Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Who's making fun of the weight gain I've
Speaker 1: managed to accumulate over the holiday? I'm not I just
Speaker 1: you seem like you were pointing that out, and so
Speaker 1: I guessed you honestly don't look like you've gained any weight. Thanks. Sure,
Speaker 1: well I gave someone for Christmas, but I've dropped a
Speaker 1: few cents. Yeah, I was looking at you. I'm like,
Speaker 1: Chuck's face looks a lot of slimmer. When was this
Speaker 1: like two days ago? I really? God leestion, Chuck, let's
Speaker 1: get started show. Yes, what is your bet for how
Speaker 1: the world is going to end? Uh? The large had
Speaker 1: run collider? Maybe a third World War starting in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. I'm gonna go with now, atural disasters setting
Speaker 1: off a chain reaction of events. What would those chain
Speaker 1: reaction of events be? Oh, you know, paranoia, chaos, dogs
Speaker 1: and cats living together, man fighting man woman fighting man
Speaker 1: woman fighting woman my favorite and uh, Yeah, then everyone
Speaker 1: kills each other. That's what I'm going with. What do
Speaker 1: you think I think it's going to be a single
Speaker 1: cataclysmic event. I think that humans are really good at
Speaker 1: adapting to stuff e g. Climate change, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think it has the gumption to wipe out
Speaker 1: humanity a natural event or a human generated event. It
Speaker 1: could be either one like a major asteroid impact or
Speaker 1: a nuclear holocaust. I think it's going to be something
Speaker 1: like that, something big and sudden. I think Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter will play a part in my scenario. Well no, no,
Speaker 1: that's the degradation of society. This is the destruction of
Speaker 1: humanity we're talking about. Well no, I mean once the
Speaker 1: chain reaction starts, I think things can get out of control.
Speaker 1: With information being a so easily uh doled out. You know,
Speaker 1: this is why I love us, Chuck, Like, we have
Speaker 1: not spoken about this at all. I sent you a
Speaker 1: link like how about this for this stuff? You should
Speaker 1: know and we haven't spoken about it, right, right, And
Speaker 1: one of the things that um I came up with
Speaker 1: for the intro was that we're a very paranoid species
Speaker 1: and you've just touched on that too. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for being you, Chuck Bryan. I was talking to Emily
Speaker 1: about that the other day, that no one really knows
Speaker 1: what social media is gonna do, right, And I could
Speaker 1: definitely see paranoia spreading false true, spreading so fast that
Speaker 1: it gets out of control. And what's the deal with Twitter?
Speaker 1: Can you really say anything important twelve fifteen times a
Speaker 1: day in a hundred and sixty characters or less? You're
Speaker 1: asking the wrong guy, I don't think so. You've got
Speaker 1: a Twitter page, yeah, but I won't ever use it. Know,
Speaker 1: I did for a little while and just kind of
Speaker 1: like a week, but it was a it was a
Speaker 1: hell of a week. Fan. I've been saying hell a
Speaker 1: lot in podcasts lately, have you noticed. Yeah, listen to
Speaker 1: the Sun one. Okay, hell, hell all over the place? Fire? Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of hell and fire. So we're talking about the
Speaker 1: the um world ending and we're talking about humanity being paranoid. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of those I guess beneficial byproducts of that
Speaker 1: paranoia is UM planning, good, good, sensible planning. Right. You
Speaker 1: ever heard of a little country called Norway? I have Norwegians. There.
Speaker 1: You're going with a seed vault. Let's start with that.
