How We Now Think Galaxies Evolve

SpaceTime 20210531 S24E61 AI TRanscript

[00:00:00] This is time series 24 episode 61, four broadcast on the 31st of May, 2021. Coming up on space, time, new evidence, changing the way we think galaxies evolve, the most ancient spiral galaxy ever seen and has masters Mars, curiosity Rover found organic carbon Katanning salts on the red planet. All that and more coming up.

Um, space time. Welcome to space time with steward, Gary

A new study has shown that galaxies like the Milky way evolve gradually rather than through a series of violent collisions. The findings reported in the astrophysical journal letters of forcing [00:01:00] astronomers to reevaluate their current hypotheses on galaxy formation and evolution. The results are based on the first detailed cross-sectional study of a spiral galaxy.

The galaxy UGC, 10, seven 38 is located some 320 million light years away and is broadly similar in its structure and appearance to that of the Milky way. Importantly, the authors discover that UGC 10, seven 38 has very distinct, thick and thin disks. Similar to those we see in the Milky way. When you look at the Milky way side on, rather than from above, it's impossible to make out the galaxies majestic disk of spiral arms.

Instead side on the spiral arms, look as flat as a pancake with a central galactic bulge in the middle, looking like a page in the middle of the pancake to keep the analogy going in 1983, astronomers discovered that the Milky ways disc is actually composed of two very distinct populations of stars.

[00:02:00] There's an ancient thickness component of older stars, which are relatively faint and not visible with the unaided eye. And then there's a younger Findus component, which includes our son by the way. And it's the one which dominates the night with it's carpet of glistening stars cascading across the sky.

The thin disc is about a thousand light years thick at about a hundred thousand light years in diameter and runs through the middle of the thick disc in the same plane. As the name suggests the thick disc is much thicker being several thousand light years across. It's also much less densely populated with stars.

And it's rotating more slowly around the galactic center, other than the thin disk, but it stars are moving far more rapidly, vertically as well as being kind of magically distinct the thick and thin disks also have very different stellar populations with a thin disc stars, generally being much younger and still forming today compared to thick disc stars, withdraw draw for more than 10 billion years ago.

And of course the [00:03:00] difference in age means they have different chemical compositions as well. With thick disc stars having between a 10th and half the middle of city of the sun while thin disc stars have between a third and three times the sun's medalist city may elicit he referring to the stars elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

The primary elements created in the big bang 13.82 billion years ago. Yeah, the important thing about all this is the double disc structure with very distinct populations of stars in thick and thin disks is actually incredibly difficult to replicate in computer simulations. It suggests that only about one in 20 galaxies, superficially, similar to the Milky way have experienced the collision resulting in distinct thick and thin disks.

Now this doesn't mean galactic cannibalism doesn't happen. It is a fact that galaxies get bigger by merging with or consuming other galaxies, but it appears not to have a significant impact on a galaxy structure or appearance. And that suggests that when they do [00:04:00] merge galaxies come together, phallus, violently than we thought.

One of the studies offers Nicholas scar from the university of Sydney, says the observations indicate that the Milky ways thin and thick discs didn't come about because of a galactic mashup, but Morris sort of the fault path of galaxy formation and evolution. Scott says the Milky ways thin and thick disks were thought to have formed after a rare, violent merger.

And so it probably wouldn't be found in other spiral galaxies. But he says the research now shows that's probably wrong and it evolved naturally without catastrophic interventions, which means Milky way. Todd galaxies probably very common. The research also shows that UGC 10, seven 38, like the Milky way as a thick disc consisting, mainly of ancient stars identified by their low ratio of iron to hydrogen and helium.

Well, again, like the Milky way it's thin disk is composed mostly of more recent youngest stars stars, which have high . Although [00:05:00] such discs have previously been observed in other galaxies, it was impossible to tell whether there has to be the same type of Stila distribution, and therefore we're similar in origins.

The authors of this study solved the problem by using the multi unit spectroscopic Explorer or mew spectrograph on the European Southern observatory is very large telescope in Chile. Muse allowed them to observe UGC 10, seven 38 and determine the metal ratios of the stars in its they can thin discs.

