00:00:00 --> 00:00:03 Stuart Gary: This is space time series 29 episode
00:00:03 --> 00:00:05 128 full broadcast on 26
00:00:05 --> 00:00:08 October 2026 coming up on
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 Space Time, scientists trap
00:00:11 --> 00:00:13 antimatter, successfully holding it for
00:00:13 --> 00:00:16 months. Liftoff for Japan's sample
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 return mission to the Red planet. Mars and
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 the Time Lords have demanded, ah, a change in
00:00:21 --> 00:00:24 how science understands time.
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 All that and more coming up on, um, Space
00:00:27 --> 00:00:29 Time. Welcome to
00:00:29 --> 00:00:31 Space Time with Stuart Garret.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:50 Physicists have successfully trapped an
00:00:50 --> 00:00:52 antimatter particle called a positron in an
00:00:52 --> 00:00:55 experiment that helped set the stage for one
00:00:55 --> 00:00:57 of the toughest tests yet for the standard
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 model of particle physics, the foundation
00:00:59 --> 00:01:01 stone of science's understanding of the
00:01:01 --> 00:01:04 universe. The new study, reported in
00:01:04 --> 00:01:06 the journal Physical Review Letters, could
00:01:06 --> 00:01:09 eventually enable the most precise test yet
00:01:09 --> 00:01:11 of a fundamental symmetry between electrons
00:01:11 --> 00:01:14 and their antimatter counterparts. See,
00:01:14 --> 00:01:17 the problem is, equal amounts of matter and
00:01:17 --> 00:01:19 antimatter were created in the Big Bang
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 13.8 billion years ago. However, uh,
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 as matter and antimatter annihilate each
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 other when they come into contact, the
00:01:26 --> 00:01:27 universe should have disappeared in a flash
00:01:27 --> 00:01:30 of gamma ray light almost immediately after
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 it formed. Yet clearly, that didn't
00:01:33 --> 00:01:35 happen. And we live in a universe dominated
00:01:35 --> 00:01:37 by what we call matter rather than
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 antimatter. The positron is
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 the positively charged antimatter counterpart
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 to the negatively charged electron. According
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 to the standard model, electrons and
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 positrons should be perfect mirror images of
00:01:50 --> 00:01:53 each other. So by measuring the positron's
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 magnetic properties with unprecedented
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 precision and then comparing those with the
00:01:57 --> 00:01:59 electrons properties, physicists should be
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 able to put this fundamental symmetry to its
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 most stringent test yet. And if the
00:02:04 --> 00:02:06 measurements don't match up as expected, that
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 would reveal a crack in the standard model of
00:02:08 --> 00:02:11 particle physics, offering new clues to
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 enduring mysteries, including why ordinary
00:02:13 --> 00:02:16 matter, rather than antimatter, dominates the
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 universe. After first capturing the
00:02:19 --> 00:02:21 fast moving particle from radioactive decay,
00:02:21 --> 00:02:23 the authors cooled it to nearly absolute
00:02:23 --> 00:02:26 zero. They then suspended the particle in a
00:02:26 --> 00:02:28 near perfect vacuum, preventing it from
00:02:28 --> 00:02:30 touching ordinary matter, an encounter which
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 would cause it to annihilate. By trapping and
00:02:33 --> 00:02:35 cooling a positron in this way, the authors
00:02:35 --> 00:02:38 created what they're calling a 1 positron,
00:02:38 --> 00:02:40 quantum cyclotron. In this state, the
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 positron essentially behaves very much like
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 an artificial atom with quantum energy
00:02:45 --> 00:02:47 levels, scientists can precisely control and
00:02:47 --> 00:02:50 observe. The study's lead author,
00:02:50 --> 00:02:52 Gerald Gabriels from Northwestern University,
00:02:52 --> 00:02:55 says, if you take an electron and a positron
00:02:55 --> 00:02:56 and collide them together, they'll both
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 disappear. They'll annihilate each other. And
00:02:59 --> 00:03:01 he says the big mystery of the universe is
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 the fact that the Big Bang should have
00:03:03 --> 00:03:04 created equal amounts of matter and
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 antimatter. But if that were true, it would
00:03:06 --> 00:03:09 annihilate and we'd be left with nothing. So
00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 clearly there's something wrong with the
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 theory, and that's what science is trying to
00:03:12 --> 00:03:15 figure out. The standard model of
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 particle physics is a long standing
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 hypothesis describing the fundamental
00:03:19 --> 00:03:21 particles and three of the four fundamental
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 forces, the electromagnetic force, the strong
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 nuclear force and the weight weak nuclear
00:03:26 --> 00:03:29 force. Experiment after experiment
00:03:29 --> 00:03:31 has confirmed the model's predictions with
00:03:31 --> 00:03:33 extraordinary precision. Yet physicists
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 know the model is not complete. It doesn't
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 explain dark energy or dark matter. Nor can
00:03:38 --> 00:03:41 it explain why the observable universe
00:03:41 --> 00:03:43 contains overwhelmingly more matter than
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 antimatter. Gabriel says
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 science knows the standard model has to be
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 wrong somewhere, or at least incomplete.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 Nearly everything on Earth is made of just
00:03:53 --> 00:03:55 three familiar particles electrons,
00:03:55 --> 00:03:58 protons, neutrons. And an
00:03:58 --> 00:04:00 antimatter universe instead could be built
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 from their antimatter counterparts,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:04 positrons, antiprotons and
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 antineutrons. Gabriel says the
00:04:06 --> 00:04:08 simple fact is, if everything on Earth were
00:04:08 --> 00:04:10 antimatter, it would be difficult to tell the
00:04:10 --> 00:04:13 difference. The fireworks only occur
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 when the two worlds, matter and antimatter,
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 meet. Now, one of the problems with testing
00:04:18 --> 00:04:20 all this is that scientists can't simply put
00:04:20 --> 00:04:23 a positron into a conventional container.
00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 That's because touching the container itself,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 which is normal matter, would cause the
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 antimatter particle to annihilate. So if
00:04:30 --> 00:04:31 scientists want to study antimatter, they
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 need to handle it really carefully. So to
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 carefully handle the particle, the authors
00:04:36 --> 00:04:39 used a state of the art trap, which combines
00:04:39 --> 00:04:41 specialised electric and magnetic fields in
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 order to suspend the positron in a void.