Speaker 1: What's the official name of it. Do you know the
Speaker 1: seed vault in Norway? The Fault? Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: What they've done is they have taken um pretty much
Speaker 1: every seed known to man, like one and a half
Speaker 1: million species, along with equipment right to help grow things,
Speaker 1: and they put it in a vault buried deep within
Speaker 1: the earth. Is it I think it's in a mountain
Speaker 1: side somewhere in the Arctic. Okay, yeah, I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1: I think it isn't a mountain side. Actually, now they
Speaker 1: should research this. Well, no, there's a well, this isn't
Speaker 1: even this is totally supplemental right, and we're doing this
Speaker 1: off the top of our heads. Um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember hearing that the entrances in the side of a mountain.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so, um, there's a bunch of seeds. The
Speaker 1: ideas we grow things again, right if we're wiped out,
Speaker 1: and then the British have an underground vault that is uh,
Speaker 1: basically a d NA depository. Yeah. I didn't know about
Speaker 1: this one until today. Yeah, they have genetic samples from
Speaker 1: all manner of um, plant and animal right material people
Speaker 1: kind of things. Yeah, they said that you could potentially
Speaker 1: rebuild an ecosystem with this stuff. Yeah, specifically which ecosystem.
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely certain is it a desert because who
Speaker 1: really wants to rebuild that? Nobody? Good point, right, um.
Speaker 1: And then of course we have the point of this article. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a nice little moniker that gets tacked
Speaker 1: onto these things like the seed vault in Norway, the
Speaker 1: DNA vault in Britain, um, doomsday arcs. Right, those are
Speaker 1: more than one. Well, yeah, the nor the Norwegian things
Speaker 1: that doomsday are. So I thought you're you're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the specific one we're talking about what to
Speaker 1: the lunar doomsday are. You can't just say doomsday are
Speaker 1: because people say which one, the one in Britain, the
Speaker 1: one in Norway, so they all fall under that larger heading.
Speaker 1: Did not realize that it's true. Good info things, man,
Speaker 1: So we're talking today about the lunar doomsday are, right, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Which is a concept that was first proposed in a
Speaker 1: book by a guy named Robert Shapiro, not the lawyer,
Speaker 1: um called Planetary Dreams I believe, right, and then again
Speaker 1: in oh six right by some actual scientists. Look at Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's actually a member of the Alliance to Rescue Civilization,
Speaker 1: which sounds cookie, but Robert Shapiro and his colleagues that
Speaker 1: form the higher ups that the a r C are
Speaker 1: actually really well respected. Their scientists, science writers, physicists, uh, engineers, um.
Speaker 1: And they've come together create this group that is trying
Speaker 1: to carry out this idea of creating a doomsday vault
Speaker 1: on the moon. And they're based at n y U
Speaker 1: at New York University, right, and they officially actually tossed
Speaker 1: this out in oh eight two uh, at a conference
Speaker 1: in France. Yeah, and it has received a little bit
Speaker 1: of chiding and a little bit of support as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think the I was reading a blog post
Speaker 1: on it, and you get kind of the sentiment that, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, you guys are idiots.
Speaker 1: You know, this is never going to work. And here's
Speaker 1: what super cool. One of the comments on a blog
Speaker 1: post I wrote about it was what harm can it do?
Speaker 1: You know how much money have we funneled into NASA
Speaker 1: just to get to the moon And been like, well,
Speaker 1: we're here, okay. Cool. I mean, if this thing costs
Speaker 1: even billions of dollars, let's dissolve a i G and
Speaker 1: sell its holdings off and then you know, put it
Speaker 1: into this. What can it hurt is the point? And
Speaker 1: what could it help potentially is all of humanity? Right?
Speaker 1: How in the planet? Well, Josh, The idea, like most
Speaker 1: arcs and vaults, is to bury important things, um deep
Speaker 1: within uh in this case the Moon, so they're protected
Speaker 1: in case something really bad happens. Right. And what they
Speaker 1: want to start with, um the Alliance to Rescue Civilization,
Speaker 1: which by the way, was very much legitimized when the
Speaker 1: European Space Agency got on board with this plan. Um.
Speaker 1: So what this joint venture aims to do is to
Speaker 1: put all of humanity's knowledge, not all of it, because
Speaker 1: they are aware that there's not an infinite amount of storage,
Speaker 1: but selected most important stuff among humanity. So there won't
Speaker 1: be a drawer with our podcasts and hard disk, but
Speaker 1: they won't even consider these. It'll be all this American life. Um.
