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SciChat September Roundup: Exploring the Cosmos, Curious Sleep Hacks, and Bird Intellect

• Jason Zackowski

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Ever dreamt of a cosmic adventure? Well, we've got you covered. An epic tale of NASA's Osiris Rex mission, where we faced challenges akin to landing on crushed Cheerios, and the joy of emerging victorious with a sample from an asteroid. If you're a science enthusiast, this is your ticket to understanding the trials, triumphs, and the euphoria in the scientific community with the asteroid sample's return. But that’s not all! 

Ever had a restless night's sleep and woke up with a dry mouth? Then, you might want to hear about the unusual trend of mouth taping. Emerging as a post-surgery practice for a deviated septum, it's now a TikTok sensation. We chew over the anecdotal benefits and the need for a scientific seal of approval before you decide to tape your mouth shut for that elusive good night's sleep. 

Our curiosity doesn't stop there. Join us as we unfurl the fascinating world of bird cognition - the tufted titmouse and its 63 life-long learned vocalizations and its humble counterpart, the brown-headed cow bird with nine. Plus, we journey back in time to an ancient cold snap that almost wiped out our pre-human ancestors. As we chat about these and more, including our experiences learning Spanish and dealing with snoring, we promise you an episode filled with humor, facts, and some astounding revelations, making it a must-listen!

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Speaker 1:

Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zakowski.

Speaker 2:

I'm the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker the science dogs on social media, and my co-host is Hi there, my name is Chris Zakowski and I am the dog mum to Bunsen and Beaker and the cat mum to Ginger.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to SciChat. This is our new roundup show, where we talk about the big stories of the month and Chris and I kind of go back and forth. It's short, so it's only about a half an hour long and if there's any discussion at the end, we'll open up the floor to people who want to ask questions or maybe have extra things they'd love to talk about in the realm of science. It was a big deal, and this is actually from earlier this week. The Osiris Rex the satellite touched down with a little chunk of an asteroid for the first time ever, and Osiris Rex stands for Origins, spectral Interpretation, resource Identification, security, regolith Explorer, so you can probably guess why they called it Osiris Rex. This was launched a while ago, chris 2016. 2016.

Speaker 2:

I know 2016.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then in 2020, it actually landed on that asteroid you mentioned called Bennu, and the asteroid it landed on was all screwed up. It was basically if you smushed up a bunch of Cheerios together, you made them wet and you kind of went crunched it together. That's what the asteroid looked like. So it was a real challenge for Osiris Rex to land on Bennu, but they successfully did it. It landed, it took a scoop of asteroid goo and it like has a little. I think it had like a couple other samples or air blowers, or it took some gas gas samples coming off of it, and that was in 2020. And then it took until 2023 for the for Osiris Rex to get back to Earth and it landed successfully at the dug away, proving ground.

Speaker 2:

Jason, talk to me.

Speaker 1:

What.

Speaker 2:

No, talk to me. You need to talk to me about asteroid goo. I thought asteroids were made out of rock.

Speaker 1:

No, I was being silly. It took a. It took a rocky sample. It's just more fun to think that the asteroids made a goo.

Speaker 2:

No, it isn't. It's not very scientifically accurate.

Speaker 1:

Oh, but it's more whimsical.

Speaker 2:

Asteroids all wrong.

Speaker 1:

No, no, it was a rock.

Speaker 2:

So it bored in to take the sample.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, this is NASA's no into the rock.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, my understanding was.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so this is the first sample for NASA. The Japanese have had some more successful attempts with their high abyssal one and two. I saw somebody post in the chat yeah, I was going to get to that. If I misspoke, I meant NASA. Nasa has this is NASA's first asteroid chunk that is brought back. Sorry, what were you going to say, chris?

Speaker 2:

No, I already said what I was going to say. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you betcha. So yeah it's. It's pretty exciting. They are going to section up. I get, I guess, the sample. Nasa gets to keep most of it, I guess, because they're NASA. But guess who else is getting a little bit of it.

Speaker 1:

Um the Canadian space agency, the CSA yeah, Canada gets 4% of the sample 4%, you know. So I guess that makes sense, because that's about what the exchange rate is for the American dollar. For us are the Canadian dollars worth about 4% of the American dollars. So that's fair, that's pretty fair. And the Japanese the Japanese gets gets some too. Uh, they, the Japanese, but they've already got samples but, chris, they already.