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 Sitting in the middle of this container, the
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 positron never touches anything. And because
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 of this setup, uh, the positron in
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 Gabrielle's laboratory has remained trapped
00:04:53 --> 00:04:56 for months. Mind you, catching the positron
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 in the first place was its own challenge.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 Positrons can be generated during radioactive
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 decay of certain atomic nuclei. In
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 this experiment, Gabriels used nuclei from
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 Sodium 22, a rare radioactive isotope
00:05:09 --> 00:05:11 of sodium. When the particles emerge from the
00:05:11 --> 00:05:14 nuclei, they carry enormous amounts of
00:05:14 --> 00:05:16 energy. So the team first needed to slow down
00:05:16 --> 00:05:19 the positron and then guide it into the
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 trap's near perfect vacuum. The interior of
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 the trap is cooled to just 0.3 degrees above
00:05:24 --> 00:05:26 absolute zero, which is minus
00:05:26 --> 00:05:29 273.15 degrees Celsius.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 Gabriels and colleagues also demonstrated
00:05:32 --> 00:05:34 that they could precisely manipulate and
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 detect the positron's individual quantum
00:05:36 --> 00:05:39 energy states. By delivering carefully
00:05:39 --> 00:05:42 tuned microwaves, they added tiny precise
00:05:42 --> 00:05:44 amounts of energy to the positron and
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 detected its resulting quantum transitions.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:49 And that level of control is essential for
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 scientists ultimate goal, measuring the
00:05:52 --> 00:05:53 positron's magnetic properties with
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 extraordinary precision and then comparing
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 them with those of an electron. In
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 previous work, Gabriels used a 1 electron
00:06:01 --> 00:06:03 quantum cyclotron to measure the electron's
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 magnetic moment to about 1 part in 10
00:06:05 --> 00:06:07 trillion, which is among the most precise
00:06:07 --> 00:06:09 measurements ever made for any electron
00:06:09 --> 00:06:10 elementary particle.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:14 Now with the trapped antimatter, Ghebrios
00:06:14 --> 00:06:15 plans to make the same kind of quantum
00:06:15 --> 00:06:18 measurement with the positron and then put
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 the two results head to head. He says current
00:06:21 --> 00:06:22 theory suggests there should be no difference
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 between the two measurements, but if it turns
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 out they're not equal, that would be the
00:06:27 --> 00:06:30 biggest discovery in physics in the last
00:06:30 --> 00:06:32 century. And needless to say, we'll keep
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 you informed. This is
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 space time still to come.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:41 Liftoff for Japan's first sample return
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 mission to the red planet. Mars and the Time
00:06:43 --> 00:06:46 Lords have demanded a change in how science
00:06:46 --> 00:06:49 understands time. All that and more
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 still to come on, uh, space time.
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 Japan's Martian Moons exploration MMX
00:07:08 --> 00:07:10 mission is now on its way to the Red Planet's
00:07:10 --> 00:07:13 moon Phobos. Following its successful launch
00:07:13 --> 00:07:15 from the Tanegashima Space Centre, a thousand
00:07:15 --> 00:07:17 kilometres south of Tokyo,
00:07:27 --> 00:07:29 Tim Mendham: We have a successful rest of our H3 launch
00:07:29 --> 00:07:32 vehicle from number 10 with the MMX first
00:07:32 --> 00:07:33 custom board from Jackset.
00:07:33 --> 00:07:36 Stuart Gary: And 4.5 ton spacecraft
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 will arrive at Mars in August next year,
00:07:39 --> 00:07:41 spending several years orbiting the 27
00:07:41 --> 00:07:43 kilometre wide potato shaped moon,
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 undertaking readings and searching for
00:07:45 --> 00:07:47 appropriate landing sites. In
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 2029, it'll deploy a small
00:07:49 --> 00:07:52 25 kilogramme four wheeled Land Rover called
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 Itafix, which will descend down to the Phobos
00:07:55 --> 00:07:57 surface and undertake preliminary
00:07:57 --> 00:07:59 observations before MMX itself drops
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 down at the surface, undertaking several
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 touchdowns in 2030, collecting up to 10
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 grammes of samples. These will then be
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 loaded onto a return module which will fly
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 back to Earth in 2031, parachuting down into
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 the Woomera rocket range in Outback South
00:08:14 --> 00:08:17 Australia for collection by scientists.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 Dr. Sarah Webb from Swinburne University
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 says those samples will help answer key
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 questions about the origins of both Martian
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 moons, Phobos and Deimos.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 They're either captured asteroids from the
00:08:29 --> 00:08:31 nearby main asteroid belt between Mars and
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 Jupiter, or they're the remains of debris
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 ejector, uh, thrown out into orbit following
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 a giant asteroid impact under the Martian
00:08:38 --> 00:08:38 surface.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:40 Silvia Mantovanini : So this mission, called Martian Moons
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 Exploration, or MMX for short, is
00:08:43 --> 00:08:45 quite exciting. It's led by the Japanese
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 space agency, and its whole goal is not only
00:08:48 --> 00:08:50 to go to Mars to orbit around Phobos, but you
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 actually collect a sample of it and return it
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 back to Earth. Uh, and if successful, this
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 will be the first time ever that a sample has
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 been collected from the Martian planet system
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 and then brought back to Earth for further
00:09:01 --> 00:09:03 analysis. So us scientists are, uh, uh,
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 shaking in our boots, getting really excited
00:09:05 --> 00:09:07 because this is things that we've been
00:09:07 --> 00:09:09 waiting for for decades and it's now within
00:09:09 --> 00:09:12 Stuart Gary: critics are going to say it's Phobos, it's
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 not Mars. The Moon was chosen because it's
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 easier to land there, it's easy to take off.
00:09:17 --> 00:09:19 Silvia Mantovanini : Much easier. And we don't know what Phobos is
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 as well. We theorise that it's likely a
00:09:21 --> 00:09:23 captured asteroid, but there's also a theory
00:09:23 --> 00:09:25 that it is the leftover chunk of Mars that
00:09:25 --> 00:09:28 formed because of a giant impact. And so
00:09:28 --> 00:09:30 we won't actually know until we get our hands
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 on that material and be able to analyse it in
00:09:32 --> 00:09:33 more detail.
00:09:33 --> 00:09:34 Stuart Gary: That's one of the first things you learn in
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 astronomy school. Is Phobos a chunk of Mars
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 that been blasted into orbit, or is it a
00:09:40 --> 00:09:41 captured asteroid?
