Sept. 27, 2021

Super Volcanoes Discovered on Mars

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 109
*Super volcanoes discovered on Mars
Scientists found evidence that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of “super eruptions,” the...

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 109
*Super volcanoes discovered on Mars
Scientists found evidence that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of “super eruptions,” the biggest volcanic eruptions known, over a 500-million-year period.
*Uncovering the secret mushballs of Neptune and Uranus
Mushballs – giant, slushy hailstones made from a mixture of ammonia and water – may be responsible for an atmospheric anomaly at Neptune and Uranus that has been puzzling scientists.
*461 new outer solar system objects found -- but no Planet 9
The Dark Energy Survey has discovered 461 new outer solar system objects.
Since 2013 the survey has been studying the properties of a mysterious force known as dark energy which is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
*Two Australian satellites included in the latest dragon cargo ship mission
SpaceX have launched another Dragon resupply mission to the International Space Station. Included in the payload are the Australian Research Council’s CUAVA-1 satellite which is carrying four experimental payloads for the University of Sydney and Macquarie University and Curtin University’s Binar-1 spacecraft which will test new technology designed for eventual use in the Binar Prospector spacecraft which will be flown in lunar orbit in 2025.
*The Science Report
The hole in the ozone layer larger than usual this year.
A new more efficient electrocatalyst to make green hydrogen from water.
New research suggests T-rex wagged its tail like a puppy.
Skeptic's guide to anti-vaxxers pushing flawed studies.
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The Astronomy, Space, Technology & Science News Podcast.

Transcript

SpaceTime S24E109 AI Transcript

[00:00:00] Stuart: This is space time series 24 episode 109 four broadcast on the 27th of September, 2021. Coming up on space time. Supervolcanoes discovered on Mars, uncovering secret mush bowls in Neptune and Uranus and 461 new outer solar system objects discovered, but still no planet nine, all that a more coming up on space-time

[00:00:30] VO Guy: welcome to space time with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:50] Stuart: Scientists have found evidence that a region of Northern Mars known as Arabia terror experienced quite literally thousands of super eruptions. The biggest volcanic eruptions known over a 500 million year period. Some volcanoes produce eruption so powerful. They're released oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air, blocking out sunlight and changing a planet's climate for decades.

By studying the topography, a mineral composition of a portion of the Arabia terror region of Northern Mars scientists found evidence for thousands of eruptions and super eruptions. Many of which are the most violent volcanic explosions known spewing, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide into the air.

These explosions tore through the Martian surface over a 500 million year period about 4 billion years ago. The findings are reported in the journal, geophysical research letters, the study's lead author, Patrick Wiley from NASA Goddard space flight center in Greenbelt, Maryland says each of these eruptions would have had a significant climatic impact.

The release gas could have made the atmosphere thicker, or it could have blocked out the sun making the atmosphere colder. He says it means that modelers of marsh and climate will have some work to do to try and understand the impact of the supervolcano. After blasting the equivalent of 400 million Olympic size swimming pools of molten rock and gas through the surface and spreading a thick blanket of Ash up to a thousand kilometers from the eruption site, the Superbowl at the center of the eruption collapses down into the now empty magma chamber, creating a giant hole Cola caldera.

As we discussed in last week time, calderas can be dozens of kilometers cry. The discovery of seven cold air is in Arabian Tara. We're the first size that this region once hosted volcanoes capable of super eruptions yet originally these holes were thought to be depressions left by asteroid impacts in the Martian surface, billions of years ago.

It wasn't until 2013 at a group of scientists. First proposed that these basins were in fact volcanic. Calderas see, they noticed they weren't perfectly round, like most impact grader. And they had some signs signify, a collapse, such as very deep flaws and benches of rock near the walls. After meeting volcanologists Wally and colleagues looked for evidence of Ash fallout.

Using data from NASA is Mars, reconnaissance, orbiter. The team's analysis followed up on work by other scientists who had previously suggested that the minerals on the surface of Arabia, Tara appear to be volcanic in origin. Meanwhile, another research group upon hearing that the Arabia Terra basins could be calderas calculated where the Ash from possible super eruptions in that region would have settled traveling downwind towards the east.

It would thin out away from the center of the volcanoes or in this case, the calderas the team used images from Mars, reconnaissance, orbiter to identify minerals on the surface. Looking at the walls of canyons and craters, where the Ash would have been carried by the wind. They identified volcanic minerals that had been tended to Claes by water.

