August 22, 2016 • 9 mins
Just 715 million years ago, Venus might have supported life as we know it. According to atmospheric chemistry experts, fringe theories about chemtrails don’t add up. Plus, most dogs prefer their owners’ praise to food rewards.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Deep in the back of your mind. You've always had
the feeling that there's something strange about reality. There is
super annoyed death, much nanopartic, mechanical messiah, fistic punch evolution.
On our award winning science podcast Stuffable your Mind, we
examine neurological quandaries, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary marvels, and our trans
human future. New episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays on iTunes,
(00:20):
Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcast. Welcome
to House to Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren foc Obama,
a researcher and writer. Here at House to Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
(00:42):
This week, seventy six out of seventy seven scientists have
agreed that the fringe theories about chem trails are basically
nonsense and in unrelated geochemistry. Venus may have been habitable
to life as we know it for two billion years
of its history. But First Senior writer Robert Lamb reports
on a new study out of our Atlanta neighbor Emery University. Hey, y'all,
(01:06):
The study looks into a bit of dog psychology. What
kind of reward do our pups prefer? Praise from us
or tasty processed meat goo. Pavlov's dog casts a long
shadow over human dog interaction. Your bond with Scruffy might
be tender, it might be the defining relationship of your life.
But when you watch him hoover up dog show, or,
(01:28):
let's face it, worse things, it's easy to see him
as a little more than a Pavlovian beast, his entire
nature wrapped around the acquisition and consumption of food. Well,
neuroscientist Gregory Burns and his Emory Dog Project team decided
to look inside the dog brain for answers, which is
to say, they took thirteen f m r I trained
(01:49):
dogs and taught them to associate three different objects with
three different outcomes. A pink truck that's a food reward buddy,
a blue toy night, verbal praise from your owner, and
airbrush sorry, that doesn't get you anything. The researchers tested
all three objects on the dogs in an fMRI I
for close to one trials. Then they set back and
observed the neural fireworks. To no one's surprise, the reward
(02:13):
stimuli the truck and the night resulted in stronger neural
activation than the hair brush. Four of the dogs preferred
the praise stimuli object to prefer the food stimuli object,
and the other nine showed similar activation for both. They
followed this up with a Y shaped maze experiment, one
branch of the maze leading to food, the other to
the dog's owner. The dog's behavioral choice at the crossroads
(02:36):
matched up closely with their observed neural activity. Most of
the dogs were willing to go either way, but the
praise centric dogs from the first experiment went to their
owners of the time. Though the degree of preference can
be highly variable on a dog to dog basis, future
studies may reveal how breed, rearing and genetic profile play
into the situation, as well as further illuminate the evolution
(02:59):
of the domestic dog. Next up, senior writer Johnthan Strickland
brings this story of near total scientific consensus. Point seven
percent of specialists in geochemistry and atmosphere chemistry have agreed
that fringe theories about chemtrails just don't hold water, or
(03:21):
rather they hold nothing but water. They're not chemicals, They're
just water. Vapor. Have you ever seen long trails left
behind by jet aircraft flying high in the sky. Those
trails are called contrails, which is short for condensation trails.
They form from the water vapor in aircraft exhaust. This
(03:43):
is similar to wind clouds form from your breath on
a cold day. The air from your lungs is warm
and damp. The water vapor in your breath condenses as
it hits the cold air. But these breath clouds evaporate quickly.
Contrails can last for hours. What gives the length of
time a contrail holds it shape depends upon the humidity
in the atmosphere. A contrail in humid air will hold
(04:04):
it shape longer than one in drier air. If the
air is particularly dry, no contrail will form at all.
But people have proposed that those trails are actually evidence
of a secret wide area high altitude spraying program. Some
pose it that the culprit is a government agency, and
others say it's a corporation or other private group. Typically
(04:26):
the claim is that the chem trails are meant to
subjugate the population in some way through public health, crops
or weather control, and frequently they try to make a
connection between chemicals found in soil and the trails in
the sky. But according to a recent study published in
Environmental Research Letters, that's just not the case. The study
involves seventy seven scientists specializing in either atmospheric chemistry or geochemistry.
