Sept. 20, 2021

Planet Changing Super Volcanos

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 106
*A new look at planet changing super volcanos
A new study warns that super volcano eruptions can continue with follow up events for thousands of years after...

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 106
*A new look at planet changing super volcanos
A new study warns that super volcano eruptions can continue with follow up events for thousands of years after the main blast.
*Work underway on the Moon capsule
Work is now underway at Lockheed Martin on the Orion spacecraft that will be used on the Artemis III mission to return people to the lunar surface.
*SpaceX Inspiration4 mission
Four space tourists have undertaken a three day voyage in orbit. The Inspiration 4 flight aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule Resilience launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
*Australia’s new trilateral defence deal with America and Britain
Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have entered into a new defence agreement designed to counter what’s euphemistically referred to as the growing military threats facing the Indo-Pacific theatre.
*The Science Report
The world has a new COVID-19 variant -- the new Mu variant is taking off in South America.
A third booster shot for COVID-19 lowers the rate of severe illness 20 fold.
The drying climate and water resource use puts the Darling River at greater risk of fish deaths.
A new apex predator dinosaur discovered at a dig site in Uzbekistan.
Skeptic's guide to psychic readings
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The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

Transcript

SpaceTime S24E106 AI Transcript

[00:00:00] Stuart: This is space-time series 24 episode, 106 for broadcast on the 20th of September, 2021. Coming up on space time. A new look at planet changing supervolcanoes work gets underway on the moon capsule and for space tourists undertake a three-day voyage in orbit, all that and more coming up on Space-Time

Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:46] Stuart: A new study warns that super volcano eruptions aren't singular events, but can continue with follow-up blast for thousands of years after the first eruption, super volcanic eruptions are among the most catastrophic event in any planet's history. That includes the earth. They vent tremendous amounts of magma, almost instantaneously.

They impact global client. Here on earth. That means triggering a volcanic winter with abnormally cold temperatures causing widespread feminine population disruptions. Then you findings reported in the journal nature, uh, based on a study of volcanic debris from the turbo eruption in Indonesia, 75,000 years ago.

There's no other way to say it Tobar was the largest volcanic eruption in human history. It had a volcanic explosivity index of eight, the highest possible score on the chart. The volcanic explosivity index is a logarithmic scale for an eruption, depending on how much volcanic material was thrown out to what height it thrown and how long the eruption lasts.

Well, people these days talk about events such as the famous 1883 eruption of crack and toe in the sun does straight between the islands of Java and Sumatra or more recently, the Mount St. Helen's eruption in Washington state. These were thousands of times smaller than. Thankfully supervolcanoes like turbo a few and far between the last was new Zealand's top volcano, some 28,500 years ago.

Supervolcanoes often erupt several times with intervals of tens of thousands of years between big eruptions, but it's not known what happens during the dormant period. One of the study's authors associate professor Martin, Danny Sheik from Curtin university says gaining and understanding of these lengthy dormant periods will help scientists work out what to look for in young, active supervolcanoes and help scientists predict future eruptions.

Danny shaken colleagues found such volcanoes remain active and hazardous for thousands of years. Following a super eruption prompting, a need for a rethink as to how these potentially catastrophic events or predict. He says learning how supervolcanoes work is important for understanding the future threat of an inevitable super eruption, which happened about once every 17,000 years.

Remember what I said earlier about the last one I'm being tofus I'm 28,500 years ago. I guess that means we're overdue for the next. The authors investigated the fate of magma left behind after the Toba super eruption using the minerals, feldspar and zircon, which contain independent records of time based on the accumulation of gases, argon, and helium acting as time captures in the volcanic rock.

The geo chronological data, statistical inference and thermal modeling. Sure. That magma continued to ooze out within the caldera created by the eruption or between 5,000 and 13,000 years after the super eruption took place. And even when that ceased, there was this solidified leftover magma, which was being pushed up sort of like a giant turtle.

Dennis Sheikh says the new findings challenge, existing knowledge of volcanic eruptions, which normally involves looking for liquid magma under a volcano in order to assess a feature.