They then made three dimensional topographic maps of Arabia, Tara. And by laying the mineral data over the top of graphical maps of the canyons and craters, the authors could see that the layers of Ash were very well preserved in the mineral rich deposit. Instead of getting jumbled by winds and water, the Ash was laid in the same way.

It would have been worked fresh. The scientists were also able to calculate just how much material would have exploded from the volcanoes based on the volume of each caldera. And this allowed wiling colleagues to calculate the number of eruptions needed to produce the thickness of the Ash they found.

And it turns out they must've been thousands of eruptions. One remaining question is how planet like Mars can only have one type of volcano littering, a region on earth, volcanoes capable of Subaru eruptions, such as, for example, Toba, which are up to 76,000 years ago in Sumatra are dispersed around the globe and exist in the same areas.

As other types of volcanoes turbo, for example is just one volcano in the ring of fire, which surrounds the Pacific. Mass too, has many other types of volcanoes, including the biggest volcano in the solar system. Olympus Mons Olympus Mons is a hundred times larger in volume than Earth's largest volcano Mon a lower in Hawaii.

Olympus Mons is a shield volcano, which strain it Slava down gently sloping, mountain sides. And that's very different to Arabia Tara, which surfer is the only evidence of explosive volcanism. Mars. It's possible that super eruptive volcanoes were concentrated in regions on earth too. I'd have simply been eroded physically and chemically, or just as likely moved around the globe has continent shifted due to tectonic plate movements.

These types of explosive volcanoes could also exist in regions of Jupiter's moon IO, and they could have been costed or maybe still are clustered on Venus as well. Whatever the case may be Arabia. Tara will teach scientists something new about geological processes that help shape planets and moons.

This is space time still the com uncovering the secret mush balls of Uranus and Neptune. And speaking of the outer solar system, astronomers have discovered 461 new artists, solar system objects, but still no planet nine. Oh, that is more store to calm I'm space time.

Mush balls, giant slushy hailstones made of a mixture of ammonia and water may be responsible for an atmospheric you're normally on Neptune and Uranus. That's been puzzling scientists, a new study presented by Tristin Gillyard at the Europe planet science Congress shows that giant marshmallows could be highly effective at carrying deep into the ice giants atmospheres hiding the gas from the tension beneath opaque clouds.

Recently, remote observations at infrared and radio wavelengths have shown that both Uranus and Neptune lack a Monier in their atmosphere compared to the other planetary judge Jupiter and Saturn. And that's really surprising because they're otherwise very rich in other compounds, such as methane founded the primordial clouds from which the planets for.

So either these two planets form that a special conditions from material that was poor in ammonia or some ongoing process might be responsible your yard from the laboratory. Lagrangian nice. Says neces Juno spacecraft has shown that Jupiter has an abundance of amonia, but it's generally much deeper in the Jovian atmosphere than expected.

Thanks to the formation of mush. He says, what scientist have learned about Jupiter can also be applied to provide a plausible solution to this mystery of Uranus and Neptune. The Geno observation show that ammonia water hailstones can rapidly form during storms. That's because of ammonia's ability to liquefy water, ice crystals, even at really low temperatures of around minus 90 degrees, Celsius models indicate that these mush bowls in chipper could grow to over a kilogram.

That's much bigger than the largest hailstones here on earth. As they punched downwards, they'd transport a Moroni a very effectively into the deep atmosphere, or it ends up locked away beneath the cloud base. Your yacht says thermodynamic chemistry would imply that this process would be even more efficient in Uranus and Neptune that's because the mush ball seed region would extend a far greater day.

All this means is that like satin and Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus probably also has lots of emerge here, just that it's hidden deep in the atmosphere of these planets beyond the reach, present day instruments, but to determine exactly how deep down the mush balls are carrying ammonia and water will need to wait until an orbiter with instruments that can probe the atmospheres of the ice giants.

Close up. It's the. Okay. Yeah, it says to fully understand these processes. Scientists will need to develop a permission to map the deep badmouth free extractor and better understand mixing in hydrogen atmospheres. This space time, still the calm, the dark energy survey detects 461 new outer solar system objects.