Speaker 1: They want to put it all on hard disk, right,
Speaker 1: and uh bury it on the moon. Yes, and um
Speaker 1: they're going to record all this in different languages. Pretty cool, um, Arabic, English, Chinese, Russian, French,
Speaker 1: and Spanish. So you got your bases covered pretty much, right.
Speaker 1: But what the hell's you see, I just did it again.
Speaker 1: What's the point of burying some hard disks with all
Speaker 1: of humanities knowledge on the moon anyway? Well, what you
Speaker 1: got up there, dude, is DNA sequences, tech information, how
Speaker 1: to make metals, how to rebuild that's you know, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? This valuable info? It is valuable
Speaker 1: info if if and the whole point, remember, is to
Speaker 1: help rebuild the humanity civilization if the people here on
Speaker 1: Earth can access it. Okay, I got you right, that's
Speaker 1: the most important part. Otherwise it's just gonna sit there.
Speaker 1: So let's say that there is a a meteor. Let's
Speaker 1: go with mine. Yeah, your makes more sense. A meteor
Speaker 1: hits Earth, kills off everybody except like fifty people across
Speaker 1: the planet. It's all it takes, buddy. Um. And they
Speaker 1: they these fifty people start wandering around water World style
Speaker 1: the Postman style. Take whatever film you want, um about
Speaker 1: Bulderham style. That's probably the best style around, okay uh.
Speaker 1: And they stumble upon one of four thousand Earth based
Speaker 1: depositories repositories. And what they're going to find in these
Speaker 1: things are computers that run on wind power, solar power,
Speaker 1: and some preserved food and medical supplies, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It would be like a bananza for them, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: And when they hit the spacebar on these computers to
Speaker 1: get the screen up, they're going to find that they
Speaker 1: are receiving transmissions from the Moon if they survived, which is, well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to them the downside of this. But that's
Speaker 1: assuming that these receivers would survive that whatever cataclysm make event. So,
Speaker 1: but let's say they did. So, the point of having
Speaker 1: these hard discs buried on the Moon is that they're
Speaker 1: going to be hooked to radio transmitters that constantly transmit
Speaker 1: this information back to Earth. So, in addition to Debuc's lamar,
Speaker 1: which really has very little value when you're rebuilding civilization, um,
Speaker 1: there's going to be things like how to grow wheat,
Speaker 1: how to grow corn, how to smell iron? Uh, and
Speaker 1: how to rebuild civilization. Right, So they're going to do
Speaker 1: it in like you said, I think seven different languages.
Speaker 1: I guess with an instruction manual that any post apocalyptic
Speaker 1: dummy can understand smelting for dummies. You know what else
Speaker 1: they might have in there? What human and animal embryos? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how's that? They were saying that the the suspended animation.
Speaker 1: The temperature needed for suspended animation that they're figuring so far,
Speaker 1: it's something like seventy kelvin, which is real low temperature.