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 Silvia Mantovanini : Right. It's a mystery that hopefully by
00:09:43 --> 00:09:46 2035, once we have the sample back on Earth,
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 we might be able to answer.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 Uh, and then that has a lot of rundown
00:09:49 --> 00:09:52 consequences for what we understand about our
00:09:52 --> 00:09:54 solar system as well. Because Mars is the
00:09:54 --> 00:09:56 only other rocky planet aside from Earth,
00:09:56 --> 00:09:58 that has moons. But its moons are, uh,
00:09:58 --> 00:10:01 obviously very different to our own gigantic,
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 very influential moon that we have here on
00:10:03 --> 00:10:03 Earth.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:05 Stuart Gary: Yeah, we got our moon thanks to the giant
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 impact we did. Mars, on the other hand, is
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 the only place in the universe that we know
00:10:09 --> 00:10:11 of, other than Earth, where there's a real
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 likelihood, a real potential for life to have
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 existed. It was once warm and wet, and as it
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 cooled, it lost its protective shielding, its
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 atmosphere. And, uh, the water that was there
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 slowly evaporated and degassed into space.
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 Any life now would be fossilised, and there
00:10:28 --> 00:10:30 are tantalising signs of that in places like
00:10:30 --> 00:10:31 Chiava Falls.
00:10:31 --> 00:10:34 Silvia Mantovanini : I think it is, it is exceptionally exciting.
00:10:34 --> 00:10:36 As you said, Mars has launched a very
00:10:36 --> 00:10:37 different planet, very similar to Earth in a
00:10:37 --> 00:10:40 lot of ways. And if life did exist there,
00:10:40 --> 00:10:42 those fossils should remain in the fossil
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 record. And so I think that's one of the
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 biggest questions we have just in general as
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 humans, as beings is are we alone in the
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 universe? Is life only on the Earth, or are
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 we going to find it elsewhere. And the first
00:10:53 --> 00:10:55 place to really dig into that is our own
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 solar system. We've got some tantalising
00:10:57 --> 00:10:58 candidates.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:00 We know that we've got moons around Jupiter
00:11:00 --> 00:11:02 and Saturn that likely have big subsurface
00:11:02 --> 00:11:05 oceans that could have life in them, but
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 they're very far away. They're less tangible
00:11:07 --> 00:11:09 to us to physically think about going and
00:11:09 --> 00:11:11 collecting samples analysed. Where is Mars?
00:11:12 --> 00:11:14 Mars is right there. Yes, it's far away, but
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 it's fairly close to the Earth. We can get
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 there within a year or two. We can collect a
00:11:18 --> 00:11:19 sample and bring it back in less than a
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 decade. But it is that kind of holy grail of
00:11:22 --> 00:11:24 can we answer this question with one simple
00:11:24 --> 00:11:24 sample?
00:11:24 --> 00:11:26 Stuart Gary: And it's easier to launch off because it's so
00:11:26 --> 00:11:27 much smaller.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 Silvia Mantovanini : That's right. Gravity is, um, relentless.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 Unfortunately, in the universe all things
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 fall at the whim of gravity. And so if you
00:11:34 --> 00:11:36 have a smaller mass, a smaller planet or a
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 small moon, how wonderful you are able to get
00:11:38 --> 00:11:41 that exit velocity. You need to get on your
00:11:41 --> 00:11:42 merry way. Whereas launching, launching
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 things from, uh, Earth is very doable. We've
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 done it for decades now. But it is
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 extraordinarily expensive to fight against
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 that force of gravity and get things into
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 orbit and away from the Earth as we need to.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 Stuart Gary: China are likely to undertake their sample
00:11:55 --> 00:11:58 return mission to Mars and, um, return
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 those samples possibly by 2029.
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 That's, that's very exciting. The American
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 European mission, which was the final
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 stage of what the Mars perseverance robe
00:12:09 --> 00:12:11 is doing on Jezero Crater.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 Now that's sort of up in the air at the
00:12:13 --> 00:12:15 moment. No, uh, pun intended because of
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 federal funding, but nevertheless, it's got
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 the samples, they're lying there on the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 surface to be collected. We just have to go
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 back there and get them. It's a very
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 interesting stage in research right now. It
00:12:26 --> 00:12:27 must be really frustrating as a, as a
00:12:27 --> 00:12:29 scientist involved in this type of research,
00:12:30 --> 00:12:33 to see one of your goals so near and
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 yet out of reach so far.
00:12:35 --> 00:12:37 Silvia Mantovanini : I think it is a very, uh,
00:12:37 --> 00:12:40 unique time in history where we know so much
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 and so little and we know what we need to do
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 to be able to advance technologies. And yet
00:12:45 --> 00:12:47 we're constantly blocked by same challenges
00:12:47 --> 00:12:49 by, by different challenges that, that are,
00:12:49 --> 00:12:52 uh, global at this point. But certainly when
00:12:52 --> 00:12:54 we're looking to the United States that
00:12:54 --> 00:12:56 there's been a large halt on what we thought
00:12:56 --> 00:12:58 the direction of science is going to be in
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 the next 10, 20 years. And so as a scientist
00:13:01 --> 00:13:03 worldwide, look, we've got this collective
00:13:03 --> 00:13:05 worry of we know what we need to do for
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 advancing human knowledges not just in
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 astronomy or space exploration, but in
00:13:09 --> 00:13:11 medicine and things that are really going to
00:13:11 --> 00:13:13 change our life. And yet we're halted by
00:13:13 --> 00:13:14 funding.
00:13:14 --> 00:13:16 And I think this is a universal problem and
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 something that here in Australia a lot of
00:13:18 --> 00:13:19 scientists have been quite vocal about with
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 our Academy of Science trying to advocate to
00:13:22 --> 00:13:25 all of the MPs around our country how
00:13:25 --> 00:13:27 vital scientific research is for our everyday
00:13:27 --> 00:13:29 life and how it should be funded
00:13:29 --> 00:13:31 significantly because we only know that good
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 consequences will come when we, when we put
00:13:33 --> 00:13:34 in that money.