It's still no planet. No. And two Australian satellites launched in the latest dragon cargo ship mission to the international space station, or that are more store to come on. Space

[00:09:49] VO Guy: time.

[00:10:06] Stuart: Since 2013, the dark energy surveys been studying the properties of a mysterious force known as dark energy, which is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Understanding what dark energy is, is important because it will determine the ultimate fate of our universe. Whether we end in a big crunch with gravity, regaining control, a big freeze with the universe, simply expanding forever and ever, or a big grip with dark energy becoming so powerful.

The university is torn apart right down at the subatomic. The survey has studied hundreds of millions of galaxies, supernovae, the spatial distribution of dark matter, and the large scale cosmic web like structure of the universe itself. It uses the four meter Blanco telescope at the Sarah to Lola Inter-American observatory in Chile.

It's primary objective is determining and measuring the Hubble lamotrigine constant the rate at which the universe is expanding out from the big bang. But in the process, it's also gathered up data on hundreds of outer solar system bodies known as trans Neptunian objects or T. And O's nearly 4,000 of which have now been identified.

These are icy worlds, comets and frozen debris, which is circling the sun out beyond the orbit of. And they include both the Copperbelt objects, which orbit the sun in a ring just beyond Neptune and the more distant or cloud objects, which form a sphere around the solar system extending out for a light year or more.

The new discoveries bring to 777. The total number of trans Neptunian objects detected by the dark energy survey so far. But so far, the survey hasn't found any evidence of the long sought after planet nine. Hence have a possible planet. Nine first came to light when astronomers noticed unusual gravitational perturbations in the orbits of 13 capability objects, thought of being caused, but interactions with an as yet undiscovered massive world.

This undiscovered planet will be up to four times the size of the earth with around nine times earth mass and will be on an elongated orbit around the sun estimated to last at least 15,000 years. If it exists, this mysterious planet night could be an interstellar rogue planet simply captured by the sun's gravitational pull from interstellar space.

A lot of odd cloud objects fit into that category. Another possibility is that it was stolen by the sun's gravity from another star system. Again, a lot of all carved objects thought the fit in the van category as well. And then there are several models of Planetree migration from within our early solar system with suggested as Jupiter and sat in my grid after their current orbits, their gravitational perturbations, who is net UNE in Uranus to also move further outwards in the process.

They swapped orbital positions and flying a third ice giant that was there with them out into the copper belt, or even beyond into interstellar space. Yeah. Another possibility for planet NA. This space-time still the calm two Australian satellites launched the board, the lightest dragon cargo ship mission to the international space station.

And later in the science report, the whole in earth ozone layer is larger than usual. This. All that and more store to calm on space-time

space X have launched another dragon resupply mission to the international space station. Included in the manifest of the Sarah's 23 mission or the Australian research. Council's Coerver one satellite, which is caring for experimental payloads for the university of Sydney and Macquarie university and Curtin.

University's buying our one spacecraft, which will test new technology designed for eventual use in the binary prospect of spacecraft. There'll be flown in lunar orbit in 2025. The launchable the Falcon nine rocket from space launch complex 39 80 at the Kennedy space center in Florida had been delayed due to bad weather, goodnight

[00:14:29] Tim Mendham: and startup dragging isn't countdown.

[00:14:33] Narrator: Post stages are now pressurizing for

[00:14:34] Stuart: launch a range and weather should both be good. Good to go. Here's 23 go for

[00:14:39] Narrator: launch. That was the voice of the launch director. Verifying. We are go 10,

[00:14:44] Stuart: 9, 8, 7,

[00:14:46] Tim Mendham: 6,

[00:14:47] Stuart: 5. Three, two. Darrow

[00:14:53] Tim Mendham: ignition and lift off

[00:14:57] Narrator: takes flight, continuing

[00:14:59] Stuart: a busy year deliveries to approve seven

[00:15:01] Narrator: aboard the international space station.

One chamber pressure has cleared the tower and it's currently headed to space in about 15 seconds here. We're coming up on max queue. This is where the vehicle would experience the highest amount of aerodynamic pressures. And there was the call up from execute. You actually throttled down the Maryland.

In preparation for that event coming up are five more events in rapid succession main engine cutoff stage separation. First stage flip, second engine start one. And then the boots back burn on the first phase will begin main engine cutoff also known as. Mikko is where all nine M one D engines on the Falcon nine first stage will shut down.

