0:00

Hi, this is Christopher Kimball from Milk Street

0:02

Radio. I often shop at Whole Foods

0:04

Market since they sell the kind of food I like.

0:06

Organic vegetables, a great meat counter, and of

0:09

course a great staff. For

0:11

Thanksgiving, Whole Foods offers brine

0:13

turkeys, as well as a spiral

0:15

cut bone and ham. The Whole

0:17

Foods Market bakery has a large assortment of

0:19

pies, even a vegan pumpkin pie. Or

0:22

grab some brioche and butterflake rolls for the

0:24

table as well. Or you

0:26

can ask the Whole Foods team to cater your

0:28

meal for you, including the bird, the sides, and

0:30

desserts. Get your holiday party

0:32

started at Whole Foods Market. And

0:56

he's here to answer your questions. A warm

0:58

welcome. Chris, great to have

1:00

you back. Hi Clarence. Cambridge actually. But

1:02

what's 80 miles? No, 80 kilometres

1:04

between friends. Not far. But

1:07

Cambridge is the centre of the universe, you know. Copernicus

1:10

had it wrong. The universe does not

1:12

rotate the way he

1:14

thought. It's actually the universe rotates

1:16

around Cambridge. Yeah, absolutely. I

1:18

got that horribly wrong. Let's

1:23

start with, I think, a very loaded question.

1:25

It comes in from Soli in

1:28

Weinberg. It reads, not actually a

1:30

question. Yeah, a loaded question it

1:32

is. But can you share your

1:34

thoughts on an article I read

1:36

on the UK's independent website on

1:39

the trends in Ecology and Evolution

1:41

Journal that ethanol consumption, consumption amongst

1:43

animals, in one study,

1:45

one 2012 study, male fruit

1:48

flies were found to increase

1:50

their alcohol consumption after

1:52

being rejected by a mate, while

1:54

females of a closely related species

1:57

were found to be less selective

1:59

in the animal. their choice of

2:01

mate after consuming ethanol. I

2:03

did see that headline. It was

2:05

very clickbaity in journal terms.

2:08

Even science PR can

2:10

be clickbaity. And

2:12

we've known for a long time that animals succumb to

2:15

alcohol the same way we do. And

2:17

when many insects go and eat fruit, because

2:19

that's where even mosquitoes don't just drink blood,

2:21

only the females do that anyway, but mosquitoes

2:23

get most of their energy by going and

2:25

finding moldy pieces of fruit. And

2:28

then they suck up the juices. And anyone

2:30

who's walked through an orchard in autumn will

2:33

know that smell almost like cider of fermenting

2:35

fruit. The rotting fruit on the ground has

2:37

yeasts on it, and it is becoming a

2:39

bit alcoholic. So anything that's eating the fruit

2:41

is getting a bit of a dose of

2:43

alcohol. And so, yes,

2:46

animals have always been exposed, not

2:48

through choice or volition necessarily, but through

2:51

necessity of going and getting their lunch.