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 Stuart Gary: Yeah, the loss of funding for the European
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 Southern Observatory project we were involved
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 in, that's a, uh, that is such a low. That is
00:13:41 --> 00:13:42 devastating.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 Silvia Mantovanini : It is devastating. And Australia has this
00:13:45 --> 00:13:48 phenomenal history, especially in astronomy
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 where we fat way above our weight
00:13:50 --> 00:13:52 in terms of the global scale. And with the
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 European Southern Observatory, it was not
00:13:54 --> 00:13:56 only for the astrophysics and the
00:13:56 --> 00:13:57 observations of it all, it was actually for
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 the instrumentation as well, which Australia
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 is a world leader at. And so the community
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 right now and is speaking from, coming from
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 that, that astronomical community is trying
00:14:06 --> 00:14:09 to figure out what is, what is next for us,
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 where can we maybe have different access to
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 different telescopes to help support the
00:14:14 --> 00:14:16 goals to keep Australia on top and all those
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 trickle down technologies that come from it,
00:14:18 --> 00:14:20 all the instrumentation that ends up going
00:14:20 --> 00:14:22 into other sectors or those algorithms and
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 those skills for people that we train that
00:14:25 --> 00:14:27 end up going into other sectors, all within
00:14:27 --> 00:14:29 the Australian economy. So it is a, it's a
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 very um, an interesting challenge and one
00:14:32 --> 00:14:34 that we were keen to solve.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:37 Stuart Gary: I keep thinking of the ligo, uh, experience
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 that we had a few years ago where LIGO
00:14:40 --> 00:14:42 offered Australia a gravitational wave
00:14:42 --> 00:14:45 detector. It was there, it was waiting, the
00:14:45 --> 00:14:47 plans were there and the Australian
00:14:47 --> 00:14:48 government said no.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 So it went to India and India still haven't
00:14:51 --> 00:14:52 built it unfortunately.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 Silvia Mantovanini : Yes, it is, it is Google. I think what's so
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 challenging is in a funding uh, limited
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 environment where you've got more people
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 fighting to do good work and all work in the
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 scientific community across Australia is good
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 and worthy work and it's very difficult. You
00:15:06 --> 00:15:08 can't, it's very, very difficult to say this
00:15:08 --> 00:15:10 is more deserving of this or this or that.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 And it is an extremely difficult landscape.
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 And I think one way to solve that is to have
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 a landscape that has more funding with bigger
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 dedicated visions. So specific funding for
00:15:20 --> 00:15:23 specific goals that is able uh, to help
00:15:23 --> 00:15:24 serve those communities.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 Stuart Gary: That's uh, Dr. Sarah Webb from Swinburne
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 University. Um, and this is space time
00:15:30 --> 00:15:33 still to come. The Time Lords demand a change
00:15:33 --> 00:15:36 in how we understand time itself. And later
00:15:36 --> 00:15:38 in the Science report, a, ah, world first
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 Australian developed personalised MRNA
00:15:41 --> 00:15:43 melanoma, um, vaccine. All that and more
00:15:43 --> 00:15:45 still to come on space time.
00:15:53 --> 00:15:53 Silvia Mantovanini : Foreign,
00:16:02 --> 00:16:05 Stuart Gary: Uh, following a decision
00:16:05 --> 00:16:08 to abolish the leap second leap seconds
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 are added or deducted every few years in
00:16:10 --> 00:16:12 order to keep the world's atomic clocks
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 aligned with the actual rotation of our
00:16:14 --> 00:16:16 planet, so that seasons start where they're
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 supposed to, computers perform as they
00:16:18 --> 00:16:21 should, and satellite navigation systems work
00:16:21 --> 00:16:23 correctly. The world's clocks are
00:16:23 --> 00:16:26 governed by their seconds, 60 of them in
00:16:26 --> 00:16:29 every minute, 3 in every hour,
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 and 86 in a standard
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 mean solar day. By the way, a standard
00:16:35 --> 00:16:37 mean solar day is the time it takes the Earth
00:16:37 --> 00:16:40 to complete one full rotation, placing any
00:16:40 --> 00:16:42 given spot with the sun at zenith, that is
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 directly overhead, directly back at zenith,
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 one full planetary rotation later. That's
00:16:47 --> 00:16:49 very different to a sidereal day, which is
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 used by astronomers and observatories to
00:16:52 --> 00:16:54 track the Earth's rotation, as referenced by
00:16:54 --> 00:16:56 a bunch of fixed, seemingly unmoving, um,
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 background stars. The sidereal day
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 shows that the Earth's day is actually just a
00:17:01 --> 00:17:02 little bit shorter.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:05 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:05 That's
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 86164.09
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 seconds of mean solar time. That
00:17:11 --> 00:17:13 difference happens because as the Earth spins
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 on its axis, it's also moving along its
00:17:15 --> 00:17:18 orbital path around the sun. So to bring the
00:17:18 --> 00:17:20 sun back to the exact same overhead position,
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 the Earth needs to rotate not 360 degrees,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:26 but actually 361 degrees. That takes
00:17:26 --> 00:17:28 an extra four minutes. Hence the time
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 difference. Measuring the exact
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 time on Earth nowadays is achieved by a
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 global system of atomic clocks, collectively
00:17:36 --> 00:17:38 known as Coordinated Universal Time, or
00:17:38 --> 00:17:41 UTC Zulu. If you're in the military,
00:17:41 --> 00:17:44 it's the gold standard. It never changes for
00:17:44 --> 00:17:46 daylight saving or for regional differences.
00:17:47 --> 00:17:50 So 1200 UTC in London is the same as
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 1200 UTC in Sydney or in Tokyo or
00:17:53 --> 00:17:55 Washington, or even aboard the International
00:17:55 --> 00:17:56 Space Station.
