00:00:00
This is Space Time series 26 episode, 100 and eight for
00:00:03
broadcast on the eighth of September 2023. Coming up on
00:00:07
Space Time, a new study shows there are actually fewer black
00:00:11
holes than thought busily feeding on anything around them.
00:00:15
We look at NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Mu
00:00:19
G Two collaboration exploring uncharted territory in the
00:00:24
search for new physics. All that and more. Coming up on Space
00:00:29
Time.
00:00:30
Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Garry.
00:00:50
When we think of our universe, we often think of Galaxies and
00:00:53
their central supermassive black holes busily feeding on anything
00:00:57
that gets too close violent places, hosting monsters that we
00:01:01
can barely imagine.
00:01:03
Now, a new survey looking at a large slice of the cosmos using
00:01:07
the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed that active
00:01:10
galactic nuclei that is feeding supermassive black holes are a
00:01:14
lot rarer than previously thought.
00:01:17
The findings made with Webb's mid infrared instrument suggest
00:01:20
the universe may be a lot more stable than astronomers and
00:01:24
certainly science fiction writers ever imagined the work
00:01:28
reported in the Astrophysical Journal and on the pre press
00:01:31
physics website, archive dot org focused on the long studied zone
00:01:35
of the cosmos, which has been dubbed the extended growth strip
00:01:38
located between Ursa major and the birds constellations.
00:01:42
Previous observations, the same area were made using the Spitzer
00:01:46
Space telescope. So re examining the area with a more powerful
00:01:50
web should reveal lots more active galactic nuclei.
00:01:54
The study's lead author, Alison Kilpatrick from the University
00:01:57
Of Kansas says the new observations were taken from
00:02:00
June last year through to December and were aiming to
00:02:02
characterize how Galaxies look during the heyday of star
00:02:06
formation in the universe.
00:02:08
It all equates to a look back time of between seven and 10
00:02:11
billion years. Webb's mid infrared instrument can see
00:02:15
through the veil of dust and gas that can obscure ongoing star
00:02:19
formation and hide supermassive black holes ravaging surrounding
00:02:23
material.
00:02:25
While astronomers are now pretty certain that every galaxy does
00:02:28
contain a supermassive black hole at its center feeding black
00:02:31
holes, those containing active galactic nuclei are far more
00:02:35
spectacular and they great laboratories for studying the
00:02:39
universe as a whole.
00:02:41
The authors anticipated that the higher resolution web telescope
00:02:44
survey would locate many more active galactic nuclei than what
00:02:48
were found using the Spitzer Space telescope. However, it
00:02:52
turns out that boost in parent sensitivity only revealed a
00:02:55
handful of additional galactic nuclei.
00:02:59
In other words, there's not as much going on as what had
00:03:01
previously been thought. Kirkpatrick says there was no
00:03:04
flood of newly discovered supermassive black holes with
00:03:07
active galactic nuclei. She says it turns out that these black
00:03:11
holes are likely growing at a slower pace than previously
00:03:15
believed.
00:03:16
And that's intriguing considering the Galaxies
00:03:19
Kirkpatrick's been examining do resemble our own milky way
00:03:22
galaxy as it would have appeared in the past.
00:03:25
An important mystery in astronomy lies in understanding
00:03:28
how typical supermassive black holes such as those found in
00:03:32
Galaxies like the milky way grow and influence their host
00:03:35
Galaxies. But this study's findings suggest that these
00:03:39
black holes are not growing, rapidly absorbing only a limited
00:03:42
amount of material and perhaps not significantly impacting
00:03:46
their host Galaxies at all.
00:03:48
The discovery opens up a whole new perspective on black hole
00:03:51
growth since our current understanding is largely based
00:03:54
on the most massive black holes in the biggest Galaxies. And
00:03:57
those do have a significant effect on their hosts but
00:04:00
smaller black holes likely don't.
00:04:03
Another surprising outcome was the lack of dust in these
00:04:06
Galaxies by using web astronomers could identify many
00:04:10
more smaller Galaxies than before, including ones the size
00:04:13
of the milky way and even smaller, which were previously
00:04:16
impossible to see these red shifts.
