Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:20:39 — 37.4MB)
Far Out Space Stuff, Meddling With Methane, Smart Crows, Shrinking Salamanders, Stupid Pandas, Natural History Needs You!, MindReading Is Real, Synthetic Chromosomes,Homeopathetic Remedies, And Much More…
Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer
This Week in Science
Coming Up Next…
Ringed Asteroid!
A relatively small, rocky asteroid lying between Saturn and Uranus, named Chariklo, is encircled by two rubble-filled rings. The finding of which overturns the idea that only planets wear jewelry. Researchers think there must be a small shepherd moon responsible for maintaining the structures since the asteroid with its minimal gravity would have a difficult time doing so on its own.
New Distant Member of Solar System Found
Taking a look at the Oort cloud isn’t easy to do because it is billions of miles from Earth. Even so, astronomers have found an object known as 2012 VP113, nicknamed Biden after the Vice President of the US, that measures approximately 450km in diameter, and orbits eccentrically with a perihelion of 80 astronomical units, or that is to say that the closest it gets to the sun is 80 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun. The discovery makes it the second object (the first was Sedna) to confirm the existence of the inner Oort cloud, and has scientists wondering if there might be another even larger object orbiting out beyond Neptune.
Crows are Smart
Crows understand causal relationships as well as a 7-year-old human child. That Aesop’s fable with the bucket and the pebbles? All true.
Climate Change is shrinking salamanders!
Higher temperatures mean cold-blooded animals have to eat more, and use more energy, leaving less to grow. Salamanders in North America are shrinking at a similar rate to climate change.
Stupid Pandas…
Pandas aren’t fat and lazy enough… they love sugar water, too. But seriously, this is important research! Listen!
Get a free audiobook at Audible.com!
Support us on Patreon!
Faces From Brains
Yale University neuroscientists used fMRI and computation to “mind-read” and reconstruct images of faces people saw.
Building a Synthetic Yeast
An international team of researchers have replaced a chromosome within the yeast genome with a completely synthetic one. The man-made chromosome is sleeker, with 15% fewer genes than the original, and also potentially allows for the organism to translate synthetic amino acids into proteins.
Homeopathy Watch:
This makes my head hurt.
Vote for your favorite space suit!
Milk
doesn’t make you snotty
If You love TWIS, please consider making a donation below. Don’t forget to tell a friend about TWIS, and to check out our Patreon page!
I felt Blair’s comments regarding Justin’s topic ‘Meddling With Methane’ to be manipulative and misleading. People should expect Scientists to present findings that are trustworthy and objective. To skew or omit data to suit one’s own political agenda is the reason why the public, rightfully so, mistrusts the data on global warming. If you’re looking for a reason there is so much confusion over global warming it is because of people, like Blair, using the data to push political agenda’s.
In regards to the Beer Marinade story – In the interest of getting things right and correcting common misconceptions that people have, I’d like to point out that the term “lager” has nothing to do with how light or dark, heavy or light a beer is. Rather it refers to how the beer is treated during the fermentation process. Treated one way a beer becomes a Lager, treated the other it becomes an Ale.
Generally speaking Lager is fermented with Lager yeast and Ale with Ale yeast. After the addition of the yeast the fermentation process begins. The major difference here between a Lager and Ale is in the temperature that the fermentation process happens, Lagers are fermented around 45 degrees and Ales around 60 degrees. If I remember correctly due to the lower temperature a Lager generally has to ferment a bit longer than an Ale. The other difference is in the length of time the beer ages after fermentation has been stopped, Lagers should age for 1 to 2 months, Ales just a couple weeks to 1 month.
What determines how big, strong or hearty a flavor the beer might have has nothing to do the fermentation process, rather it is dependent on the initial ingredients, types and proportions of malts and hops and how they are treated in the pre-fermentation process. Color is largely determined by the degree to which the malt was roasted before any of the brewing process takes place. Just like roasting anything, the longer it is roasted the darker it gets (and thus the darker the color).
Here are some examples of some styles that illustrate the extremes (stats are from the Beer Judge Certification Program “Style Guides” book). SRM is a color measurement scale.
Wheat Beer and Witbiers SRM 2-8 (Straw to Gold color) – both Ales but generally extremely light colored and delicately flavored.
Beer Examples: Sam Adams Summer Ale, Hoegarden, New Belgium Sunshine Wheat, Drake’s Hefeweizen
A whole category of beer called Dark Lager – Dark American Lager Munich Dunkel and Schwarzbier (Black Beer) SRM 14-30 (Deep Amber/light Copper to Dark Brown/Very Dark Brown)- all of these styles are Lagers with fairly dark colors and hearty roasted malty flavors.
Beer Examples: Shiner Bock, Beck’s Dark, Heiniken Dark Lager, Sam Adams Black Lager, Gordon Biersch Schwarzbier (I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of Gordon Biesch’s brews are Lagers).
Skol.
Thank you! That is some great information.