[00:04:05] Guest: Supervolcano is a term to use to describe a really big volcano. So our specialization has not actually experienced.

Super volcanic eruption, thankfully. So based on the definition of USCS supervolcano Paino is, has experienced at least one super eruption, which means it produced at least 1000 cubic kilometers of material. Toba is one of several supervolcanoes that has experiences super option. In fact, the as experience.

And basically these are these kind of super villains in earth history because they have some terrible effects on earth and also on human populations and other living

[00:04:50] Stuart: creatures in Indonesia. And it lasts erupted about 75,000 years ago. That was a key event in human history. Wasn't it? It was

[00:05:00] Guest: both the B.

And we can say for sure that that was the largest known interruption in the. So we don't have any eruption of that magnitude in the past 2.8 million years. And yes, the initial estimates were that there was a huge decrease in the human population on our planet, but this was later corrected. But what we can say for sure is that there was definitely some effect on climate.

Oh, there was a global cooling that was caused by disruption.

[00:05:28] Stuart: winter is a really a big part of the whole thing out that there's so much dust and debris pumped into the upper atmosphere that it can blanket the entire planet. That's correct.

[00:05:37] Guest: So according to the latest estimates, there was more than 5,000 cubic kilometers of material blocked into the air, which is a lot, it's hard to imagine.

We know that area of. 40 million square kilometers was covered by at least five centimeters of Ash. That's about five times size of Australian continent and do all right. So there's Ash and also some gases. That's just a sulfur dioxide that will go into the stratosphere. And these will deflect radiation from.

[00:06:12] Stuart: Normally, when we think of a volcanic eruption, people think about the and the pirate plastic flow and the initial lava and explosive output very much, I guess the, the Mount St. Helens type of scenario. And Helen was really tiny. Wasn't it?

[00:06:30] Guest: They was comparing to Toba very tiny. I think off the top of my head, I think a magnitude five eruption, but I might be wrong, but the magnitude eight rescue and potentially eruption.

Wow. So in terms of power flows, they basically. Killed everything in a radius, a hundred kilometers from the rebel can extend up in every direction for huge amounts of gas and Ash. And these can travel for a long distance, a hundred, 250 kilometers at high-speed more than a hundred kilometers per hour, and basically killing everything in.

So in Toba, the area covered by picking and brides. I've talk about six. Well deposit is around 30,000 square kilometers because about half of the size of,

[00:07:15] Stuart: I remember when I was a kid, I was amazed by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which was the biggest erupts in my lifetime. And I was living in Sydney at the time.

And I remember. Purple sunsets caused by in a tuber erupting in the Philippines. So far away, that sort of gave me a new respect for what a volcano can do. Well, this is very

[00:07:38] Guest: difficult, and this is exactly caused by the particles that are in the stratosphere that are creating all the different optical phenomena.

One of the positive. They can create beautiful sunsets and sunrises and yes, they sent them and I was being observed after larger options, such as Pinatubo or Tombarra 1816, which was the largest known eruption that modern civilization experienced. And yes, similar sentiment was being observed under 40 from

[00:08:07] Stuart: around the world.

What we're finding through this new research that you've been a part of the super volcano eruption, isn't really a singular event. It can go on for quite some time. Yeah. So tell about

[00:08:19] Guest: what they saw was that there was a super option about 75, 70 4,000 years ago. It was this huge blast, but after the super eruption of several, much smaller, a lot of them.

And before our study, the general understanding was that these domes for creating basically, almost simultaneously with the super option under the code that are called. We use this modern building techniques and analyze, is there a con from these lava domes? And what we found is that domes are actually erupting much, much, much later.

And in Georgia called Thomas scale, it wasn't that option, but still it's five to 30,000 years later after the corruption, which basically means that after the super option, there is actually still a lot of volcanic activity. In Toba, and this is quite important for all chronologists and the way how we understand.