Speaker 1: You can't really do that here on Earth without sucking
Speaker 1: up all the energy on the planet, but you can
Speaker 1: in the shade of a lunar crater. Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: definite possibility. Well, you also have to create an environment
Speaker 1: that these things can can survive in. Right, it's not
Speaker 1: like Earth. No, should we talk about that. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: a three step process. Let's hear it, chuck. Okay, First,
Speaker 1: what you have to do is build some machines that
Speaker 1: generate the proper gas mix that basically replicate our atmosphere,
Speaker 1: because you have to create a little mini Earth inside
Speaker 1: the moon, which is kind of mind blowing actually, uh,
Speaker 1: because you can, by the way, by the way, and
Speaker 1: the plants, uh, you know, can thrive inside this atmosphere
Speaker 1: and then they eventually decompose and release what CEO two. Yes,
Speaker 1: they release carbon dioxide deadly to humans unless there's something present,
Speaker 1: like algae perhaps, so they bring along Mr algae and
Speaker 1: Mr algae absorbs the c O two amidst oxygen and
Speaker 1: basically establishes a cycle just like we have here on Earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and bing bang boom done. You know what you have
Speaker 1: right there? What atmospheric conditions that are suitable to sustain
Speaker 1: human life? Perfect. So, all of a sudden, now you
Speaker 1: have a place, this, this lunar arc now becomes a
Speaker 1: lunar colony potentially. Yeah, well, it'd be great if we
Speaker 1: had a colony up there. First. Well, yeah, we need
Speaker 1: people to tend to the stuff. That's the ideal scenario.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, ARC is saying that they we could
Speaker 1: do it through the use of robotics for a while,
Speaker 1: make sure that all this stuff is functioning properly. But
Speaker 1: if you can make it so that this is sustainable
Speaker 1: for human habitation, then you have a lunar colony. Right.
Speaker 1: So let's say that um, that meteor does hit and
Speaker 1: it wipes out all but fifty people, and by spectacular coincidence,
Speaker 1: all four thousand sites, these repository sites, basically bomb shelters
Speaker 1: um are also wiped out. That's bad. It is bad
Speaker 1: news for the fifty people on Earth. Luckily, we've got
Speaker 1: the people up on the moon who could come back
Speaker 1: down here and say, hey, here's all the information you
Speaker 1: need to know. Let's show you how to smell iron, buddy.
Speaker 1: You know. So that's a kind of one of the
Speaker 1: big points of the plan is that if we can
Speaker 1: get humans up there, then we have taken a part
Speaker 1: of the human population out of the equation of a
Speaker 1: global disaster. They'll just be up on the moon like
Speaker 1: that stinks, and then they'll have to wait like a
Speaker 1: little while if all of humanity is wiped out. Part
Speaker 1: of the contingency plan for this is that, um, the
Speaker 1: people up there in the moon will wait a century
Speaker 1: maybe two, and then come back down to Earth, and
Speaker 1: then the sexy business starts. Well, if they're waiting a
Speaker 1: century too up there, then there's gonna be sexy business
Speaker 1: on the moon too. Sure, there will be sexy business
Speaker 1: on the moon. But then they're gonna bring their sexy
Speaker 1: business back to Earth, which means the first people will
Speaker 1: be born on the moon. Sure they will not be
Speaker 1: earth links. Technically they be moon links. Nice point a
Speaker 1: cute little moon links with a little edibleknee gapps. So
Speaker 1: then once that happens, uh, and in humanity repopulates the
Speaker 1: Earth through their sexy business, Um, everything is saved. It
Speaker 1: basically we went to the Moon, waited for the cataclysmic
Speaker 1: event to occur, waited for the dust to settle, went
Speaker 1: back and we're like, all right, let's do this again. Right.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with this plan? Well, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of problems potentially, um that I that I can see.
Speaker 1: One is a like I said earlier, you have to
Speaker 1: count on the fact that these receivers will ah not
Speaker 1: be wiped out as well. Their answer to that is, well,
Speaker 1: let's say they are wiped out, Um, we'll still have
Speaker 1: the information for man to eventually rebuild them and make
Speaker 1: them work again. Right, and the the lunar arc will
Speaker 1: be transmitting still that whole time. So when they when
Speaker 1: they do get these radio trans emitters, the receiver's back
Speaker 1: up and operating. Uh, they'll be like, oh, here's all
Speaker 1: the information we need from the Moon. It sounds a
Speaker 1: little far fetched to me, doesn't it. Yeah, a bit.