00:04:19
Now, typically the most massive Galaxies have abundant dust due
00:04:22
to rapid star formation rates. It's always been assumed that
00:04:26
lower mass Galaxies would also contain a substantial amount of
00:04:30
dust, but they didn't see that defying expectations and offers
00:04:34
another intriguing discovery.
00:04:36
According to Kirkpatrick, this work changes science's
00:04:39
understanding of how Galaxies grow, especially concerning
00:04:43
Galaxies like our own milky way, the supermassive black hole at
00:04:46
the center of our milky way galaxy Sagittarius.
00:04:49
A star is located some 27 light years away and is around
00:04:54
4.3 million times the mass of our sun. And right now, as far
00:04:59
as we can tell, it's not doing much and it hasn't been doing
00:05:02
much for a long time. Put simply seitter A star seems quite
00:05:08
uneventful and not displaying much activity.
00:05:11
One significant question regarding the milky way is
00:05:14
whether seitter a star was ever really active or even went
00:05:18
through an active galactic nuclei phase. If most Galaxies
00:05:22
like ours lack detectable active galactic nuclei, it could imply
00:05:26
that our black hole was also not very active in the past.
00:05:30
Ultimately, this knowledge will help constrain and measure black
00:05:33
hole masses shedding new light on the origins of black holes,
00:05:37
how they grow and how they evolve. And for now, at least
00:05:41
that remains an unanswered question.
00:05:44
This is Space Time still to come. We look at NASA's Nancy
00:05:49
Grace Roman Space Telescope and the my qi two collaboration
00:05:53
exploring uncharted territory in their search for new physics,
00:05:58
all that and more still to come on Space Time.
00:06:17
Ok. Let's take a break from our show for a word from our new
00:06:19
sponsor in Cockney, a new data protection service from the same
00:06:23
folks who bring you Nord VPN. It 's a startling fact that
00:06:27
everything you do online is being sold, even published
00:06:31
without your knowledge.
00:06:32
How often do you think about your personal information that's
00:06:35
out there on the internet, what it's being used for and how it's
00:06:38
been collated. But there is a silver lining because you have
00:06:42
every right to protect your privacy and ask these data
00:06:45
brokers to erase your information.
00:06:48
Now, if you're thinking about doing this manually, brace
00:06:50
yourselves because it's going to take years just to go through
00:06:53
the whole rigor all once and guess what? You'll need to keep
00:06:57
this tedious process going every few months. That's because Big
00:07:01
Brothers out there continually creating new information and
00:07:04
getting new records on all your data.
00:07:07
And you'll be surprised to learn just how much data they have on
00:07:10
you and where they get it from. But now there's in Coney, it's a
00:07:14
game changer in Cogn experts who will handle all this for you
00:07:19
ensuring your data is removed from these databases, which in
00:07:22
turn will reduce spam and those Pesky scam attacks.
00:07:26
And the best part is all their subscriptions are already
00:07:29
incredibly affordable as a special treat for Space Time
00:07:32
listeners will give you an extra 60 per cent off now to find out
00:07:36
more, check out their website and take advantage of our
00:07:38
special 60 per cent off offer.
00:07:41
Head over to www in Coney dot com forward slash Stuart Garry
00:07:47
and in Coney by the way, is spelled Inc Ogn, I, that's IC
00:07:53
Ogn I the URL again is www dot in cog dot com forward slash
00:08:00
Stuart Garry or simply apply the discount code, Stuart Garry at
00:08:04
the check out. So don't let your data be someone else's profit,
00:08:08
take control back and let incognito the hard work for you.
00:08:12
And of course, you'll find all the URL details in the show
00:08:15
notes and on our website. And now it's back to our show.
00:08:20
You're listening to Space Time with Stuart Gary, a vast team of
00:08:26
scientists and engineers are continuing work on NASA's Nancy
00:08:30
Grace Roman Space Telescope which is slated for launch in
00:08:33
2027 like the James Webb Space Telescope.
00:08:38
Roman will study the universe using infrared eyes. But while
00:08:42
Webb unravels the beauty and mystery of the cosmos is zooming
00:08:46
in to get a detailed look at small parts of the sky. Nancy
00:08:49
Grace Roman is going to have a much wider panoramic field of
00:08:53
view, surveying large areas of the cosmos all at once.
