Unraveling the Mystery of the Universe
Scientists have made significant strides in understanding the fundamental differences between matter and antimatter, a question that has puzzled humanity since the dawn of physics. The LHCB collaboration at CERN has provided compelling evidence of a mirror-like asymmetry in how baryons behave compared to their antimatter counterparts. This breakthrough could shed light on why our universe is predominantly composed of matter, despite the equal creation of matter and antimatter during the Big Bang. We delve into the implications of this discovery and its potential to unlock the secrets of the universe's existence.
Liquid Water on Mars: A New Possibility
A groundbreaking study suggests that liquid brines may form on the Martian surface, challenging the long-held belief that Mars is devoid of liquid water. Lead researcher Vincent Chevrea from the University of Arkansas discusses how meteorological data and advanced computer modeling indicate that brines could develop during specific seasonal windows. This finding opens new avenues for the search for life on Mars and highlights the importance of targeting these periods for future exploration.
Witnessing the Dawn of a New Solar System
Astronomers have made an unprecedented observation of a new solar system forming around the protostar HOPS 315, located 1300 light-years away. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have identified the very first specks of planet-forming material, marking a significant milestone in our understanding of solar system formation. This discovery not only provides insight into the processes that shaped our own solar system 4.6 billion years ago but also offers a unique opportunity to study planetary formation in real-time.
www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com
✍️ Episode References
Nature Journal
https://www.nature.com/nature
Journal of Communications Earth and Environment
https://www.nature.com/commsenv
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00:00:00
This is Space Time, Series 28, Episode 87, for broadcast on the
00:00:05
24th of July, 2025. Coming up on Space Time, looking for an
00:00:10
answer to one of the big questions of science, why the
00:00:13
universe exists.
00:00:15
A new study suggests liquid water could be forming on the
00:00:19
surface of Mars after all, and astronomers have for the first
00:00:22
time witnessed the dawn of a new solar system.
00:00:26
All that and more coming up on Space Time.
00:00:31
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
00:00:50
Scientists have cracked open the window just a little bit on one
00:00:53
of the ultimate questions of humanity, nothing less than why
00:00:57
and how the universe exists.
00:01:00
You see, the fundamental laws of physics dictate that when the
00:01:03
universe began 13.8 billion years ago, equal amounts of
00:01:07
matter and antimatter were created.
00:01:09
The problem is that matter and antimatter annihilate each other
00:01:13
when they come into contact.
00:01:15
So, it begs the question, why didn't the universe disappear in
00:01:19
a sudden flash of purple radiation as soon as it formed?
00:01:23
And, why is the universe made up almost exclusively of matter
00:01:27
rather than antimatter?
00:01:28
These questions... Mean there must be some fundamental
00:01:31
difference between matter and antimatter, a difference which
00:01:34
scientists are struggling to try and unwrap.
00:01:37
The problem is, matter and antimatter are virtually
00:01:40
identical to each other.
00:01:41
Antimatter is just the same as regular matter, but with a few
00:01:44
of its properties flipped.
00:01:46
For every matter particle that exists, there's an antimatter
00:01:49
counterpart. For example, the antimatter counterpart to the
00:01:53
proton is the antiproton. And the antimatter counterpart to
00:01:57
the electron is the positron.
00:01:59
In both cases, these particles and antiparticles have the same
00:02:03
mass and the same quantum spin. They both accelerate in response
00:02:07
to forces in exactly the same way and have the same
00:02:09
gravitational attraction.
00:02:11
The big difference is that they have opposite electric charge.
00:02:15
And while rare, there are very small levels of antimatter in
00:02:19
our day-to-day existence, because antimatter is created by
00:02:22
many types of radioactive decay. Such as the decay of
00:02:25
potassium-40.
00:02:26
That's found in bananas, so when you eat a banana, you're eating
00:02:29
small trace amounts of antimatter as well.
00:02:33
And the amount's so small that it doesn't really affect your
00:02:35
health, but it's still there.
00:02:38
Now, the LHCB collaboration at CERN, the European Organisation
00:02:42
For Nuclear Research, has reported a new milestone in
00:02:45
science's understanding of the subtle yet profound differences
00:02:49
between matter and antimatter.