[00:09:13] Stuart: So it's not a case of

[00:09:17] Guest: not really. So also the super option you will evacuated from optimal from the magma chamber and the rooftop of the magma chamber will collapse and create hell there. But this remaining magma in a chamber will need to read just the first is sort of squashed and compressed. After that it will need to adjust when you always pressures pressures around.

So the next thing would happen in caldera is the rise of a dome. So in Tilburg caldera, there's an island in the middle of the caldera. So this was pushed upwards. And on top of it, some remaining parts of the, of the magma will be greased, uh, to the surface and will be erupted in the form of small alarm.

Now in our study, we not only found that these lava domes erupted several thousands of years after the super eruption, but we also believe that these lab announcement, they are up to the surface. They were actually solid. So there wasn't that illiquid, and this is quite important again, or how we perceive the mechanism of a super.

Basically, uh, normal eruptions in general, because we believe that there is no need to have a liquid magma who have eruption of,

[00:10:30] Stuart: are there any super volcanoes that we should be aware of today? I mean, everyone thinks of Yellowstone, but we're told by the geologists that Yellowstone is actually quite safe right now

[00:10:42] Guest: Yellowstone's being highly pushed in the media.

There was a. It was a documentary on TV a few years ago where people believe that it's about to erupt in a relatively soon, but the truth is that super eruption is highly unlikely or at least several hundreds of years. So there are several full kind of extent outs with the potential of a super eruptions in the future.

But these are really quite rare. So we should not be panicking about it, although in general and the eruption may be dangerous, even though it doesn't. The magnitude of a super option. So to answer your question now at the moment, I would not worry about any of the potential reactive supervolcanoes. Third is probably less than 10 on our planet at the moment.

Having said that we need to pay attention, how we monitor volcanic activity and probably also how we communicate.

[00:11:34] Stuart: Is there a correlation between Superbowl Canas and magma hotspot Barclay.

[00:11:39] Guest: So majority of supervolcanoes are located along the vocal, the Pacific ring of fire, which is this huge belt of subduction zones.

There are Pacific ocean, but these are not related to the hospitals. However, Yellowstone is an exception is located on a. Oh, stop. It there's a correlation, but it would be valid for Yellowstone for the rest of the supervolcanoes.

[00:12:01] Stuart: We have a hotspot invest straight. That's very quiet at the bone that we, we think there's one there.

I at least judging by a couple of, um, trails of extinct volcanoes along the Australian east coast. Just wondering for my own sake,

king island is not about to erupt. It should be right. We can still get at cheese. What's the takeaway message from this research that you've done.

[00:12:27] Guest: Takeaway message is that there is a lot of volcanic activity happening after the super eruption. And this can last for thousands of years,

[00:12:35] Stuart: I think is quite important.

That's associate professor mountain Dennis shake from kitten university. And this is space time still. The come work now underway on the Orion spacecraft to be used for the items three mission to return humans to the lunar surface and for space tourists undertake a three-day voyage in orbit, or that are more stored account.

Um, space-time

works now commence that Lockheed Martin on the Orion spacecraft that will be used on the optimist three mission to return humans to the lunar surface. The last time people walked on, the moon was Apollo 17 back in 1972. The item as one arrived and capture, which began construction in 2015 is now virtually complete and work on the ARIDE destined for use.

And the item is to mission. That will be the first to carry a crew is also well underway. I am, this one will be a three week unmanned test flight slated for launch to the moon later this year. Activists to we'll carry four astronauts on an extended mission around the moon, probably lasting about three weeks.

Sometime in 2023, technicians have now completed welding on the item is three Orion pressure vessel. That's the underlying frame for the airtight crew module. At this stage, Adam has three stated to carry four astronauts to the gateway lunar space station. It doesn't exist yet, but should be there by the time the mission launches.

When they get their astronauts will transfer to a preposition. Starline a lunar Lander, which will then take them down to the moon south pole for an extended visit with work underway on items three. It means like a man, a NASA, and now shifting focus from the spacecraft's design development test and evaluation phase through to the production phase.

That development phase included the design review and refinement of the spacecraft, its systems and testing. One of the highlights of that development phase was the exploration flight test. One mission, which flew an unmanned Orion capsule on a four and a half hour flight about a Dota for heavy rocket.