00:08:58
In fact, it'll gather more data than any other NASA mission ever
00:09:01
launched in the process attempting to answer some of the
00:09:04
biggest questions in Astrophysics. Roman will be
00:09:08
searching for extra solar planets using gravitational
00:09:11
microlensing as a guide.
00:09:13
But its real goals will be to test Albert Einstein's theory of
00:09:17
general relativity, which has been well tested on the scale of
00:09:20
our solar system but not so much on larger cosmological scales.
00:09:25
You see one of the big problems is that visible matter within
00:09:28
our universe should according to the theory slow down the
00:09:31
expansion of the universe.
00:09:33
Yet, during the late 19 nineties, astronomers discovered
00:09:37
the rate of the universe's expansion out from the Big Bang
00:09:40
13.8 billion years ago, isn't slowing down. It's actually
00:09:43
accelerating astronomers have attributed that acceleration to
00:09:48
a mysterious force. They're calling dark energy.
00:09:51
Roman will give scientists data accurately measuring the
00:09:54
position and distance of millions of Galaxies. It'll
00:09:58
provide a chronology of the universe and the growth of
00:10:01
cosmic structure. With the end goal of measuring the effects of
00:10:04
dark energy and the consistency of general relativity and the
00:10:08
curvature of Space Time.
00:10:10
All this will help astronomers better understand the expansion
00:10:14
rate of the universe in different areas. Ultimately, the
00:10:17
results will tell if Einstein's theory of gravity needs
00:10:20
modification and that means it'll do nothing less than tell
00:10:24
us a bit more about the ultimate fate of the universe.
00:10:28
The Roman Space Telescope is based on an existing 2.4 m wide
00:10:32
field of view primary mirror and will carry two scientific
00:10:35
experiments. There's the wide field instrument which is a
00:10:39
300.8 megapixel multi band visible in near infrared camera
00:10:44
that will provide a sharpness of images comparable with what was
00:10:47
achieved by the Hubble space telescope.
00:10:49
But over a 0.28 degree field of view that's 100 times larger
00:10:53
than the imaging cameras on Hubble. There's also a
00:10:56
chronograph instrument, a high contrast small field of view
00:11:00
camera with a spectrometer attached to it, it'll cover
00:11:03
visible and near infrared wavelengths using a novel
00:11:06
Starlight suppression technology.
00:11:08
Although they're separated by 30 years, Roman actually shares a
00:11:11
lot of its heritage with the Hubble space telescope. But then
00:11:15
again, when you think about it, there's far more than just one
00:11:18
Hubble space telescope, in fact, as far as we know, and that
00:11:22
figure is pretty flexible.
00:11:23
There are at least 22 Hubble space telescopes up there. All
00:11:27
of them are using the same basic design adapted for Hubble and
00:11:30
some have been in orbit since 1976.
00:11:34
But unlike Hubble, which is pointed up towards the heavens,
00:11:37
the others are all pointed down towards the Earth's surface
00:11:40
because they're Earth observation spy satellites built
00:11:43
for the National Reconnaissance Office, America's Intelligence
00:11:46
Agency For Space Based Surveillance.
00:11:49
They've gone by a variety of different official and not so
00:11:52
official code names such as Kh 11, Keenan crystal evolved
00:11:57
enhanced crystal, 10, 10 gambit and Hexagon, but they're
00:12:02
generally best known by their most famous code name Keyhole.
00:12:06
There have been at least six basic technology upgrades or
00:12:09
blocks to the Keyhole design since it was first introduced.
00:12:14
And two of them known as Misty were even designed to be
00:12:17
stealthy, virtually invisible to radar. Back in 2012, the
00:12:21
National Reconnaissance Office donated a pair of spare block
00:12:24
three Kel spy satellites complete with spare parts to
00:12:28
NASA potentially for use's Hubble telescope replacements.
00:12:32
The pair were manufactured in the late 19 nineties and early
00:12:35
two thousands and were originally meant to join the
00:12:38
constellation of similar Keyhole surveillance satellites orbiting
00:12:41
the Earth, but were never used because the design was
00:12:43
superseded by newer block four and block five versions like
00:12:47
Hubble.