00:02:51
In its analysis of the huge quantities of data being
00:02:54
produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest
00:02:56
atom smasher, physicists have discovered overwhelming evidence
00:03:00
that particles known as baryons, such as the protons and neutrons
00:03:04
that make up atomic nuclei, are subject to a mirror-like
00:03:07
asymmetry in nature's fundamental laws, which causes
00:03:10
matter and antimatter to behave slightly differently.
00:03:13
By the way, the Large Hadron Collider, it's a 27-kilometre
00:03:17
underground ring below the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
00:03:20
In this ring, packets of subatomic particles are
00:03:23
accelerated in opposite directions to 999% the speed
00:03:27
of light, guided by cryogenically supercooled
00:03:30
magnets along two beamlines.
00:03:33
There are four cathedral-sized subterranean vaults where the
00:03:36
beamlines can cross, and where collisions can take place,
00:03:40
generating the sorts of conditions that exist in the
00:03:42
very first microseconds after the Big Bang.
00:03:45
The new LHCB findings provide new ways to address why the
00:03:49
elemental particles that make up matter fall into neat patterns
00:03:52
described by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, and to
00:03:55
explore why matter apparently prevailed over antimatter after
00:03:59
the Big Bang.
00:04:01
By the way, the Standard Model of Particle Physics, well, it's
00:04:03
nothing less than the foundation stone of science's entire
00:04:06
understanding of the universe.
00:04:09
First observed back in the 1960s among a class of particles
00:04:12
called mesons, which are made up of quark-antiquark pairs, The
00:04:16
violation of charge parity or CP symmetry has been the subject of
00:04:20
intense study in both fixed target and collider experiments.
00:04:24
Quarks are fundamental subatomic particles.
00:04:28
They come in six types or flavours, each with different
00:04:31
masses and charge.
00:04:33
These are known as up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom,
00:04:37
also known as beauty.
00:04:39
While it was expected that the other main class of particles,
00:04:42
known as baryons, which made up of three quarks would also be
00:04:45
subjected to the same phenomenon, experiments such as
00:04:48
the LHCB has only ever seen faint hints of CP violation in
00:04:52
baryons, that is until now.
00:04:54
The reason why it took so long to observe CP violations in
00:04:58
baryons compared to mesons is simply down to the size of the
00:05:01
effect and the available data.
00:05:04
Scientists needed machines like the Large Hadron Collider in
00:05:07
order to generate large enough numbers of beauty baryons and
00:05:10
their antimatter counterparts, and they needed an experiment
00:05:14
capable of pinpointing their decay products.
00:05:17
In fact, it took over 80 baryon decays for scientists to
00:05:21
see matter-antimatter asymmetry with this class of particles for
00:05:24
the first time.
00:05:26
Now, while matter and antimatter particles are known to have
00:05:29
identical masses and opposite charges, when they transform or
00:05:32
decay into other particles, For example, as occurs when atomic
00:05:36
nucleus undergoes radioactive decay, CP violation causes a
00:05:40
crack in this mirror-like symmetry.
00:05:42
The effect can manifest itself in a difference between the
00:05:45
rates at which particles in the antimatter counterparts decay
00:05:49
into lighter particles, which physicists can then log using
00:05:52
the LHC's highly sophisticated detectors and data analysis
00:05:56
techniques.
00:05:57
The LHC-B collaboration observed CP violation in a heavier
00:06:01
short-lived cousin of protons and neutrons known as the Beauty
00:06:05
Lambda Baryon, which is composed of an up quark, a down quark,
00:06:09
and a beauty quark.
00:06:11
They first sifted through data collected by the LHCB detector
00:06:14
during the first and second runs of the Large Hadron Collider,
00:06:17
which lasted from 2009 to 2013, and again from 2015 to 2018.
00:06:24
They were looking for the decay of the Beauty Lambda Baryon
00:06:27
particle into a proton, a kaon, and a pair of oppositely charged
00:06:31
pions. As well as the corresponding decay of its
00:06:34
antimatter counterpart, the anti-Beauty Lambda Baryon.
00:06:37
Kaons are a specific type of meson made up of a strange quark
00:06:41
or antiquark and an up or down antiquark or quark.
00:06:45
Pions are another type of meson comprising a quark and
00:06:48
antiquark.
00:06:49
They then counted the numbers of the observed decays of each and
00:06:53
looked for the differences between the two.