Back in December, 2014, uh, Ryan reached an altitude of 5,800 kilometers and speeds during the flight of 8,900 meters per second. It tested a Ryan's hate showed parachutes jettisoning components and onboard flight computers. Other key tests were designed to prove the launcher board system, both on the pad and during the ascent, Lockheed Martin is currently contracted to build a minimum of six and a maximum of 12 Orion spacecraft.

And yes, there are 12 matching SLS, rocket spank instructed as well. Each of the Ryan crew modules will be made it to a European space agency built service module, which are being built in Europe and then shipped over to the state. As well as the moon missions arrived will also be used for longer missions to Mars during the 2030s.

However, a deep space transport stack will be added for the long duration journeys to the red planet. These will include a habitat module providing additional room for crew and supplies as well as facilities for spacecraft maintenance, mission communications, exercise, training, personal recreation, and propulsion systems.

This is space time still to come for space tourists undertake a three-day voyage in orbit. And we take a look at the new Australian trilateral defense deal with the United States and Britain over at a mall store to come on space time.

Full of space. Tourists have undertaken a three day voyage. The inspiration ForeFlight I bought the space X dragon capsule resilience launched on a Falcon nine rocket from pad 39, 8 at the Kennedy space center in Florida.

[00:17:07] Guest: Vehicles pitching downrange

plus 30

[00:17:14] Stuart: seconds.

[00:17:16] Guest: Syndicate nominal the score flourishing inspiration for.

[00:17:31] Stuart: Bottling down in preparation for the period of maximum dynamic pressure, the flight

[00:17:37] Guest: supersonic X

[00:17:41] Stuart: we're through the period of maximum dynamic pressure back up, and one Bravo, the call-out from space. That's one of the abort sequel. That is a nominal call. Everything continues to be good. Looks like a smooth

[00:17:53] Guest: ride for the crew.

[00:18:07] Stuart: everything continues to look not at all. 4g. So we're holding it there for the crew major event coming up. We'll be main engine cutoff followed by stage separation, looking at the second stage engine Mizel and then admission the second stage and

[00:18:23] Guest: Mikko

there. As it ignited efficiently. The inspiration for flu are now under latest space.

[00:18:41] Stuart: It was Bennett. It is making its way back down to earth. The grid fins have popped out to assist with the steering. It will be making a landing attempt on our drone ship. Just read the instructions, which is parked out and holding position in the Atlantic ocean position.

Your signal Bermuda. Love to hear that call-out trajectory model some of the guidance don't you there? Well past a hundred kilometers position to signal New Hampshire. Next milestone for this mission is actually going to be happening on the first stage. It's going to be performing a re-entry burn.

That's going to be coming up around the T plus seven minute and 32nd. Mark. That burn is used to slow down the first stage before it enters the denser parts of the atmosphere. A few minutes later, it will execute a landing. And make an attempt to land on our drone ship. That's currently parked in the Atlantic dragon space, X trajectory,

[00:19:29] Guest: nominal and back

[00:19:32] Stuart: engine.

We just heard now is looking at nominal nitrogen puffs, helping to steering guide vehicle, basically trajectory nominal basically is the attitude control. For the vehicle, as it makes its way back down to earth, this mission will be orbiting earth for three days and they will be at an altitude of 575 kilometers.

Which if I remember correctly, John, I, you said that that is the distance from Los Angeles to the golden gate bridge.

[00:20:03] Guest: They're going to get there a lot faster.

[00:20:11] Stuart: Stage again, this first stage has already separated from the second stage. So the first page burn shut down is making its way back to earth, trying to land. And the second stage, everything is going well. Headed into orbit with the crew on board stage two's in terminal guidance, stage two, a terminal guidance.

We are at the altitude, we're working the angular momentum. We need to get another ride orbit. And if you're wondering cruise Paul, about three and a half Jews right now, last night on the first stage flight. So in about 15 seconds, we are expecting. We are expanding the impact it's throttled down and cut off an advent called second engine cut off, and then we'll wait for the confirmation of good orbit.

