May 22, 2023
S26E61: New way to measure the expansion of the universe // Earth’s abrupt glacial transitions // Money axed from spaceport investment
SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 61 *A new way to measure the expansion of the universe Astronomers have developed a new way to determine the Hubble constant – a key measurement of the universe’s rate of expansion. *Understanding Earth’s abrupt glacial...
SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 61 *A new way to measure the expansion of the universe Astronomers have developed a new way to determine the Hubble constant – a key measurement of the universe’s rate of expansion. *Understanding Earth’s abrupt glacial transitions A new study has supported the long hypothesized Milankovitch cycles which are thought to control major swings in planet Earth’s climate. *Money axed from spaceport investment in the Federal budget The Federal budget handed down last week has quietly axed 32 million dollars from Australian spaceport development. *The Science Report WMO says there’s a 98 percent chance of setting a new global heat record in the next five years. Study confirms Google is biased on political news and issues. Palaeontologists have described a new species of spinosaurid dinosaur discovered in Spain. Skeptics guide to traditional Mexican medicines This week’s guests includes: Brad Tucker from the Australian National University Jessica Thorne from the University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for radio astronomy research Sabine Bellstedt from the University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for radio astronomy research And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from iTWire.com Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics Jonathan Nally the editor of Australian Sky and Telescope Magazine Listen to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen and access show links via https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ Additionally, listeners can support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member through www.bitesz.supercast.com or through premium versions on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on our website at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ
The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.
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This is Spacetime Series twenty six,
episode sixty one, for broadcast on the
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twenty second of May twenty twenty three. Coming up on Spacetime, a new
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way to measure the expansion rate of
the universe, understanding the Earth's abrupt glacial
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transitions, and millions acts from Spaceport
investment in the federal budget. All that
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and more coming up on Spacetime.
Welcome to Spacetime with Stewart Garry. Astronomers
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have developed a new way to determine
the Hubble constant, a key measurement of
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the universe's rate of expansion. The
cosmos and everything in it is expanding out
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from the Big Bang, which began
about thirteen point eight two billion years ago.
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We know it's expanding because we can
see that the more distant galaxies are
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all moving away from us, and
the more distant they are, the faster
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they're moving. It's a quantity astronomers
referred to as redshift, and the number
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is the Hubbart constant. It's named
after Edward Hubble I first realize the universe
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was expanding, and it's important because
it will help scientists determine the ultimate fat
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of the universe. Will the cosmos
keep expanding forever until the stars in the
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sky are all too far away to
see, leaving the heavens black as ink,
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what astronomers referred to as the big
freeze. On the other hand,
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if the rate of expansion is slowing
down, then eventually it could create some
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sort of a steady state where things
basically stop moving away from each other and
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the universe remains the way it looks
today. Or will the universe's rate of
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expansion eventually stop with gravity taking over
and then slowly drawing everything back together again
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in a sort of big crunch and
so you see. Knowing the hubble of
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constant and how it changes over time
really is important for answering one of science's
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biggest, if not the biggest question
of all, what is our ultimate fate?
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The problem is measuring cosmic distances and
hence the rate of expansion of the
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universe is really difficult. Now,
thanks to data from a magnified modibly image
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supernova, astronomers have successfully used a
first of its kind technique to measure the
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expansion rate of the universe. Their
data provides new insight into a long standing
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debate in the food of cosmology,
and it could help scientists moraculately determine the
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universe's age and therefore better understand the
cosmos. The work has been divided into
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two papers, one published in the
journal Science and the other in the Astrophysical
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Journal. Right now, in Astronomy, we have two precise measurements for the
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expansion reader the universe Hubble constant.
One version is calculated by observations of supernovae,
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while the second uses the cosmic microwave
background radiation that began to stream freely
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through the universe shortly after the Big
Bang. However, there's a problem.
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You see, these two measurements differ
by about ten percent, and that's causing
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widespread debate amongst physicists and astronomers.
Now, if both measurements are accurate,
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it means sciences current theory about the
makeup of the universe is incomplete. The
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studies lead author Patrick Kelly from the
University of Minnesota says, if the new
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independent measurements confirm this disagreement between the
two measurements of the Hubble constant, it
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would become a chink in the armor
of sciences understanding of the cosmos. Kelly
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says, the real question here is
whether or not there's a possible issue with
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one or both of the measurements.
The work by Kelly and a huge team
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of international colleagues addresses this problem by
using a new, completely independent, different
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way to measure the expansion rate of
the universe instead of Supernerva and cosmic background
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radiation. The authors were able to
calculate the value using data from a single
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Supernerva discovered by Garie in twenty fourteen. But this was a special Supernerva.
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It was the first example of a
moudibly imaged Supernerva, meaning the telescope captured
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four different images of the same cosmic
event. After the initial discovery, teams
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around the world predicted that the Supernerva
would reappear in a new position in twenty
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fifteen, and the University of Minnesota
team detected this additional image. Now,
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the reason these moudible images appeared was
because the Supernerva they're exploding stars, by
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the way, was gravitationally lensed by
a galaxy cluster in front of it.
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It's a phenomenon first proposed by Albert
Einstein in his theory of general relativity.
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Space time causes mass to bend light, which means that the four ground galaxy
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cluster as so much us in it
that it's physically acting like a lens,
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magnifying and bending the light from the
background Supernerva. And because the same light
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is using several different paths to reach
us thanks to the magnifying galaxy cluster,
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it has to travel different distances and
therefore reaches us at different times. In
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this case, we're actually getting four
separate images of the same cosmic event.
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By using the time delays between the
appearance of the twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen
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images, the studies authors were able
to measure the Hubble constant using a theory
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developed in nineteen sixty four by Norwegian
astronomer saus Year Raftaw that had previously been
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impossible to put into practice. Now. The new findings don't absolutely settle the
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debate, but they do provide more
insight into the problem and therefore bring astronomers
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and physics us closer and obtaining a
more accurate measurement of the universe's age.
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One of the studies co authors,
Brad Tucker from the Australian National University,
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says the new measurements for the Hubble
constant favors the value of the cosmic microwave
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background radiation, although it's not in
strong disagreement with the supernova value either.
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Taka says if observations a future supernovae
that are also gravitationally lends by clusters yield
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similar results, then it would identify
an issue with our current supernova value or
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with sciences understanding of galaxy cluster dark
matter. So the Hubble constant is the
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term we used for the measuring the
growth rate or the expansion or the speed
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of the universe. So this is
the standard of saying this is how fast
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the universe is growing at a point, it's the universe's speed. Now it's
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obviously named after Edward Hubble, who
use stephid stars and other galaxies to measure
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and show that the universe was indeed
expanding, And so this has always been
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a critical measurement to understanding the properties
of the universe and getting it right.
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So finding new ways, new techniques
and better ways in better techniques to measure
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this speed has been critical for a
stronomers cefy it stars or cefi variables.
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These are very specific types of stars, aren't think that's right? So these
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are the variable star that has a
very specific pulse and henrietted Liviette and the
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early nineteen hundred show that there is
this relationship, which we now called the
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Oliviett law between the poles. So
how long it takes this star to poles
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and then how bright it get?
That there's a very regulated, regular relationship
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between the two and this is critical. This gives us something we call a
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standard candle, meaning we can measure
a property of a celestial object and by
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looking at this timing the differences and
brightness between the pulses, use it to
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actually get a distance to it using
whatever our square law, meaning you know
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how bright something is, you can
measure how the light fades with distance.
