understand about water is we're all
Speaker 1: familiar with ice and then liquid water and of course
Speaker 1: water vapor, steam, right, But water has complicated chemistry depending
Speaker 1: on the pressure. So down to the surface and normal
Speaker 1: atmosphere pressure, water has those three phases. But if you
Speaker 1: go up into the upper atmosphere or out into space,
Speaker 1: for example, where pressure is very very low, there is
Speaker 1: no liquid water. There's only solid in gas. And so
Speaker 1: if you have solid water and you heat it up,
Speaker 1: you don't get liquid water. Out in space, you get vapor.
Speaker 1: It goes directly from solid to gas. So there aren't
Speaker 1: three phases everywhere you can look up this phase diagram
Speaker 1: of water to learn more and that's going to turn
Speaker 1: out to be key. So what happens is you have
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and there's warm moist air that gets pushed
Speaker 1: upward when it hits the front, and that water condenses
Speaker 1: into droplets. So the air is also filled with like
Speaker 1: tiny dust particles, and each of those like can nucleate
Speaker 1: a tiny little droplet, and that's what a cloud is.
Speaker 1: Cloud is all these water droplets that have been nucleated
Speaker 1: as warm moist air has gone up and the water
Speaker 1: sort of comes out of the solution.
Speaker 2: Of the air and nucleated just means it's like surrounding
Speaker 2: the piece to dust.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm okay, yeah. Like you might ask why do
Speaker 1: you get a water droplet here and not one centimeter
Speaker 1: or one micron over? Like why do they form where
Speaker 1: they form and not somewhere else? The answer is dust.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the way in the early universe
Speaker 1: we had like slight over densities in the plasma and
Speaker 1: that's what gravity grabbed onto to nucleate the formation of
Speaker 1: what turned into galaxies and stuff, Like why did galaxies
Speaker 1: form here and there? There has to be a reason
Speaker 1: it starts, and in the case of water droplets, it's
Speaker 1: tiny particles of dust.
Speaker 2: I heard it was also tiny bacteria that are in
Speaker 2: the atmosphere, Is that true? Or their bacteria around there
Speaker 2: forming snowflakes.
Speaker 1: There are bacteria out there. And dust is a very
Speaker 1: broad term. It includes lots of tiny stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: the way like sand does. And if you zoom in
Speaker 1: on this amazing variety of stuff in the atmosphere, we
Speaker 1: just call it dust. We can have a whole another
Speaker 1: episode about it, like what is dust?
Speaker 2: Sure that sounds fascinating.
Speaker 1: Anyway, you put all these together, you have a cloud.
Speaker 1: A cloud is like a million tons of water hanging
Speaker 1: there in the air, sort of amazing. So now temperatures
Speaker 1: drop right, and some of those droplets freeze, some of
Speaker 1: them evaporate become a vapor, but some of them freeze
Speaker 1: and you get a little crystal. And so here's where
Speaker 1: the chemistry comes in. You have this water molecule, which
Speaker 1: is like an oxygen and two hydrogens, and the two
Speaker 1: hydrogens come off at an angle, right, It's not like
Speaker 1: a line where you have hydrogen oxygen hydrogen. If you
Speaker 1: seem like a little drawing of water molecule you know,
Speaker 1: the hydrogen, it's like pulled close together. The angle between
Speaker 1: them is like one hundred and four degrees or something,
Speaker 1: and so when these things come together to make a crystal,
Speaker 1: they click together sort of like lego bricks. Right, there's
Speaker 1: bonds between them, and that makes a little hexagon. So
Speaker 1: you link up six water molecules. The oxygens are like
Speaker 1: the vertices on a hexagon, and then the bond between
Speaker 1: the oxygen and one hydrogen is like the edge of
Speaker 1: that hexagon, and then there are six hydrogen molecules sort
Speaker 1: of sticking out. But it makes this ring, this hexagonal ring,
Speaker 1: and then you just keep adding water molecules and it
Speaker 1: builds out and out and out, and you get a
Speaker 1: hexagonal crystal.
Speaker 2: Okay, so why do you get six in the center?
Speaker 2: Is that just available binding sites?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think it's because chemistry.
Speaker 1: Man, you get six because the angles. So imagine your
Speaker 1: oxygen atom and has two hydrogens coming off and there's
Speaker 1: one hundred degrees between them, which means is like two
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty degrees on the other side, right, So
Speaker 1: the other water molecule comes in with its hydrogen. It
Speaker 1: comes around the back on that big open space and
Speaker 1: it splits that in half, and that's what determines the angle.
Speaker 1: So half of two sixty you get about one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty and that's the angle there that you build
Speaker 1: up to make the hexagons.