00:06:56
Again, these are all very ephemeral reactions because as
00:06:59
we mentioned earlier, matter and antimatter annihilate each other
00:07:02
when they come into contact.
00:07:04
The analysis showed that the difference between the numbers
00:07:07
of beauty lambda baryons and anti-Beauty Lambda Baryon
00:07:10
decays, divided by the sum of the two, differs by some 2.45%
00:07:15
from zero, with an uncertainty factor of about 0.47%.
00:07:19
Now, statistically speaking, the results differ from zero by 5.2
00:07:23
standard deviations. And that's important because it's above the
00:07:27
5 sigma threshold required required to claim an observation
00:07:30
for the existence of CP violation in this baryon decay.
00:07:35
While it was long expected that CP violation existed among
00:07:38
baryons, the complex predictions of the standard model of
00:07:41
particle physics are still not yet precise enough to enable a
00:07:44
thorough comparison between theory and what the LHCB
00:07:48
experiment had measured.
00:07:50
Perplexingly, the amount of CP violation predicted by the
00:07:53
standard model is still many orders of magnitude too small to
00:07:57
account for the matter-antimatter asymmetry we
00:07:59
observe in the universe.
00:08:01
And this suggests the existence of a new source of CP violation
00:08:05
beyond those predicted by the standard model, a search for
00:08:08
which is an important part of the Large Hadron Collides
00:08:12
physics program.
00:08:13
It's a small crack in the wall allowing scientists to peer
00:08:16
through, but not enough yet to uncover all the secrets.
00:08:22
This is Space Time.
00:08:24
Still to come... A new study suggests that liquid water could
00:08:28
form on the Martian surface after all. And astronomers
00:08:31
witnessed the dawn of a new solar system for the first time.
00:08:35
All that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:08:54
A new study has overturned previous ideas by suggesting it
00:08:57
may be possible for brines of liquid water to form on the
00:09:00
Martian surface as seasonal frosts melt.
00:09:03
Due to extreme temperatures, dryness and the ultra-thin
00:09:06
Martian atmosphere, it's thought to be impossible for liquid
00:09:09
water to form on the red planet 's surface.
00:09:12
And liquid water is a crucial precondition for life as we know
00:09:16
it.
00:09:17
The only hope of finding liquid water appears to be in the form
00:09:20
of brines, which are liquids with high concentrations of
00:09:23
salts. Allowing them to freeze at much lower temperatures.
00:09:26
But the question of whether brines can even form on Mars is
00:09:30
yet to be answered.
00:09:31
Now, new research reported in the journal Communications Earth
00:09:34
And Environment suggests it may just be possible.
00:09:38
The study's lead author, Vincent Chevrier from the University Of
00:09:41
Arkansas, says meteorological data taken from the Viking 2
00:09:44
lander site on Mars, when combined with new generation
00:09:47
computer modelling, suggests that brines can develop for at
00:09:50
least brief periods of time during the late Martian winter
00:09:53
and early Martian spring as a result of melting frost.
00:09:58
This challenges the assumption that Mars is literally devoid of
00:10:02
liquid water on its surface, and suggests that similar processes
00:10:05
may also occur in other frost-bearing regions,
00:10:07
especially in the mid-to-high Martian latitudes.
00:10:11
The data from Viking 2, which landed on Mars back in 1976, was
00:10:14
used because it was the only mission that clearly observed,
00:10:17
identified and characterized frost on Mars.
00:10:21
Ices and subsurface permafrost had been seen by other missions,
00:10:24
but not surface frost.
00:10:26
Melting frost presents the best chances to find liquid brines on
00:10:29
Mars.
00:10:30
But there's a catch. Seek frost on Mars would tend to sublimate
00:10:34
quickly. That means it transitions directly from a
00:10:36
solid into a gas without spending much or any time in the
00:10:40
liquid state due to Mars' unique atmospheric conditions.
00:10:43
But while sifting through the Viking 2 data, combined with
00:10:46
data from the Mars Climate Database, Chavrille was able to
00:10:49
determine that there was a brief window in the late winter and
00:10:52
early spring when the conditions were just right for the
00:10:55
formation of brine. Brines.