2:54

But the question is, do they do this

2:56

in order to change their behavior? We drink

2:58

alcohol as a social thing and also to

3:00

change our behavior a bit, in

3:02

some people's cases, a lot. And sometimes of the

3:04

year and some days of the week more than

3:06

others. But do animals

3:08

actually do this intentionally? Well, it's very hard to prove,

3:11

isn't it? Because you can only

3:13

say what you can observe and

3:15

draw conclusions from the association. You can't say one

3:17

thing causes the other. But if you've got an

3:19

animal that has tried to mate and failed, it

3:21

might be it's been rejected because it's not big

3:23

enough. So what do you do? You go and

3:25

eat. Well, what do you eat? You go and

3:27

eat fruit juice that happens to have some alcohol

3:29

in it and that may make a difference. On

3:31

the other hand, maybe they are just

3:33

drowning their sorrows. Who knows? The other interesting thing about

3:36

booze, I learned this a few years ago, goldfish

3:38

and members of the carp family

3:40

that live in ponds that traditionally

3:43

freeze over in winter have a

3:45

quirk of their metabolism that means

3:47

that they can divert the waste

3:49

products of their metabolism into

3:51

making alcohol. So these

3:53

fish pee alcohol into

3:56

their pond when there's

3:58

low oxygen conditions. So they

4:00

will get a little bit drunk over winter,

4:03

although given it's literally a drop in the

4:05

ocean for them It won't

4:07

make a huge physiological effect But it

4:09

was an interesting discovery by researchers at

4:11

John Moores Liverpool University About

4:13

ten years ago and they did actually

4:16

show that these these animals get round

4:18

the low oxygen environment by shunting metabolism

4:20

into the production of alcohol and they

4:22

pee out the booze and That

4:24

enables them to scavenge a little bit

4:27

more energy without any oxygen So alcohol

4:29

has been inveigled and intertwined with our

4:31

evolution and other animals evolution for millions

4:33

of years Michael

4:36

the question that keeps him awake at

4:38

night is as follows Please ask the

4:40

doc to satisfy my curiosity when I

4:43

pass gas Sometimes the

4:45

sound is loud and sometimes it's just a

4:47

hiss Everyone

4:50

does it men and women equal times of

4:52

the day about 12 times a day on

4:54

average and Each one is

4:57

a couple of hundred milliliters at

4:59

most Probably probably a

5:01

bit less than that in some people's cases certainly a

5:03

lot more and the Answer

5:06

to this question is it will come

5:08

down to the volume because not all

5:11

farts arrive in similar proportions sometimes it's

5:13

little pockets of gas sometimes much bigger

5:15

volumes and The

5:17

amount that you dispense at each sort

5:19

of sitting as it were is Going

5:23

to make a difference to how open the aperture

5:25

is because the gas is there that needs to

5:27

come out if it needs to come Out all

5:29

in one go and it's under high pressure It

5:32

will open things up to a different extent

5:34

than little bits of gas that can be

5:36

snuck out through a small hole But without

5:38

much turbulence because what makes a noise

5:40

is Turbulence if you think

5:42

about taking a really deep breath if you

5:44

take a deep breath in really quickly It

5:46

makes more noise than if you take a

5:48

similarly sized breath in but more slowly Why

5:51

if you do it more slowly the velocity of

5:53

the air is lower and if you

5:55

have air moving at a lower velocity It

5:58

does not exceed something called the Reynolds number, which

6:00

is proportional to the size of the thing that

6:02

the air is flowing through, the tube, and

6:05

if you exceed that number you get turbulent

6:07

flow. If you get turbulent flow you get

6:09

a rushing noise. So a really

6:11

raucous ripper fart is probably going to be

6:13

big volume but it's going to be going

6:15

through a fairly tight aperture, fairly

6:17

fast and make a big noise. Small volumes

6:20

of gas are probably going to go through

6:22

a small aperture but they're going

6:24

to come out probably a bit more slowly because

6:26

the pressure's lower and they've probably come out in

6:29

a way that is less obvious,

6:31

let's say, which is where the silent but

6:33

deadly gets into the equation. A

6:35

ripper fart, okay, is silent violent?