Speaker 2: Got it? Okay? I remember in organic chemistry there's a
Speaker 2: reaction called a backside attack, and the biologists in that
Speaker 2: class we could not get over that anyway.
Speaker 1: All right, moving on, all right, So initially you have
Speaker 1: this tiny, tiny crystal. It's like microns wide. And by
Speaker 1: the way, if you are out chopping and you see
Speaker 1: something called hexagonal water, that's a scam. It's not better
Speaker 1: for you. It's just pseudoscience, supplemental nonsense.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of that. What do they claim me?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even want to give them
Speaker 1: more airtime.
Speaker 2: Okay, save your money people, exactly.
Speaker 1: All right. So what we're talking about so far is
Speaker 1: just the core of the snowflake, right, it's this hexagonal crystal,
Speaker 1: and that can require like a million of these droplets. Wow,
Speaker 1: you have a tiny number of snowflakes compared to the
Speaker 1: number of droplets. It really takes a lot of droplets
Speaker 1: to make one snowflake.
Speaker 2: So why doesn't the snowflake just become infinite. Why did
Speaker 2: at some point does it stop accumulating more waters.
Speaker 1: Well, it has limited time in the cloud. So what
Speaker 1: happens next is you have this seated crystal which blows
Speaker 1: around inside the cloud, accumulating more and more, and then
Speaker 1: eventually it gets so heavy that it drops, right, And
Speaker 1: so it's a limited time in the cloud. Otherwise it
Speaker 1: would form like a cloud sized crystal, which should be awesome,
Speaker 1: and maybe that happens on some alien planet, but then.
Speaker 2: It falls on your head and that would be too much.
Speaker 1: So we're set up now to answer Zach's question. Right,
Speaker 1: we start with his crystal, and we understand why it's
Speaker 1: a hexagon, But then why does it form six identical arms,
Speaker 1: each of which are the same on one crystal, but
Speaker 1: different from all the other crystals? Right? And when I
Speaker 1: was first reading about this, my hypothesis was maybe it's
Speaker 1: some like impurity in the crystal, where like something has
Speaker 1: happened at the core, which then determines how it grows outwards. Right,
Speaker 1: you need something coordinating across the arms. But it turns
Speaker 1: out it's not that at all. And we know that
Speaker 1: because of amazing experiments done by a physicist Ukichiro Nakaya
Speaker 1: in Hokkaido in Japan in the nineteen thirties. He was
Speaker 1: really curious about snowflakes. He just like went for walks
Speaker 1: and saw snowflakes, and he asked the same question, but
Speaker 1: he wanted to figure it out. He did all these experiments,
Speaker 1: so he replicated the conditions of a cloud in the lab,
Speaker 1: and what he saw was that the formation of the
Speaker 1: crystal beyond the initial seed depends extremely sensitively on the
Speaker 1: temperature and on the density of water vapor. So, for example,
Speaker 1: you can get these like weird long needles that form,
Speaker 1: and you crank up the temperature a little bit and
Speaker 1: you get thin plates, or you get dendrites, or you
Speaker 1: get another formation. You crank it up another little bit
Speaker 1: and you get back to needles or back to columns.
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of really complicated like chemistry
Speaker 1: and solid sat phistics that's happening there where these crystals
Speaker 1: are forming in certain patterns. Again super duper sensitive to
Speaker 1: the density and the temperature.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm following you there, but I still feel like
Speaker 2: there's a jump to make, yes to hit symmetry.
Speaker 1: So now start with you or quarter crystal, right, the
Speaker 1: quarter crystal, some hexagon. Now it's going to blow through
Speaker 1: the cloud. The cloud is not uniform in density and temperature.
Speaker 1: There are regions of higher density, there are regions of
Speaker 1: lower density. There are colder and moral regions. As that
Speaker 1: snowflake blows through the cloud, its crystals grow depending on
Speaker 1: the density and temperature it's experiencing moment to moment. So
Speaker 1: like right now it grows in this certain pattern. Ooh,
Speaker 1: then the density drops and now it's going to make needles. Oh,
Speaker 1: now the density goes up. Ooh, now it's back to
Speaker 1: making these flat things. And so that's what controls the
Speaker 1: growth of each of the arms. And because all of
Speaker 1: the arms experience the same unique path through the cloud,
Speaker 1: which gives it a unique temperature and density history, that's
Speaker 1: why every snowflake is different. If two snowflakes had exactly
Speaker 1: the same trajectory through the cloud, you would expect them
Speaker 1: to be exactly the same. And that's probably true, but
Speaker 1: impossible to test, right, So we think the variety of
Speaker 1: snowflakes comes from their individual experience through the temperature and
Speaker 1: density fluctuations in the cloud which control their growth. And
Speaker 1: that also explains why they're the same on individual snowflake
Speaker 1: because on an individual snowflake, all the arms have the
Speaker 1: same experience, the same history through the density and the temperature.