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Roughly, it's like looking at a
bunch of street lights down the road.
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Exactly. If you know how bright
the street light is right next to you,
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you can measure how bright the street
light at the end of the road
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appears, and you know it's the
same bowl. You can figure out that
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distance, and that's exactly the same
techniques. But the problem is, how
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do you know the intrinsic brightness when
stars have all sorts of different sizes and
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properties. Well, the SEFID with
this relationship, gaven us the way of
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finding a consistent way of understanding its
brightness. Therefore, then we can measure
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a distance and over time, if
you look at the distances, you can
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measure the growth for speed of the
universe. And another option rather than SEFID
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variables, would be exactly the fact
project I've been on. We've been trying
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to find seffiids in galaxies and then
type one A supernova in those galaxies.
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Because supernova, the type one A
supernova, we can see over much further
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distances than the sefids, because the
stars themselves aren't fat bright, so you
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can only see them in a handful
of galaxies. At the type one A
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supernovel we can see over large distances. And so by finding galaxies that have
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both, we can do what's called
the cosmic distance latter, and that is,
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have one accurate distance measurement and then
calibrate it to another and then and
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keep going that far. That's the
technique Brian Schmidt originally used to measure and
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show that the universe is accelerating.
It wasn't just growing, it was speeding
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up in its growth. As well
as using these cosmic distance markers, there's
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another methode exactly, and this is
critical and that is we called the C
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and B. It's the cosmic microwave
background. This relic lights, the leftover
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lights or radiation that kind of permitted
went everywhere through the universe three hundred and
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eighty thousand years after the Big Bang. And if you can measure and model
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this light, you can actually measure
the speed of the universe at the very
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beginning essentially, or is the beginning
as we can get. And so this
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is an important measurements can understand what
is the speed? Now we can check
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against the speed at the beginning.
And the problem is the answers don't degree
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as in what we measure with sepids
and supernova what we measure with the cosmic
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microwave background. The answers differ as
much as about ten percent, and that
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actually is enough to create some problems
and consternation for us. What's going on?
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Are we mess else? There's something
we're missing, or it's something else
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that played in the unit. Yeah, I think it's not just something as
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simple as time being measured differently in
today's universe compared to what it would have
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been thirteen point eight billion years ago, or something along those lines. Yeah,
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exactly, it's it's you know,
there's a lot of things to go
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into the model of what the universe
is, the ratios of dark matter to
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dark energy, the property the kind
of growth rate of as a whole as
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the universe, and then our understanding
of the tools we use as well.
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That's always simple. We are doing
complex measurement. We may have gotten something
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wronged along the way. These are
all very likely scenarios. But is it
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the measurement wrong, it's measurement wrong, is it both? Is it something
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else? A lot of these are
huge questions, so looking for different tools
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is key to see and point us
in the right direction. And part of
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the job has been to get these
measurements as precise and accurate as possible.
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The trouble is, as we're doing
that, the difference between the two measurements
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isn't getting smaller, it's getting larger. It's getting more more confirmed exactly in
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the huge project was on when we
did improve the step of supernova measurement,
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instead a change, it was just
the uncertainty, as you said, so
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it got stronger. This different So
when we keep finding better ways of improving
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these measurement, understanding what errors or
problems may going and fixing them. The
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answers aren't budging, just our uncertainty
is getting folded. Now, the uncertainty
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getting smaller and the error getting smaller
is a good thing. But the fact
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that these answers aren't getting closer together
is leading to the idea more and more
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that maybe something else as a play. So how did these new independent measurements
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fit in. Yeah, so with
this new technique, we looked at one
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particular supernova, Supernova Rubal. Now
this is really cool because this supernova exploded,
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or we detected its explosion back in
twenty fourteen. But it happened to
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be behind a cluster of galaxies,
and as Einstein's predictions say, something called
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gravitational lends happening, meaning if you
have a lot of maths and an object
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or an area which is a lot
of gravity, that gravity can bend and
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magnified light. Now, the great
thing about it was the supernova happened to
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happen behind this area. So instead
of seeing one supernova, we sold multiple
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appearances of supernova. In fact,
we've seen five now appearances of the same
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supernova. Now this is really cool
because you have the same object that happened
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at this same point in space,
but as it appears at different times to
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us, it's because that light has
taken a slightly different path around the magnifying
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lens. It says this, one
train left the city and went straight from
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the next city. Another took a
detour via the coast, another via the
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mountain, another did a few stops
along the way. Supernova leaves and a
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rise at the same point in space, but it takes a different path through
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space, meaning the only thing that
changes is the growth of the universe,
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allowing us a different way to measure
the growth of the universe. And what
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did you find? So we found
that it actually the answer was closer to
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the CMB result, even though we
should have gotten an answer closer. We
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bought to the supernova results. So
we got about seventy three point eight kilometers
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per second per megaparsect. That's the
way we measure the tubles pump set how
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much in kilometers per second, and
essentially a million par sects of the universe
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grow. We take a chunk of
the universe and measure a speed. And
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so the fact that we got this
answer closer to one of them, you
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know, it's hard to say what
is the meaning it's one of those things
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you would like you to say,
Hey, we clearly understand now what's going
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on. We don't. Is it
again that there's something wrong with the measurement.
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Is there's something that changes in the
universe that kicks in a speed differently?
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But I think at the end of
the day we at least have a
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different measurement along the path of understanding
is this a measurement error or is this
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something different? And the fact that
we got close to one of those answers
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instead of something completely different shows that
actually, probably maybe it's not a measurement
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error, but maybe there's just something
else about the universe we're not understanding.
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I think when we look at type
one supernova we're finding more and more.
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The idea with type one A supernova
is that they all explode with exactly the
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same amount of luminosity and brightness,
and therefore, if you know how luminous
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it is and you can see how
bright it is, you can determine its
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distance. What we've been finding in
the last decade or so is that type
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one A supernova A don't actually all
explode it exactly the same mass. That's
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exactly right. There's different types actually
a type one a supernova now, and
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this is a big effort we're trying
to understand is what are the actual explosions
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of the stars and how does it
relate to the energy being output, which
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then is that understanding of the brightness
of the ball. So there's still a
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long way to go. None of
this means that things like dark energy or
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dark matter go away. It actually
shines the light that's saying, hey,
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these things actually kind of exists,
clearly exist from a different measurement, but
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there's a lot more understanding into what
they actually are that we have to go.
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What do you draw out of this? How has this changed due in
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your view of the universe. I
think the cool thing is is that every
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time we get one of these measurements, it's not a forward case of understanding
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it. And this's the beautiful thing
I think about cosmology, the study of
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the universe as a whole, it's
very unique compared to every other science.