(04:52):
The experts evaluated information that supporters of the Kim trail
theory cite as evidence of a conspiracy. Seventy six of
those science just said that there was no evidence supporting
Kim treill claims. They said that the data could more
easily be explained by our understanding of condensation and the
natural processes that deposit material on the Earth's surface. So
(05:12):
can we put this fringe theory to bed? Even the
researchers who organized the study think that's too ambitious, as
they said in their report. Our goal is not to
sway those already convinced that there is a secret large
scale spraying program, who often reject counter evidence as further
proof of their theories, but rather to establish a source
of objective science that can inform public discourse. So think
(05:36):
of this study as a preventive measure for people convinced
that something hinky is going on. The study will serve
as more proof of a cover up, but for those
still forming an opinion, it could shed a little light
on the subject. Finally, this week, I've got some breaking
(05:57):
news about ancient Venus. Climate modeling research indicates that the
planet could be a lovely place to visit with a
time machine. Earth and Venus are each about four and
a half billion years old. Although Venus is a veritable
hellscape today, it's good to keep in mind that Earth
was probably equally uninhabitable for about a billion years. It
(06:20):
got better, and according to a new study out of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Venus has changed to
it may have been habitable to life as we know
it for up to two billion years of its history.
Venus today is exactly the kind of place that humans
don't want to hang out. There's practically no water because
the surface temperature can reach four hundred and sixty two
(06:40):
degrees celsius. That's eight hundred and sixty four degrees fahrenheit,
which is the perfect temperature to cook at Crispinopolitan pizza
and more than hot enough to melt aluminum. The atmospheric
pressure on its surface is ninety times that of Earth's,
meaning the very air would crush you, and by air
I mean mostly carbon dioxide. Researchers so think Venus's thick
(07:01):
clouds discharge more lightning than we see on Earth, and
those clouds are made of sulfuric acid. But as recently
as seven d and fifteen million years ago, Venus may
have had shallow oceans and an atmosphere comparable to Earth today,
with mean temperatures a few degrees cooler than ours. Even
the team from NASA adapted the climate modeling tools used
here on Earth to create a three D climate simulation
(07:23):
for ancient Venus. They built the model based on data
and hypotheses from NASA's Pioneer and Magellan space probes and
the E s AS Venus Express orbiter. They found that
even though its distance from the Sun means that ancient
Venus would have received about forty more sunlight than Earth
does today, Venus's global temperatures were likely mitigated by its
incredibly slow rotation rate. A day on Venus lasts about
(07:45):
a hundred and seventeen Earth days. It's day side receives
sun exposure for about two Earth months at a time.
In the simulation that produced thick rain clouds that shielded
the surface and kept the planet temperate. These results are
depending on Venus's topography and rotation rate not changing much
over the past few billion years, which is actually likely,
(08:06):
but it's still in question. So the team played around
with the model to see whether feasible topographical or rotational
adjustments could have changed their results. Increasing the steepness of
the mountains and ocean basins to Earth type levels raised
the temperatures in the model, but they did stay within
a life friendly range. Speeding the rotational rate only made
the model too hot for life when they made Venus's
(08:26):
days seven times shorter, a mere sixteen Earth days per
single Venus day as opposed to a hundred and seventeen.
The research is thought provoking on its own. Ancient Earth
sponges and algae may have had neighbors in our Solar system,
but it's really part of NASA's push to identify exoplanets
capable of harboring life as we know it. We previously
(08:46):
thought planets as close two stars Venus may have always
been too hot to support life, but now we can
expand our search. That's our show for this week. Thank
you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for more
of the latest and strangest science news, and send us
links to anything you'd like to hear us cover. Plus,
what do you think about all this? Does Robert's report
(09:08):
match up with your human dog relationships? Are you convinced
the chemtrail theories are bunk? Do you think we might
someday find signs of ancient life on Venus? We want
to know, and if you tell us, I might share
your experience on air. Shoot us an email at now
podcast at house to works dot com, and to access
thousands of other stories like these, check out our home
(09:29):
Planet Now dot house to works dot com
Deep in the back of your mind. You've always had
the feeling that there's something strange about reality. There is
super annoyed death, much nanopartic, mechanical messiah, fistic punch evolution.