At the same time, the first stage will be getting its landing burns. And here we have the back and shut up it's

[00:20:55] Guest: engine.

[00:21:03] Stuart: the mission was the second flight for the resilience crew dragon capsule, and the third for the same Falcon nine first stage booster. The booster then successfully returned to worth landing on the drone ship. Just read the instructions, which have been pre-positioned downrange in the north Atlantic ocean.

[00:21:24] Guest: the dragon half. So, and through our, in

[00:21:28] Stuart: a nominal. The capture was modified for this flight with a usual space station docking adapter replaced by a single monolithic dome glass window inspired by the space stations Kapila module, thereby allowing 360 degree views outside the resilience nose after their three and a half days in orbit.

The quartets splashdown successfully in the north Atlantic ocean and were collected by the quick transport recovery vessel goat navigator. The mission was the first old private orbital space tourist space for. There have been previous orbital flights, carrying space tourists, but they're all undertaken on Russian governments.

So his missions, which also carried cosmonauts from the Russian federal space ed and see it as cosmos the space X flight comes in the wake of two recent suborbital space, tourism journeys, one of which the blue origin, new shepherd flight carrying billionaire Jeff Bezos actually reached the 100 kilometer high boundary, which marks the beginning of space.

The other caring, billionaire adventurer, Richard Branson that both the Virgin galactic unity, rocket plane achieved an altitude Apogee of 86 kilometers, just 14 Ks short of the start of space. The space X inspiration for flight was also the highest flying space tourism journey yet launched reaching an altitude of 585 kilometers.

That's some 165 kilometers higher than the average orbit with the international space station. The flight was organized to raise money for St. Jude children's research hospital. And it was funded by a billionaire tech entrepreneur, Jared Isaac men who acted as mission command for the. This space-time still the gum Australia goes nuclear within you.

Trilateral defense deal with the United States and Britain. And later in the science report, the world has a new COVID-19 variant worth watching. It's called the mule variant, and it's taking off big time in south America or that a more stored account. Um, space-time

Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have entered into a new defense agreement designed to counter what's euphemistically referred to as the growing military threats facing the inner Pacific theater. That's a clear reference to China's massive military buildup, which has included new spy satellites, war ships, aircraft carriers, submarines, and nuclear missile silo.

Then there's China's threats to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Japan. It's ongoing harassment of its neighbors around the south China sea, which Beijing now claims to be its own territory in deliberate violation of international law. The illegal annexation of Hong Kong. Threats to invade Taiwan, continuing border skirmishes with India, human rights abuses into bed.

The persecution of the felon gong who are being used for forced organ harvesting and transplants, and the alleged genocide of the Muslim Wiggers in concentration camps, the new Australian United States in the United Kingdom trilateral partnership with the unfortunate acronym of August. We'll see Australia about eight new nuclear powered submarines.

The nation's first in Adelaide. Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison. The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures to make these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs. We must now take our partnership to a new level. And so friends, orcas is born a new enhanced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defense forces are all working to.

To deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits or orcas will also enhance our contribution to our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, answers our Xeon friends, our bilateral strategic partners, the quad five eyes countries. And of course our DIA Pacific. The first major initiative of orcas will be to deliver a nuclear powered submarine fleet for Australia over the next 18 months, we will work together to seek, to determine the best way forward to achieve this.

This will include an intense examination of what we need to do to exercise our nuclear stewardship responsibilities here. We intend to build these submarines in Adelaide, Australia in close cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States early reports suggest the new subs will be based around the 10,000 htan USS Virginia class.

If correct proportion will be through an S nine G nuclear reactor developing 40,000 shaft horsepower with a submerged service speed of 35 knots and a service life of around 33 years. In their current us configuration, the Virginia class or 115 meters long have a complement of 134 and a fitted with 12 vertical missile launching tubes and four torpedo tubes.

