06 June, 2018 – Episode 674 – This Week in Science (TWIS) Podcast

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Interview about Pluto w/ Dr. Jason Cook, Ghost Particles, Charged Dark Matter, Carbon Dating Nuances, Inconsistent Expansion, Dark Eyed Guppies, Weta Legs, The AMAZING Sea Cucumber!, TWITEOTW, And Much More…

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DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER, DISCLAIMER!!!
There are things that we know…
And there are things we do not know.
We can,
for a moment,
condense the world into these two categories.
Knowledge and the lack of it.
But as we drill down,
the picture can become murky.
Of the things we do not know,
there are things we know we do not know.
We often refer to this as the unknown.
Like a mechanism for gravity,
or what existed before the big bang,
or where all of our missing socks have gone…
There is another category of unknowns that are far more irksome.
Unknowns that we think we know.
Things that we think we know,
but actually know nothing,
or at least have noticeably wrong.
And what makes this most irksome is that most of human knowledge
may actually fall into this category.
And while most of humanity gets by relying on a knowing
about things that they do not actually know about…
We will endeavor to keep you as much in the know
of newly known things as your noodle can navigate.
For nothing makes us more knowledgeable as a species…
Than This Week In Science,
Coming Up Next…

Interview with Dr. Jason Cook
A Planetary Astronomer & Research Scientist, he focuses on the composition and atmospheres of icy bodies, such as Pluto, Triton, Charon, Kuiper belt objects, comets and other icy satellites, using spectroscopy, or wavelengths of light, to learn about the composition of each object. He received his PhD from Arizona State University, and recently published a paper that used New horizons data to investigate the moons of Pluto.

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This Week in What Has Science Done for me Lately?!?
“What has science done for me lately? It might not be the positive story but I thought I’d send anyway now some time has passed. However science allowed my vet to conduct the biopsy of my cats lesion on his tongue. To complete the histopathology to give me the information to know his diagnosis and to know what treatment was possible and what was futile. This allowed me and my vet to provide the right care to my cat and to not put him through unnecessary chemotherapy for a tumor known thanks to research to not respond to this. Science allowed me to research this inoperable tumor and ask my vet about a treatment with a small study showing positive results. ( Although small the main thing was the limited negative side effects and we went ahead.) Nutrition studies gave me the right diet to keep him healthy. The years of study of my vets allowed them to know when this was not working and the science of euthanasia allowed me to give the gift of release from pain in a comfortable environment. Overall science has let me know I was able to do all I could and use all the knowledge of all the professionals involved to give a voice to my cat.”
–Melissa Hall

Ghost Particles
The miniBooNE experiment has detected evidence of a “sterile” neutrino, a particle not included in the standard model of physics.

Charged Dark Matter
Could dark matter be structured like atoms with some small proportion of particles being electrically charged?

Dark Matter Fusion
Why couldn’t dark matter interact with itself?

Carbon dating…
do carbon profiles reveal their real age?

The universe is expanding…
but the data is inconsistent.

Dark eyed guppies are lookin’ for a fight
Guppies have been shown to change their eye color to black when they are agressive, and ready to fight, but only when they are the larger of the two.

Sea cucumbers are amazing and important!!
Healthy ocean ecosystems depend on these little blorps. Maybe they need better protection than being able to barf up their guts!!

A male who protects his mate during sex – romantic, or evolutionarily advantageous?
For cave wetas, it’s both! Awwww……

Death To Birds
Starvation due to climate change is the likely culprit in the unprecedented mass death of Cassin’s auklets off the US west coast.

Lab Prions
The mis-folded protein particles that are thought to cause mad cow and other brain-wasting diseases have been synthetically created in a lab.

Doggy Vectors
Dogs are awash in flu viruses.

It’s…
…So…
…Hot in here.

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About the Author

I'm the host of this little science show.