Speaker 1: So it's really kind of an awesome like probe through
Speaker 1: the cloud.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, yeah, and beautiful and I'm trying to pull
Speaker 2: together like the Hallmark version, like we're all a result
Speaker 2: of the unique paths that we take. Anyway, very cool.
Speaker 1: It's very cool, and it's sort of amazing and lucky,
Speaker 1: and it's another example of how amazing complexity emerges in world.
Speaker 1: You know, this could have been totally boring. It could
Speaker 1: have been that snowflakes all just form hexagons and then
Speaker 1: drop and they're all the same, and like, yeah, hexagons
Speaker 1: are cool. But because they're so sensitive to density and temperature,
Speaker 1: we get this incredible variety of beautiful forms. It amazes me.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder about that same philosophical question we've
Speaker 1: talked about before, like why do we think that this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is beautiful? Are we programmed to do
Speaker 1: it somehow? Is it because we evolved on this planet
Speaker 1: or is it just something deep about being alive and
Speaker 1: aware in the universe? Like do aliens find their ugly
Speaker 1: planet beautiful.
Speaker 2: Also well, it is now the peak heat and humid
Speaker 2: period in Virginia, so I am looking forward to seeing
Speaker 2: the snow. As you said, let's see if Zach feels
Speaker 2: satisfied with this unique answer.
Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for the beautiful answer
Speaker 3: to my question about these beautiful crystals, especially since it
Speaker 3: meant wading into a bit of chemistry to do so.
Speaker 3: I too was surprised that the crystal shape was not
Speaker 3: intrinsic to the nucleation dust, but rather a kind of
Speaker 3: record of the snowflake experience as it drifts through its cloud.
Speaker 3: It makes me wonder if there are other polar molecules
Speaker 3: that could form snowflakes with other basic patterns instead of hexagons,
Speaker 3: like squares or triangles, or if there would be some
Speaker 3: molecules that would tend to make three D structures instead
Speaker 3: of planer ones. Anyhow, on a personal note, my son
Speaker 3: was born just a week ago, and you have me
Speaker 3: smiling thinking about how he's going to gather experiences as
Speaker 3: he grows to become something unique and beautiful as well.
Speaker 3: Thanks again, guys.
Speaker 2: All Right, Daniel, this is quite possibly the most important
Speaker 2: question we've ever answered on the show.
Speaker 1: Solunny because it determines what you're gonna have for your
Speaker 1: birthday dinner.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, and also his biology, so that automatically puts
Speaker 2: it in the top fifty percent. But let's enjoy this
Speaker 2: amazing question from Bernard and Munich.
Speaker 4: Hi, Danielle and Kelly. This is Bernhardt from Munich in Germany.
Speaker 4: I understand that flamingos are pink because of their diet,
Speaker 4: but it's the pink color just in their feathers or
Speaker 4: also in their flesh. And could I become pink if
Speaker 4: I would start eating flamingos instead of my usual vegetarian food.
Speaker 2: Love your show by incredible.
Speaker 1: How seriously do you think Bernard is considering abandoning his vegetarianism.
Speaker 1: Do we have a weighty responsibility here?
Speaker 2: You know? So I was reading about the frequency at
Speaker 2: which people drop vegetarianism, and it is pretty high. I
Speaker 2: think it's something like sixty to seventy five percent of
Speaker 2: the people who become vegetarians will not stay vegetarians. But
Speaker 2: I really doubt that he's going to drop his vegetarianism
Speaker 2: for flamingos, and not least of all because it would
Speaker 2: be very hard for him to get his hands on
Speaker 2: a flamingo.
Speaker 1: Well, your husband is a dedicated vegetarian, isn't he.
Speaker 2: He is, Yeah, he's been a vegetarian for twenty years.
Speaker 2: And I think the worst thing that I have done
Speaker 2: to him during our relationship is I once left a
Speaker 2: few pounds of ur ducan in his fringe when we
Speaker 2: were dating, and I forgot it was there, and so
Speaker 2: he found what is it a turkey inside of a
Speaker 2: duck inside of a chicken.
Speaker 1: I think you have that backwards, but say, yeah.
Speaker 2: Sorry, chicken, it's that you are right anyway, in his refrigerator,
Speaker 2: and he was pretty grossed out anyway, Sorry, honey.
Speaker 1: Good thing there wasn't a flamingo in there as well.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. We did look up. Somebody had
Speaker 2: managed to get like twenty four creatures inside of each
Speaker 2: other and that was the max.
Speaker 1: But all right, well, let's get an answer to Bernard's question.
Speaker 1: Tell us, okay, from the beginning, why are flamingos pink? Anyway?