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We have one of them, right, even stars. We have trillions of
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stars in the university, have trillions
of galaxies, even more planets. We
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have one universe at least that we
know of, and so a lot of
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our understanding and modeling is quite interesting
because in some ways we may be understanding
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the properties of what our universe could
be, but it doesn't mean that's what
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our universe is, or vice versa
in our understanding of what our universe actually
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is. Maybe universes can come in
different shapes and sizes and flavors, and
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so this is a beautiful thing of
setting the properties of the universe is that
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it's a very different way of thinking
scientifically than say any other field, even
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other aspects of astrophysics. That's Brad
Tucker from the Australian National University. And
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this space time still to come,
understanding the Earth's abrupt glacial transitions and millions
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acts from Spaceport invest in the federal
budget. All that and more still to
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come on space time. A new
study has supported the long hypothesized Malakovit cycles,
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which are thought to control major swings
in planet that's climate. Malakovit cycles
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and named after the Serbian gef physicist
and astronomer Maluten Malankovic, who in the
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nineteen twenties hypothesized that variations in the
Earth's orbital eccentricity and the planet's axial tilting
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procession resulted in cyclic variations in the
amount of solar radiation reaching the planet's surface.
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The Earth's seasons occur because of a
tilting earth spin axes, which is
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inclined by twenty three point four degrees
in relation to the Earth's orbit around the
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Sun. Now, generally speaking,
Earth's axes always points to the same position
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in deep space, regardless of the
Earth's position and it's orbit around the Sun.
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So on the day of the December
solstice, earth south pole is tilted
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towards the Sun, so the southern
hemisphere ends up getting more daylight and more
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direct sunlight, so it's hotter,
and that means the southern hemisphere is experiencing
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summer. Six months later, during
the June solstice, it's the north pole
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which is tilted towards the sun,
and so the northern hemisphere experiences summer,
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while the Southern hemisphere gets less daylight, longer nights, and the sunlight strikes
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the surface at a shallower angle,
meaning less heat, and so the Southern
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hemisphere is now in winter. In
between these two we give the March in
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September equinoxes. That's when the northern
and southern hemisphere get roughly equal amounts of
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daylight and heat, giving us the
seasons of spring and autumn. However,
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while I said the Earth's axis always
points to the same direction in space regard
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of Earth's oital position around the Sun, that's really only true in terms of
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out day to day lives. Over
much longer time scales of thousands of years,
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a gravity induced effect known as axial
procession causes a slow and continuous change
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in the orientation of Earth's rotational axis. You can see the same effect in
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the procession of a spinning type or
a gyroscope, as the spin axies gradually
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traces out a pair of cones joined
at their apexes. Earth's axial procession is
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known as the procession of the equinoxes
because the equinoxes move westwards along the ecliptic
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relative to fix background stars. The
ecliptic is the playing created by the Earth
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as it orbits around the Sun.
This slow procession means that over twenty five
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thousand, seven hundred and seventy two
years, the positions of the South and
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North celestial poles appears to move in
circles compared to space fixed background stars.
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So while today the star Polaris lies
approximately at the north celestial pole. This
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will change over time, with Gamasefi
becoming the pole star in about thirty two
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hundred years from now. Of course, it also means the seasons slowly moved
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through different calendar months, but we
make adjustments in the calendar to compensate for
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that. And like axial procession,
Earth's orbit also changes gradually over time,
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getting more or less elongated, meaning
changes in perihelion and aphelian When the Earth's
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at its nearest and most distant orbital
positions from the Sun see Instead of being
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a perfect circle, Earth's orbit around
the Sun is slightly elongated, and the
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amount of elongation changes over time.
In fact, even the tilt of Earth's
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spin access changes over thousands of years. Right now it's twenty three point four
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degrees, but in the past it's
been both much more than that and far
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less. Proxy data that's indirect records
of the Earth's climate found unlikely places like
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coral pollen, trees, and sediments
show interesting oscillations approximately every one hundred thousand
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years, starting about a million years
ago. Strong changes in global ice volume,
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sea level, carbon dioxide concentrations,
and surface temperature all indicate cycles of
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long, slow transition to glacial periods
and then abrupt switches to a normal and
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short interglacial period. This idea suggests
there may be some sort of predictability in
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the long term climate. A notoriously
complex system. Now reporting the journal Chaos
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proposes a new paradigm to try and
simplify the verification of the Melankovich hypotheses.
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The studies lead author, Stefano Perini
from the Parthenope University of Naples, says
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he wanted to characterize and illustrate the
Melancovitch hypotheses in a simple, elegant and
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intuitive way. Many models suggest that
Malankovic is correct. However, such methods
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are often extremely complicated and detailed,
hard to explain, and they incorporate climate
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feedback loops. For example, increased
ice cover reflects more radiation back in a
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space that leads to further cooling and
more ice cover, and this means an
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abrupt jumping climate only occurs once a
specific parameter riches are given tipping point.
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Perini's circle deterministic excitation paradigm combine the
physics concepts of relaxation, oscillation, and
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excitability to link Earth orbital parameters and
the glacial cycles in a more generic way.
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The relaxation oscillation component describes how the
climate slowly returns to its original glacier
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state after it's been disturbed. At
that point, the excitability piece of the
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model captures the external orbital changes and
triggers the next glacial cycle. By using
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his own threshold crossing rules and adapting
a classic energy balance model, Perini obtained
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correct and robust timing for the most
recent glacial cycles. In fact, it
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can explain the timing of at least
the last four glacial terminations. Perine now
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plans on extending the same analysis to
the whole place to scene epoch in order
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to determine its accuracy over longer time
scales. He believes similar methods could be
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used in other fields of nonlinear science
and in connection with other climate phenomoma.
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This spacetime still to come millions quietly
acts from spaceport investment. In the federal
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budget and later in the science report, the World Meteorological Organization says there's a
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ninety eight percent chance of setting a
new global heat record in the next five
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00:22:41.400 --> 00:23:00.960
years. All that and more still
to come on spacetime. Well, you
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probably didn't hear this in the mainstream
legacy media. But the federal budget had
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down last week there's quietly acts thirty
two million dollars from Australian spaceport development.
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The cut by the alban Easy government
is part of seventy seven million dollars which
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00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:22.559
had been slashed from science, including
a key part of Australia's involvement in the
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00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:29.519
Moon to Mars Artemis program. Now, these were all crucial aspects of Australia's
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00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:34.359
STEM science, technology, engineering and
mathematics future under the previous coalition government.
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00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:41.640
The Australian Space Agency Spaceport Investment Program
was designed to make similar projects overseas,
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00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:47.960
allowing the nation to share in the
multi trillion dollar global space industry, which
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Australia helped pioneer over sixty years ago. Now, when the money was first
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00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:57.519
allocated, Jesus says that the funding
would provide opportunities to advance technology and increase
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00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:04.200
operational experience modible space flights from Australian
soil. That funding would have helped Australia
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00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:10.839
regained space flight qualifications which at lost
in the nineteen seventies with the downgrading of
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the Womera rocket range in Outback South
Australia from orbital flights to ballistic sounding rockets.