00:10:57
Specifically, there was a period of one Martian month, roughly
00:11:00
equivalent to two Earth months, when conditions were ideal at
00:11:03
two points during the day, roughly in the early morning and
00:11:06
late afternoon.
00:11:07
Now, there is an abundance of salts on Mars, and Chavri has
00:11:11
long speculated that perchlorates would be the most
00:11:13
promising salts for brine formation, since they have
00:11:16
extremely low eutectic temperatures. That's the melting
00:11:19
point of a salt water mixture.
00:11:21
Calcium bichlorate brines solidify at minus 75 degrees
00:11:25
Celsius, while Mars has an average surface temperature of
00:11:27
minus 50 degrees Celsius at the equator, suggesting there could
00:11:31
be a zone where calcium bichlorate brines stay liquid.
00:11:35
Modelling based on known data confirms that twice a day for a
00:11:38
month in late winter and early spring, there's a perfect window
00:11:41
in which calcium bichlorate brines can form, because that's
00:11:44
when temperatures hover right around the sweet spot of minus
00:11:47
75 degrees Celsius.
00:11:50
At other times, the Martian day is either too hot or too cold.
00:11:53
While Chavria's findings are not a slam-dunk proof of brines,
00:11:57
they make a strong case for the existence of small amounts on a
00:12:00
recurring basis.
00:12:01
Then again, even if there were direct evidence of calcium
00:12:04
perchlorate brines detected by either past or future land
00:12:07
emission, it wouldn't be in large quantities.
00:12:10
Calcium perchlorate is only about 1% of the Martian
00:12:13
regolith, and the frost that does form on Mars is extremely
00:12:16
thin, far less than a millimetre thick.
00:12:19
So it's unlikely to generate much water, certainly not enough
00:12:22
to support human life.
00:12:24
But it doesn't mean the planet could never have supported life
00:12:27
adapted to a much colder, dry planet.
00:12:30
Chivria says the strong correlation between brine
00:12:32
formation and seasonal frost cycles highlights specific
00:12:35
periods when transient water activity is most likely, which
00:12:39
could guide the planning of future astrobiological
00:12:41
investigations.
00:12:43
He says future robotic landers equipped with in-situ
00:12:46
hygrometers for measuring moisture content in the air and
00:12:49
chemical sensors could target these seasonal windows to
00:12:52
directly detect brine formation and constrain the timescales
00:12:55
over which these liquids might persist.
00:12:58
This is Space Time.
00:13:00
Still to come, astronomers have for the first time witnessed the
00:13:04
dawn of the formation of a new solar system.
00:13:07
And later in the science report, researchers have created the
00:13:10
first humans born from three parents.
00:13:13
All that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:13:32
Astronomers have for the first time witnessed the birth of a
00:13:35
new solar system.
00:13:36
The observations reported in the journal Nature has allowed
00:13:39
scientists to pinpoint the exact moment when planets begin to
00:13:43
form around a star.
00:13:45
The discovery was made using the Atacama Large Millimeter
00:13:48
Submillimeter Array Radio Telescope, ALMA, in Chile.
00:13:51
What the study's authors actually observed was the
00:13:54
creation of the first specks of planet-forming material, hot
00:13:57
minerals just beginning to solidify.
00:14:00
The study's lead author, Melissa Malklura from Leiden University,
00:14:03
says the findings Mark the first time a planetary system has been
00:14:06
identified at such an early stage in its formation. And she
00:14:10
says that provides us a glimpse of what the birth of our own
00:14:13
solar system would have been like 4.6 billion years ago.
00:14:16
The newly born planetary system is emerging around HOPS 315, a
00:14:21
pretostar some 1 light-years away, which is being seen by
00:14:25
astronomers as an analogue of the nascent Sun.
00:14:28
Astronomers have often seen protoplanetary disks of gas and
00:14:31
dust around newly formed stars.
00:14:34
These disks are the birthplaces of planets, and occasionally
00:14:37
they've seen newborn, massive Jupiter-like planets forming
00:14:40
within these disks.
00:14:42
But while they knew that the first parts of planets, or
00:14:44
planetesimals, must form at an earlier stage in these disks,
00:14:47
they've never actually witnessed it at this early stage before.
00:14:51
In our solar system, the very first solid material to condense
00:14:54
near Earth's present location around the Sun is found trapped.