Scott and colleagues found them to be very similar to those of the Milky way galaxy with ancient stars and the thickness and younger ones. And the thin one skinny, it says UGC 10, seven 30, eight edge on orientation meant it was simple to see which types of stars were in each desk. The authors are now examining a further 19 similar spiral galaxies to see if the observations hold up.

Scott says the findings so far are providing important insights into the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies. That's the [00:06:00] answer, the question it's on galaxy normal effectively, or maybe a more scientific way of putting that, is it, is it common? Um, the way we chose to answer this question is by looking at other nearby galaxies to see how much they had in common in terms of their properties and structure without galaxy.

So we kind of narrowed things down to a small subset of galaxies, just based on the basics. Things like. Having roughly the same number of styles as our galaxy being roughly the same size, the sort of simple properties. And then we really looked into detail in these nearby galaxies and the paper we published looks at just one of these galaxies and we compare it in great detail to our own Milky way.

And we find out that there's kind of an almost exact match between the structures we see in our galaxy and the structures we see in the salad galaxy, tell us about UGC 10, seven 38. Yeah. So this is a, what we call a Milky way. Galaxy, as I said, we pick things that work. Roughly the same masses are galaxy roughly the same size, just over 300 million light years away, which for astronomers is kind of nearby.

Sounds [00:07:00] like it's most people, but astronomers had funny notions of distance. Um, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely in that kind of, well, maybe not quite in the local universe, but you know, as far as astronomers with, with, um, Yeah. And we observed this with some telescopes in Chile and in particular, this instrument, which lets us take very detailed, not just images, but also a spectra of this galaxy as part of the European Southern observatory, which we're now collaborator with.

Thanks to a recent, yeah, it absolutely is. And the sort of having access to muse as well as let's do this, there was no other instrument on the planet that could have done these observations. So without this kind of access to the European telescopes, even though they're based in Chile, they're sort of.

European telescopes. Then we wouldn't have been able to do this study at all. And as you looked at this galaxy, you noticed the thin and thick disks. Tell me about these. Yeah, that's right. So one of the, kind of most recent discoveries about our own galaxy maybe 30 years ago say [00:08:00] is that we have these two distinct.

Yes like structures. Now, if you go outside and look up at the Milky way, you'll be able to see it. It's kind of a long, thin strip of stars across the sky. And what you're seeing there is the thin disk of the Milky way. And we know that there's also a thick desk. You can't really see it with your naked eye, but with telescopes and kind of careful studies found that there was this second disklike structure, which is also sort of long, but not quite as long and thin, but not quite as thin.

So it's about three or four times. Which is why we give it the inventive name as the thickness. And then what we did is we looked in this other gal and these other galaxies for the same structure. The other thing about the sentencing disc is that not just sort of different in terms of the structure that they will say contain different staffs.

And that's what we were able to do for the first time with this external galaxy. See if people the same kinds of stars in the same sort of physical arrangements, as we did found an iron Milky way. And that's exactly what we found. So this tells you what, knowing that this galaxy is very similar to the Milky way, in terms of it's [00:09:00] still a structure kind of interesting implications of this for our own galaxy.

It tells us about how we think these spinning. Sort of the oldest theory for how this might happen is something like 9 billion years ago, sort of a medium sized galaxy might've collided with our own galaxy and caused this disruption. Cause kind of a pause in the formation of our galaxy. If you like before this point, it was forming the desk and it had this pools.

And then also that it started forming the Findex that were the case. Then we would expect to be really rare in the universe that they would only happen when the galaxy had experienced this kind of merger at the right time. Now that we've found it in another galaxies that really argues against the serious disrupt a common than we need to much more sort of common way of forming them.

And so that brings us to this sort of second theory that says an Invictus kind of a natural process of the way we form galaxies. If you like, they just sort of happen and come about through the way we form styles. And even though it seems a little bit strange to have these two kinds of [00:10:00] structures with different kinds of styles that range differently.

It turns out that with a kind of a more careful look at the series of how galaxies formed he can get the structure out of just kind of the default pathway, if you like using this default pathway. Does that mean that there's a huge cloud of gas and dust and it sort of gradually condenses 13 billion years ago to form a galaxy?

Is that sort of the.