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 Originally, every town and village kept its
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 own local time. Basically, 12 noon
00:18:02 --> 00:18:04 was when the sun was directly overhead in
00:18:04 --> 00:18:06 your local village. But the arrival of the
00:18:06 --> 00:18:09 railways in the 1800s forced countries to
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 introduce standard time zones so trains
00:18:11 --> 00:18:13 wouldn't crash into each other. And with the
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 arrival of standard time zones across the
00:18:15 --> 00:18:17 globe, navigation became easier and
00:18:17 --> 00:18:20 businesses flowed more smoothly. It was a
00:18:20 --> 00:18:22 great idea. But with the arrival of the
00:18:22 --> 00:18:25 computer age in spaceflight, accuracy has
00:18:25 --> 00:18:27 become of prime importance. You see,
00:18:27 --> 00:18:30 precision counts. The Earth's
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 rotation tends to wobble and gradually slow
00:18:32 --> 00:18:34 down. It's due to tidal friction and
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 geological events like earthquakes. It makes
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 the planet's rotation an unreliable standard
00:18:40 --> 00:18:42 for modern science, navigation and Internet
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 systems.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 So as clocks needed to become more and more
00:18:45 --> 00:18:47 accurate, scientists moved away from
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 traditional mechanical and electrical devices
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 and began relying ever more on advanced
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 atomic clocks. In 1967, the
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 governing body of the International Bureau of
00:18:57 --> 00:18:59 Weights and Measures, which standardises the
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 ward's measurements, adopted a more precise
00:19:01 --> 00:19:03 definition of second based on the
00:19:03 --> 00:19:06 measurements of cesium atoms. And this is
00:19:06 --> 00:19:08 what underpins coordinated universal time.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:12 Atomic clocks use cesium fountains to track
00:19:12 --> 00:19:15 time with extreme accuracy. Cesium gas
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 is cooled down to near absolute zero
00:19:19 --> 00:19:21 and then pushed up as a fountain through a
00:19:21 --> 00:19:24 microwave filled cavity. The microwaves are
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 adjusted until they match the exact natural
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 resonance frequency of the cesium atoms,
00:19:28 --> 00:19:30 allowing the clock to count the fixed number
00:19:30 --> 00:19:33 of cycles that define a second. This method
00:19:33 --> 00:19:36 is so exact that cesium clocks neither
00:19:36 --> 00:19:39 gain nor lose a single second in, in tens of
00:19:39 --> 00:19:41 millions of years. And this level of
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 precision has allowed the second to be
00:19:43 --> 00:19:44 measured by counting
00:19:44 --> 00:19:49 9
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 oscillations or radiation cycles of a
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 Cesium 133 atom during its
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 unperturbed ground state. Hyper defined
00:19:56 --> 00:19:59 transition. But the precision of atomic
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 clocks have their own problems because they
00:20:01 --> 00:20:03 pick up changes in the variability of the
00:20:03 --> 00:20:05 Earth's rate of rotation. And that's where
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 leap seconds come in. Since their
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 introduction in 1972, leap seconds have been
00:20:10 --> 00:20:13 added to our clocks on 27 occasions, most
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 recently at the end of New Year's Eve 2016.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 The additional leap seconds keep atomic
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 clocks accurate, navigation systems precise,
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 moving transport smoothly, or at least trying
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 to, and coordinating everything from big
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 business transactions to the automated
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 docking of spacecraft in orbit. Even when the
00:20:31 --> 00:20:33 power output needs to be increased during ad
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 breaks and televised football games. These
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 changes, by adding leap seconds, compensates
00:20:39 --> 00:20:41 for the known variabilities in the rotational
00:20:41 --> 00:20:43 speed of, uh, the planet's axis.
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 Without them, time would slowly drift away
00:20:46 --> 00:20:48 out of coordination and into ever increasing
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 confusion. But the real need for
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 leap seconds came when scientists determined
00:20:53 --> 00:20:56 that the Earth's axial rotation rate simply
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 wasn't consistent enough. See, the Earth's
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 axial rotation changes due to things like
00:21:01 --> 00:21:04 mass redistribution and torque forces acting
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 on the planet. While we think of the Earth as
00:21:06 --> 00:21:08 a rigid cue ball, it's actually a very
00:21:08 --> 00:21:10 dynamic, slightly squashed sphere with a
00:21:10 --> 00:21:13 molten core, fluid oceans, a, uh, shifting
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 atmosphere and moving tectonic plates.
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 Any event that shifts mass closer or further
00:21:18 --> 00:21:21 from the Earth's rotational axis changes the
00:21:21 --> 00:21:23 planet's axial spin. That's due to the
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 conservation of angular momentum, much like a
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 spinning figure skater pulls their arms in to
00:21:28 --> 00:21:31 spin faster. Overall, there's a long term
00:21:31 --> 00:21:33 slowdown of the planet's spin rate over
00:21:33 --> 00:21:35 centuries and millennia. That's caused by
00:21:35 --> 00:21:37 gravitational tidal friction with the Moon
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 and to a lesser extent, the Sun. See, the
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 Moon's gravity pulls on the Earth's oceans,
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 creating tidal bulges. And because Earth
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 rotates faster than the Moon orbits it, the
00:21:47 --> 00:21:50 Earth tries to drag its watery bulge ahead of
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 the Moon. This causes the Moon's gravity to
00:21:53 --> 00:21:55 act like a sort of brake, pulling back on
00:21:55 --> 00:21:57 this bulge, steadily draining the Earth's
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 rotational energy, which causes the Earth's
00:21:59 --> 00:22:02 day to lengthen by 2.3 milliseconds every
00:22:02 --> 00:22:04 century. And it doesn't end there. There are
00:22:04 --> 00:22:06 other factors influencing the Earth's axial
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 spin as well, including the climate. And the
00:22:09 --> 00:22:11 last ice age, which physically covered the
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 planet in a thick heavy sheet of ice,
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 altering the shape of the Earth. Post glacial
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 rebound following the melting of those
00:22:18 --> 00:22:20 billions of tons of ice cover has slowly seen
00:22:20 --> 00:22:22 the distribution of mass shift relative to
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 the planet's centre of gravity.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:26 During the last ice age, heavy glaciers
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 flattened the, uh, Earth's poles. Now that
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 most of that ice has melted, the land at the
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 poles is slowly bouncing back upwards, making
00:22:33 --> 00:22:36 the planet more spherical. And this is
00:22:36 --> 00:22:39 shifting mass closer to the axis, speeding up
00:22:39 --> 00:22:41 the planet's rotation. There are also modern
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 changes, such as the rapid melting of
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, which
00:22:46 --> 00:22:47 is dumping water back into the oceans,
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 redistributing mass towards the equator,
00:22:50 --> 00:22:52 again acting like that figure skater
00:22:52 --> 00:22:54 extending their arms to slow down rotation.