00:14:58
Inside ancient meteorites.
00:15:00
And astronomers have been able to age-date these primordial
00:15:03
rocks in order to determine when the clock started on our own
00:15:06
solar system's formation, 4.6 billion years ago.
00:15:10
Now, such meteorites are packed full of crystalline minerals
00:15:12
that contain silicon monoxide, which can condense in the
00:15:15
extremely high temperatures that would have been present in a
00:15:18
young protoplanetary disk.
00:15:20
Over time, these newly condensed solid grains bind together,
00:15:24
gradually growing bigger and bigger, initially through
00:15:26
electrostatic attraction and then through gravity, sowing the
00:15:29
seeds of planetary formation as they gained both more size and
00:15:33
more mass.
00:15:34
The first kilometre-sized planetesimals in our solar
00:15:37
system, which grew to become planets such as the Earth and
00:15:40
Jupiter's core, formed just after the condensation of these
00:15:43
crystalline minerals.
00:15:45
With their new discovery, astronomers have found evidence
00:15:47
of these same hot minerals beginning to condense in the
00:15:50
disk around HOPS 315.
00:15:53
Their observations have shown that silicon monoxide is present
00:15:56
around the baby star in its gaseous state. As well as within
00:15:59
these crystalline minerals, suggesting that it's only now
00:16:02
just beginning to solidify.
00:16:04
The minerals themselves were first identified using the Webb
00:16:07
Space Telescope.
00:16:09
But to find out exactly where the signals were coming from,
00:16:12
the authors turned to ALMA.
00:16:14
It was ALMA which allowed them to determine that the chemical
00:16:16
signals were coming from a small region around the disk of a star
00:16:20
roughly equivalent to the orbit of the asteroid belt around our
00:16:23
Sun, about halfway between Mars and Jupiter.
00:16:27
So the protoplanetary disk of HOPS 315 is providing a
00:16:30
wonderful analogue for studying our own cosmic history.
00:16:34
It'll allow astronomers to probe some of the processes that were
00:16:36
happening during the creation of our own solar system.
00:16:39
European Southern Observatory astrophysicist Susanna Randell
00:16:43
says it also provides astronomers with a new
00:16:45
opportunity to study early planetary formation by standing
00:16:48
in as a substitute for newborn solar systems across the galaxy.
00:16:52
We have observed the formation of giant planets in the disks
00:16:55
around young stars before. But now, for the first time ever,
00:16:58
we've discovered a planet-forming system that turns
00:17:01
the clock back even further, right to when the first specks
00:17:05
of planet-forming material were created.
00:17:07
Planets are born around young stars, which themselves form
00:17:11
from giant clouds of gas and dust.
00:17:14
These clouds collapse, and gravity from the nascent stars
00:17:18
pulls in most of the material.
00:17:20
The leftovers form a flat disk around the stars, a so-called
00:17:24
protoplanetary disk.
00:17:25
Tiny specks of dust and pockets of gas condense into solid
00:17:30
material and they collide and coalesce to form larger clumps
00:17:35
called planetesimals.
00:17:37
Over millions of years these grow further to finally become
00:17:41
rocky planets or the cores of gas giants.
00:17:45
Our Sun and its planets, including Earth, formed in
00:17:47
exactly this way. Now a team of astronomers have observed a new
00:17:51
planetary system, HOPS 315. That is causing a lot of excitement
00:17:56
in the kind of nerdy circles I move in.
00:17:59
It appears that, for the first time ever, we are witnessing the
00:18:02
creation of the first specks of planet-forming material, and the
00:18:07
moment a new planetary system is born.
00:18:10
But how exactly do we know when the clock starts ticking on the
00:18:13
formation of a new planetary system?
00:18:16
Well, we look for the oldest solid materials.
00:18:20
When a planetary disk is first formed, it is extremely hot.
00:18:24
Generally, the first things that cool down enough to solidify are
00:18:28
crystalline minerals containing silicon monoxide.
00:18:33
In our own solar system, these minerals are found trapped
00:18:36
within ancient meteoroids.
00:18:38
Many of them have not changed over time and still hold the key
00:18:42
crystalline minerals that geologists can use to date our
00:18:45
solar system.
00:18:46
And the best thing?
00:18:48
We can analyse them right here on Earth.