6:38

Well, silent but deadly or silent but violent, I

6:40

think, was the saying we used to use in

6:42

school and those are usually the highly

6:44

sulphurous ones, the ones that are fuelled by cabbage,

6:47

brussel sprouts, cauliflower, vegetables with lots

6:50

of sulphur in the plant because

6:52

when this ends up in your

6:54

intestine it gets metabolised by the

6:57

bacteria and we can't use those

6:59

sulphur compounds but the bacteria can

7:01

and they produce odiferous by-products including

7:03

hydrogen sulphide and also

7:06

one called methyl mercaptan which

7:08

is the same stuff that skunks fart out

7:10

and spray out of their rear end in

7:12

order to deter you from pursuing them and

7:15

these are part of the odiferous bouquet that

7:17

is what makes a silent but deadly fart

7:19

smell the way it does. Okay,

7:22

Ray's got a question about gravity, the question

7:24

is what is the most

7:26

appropriate action to take if a

7:28

lift's cable snaps and

7:30

plummets several floors with you and others

7:33

still inside it? What's

7:35

that, make peace with your God I guess, huh? Aye, Ray, I

7:37

was going to say put your hands together and pray. First

7:40

point, lifts have built into them since

7:42

the time of Schindler who actually was

7:44

one of the most prolific

7:47

producers of things like lifts for

7:50

decades but built into lifts

7:52

is a special ratchet mechanism so when

7:55

the cable pulls and the lift is

7:57

under load the ratchet pay

7:59

which stick out from the side of the lift

8:01

into the lift shaft are withdrawn in. But

8:05

if anything unloads the cable and

8:07

therefore the lift is potentially in a

8:09

free-fall position, there's nothing pulling on a

8:11

giant spring. Those ratchet hooks inwards from

8:13

the sides of the lift, so they

8:15

spring out and they engage with gaps

8:17

on the sides of the lift shaft,

8:19

stopping the lift from falling. So

8:22

a lift all being well and

8:24

it's being made properly, cannot go into free-fall,

8:26

even if the cable snapped, it won't do

8:28

that. Let's assume that in Ray's scenario it

8:31

can. If you're in a lift, you

8:33

are falling as the lift falls and

8:35

it's as though you have jumped off a building. And

8:39

you are in free-fall inside the lift. So people

8:41

often say, well, why don't I just jump the

8:44

minute the lift hits the ground, because

8:46

then I will be moving upwards as

8:48

the lift goes splat and that would

8:50

offset the effect. But the

8:52

reality is that that would be like you saying, well, I'm

8:54

in free-fall off a building, how do I

8:57

stop myself going splat when I hit the ground?

8:59

Well, you'd have to accelerate yourself off

9:01

the bottom of the lift with

9:04

a jump which would give you an

9:06

equivalent amount of energy as the energy

9:08

that you have effectively now

9:10

got, which is

9:12

free-fall energy, kinetic energy of

9:15

you, a tone of velocity, and

9:17

you'd got to do that incredibly quickly. So

9:20

you'd have to basically accelerate yourself as though you could jump

9:22

over a house. That's the way

9:24

of thinking about it, because you've got to have the

9:26

equivalent amount of energy that you started with in order

9:29

to offset the momentum downwards. So

9:31

unless you are a pole vaulter with

9:33

incredible leg muscles and capable of

9:35

jumping over a house like a flea can, then

9:37

you are never going to be able to

9:40

offset the momentum in the opposite direction so

9:42

that you are literally in a neutral movement

9:44

position when the lift goes splat. So

9:46

unfortunately, I think your suggestion to put your

9:48

hands together and meet

9:51

your maker is probably the only answer

9:53

if you are genuinely in free-fall under

9:55

those circumstances. Sure, that

9:57

roof is going to crash into the floor anyway. Yes,

10:00

the lift will crash into the floor and you'll be crashing

10:02

into the floor with it, but unless you can go in

10:05

the opposite direction to the lift and very, very quickly and

10:07

know when the lift's about to hit the ground, you're

10:09

never going to offset the momentum so that your momentum

10:11

is the opposite of the lift or the lift or

10:14

the momentum you previously had so you will

10:16

still go splat. The

10:18

naked scientist on Cave Talk, it is 9.45. Your

10:21

questions via WhatsApp, 0725671567. Leave

10:25

a voice note or a text note and we'll get to

10:28

it. First of all, give us a call, 0214460567 and we'll

10:30

prioritise your call. Mark

10:35

Bright has the following

10:37

question. Could you please ask Dr.

10:39

Chris about the two earth theory?

