Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! In fact American scientific‘s fast science this is Rachel Feltman.
First, I want to say that I think radical optimism will be an important part of our toolkit in the coming months. So I will try my best to bring you stories that show how innovation can help change the world for the better. We’ll continue to feature great people working to solve seemingly insurmountable problems. We will continue to take you to places you’ve never been to learn things that expand your horizons and give you new ways of seeing the world. We will also try to give joy and lightness, and as often as possible, as we know that this is very important.
ok So We will start the week with the latest science news.
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The world’s first wooden satellite arrived at the International Space Station last Tuesday. The Japanese spaceship is only four inches square. As I mentioned before fast science the rapidly growing number of metal satellites in orbit is a real threat to our planet’s ozone layer. That’s mainly because spacecraft made of aluminum produce dangerous aluminum oxide when burned in the atmosphere, which is an inevitable part of their life cycle. I’ll spare you the inorganic chemistry, but those aluminum oxide particles can cause reactions between ozone and chlorine in the Earth’s atmosphere. LignoSat has electronic sensors, but its body is made of magnolia wood. The researchers hope to collect data while the Cubesat is deployed from the ISS and orbits the planet for several months.
Speaking of space: last Wednesday, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe he took a decisive step to make the sun pass record. On December 24, the probe is expected to pass within 3.86 million kilometers of the sun’s surface, breaking the 2023 record of 4.51 million kilometers.
Parker has been breaking records since launching in 2018. That year the probe passed 26.55 million kilometers from the sun’s surface, surpassing the record set in the 1970s.
Last Wednesday the probe flew by Venus using the planet’s gravity to propel it into its new orbit. NASA says the December solar transit will bring the spacecraft “close enough to pass inside a solar flare, like a surfer diving under an ocean wave.”
Back on Earth things are looking pretty dry. The US Drought Monitor reports that nearly every state in the country is experiencing drought—Alaska and Kentucky are the only exceptions. More than 150 million people across the US were in a drought from October 23-29, a 34 percent increase from the previous week.
Climate change affects drought in more ways than you might think. While some areas are seeing less rain overall—which of course creates dry conditions—others are seeing most or all of the rain at once.
There is a limit to the amount of water the soil can absorb, so excess runoff won’t necessarily leave us with extra moisture to rely on on less rainy days. Instead, this water becomes what we call runoff, which flows through the soil until it enters a stream or other body of water.
Climate change appears to be making these large rainfall events more common. So when it rains, it pours and floods, and we still run the risk of ending up in a drought. With large areas of the country experiencing drought right now, it’s not a bad idea to take steps to conserve water, no matter how things look where you live. Consider taking shorter showers, and be sure to turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth and washing dishes.
Speaking of water, here’s some news to get you excited About one of my favorite things to hate: plastics! If you join us (on Fast Science and also, like on Earth), most plastics are literally made from fossil fuels, and have appeared almost everywhere, from Antarctica to the human brain.
Last Wednesday, a new study found that microplastics reduce our ability to reuse wastewater. The researchers suspected that tiny plastic particles known as microplastics, which provide a happy habitat for microbes to form strong colonies called biofilms, could keep potential pathogens alive through the wastewater treatment process. Sure enough, the researchers identified some nasty types of bacteria and viruses that persisted after the water was treated. This is just another piece of evidence in a growing pile of what we show the need to fight our addiction to plastic.
Let’s end with a couple of funny stories.
First of all: you know how sometimes, when someone sees you at work, it just kind of touches you and really makes you do things, and sometimes being in the audience can suffocate you? Apparently, these instincts are older than our own species.
In a study published last Fridayresearchers report that chimpanzees are also subject to the so-called “audience effect.” The study looked at years of data on chimpanzees performing number-based tasks on touchscreens. It turns out that the chimps’ performance was affected by how many humans were watching and whether the animals knew the audience. For the more difficult numerical tasks, the chimes seemed to perform better as the experimenter’s audience grew. But the easiest tasks are more likely to be figured out in front of a group of experimenters and a familiar audience. Researchers hope to use these insights to better understand how humans evolved similar behavior.
Finally, here’s one for sports fans. As you may already know, every baseball used in every major league game gets a special spa treatment: It is washed with mud from a single secret location somewhere in the tributary of the Delaware River. The idea is that this mud bath takes the balls more easily. No team is willing to mess with the alternates, but the je ne sais quoi of this particular goop has recently been scientifically investigated. In a paper published last Mondayresearchers have confirmed that there is something in the mud.
The research team placed a piece of magic mud into a precision instrument called a rheometerwhich applies different types of forces to represent fluid flows to quantify the distensibility of the substance. The researchers also used an atomic force microscope to measure how much force the mud resisted as it moved away from a tool, known as stickiness. They also made a fake human finger made of rubber—covered in whale oil to mimic the natural skin of human skin—to approximate the friction of a ball with a pitcher’s hands.
All of this data proves what baseball players have been saying for years: mud works. Thanks to its consistency, it is as easy to spread as a face cream, which allows for an even coverage of a ball. But the stickiness of the clay helps all the tiny particles of sand suspended inside stick to the ball, as the mud dries like sandpaper. Nice!
That’s it for this week’s roundup of science news. We’ll be back on Wednesday to learn how insects have helped shape human culture.
Fast Science produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was directed by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck check out our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. subscribe American scientific for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
In fact american scientific this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!