Speaker 1:

they already have samples from their, their Hayabaseus uh satellites. So good job for for the Japanese JAXA. They're called Japanese aerospace. What does JAXA stand for? Japanese aerospace exploration agency. But I guess they like the X in exploration. That's why it's JAXA and not JA, jaea. Jaxa sounds cooler. Anyways, that's the first story, chris. Very exciting. What do you think they're going to find in it? I know you think they're going to find anything cool, or is it just rocks? I bet you the geologists are all excited, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, it is a tramp and end with a successful retrieval of the asteroid venue samples. Yes, when did you talk about um the capsule's descent experience, extreme conditions, speeds up to 27,000 miles per hour and heat up to 5,300 degrees Fahrenheit? Well, I didn't.

Speaker 1:

I just figured that was normal, because that's no cause, that's how. It's not no cause. That's how fast you drive, right, that's how fast you drive anyways. So it's not out of the normal for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's how hot I am.

Speaker 1:

It's true, you're that hot 5,300 degrees Fahrenheit hot. You make steam look cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I do. I make steam look cool. Uh, that's from.

Speaker 1:

Hercules, that's from Hercules, that's right. So I got a question, chris. Um, I'm right. So you said the other night I was snoring Like that was yes, I don't normally snore, but apparently I was snoring.

Speaker 2:

Very, very loudly. It was the most bizarre experience, because Jason does not snore and I was like what is that sound? And for a sound to wake me out of a deep sleep. As you know, I close my eyes and then I'm asleep.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you sleep through everything. Yes, Everything, Um so should I take? Should I take?

Speaker 2:

your snoring the other night.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, should I tape my mouth shut?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's not Well. So there's a new trend on tick talk, oh God, and it's called yeah, it's called Mouth taping.

Speaker 1:

Mouth taping.

Speaker 2:

And this is a trending practice where individuals tape their mouths shut at night to encourage a. Zach Ford tried mouth taping after surgery for a deviated septum, and so that improved his nasal breathing, but not the nighttime breathing. So, um, I guess the surgery improved his nasal breathing, but not the nighttime breathing, and so this person, zach Ford, found a mouth taping highly effective, um, and improving his sleep quality significantly. So more research is needed, um, because it there's not necessarily an understanding of the potential risks and benefits and there's limited scientific data to support the claims that multi-taping offers benefits such as preventing teeth grinding, bad breath, snoring, sleep apnea, and it could potentially improve your jaw strength.

Speaker 1:

Right, I think what now? It's all anecdotal at this point, right, like it's like people saying it's been working for them and it hasn't actually gone through any significant studies.

Speaker 2:

So that's right. So there needs to be more rigorous studies done, but multi-tapes has been observed to enhance the effectiveness of CPAP treatment in some cases.

Speaker 1:

In some sleep studies they've, yeah, they've. I don't think they've used like scotch tape or duct tape, but like a specific kind of apparatus you would put to keep your lips closed. And maybe that's where this is coming from, at least that's my understanding of this the kind of the bulletin about mouth taping.

Speaker 2:

Right and some experts raise concerns about the safety and potential risks, especially because some people just follow the trends on platforms like TikTok.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So if you're interested in taping your mouth closed, please consult a healthcare provider before trying it.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Well, I guess, if I continue to snore, maybe that's an option. Just tape my mouth shut, chris. No, but we should have a mouth guard. I do have a mouth guard. Yeah, that's right, I do have a mouth guard.

Speaker 2:

Because you were grinding your teeth.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I haven't. I haven't been anymore, though the dentist said it looks good.

Speaker 2:

Because you haven't been wearing your mouth guard. Even that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

I know, I know Well. So I guess we shouldn't just blindly follow trends on TikTok.

Speaker 2:

That's, I think, the main message.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Tide pods anyone.

Speaker 1:

Or I love the one. There's one on Facebook that made me absolutely baddie. Like people were saying, if you're sick, you put an onion in your sock. You put a you you like make wear wet socks and you put an onion in your sock and then you absorb like the onion juices and it cures your like sickness. And that was definitely a thing a while ago, but I that was definitely.

Speaker 2:

What that didn't work I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think if you eat enough onions, you'll maybe have some kind of issue, but I don't think you absorb onion through your skin very well where you're not, yeah, we're we don't. We don't absorb nutrients that way. So, speaking of things that are maybe too good to be true, I called this in September. I called this weeks ago and it was all over Twitter and there were spaces running about it and people were getting way too hyped up. It was room temperature superconductors. I swear.