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 The Earth's spin also changes dynamically
00:22:57 --> 00:22:59 from day to day and season to season because
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 of the weather. With wind patterns and strong
00:23:02 --> 00:23:04 global wind systems like jet streams pushing
00:23:04 --> 00:23:06 hard against the Earth's, uh, surface
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 topography like mountain ranges. When
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 strong winds blow in the direction of the
00:23:10 --> 00:23:12 Earth's rotation, the atmosphere gains
00:23:12 --> 00:23:15 angular momentum, causing the solid Earth to
00:23:15 --> 00:23:18 slow down slightly to compensate. This causes
00:23:18 --> 00:23:20 seasonal variations of up to a millisecond
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 per day. And internal planetary mechanics
00:23:23 --> 00:23:25 also play an important role. Forces
00:23:26 --> 00:23:28 deep within the planet and sudden tectonic
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 movements such as earthquakes cause
00:23:30 --> 00:23:32 unpredictable changes deep inside the Earth.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:34 A, uh, primary cause is the drag along the
00:23:34 --> 00:23:36 core mantle boundary layer. The Earth's
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 molten iron outer core sloshes around
00:23:39 --> 00:23:41 independently of the base of the rocky mantle
00:23:41 --> 00:23:44 layer above it. Changes in magnetic fields
00:23:44 --> 00:23:46 and fluid currents at the core mantle
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 boundary can also cause the crust to speed up
00:23:48 --> 00:23:51 or slow down. Over decades. And then there
00:23:51 --> 00:23:53 are mega earthquakes like, uh, the 2004
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 Indian Ocean tsunami or the 2011 Japanese
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 earthquake, which instantly shift billions of
00:23:58 --> 00:24:00 tons of mass, enough to permanently speed up
00:24:00 --> 00:24:03 rotation, shortening the day by about 1.8
00:24:03 --> 00:24:06 microseconds. And all these events are making
00:24:06 --> 00:24:08 timekeeping in the space age increasingly
00:24:08 --> 00:24:11 less and less accurate. And so in
00:24:11 --> 00:24:14 1972, scientists introduced the leap
00:24:14 --> 00:24:16 second, a, uh, one second adjustment added to
00:24:16 --> 00:24:19 coordinated universal time to keep highly
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 precise atomic clocks synchronised to the
00:24:21 --> 00:24:23 Earth's natural, natural irregular rotation.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 Because the planet's rotation fluctuates and
00:24:26 --> 00:24:28 gradually slows down over long periods, a
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 discrepancy slowly builds between
00:24:30 --> 00:24:33 astronomical time and atomic time.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 When the gap approaches 0.9 seconds, a leap
00:24:36 --> 00:24:38 second is inserted, making the final minute
00:24:38 --> 00:24:41 of that day 61 seconds long, counted as
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 23, 59 and 60 seconds, usually on New
00:24:44 --> 00:24:47 Year's Eve. But while leap seconds
00:24:47 --> 00:24:49 keep clocks aligned with space, they're an
00:24:49 --> 00:24:51 operational nightmare for modern day digital
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53 infrastructure, causing systems to regularly
00:24:54 --> 00:24:56 crash and giving computer programme software
00:24:56 --> 00:24:58 writers still recovering from the Y2K bug
00:24:58 --> 00:25:01 connections. And the next big leap second
00:25:01 --> 00:25:03 insertion will be a negative event, removing
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 a second from the clock. The need for a
00:25:06 --> 00:25:08 negative leap second is due to changes in the
00:25:08 --> 00:25:10 Earth's core, which has actually caused the
00:25:10 --> 00:25:13 planet to temporarily speed up. And this
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 raised fears that scientists would have to
00:25:15 --> 00:25:17 implement a negative leap second, a 59 second
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 minute. And that's going to send software
00:25:20 --> 00:25:22 engineers into uncontrollable nervous
00:25:22 --> 00:25:24 breakdowns. Few will survive without their
00:25:24 --> 00:25:25 teddy bears.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 Now, global tech companies have warned that
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 software infrastructure is entirely untested
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 for deleting a second. That's created a
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 massive risk of severe, widespread digital
00:25:35 --> 00:25:38 breakdowns. Again, think Y2K.
00:25:38 --> 00:25:40 So to eliminate these risks, delegates from
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 69 countries at the International Bureau of
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 Weights and Measures meeting back in 2022
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 voted to remove leap seconds by 2035
00:25:48 --> 00:25:51 and start discussing a different method of
00:25:51 --> 00:25:52 keeping the Earth's days intact. Sync with
00:25:52 --> 00:25:55 the astronomical world. But the urgent need
00:25:55 --> 00:25:58 to introduce a negative leap second has
00:25:58 --> 00:25:59 forced the group to vote again last week,
00:25:59 --> 00:26:01 this time to bring the abolishment of the
00:26:01 --> 00:26:04 leap second forward to 20 May
00:26:04 --> 00:26:07 2027. Under the new rules,
00:26:07 --> 00:26:09 rather than micromanaging a one second gap,
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 the allowed drift between atomic time and the
00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 Earth's rotation will be expanded to a full
00:26:14 --> 00:26:17 hour. Clocks will continuously run without
00:26:17 --> 00:26:19 interruption. Over centuries, our time
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 will slowly drift out of alignment with the
00:26:21 --> 00:26:24 sun. And eventually, like in thousands of
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 years from now, future generations will
00:26:26 --> 00:26:29 simply implement a single leap hour, treating
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 it much like a predictable daylight savings
00:26:31 --> 00:26:34 time shift. This is space time.
00:26:43 --> 00:26:43 Silvia Mantovanini : Foreign.
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 Stuart Gary: Take a brief look at some of the other
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 stories making news in Science this week with
00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 a Science report. Scientists have announced a
00:26:57 --> 00:26:59 major breakthrough in skin cancer treatment
00:26:59 --> 00:27:01 with a world first Australian developed
00:27:01 --> 00:27:04 personalised M mRNA melanoma vaccine.
00:27:04 --> 00:27:07 Clinical trials of over 1100 patients
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 showed that adding intysmarin to the standard
00:27:09 --> 00:27:11 post surgery treatment reduced the risk of
00:27:11 --> 00:27:14 melanoma returning within two years by at
00:27:14 --> 00:27:17 least 42%. 82% of
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 people in the trial's vaccine group were
00:27:19 --> 00:27:20 still living without a recurrence of their
00:27:20 --> 00:27:23 cancer after two years, compared to 70% on
00:27:23 --> 00:27:26 the standard keytruda treatment alone. The
00:27:26 --> 00:27:28 trial is continuing in order to track longer
00:27:28 --> 00:27:31 term outcomes. A new
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 study has shown a catastrophic collapse of
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 environment and marine life in the wake of
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 spill. The findings, reported in the
00:27:41 --> 00:27:42 Proceedings of the National Academy of
00:27:42 --> 00:27:45 Sciences, found that populations of
00:27:45 --> 00:27:48 deep water fishes, crustaceans and squid
00:27:48 --> 00:27:51 declined significantly over the past 16 years
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 since the BP ecological disaster first
00:27:54 --> 00:27:56 unfolded. The study included over
00:27:56 --> 00:27:59 2 net samples, acoustic surveys and
00:27:59 --> 00:28:01 genetic analyses. It revealed
00:28:01 --> 00:28:04 declines in 64% of fish numbers,
00:28:04 --> 00:28:07 62% of large crustaceans and
00:28:07 --> 00:28:10 60% in small squid and other cephalopods.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:12 And some of the most ecologically important
00:28:12 --> 00:28:13 animals were hit even harder.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16 Krill declined by 83%, lantern
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 fishes by 63% and Bristol mouth fishes
00:28:19 --> 00:28:22 by 69%. These concentrations
00:28:22 --> 00:28:25 are essential for whales, dolphins, tuna,
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 sharks, seabirds and other marine life.