It's not quite a trick, but the, the subtlety here is that once you start forming stars, three stars after a little while start exploding. And when we think happens for the first sort of couple of hundred million years, we at one type of supernova that comes from really massive stars. We call these type two supinate and they release certain sort of signature elements.

To the galaxy that they can get recycled and future generations and stuff. After about 200 million years, you end up using up all of these really massive stars. Well, they started going bang, so there's no more explode anymore. And then you get a different kind of [00:11:00] Supernanny that we call type one A's um, that are doing the enrichment for men, or may have this different chemical signature.

That's really this transition from an early phase where you get these sort of massive stars exploding, uh, one week, and then later on in the galaxies life, you get a different kind of star exploding and that gives you a different chemical signature. It's separate from population two and three stars. I take it.

Or are we doing yes, that's right. Yeah. Uh, unfortunately similar naming conventions. Uh, but they're, they're different. They're related. So your population three styles are definitely, we're more massive. And we do expect them to have mostly gone into these more massive core collapse supernovae early on.

That would have been, yeah, that was early on. So this is a little bit later in the galaxy. The population three stuff is in the few first, well inside the first billion years of the universe. The fake disc we think formed for maybe the first three or 4 billion years of the galaxies life, something [00:12:00] like that.

So it's a little bit more extended. What does this do about the creation theory? Because we can see star trails that clearly have different origins within our own galaxy and within other neighboring galaxies, we've seen them as well. So obviously you've then got a super impose that galactic cannibalism on top of your, on top of this more gentle evolutionary theory.

Yeah, that's right. So we absolutely think that still happens. Our observations don't change that at all. We know galaxies merge and growth through swallowing up other the galaxies. I think what our results suggest is that part of the process isn't as important as we used to think. No matter about the, sort of the details of that, this one that was twice as big or half as big 5 billion or 7 billion years ago.

I think what our results are saying is that those details don't really matter. They happen. Sure. And we see the effects and they make little changes to the galaxies that they happen to. But the kind of [00:13:00] the fundamental story, if you like. Doesn't worry too much about those details. You're going to end up in the same place, no matter whether you have that manager at that exact time, or if he didn't have that exact, I guess that's why we're not noticing Sagittarius dwarf crashing into us now.

Yeah, that's right. These are, you know, that's a much smaller galaxy than our own, so perhaps not that surprising, but these little things happening, don't disturb things. Now, many of them happen and. If you had too many small things, then you can certainly see a big change, but we don't think that, or at least this result is jesting, but in this particular respect, we're not seeing the effects of all those mergers.

When you have a much bigger merger, like the one we expect for Andromeda and the Milky way in three or 4 billion years time, that'll definitely shake the galaxy pretty stunning result in terms of understanding galactic evolution. Hasn't it. There's been lots of, sort of little hints, as I suggested, sort of this alternate theory had been talked about a little bit, but hadn't got much traction, but it's kind of a couple of nice things that come together to really [00:14:00] allow us to do this study.

Firstly, we've got to know our own galaxy a lot better over the last couple of years, there's something called the Gaia satellite that's observed locations, a billion stars, literally a billion stars in the Milky way. Let us make our first kind of maps at the whole galaxy roll. And just a little bit of that and minutes, these other, this instrument muse in particular, let us kind of observe other galaxies in almost the level of detail we can observe.

All right. So it's really this knowing our own galaxy better knowing these I like galaxies better. And then we can make this detail compassion that we just haven't been able to do before Scott from Australia's arc center of excellence for all sky astrophysics in three dimensions, Astro 3d. And from the university of Sydney, this is space-time.

Still to come the most ancient spiral galaxy ever seen and scientists using masses, Mars, curiosity, Rover. Think they may have found what appears to be organic carbon containing salts on the red planet, all that, and much more still to [00:15:00] come on. Space time.

Scientists have found what may be the earliest spiral galaxy ever seen going back and amazing 12.4 billion years. A report of the journal science says that discovery of the galaxy with a spiral structure at such an early stage in the evolution of the universe is an important step in the quest. That determined how spiral galaxies, like our Milky way.

Galaxy for example, are formed. The discovery was made using Alma. The Atacama large millimeter submillimeter array radio telescope in Chile, about 70% of all galaxies we see in the universe are spirals. However, the proportion of spiral galaxies tends to decline more and more as astronomers look [00:16:00] further and further back in time.