00:12:48
They were built by Lockheed Martin using the same 2.4 m main
00:12:52
mirror and like Hubble. They were designed to orbit at an
00:12:55
altitude of about 500 kilometers because they looked down at the
00:12:59
Earth and not up into space.
00:13:01
They used different optical ancillary equipment and also had
00:13:04
a shorter focal length, giving them a wider field of view
00:13:07
around 100 times larger than Hubble's wide field camera,
00:13:10
three instrument. The two telescopes represented a multi
00:13:14
billion dollar gift from the National Reconnaissance Office
00:13:17
to NASA. But they won't complete among other things, they lack
00:13:22
detectors, star trackers, prism wheels and filters.
00:13:25
But the good news is they did come complete with bodies
00:13:28
mirrors, payload radiators and 1.5 m long struts for mounting
00:13:32
spacecraft instruments. And it's one of these two telescopes
00:13:36
which are now being rebuilt into the Nancy Grace Roman Space
00:13:40
Telescope.
00:13:41
The team building Roman have now begun integrating and testing
00:13:45
the spacecraft's electrical cabling or wiring harness. This
00:13:48
enables different parts of the observatory to communicate with
00:13:51
one another. Additionally, the harness provides power and helps
00:13:55
the central computer monitor the observatory's function by way of
00:13:59
an array of sensors.
00:14:00
It all brings the mission a step closer to surveying billions of
00:14:04
cosmic objects. Project development. Lead Dene Ferrer
00:14:07
from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
00:14:10
says just as the central nervous system carries signals
00:14:13
throughout the human body, Roman 's wiring harness connects its
00:14:17
components providing both power and commands to each electronic
00:14:21
system and instrument.
00:14:22
Without the harness, there would be no spacecraft weighing in at
00:14:26
around 454 kg. The harness is made up of approximately 32
00:14:31
wires and 900 connectors. The wires were all laid out end to
00:14:36
end.
00:14:36
They would span more than 80 kilometers directed upwards.
00:14:40
They'd be eight times taller than mount Everest. Achieving
00:14:43
this milestone has been no small task over the course of around
00:14:48
two years. Now, a team of 11 Godard technicians have spent
00:14:52
time at the workbench and perched on ladders cutting wires
00:14:55
to length, meticulously cleaning each component and repeatedly
00:14:59
connecting everything together.
00:15:01
The entire harness was built on an observatory spacecraft mockup
00:15:04
structure before being transported to Goddard Space
00:15:07
Environment simulator, a massive thermal vacuum chamber used in
00:15:11
this case for bake out, bake out.
00:15:14
That's a term we haven't used before. So what does it mean?
00:15:18
Well, when observatories like Rome at are center of space, the
00:15:21
resulting vacuum in orbital temperatures can cause certain
00:15:24
materials to release harmful vapors. These vapors can
00:15:27
condense on the electronics of the spacecraft, creating
00:15:30
problems even short circuits or they can deposit on sensitive
00:15:33
optics degrading the telescope's performance.
00:15:36
So baout is designed to release these gasses on Earth so they
00:15:40
aren't emitted inside the spacecraft. When in space with
00:15:44
backout complete, engineers are now weaving the harness through
00:15:47
the flight structure in Goddard 's big clean room.
00:15:51
This ongoing process will continue until most of the
00:15:54
spacecraft's components are assembled. In the meantime, the
00:15:57
Goddard team will soon begin installing electronics. These
00:16:01
will eventually provide power by way of the harness to all of the
00:16:04
spacecraft's science instruments. This report from
00:16:09
NASA TV, the.
00:16:10
Roman Space Telescope's primary structure is ready for the wire
00:16:14
harness that powers each system of instruments, gyroscopes, data
00:16:18
transfer and movement.
00:16:21
But the harness is nearly £1000.45 miles of continuous
00:16:26
wiring. This acts as the central nervous system of the whole
00:16:30
observatory and like our nerves is threaded through each major
00:16:35
component, making its transfer a delicate operation.