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 Aquatic life that was common back in 2011 has
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 now virtually disappeared. BP's
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 Deepwater Horizon oil spill released between
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 4 and 4.9 million barrels of oil, while
00:28:38 --> 00:28:41 approximately 770 gallons of chemical
00:28:41 --> 00:28:43 dispersant were injected nearly the wellhead.
00:28:43 --> 00:28:45 All related compounds have since been
00:28:45 --> 00:28:47 detected in deep water fish eggs and
00:28:47 --> 00:28:49 encephalopod tissues. It's an
00:28:49 --> 00:28:52 environmental disaster on an unprecedented
00:28:52 --> 00:28:55 scale. Breakdown
00:28:55 --> 00:28:57 plastics such as polyurethane in chew foam,
00:28:57 --> 00:28:59 uh, kitchen sponges and mattresses can be a
00:28:59 --> 00:29:02 problem for recycling now.
00:29:02 --> 00:29:04 Scientists have improved an enzyme normally
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 produced by bacteria found in compost to
00:29:06 --> 00:29:08 enable it to more efficiently break down
00:29:08 --> 00:29:11 polyurethane main products. Researchers
00:29:11 --> 00:29:13 edited the DNA of the bacteria to produce a
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 more efficient version of a plastic eating
00:29:16 --> 00:29:19 enzyme. They tested the enzyme on pieces of
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 soles of shoes, and after three days it had
00:29:21 --> 00:29:24 chewed up about 1.4% of the polyurethane,
00:29:24 --> 00:29:26 splitting the waste product into smaller,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:27 reusable pieces.
00:29:28 --> 00:29:30 A report in the journal ChemCatalyst claims
00:29:30 --> 00:29:32 that although their research is still in its
00:29:32 --> 00:29:35 early stages, it does show Promise for future
00:29:35 --> 00:29:36 plastic reprocessing.
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 A new study has found that people who spend
00:29:40 --> 00:29:42 more time with their pet cats tend to have
00:29:42 --> 00:29:45 more positive moods. The findings reported
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 in the journal Eye Science are based on a
00:29:47 --> 00:29:50 trial involving 29 cats and their human
00:29:50 --> 00:29:53 companions. The authors conducted hormonal
00:29:53 --> 00:29:55 analysis through urine samples, attached
00:29:55 --> 00:29:57 small Bluetooth low energy beacons to the
00:29:57 --> 00:29:59 cat's collars to measure their physical daily
00:29:59 --> 00:30:01 proximity, assess the owner's mood through
00:30:01 --> 00:30:03 questionnaires and observe the cat's
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 behaviour towards their owners and towards
00:30:05 --> 00:30:08 unfamiliar people. The findings revealed
00:30:08 --> 00:30:11 a hormonal connection between cats and their
00:30:11 --> 00:30:13 humans involving oxytocin and cortisol,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 hormones that are associated with social
00:30:15 --> 00:30:17 relationships and stress. They showed a uh,
00:30:18 --> 00:30:20 positive correlation in concentrations of
00:30:20 --> 00:30:22 oxytocin for both the cats and their people,
00:30:22 --> 00:30:25 with higher oxytocin levels in cats linked to
00:30:25 --> 00:30:27 lower cortisol levels and fewer negative
00:30:27 --> 00:30:29 feelings in their owners. Ultimately, the
00:30:29 --> 00:30:31 authors observed that positive mood states in
00:30:31 --> 00:30:33 the owners were not connected to how long
00:30:33 --> 00:30:35 they've had their cats, but rather to the
00:30:35 --> 00:30:38 overall physical proximity between owners and
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 their pets. In other words, owners positive
00:30:40 --> 00:30:43 feelings seem to be most strongly associated
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 with how much time they spend with their cats
00:30:45 --> 00:30:48 in everyday life. A
00:30:48 --> 00:30:51 new documentary has been released exposing
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53 the famous Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot film as a
00:30:53 --> 00:30:56 fake. The iconic shaky 59 second
00:30:56 --> 00:30:59 silent 16 millimetre clip shows what appears
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 to be an enormous female Sasquatch walking
00:31:01 --> 00:31:04 along a trail at Bluff Creek, California.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:07 Sceptics have long claimed it's just some
00:31:07 --> 00:31:09 dude in a gorilla costume. And in 2002
00:31:09 --> 00:31:11 Philip Morris, who runs a North Carolina
00:31:11 --> 00:31:13 based company offering costumes, props and
00:31:13 --> 00:31:15 stage products, claimed that he made the
00:31:15 --> 00:31:17 gorilla costume that was used in the film,
00:31:17 --> 00:31:19 but had been reluctant to expose the hoax
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 earlier for fear of harming his business.
00:31:22 --> 00:31:24 Meanwhile, a few years earlier in 1999,
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 longtime Patterson and Gimlin friend Bob
00:31:27 --> 00:31:29 Harronius admitted that he was the figure
00:31:29 --> 00:31:31 wearing the costume in the film. He says he
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 had not gone public earlier because he was
00:31:33 --> 00:31:35 afraid of being convicted of fraud for his
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 part in the hoax, but agreed to finally go
00:31:37 --> 00:31:40 public following legal advice. The sceptics
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42 Tim Mendham says the new film Capturing
00:31:42 --> 00:31:45 Bigfoot which exposes the hoax has just been
00:31:45 --> 00:31:46 released on cable.
00:31:46 --> 00:31:47 Tim Mendham: The footage is probably one of the most
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 famous film videos of a cryptid, an unknown
00:31:50 --> 00:31:51 creature, especially a legendary one. And
00:31:51 --> 00:31:54 this is the one taken in 67 in a place called
00:31:54 --> 00:31:57 Bluff Creek in California by two.