And that raises the question of when did spiral galaxies first begin to form. And just as importantly, why. Scientists with the national astronomical observatory of Japan noticed the galaxy code B R I 1335 minus zero four 17 in the Alma science archive. The strange looking blob had been largely obscured by dust, but while the dust made it difficult to study invisible, visible light Elmer is able to pay through that dust and examine the galaxy at radio wavelengths.

And lo and behold, the authors found it had a spiral structure. The earliest ever seen extending out at least 15,000 line is from the galactic center. They also found this galaxy, he had about the same masters they were and Milky way galaxy, but it appears to be much more compact with just a third, the diameter of the Milky way.

However, the authors admit that being so far away means they're not really able to detect the full extent of the galaxy [00:17:00] size. Still regardless, it's a giant for its time. So the big question is how did this galaxy obtain its spiral shapes? So early in cosmic history at one possibility involves interaction with a smaller galaxy.

Remember the majestic spiral structure we see in galaxies is thought to be caused by density waves, passing through galaxies disk. And Bri 1335 minus zero four, one seven is actively forming stars. There's huge amounts of gas and dust streaming into the galaxy from possible collisions. With smaller surrounding galaxies.

Astronomers are also speculating about the galaxies, ultimate fate, so much gas industry, median Starbursts, taking place all around. It could eventually transform from a spiral to an elliptical galaxy as if the hypothesis is correct. This is space time still the calm wor possible organic compounds found on Mars and much to the chagrin of astronomers [00:18:00] everywhere.

Space X launches. It's 1737th styling, satellite, all that, and much more still to come. Um, space time

scientists using messes, Moz curiosity Rover found what appear to be organic carbon containing salts on the red planet. The findings reported in the journal of geophysical research. Planets could have important implications for the red planet's past habitability. Now, before we get too excited, it's important to point out that organic compounds and salts could have formed our master geological processes.

But the thing is they could also be remnants of ancient microbial life. Besides adding more evidence to the ID that there once was organic matter on Mars [00:19:00] directly detecting organic salt would also support modern day marsh and habitability. Given that on earth, some organisms use organic salts such as oscillates and acetates for energy.

The study's lead author. James Lewis from NASA Goddard space flight center in Greenbelt. Maryland says the discovery of concentrations of organic salts on Mars makes the location an ideal spot to drill deep below the surface organic matter could be preserved Lewis's lab experiments in analyses of data from Sam sample analysis at Mars chemistry, laboratory instrument, and bought the curiosity Rover indirectly point to the presence of organic salts.

But the problem is directly identifying them on Mars is actually quite hard to do with instruments like Sam, Sam works by heating marsh and solar and rocks to release gases. And these gases then reveal the composition of these samples. The challenge is that hating organic salts produces only simple gases that [00:20:00] could be released by other ingredients in the Martian soil.

So Lewis now wants to use curiosity's chemistry and mineralogy instrument. It could detect certain types of organic salts. But again, there's a caveat they need to be present in sufficiently large amounts. And the problem there is the instrument hasn't yet found them. It could be because the levels are simply too low everywhere, or it could be because they're really not.

They're finding organic molecules or at least their organic salt remnants is essentially NASA search for life on other worlds. One of the big problems on Mars of course, is the billions of years of radiation, which has bombarded the red planet surface and would have long irradiated or broken apart. Any organic matter there, like an archeologist digging up bits of ancient pottery, curiosity collects marsh and soil and rocks, which may contain tiny chunks of organic compounds.

And then Sam or another instrument needs to identify that chemical structure. Using data that [00:21:00] curiosity then since the earth scientists like Lewis, try to piece together these broken organic pieces and then infer what types of larger molecules they may once have belong to and what those molecules could reveal about the engine environment and the potential biology that was there since arriving in Gale crater in 2012, NASA six world Mars, curiosity Rover has drilled into numerous rocks searching for organics molecules containing carbon.

Scientists using curiosity, Sam instrument first detected ancient organic compounds preserved on Mars back in 2018. Jennifer  from NASA Goddard space flight center in Greenbelt, Maryland led the team which made that discovery. We want to know has life ever existed on Mars, two pockets of life persists on Mars today.