This is followed by stage separation or the separation of the first and second stages from there. The first stage, we'll flip it to prepare it for a re-entry and landing a few minutes. Um, and the Merlin vacuum engine on the second stage, while at night to boost drag into low earth orbit. And that's also known as SES one, the first stage will then begin its boost back burn.

That is the first of three burns needed to land on our drone ship today. And in your cutoff

[00:16:12] Tim Mendham: age separation confirm.

[00:16:15] Narrator: Bern startup. Okay. Those were those five events main engine cutoff stage separation. The first stage performed to flip a second stage. I ignited it's Merlin vacuum engine. We're in the middle of that first stage boost back burn shut down Contreras being produced by the first.

And that was the call out for the successful completion of our first of three burns on the first stage, the 23rd commercial resupply by mission to the international space station for NASA. This is space X is 21st mission this year, and this is the cargo configuration of our dragon space. Acquisition of Bermuda.

You might be interested to know in order to get into space. The rocket has to do more than just go up. It actually has to go sideways really, really fast at liftoff. Gravity is pulling straight down to the rocket and as we ascend, we tilt the engines that turns the rockets horizontally. Now we're still going up, but we're also heading horizontally away from the launchpad in what we call a gravity term.

The rocket typically needs to go about 7.5 kilometers per second, or 17,500 miles per hour. Horizonte. In order to avoid being pulled back down to earth and get into orbit. Next event for today's mission is the re-entry burn for the first stage. That's the second of three burns. This is where three of the Merlin engines will reignite.

And this helps us slow down the stage as a re-entry as the upper parts of the Earth's atmosphere, stage one entry burn start-up and there is the beginning of the entry burn. Three Merlin engines have re-lit and are currently slowing. The first one entry burn shut shutdown. Awesome. That is the successful completion of the second burn.

We are about 60 seconds away from landing and the vehicle is traveling about 900 miles an hour. That's really puts into perspective the deceleration in the span of less than a minute. We'll have reduced the speed from, um, the speed of a jet all the way down to zero as the rocket lands. And again, this is our brand new drone ship, a shortfall of gravity.

Um, this is going to be the first time that we are making a landing attempt on it. And it's currently purchased out in the Atlantic ocean waiting for that first stage booster to return to it. They had one landing burn startup, a single engine. The center engine engine number nine has relived and preparation for landing stage one landing.

Stage one line and confirm, uh, and that is the 90th successful landing for an orbital class rocket, and the very first for our new drone ship, a shortfall of gravitas. That is a beautiful thing to see and a great way to start off today's mission. Next event coming up is for the second stage, um, these, the Merlin vacuum engine.

Shut off his engine and event con cut off also known as CECO and shortly after SICO will be answering a coast phase and waiting for that confirmation of a good orbit, Pico nominal, orbit, insertion. And we did to get confirmation of. CECO second engine cutoff and a nominal orbital insertion. Now the second stage has one last major task, and that is commanding separation of dragon.

A couple of minutes from now. Again, this is the second flight for this particular dragon and the first reuse of our upgraded cargo. And when this dragon makes its way to the international space station, it will be joining the crew to vehicle endeavor currently on orbit and attached to the international space station.

It's going to be super cool to see two dragons dock to the international space station. Once again, and again, for cargo, we will be delivering over 4,800 pounds of science research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the Oregon orbiting laboratory. Now the science and research being done in microgravity on the international space station has benefited our lives here on earth for decades.

What's really cool is that our new cargo dragon vehicle is also able to act as laboratory and the advancement of this science and research. We call this capability, extend the life. It allows some powered payloads to remain on dragon for experimentation during the duration of the mission. This is especially helpful when there is limited to no space on station for additional science.

And it also helps cut down the amount of time the crew has to move payloads in and out of dragon for CRS 23, there are three extended lab payloads in launching with the mission and one stock, a fourth, which is currently, already on the space station will be added to. We can talk a little bit about the upgrades that have been made to dragon.

The first is solar rays. Typically after separation, we wait for solar rays to unfurl from dragon. This upgraded dragon has been redesigned and the solar rays, um, has, uh, its panels built into the trunk section itself, providing power during flight, and while on board the station, another upgrade is how we dock before we need a dragon to be birth, which is where a robotic arm from the international space station.