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Remember, at one stage, Womera
was the busiest spaceport in the world
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other than Cape Canaveral. Federal Labor
Science and Minister Ed Husach dismissed the funding
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cuts, claiming the projects simply don't
align with the Albanesi government's priorities. Still
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a bit of good news now and
Black Sky Era Space has got approval to
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00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:42.400
develop a new facility in southern Queensland
which will both manufacture and test fire rockets
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and missiles. The complex will include
research, development and manufacturing facilities, as
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00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:53.599
well as rocket murder test beds and
associated fueling infrastructure. Blast Guy recently began
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00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:59.920
producing ammonium perchlorate, a key chemical
used as an oxidizer in solid fuel rocket
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00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:04.960
murders. When ignited, the oxygen
from ammonium chlorate combines with aluminum to produce
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00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:11.440
aluminum oxide, aluminum chloride, water
vapor, nitrogen gas, and lots of
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00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:15.839
energy, which causes the water,
vapor and the nitrogen to rapidly expand,
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00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:37.119
creating thrust. This is Space Time
and time out to take a brief look
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00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:40.599
at some of the other stories making
using science. This week with a science
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report, the World Meteorological Organization is
warning that there's a ninety eight percent likelihood
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that at least one of the next
five years will be the hottest on record
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00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:56.519
thanks to the combination of El Nino
and climate change. The latest global annual
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00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:02.759
to decatal climate update also warn that
there's a sixty six percent chance that annual
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global surface temperatures will at least temporarily
exceed one point five degrees celsius above pre
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industrial levels at least once in the
next five years. Now, while that
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00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:18.119
doesn't mean that we will permanently exceed
the one point five degrees celsius limit specified
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00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:23.000
in the Paris Agreement, the World
Meteorological Organization is still sounding the alarm that
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00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:30.920
we will breach that one point five
degrees celsius level with increasing frequency, as
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well as spying on your every Internet
action and giving you search result which favorites
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00:26:34.960 --> 00:26:41.720
own advertisers. A major study is
confirmed that Google cannot be trusted on political
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00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:47.720
issues. The findings by All Sides
News bias analyzes found that sixty one percent
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00:26:47.839 --> 00:26:52.599
of one hundred and fifty one media
outlets presented on Google News home page over
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00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:56.319
a five day period we're all from
sources which tended to lean to the liberal
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00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:02.200
left side of politics. At the
same time, only thirty six percent were
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00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:07.599
from the center or non rated news
outlets and just three percent were from conservative
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00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:11.039
news sources. And when the Stadies
authors used the search term election, they
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00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.680
returned Nerve results from center or right
leaning media outlets. In the days leading
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00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:22.000
up to the twenty twenty two United
States midterms, however, twenty eight percent
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00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:26.000
of the articles presented by Google News
for the search term were from the left
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00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:30.960
leaning CNN and sixteen percent of articles
from the more extreme left leaning New York
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00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:37.680
Times. The findings confirm that Google
isn't like the phone book. It's not
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00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:42.799
impartial, but rather it pushes a
socialist political agenda, sometimes subtly, other
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00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:48.640
times more blatantly. And of course
Google aren't alone. In a twenty twenty
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00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:55.279
one court case brought about by journalist
Stephen Stocell, Facebook admitted under oath that
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00:27:55.400 --> 00:28:00.519
its fact checks were simply opinion.
The court was told that fact checkers and
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non unbiased arbiters of the truth,
they're simply useful distractions. Paleontologists have described
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00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:14.279
the new species of Spinus sauroid dinosaur
discovered in Spain, dating back to the
337
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:18.119
early Cretaceous between one hundred and twenty
seven one hundred and twenty six million years
338
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.000
ago. The new discovery has been
named Protolithus sink Torrensis, the champion from
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00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:26.039
the town of Sint Torrens, where
it was discovered. The specimen, which
340
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:30.359
is estimated to have been around eleven
meters long, is based on fossil fragments
341
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:37.279
including a right chawbone, a tooth, and five vertebrae. Spinus sauroids comprise
342
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different groups have often semi aquatic bipedal
carnivores, some of which, such as
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the cellback Spinosaurus, grew larger than
tracks. The new findings, published in
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00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:52.759
the journal Science Reports, sheds new
light on the origin and evolution of spinosauroids
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across what today is the Iberian Peninsula. Based on the new find the authors
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proposed that this new species may indicate
that spinos Sauroids appear during the early Cretatious
347
00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:07.960
in Laurasia, a large area of
land in what is now the Northern Hemisphere,
348
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:14.839
with two subgroups of the species occupying
Western Europe. Spinosaurids may then have
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migrated to Africa and Asia as they
diversified health authorities in Mexico are going to
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00:29:22.319 --> 00:29:27.319
encourage greater use of traditional native medicines
in the countries worthfully under equipped public health
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00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:33.720
system. The head of Mexico's largest
public hospital network says the department will hire
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00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:40.119
seven hundred and fifty three traditional healers. Tementum from Australian skeptics says it's the
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same form used by Chinese in Indian
governments to quill the crime bring poor and
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00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:49.400
sick in their countries. Mexico country
that has problems with medical infrastructure, especially
355
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:53.359
in regional areas that's not very well
set up in also areas where it's dangerous
356
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.000
to set it up in considering crime
levels and gangs and things. So therefore,
357
00:29:57.039 --> 00:30:02.000
in certain areas there are few doctors
have to find alternatives than what.
358
00:30:02.039 --> 00:30:06.640
They're moving to more traditional medicine in
various hospitals and things like that, including
359
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:11.799
hiring seven hundred and fifty three practitioners
of traditional massage and herbal treatment. And
360
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:15.759
they're also bringing in people who are
called kuranderos, who are non licensed healers
361
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:21.440
who use bundles of herbs, smoke, alcohol and eggs to draw sickness out
362
00:30:21.480 --> 00:30:23.599
of the bodies of their patients.
Now is a pretty French stuff, and
363
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:30.039
obviously a lot of traditional medicine is
pseudo medicine. They're also bringing in midwives
364
00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:33.319
who use a traditional form of chiropractic
medicine. Now, chiropractic and medicine are
365
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:37.240
two words that don't go well together. Traditional chiropractic chiropractor. Again, it
366
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.720
goes back a couple of hundred years, so I'm not for sure what traditional
367
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:42.759
chiropractic is. Anyway, this is
the sort of stuff they're saying they're bringing
368
00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:48.039
in under the approval of the president, President Abrodor of Mexico, who's also
369
00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:52.799
the same person who claimed that he
believes in mythical Mayan creatures. So there's
370
00:30:52.799 --> 00:30:56.680
a bit of a theme running here, which is rather concerning. But they're
371
00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:00.000
also bringing in doctors and things from
Cuba, so really they're trying to pack
372
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:07.200
a very poor medical system Fishian regions
and things and using desperately anything reverting to
373
00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:10.920
suppose a traditional herbal cures and that
sort of stuff. The same thing happened
374
00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:12.799
in China sort of way back when
in the forties or fifties, and their
375
00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:18.400
medical infrastructure was pretty poor and They
then Fascianda chairman Mao promoted acupuncture has a
376
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.000
medical treatment, mainly because there was
a lot of people doing it, it
377
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.839
was cheap, it was easy to
do, and the medical system just wasn't
378
00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:27.319
set up to handle all the people
who were coming in, so a lot
379
00:31:27.319 --> 00:31:32.680
of the promotion of acupuncture came out
of a medical failing rather than a pro
380
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:37.599
acupuncture I meanwhile, Nou and colleagues
kept using modern Western medicines instead. That's
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00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:40.160
right, yeah, I mean this
was just for the poor people. The
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00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:45.480
mug punters of the Chinese community can
have actupuncture that has very very limited application.
383
00:31:45.759 --> 00:32:07.599
That's timendum from Australian skeptics, and
that's the show for now. Spacetime
384
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.720
is available every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher,
385
00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:17.319
Google podcast, pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bytes
386
00:32:17.319 --> 00:32:23.279
dot Com, SoundCloud YouTube, your
favorite podcast download provider, and from Spacetime
387
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:29.640
with Stewart Gary dot Com. Spacetime's
also broadcast through the National Science Foundation,
388
00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:34.839
on Science Zone Radio and on both
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389
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brought to you in collaboration with Australian
Sky and Telescope Magazine. Your window on
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the universe. You've been listening to
Spacetime with Stewart Gary This has been another
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quality podcast production from bytes dot com.