Speaker 1: One of the other problems, Josh is, uh, no one
Speaker 1: is going to know where these are are hidden. Isn't
Speaker 1: that correct? Right? You're not exactly publishing that. No. If
Speaker 1: you do, then you've got somebody like the creepy blonde
Speaker 1: guy from the movie Contact trying to sabotage it, right
Speaker 1: or Geo Casier's sure the the most nefarious group of all. Right,
Speaker 1: it takes some take the radio transmitter and leave some
Speaker 1: Butanese money in its place, where Santana c D and
Speaker 1: I say that because we got some Boutanese money. This
Speaker 1: from a geocascher, from a geocasher who who's just this
Speaker 1: convergence of our podcasts, I'm walking convergence of stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. And really also, I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that this is um such a derided plan, not
Speaker 1: by me, I want to say, like, I know it
Speaker 1: sounded like I'm I'm I'm chiding here there, I'm really not,
Speaker 1: Like I think it's a good idea to come up
Speaker 1: with the money. It doesn't you know, take food out
Speaker 1: of starving people's mouths. Let's do it right, Um, But
Speaker 1: I think the the whole thing hinges on a lunar colony. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: we could bury hard disks under the lunar surface, we
Speaker 1: could start broadcasting transmissions, but really we have to have
Speaker 1: people on the moon with an ability to get back
Speaker 1: and forth from the Earth to the Moon for this
Speaker 1: to really really work. Right, that's the ideal, and that
Speaker 1: is we're nowhere near that. We're a long way off.
Speaker 1: They've poked around that that scenario a bit, but it's
Speaker 1: not it's not ramped up anytime soon. No, they do
Speaker 1: hope to have that UM that stuff buried by Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then what was the other date? They want to
Speaker 1: have UM living organisms in that three part atmospheric creator machine.
Speaker 1: Sounds like the serious future, But I said that about
Speaker 1: two when I was it's not a little seventh grader,
Speaker 1: and now it's the future. Yeah, we're living in the future.
Speaker 1: And there was one other point that UM I thought
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. I read about this UM the whole
Speaker 1: sentiment of it. While it does underlining our paranoia as
Speaker 1: a species, it also underlines are um disposable mentality, Like
Speaker 1: we're like, Okay, the Earth is screwed up, We'll just
Speaker 1: move onto the moon, you know what I'm saying, rather
Speaker 1: than try you know, climate change was a big reason
Speaker 1: that this whole idea was proposed. So rather than do
Speaker 1: anything about it, let's just figure out a way to
Speaker 1: get out of here. See what other planet we can
Speaker 1: mess up? Yeah, have you heard of terraforming? Uh? Now
Speaker 1: they're talking about terraforming Mars. I'm not exactly sure what
Speaker 1: they would shoot into the atmosphere around Marsh, but they
Speaker 1: are shooting into orbit around Mars. But they there's I
Speaker 1: guess um, elements that they can put into orbit around
Speaker 1: Mars that could spontaneously generate an atmosphere which would habitable atmosphere, right,
Speaker 1: which would essentially turn Mars into it, you know, the
Speaker 1: New Earth. Cool? Yeah, get your ast the Mars. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that name that movie. Uh, total recall. I
Speaker 1: am AT's a very good job. All right, So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think that's about it for the Doomsday Arc. If
Speaker 1: you want to read about that or the Norwegian seed Bank,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we have one on the No, no,
Speaker 1: we got one on the Norwegian seed Bank. Then okay.
Speaker 1: You can type Doomsday Arc into the handy search bart
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. It will bring up all
Speaker 1: manner of interesting stuff. Uh. And of course that leads
Speaker 1: us to listener mail. Yes, I did want to say
Speaker 1: an official thank you to Mark from Massachusetts for sending
Speaker 1: us Boutanese money. Yeah. Thanks Mark. He leaves those as
Speaker 1: his little geo cashing treats and the as little found items,
Speaker 1: and I did look it up. One U S Dollar
Speaker 1: is equal to forty five. However, you pronounced at Goldtram's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not very much money. No, but it's pretty. It
Speaker 1: was a sentiment. Yeah, it's very pretty. I like her
Speaker 1: ugly American money. Okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this funny
Speaker 1: email so you get on the ear. This from Kelly. Okay, Josh,
Speaker 1: and Chuck. I recently heard a podcast where a woman
Speaker 1: wrote in to say your podcast saved her life. I
Speaker 1: felt compelled to tell you that you also saved another
Speaker 1: nearly unfortunate soul, that of my coworker. Oh, yeah, you see,
Speaker 1: you read this one. She's from Detroit. Yeah, you see.