Reaches out and grabs dragon and we'll attach it to the international space station. Now dragon can autonomously dock, uh, using a center line camera and LIDAR, which is an acronym for light detection and ranging. And so this, uh, autonomous docking sequence is what dragon would go through, uh, in the short.

Um, as it continues to make its way towards the international space station confirmed dragon separating from the top of the

[00:21:29] Stuart: second, the mission delivered almost 2.2 tons of cargo to the Albany outpost, including 1046 kilograms of scientific experiments, 480 kilograms of crew supplies. 338 kilograms of technical hardware, 69 kilograms of spacewalk equipment and 24 kilograms of specialists brushing hardware, the experiments flown at board.

The dragon include equipment to research the effects of micro gravity and space radiation on the growth of burn tissue, a retinal diagnostics test to capture images of the retinas of astronauts in order to monitor vision problems with space crews, suffer nearness space associated neuro Oculus syndrome.

There's also the NanoRacks get high robotic arm, which is designed to support crew activities in the NanoRacks Bishop Bayer log. Other experiments will test how the space environment affects the performance and durability of materials and components, which are being looked at for use in future space missions.

There's a new study looking at why some plants weren't metabolized specific compounds under the stress of micro gravity. There's also research into easier drug delivery systems to replace those cumbersome infusion pumps. And there's a bunch of experiments by groups of girls Scouts involving plank growth and colonization, and Brian shrimp also aboard CRS 23, a rate, small cube set satellites, which we released into orbit from the space station.

And these include the Australian research council. one satellite, which is caring for experimental payloads for the university of Sydney and Macquarie university. This will be released later this year on a 12 month mission to study the space environment and space weather, and to test equipment, which will eventually be used to search for life on planets in the office and star system.

Hey, well, Curtin university is one and a half kilogram banner one. Satellite will test new systems designed for eventual use in the binary prospect of spacecraft, which will be floated into lunar orbit in 2025. Mission. Sorry, this professor Phil bland from Curtin university says the spacecraft will evaluate some advanced new technology.

Tremendously excited

[00:23:41] Guest: to finally see it go up and it's currently on space station and we'll get flips out and maybe that three weeks in the space station. So it won't be launched from. Tracking taps, whether it'd be launched from fat little rat in the side of the space

[00:23:56] Stuart: station, and it'll be loaded into one of those and they kind of spring loaded and then it'll be flipped out of one of those.

So basically,

[00:24:03] Guest: so the main thing that we'll be doing is testing out the technologies that we've developed for, which is small satellite payload. All of the systems for spacecraft on it on a single sex keyboard, and that's quite a novel approach to spacecraft design. So the main thing that we'll be testing is if we get that right, is that secure and resilient system that we're also working with some colleagues from a company called Sugo to test some of their protocols operating spacecraft.

And we've got a. So the main thing is testing out that

[00:24:37] Stuart: technology, the spacecraft spacecraft, computer

[00:24:43] Guest: power management, termination control, you've got comms. Normally all of those would be in separate circuit board. And signed a spacecraft and racks. And then what we've done is try to integrate everything on a single board.

Now, the difference is that you're not trying to wire things together itself. All of that effort is done by a circuit board manufacturer in a really nice facility kind of places where people make high-end phones and that kind of thing. So what we're doing is we kind of leveraging that whole modern technology of making.

Commodity electronics and using that rather than how that people in the lab trying to wire,

[00:25:24] Stuart: and this is all in preparation for the prospect emissions. Tell me

[00:25:28] Guest: exactly. So, so all of that is on a three years, so we're thinking of that on a three year timeline, and that would be a mission to the moon. When they're older and it would be to look for help.

NASA looked for accessible resources on the moon, particularly for hygiene oxygen that you could use for fuel. So all of the stuff that we do in terms of developing a spacecraft would be kind of learning and getting more advanced and more resilient for that mission along the way we. Keep things for industry and defense and government with that platform, what we get is as planetary scientists,

[00:26:08] Stuart: as we get something that can use

it,

[00:26:13] Guest: wouldn't be a particularly long mission. You wouldn't really want to plan for more than three months. Actually a lot of the NASA missions have a timeline that's quite short. So what we've mapped is what we mapped out is what can we do in that sort of timescale and how can we on. Data that helps Nasser and helps the Australian space agency over about three months timescale.