10:42

Were there really two earths at one point

10:44

in time? I think what Mark might be

10:46

referring to is the question of,

10:49

and this is a sort of detective story,

10:51

when we look up into space, we see

10:53

Earth's moon and when we

10:56

look at the rocks that the Apollo missions have

10:58

brought back from the moon and we date them

11:00

about four and a half billion years, same age

11:02

as the Earth. And when we look at other

11:04

planets like Mars, very similar to the Earth, they

11:07

have mutants, Phobos and Deimos, but they're very, very

11:09

small. Our moon is huge compared

11:12

to other moons and compared to our

11:14

planet. So when you put all that

11:16

together, you've got a moon made of the same stuff

11:18

that the Earth crust is made of. It's

11:20

got a similar age to what we

11:23

call the current planet Earth and it's

11:25

disproportionately big for the size of

11:27

our planet and where it is. There's no

11:29

way we could have caught that as a moon coming in from

11:31

somewhere else. So it must have got made. How

11:34

did it get made? Well, the theory

11:36

is that way back about 4.57 billion

11:38

years ago, there were two planets, which

11:41

for various reasons, one probably a bit smaller,

11:43

one a bit bigger, Mars size, Earth size,

11:46

ended up on a collision course in

11:48

space and one rammed into the

11:50

other. The two planets

11:52

merged, but in the course of

11:54

the collision, which melted the new

11:56

planet and made a completely molten

11:58

ball in space, ejected a whole

12:01

load of the surface material of

12:03

what was then the Earth into

12:05

space around this ball of molten

12:07

material and that ejector then coalesced

12:09

to form the Moon as we

12:11

see it today. And

12:13

that's probably where this two planet idea comes

12:16

from and they notionally call the other planet

12:18

that hit us about four and a half

12:20

billion years ago, Thea. So I think

12:23

that's what Mark's referring to. Let's

12:25

go to the WhatsApp line as a

12:27

voice note there, Joe. Good morning, Clarence

12:30

and Dr. Chris. Dr. Chris,

12:32

where do mosquitoes disappear to

12:34

during daytime, the day hours?

12:37

I'd like to know where they are so I

12:39

can do something about them

12:41

before they reemerge at night. Thank you,

12:43

Dion Perro. Hello, Dion. Well, the answer

12:46

to this is that there are thousands

12:48

of species of mosquito and

12:50

only some of them disappear during

12:53

the daytime. The ones

12:55

we tend to talk about the most

12:57

are the ones most closely linked to

12:59

the transmission of diseases, including diseases like

13:01

malaria. And the anopheles mosquitoes

13:03

that transmit that are night active, which

13:05

is why you put bed nets up.

13:08

If you want to stop yourself getting

13:10

bitten, you sleep under a net. The

13:12

mosquitoes then go away during the day

13:14

and you're much less likely to be

13:16

bitten. But other mosquitoes, including Aedes mosquitoes

13:18

that spread things like yellow fever and

13:21

dengue and Zika virus, they

13:24

are de-active mosquitoes. They love also

13:26

big animals like humans and they

13:28

tend to love living in cities.

13:31

So the problem is even if you

13:33

have one strategy that deals with the

13:35

nighttime active malaria spreading anopheline mosquitoes, you've

13:37

got a problem with the de-active Aedes

13:39

mosquitoes. So it will really depend

13:41

on what species, Dion, you're talking about because

13:43

your strategy to control them is going to

13:46

differ, but some things are common to both.

13:48

And one of them is mosquitoes are

13:51

all united in their need to breed

13:53

over water because they lay eggs

13:55

in water, they turn into a little larvae and

13:57

the larvae then eat algae and other things in

13:59

the water. to grow into mosquitoes that emerge and

14:01

then come and bite you. So

14:04

most of the infection control strategies and

14:06

transmission control strategies for malaria and dengue

14:08

and that kind of thing all evolve

14:10

or revolve around finding pools of water

14:12

and getting rid of them. So

14:15

if you can do that by not having pots

14:17

and pans and water butts and stuff like that

14:19

you can stop the mosquitoes breeding near where humans

14:21

are and you also combine that

14:23

with things like strategies

14:26

to spot them in homes and splat them and

14:28

also warn people about sleeping under bed nets if

14:30

it's a malaria area and also

14:32

wearing repellents and so on but it's very

14:34

hard to have a one-size-fits-all way to control

14:36

them. They're amazing as a vector for disease

14:38

which is why they have evolved to be

14:40

that very thing. A question

14:42

from T it reads morning Dr Chris

14:45

I have very mild tinnitus I

14:47

assume in one ear that can only

14:49

be heard when falling asleep. I

14:52

think it's tinnitus but it comes and

14:54

goes and sounds like a duck softly

14:56

quacking every few seconds.