00:31:57 --> 00:31:59 I don't know exactly what they were actually
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 adventurous documentary makers who knows
00:32:01 --> 00:32:03 happened to have a 16 mil camera them and
00:32:03 --> 00:32:05 they filmed a Bigfoot, a Sasquatch, a tall
00:32:05 --> 00:32:07 creature, hairy creature, walking along near
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10 a creek, sort of a stony tree background.
00:32:10 --> 00:32:13 It walks along, it looks at them sort of
00:32:13 --> 00:32:15 strolling, it's not exactly running anywhere,
00:32:15 --> 00:32:16 and then walks on and disappears. And the
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 film runs for about almost a minute and
00:32:19 --> 00:32:21 became sort of proof for a lot of people that
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23 Bigfoot exists. Now, people have always been
00:32:23 --> 00:32:26 investigating it. You get Hollywood makeup
00:32:26 --> 00:32:28 people trying to see if the costume is real.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:30 There is a costume and the suggestion always
00:32:30 --> 00:32:32 has been, is that the fake footage, it's
00:32:32 --> 00:32:34 quite reasonable. It's probably one of the
00:32:34 --> 00:32:36 clearest bits of footage of such a creature.
00:32:36 --> 00:32:37 And it goes for a long time.
00:32:37 --> 00:32:39 So it's not a fleeting thing disappearing
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 behind a tree. But since then, a filmmaker
00:32:41 --> 00:32:43 has made this documentary. Uh, recently this
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 appeared Mark Evans called Capturing Bigfoot.
00:32:46 --> 00:32:49 And it contains a 40 second clip from
00:32:49 --> 00:32:52 a year earlier from 1966, of
00:32:52 --> 00:32:54 Bigfoot walking being filmed in much the same
00:32:54 --> 00:32:57 way, which they're saying is a trial run
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00 for the later 1966 famous clip.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02 They've also spoken with a gentleman who said
00:33:02 --> 00:33:04 he was actually inside the costume. It's a
00:33:04 --> 00:33:06 lot older now, and that he's playing what
00:33:06 --> 00:33:09 happened to how it was set up. And a son or a
00:33:09 --> 00:33:11 grandson or something like that of the one of
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 the Patterson or Gimlin, one of the two guys
00:33:13 --> 00:33:15 who made the film, witnessing their relative
00:33:15 --> 00:33:18 burning the costume in the backyard. So it's
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 a, uh, it was always a controversial film. It
00:33:20 --> 00:33:22 was quite a nice film to look at. It probably
00:33:22 --> 00:33:24 convinced a lot of people there's been a lot
00:33:24 --> 00:33:25 of problems with it. Everything from how the
00:33:25 --> 00:33:27 animal moves, the shape of the animal. Does
00:33:27 --> 00:33:29 it have breasts? Does it not have breasts?
00:33:29 --> 00:33:31 Male, female, etc. The way it sort of just
00:33:31 --> 00:33:33 saunters across the landscape, gives a look
00:33:33 --> 00:33:35 to the researchers, very unlike most
00:33:35 --> 00:33:37 Sasquatch stories you've ever heard and
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39 trying to get a better grip on it. So this
00:33:39 --> 00:33:42 film contains probably evidence which is as
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 definitive as the original Patterson Gimlin
00:33:45 --> 00:33:47 film. So you think, uh, all right, okay,
00:33:47 --> 00:33:49 which one is real? So now there's some firmer
00:33:49 --> 00:33:52 quotes evident in quotes that the original
00:33:52 --> 00:33:54 film is not true. Not that anyone who
00:33:54 --> 00:33:56 seriously investigates cryptids really does
00:33:56 --> 00:33:57 think it's true. But I'm sure there are
00:33:57 --> 00:33:59 people who still do. Charlie Z People
00:33:59 --> 00:34:01 involved. Patterson. Patterson died not long
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04 after in 72. It's interesting that this new
00:34:04 --> 00:34:06 evidence has cropped up pretty much saying we
00:34:06 --> 00:34:08 have the silver bullet that proves that the
00:34:08 --> 00:34:09 original film was not true. What a shame,
00:34:10 --> 00:34:10 really.
00:34:10 --> 00:34:11 It'd be nice if it was true.
00:34:11 --> 00:34:14 Stuart Gary: I mean we all want Bigfoot to be real, but.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:16 Tim Mendham: Yeah, but you gotta have the evidence.
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 Stuart Gary: You need a corpse or the DNA evidence
00:34:19 --> 00:34:20 at least that's never.
00:34:20 --> 00:34:21 Tim Mendham: But they're also saying, of course they're
00:34:21 --> 00:34:23 also think you need about 100.
00:34:23 --> 00:34:25 Stuart Gary: Well you need big feet, several hundred
00:34:25 --> 00:34:28 Bigfoots. It's not big. In order to have
00:34:28 --> 00:34:29 a viable breeding population.
00:34:29 --> 00:34:31 Tim Mendham: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And that's a lot of
00:34:31 --> 00:34:32 uh, Bigfoot
00:34:32 --> 00:34:35 Stuart Gary: not to be recorded by people who have cameras
00:34:35 --> 00:34:35 on their cell phones.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:37 Tim Mendham: That's exactly right. Everyone carries a
00:34:37 --> 00:34:39 camera now. You don't need a 16 mil camera.
00:34:39 --> 00:34:40 Everyone's got a camera in their pocket and
00:34:40 --> 00:34:42 it's pretty good quality. But no one has
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 really come up with definitive film. It's
00:34:44 --> 00:34:46 amazing how often people see Bigfoot and uh,
00:34:46 --> 00:34:48 some of them for a lengthy period of time but
00:34:48 --> 00:34:50 forget to film it. And there's no. Every
00:34:50 --> 00:34:52 Bigfoot that you most see these days is
00:34:52 --> 00:34:54 fuzzy. Perhaps Bigfoot fuzzy.
00:34:54 --> 00:34:56 Stuart Gary: Squatch blobs. They're called Squatch blobs.
00:34:57 --> 00:34:59 Tim Mendham: And um, I don't know, it's, it's a
00:34:59 --> 00:35:02 fascinating area for as much for its um, the
00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 psychology of belief as it is for any actual
00:35:04 --> 00:35:07 evidence of a humanoid. People want to
00:35:07 --> 00:35:10 believe. People do. And yeah, that's okay.
00:35:10 --> 00:35:11 People want to believe. That doesn't mean
00:35:11 --> 00:35:12 it's true.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:14 Stuart Gary: That's the sceptics. Timms Mendham. And this
00:35:14 --> 00:35:15 is Space Time.
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