1
00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:05.280
This is Spacetime Series twenty six,
episode sixty one, for broadcast on the
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00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:10.640
twenty second of May twenty twenty three. Coming up on Spacetime, a new
3
00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:16.280
way to measure the expansion rate of
the universe, understanding the Earth's abrupt glacial
4
00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:22.719
transitions, and millions acts from Spaceport
investment in the federal budget. All that
5
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:47.079
and more coming up on Spacetime.
Welcome to Spacetime with Stewart Garry. Astronomers
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00:00:47.159 --> 00:00:51.399
have developed a new way to determine
the Hubble constant, a key measurement of
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00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:57.640
the universe's rate of expansion. The
cosmos and everything in it is expanding out
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00:00:57.719 --> 00:01:00.920
from the Big Bang, which began
about thirteen point eight two billion years ago.
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00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.879
We know it's expanding because we can
see that the more distant galaxies are
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00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:10.920
all moving away from us, and
the more distant they are, the faster
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they're moving. It's a quantity astronomers
referred to as redshift, and the number
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is the Hubbart constant. It's named
after Edward Hubble I first realize the universe
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was expanding, and it's important because
it will help scientists determine the ultimate fat
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of the universe. Will the cosmos
keep expanding forever until the stars in the
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sky are all too far away to
see, leaving the heavens black as ink,
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what astronomers referred to as the big
freeze. On the other hand,
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if the rate of expansion is slowing
down, then eventually it could create some
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sort of a steady state where things
basically stop moving away from each other and
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the universe remains the way it looks
today. Or will the universe's rate of
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expansion eventually stop with gravity taking over
and then slowly drawing everything back together again
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in a sort of big crunch and
so you see. Knowing the hubble of
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constant and how it changes over time
really is important for answering one of science's
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biggest, if not the biggest question
of all, what is our ultimate fate?
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The problem is measuring cosmic distances and
hence the rate of expansion of the
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universe is really difficult. Now,
thanks to data from a magnified modibly image
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supernova, astronomers have successfully used a
first of its kind technique to measure the
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expansion rate of the universe. Their
data provides new insight into a long standing
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debate in the food of cosmology,
and it could help scientists moraculately determine the
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universe's age and therefore better understand the
cosmos. The work has been divided into
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two papers, one published in the
journal Science and the other in the Astrophysical
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Journal. Right now, in Astronomy, we have two precise measurements for the
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expansion reader the universe Hubble constant.
One version is calculated by observations of supernovae,
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while the second uses the cosmic microwave
background radiation that began to stream freely
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through the universe shortly after the Big
Bang. However, there's a problem.
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You see, these two measurements differ
by about ten percent, and that's causing
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widespread debate amongst physicists and astronomers.
Now, if both measurements are accurate,
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it means sciences current theory about the
makeup of the universe is incomplete. The
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studies lead author Patrick Kelly from the
University of Minnesota says, if the new
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independent measurements confirm this disagreement between the
two measurements of the Hubble constant, it
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would become a chink in the armor
of sciences understanding of the cosmos. Kelly
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says, the real question here is
whether or not there's a possible issue with
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one or both of the measurements.
The work by Kelly and a huge team
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of international colleagues addresses this problem by
using a new, completely independent, different
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way to measure the expansion rate of
the universe instead of Supernerva and cosmic background
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radiation. The authors were able to
calculate the value using data from a single
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Supernerva discovered by Garie in twenty fourteen. But this was a special Supernerva.
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It was the first example of a
moudibly imaged Supernerva, meaning the telescope captured
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four different images of the same cosmic
event. After the initial discovery, teams
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around the world predicted that the Supernerva
would reappear in a new position in twenty
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fifteen, and the University of Minnesota
team detected this additional image. Now,
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the reason these moudible images appeared was
because the Supernerva they're exploding stars, by
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the way, was gravitationally lensed by
a galaxy cluster in front of it.
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It's a phenomenon first proposed by Albert
Einstein in his theory of general relativity.
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Space time causes mass to bend light, which means that the four ground galaxy
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cluster as so much us in it
that it's physically acting like a lens,
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magnifying and bending the light from the
background Supernerva. And because the same light
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is using several different paths to reach
us thanks to the magnifying galaxy cluster,
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it has to travel different distances and
therefore reaches us at different times. In
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this case, we're actually getting four
separate images of the same cosmic event.
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By using the time delays between the
appearance of the twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen
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images, the studies authors were able
to measure the Hubble constant using a theory
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developed in nineteen sixty four by Norwegian
astronomer saus Year Raftaw that had previously been
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impossible to put into practice. Now. The new findings don't absolutely settle the
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debate, but they do provide more
insight into the problem and therefore bring astronomers
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and physics us closer and obtaining a
more accurate measurement of the universe's age.
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One of the studies co authors,
Brad Tucker from the Australian National University,
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says the new measurements for the Hubble
constant favors the value of the cosmic microwave
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background radiation, although it's not in
strong disagreement with the supernova value either.
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Taka says if observations a future supernovae
that are also gravitationally lends by clusters yield
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similar results, then it would identify
an issue with our current supernova value or
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with sciences understanding of galaxy cluster dark
matter. So the Hubble constant is the
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term we used for the measuring the
growth rate or the expansion or the speed
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of the universe. So this is
the standard of saying this is how fast
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the universe is growing at a point, it's the universe's speed. Now it's
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obviously named after Edward Hubble, who
use stephid stars and other galaxies to measure
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and show that the universe was indeed
expanding, And so this has always been
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a critical measurement to understanding the properties
of the universe and getting it right.
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So finding new ways, new techniques
and better ways in better techniques to measure
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this speed has been critical for a
stronomers cefy it stars or cefi variables.
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These are very specific types of stars, aren't think that's right? So these
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are the variable star that has a
very specific pulse and henrietted Liviette and the
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early nineteen hundred show that there is
this relationship, which we now called the
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Oliviett law between the poles. So
how long it takes this star to poles
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and then how bright it get?
That there's a very regulated, regular relationship
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between the two and this is critical. This gives us something we call a
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standard candle, meaning we can measure
a property of a celestial object and by
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looking at this timing the differences and
brightness between the pulses, use it to
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actually get a distance to it using
whatever our square law, meaning you know
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how bright something is, you can
measure how the light fades with distance.
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Roughly, it's like looking at a
bunch of street lights down the road.
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Exactly. If you know how bright
the street light is right next to you,
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you can measure how bright the street
light at the end of the road
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appears, and you know it's the
same bowl. You can figure out that
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distance, and that's exactly the same
techniques. But the problem is, how
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do you know the intrinsic brightness when
stars have all sorts of different sizes and
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properties. Well, the SEFID with
this relationship, gaven us the way of
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finding a consistent way of understanding its
brightness. Therefore, then we can measure
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a distance and over time, if
you look at the distances, you can
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measure the growth for speed of the
universe. And another option rather than SEFID
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variables, would be exactly the fact
project I've been on. We've been trying
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to find seffiids in galaxies and then
type one A supernova in those galaxies.