So the mission would last about that long. The Q part of it is that there's a slightly different flavor to it, which is that we would be on a really low altitude. So it would be flying very low over the

[00:26:44] Stuart: surface. That's about 20 kilometers. Uh, one mission will be in earth orbit. The buying up prospect emissions will be in learner.

The space station orbits at around 400 kilometers there about what's your end of mission plan for by, yeah. So,

[00:26:59] Guest: so basically, so anything that goes up to that altitude in the end, reenters the atmosphere after 12 to 18 months, unless it's got its own propulsion. So the space station does fairly regular.

Burns to maintain itself too. If you're not doing that, you're reentering like 12 to 18 months. So it'll be hours will fall back into the atmosphere and burn up alpha.

[00:27:25] Stuart: Yup. Exactly. And what about the buyer prospect?

[00:27:32] Guest: It'll last, hopefully about three months and maybe longer if it's less than longer than we'll extend the mission. At the end of that life, what we do is what NASA has done on a couple of occasions. Is pick a place on the moon where it's useful to kind of see under the surface a little bit and try and target that spot.

When the spacecraft went out all the taste and see if can we excavate a little bit of material, have a little look under the surface. So you kind of use that crash in the end to see a little bit under the surface. So we plan for that and we use other NASA. And the other part of prospect

[00:28:07] Stuart: to look you, haven't got that.

It's very drag. So the characteristics of Aluna Oberly Caymus. Exactly. So basically,

[00:28:15] Guest: so it, so the reason that happens on the moon is that moon gravity field is not, no, planet's gravity field is like perfectly spherical. So it's kind of like, cause it's all between, it's almost like. Slightly bumpy ride. And as it gets flow, as a bumpiness gets more significant.

So flying at altitude that we'd be flying, it's a bit bumpy. And in the end that takes its toll and the thing will be K. And then it'll come down to announcing that that's when that topography you'll start to be worried

[00:28:45] Stuart: about hitting mountains and stuff. So

[00:28:49] Guest: quality is. They can warm and colleagues that collision Sydney have been, they've got a program that they've been working on for several years.

So those is more about now testing payloads than it is about testing. But I think my understanding is that quite a lot of the components for the platform itself. Uh, off the shelf, the team at Sydney are more interested in payloads rarely than they are in spacecraft. In the case of the . You want us to be Kimbra those guys build spacecraft.

And I think all the payloads main thing they've done with this last mission is show that they can actually separate spacecraft in orbit, which is really yummy. So

[00:29:34] Stuart: that's what they've demonstrated on that.

And this is space-time

and time out to take a brief look at some of the other stories, making, using science this week with the science report, the hole in its ozone layer over the Southern hemisphere is larger than usual this year. And it's already bigger than the entire ad Arctic continent. The European space agencies, Copernicus atmospheric monitoring service was at the ozone hole, which appears every year during the Southern hemisphere, spring is both larger and deeper than usual.

Atmospheric ozone is important because it absorbs the sun's ultraviolet radiation, which would otherwise be harmful to living. So. The Montreal protocol signed in 1987, led to a ban on a group of chemicals, known as chlorofluorocarbons, which were used in refrigerants and spray cans and were found to destroy atmospheric GOs zone.

However, recent studies reported in the journal nature have shown that China has been flooding the ban producing massive amounts of these illegal ozone-depleting chemicals for use in poly urethane insulation products. Scientists the curtain university have identified a new, more efficient electro catalyst to make green hydrogen out of water.

Hydrogen has long been touted as a potential clean replacement for oil as an energy source, but existing production methods such as using precious metal catalysts, such as platinum water to accelerate the reaction to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen tend to generate far more greenhouse gases than they ultimately can eliminate.

However research is curtain have found that by adding nickel and cobalt ions to cheaper previously ineffective two-dimensional iron sulfur nanocrystal catalysts enhances their performance, which lowers the energy required to split the water and increases the yield of hydrogen. Well, when schoolkids first name that Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Australian museum, fluffy people were amused.

But now new research undertaken by the role veterinary college in London suggests that T Rex may also be able to wag its tail like a puppy. You research reported in the journal. Science advances shows that the terrible lizard king would have wagged its tail. As it ran, T-Rex grew to more than 14 meters in length, four meters in height, and it weighed up to eight, Tom.