And that's his approach to answering these questions is to break them down into smaller and smaller steps. First, we need to know if ancient Mars was habitable. Did a once have the right climate and [00:22:00] the right chemistry to support life. The curiosity Rover investigating these questions by looking for organic molecules containing carbon organic molecules are the backbone of all life on earth though.

They can also come from non-living sources today. The surface of Mars readily destroys organics and making them difficult to detect. Decelerating curiosity landed in Gale crater on ancient, like Ben a few months after arrival, it drilled into sedimentary rocks and detected traces of organic molecules using an instrument called the Sam.

Now, curiosity is climbing the mound in the middle of Gale crater. And Sam has made a subsequent detection of organics. This is exciting because it comes from rocks that are billions of years old. That means that the organic material within them. Is extremely ancient. Some of their organics that Sam has a tactic contain sulfur likely introduce through geological processes.

Sulfur can act as a preservative binding [00:23:00] organic molecules together to make them tougher and protecting them from oxidation. In fact, software is the element that makes hair and fingernails tough as well as vulcanized rubber. Marsh and sulfur has probably had a similar effect on these old organic molecules, helping to preserve them over geological timescales.

Sam may detections by heating samples of crushed rock to very high temperatures above a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This vaporizes samples and really several species of small hydrocarbons like benzene and propane, because the hydrocarbons were released as such high temperatures. They may be the fragments of bigger heavier molecules within the rock.

Similar to Caribbean's on earth keratins are found in rocks like black shale and cold. And are the products of ancient plant and bacteria. We don't know if the recently discovered organics on Mars are biological origin, but it's exciting to find such old material preserved right at the [00:24:00] surface. This finding is also encouraging for future exploration in the distant past.

Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is today. Rock's a Gale crater tell us it was once an environment. Where life, as we know it could have survived. The discovery of ancient organic molecules shows that another ingredient of life was present at that time. And it broadens our understanding of habitability of both ancient and modern Mars.

That first discovery of organic molecules, the search been on define more. And the key instrument for that is Sam. Sam works by heating sample through over a thousand degrees Celsius, breaking molecules apart and releasing gases at specific temperatures, which can be analyzed and identified to determine the composition of the original rock or mineral.

But there are lots of interactions taking place, making it difficult to draw specific inclusions. This report from NASA TV. How do you know if there was once water on Mars [00:25:00] or for that matter life? Obviously you can't tell just by looking at pictures of Mars, but scientists think the answer may lie hidden in tiny molecules and marsh and soil.

So how do you take apart a molecule to see what's inside? Luckily scientists have a tool to do just that. It's called a mass spectrometer and it lets us take an extremely close look at whatever we're studying. And even though Mars immediately comes to mind, mass spectrometers are using multiple NASA missions.

They're also used in labs for hundreds of scientific purposes. But the important question is how does it work today? We'll be looking at a special kind of spectrometer called the quadrupole mass spectrometer. It's called this because of the four long poles that make up the center of the instrument. So say you have a sample.

That's been turned into a guest and you want to find out if it contains certain things, the gas is sent into the mass spectrometer first hitting a piece called the ion source. Hear a stream of electrons hits the molecule, breaking it into fragments and giving each fragment a charge. Next, the fragments enter.

What's called the analyzer here. [00:26:00] We're separated based on their mass and the analyzer is tuned. So that only the fragments we want to see make it all the way through everything else, slides off in a different direction. After this, the fragments hit what's called the detector. And scientists record the data.

If you're looking for more than one kind, the analyzer can scan across a range of fragments, building up a record of not only what kind, but how many. Once you have these results, call the mass spectrum. You can verify that your sample in fact contains what you're looking for. And here, the real work begins.

The mass spectrometer is a powerful tool and by taking many samples, looking at the results. And studying what we find scientists can work to discover not only the secrets of water and life on Mars, but also answers to bigger questions about the universe and all by studying something as tiny as a molecule, Louis and colleagues have analyzed the range of organic salts mixed within it, silica powder in order to replicate marsh and rocks, they've also investigated the impact of adding perchlorates to Silicon mixtures, the chlorides assaults [00:27:00] containing chlorine and oxygen, and they comment on Mars.