The other option is the slower 8,000 ton 97 meter long British astute glass, whichever compliment of 98 and around with six torpedo tube. Astute uses the rolls Royce PWI two core H nuclear reactor, but it has a shorter service life of around 25 years. Well, all the attention's been on the new subs, just as important is Canberra's decision to purchase Tomahawk, cruise missiles, to arm the new subs and for their ages, class destroyers.

The Tomahawk is a long range weapon powered by a solid fueled rocket launch stage and a jet turbine cruise stage it's currently used by both the United States Navy and British Royal Navy. It was originally developed in the seventies and eighties, the delivered Wadd and later WMD four thermonuclear warheads.

Using what at the time was an advanced terrain following red navigation system. Of course it's been extensively upgraded since those days and now relies on satellite navigation and raid our electronic radiation targeting systems in line with Australia's non nuclear weapons, proliferation treaty agreements.

The Australian tomahawks will carry 450 kilograms of conventional high explosives, and we'll have a range of over 1500 kilometers. The new Tahoe deal comes on top of cameras, new strategy to develop a significant sovereign guided missile manufacturing program. Camera's already playing a key role in the development of the next generation hypersonic missiles and is a partner in the U S precision strike missile program.

It's also a purchasing you advanced AGM 1 58 C long rain stealth missiles, and is part of the standard missile six block one program, the new orcas partnership. We'll also see enhancing existing cooperation across new and emerging arenas, including cyber applied, AI, quantum technologies and undersea capabilities.

However, the new agreement does mean scrubbing the controversial and highly criticized $90 billion 2016 deal to build 12 large conventional French Barracuda class attack submarines. That's made Paris very unhappy and the French have recalled their ambassadors to Canberra and Washington in response. It seems now might be a good time to sign that deal with the French railways, SNCF and all slum to build that long promised Sydney to Canberra high speed TGV rail line.

The one that politicians keep promising every election, but never quite get around to actually build. Uh, 320 kilometers per hour high-speed line from MacArthur in Sydney, Southwest to Canberra would allow 90 minutes city center to city center, travel times in the process, opening up vast new areas for Sydney's ever growing residential housing market.

In fact, making both Sydney and Canberra dormitory suburbs of each other. This is space time.

And Tom Matta, take a brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with the science report, the world has a new COVID-19 variant of interest with a world health organization pointing to the new, new variant of the disease, which is taking off in south America. There are fears.

This new coronavirus variant could be better at evading vaccines, thereby increasing concerns of making COVID-19 and demic in society. Scientists say the mural or B 1 6 2, 1 variant has a number of mutations would suggest it could be more resistant to vaccine. Early studies wandered the Pfizer vaccine is less effective against them.

Your variant, compared to other mutations. In fact, it's already been found in 39 countries, and there's a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape. These include a mutation called P 6 81 H, which was first reported in the alpha variant. And it's potentially responsible for faster transmission.

You also has the mutations E 4 84 K and K four 17 N, which are associated with being able to evade antibodies against the Corona virus. The new variants, other mutations include R 3 46 K and Y 1 44 T is consequences era as yet, or no. Money's already been reported in 10% of cases, sequenced by the university of Miami.

And right as a reporting that seven fully vaccinated residents in a nursing home in Belgium are dying from AMU outbreak. At this stage, the global prevalence of the new variant amongst sequence COVID-19 cases is still below 0.1%, but it has consistently grown in countries, such as Columbia with 39% and Ecuador with a 13% increase, something to worry about.

Well, and you study has shown that in people over 60, the rates of confirmed COVID-19 with severe illness were substantially lower following a booster third dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Then after just the two initial vaccine doses, the findings reported in the new England journal of medicine looked at more than a million people over the age of 60 in Israel who had been fully vaccinated with a Pfizer vaccine at least five months earlier.

The study found that 12 days after the booster dose, the rate of infection were 11 times lower in the booster group than the numbers to group. And the rate of severe illness was almost 20 times lower in the booster group. The world health organization says more than 8 million people have been killed by the COVID-19 Corona virus with almost 4.7 billion confirmed fatalities and some 230 million people infected since the deadly disease.