00:16:39
What we're doing today is we're taking the flight harness off of
00:16:43
the mock up that was used to put it in that flight configuration
00:16:47
and we're putting it on the harness transfer tool which will
00:16:51
then be used to pick up the flight harness and put it into
00:16:54
the flight structure to then be put and mounted on all the
00:16:59
flight hardware and then eventually flown into space.
00:17:02
Each side of the primary structure houses different
00:17:05
systems, each with redundant paths of wiring options.
00:17:10
Yes. So this is the telescope electronics and over here the
00:17:17
PSE and PDU which distributes power base four. This is bay
00:17:23
four, it's still being completed. This is the kind of
00:17:26
the brains of the spacecraft.
00:17:28
With the wiring in place and tested. The team will continue
00:17:32
installing all the components into the primary structure over
00:17:35
the course of the next year.
00:17:38
And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from harness transfer
00:17:42
engineer Lee Huber and electrical engineer, Alex
00:17:45
Petrov, both from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt
00:17:49
Maryland. This is Space Time still to come exploring
00:17:54
uncharted territory in the search for new physics.
00:17:57
And later in the science report, a new study shows that
00:18:00
biologically female surgeons are actually better at their jobs
00:18:04
than their biological male counterparts. Good to know if
00:18:07
you're planning a big op all that are more still to come on
00:18:11
Space Time.
00:18:28
The most precise measurement ever undertaken on the
00:18:31
elementary particle's magnetism suggests that the Standard Model
00:18:34
of particle physics is probably right after all, the Standard
00:18:38
Model is the foundation stone of science's understanding of the
00:18:42
universe. Researchers are continuously trying to break it
00:18:46
down in search of new physics.
00:18:48
Beyond the Standard Model. For example, we know that the
00:18:52
Standard Model doesn't take account of two really important
00:18:55
things, dark energy and dark matter. And that raises the
00:18:59
question, what else is missing. Their latest attempt involves
00:19:03
the hunt for a discrepancy between predicted and measured
00:19:07
values of the magnetic moment of the muon.
00:19:09
A heavier cousin to the electron had it been found, it would have
00:19:13
been seen as a possible signal of undiscovered subatomic
00:19:16
particles physicist with the muon G two experiment at the US
00:19:21
Department Of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
00:19:24
Fermi Lab have now doubled the precision of the previous best
00:19:27
measurement to an estimated error rate of just 201 parts per
00:19:31
billion.
00:19:32
So they now have a brand new measurement for a property of
00:19:35
the muon called the anomalous magnetic moment. And it improves
00:19:39
the precision of their previous result by a factor of two.
00:19:43
The result shows there may not be any sort of discrepancy to
00:19:46
explain. That's because the new value bolsters the first result
00:19:50
announced back in April 2021 Brendan Casey, a senior
00:19:54
scientist at Fermilab who's worked as part of the muon G two
00:19:58
experiment since 2008 says scientists have really been
00:20:01
probing new territory here by making predictions based on the
00:20:05
Standard Model.
00:20:06
And then comparing those predictions to the experimental
00:20:08
results, scientists can discern whether or not the theory is
00:20:12
complete or if there's some physics beyond the Standard
00:20:15
Model, that's still missing muons are fundamental particles
00:20:19
that are similar to electrons.
00:20:21
But about 200 times as massive like electrons muons have tiny
00:20:25
internal magnets that in the presence of a magnetic field
00:20:29
pres or wobble sort of like the axis of a spinning top. The
00:20:33
precision speed in a given magnetic field depends on the
00:20:36
muons magnetic moment Now, that 's typically represented by the
00:20:40
letter G at the simplest level theory predicts that G should
00:20:44
equal two.
00:20:45
And the difference of G from two or G minus two can be attributed
00:20:49
to the muons interactions with particles in the quantum firm
00:20:53
that surrounds it quantum firm consists of particle pairs
00:20:56
constantly springing into and out of existence.
00:21:00
Think of it as energy transforming into matter and
00:21:02
then becoming energy. Again, these particles blink into and
00:21:06
out of existence. And like subatomic dance partners grab
00:21:09
the muons hand and change the way the muon interacts with the
00:21:12
magnetic field.