Speaker 2: Right? All right? So there are actually six different species
Speaker 2: of flamingos, and they are all rose colored. They get
Speaker 2: their color through their diets, and so they eat algae.
Speaker 2: They eat crustaceans, and these organisms make their own colors
Speaker 2: called krotenoioids, so they have pigments, but they aren't necessarily pink.
Speaker 2: So some organisms have ways of metabolizing carotenoids to get
Speaker 2: them to be particular colors. And so the way that
Speaker 2: the flamingos metabolize the carotenoids that they get from their
Speaker 2: food turns them pink.
Speaker 1: So metabolized means does chemistry on them, does chemistry and
Speaker 1: basically changes their color. So the things they eat are
Speaker 1: not pink, but they eat this stuff and the stuff
Speaker 1: has something in it and they do chemistry inside and
Speaker 1: that makes them pink. Is that right?
Speaker 2: That's right? Yep. So they're filter feeders and so they're
Speaker 2: eating lots and lots of tiny little things with carotenoids
Speaker 2: that they turn pink.
Speaker 1: And is it good for the flamingos to be pink?
Speaker 1: Do they care? Is it helpful in some way? Or
Speaker 1: are just like a weird oddity in our universe.
Speaker 2: There's some debates over why they're pink, but it does
Speaker 2: seem that being pink is an indicator of how healthy
Speaker 2: you are, so because they get the pink from their diet,
Speaker 2: If you are super extra pink. That is a great
Speaker 2: way of showing people.
Speaker 1: That's like a Flamingo Valentine card to my extra super pinker.
Speaker 2: That's right, something like that. Yeah, and so if you
Speaker 2: are like a super pink dude, then you are showing
Speaker 2: that you've got the best territory with the best food
Speaker 2: and you're able to get loads of food. So you'd
Speaker 2: probably be able to get loads of food for your offspring,
Speaker 2: and so it's sort of an indicator of quality that
Speaker 2: is honest, because it's showing you essentially that they've been
Speaker 2: able to get a lot of food. So anyway, it's
Speaker 2: a signal for them to communicate with other Flamingos.
Speaker 1: And if you're a Flamingo listening to this podcast, you
Speaker 1: are now also getting dating advice.
Speaker 2: That's right. There you go. And the Flamingos also do
Speaker 2: pretty cool dances and so like buy good outfits and
Speaker 2: learn to dance. You're welcome. But the babies are actually
Speaker 2: not pink when they're born.
Speaker 1: Okay, Is that because they haven't eaten this stuff yet?
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, they are dull colors, and then
Speaker 2: eventually they'll become pink when they get it from their diet.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any of this. I learned it from
Speaker 2: doing a little bit of research. But what I really
Speaker 2: did for this question was call in an old friend
Speaker 2: of mine who is an expert. So I called my friend, well,
Speaker 2: and by call I mean I contacted on Facebook Messenger
Speaker 2: my friend Caitlin Kite, who in twenty fifteen released a
Speaker 2: book called Flamingos about flamingos ooh shocker. And I shared
Speaker 2: the question with her and she was sort of a
Speaker 2: pulled like.
Speaker 1: At the idea of eating baby flamingos.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you've made Bernard out to be
Speaker 2: a little bit worse than that. He didn't say he
Speaker 2: was gonna eat baby flamingos in particular, and they're not pink,
Speaker 2: so you know that wouldn't make sense, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, okay, eat the old grampa flamingos, Bernard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. No, the robust flamingos with
Speaker 2: good territories.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so she she said, you know what a question,
Speaker 2: and she her understanding was that carotenoids can permeate lots
Speaker 2: of stuff. For example, the egg yolks are richly colored
Speaker 2: and they have reddish what's called crop milk, and so
Speaker 2: this is essentially birds often feed their babies by eating
Speaker 2: food and then throwing it up into the baby's mouth,
Speaker 2: and they call that milk.
Speaker 1: Oh man I, Well, hey, look, if they're gonna make
Speaker 1: milk out of oats and almonds and call that stuff milk,
Speaker 1: then hey, why not?
Speaker 2: Yes, why not? And so she noted that part of
Speaker 2: how they get that coloration isn't just by actually having
Speaker 2: it in their feathers, but they extract the carotenoids, they
Speaker 2: process the crotenoids, and then they have a gland and
Speaker 2: they can extract this like oil from the gland and
Speaker 2: then rub it on their feathers and it makes their
Speaker 2: feathers even pinker. And so her hypothesis is that the
Speaker 2: pink is only skin deep, and so you wouldn't end
Speaker 2: up with pink muscles. So Bernard couldn't turn pink by
Speaker 2: eating the pink muscles. But when she was researching flamingos
Speaker 2: her book, she reached out to Paul Rose, who is
Speaker 2: now a colleague of hers at the University of Exeter.