00:18:52
It was by radioactively dating rocks like this that we were
00:18:56
able to date back the birth of our solar system to 4.6 billion
00:19:01
years ago.
00:19:03
Back to HOPS 315. What astronomers found in this
00:19:06
planetary system is evidence for crystalline silicates just
00:19:09
beginning to solidify.
00:19:11
Specifically, they found silicon monoxide in its geyser state and
00:19:16
within crystalline minerals around the protostar.
00:19:19
This suggests that they are witnessing the exact moment when
00:19:23
it turns from gas into solid, and that we are seeing the very
00:19:27
moment when the first specks of planet-forming material are
00:19:31
created.
00:19:33
This process has never been observed in a protoplanetary
00:19:35
disk before, or indeed anywhere outside our solar system, which
00:19:40
makes this finding truly exciting.
00:19:43
However, the initial observations gathered with the
00:19:45
James Webb Space Telescope weren't sharp enough to figure
00:19:49
out exactly where in the protoplanetary system the signal
00:19:52
came from.
00:19:53
So the researchers turned to ALMA, in which ESO is a partner,
00:19:57
to get data with better spatial resolution.
00:20:01
With the ALMA observations, the team were able to determine that
00:20:04
the signal they had picked up with JWST was indeed coming from
00:20:08
the protoplanetary disk, tantalisingly from a region
00:20:12
close to the star, at around the same orbit as the asteroid belt
00:20:16
is in our own solar system.
00:20:18
So, in HOPS 315, we're seeing this material at the same
00:20:22
distance from the star as we find rocky planets and asteroids
00:20:26
in our own solar system.
00:20:29
Witnessing the dawn of a new planetary system is really cool
00:20:32
in itself.
00:20:34
But what makes HOPS 315 even more exciting is that it appears
00:20:38
to look very similar to what our own solar system did 4.6 billion
00:20:42
years ago.
00:20:44
So we can use this planetary system as a probe to find out
00:20:48
what happened while Earth was forming and unravel our own
00:20:52
cosmic history.
00:20:53
That's European Southern Observatory astrophysicist
00:20:56
Susanna Randell.
00:20:58
And this is Space Time.
00:21:15
And time now to take a brief look at some of the other
00:21:17
stories making use in science this week with a science report.
00:21:21
History's been made in the United Kingdom following the
00:21:24
birth of eight babies in a mitochondrial donations trial.
00:21:27
For all practical purposes, the results are babies with three
00:21:31
different genetic parents.
00:21:33
A report in the New England Journal Of Medicine says the
00:21:36
children were born using a pioneering new IVF technique
00:21:39
designed to reduce the risk of mitochondrial DNA disease in
00:21:42
babies born to women who carry high levels of disease-causing
00:21:45
mitochondrial DNA mutations.
00:21:48
Mild cases of this disease cause problems like weak muscles,
00:21:51
diabetes, deafness, vision loss and heart disease, but more
00:21:55
severe cases are fatal due to widespread organ failure.
00:21:59
The process involves fertilising the egg containing the
00:22:02
disease-causing mitochondrial DNA with sperm through the usual
00:22:06
IVF techniques.
00:22:07
The resulting proton nucleus, which contains the parent's
00:22:10
genetic material, is then removed from the egg and
00:22:13
transplanted into a separate donor egg, which is healthy
00:22:16
mitochondria, and has already had its original proton nucleus
00:22:19
removed.
00:22:20
The result is an embryo with the parent's nuclear DNA, which
00:22:24
determines the physical attributes of the baby, but also
00:22:26
the mitochondrial DNA from the donor egg.
00:22:29
By the way, the mitochondria is the cell's powerhouse organelle.
00:22:33
It converts chemical energy from food intake into adenosine
00:22:37
triphosphate, which the cell needs.
00:22:40
Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to have had separate
00:22:43
evolutionary origins. With the mitochondrial DNA derived from
00:22:47
the circular genomes of bacteria engulfed by the ancestors of
00:22:50
modern eukaryotic cells.
00:22:53
Britain was the first country to approve laws to allow the use of
00:22:55
this groundbreaking IVF-based technology back in 2015.
00:23:00
It was followed by Australia in 2022.
00:23:03
Australia now expects to begin its own trials of the new
00:23:05
technique next year.