Cite is war that these perchlorates couldn't defeat with experiments seeking signs of organic matter. And it turned out to be a good call. They found perchlorates were affecting their experiments, but they also found that the results they collected from Pecora containing samples, better matched the Sam data.

Then one of the corporates were absent and that bolsters the likelihood they have indeed found organic salts. This is space time still the comm space X launches. It's 1,737 Starling satellite, much to the chagrin of astronomers everywhere. And later in the science report, the world health organization admits that the real COVID-19 death toll could have already passed 8 million, all that, and more coming up.

Um, space time.

[00:28:00] Hey, sex is undertaken. Two more Starling launches, herring, another 102 broadband satellites into orbit. Starling 27 carried 52 styling satellites as well as two rideshare payloads, a radar earth imaging satellite for Capella space and an optical spectrum. Astronomy observation, satellite, the Tyvac one 30 for Tyvac nano satellite systems.

The mission from space launch complex 39 eight at the Kennedy space center, the Cape Canaveral space for a station in Florida, mark the eighth successful launch and recovery of the same Falcon nine booster, which eventually led them to the drone ship. Of course, I still love you, which had been pre-positioned some 680 kilometers down range in the north Atlantic ocean.

And just 11 days later, the company launched at Starling 28 mission carrying another 60 styling satellites into orbit [00:29:00] and bringing the total number of styling spacecraft now launched to 1,737. The mission from space launch complex 48 Cape Canaveral was only the second flight for this particular Falcon nine booster, which then successfully returned to the surface landing on the drone ship.

Just read the instructions, following the mission. Ultimately space excerpts to have some 42,000 Starling satellites in their low earth orbit constellation providing global broadband satellite internet service. Each 260 kilogram. Satellite is equipped with K U K a N E band phased array antennas as well as laser transponders and hall effect thrusters.

The ever growing Starlight constellations are angering scientists because they interfere with important astronomical research, leaving bright streaks across optical images and effecting sensitive radio telescope observations. This is space time.

[00:30:00] And Tom out to take a brief look at some of the other stories, making, using science this week with a science report, the world health organization has admitted for the first time that the true desktop from the COVID-19 pandemic could be somewhere between six and 8 million people, rather than the three and a half million officially listed by the organization.

The WHS assistant director general severe asthma confirmed the likely true death toll during a press conference, looking at the latest data and analytics, which included both the number of deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19 since the virus first emerged in Western China. The new numbers were presented at the annual world health statistics report, which estimated that the total number of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was at least 3 million or 1.2 million more than what was officially reported at the time.

[00:31:00] The UN agencies official figures estimate around 3.4 million people have died directly as result of COVID-19 as of May, 2021. Meanwhile us president Joe Biden has ordered a new investigation into whether the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic really did originate in nature, or whether it leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of neurology.

The white house ordered it's 18 inspired and ceased to carry out the review. Following confirmation, that three scientists from the wan Institute of virology were hospitalized on November the 18th, 2019 with COVID-19 like symptoms in what may well have been the very first cases of the deadly pandemic.

Now, if you remember, we reported back on April the sixth, 20, 20 that's April the sixth last year that the first human case of COVID 19 was a 55 year old man on November the 17th, 2019. The new confirmation of our original story was contained in a [00:32:00] previously undisclosed United States intelligence report about bat virus, gain of function, experiments, being undertaken at the war and Institute of virology, splicing, and mutating different viruses together, including SaaS COVID too, in order to create new viruses that had never previously existed in nature, that research was partially funded by the United States, which banned similar Ghana functioned research in the U S.

Now the November, 2019 dates important because it coincides with a timeframe. Most epidemiologist, nephrologists believe the SARS cov two virus behind the pandemic first began spreading through the central Chinese city of wa. And on the other hand, Beijing claims the first case of COVID-19 was a man who fell ill in late December, 2019.

The Chinese government did an alert the world health organization of the outbreak until December the 31st. And didn't admit to humid human transmission of the virus until January the 21st, [00:33:00] 2020. That mid-November date also happens to be the time that Beijing ordered the Whitehead Institute of neurology to destroy thousands of pages of research documents and records covering more than 300 studies and undertake a major sterilization program of the entire facility.