Speaker 2: Paul works on flamingos and has dissected some. So she
Speaker 2: was like, you know what, let's connect you to another expert.
Speaker 2: So this next trip in the journey brought me to Paul.
Speaker 1: Who maybe has actually seen a flamingo filet.
Speaker 2: Who has in fact filayed flamingos. So here is Paul's answer.
Speaker 2: All of the flamingo's soft tissues, integument, and feathers are
Speaker 2: stained by carotenoids from their diets. Okay, so right there
Speaker 2: we know they are pink.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: The base carotenoid ingested by the flamingo from crustaceans, algae
Speaker 2: or cyanobacteria is metabolized within their liver to form a
Speaker 2: range of pigments that create pink, orange, red, yellow, and
Speaker 2: purple hues. Wow, the whole rainbow, the whole rainbow. As
Speaker 2: a flamingo ages, you see a saturation of their skin, fat,
Speaker 2: and integument with carotenoids, so the internal organs of the
Speaker 2: bird can look quite bright. Okay, so Caitlin was right
Speaker 2: that they can wipe this pink oil to make them
Speaker 2: more pink. But they are all pink on the inside,
Speaker 2: which is maybe good news for Bernard.
Speaker 1: But wait, now we're leaning towards eating the flamingo meat.
Speaker 2: Right right, That's right, that's where we are right now.
Speaker 2: I know. So Paul goes on to say, we know
Speaker 2: that the greater flamingo uses carotenoid saturated prene oil to
Speaker 2: enhance the color of its plumage during breeding season, but
Speaker 2: this has yet to be described in the other species,
Speaker 2: although it's highly likely they too have saturated pre and oil. Okay,
Speaker 2: so that's the oil stuff we already talked about. Here's
Speaker 2: the kicker. If you ate a flamingo, that's right, we've
Speaker 2: made a professional scientist go here. If you ate a flamingo,
Speaker 2: you would not turn pink, as we are unable to
Speaker 2: metabolize carotenoids in the same way as the birds do.
Speaker 2: You would likely die though, as they consume some very
Speaker 2: noxious blue green algae that are often neurotoxic.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So, Bernard, Bernard, you you've been misled. This is not
Speaker 2: a good idea. Do not eat the flamingos. You will
Speaker 2: not turn pink, and you might die.
Speaker 1: Go have a nice eggplant dish or some portabellos if
Speaker 1: you need umami. But flamingos do not seem to be
Speaker 1: something that you should be eating.
Speaker 2: Leave those beautiful birds alone, Bernard. All right, So let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and see if we've convinced Bernard, whose name
Speaker 2: I I hope I've said correctly because I've said it
Speaker 2: many times. Now let's go ahead and see what he
Speaker 2: has to say and if we've convinced him to not
Speaker 2: raid the local zoo in search of flamingos.
Speaker 4: Thanks Kelly and Daniel for all the insights, both from
Speaker 4: your personal life and zoology. It was not only an
Speaker 4: interesting and most useful answer, but the journey there also
Speaker 4: helped me to get rid of some misconceptions I had.
Speaker 4: I'm quite relieved that I can stick to my lifestyle,
Speaker 4: and so is the very attractive flamingo community here in
Speaker 4: the Munich Zoo.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we are answering questions from
Speaker 1: listeners like you. If you have a question about the
Speaker 1: nature of the universe, whether you should have a flamingo burger,
Speaker 1: or how to protect yourself from nuclear fallout, please write
Speaker 1: to us. We love answering your questions. And this last
Speaker 1: question comes from a longtime listener who's asked us lots
Speaker 1: and lots of questions over the years. This is a
Speaker 1: question from Petrie in Waterloo.
Speaker 2: Petrie always asks fantastic questions and provides fantastic answers. For
Speaker 2: our Person on the Street's responses at the beginning of
Speaker 2: some of our episodes, and you too can share your
Speaker 2: responses if you write us at questions at Danielankelly dot org.
Speaker 5: Hi Daniel and Kelly, this is Petri from Waterloo, Canada,
Speaker 5: and I have a question that I think relates to
Speaker 5: the both of you. I was watching some science fiction recently.