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Because supernova, the type one A
supernova, we can see over much further
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distances than the sefids, because the
stars themselves aren't fat bright, so you
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can only see them in a handful
of galaxies. At the type one A
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supernovel we can see over large distances. And so by finding galaxies that have
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both, we can do what's called
the cosmic distance latter, and that is,
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have one accurate distance measurement and then
calibrate it to another and then and
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keep going that far. That's the
technique Brian Schmidt originally used to measure and
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show that the universe is accelerating.
It wasn't just growing, it was speeding
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up in its growth. As well
as using these cosmic distance markers, there's
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another methode exactly, and this is
critical and that is we called the C
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and B. It's the cosmic microwave
background. This relic lights, the leftover
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lights or radiation that kind of permitted
went everywhere through the universe three hundred and
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eighty thousand years after the Big Bang. And if you can measure and model
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this light, you can actually measure
the speed of the universe at the very
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beginning essentially, or is the beginning
as we can get. And so this
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is an important measurements can understand what
is the speed? Now we can check
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against the speed at the beginning.
And the problem is the answers don't degree
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as in what we measure with sepids
and supernova what we measure with the cosmic
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microwave background. The answers differ as
much as about ten percent, and that
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actually is enough to create some problems
and consternation for us. What's going on?
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Are we mess else? There's something
we're missing, or it's something else
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that played in the unit. Yeah, I think it's not just something as
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simple as time being measured differently in
today's universe compared to what it would have
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been thirteen point eight billion years ago, or something along those lines. Yeah,
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exactly, it's it's you know,
there's a lot of things to go
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into the model of what the universe
is, the ratios of dark matter to
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dark energy, the property the kind
of growth rate of as a whole as
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the universe, and then our understanding
of the tools we use as well.
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That's always simple. We are doing
complex measurement. We may have gotten something
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wronged along the way. These are
all very likely scenarios. But is it
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the measurement wrong, it's measurement wrong, is it both? Is it something
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else? A lot of these are
huge questions, so looking for different tools
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is key to see and point us
in the right direction. And part of
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the job has been to get these
measurements as precise and accurate as possible.
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The trouble is, as we're doing
that, the difference between the two measurements
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isn't getting smaller, it's getting larger. It's getting more more confirmed exactly in
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the huge project was on when we
did improve the step of supernova measurement,
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instead a change, it was just
the uncertainty, as you said, so
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it got stronger. This different So
when we keep finding better ways of improving
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these measurement, understanding what errors or
problems may going and fixing them. The
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answers aren't budging, just our uncertainty
is getting folded. Now, the uncertainty
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getting smaller and the error getting smaller
is a good thing. But the fact
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that these answers aren't getting closer together
is leading to the idea more and more
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that maybe something else as a play. So how did these new independent measurements
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fit in. Yeah, so with
this new technique, we looked at one
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particular supernova, Supernova Rubal. Now
this is really cool because this supernova exploded,
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or we detected its explosion back in
twenty fourteen. But it happened to
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be behind a cluster of galaxies,
and as Einstein's predictions say, something called
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gravitational lends happening, meaning if you
have a lot of maths and an object
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or an area which is a lot
of gravity, that gravity can bend and
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magnified light. Now, the great
thing about it was the supernova happened to
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happen behind this area. So instead
of seeing one supernova, we sold multiple
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appearances of supernova. In fact,
we've seen five now appearances of the same
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supernova. Now this is really cool
because you have the same object that happened
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at this same point in space,
but as it appears at different times to
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us, it's because that light has
taken a slightly different path around the magnifying
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lens. It says this, one
train left the city and went straight from
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the next city. Another took a
detour via the coast, another via the
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mountain, another did a few stops
along the way. Supernova leaves and a
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rise at the same point in space, but it takes a different path through
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space, meaning the only thing that
changes is the growth of the universe,
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allowing us a different way to measure
the growth of the universe. And what
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did you find? So we found
that it actually the answer was closer to
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the CMB result, even though we
should have gotten an answer closer. We
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bought to the supernova results. So
we got about seventy three point eight kilometers
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per second per megaparsect. That's the
way we measure the tubles pump set how
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much in kilometers per second, and
essentially a million par sects of the universe
169
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grow. We take a chunk of
the universe and measure a speed. And
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so the fact that we got this
answer closer to one of them, you
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know, it's hard to say what
is the meaning it's one of those things
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you would like you to say,
Hey, we clearly understand now what's going
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on. We don't. Is it
again that there's something wrong with the measurement.
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Is there's something that changes in the
universe that kicks in a speed differently?
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But I think at the end of
the day we at least have a
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different measurement along the path of understanding
is this a measurement error or is this
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something different? And the fact that
we got close to one of those answers
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instead of something completely different shows that
actually, probably maybe it's not a measurement
179
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error, but maybe there's just something
else about the universe we're not understanding.
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I think when we look at type
one supernova we're finding more and more.
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The idea with type one A supernova
is that they all explode with exactly the
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same amount of luminosity and brightness,
and therefore, if you know how luminous
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it is and you can see how
bright it is, you can determine its
184
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distance. What we've been finding in
the last decade or so is that type
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one A supernova A don't actually all
explode it exactly the same mass. That's
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exactly right. There's different types actually
a type one a supernova now, and
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this is a big effort we're trying
to understand is what are the actual explosions
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of the stars and how does it
relate to the energy being output, which
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then is that understanding of the brightness
of the ball. So there's still a
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long way to go. None of
this means that things like dark energy or
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dark matter go away. It actually
shines the light that's saying, hey,
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these things actually kind of exists,
clearly exist from a different measurement, but
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there's a lot more understanding into what
they actually are that we have to go.
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What do you draw out of this? How has this changed due in
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your view of the universe. I
think the cool thing is is that every
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time we get one of these measurements, it's not a forward case of understanding
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it. And this's the beautiful thing
I think about cosmology, the study of
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the universe as a whole, it's
very unique compared to every other science.
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We have one of them, right, even stars. We have trillions of
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stars in the university, have trillions
of galaxies, even more planets. We
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have one universe at least that we
know of, and so a lot of
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our understanding and modeling is quite interesting
because in some ways we may be understanding
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the properties of what our universe could
be, but it doesn't mean that's what
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our universe is, or vice versa
in our understanding of what our universe actually
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is. Maybe universes can come in
different shapes and sizes and flavors, and
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so this is a beautiful thing of
setting the properties of the universe is that
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it's a very different way of thinking
scientifically than say any other field, even
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other aspects of astrophysics. That's Brad
Tucker from the Australian National University. And
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this space time still to come,
understanding the Earth's abrupt glacial transitions and millions
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acts from Spaceport invest in the federal
budget. All that and more still to
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come on space time. A new
study has supported the long hypothesized Malakovit cycles,
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which are thought to control major swings
in planet that's climate. Malakovit cycles
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and named after the Serbian gef physicist
and astronomer Maluten Malankovic, who in the
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nineteen twenties hypothesized that variations in the
Earth's orbital eccentricity and the planet's axial tilting
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procession resulted in cyclic variations in the
amount of solar radiation reaching the planet's surface.
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The Earth's seasons occur because of a
tilting earth spin axes, which is
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inclined by twenty three point four degrees
in relation to the Earth's orbit around the
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Sun. Now, generally speaking,
Earth's axes always points to the same position
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in deep space, regardless of the
Earth's position and it's orbit around the Sun.