First spread at a warhead China. Scientist a warning that the combination of a drying climate and water resource development has placed the lower darling river at greater risk of fish death events, such as the one which devastated the river darling in the summer of 2018, a report in the journal of Marine and freshwater research was at the extreme, hot, dry climate in 2018 and 2019 shape.

The conditions that saw a large number of fish stranded in Maddie ponds around Menendez. Those hot dry climatic conditions also saw distinct layers develop in the water with a bottom layer, lacking oxygen, a series of sudden cool changes started mixing these layers and the result was a sudden drop in oxygen levels in the water and no escape for the stressed.

The author say existing levels of water resource development, coupled with a drying climate are once again, presenting a significant risk to the long-term health of native fish populations in the rivers of the Murray darling basin paleontologist have described a new apex predator dinosaur at a dig site.

He knows beggar Stan, the findings reported in the journal of the Royal society. Open science, uh, based on our left maxilla or upper Jawbone. Then you can never as dinosaur named Rome bodies now, central Asia, some 90 million years ago during the upper Cretaceous, the genuses namesake is fittingly, Regal, or go big source.

He's named after Ogle beg the 15th century mathematician, astronomer and Sultan of the Tamara at empire of central Asia. The species is named after the country from where the fossil was found. Sorry to say the creature had a massive over a thousand kilograms. I was approximately seven and a half to eight meters long.

And you study has shown how easily people can be fooled by a con artist doing a psychic reading. The experiment used a supposed psychic, contacting the dead. The find out key details about the test group subjects. It seems many adults are easily convinced by a paranormal event, especially if it arouses their emotions.

Tim minim from a strand. Skeptic says research has found more than half of the people in the test group really believed the Sakic event. This was an

[00:34:34] Tim Mendham: experiment that was done in an American college, and we pulled it on in a magazine called psychological reports. It was basically a team of researchers who put on a exotic experience and then ask the students whether they believe in it or not in the panic, 65% said they did what they did was they invited over 400 students and so long to see a psychic.

And this logic would then sort of go around to people and suggest things to them about themselves. Either have this particular issue, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and go around to all sorts of different people. And they were amazingly accurate. According to the 65% of the students who were there, there was one point about that.

He was a magician and he was doing a trick and this has been going on. Okay. It's actually this sort of tricky for lack of students and people fall for a classic case of sixties, fifties, whatever, where students were African American colleagues were asked to give their birth date and time of birth, et cetera.

And they took them away and they said a professional astrologer will go in and look at these and assess your characteristic. And the guy sent back to 18 individual students. I hear how accurate is the rating? And like overwhelmed when they came back with it's amazingly accurate. So me and then I pointed out that everyone got the same one.

So basically you stick out some general comments as they, and this is what the fucking strike magician was doing. And people will believe them. And it's, uh, 10% of these students said, yeah, it's a trig. And 25% said they wouldn't, they wouldn't quite sure, but 65%, it was genuine. Like I said, The same as the other population.

If I need 10% depressing,

[00:36:04] Stuart: it sounds like it's a, a good piece of education to give you a students about life.

[00:36:11] Tim Mendham: And it's exactly what I do when I visit schools and things. And I'd get people from Costco all the way up to every tide. Lion's club and rotary clubs and that sort of stuff. And like you, the sign for the lesson, the bat, I believe everything you see that people are more critical about the everyday things that the life choosing a freed show, that sort of thing, all the routine of actually Tuesday, which fridge.

But they wouldn't use the same thing about psychic or paranormal or religious experiences. Um, so we don't apply critical thinking and the serious end of the scale where we do in the, in the less serious end and the trouble is if you've got to go through every class of students, every group of people to give them the same lesson, unfortunately you're countering mass media and social media and whatever who was spreading the alternative methods for the paranormal message, a lot more widely and a lot more quickly.

So it's a bit of an uphill job. That's a job we keep doing anyway from a skeptical.

[00:37:03] Stuart: It's Tim Mendham from Australian skeptics.

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Tim Mendham

Editor

Editor with Australian Skeptics