00:21:14
Now, the Standard Model of particle physics incorporates
00:21:17
all known dance partner particles and predicts how the
00:21:20
quantum foam changes. G and physicists were excited about
00:21:25
the possible existence of a yet to be discovered particle that
00:21:28
could contribute to the value of G two because that would open a
00:21:32
window to exploring new physics.
00:21:34
But like we said, the new experimental result based on the
00:21:37
first three years of data and reported in the journal physical
00:21:40
review letters backs the earlier measurement and moves it forward
00:21:44
corresponding to a position of 0.20 parts per million. With
00:21:49
this measurement, the collaborations already reached
00:21:51
their goal of decreasing.
00:21:53
One particular type of uncertainty uncertainty caused
00:21:56
by experimental imperfections known as systematic
00:21:59
uncertainties is while the total systematic uncertainty has
00:22:02
already surpassed the design goal, the larger aspect of
00:22:05
uncertainty, statistical uncertainty is driven by the
00:22:08
total amount of data analyzed, it can never disappear, it just
00:22:12
gets smaller and the results available will add an additional
00:22:15
two years of data to their first result.
00:22:18
The Fermilab experiment will reach its ultimate statistical
00:22:22
uncertainty once scientists incorporate all six years of
00:22:25
data into their analysis. And that's something the
00:22:28
collaboration hopes to achieve within the next couple of years
00:22:32
to make their measurements.
00:22:33
The muon G two collaboration repeatedly sent a beam of muons
00:22:37
into a 15.24 m diameter superconducting magnetic storage
00:22:42
ring where they were circulated 1000 times at nearly the speed
00:22:45
of light detectors lining the small particle accelerator ring
00:22:49
allowed scientists to determine how rapidly the muons were
00:22:53
processing.
00:22:54
Physicists need to then also precisely measure the strength
00:22:57
of the magnetic field to then determine the value of G two.
00:23:01
The Fermilab experiment reused the seam storage ring originally
00:23:05
built for its predecessor, the my chi two experiment at the
00:23:09
Brookhaven National Laboratory which was conducted back in
00:23:11
2001. In 2013. The collaboration transported the ring from Long
00:23:16
Island, New York to Batavia Illinois.
00:23:20
And over the next four years, the collaboration reassembled
00:23:23
the experiment and improved their techniques,
00:23:25
instrumentation and simulations. The main goal of the Fermilab
00:23:29
experiment was to reduce the uncertainty of G two by a factor
00:23:32
of four compared to the Brookhaven result.
00:23:35
In addition to the larger data set, the latest G two
00:23:38
measurements are enhanced by updates to the Fermi lab
00:23:41
experiment itself. In fact, the experiment was firing on all
00:23:44
cylinders for the final three years of data taking, which came
00:23:47
to an end on July the 9th, 2023. That's when the collaboration
00:23:52
finally shut off the muon beam.
00:23:54
Thereby concluding the experiment after six years of
00:23:57
data collection, they reach their goal of collecting a data
00:24:01
set. That's more than 21 times the size of Brookhaven's data
00:24:05
set. Physicists can calculate the effect of the known Standard
00:24:09
Model dance partners on muon G two to incredible precision.
00:24:13
The calculations consider the electromagnetic, the weak and
00:24:16
strong nuclear forces including photons, electrons quarks gluons
00:24:21
neutrinos, both Z and W bosons and the Higgs boson. If the
00:24:26
Standard Model is correct, the ultra precise prediction should
00:24:29
match the experimental measurements. Calculating the
00:24:32
Standard Model prediction for my G two was very challenging.
00:24:36
Back in 2020 the muon G two theory initiative announced the
00:24:40
best Standard Model prediction for muon G two available at that
00:24:44
time. But the new experimental measurements of the data that
00:24:47
feeds into the prediction and a new calculation based on a
00:24:50
different theoretical approach known as lattice gauge theory
00:24:53
are in tension with the 2020 calculation.
00:24:57
Scientists on the muon G Two theory initiative aim to have
00:25:00
their new improved prediction available in the next couple of
00:25:03
years. That'll consider both theoretical approaches.