Speaker 1: I work for a local magazine in a small office
Speaker 1: that consists of about twenty short cubicles. For the most part,
Speaker 1: the people I work with are great, but I always
Speaker 1: assume there is the exception of one. Uh. I liken
Speaker 1: her to the case of the Monday is woman from
Speaker 1: office Space, great movie. She choosing pops her gum incessantly.
Speaker 1: She repeatedly and loudly sized oive throughout the day. Someone
Speaker 1: taught her that word one day, and she thought it
Speaker 1: was the greatest thing. Since she learned to blame everything
Speaker 1: on Murphy's Law. She wears ungodly amounts of perfume that
Speaker 1: smells of my grandmother's couch and lingers well after she
Speaker 1: has left the area. And possibly worst, but definitely not last,
Speaker 1: she was loudly Christmas carols in mid summer. Do you
Speaker 1: know what's more irritating than a poison ivy rash and
Speaker 1: a spot you can't reach? Josh hearing let it snow
Speaker 1: whistled through the maw of an obnoxious co worker in July.
Speaker 1: But let me assure you, I grew up with three
Speaker 1: older brothers. I'm a poster child for tolerance. This woman
Speaker 1: would try the patience of a saint. One day, when
Speaker 1: I was at my wits end, another coworker of mine
Speaker 1: came into the office looking a little under the weather.
Speaker 1: I asked him what was up, and he said his
Speaker 1: brain had shrunk, and went on to explain that he
Speaker 1: had one too many the night before and subsequently his
Speaker 1: body had stolen water from his brain. And basically this
Speaker 1: is how she learned of our podcast. Because this guy
Speaker 1: to hangover now, whenever I want to hear the unmistakable
Speaker 1: first notes of Oh Holy Night, my favorite Christmas song,
Speaker 1: I plug in and let your sweet voices of salvation
Speaker 1: take me away. So on behalf of me and my
Speaker 1: co worker that I nearly went postal on. Thank you
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work Kelly. Thanks Kelly. She's
Speaker 1: not murdering anybody. She almost killed a co worker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I would do. Yeah, she sounds kind of annial.
Speaker 1: Nice check. Before I give a call out for emails,
Speaker 1: I want to mention our Keyva team. It's been a
Speaker 1: little while. Good job, Josh, dude. We have generated since
Speaker 1: the beginning of October, right the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Listeners who have joined the Kyva team and donated have
Speaker 1: had made over sixty thousand dollars in donations since the
Speaker 1: beginning about It's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. We are
Speaker 1: the seventh largest donation team. And here's what gets me, Josh,
Speaker 1: I know that a scant percentage of our total listenership
Speaker 1: has gotten involved here. Yeah. I think it's what like
Speaker 1: two thousand, one thousand like members. I think. So let's
Speaker 1: let like one half of a half of a percent
Speaker 1: of our listenership, I think so. Yeah, Well, if you
Speaker 1: want to join our Keyva team, there's always room for
Speaker 1: one more or a hundred thousand more whatever you like. Uh,
Speaker 1: Every once in a a while Chuck and I go on
Speaker 1: the team message board and say high and there's all
Speaker 1: manner of interesting people on their Yeah. You can check
Speaker 1: it out at www dot Kiva. That's k I v
Speaker 1: A dot org slash team singular slash stuff. You should
Speaker 1: know right. It'll make you feel good, I promise you.
Speaker 1: And if you have an email that contains a descriptor
Speaker 1: of how your grandmother's couch smells, you can wrap it
Speaker 1: up and send it to stuff podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com. Want
Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house.
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