Speaker 5: In the show, the characters were exposed to what they
Speaker 5: called hard radiation. To keep themselves alive, they injected themselves
Speaker 5: with iodine. So my question is this, From a particle
Speaker 5: physics perspective, what is hard radiation and what role, if any,
Speaker 5: would iodine play in protecting us from it? From a
Speaker 5: biology perspective, how does radiation exposure cause injury? And what
Speaker 5: is happening physiologically? How can damage at the molecular level
Speaker 5: cause issues at the organ level? Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I love this question because it's something you see in
Speaker 1: science fiction and you hear in popular science all the time,
Speaker 1: and hey, that might actually be important these days. You
Speaker 1: never know what's going to happen. Yeah, so it's important
Speaker 1: that people are well informed.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, especially with all of this chat about
Speaker 2: moving to Mars. If you could just take iodine and
Speaker 2: radiation would not be a problem anymore. We wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to live underground. So there's a lot hanging on this
Speaker 2: answer being correct.
Speaker 1: All right, So Petrie's first question is what is hard
Speaker 1: radiation exactly? And the way you think about radiation is basically,
Speaker 1: like tiny little bullets. These are high energy particles. They
Speaker 1: can be photons, they can be electrons, they can be
Speaker 1: helium nuclei, they can be protons, they can be anything, essentially,
Speaker 1: but they are high energy particles, and some of them
Speaker 1: penetrate into your body more deeply. Some of them absorb
Speaker 1: on the surface. Episode recently about the different kinds of
Speaker 1: radiation being used to treat cancer and so like X
Speaker 1: rays versus electrons versus protons all have a different deposition pattern,
Speaker 1: but basically all of them tear through your body, deposit
Speaker 1: some energy, and do a bunch of damage. And so
Speaker 1: you don't want radiation in your body, unless, of course,
Speaker 1: you're trying to kill a cancer tumor, in which case
Speaker 1: you want to aim it very very tightly, so that
Speaker 1: it does damage to the cancer tumor and not to
Speaker 1: something important like your spleen.
Speaker 2: Very delicate process.
Speaker 1: Yes, and radiation could hurt you both from the outside
Speaker 1: if there's like radioactive decays happening around you, like you're
Speaker 1: standing next to plutonium or something, and also inside you
Speaker 1: if you ingest something, it can do its radioactive thing
Speaker 1: while inside you. It's like bringing little guns inside you
Speaker 1: and shooting. So this is the way, like the Russian
Speaker 1: regime likes to kill people and of put like polonium
Speaker 1: or something in their coffee. They drink it. It's not
Speaker 1: part of your body, and those plonium atoms are now
Speaker 1: decaying inside you, creating a radiation's out from within you.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: It was Britain's so it was tea, right, not coffee.
Speaker 1: Oh it was a tea, yes all right, so be
Speaker 1: careful if you're all out there enjoying your tea. Kelly
Speaker 1: just ruined it for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, drink coffee instead problem salt.
Speaker 1: And it is really quite dangerous because these metals can
Speaker 1: be very very hard to get out of your system.
Speaker 1: So it really can be like a death sentence if
Speaker 1: you get this stuff inside of you. It's really terrible
Speaker 1: and there's really horrible stories about people putting radioactive elements
Speaker 1: in like other people's coffee in the lab when they're
Speaker 1: competing with them, and like, yeah, really really bad stuff.
Speaker 2: That was a physicist, right, I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: I think it was a chemist. I think it was
Speaker 1: a chemist. I don't want to slander anyone, but probably
Speaker 1: a chemist.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 1: All right. So that's what radiation is. It's energetic particles
Speaker 1: tearing through you, depositing energy, probably breaking up your DNA,
Speaker 1: up drink cell walls, all kinds of bad stuff. And
Speaker 1: you know, radiation is all around us. We are surrounded
Speaker 1: by radiations. Radiation on peanut butter, there's radiation from bananas,
Speaker 1: there's radiation from the ground, there's radiation from the sky.
Speaker 1: Is constant grates hit the atmosphere and the cane to
Speaker 1: muons which tear through you. This neutrinos passing through you.
Speaker 1: Not all of it hurt too. Somebody goes right through
Speaker 1: you and at certain levels just sort of like what
Speaker 1: we've evolved to withstand. And it's important as part of
Speaker 1: like mutation. The reason my sun is better looking than
Speaker 1: I am and faster than I am is maybe because
Speaker 1: of cosmic gray mutations. I can't explain it any other way.
Speaker 2: I think it's Katrina's genes is what it is.
Speaker 1: I think maybe she just cloned herself in the lab,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I was involved at all. No,
Speaker 1: I love that kid, and I hope you got the
Speaker 1: best of me. Anyway, const mutations are important in creating
Speaker 1: new opportunities and trying new stuff in the next generation.
Speaker 1: So it's not like all radiation bad, right, It's like
Speaker 1: a lot of things. It's too much radiation, it's bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even a little bit of radiation could
Speaker 2: cause a bad mutation. I think, you know, the probability
Speaker 2: that you get a mutation that makes things better as
Speaker 2: opposed to makes a new neutral or a worse change
Speaker 2: is pretty low.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think in general you want to protect yourself
Speaker 2: from too much radiation.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yes, Now I was thinking more globally on
Speaker 1: a philosophical scale, like if you could go back and
Speaker 1: shield the Earth from all radiation from space a few
Speaker 1: billion years ago, what would the Earth look like now?