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So on the day of the December
solstice, earth south pole is tilted
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towards the Sun, so the southern
hemisphere ends up getting more daylight and more
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direct sunlight, so it's hotter,
and that means the southern hemisphere is experiencing
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summer. Six months later, during
the June solstice, it's the north pole
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which is tilted towards the sun,
and so the northern hemisphere experiences summer,
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while the Southern hemisphere gets less daylight, longer nights, and the sunlight strikes
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the surface at a shallower angle,
meaning less heat, and so the Southern
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hemisphere is now in winter. In
between these two we give the March in
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September equinoxes. That's when the northern
and southern hemisphere get roughly equal amounts of
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daylight and heat, giving us the
seasons of spring and autumn. However,
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while I said the Earth's axis always
points to the same direction in space regard
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of Earth's oital position around the Sun, that's really only true in terms of
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out day to day lives. Over
much longer time scales of thousands of years,
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a gravity induced effect known as axial
procession causes a slow and continuous change
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in the orientation of Earth's rotational axis. You can see the same effect in
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the procession of a spinning type or
a gyroscope, as the spin axies gradually
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traces out a pair of cones joined
at their apexes. Earth's axial procession is
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known as the procession of the equinoxes
because the equinoxes move westwards along the ecliptic
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relative to fix background stars. The
ecliptic is the playing created by the Earth
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as it orbits around the Sun.
This slow procession means that over twenty five
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thousand, seven hundred and seventy two
years, the positions of the South and
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North celestial poles appears to move in
circles compared to space fixed background stars.
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So while today the star Polaris lies
approximately at the north celestial pole. This
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will change over time, with Gamasefi
becoming the pole star in about thirty two
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hundred years from now. Of course, it also means the seasons slowly moved
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through different calendar months, but we
make adjustments in the calendar to compensate for
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that. And like axial procession,
Earth's orbit also changes gradually over time,
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getting more or less elongated, meaning
changes in perihelion and aphelian When the Earth's
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at its nearest and most distant orbital
positions from the Sun see Instead of being
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a perfect circle, Earth's orbit around
the Sun is slightly elongated, and the
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amount of elongation changes over time.
In fact, even the tilt of Earth's
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spin access changes over thousands of years. Right now it's twenty three point four
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degrees, but in the past it's
been both much more than that and far
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less. Proxy data that's indirect records
of the Earth's climate found unlikely places like
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coral pollen, trees, and sediments
show interesting oscillations approximately every one hundred thousand
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years, starting about a million years
ago. Strong changes in global ice volume,
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sea level, carbon dioxide concentrations,
and surface temperature all indicate cycles of
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long, slow transition to glacial periods
and then abrupt switches to a normal and
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short interglacial period. This idea suggests
there may be some sort of predictability in
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the long term climate. A notoriously
complex system. Now reporting the journal Chaos
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proposes a new paradigm to try and
simplify the verification of the Melankovich hypotheses.
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The studies lead author, Stefano Perini
from the Parthenope University of Naples, says
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he wanted to characterize and illustrate the
Melancovitch hypotheses in a simple, elegant and
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intuitive way. Many models suggest that
Malankovic is correct. However, such methods
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are often extremely complicated and detailed,
hard to explain, and they incorporate climate
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feedback loops. For example, increased
ice cover reflects more radiation back in a
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space that leads to further cooling and
more ice cover, and this means an
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abrupt jumping climate only occurs once a
specific parameter riches are given tipping point.
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Perini's circle deterministic excitation paradigm combine the
physics concepts of relaxation, oscillation, and
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excitability to link Earth orbital parameters and
the glacial cycles in a more generic way.
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The relaxation oscillation component describes how the
climate slowly returns to its original glacier
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state after it's been disturbed. At
that point, the excitability piece of the
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model captures the external orbital changes and
triggers the next glacial cycle. By using
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his own threshold crossing rules and adapting
a classic energy balance model, Perini obtained
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correct and robust timing for the most
recent glacial cycles. In fact, it
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can explain the timing of at least
the last four glacial terminations. Perine now
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plans on extending the same analysis to
the whole place to scene epoch in order
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to determine its accuracy over longer time
scales. He believes similar methods could be
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used in other fields of nonlinear science
and in connection with other climate phenomoma.
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This spacetime still to come millions quietly
acts from spaceport investment. In the federal
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budget and later in the science report, the World Meteorological Organization says there's a
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ninety eight percent chance of setting a
new global heat record in the next five
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years. All that and more still
to come on spacetime. Well, you
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probably didn't hear this in the mainstream
legacy media. But the federal budget had
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down last week there's quietly acts thirty
two million dollars from Australian spaceport development.
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The cut by the alban Easy government
is part of seventy seven million dollars which
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had been slashed from science, including
a key part of Australia's involvement in the
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00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:29.519
Moon to Mars Artemis program. Now, these were all crucial aspects of Australia's
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00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:34.359
STEM science, technology, engineering and
mathematics future under the previous coalition government.
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00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:41.640
The Australian Space Agency Spaceport Investment Program
was designed to make similar projects overseas,
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allowing the nation to share in the
multi trillion dollar global space industry, which
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Australia helped pioneer over sixty years ago. Now, when the money was first
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allocated, Jesus says that the funding
would provide opportunities to advance technology and increase
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operational experience modible space flights from Australian
soil. That funding would have helped Australia
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00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:10.839
regained space flight qualifications which at lost
in the nineteen seventies with the downgrading of
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the Womera rocket range in Outback South
Australia from orbital flights to ballistic sounding rockets.
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Remember, at one stage, Womera
was the busiest spaceport in the world
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other than Cape Canaveral. Federal Labor
Science and Minister Ed Husach dismissed the funding
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cuts, claiming the projects simply don't
align with the Albanesi government's priorities. Still
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a bit of good news now and
Black Sky Era Space has got approval to
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develop a new facility in southern Queensland
which will both manufacture and test fire rockets
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and missiles. The complex will include
research, development and manufacturing facilities, as
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well as rocket murder test beds and
associated fueling infrastructure. Blast Guy recently began
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00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:59.920
producing ammonium perchlorate, a key chemical
used as an oxidizer in solid fuel rocket
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murders. When ignited, the oxygen
from ammonium chlorate combines with aluminum to produce
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00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:11.440
aluminum oxide, aluminum chloride, water
vapor, nitrogen gas, and lots of
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00:25:11.559 --> 00:25:15.839
energy, which causes the water,
vapor and the nitrogen to rapidly expand,
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creating thrust. This is Space Time
and time out to take a brief look
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00:25:37.160 --> 00:25:40.599
at some of the other stories making
using science. This week with a science
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report, the World Meteorological Organization is
warning that there's a ninety eight percent likelihood
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that at least one of the next
five years will be the hottest on record
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00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:56.519
thanks to the combination of El Nino
and climate change. The latest global annual
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00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:02.759
to decatal climate update also warn that
there's a sixty six percent chance that annual
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global surface temperatures will at least temporarily
exceed one point five degrees celsius above pre
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industrial levels at least once in the
next five years. Now, while that
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00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:18.119
doesn't mean that we will permanently exceed
the one point five degrees celsius limit specified
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00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:23.000
in the Paris Agreement, the World
Meteorological Organization is still sounding the alarm that
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00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:30.920
we will breach that one point five
degrees celsius level with increasing frequency, as
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well as spying on your every Internet
action and giving you search result which favorites
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own advertisers. A major study is
confirmed that Google cannot be trusted on political
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00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:47.720
issues. The findings by All Sides
News bias analyzes found that sixty one percent
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of one hundred and fifty one media
outlets presented on Google News home page over
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00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:56.319
a five day period we're all from
sources which tended to lean to the liberal
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00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:02.200
left side of politics. At the
same time, only thirty six percent were
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00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:07.599
from the center or non rated news
outlets and just three percent were from conservative
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00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:11.039
news sources. And when the Stadies
authors used the search term election, they
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00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:15.680
returned Nerve results from center or right
leaning media outlets. In the days leading
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up to the twenty twenty two United
States midterms, however, twenty eight percent
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00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:26.000
of the articles presented by Google News
for the search term were from the left
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00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:30.960
leaning CNN and sixteen percent of articles
from the more extreme left leaning New York
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00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:37.680
Times. The findings confirm that Google
isn't like the phone book. It's not
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impartial, but rather it pushes a
socialist political agenda, sometimes subtly, other
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times more blatantly. And of course
Google aren't alone. In a twenty twenty
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one court case brought about by journalist
Stephen Stocell, Facebook admitted under oath that
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its fact checks were simply opinion.