00:25:07
The collaboration anticipates releasing their final most
00:25:10
precise measurement of the muons magnetic moment in 2025 in the
00:25:14
process setting up the ultimate showdown between the Standard
00:25:18
Model theory and experiment. Needless to say we'll keep you
00:25:22
informed. This is Space Time and time. Had to take another brief
00:25:42
look at some of the other stories making news in science.
00:25:45
This week with the science report, a new study has
00:25:48
confirmed that adults with type two diabetes who replace sugary
00:25:52
drinks with coffee, tea or plain water, wind up having lower
00:25:55
rates of early death due to cardiovascular disease or other
00:25:58
causes. The findings reported in the British Medical journal drew
00:26:02
on data from 15 American adults at an average age of 61
00:26:08
74 per cent of whom were women.
00:26:10
All of them had type two diabetes. The authors found that
00:26:14
participants with the highest rates of sugary drinks, meaning
00:26:17
more than one serving a day wind up with a 20 per cent increased
00:26:20
risk of death from any cause compared to participants with
00:26:23
the lowest intake rate of less than one serving per month.
00:26:27
Now, in contrast, high intakes of certain beverages up to six
00:26:31
daily servings were associated with lower mortality. 26 per
00:26:35
cent less for coffee drinkers, 21 per cent for tea, 23 per cent
00:26:39
for plain water and 12 per cent for low fat milk.
00:26:43
Paleontologists have discovered the remains of an ancient marine
00:26:47
reptile that may have been a filter feeder just like modern
00:26:50
Baleen Whales. A report in the journal BMC ecology and
00:26:55
evolution claims Houk's Nans, the remains of which have been
00:26:59
dug up in China had skulls with small features similar to modern
00:27:03
day bowhead or Riot whales.
00:27:05
The authors say the skulls had unusual toothless snouts and
00:27:09
there were grooves around the roof of the mouth which indicate
00:27:12
there may have been soft tissue there that played a similar role
00:27:15
to the bale filters found in some modern day whales.
00:27:19
The researchers also note a loose lower jaw that would have
00:27:22
allowed the IOS sour like reptile to open its mouth wide
00:27:26
enough to take in large gulps of water and a rigid body.
00:27:30
Suggesting this may have been a slow swimmer that fed in a style
00:27:33
very similar to modern day whales which swim with their
00:27:36
mouths open near the surface of the ocean and strain food from
00:27:40
the water.
00:27:41
The team says these findings could be an example of
00:27:44
convergent evolution where similar features evolved
00:27:47
independently in different species. Houk's Nanine dates
00:27:51
back to the Early Triassic Of The Hubei Province and may have
00:27:55
reached over a meter in length.
00:27:58
A new study has shown that on average biological female
00:28:02
surgeons perform better than their biological male
00:28:04
counterparts. The findings reported in the journal of the
00:28:08
American Medical Association are based on a joint Canadian us
00:28:11
study of more than a million Canadian patients who underwent
00:28:14
surgery.
00:28:16
The authors found that those treated by biologically female
00:28:19
surgeons were less likely than those treated by biological male
00:28:22
surgeons to have post operative problems 90 days and one year
00:28:26
after surgery, the researchers say they don't know exactly why
00:28:30
biological females make better surgeons than biological males
00:28:34
or what could be done to bring biological male surgeons up to
00:28:38
the standards of their biological female colleagues.
00:28:41
They say that should be the subject of further study.
00:28:46
It's the story. Big Garlic didn't want you to hear. An
00:28:49
Australian Garlic company is claiming their research shows
00:28:52
that locally grown garlic has demonstrated a 99.9 per cent
00:28:56
efficacy against viruses that cause COVID-19 and the common
00:29:00
flu.
00:29:01
The company's press release claims certain unique Australian
00:29:05
grown garlic varieties demonstrate antiviral activity.
00:29:08
Trouble is they didn't give any details on exactly what these
00:29:12
garlic varieties were or why they may have more antiviral
00:29:16
properties.
00:29:17
And the claims have now been strongly condemned by
00:29:20
scientists, Dr Ian Musgrave, a senior lecturer in Pharmacology
00:29:24
with the University Of Adelaide says that until clinical trials
00:29:28
have been done, no claims can be made about the effects of these
00:29:31
extracts for the prevention of treatments like influenza, let
00:29:34
alone COVID-19.
