Podcast #148 - May 21st, 2008
Interview with Carl Zimmer

News Items:
Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected, Mobile Phones and Pregnancy, Is Scientology a Cult, Supernova Caught in the Act; Interview with Michael Shull about Discovering Missing Matter

Your Questions and E-mails:
Radiometric Dating of Mt St Helens

Update on TAM6

Science or Fiction

This episode was an absolute overload for my poor little brain -- but in a good way:

• three interviews;
• Jeff Wagg mentioning all those big names for TAM6 (Tyson, Myers, Wiseman, No-vell-uh?!);
• and far to much play on words on the capsaipsin aphrodisiac! 

Congrats for Episode 148, you guys outdid yourselves!

A unique episode.

Three interviews and three times used the word "boner".

SGU Geography

Hi guys, thanks for the great episode, but I must complain that for the second time Steve's asserted that Tasmania is part of New Zealand. The previous time was with the face cancer on the Tasmanian devils. Here's a few pictures:

Right at the bottom! And here's New Zealand

Note the absence of Tasmania

As always, love the show, but there's no Tasmania in New Zealand.

In fairness, Steve did not say that Tasmania is in New Zealand, he said that certain specimens of Tasmanian Tiger lived in New Zealand.

Very nice episode -- thanks.

And I notice that the group who performed the Potassium-argon "dating" of Mt. St. Helens is right here in Portland.  I checked out their site, and they have monthly meetings.  I'm very excited.  They just had their last meeting on May 17.  Anybody else from the Portland area here who'd like to go to the next one and do some schmoozing / investigative journalism / interviews?

http://www.creationism.org/articles/swenson1.htm
http://www.pdxdsa.org/

The Thylacine (aka Tasmanian Tiger) didn't (as far as I can tell) didn't live in New Zealand.  This is probably because New Zealand broke off from Gondwana well before Thylacines evolved.  Australia broke away from Antarctica much later than New Zealand did.

I think I mentioned New Zealand because in my research for this piece it was noted that a few museums had tissue specimens of thylacines, including a museum in New Zealand. But this specimen came from a museum in Australia.

I went back and listened - it sounds as if you said this:
(which is perhaps not what you meant to say )

My understanding of radiometric dating isn't very good, but potassium-argon dating in particular is a lot easier for me to comprehend (as I understand it).  Because magma is in liquid form, and because argon is a gas, when the potassium decays into argon, it is able to escape from molten rock, but when the magma comes out of a volcano and then the rock solidifies, the gas can't escape, and so the clock is reset to zero, and the proportion of argon gas particles in the rock can be counted at a later date.  And as with all radiometric dating, since the average decay closely follows a simple mathematical formula, and since we know when the clock was zero, we can determine the age when the rock solidified.

There are a few things that can corrupt the data, but scientists take these into account and therefore minimize the change of getting a false reading (eg sampling the middle of the rock, and sampling different areas of the site, and using more than one radiometric dating technique, etc).  But not much does affect the decay, and actually the half-lives of the various decays aren't affected very much at all by external factors such as temperature, pressure, chemicals or electric-magnetic fields.  It's as if there were a creator who made the universe in such a way that we can find out how old the Earth is to a high degree of accuracy!

Just for the record, aside from marine mammals New Zealand has only 2 species of native mammals, both of which are bats.  As far as I'm aware this has been the case since before the Maori settled here.  No Tigers, we are mammal deficient.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/defaultlanding.aspx?id=32842

Good episode.
Enjoyed the interviews.
I remember reading the headline about the Tasmanian tiger genes in our local paper. IT also had a very misleading title, mentioning the return of the dinosaurs. It grabbed my attention straight away and i clicked on the link. But as we all know, bringing back dinosaurs is a much more challenging task to accomplish.

Just ask the McCain campain aaaaha aha ha ... haha...

Nevermind.

The Tasmanian Tiger is close to many aussies hearts due to its beauty and also its another reminder of the impact we settlers have had on this land. There is quite a bit of TT woo going around, mostly claimed sightings. They have their own band of dedicated 'hunters' and pop up on our so called 'current affairs' shows every now and then.

Ive been awaiting its return since reading 'Jurassic Park' as a young tacker. Whats cooler then a large carnivorous marsupial ?

Good episode.
Just wanted to remark on the brief discussion on Scientology and their legal troubles. Steve mentioned that in Germany, where I live, Scientology was technically branded a fascist organization.
Actually, there is no law specifically addressing fascism over here. There is a law prohibiting "stirring up the populace", which covers Holocaust denial - as the Rogues have discussed in an earlier episode.
Scientology is currently under observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as expressed in this quote taken from the Office's website:
"The ‘Scientology Organisation’ (SO) is still being monitored by the offices for the protection of the constitution. Concrete evidence of activities directed against the free democratic basic order continues to be available." In other words, Scientology is in the same group of suspicious organizations as extreme left or right wing political parties or religious extremists.
Note that Scientology is referred to as an organization. As Rebecca pointed out correctly, nobody calls it a church over here - except for Scientologists.
I hope that clarifies things a bit.


Happy Towel Day!