The court was told that fact checkers and
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non unbiased arbiters of the truth,
they're simply useful distractions. Paleontologists have described
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the new species of Spinus sauroid dinosaur
discovered in Spain, dating back to the
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early Cretaceous between one hundred and twenty
seven one hundred and twenty six million years
338
00:28:18.119 --> 00:28:22.000
ago. The new discovery has been
named Protolithus sink Torrensis, the champion from
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00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:26.039
the town of Sint Torrens, where
it was discovered. The specimen, which
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00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:30.359
is estimated to have been around eleven
meters long, is based on fossil fragments
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including a right chawbone, a tooth, and five vertebrae. Spinus sauroids comprise
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different groups have often semi aquatic bipedal
carnivores, some of which, such as
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the cellback Spinosaurus, grew larger than
tracks. The new findings, published in
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00:28:48.359 --> 00:28:52.759
the journal Science Reports, sheds new
light on the origin and evolution of spinosauroids
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across what today is the Iberian Peninsula. Based on the new find the authors
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proposed that this new species may indicate
that spinos Sauroids appear during the early Cretatious
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00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:07.960
in Laurasia, a large area of
land in what is now the Northern Hemisphere,
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with two subgroups of the species occupying
Western Europe. Spinosaurids may then have
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migrated to Africa and Asia as they
diversified health authorities in Mexico are going to
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00:29:22.319 --> 00:29:27.319
encourage greater use of traditional native medicines
in the countries worthfully under equipped public health
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00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:33.720
system. The head of Mexico's largest
public hospital network says the department will hire
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00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:40.119
seven hundred and fifty three traditional healers. Tementum from Australian skeptics says it's the
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same form used by Chinese in Indian
governments to quill the crime bring poor and
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00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:49.400
sick in their countries. Mexico country
that has problems with medical infrastructure, especially
355
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:53.359
in regional areas that's not very well
set up in also areas where it's dangerous
356
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.000
to set it up in considering crime
levels and gangs and things. So therefore,
357
00:29:57.039 --> 00:30:02.000
in certain areas there are few doctors
have to find alternatives than what.
358
00:30:02.039 --> 00:30:06.640
They're moving to more traditional medicine in
various hospitals and things like that, including
359
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:11.799
hiring seven hundred and fifty three practitioners
of traditional massage and herbal treatment. And
360
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:15.759
they're also bringing in people who are
called kuranderos, who are non licensed healers
361
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:21.440
who use bundles of herbs, smoke, alcohol and eggs to draw sickness out
362
00:30:21.480 --> 00:30:23.599
of the bodies of their patients.
Now is a pretty French stuff, and
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00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:30.039
obviously a lot of traditional medicine is
pseudo medicine. They're also bringing in midwives
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00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:33.319
who use a traditional form of chiropractic
medicine. Now, chiropractic and medicine are
365
00:30:33.319 --> 00:30:37.240
two words that don't go well together. Traditional chiropractic chiropractor. Again, it
366
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.720
goes back a couple of hundred years, so I'm not for sure what traditional
367
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:42.759
chiropractic is. Anyway, this is
the sort of stuff they're saying they're bringing
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00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:48.039
in under the approval of the president, President Abrodor of Mexico, who's also
369
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the same person who claimed that he
believes in mythical Mayan creatures. So there's
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00:30:52.799 --> 00:30:56.680
a bit of a theme running here, which is rather concerning. But they're
371
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also bringing in doctors and things from
Cuba, so really they're trying to pack
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00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:07.200
a very poor medical system Fishian regions
and things and using desperately anything reverting to
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00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:10.920
suppose a traditional herbal cures and that
sort of stuff. The same thing happened
374
00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:12.799
in China sort of way back when
in the forties or fifties, and their
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00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:18.400
medical infrastructure was pretty poor and They
then Fascianda chairman Mao promoted acupuncture has a
376
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:22.000
medical treatment, mainly because there was
a lot of people doing it, it
377
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.839
was cheap, it was easy to
do, and the medical system just wasn't
378
00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:27.319
set up to handle all the people
who were coming in, so a lot
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of the promotion of acupuncture came out
of a medical failing rather than a pro
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00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:37.599
acupuncture I meanwhile, Nou and colleagues
kept using modern Western medicines instead. That's
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right, yeah, I mean this
was just for the poor people. The
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mug punters of the Chinese community can
have actupuncture that has very very limited application.
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That's timendum from Australian skeptics, and
that's the show for now. Spacetime
384
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.720
is available every Monday, Wednesday and
Friday through Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher,
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00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:17.319
Google podcast, pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bytes
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dot Com, SoundCloud YouTube, your
favorite podcast download provider, and from Spacetime
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00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:29.640
with Stewart Gary dot Com. Spacetime's
also broadcast through the National Science Foundation,
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00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:34.839
on Science Zone Radio and on both
iHeartRadio and tune In Radio. And you
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00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:37.839
can help to support our show by
visiting the Spacetime store for a range of
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promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming
a Spacetime Patron, which gives you access
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to triple episode commercial free versions of
the show, as well as lots of
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bernus audio content which doesn't go to
wear, access to our exclusive Facebook group,
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and other rewards. Just go to
Spacetime with Stewart Gary dot com for
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full details, and if you want
more Spacetime please check out our blog where
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you'll find all the stuff we couldn't
fit in the show, as well as
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heaps of images, news stories,
loads of videos and things on the whereby
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00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:13.440
find interesting or amusing. Just go
to Spacetime with Stewart Gary dot Tumbler dot
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00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:17.079
com. That's all one word,
and that's Tumbler without the E. You
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00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:22.480
can also follow us through at Stewart
Garry on Twitter, at Spacetime with Stewart
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Garry on Instagram, through our Spacetime
YouTube channel, and on Facebook. Just
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go to Facebook dot com, forward
slash Spacetime with Stewart Gary and Spacetime is
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00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:37.240
brought to you in collaboration with Australian
Sky and Telescope Magazine. Your window on
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00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:42.799
the universe. You've been listening to
Spacetime with Stewart Gary This has been another
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00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:47.359
quality podcast production from bytes dot com.
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