14:59

Can this be tinnitus as it's

15:02

not a ringing sound as I thought

15:04

tinnitus was? What's more likely

15:06

is that this is the sound of your own

15:08

heartbeat and when you

15:10

put your ear to the pillow you

15:12

occlude block the external auditory canal the

15:14

bit you put your finger in a

15:17

wiggle when you've got an itchy ear.

15:19

That is the pathway that leads to your eardrum and

15:22

when you put your head to the

15:24

pillow and block that you invoke something

15:26

called the occlusion effect. You create a

15:29

cavity between the pillow

15:31

surface and your eardrum and

15:33

certain frequencies will resonate and

15:36

therefore amplify in that cavity

15:39

and when your blood pulses through your

15:41

arteries it will create

15:43

small movements in all

15:46

your body's tissues. They expand and contract expand

15:48

and contract because as the blood rushes in

15:50

they get bigger and when the blood leaves

15:52

in the veins they shrink a bit and

15:55

this makes a noise

15:58

when you hear it in your eyes

20:00

because of the centripetal forces

20:03

but she's spinning in relation to

20:05

what? So if she stands on

20:08

a children's playground merry-go-round on

20:10

the axis and it's spinning in the opposite

20:12

direction she's actually stationary. So I'm wondering if

20:15

there's some such a thing as a universal

20:17

frame of reference across the whole

20:20

universe. We should call

20:22

you Galileo, Brent, because that was almost

20:24

word for word. I don't

20:26

think he talks about children's merry-go-rounds but

20:28

what Galileo Galilei postulated and he made

20:30

that very point that we

20:32

don't know where we're going and where we're moving

20:34

if we don't have those frames of reference. We

20:37

have to look around at the world going past

20:39

us to know that we're moving and if we

20:41

can't see the world going along and you're not

20:43

physically aware you wouldn't know. I

20:45

don't think there is a way of knowing for sure. I

20:48

think it's a very interesting question. I need

20:51

to go and have a think about that one because

20:53

there may well be a clever answer and I like

20:55

your spinning idea. I read a really good book the

20:57

other day by the same guy

20:59

who wrote The Martian with Matt Damon in

21:02

it, what became the film The

21:04

Martian and he's got a follow-up book which I

21:06

was sent and I read it and I interviewed

21:08

him because it was brilliant. He used to be

21:10

a computer scientist actually, the guy who wrote that

21:12

book and it

21:14

starts with the person doesn't

21:17

know where they are and they have no

21:20

recollection of how they got where they are. They just

21:22

know they're in some funny environment which they figure out

21:24

might be some kind of spaceship but they're not sure.

21:27

It might be a prison cell and

21:29

he does this guy a series of

21:31

experiments dropping things off tables to

21:34

work out that he is accelerating because

21:36

he's on a spaceship that's actually getting

21:38

faster and faster and he's able to

21:40

demonstrate that gravity, the apparent gravity, is

21:43

increasing which you would need to see

21:45

an increasing gravity if you were accelerating

21:48

and so there are ways to do

21:50

this but it's

21:52

quite subtle so I'm going to take that away and I'm

21:54

going to have that as homework for next time so thank

21:57

you for this week's question of the week. we

22:00

don't have time for the

22:02

other question about quantum, I think, physics. Oh,

22:04

good. That's good. We'll

22:07

hold it over for next week. Mind you, if it's about quantum

22:09

mechanics, it should be very, very small. So we should better get

22:12

through that really fast, shouldn't we? And

22:14

we'll leave it for next week. A big thank

22:17

you in the meantime. The naked scientist, Dr. Chris

22:19

Smith, lecturer at the University of Cambridge every Friday.

22:21

Huge appointment. Those are questions we weren't able to

22:23

get to this week. Some of

22:25

them we'll hold over for next week. It is

22:27

nearly time for news at 10 o'clock. Natalie Marche

22:30

is standing by with news at the top of

22:32

the hour. progressive.com

22:57

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