Until now T-Rex is tails were always thought to provide simply an anchor point for the powerful leg muscles to help steering when running attic counterbalance the theropods massive head, anti-vaxxers pushing a retracted study that was found to be flawed in order to support their campaign against COVID-19 vaccines.

The faulty study had both poor methodology and had drastically misinterpreted the data. Yeah, it, somehow it wrongly pass through both the editorial and peer review process, which are designed to weed out these things and wound up being published in the journal vaccine. The journals failure to identify the numerous flaws in the study represents a serious problem, which taints the entire peer review process, which is meant to be the gold standard for scientific research.

That is other so-called peer reviewed COVID-19 research has shown politics is playing an evermore dominant role over the science. We're still two men, them from Australian skeptic says this particular piece of flawed research has provided the anti-vax movement with ammunition, phony ammunition, to muddy the waters and push their narrative.

[00:33:20] Tim Mendham: Various studies that have put up a time to time by qualified. Academics, et cetera, and probably seen recognized peer reviewed journals that are not necessarily crash hot. Now the whole point of, you know, the way that science academia and publishing a Piper's works is she's supposed to write a paper space to go through independent review is to then say, well, that's a bit chunky.

Well, that's good or whatever, and take it back and do a bit more on this. And they supposed to do that. And then the guys up in the journal on the advice that they reviewed was published. In the community for peer review PWI, the colleagues with people who know about such things, it's approximately three review, but it's also such can then review it and say, this is interesting, or this is not interesting, or this is completely shonky and this was a particular one that was completely chunky.

This was a study that supposedly showed. It was claimed to the pipe that for every three lives saved by vaccinations, three people are killed by it. And that was people said, well, hang on. What's the, what's the, what's the basis of this belief. And how many people have you tested? What's your thinking about it?

And within days, I mean, literally I think it was published on June 24th and we tracked it on July. After it was pointed out, there was serious methodological flaws in the research. And a, but in the meantime, his pipe, even though it was only after a short time, it was being used by anti-vaxxers as saying, Hey, if this proves that the vaccines are bad for you, the trouble is that it was a bad research, bad paper should not, never have been published in the first place because it was just wrong.

I don't know what the review is we've doing. I don't know what the public was doing, but it might be true for a matter of what is it? What is it? Five days, seven days a week, or it was taken down in the meantime it had been. I have a 250,000 times in that short period and retweeted and all those sorts of things.

Hundreds of thousands of people have seen this paper and it's spread far and wide by anti-vaxxers and sure as eggs, even though it was taken down in July too, you're going to get a reference to it for a month and month and month and probably years from now to this paper. And of course it will also have the imprimatur that it was censored.

It was taken samples taken down because it was

[00:35:16] Stuart: wrong.

Yeah, well, that was the,

[00:35:21] Guest: that

[00:35:21] Tim Mendham: was the research, um, research done by Andrew Wakefield, who a UK doctor, probably some paper on the MMR vaccine and suppose it been pleasant side effects of it. And I think it was Crohn's disease that there was a suggestion that there might be a link between vaccination, the MMR, mumps, measles, rubella, vaccination, and crying face it also what popped up was autism.

And this paper had about 13 co-authors and when. And pointing out, what's your research? How many people have you tested these other authors rapidly? That's where their names to be taken off the paper. But nonetheless, the paper was around for a long time until finally journalist named Brian DIA did a little research on this and pointed out that might feel research was wrong.

It was based on a handful of people whose kids all had autism and wanted to Sue the pharmaceutical companies. And basically the solicitor who was representing these parents. We're going to make money. How did these cases, and like, there was also trying to offer his own vaccine. In any case, like Phil was showing the thought she researched, she figures and we've struck off in the UK in a way this was then raised.

And it's still just writes the posted links between the MMR vaccine and autism. And this was the only place where it was put forward in Wakefield paper and his comments. And there's been thousands of studies done since of hundreds of thousands of people. And there's no link that they can find between.

Taxanes family. I think I am blessed. I mean the MMR vaccine and autism rights, you know, so it's, uh, unfortunately that is the example where anti-vaxxers will pick up on anything and like still quoting, like they will still quoting these results,

[00:36:55] Stuart: which are wrong. That's to Mendham from Australian skeptics.

[00:37:15] VO Guy: And

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Tim MendhamProfile Photo

Tim Mendham

Editor

Editor with Australian Skeptics