Speaker 1: We don't know. It might have a lot less diversity
Speaker 1: on it, we might not be here. And so radiation
Speaker 1: plays a role in evolution. But yeah, you should never
Speaker 1: choose radiation. It's not like a little bit is good
Speaker 1: for you and a lot and it's bad for you, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, and our bodies have ways of trying to fix
Speaker 2: the damage that radiation causes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so you would not want to be living
Speaker 2: on the surface of Mars without any protection from radiation exactly.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: I would want to bring a lot of flamingos with
Speaker 1: me to form like a shield, you know, like a
Speaker 1: dome of flamingos between me and the radioactive source.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, And then you have your food source also,
Speaker 2: and it's very convenient. But I'm not joining your settlement, Daniel.
Speaker 1: All right. So the lore is that iodine can protect you,
Speaker 1: and people say you should take iodine if there's been
Speaker 1: a nuclear disaster or whatever. So what are we talking
Speaker 1: about here, Well, iodine is something that your body needs
Speaker 1: but doesn't produce, and it absorbs it as you eat it.
Speaker 1: So there's like trace amounts of food and water, and
Speaker 1: you need it for all sorts of chemistry that's happening
Speaker 1: in your body, and so you take it in as
Speaker 1: you eat it or drink it or whatever. So your
Speaker 1: body absorbs it and a lot of it ends up
Speaker 1: in your thyroid because that's the part of your body
Speaker 1: that needs iodine, and a problem is that a lot
Speaker 1: of nuclear disasters can create radioactive iodine. So, for example,
Speaker 1: iodine one thirty one and iodine one thirty three. Iodine
Speaker 1: one thirty one is a major fission product for uranium
Speaker 1: and plutonium. So like Fukushima and chernobyl, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of iodine one thirty one produced. It's like three percent
Speaker 1: of the total fission products by weight are iodine one
Speaker 1: thirty one and iodine one thirty one is radioactive. Half
Speaker 1: life is like eight days, and it shoots off an
Speaker 1: energetic electron or a positron, depending on the charges, and
Speaker 1: you end up with photons and decays into radioactivized tope
Speaker 1: of zenome, which is then the case again emitting another
Speaker 1: gamma particle. And so basically, if you have this around,
Speaker 1: your body's going to take it in, because your body
Speaker 1: takes in iodine and stores it because it needs it.
Speaker 1: And if the idone one thirty one around, your body's
Speaker 1: going to take that in and store it. Now it's
Speaker 1: going to be inside you doing it's a radioactive thing,
Speaker 1: which is bad.
Speaker 2: And so we're talking about one kind of radiation, and
Speaker 2: there's lots of kinds of radiation. So we are only
Speaker 2: really honing in on when iodine causes thyroid cancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can take iodine, and the theory is
Speaker 1: that if you take good, normal, non radioactive iodine, you'll
Speaker 1: fill up on iodine, and then if radioactive iodine comes
Speaker 1: into your system, your body won't store it and it
Speaker 1: won't keep it in your thyroid, which would cause you
Speaker 1: thyroid cancer. But having iodine in your body doesn't protect
Speaker 1: you against radiation from the outside or other kinds of
Speaker 1: things you might absorb. You can't just like take iodine
Speaker 1: and then have a snack of plutonium and be fine,
Speaker 1: for example, or stand in front of an X ray
Speaker 1: machine and then be like ping ping ping. This doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me. There's no protection against radiation. It's not like
Speaker 1: it builds a shield or prevents damage or does anything
Speaker 1: like that. The only thing eating iodine can do is
Speaker 1: prevent your body from absorbing radioactive iodine. So you just
Speaker 1: make sure you're filled up on iodine.
Speaker 2: So like, if the Russians are after you, you can't be
Speaker 2: safe just because every morning you take an iodine pill.
Speaker 1: That's right. Seven does not fill up on iodine to
Speaker 1: protect themself from being poisoned. By the Russians if But
Speaker 1: it is true right that if you are filled up
Speaker 1: on normal, good iodine, you are protected against absorbing bad
Speaker 1: radioactive iodine. So it's not a complete protection against all radiation,
Speaker 1: but it does prevent you from absorbing bad iodine which
Speaker 1: would give you thyroid cancer in the future, and that
Speaker 1: would be bad. And so like Germany's Federal Ministry for
Speaker 1: the Environment says, iodine supplements can help after a nuclear
Speaker 1: power plant accident inner radius of about one hundred kilometers around,
Speaker 1: so it's not nothing. It can protect you and any
Speaker 1: protection you have is good protection. Right. You should know
Speaker 1: also that your thyroid doesn't store iodine for very long,
Speaker 1: so you need to have taken it very recently. Right.