On our award winning science podcast Stuffable your Mind, we
examine neurological quandaries, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary marvels, and our trans
human future. New episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays on iTunes,
(00:20):
Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcast. Welcome
to House to Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren foc Obama,
a researcher and writer. Here at House to Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
(00:42):
This week, seventy six out of seventy seven scientists have
agreed that the fringe theories about chem trails are basically
nonsense and in unrelated geochemistry. Venus may have been habitable
to life as we know it for two billion years
of its history. But First Senior writer Robert Lamb reports
on a new study out of our Atlanta neighbor Emery University. Hey, y'all,
(01:06):
The study looks into a bit of dog psychology. What
kind of reward do our pups prefer? Praise from us
or tasty processed meat goo. Pavlov's dog casts a long
shadow over human dog interaction. Your bond with Scruffy might
be tender, it might be the defining relationship of your life.
But when you watch him hoover up dog show, or,
(01:28):
let's face it, worse things, it's easy to see him
as a little more than a Pavlovian beast, his entire
nature wrapped around the acquisition and consumption of food. Well,
neuroscientist Gregory Burns and his Emory Dog Project team decided
to look inside the dog brain for answers, which is
to say, they took thirteen f m r I trained
(01:49):
dogs and taught them to associate three different objects with
three different outcomes. A pink truck that's a food reward buddy,
a blue toy night, verbal praise from your owner, and
airbrush sorry, that doesn't get you anything. The researchers tested
all three objects on the dogs in an fMRI I
for close to one trials. Then they set back and
observed the neural fireworks. To no one's surprise, the reward
(02:13):
stimuli the truck and the night resulted in stronger neural
activation than the hair brush. Four of the dogs preferred
the praise stimuli object to prefer the food stimuli object,
and the other nine showed similar activation for both. They
followed this up with a Y shaped maze experiment, one
branch of the maze leading to food, the other to
the dog's owner. The dog's behavioral choice at the crossroads
(02:36):
matched up closely with their observed neural activity. Most of
the dogs were willing to go either way, but the
praise centric dogs from the first experiment went to their
owners of the time. Though the degree of preference can
be highly variable on a dog to dog basis, future
studies may reveal how breed, rearing and genetic profile play
into the situation, as well as further illuminate the evolution
(02:59):
of the domestic dog. Next up, senior writer Johnthan Strickland
brings this story of near total scientific consensus. Point seven
percent of specialists in geochemistry and atmosphere chemistry have agreed
that fringe theories about chemtrails just don't hold water, or
(03:21):
rather they hold nothing but water. They're not chemicals, They're
just water. Vapor. Have you ever seen long trails left
behind by jet aircraft flying high in the sky. Those
trails are called contrails, which is short for condensation trails.
They form from the water vapor in aircraft exhaust. This
(03:43):
is similar to wind clouds form from your breath on
a cold day. The air from your lungs is warm
and damp. The water vapor in your breath condenses as
it hits the cold air. But these breath clouds evaporate quickly.
Contrails can last for hours. What gives the length of
time a contrail holds it shape depends upon the humidity
in the atmosphere. A contrail in humid air will hold
(04:04):
it shape longer than one in drier air. If the
air is particularly dry, no contrail will form at all.
But people have proposed that those trails are actually evidence
of a secret wide area high altitude spraying program. Some
pose it that the culprit is a government agency, and
others say it's a corporation or other private group. Typically
(04:26):
the claim is that the chem trails are meant to
subjugate the population in some way through public health, crops
or weather control, and frequently they try to make a
connection between chemicals found in soil and the trails in
the sky. But according to a recent study published in
Environmental Research Letters, that's just not the case. The study
involves seventy seven scientists specializing in either atmospheric chemistry or geochemistry.