00:29:36
And Tim Mendham from Australian skeptics points out Australian
00:29:39
garlic producers neglected to mention that the studies had not
00:29:42
been published, meaning they've not been peer reviewed nor do
00:29:46
they mention that these studies were limited to test tube
00:29:48
results and not trialed on people.
00:29:51
A recent story appeared in the press suggesting that garlic
00:29:55
could be used as a cure for COVID-19 and for influenza and
00:29:59
various other things like that. Now, this surprised a lot of
00:30:01
people and there was a bit of digging going on by skeptics
00:30:04
that the story came from a garlic company.
00:30:08
Apparently they had funded research that was done at the
00:30:11
Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne, which is a pretty
00:30:13
well known and respected medical research institute named after
00:30:18
an Australian Nobel Prize winner. So it's got some street
00:30:20
cred there. The trouble is with this research was it didn't
00:30:23
actually say what the claim was, the research was done on garlic.
00:30:28
But in Vitra, as they say, which means it might be useful for
00:30:32
treating test tube, but it's not necessarily proven for treating
00:30:35
people. And that was a criticism of it which the Doherty
00:30:38
Institute itself admitted. They said it's not done in humans,
00:30:41
the real world it's done in test tubes.
00:30:43
So therefore, really you take a long leap to suggest that there
00:30:46
are definite benefits from it. One of the problems was that one
00:30:49
of the Doherty staff said made a comment to the press that the
00:30:52
garlic is known to be good for killing bacteria. It's long been
00:30:55
used in additional Chinese medicine.
00:30:57
Probably that of course, is a COVID influenza of viruses but
00:31:00
not bacteria. And traditional Chinese medicine has a lot of
00:31:03
problems with it with a lot of the very, very strange
00:31:05
treatments that are included in it. So this very quickly was
00:31:09
shot down the story.
00:31:10
Unfortunately for people who are suffering, they're saying
00:31:12
chewing on a bit of garlic is not proven to be able to help
00:31:15
you put it that way, not proven. I mean, no one's going to say
00:31:17
some way down the track. It shows it has some benefit, but
00:31:20
certainly as far as this particular research, it was over
00:31:23
hyped to the extreme.
00:31:24
Does it give you a French accent? May we? That's Tim Ende
00:31:28
from Australian skeptics and that's the show for now.
00:31:47
Spacetime is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
00:31:51
through Apple podcasts, itunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, pocket
00:31:55
casts, Spotify a cast Amazon music bites dot com.
00:32:00
Soundcloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download
00:32:03
provider and from Space Time with Stewart Gary dot com.
00:32:07
Spacetime is also broadcast through the National Science
00:32:10
Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both iheart Radio And
00:32:14
Tune in radio.
00:32:15
And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime
00:32:18
store for a range of promotional merchandizing goodies or by
00:32:22
becoming a Spacetime patron, which gives you access to triple
00:32:25
episode commercial free versions of the show as well as lots of
00:32:29
bonus audio content, which doesn't go to air access to our
00:32:32
exclusive Facebook group and other rewards just go to Space
00:32:36
Time with Stewart Gary dot com for full details.
00:32:39
And if you want more Space Time, please check out our blog where
00:32:42
you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the show as well
00:32:45
as heaps of images news stories, loads of videos and things on
00:32:49
the web. I find interesting or amusing. Just go to Space Time
00:32:52
with Stewart Gary dot Tumbler dot com.
00:32:55
That's all one word and that's Tumbler without the E you can
00:32:59
also follow us through at Stuart Garry on Twitter at Space Time
00:33:03
with Stewart Gary on Instagram through our Space Time YouTube
00:33:06
channel and on Facebook, just go to Facebook dot com forward
00:33:10
slash Space Time with Stewart Gary and Spacetime is brought to
00:33:14
you in collaboration with Australian Sky and Telescope
00:33:16
Magazine. Your Window on the Universe.
00:33:19
You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Garry. This has
00:33:23
been another quality podcast production from bites dot com.