It was also around then when Beijing began banning people in Wu Han from traveling to other parts of China, while still allowing international travel from hand to continue. And it was about then when Chinese companies were ordered by the Chinese communist party to start buying up all available supplies of antiviral, drugs, and ventilator machines, as well as gloves, masks, respirators, and other personal protective equipment, effectively stripping entire countries of their supplies.

Now in response to the latest moves by Washington, Beijing has restated its earlier claims that the virus was brought into China by American troops. Of course Beijing's also previously blamed the Italians for the [00:34:00] virus. And more recently they blamed Australia, a new study awards at the maximum sea level rise predicted by the most recent reports from the international panel on climate change are likely to be too low.

The findings by Danish and Norwegian researchers reporting the journal ocean science are based on calculations of future sea level rise based on actual observations of changing sea levels in the recent past. And compared with computer model based predictions, the authors say the intergovernmental panel on climate change estimates are simply too conservative because their models have never been tested against past patterns of sea level rise.

In order to check that they're accurate. And you study wants that human made greenhouse gases causing the stratosphere to shrink the findings reported the journal environmental research letters are based on satellite data and computer modeling. The stratosphere is the atmospheric layer stretching from between 20 and 60 kilometers above the Earth's [00:35:00] surface.

It's located directly above the troposphere at the atmospheric layer. We live in standing from the planet surface up to around 20 kilometers. Earlier research had shown that the troposphere is expanding due to increased hate captured by growing concentrations of carbon dioxide. The new research shows that the troposphere expands and pushes into the stratosphere tabla oxide, then contaminates the stratosphere, cooling it down and causing a contracting effect.

The research shows the stratosphere is already thin by some 400 meters since the 1980s, and could continue to shrink by up to a kilometer within the next 60 years. Any study has shown that there are roughly 50 billion birds in the world. The research by the university of new south Wales looked at some 9,700 known bird species ranging from egos and sparrows through the interviews and penguins.

The findings reported in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences. Use complicated [00:36:00] algorithms based on actual sightings, plucked into the Ebert database. The report found that many iconic Australian bird species are numbered in the millions, including some 19 million rainbow, Laura Gates, 10 million software Crested cockatoos, and 3.4 million cookie bars.

But sadly other species remain incredibly endangered, such as the rare black breasted button quail of which there are just a hundred individuals left. It seems the world's most common birds or house Barrows of which there is some 1.6 billion members. They fired by European stylings with 1.3 billion ring build goals with 1.2 billion and bound swallows.

With 1.1 billion members, the study's data set includes some 92% of all known bird species currently alive with the remaining 8% being so rare, reliable data is lacking. From BBC journalists using 4g documents, the ABC's left leanings and [00:37:00] CNN middle east report is tweeting. That Hitler was right once highly reputable new services, and simply no longer be trusted to give you the truth.

In the new news media environment, journalists are pushing their own beliefs rather than providing fair and balanced reporting. Facts are drowned out by opinion and getting the real story is harder than ever. So Tim minim from Australian skeptics has come up with some tips to help you be sure that at least the science news you're getting suggestions have been put forward that the few little tick boxes you can have to see if something is dodgy.

Right. One is the first one is that has, has it been peer reviewed in other words, other scientists. Get up some sort of sign. Now that's where obviously we're going to take it apart. That's the IP review. That's my peer review is actually when you put your article in your paper, it's independently assessed by other scientists who don't know who you are.

And I say, yeah, this is a bit dodgy. Or what, what does this mean? Go back into it again. It's not perfect. Unfortunately, peer review [00:38:00] the best, but it's amazing how few people know about in the general public, how few people know about peer review and yet it's. It's the most important thing to other scientists who are experts in this field.

Agree with what you've concluded. Yes, but I've seen enough things to get through at the mill and that should never have been done. And unfortunately, that does happen on a lot of people who are doing the peer review. Maybe it's spicy part of their job anyway, senior academics and people like that, that they just churn through them and they sort of sign, you know, how closely they read or check the tables or the graphs or the photos or the conclusions, et cetera.

See if they work, but you're right. It is better than nothing by a long way. And then of course you have, once something's been published, which might take a few months before it gets published, you then have the general science community can look at what you've said and they can tear it apart. That's not peer reviewed as such, but it says actually peer assessment in a way that works as well.