(04:52):
The experts evaluated information that supporters of the Kim trail
theory cite as evidence of a conspiracy. Seventy six of
those science just said that there was no evidence supporting
Kim treill claims. They said that the data could more
easily be explained by our understanding of condensation and the
natural processes that deposit material on the Earth's surface. So
(05:12):
can we put this fringe theory to bed? Even the
researchers who organized the study think that's too ambitious, as
they said in their report. Our goal is not to
sway those already convinced that there is a secret large
scale spraying program, who often reject counter evidence as further
proof of their theories, but rather to establish a source
of objective science that can inform public discourse. So think
(05:36):
of this study as a preventive measure for people convinced
that something hinky is going on. The study will serve
as more proof of a cover up, but for those
still forming an opinion, it could shed a little light
on the subject. Finally, this week, I've got some breaking
(05:57):
news about ancient Venus. Climate modeling research indicates that the
planet could be a lovely place to visit with a
time machine. Earth and Venus are each about four and
a half billion years old. Although Venus is a veritable
hellscape today, it's good to keep in mind that Earth
was probably equally uninhabitable for about a billion years. It
(06:20):
got better, and according to a new study out of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Venus has changed to
it may have been habitable to life as we know
it for up to two billion years of its history.
Venus today is exactly the kind of place that humans
don't want to hang out. There's practically no water because
the surface temperature can reach four hundred and sixty two
(06:40):
degrees celsius. That's eight hundred and sixty four degrees fahrenheit,
which is the perfect temperature to cook at Crispinopolitan pizza
and more than hot enough to melt aluminum. The atmospheric
pressure on its surface is ninety times that of Earth's,
meaning the very air would crush you, and by air
I mean mostly carbon dioxide. Researchers so think Venus's thick
(07:01):
clouds discharge more lightning than we see on Earth, and
those clouds are made of sulfuric acid. But as recently
as seven d and fifteen million years ago, Venus may
have had shallow oceans and an atmosphere comparable to Earth today,
with mean temperatures a few degrees cooler than ours. Even
the team from NASA adapted the climate modeling tools used
here on Earth to create a three D climate simulation
(07:23):
for ancient Venus. They built the model based on data
and hypotheses from NASA's Pioneer and Magellan space probes and
the E s AS Venus Express orbiter. They found that
even though its distance from the Sun means that ancient
Venus would have received about forty more sunlight than Earth
does today, Venus's global temperatures were likely mitigated by its
incredibly slow rotation rate. A day on Venus lasts about
(07:45):
a hundred and seventeen Earth days. It's day side receives
sun exposure for about two Earth months at a time.
In the simulation that produced thick rain clouds that shielded
the surface and kept the planet temperate. These results are
depending on Venus's topography and rotation rate not changing much
over the past few billion years, which is actually likely,
(08:06):
but it's still in question. So the team played around
with the model to see whether feasible topographical or rotational
adjustments could have changed their results. Increasing the steepness of
the mountains and ocean basins to Earth type levels raised
the temperatures in the model, but they did stay within
a life friendly range. Speeding the rotational rate only made
the model too hot for life when they made Venus's
(08:26):
days seven times shorter, a mere sixteen Earth days per
single Venus day as opposed to a hundred and seventeen.
The research is thought provoking on its own. Ancient Earth
sponges and algae may have had neighbors in our Solar system,
but it's really part of NASA's push to identify exoplanets
capable of harboring life as we know it. We previously
(08:46):
thought planets as close two stars Venus may have always
been too hot to support life, but now we can
expand our search. That's our show for this week. Thank
you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for more
of the latest and strangest science news, and send us
links to anything you'd like to hear us cover. Plus,
what do you think about all this? Does Robert's report
(09:08):
match up with your human dog relationships? Are you convinced
the chemtrail theories are bunk? Do you think we might
someday find signs of ancient life on Venus? We want
to know, and if you tell us, I might share
your experience on air. Shoot us an email at now
podcast at house to works dot com, and to access
thousands of other stories like these, check out our home
(09:29):
Planet Now dot house to works dot com
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