00:23:08
A new study warns that the future of smashed avocado on
00:23:11
toast might be in jeopardy. Because it depends on patches of
00:23:14
native vegetation being preserved alongside farmland.
00:23:18
A report in the journal Environmental And Sustainability
00:23:21
Indicators claims scientists at Curtin University have revealed
00:23:24
the hidden role of these habitats in supporting the
00:23:27
insects which keep crops and brunch menus thriving.
00:23:31
The authors found that the insect communities in avocado
00:23:33
orchards adjacent to native remnant vegetation foraged on
00:23:36
more than twice as many plant species at times when crop
00:23:39
flowering was limited. Compared to those in orchards bordered by
00:23:42
pastures.
00:23:45
A new study suggests that man's best friend really can judge
00:23:48
people's characters.
00:23:50
Many people tend to trust dogs' instinct regarding humans.
00:23:54
If a dog gravitates towards you, dog lovers will likely see you
00:23:58
as safe and trustworthy.
00:24:00
But if the dogs are apprehensive around you, some people may
00:24:03
begin to question your character.
00:24:05
This new study, reported in the journal Animal Cognition,
00:24:08
observed 40 pets dogs in order to investigate whether age and
00:24:12
development influenced how they judge people.
00:24:15
The authors first arranged for the dogs to observe another dog
00:24:18
's interactions with two humans.
00:24:20
One of these humans would be generous, giving the dog lots of
00:24:22
snacks, while the other would not.
00:24:25
After observing the other dog's experience, the test subject
00:24:28
dogs were introduced to the same two people in order to see how
00:24:31
they interacted with each.
00:24:33
The results revealed that the dogs did not significantly
00:24:35
prefer the generous person who fed the dog compared to the
00:24:38
Sophie's person. That refuse to feed them.
00:24:41
Now, this suggests that a dog's opinion about a human may be far
00:24:44
more complex than previously thought.
00:24:48
A famous Japanese psychic has issued a terrifying prophecy
00:24:51
claiming that a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami is set to
00:24:54
wreak havoc across the region sometime this month.
00:24:58
Now, considering that Japan lies on a major fault zone and
00:25:01
regularly experiences quakes and volcanic activity, it's not
00:25:04
really all that much of a prediction. In fact, many would
00:25:07
suggest it's stating the bleeding obvious.
00:25:10
But as Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptic points out,
00:25:12
lots of people are taking the claim seriously, and it's even
00:25:15
having a real impact on local economies.
00:25:19
The good news is, because the prediction's focused on this
00:25:21
month, we won't have long to find out how accurate it is.
00:25:25
It's Rio, Kentucky. Who's actually a manga artist, which
00:25:28
is obviously a great qualification to be a psychic,
00:25:30
but I suppose anyone can be a psychic, who has predicted major
00:25:34
earthquakes and things upsetting in the Asia region. That's
00:25:37
crazy.
00:25:38
In Japan, Shakara, that's like saying earthquakes on the San
00:25:40
Andreas Fault, isn't it?
00:25:41
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's not exactly unknown. They are on
00:25:44
the Pacific Ring and also on what's called the Nankai Trough.
00:25:47
So they've got double problems there. It actually has stopped a
00:25:49
lot of tourism to Japan. A lot of people are sort of not going
00:25:52
because they're worried about this thing. So this particular
00:25:55
psychic who...
00:25:56
Supposedly quote correctly predicted close quote the death
00:26:00
of Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana actually every psychic
00:26:03
predicts the death of Princess Diana every psychic you hear
00:26:06
about it a lot of them are making a world doom and gloom
00:26:08
sort of predictions at the moment seems to be part of the
00:26:10
mood it won't take long to find out if this one happens they
00:26:13
will make an excuse so when it doesn't happen and like will it
00:26:16
happen I don't know could it happen yeah of course because it
00:26:19
's in a place where these things do happen but does that make it
00:26:22
sort of likely because of a psychic says so?
00:26:24
Well apparently a lot of people believe it. And the tourism
00:26:26
industry has dropped in Japan. Perhaps people are even leaving
00:26:29
to try and get away from this predicted disaster.
00:26:31
That's Tim Endham from Australian Skeptics.
00:26:49
And that's the show for now.
00:26:52
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