So yeah, the world of science is a rough and tumble where to get your idea. Except that you have to really get through a lot, which is good. Anyway, that's one thing. If your client is not being peer reviewed in any way, [00:39:00] and it was just, it just sort of, one person is making claims about particular medicines.

My uncle read it. He created was good. Come back later when you get someone here.

The next thing is to look for the blind spots in your own blind spots, in how you read a report, how, how you look at a particular claim. Obviously, the researchers can be biased that happens, but the reader can also be biased and you know yourself and the way you see it. I, I agree with this particular philosophy.

So therefore, anyone who was fabulous at is wrong, no matter what by side, no matter what the evidence. So that's another thing to WhatsApp for. Hello, what's called confirmation bias, which is you pick out the bits that work for you and you ignore the bits that disagree with you at self perpetuating agreement.

There's often a thing about correlation and causation, just because two things happen at the same time. It doesn't mean one causes the other, but it's amazing how often people make that suggestion. And that's very true vaccines. And unfortunately, the current Suz, which is putting a mildly, in some cases, therefore we know one causes the other and it doesn't necessarily happen, especially in the cases of MMR [00:40:00] vaccine causing autism.

You basically gave the MMR vaccine at about the same time when autism became apparent and they've put out a statistic that one causes the other way. There's no evidence for that at all. So that's the correlation is not causation. So you have to watch out for that sort of logic, poor logic, causation, and confirmation bias.

They're both very human traits, which will probably really important. Back in the days when we were have together, as they helped us find which trees to look for for the best fruits and where the sweetest water was and things like this. Yeah. But the main thing hit by aligning belt does not mean God exists to there.

That's the issue that you said. If someone said that there's a great, there's a wonderful site. We looked at dodgy correlations and they had the scraps shine. The frequency of things happening in line with the number of films released by Nicholas cage is in exact proportion to the number of people who strangled by their own big players.

And that's the correlation. I don't think one quarter the other, but nevermind. We've discussed this before, too. The number of subjects and who, who was doing random surveys and control trials and things like that. Unfortunately, most times [00:41:00] you're using PayPal and people are sort of very inconsistent beings.

So that's why you have to have a lot of people when you're doing it. I try, I control town, the more people the better. And also you have to make sure your, these trials are double blind. With the subject fans and practitioners diagnose, which one is getting a real medicine and which one's getting a placebo, someone else have to manage that play don't get built in biases.

And built-in controls has also built in suggestions that people might be making, not too much. You've got the good one, that sort of thing. So you have to watch out for the nature of studies and the fisheries. This is why phase three trials are so important for at least 30 years. Thousand people in a phase three trial, thereabouts.

That's why they're so important in terms of making sure any medication is worthwhile taking, because that's when you start to get a decent percentage of the population. So like getting all the population that would require a trial of 7 billion by which digest on a trial anymore, a false balance, a lot of media going for this, they say, oh, I'm going to interview someone.

Pro a particular thing. I've got to also interview someone who's against it and it's not true. [00:42:00] Let's look at, we used to claim that was the, one of the rules on the ABC rules for journalists. It's actually not, there is no forced to interview someone on the opposing side, especially if it's taking a lot of rubbish.

If you're talking through an astronomer, as I'm sure you do all the time, you don't always have to talk to an astrologer. I think it's the science is proven. There's no need to talk to an astrologer because that's not science and that's been disproven. So the facts are there. All we'd be doing would be big, repetitive about stuff we already know.

Same thing applies to anti-vaxxers people doing stories on vaccination kept having anti-vax campaigners on because these are their views were equivalent to someone who knows what they're talking about. And they went and gradually the media sort of realized we don't have to interview these rabbit.

Anti-vaxxers just to make our story look fake because it's interviewing someone who's not feeling themselves. So it's, it's the thing that made you have to watch out for and watch people who were looking at me and your stories have to WhatsApp. Well that they're not equivalent. Both sides are not equal necessarily.

And the last thing is making sure that the reporting is clear and honest, and that's the hard one to gauge. How do you know who's being honest, et cetera, but there's certainly a lot of people out there in the media [00:43:00] experts who, uh, particularly dodgy in some of the advice they gave, unfortunately. So you have to watch the whole range of different things to watch out for.

When you say I report is basically generally applying critical thinking. From Australia and skeptics.

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