Speaker 1: So experts say the iodine block only has a chance
Speaker 1: of helping if the good iodine is taken just before
Speaker 1: contact with radioactive iodine. And also be careful. Too much
Speaker 1: iodine bad for you, right, Like lots of things, it
Speaker 1: becomes poison. So it's complicated, right, Yes, it can protect
Speaker 1: you from absorbing bad radioactive iodine if you have taken
Speaker 1: it just before the radioactive iodine shows up and you
Speaker 1: didn't take too much. But it doesn't protect you against
Speaker 1: basically any other form of radiation boom, including radioactive iodine
Speaker 1: that the case just outside your body and shoots its
Speaker 1: little radioactive bullets inside you.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, what a pain in the rear end.
Speaker 2: So you should take the German Federal Ministries advice you
Speaker 2: should take your iodine. But while you're taking it, you
Speaker 2: should be heading out of that one hundred kilometer radius
Speaker 2: and get out of there as soon as you can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so like there's a scene I remember
Speaker 1: on this show for All Mankind, which in general is
Speaker 1: great and gets the science right, where they're going to
Speaker 1: have to walk on the surface of the Moon and
Speaker 1: be exposed to radiation and they're like, take idi. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's you know all right, it's not going to prevent
Speaker 1: you from being shredded by cosmic rays, etcetera, etcetera. So
Speaker 1: anybody living on the moon right now, be very very careful.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're going too far in the other direction. I
Speaker 2: was talking to some people the other day who don't
Speaker 2: think Americans have landed on the moon. So anyway, there's
Speaker 2: none of us up there right now.
Speaker 1: Well, there was some news segment recently where an American
Speaker 1: politician I named him said he had recently spoken to
Speaker 1: an American astronaut on the moon. He just misspoke, he
Speaker 1: meant somebody in the space station. But the Internet went
Speaker 1: crazy with theories about like, oh, he's just revealed the
Speaker 1: fact that we have a secret moon base and that's
Speaker 1: where we're talking to the aliens. And the Internet. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love you the Internet, but sometimes you're crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I'm not a politician. Every once in
Speaker 2: a while they've said like little slips and the Internet
Speaker 2: has gone crazy, and I'm like, man, the number of
Speaker 2: times I slip up in a day is colossal. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine being on the hook for every word that
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that time? Recently, some politicians said we
Speaker 1: now have technology that allows us to control space and time,
Speaker 1: by which he probably meant like, we can make phone
Speaker 1: calls and we can travel around the Earth. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the Internet was like, see they make wormholes.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, oh gosh.
Speaker 1: Anyway, the Internet, if you have questions about what the
Speaker 1: American government can and cannot do, please write to us.
Speaker 1: We're happy to talk to you about it, to give
Speaker 1: us answers. I actually did get a phone call once
Speaker 1: from a US congress person who heard some of these
Speaker 1: crazy internet theories and he's a listener of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and he called me up and he's like, hey, tell me,
Speaker 1: is any of this real physics? And we had a
Speaker 1: great conversation about it. Even though he and I would
Speaker 1: not vote the same way on basically any political issue,
Speaker 1: we came together to talk about physics. And so I
Speaker 1: like to believe physics is the great uniter. We all
Speaker 1: want to understand the universe, and we can all talk
Speaker 1: calmly and productively about what we do and don't know
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: And we are all squishy meatbags. So biology brings us
Speaker 2: together as well. And so I am also always available
Speaker 2: to answer science questions to anyone of any political stripe
Speaker 2: who has them.
Speaker 1: That's right. Are you a pink meat bag? Do you
Speaker 1: want to become a pink meatbag? Kelly has got you covered.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Doesn't matter what country you are from.
Speaker 2: Send us your meatbag questions.
Speaker 1: We really do want to hear from you. So send
Speaker 1: us questions to questions at Danielankelly dot org. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, think deeply about the universe, ruminate on how
Speaker 1: it all works and what we do and do not understand.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Join us next time.
Speaker 2: We look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 6: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for answering my question
Speaker 6: on the podcast. It makes perfect sense that an individual
Speaker 6: would not want to be low on idine when there's
Speaker 6: an unstable isotope present in the environment, and it clearly
Speaker 6: does not provide protection against all types of radiation exposure
Speaker 6: like it is sometimes portrayed in the media. Keep up
Speaker 6: the great work. Thank you again for your answer and
Speaker 6: for the great podcast.
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: We really would. We want to know what questions you
Speaker 1: have about this Extraordinary Universe.
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get
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