Speaker 1:

Every year there's some new quote, unquote breakthrough about room temperature superconductors. Superconductors that we have only work when they're very, very, very, very cold, and it's like something that we're scientists are always working towards and they're very excited about. And there's a physicist named Ranga Diaz from the University of Rochester and this scientist said that he had discovered a way to make superconductors work at room temperature. Everybody was very skeptical. The scientific community was extremely skeptical, but there are like, if that was ever to be a thing, it would be revolutionary for all of us. You would have very little electricity resistance with everything that we depend upon. You would have very little electricity needed to have things like superfast trains. You would have teeny, tiny capacitors in everything. So life would be very different if we did have room temperature superconductors.

Speaker 1:

Sadly, though, there were two paper retractions and plagiarism allegations, so currently there is even more huge skepticism around the scientist, and the problem was is that other scientists who are working on room temperature superconductors are very sad about all this development, because now it makes them look bad. If they ever do make an incremental breakthrough, it's going to be looked at with. Are you sure? Because the last guy was just making stuff up kind of things. So that's a little bit disappointing, but it is part of the science news of September, and I know for a fact there were tweets about it and people were running spaces and getting all like audio shows like this and getting all hyped up. Sadly, it looks like it's a bust, but there's hope. Room temperature superconductors inch closer to reality every single year.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to talk about birds and I really enjoyed birds and once upon a time I had a budgie and his name was Oshkosh and we got Oshkosh when Duncan was little and this bird super cute but super evil.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oshkosh was a pet you looked at from very far away. We thought it would sit on your shoulder or like sing to you, and we were very kind and very gentle to this bird. But it never warmed up to people like at all.

Speaker 2:

No, it was. It would bite and it was evil. So I want to talk about vocal learning and birds, and that's the ability to mimic sounds for communication, so that is akin to language in humans. So, as we know, crows and parrots are considered the most intelligent birds and they are known for their vocal learning abilities. So there has been previous studies on the relationship between vocal learning and intelligence in birds, but those studies have produced conflicting results.

Speaker 2:

So a new study analyzed 214 birds from 23 different species to explore the link between vocal learning and cognitive abilities, and this was this study is kind of the first of its kind to examine multiple bird species in this context. So what they found is vocal complexity and how they evaluated that was based on the number of songs and calls a species could learn, how long it took them to learn it, so their learning period and the ability to mimic other species and birds were also presented with seven cognitive tests over six days, including problem solving, learning and self-control tests, and what they found is problem solving ability, not learning or self-control, showed a strong association with more complex vocal learning in birds, and the study found a correlation between that complex vocal learning, enhanced problem solving and larger brains relative to body size. So this suggests that a bigger brain may be crucial for excel in both vocal learning and problem solving. And this is awesome because scientists plan to investigate the genetic basis of these links. These link traits which could shed light on the evolution of human language.

Speaker 1:

So like if a bird knows more sounds, it's a smarter bird. Is that the idea? That's a bigger brain?

Speaker 2:

No, so if it's able to vocalize, so that how they can do different sounds.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the more different sounds it can make, the smarter it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the tefted titmose, with 63 vocalizations learned throughout his life, outperformed the brown-headed cow bird, which we know that the brown-headed cow bird is a parasitic bird. They're the ones who put the yeah they're stupid. Yeah, we have them here, and they push out the eggs of other birds and then they take over their nest and that bird only learned nine within a set period.

Speaker 1:

I love the names of birds. Like they're not good around middle school kids. No, like the tefted titmose.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

And then you talk about the blue-footed boobies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm sure there's other ones that make middle school kids giggle.

Speaker 2:

There are a ton of names like that that are best left to be like oh, it's just a bird.

Speaker 1:

But we do have cow birds here, like they're annoying Me too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you want to hear some. I love them and I think what. You go ahead.

Speaker 1:

No, go ahead. I've just got a list of inappropriately named birds, but they're actually called that. Do you want to hear some? Okay, well, you.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, I do.

Speaker 1:

Well, one is called the great tit, another one's I can't say this, okay, this one's called the rough-faced shag.

Speaker 2:

Here's another one, so like it is a little go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Okay, then we have the horned screamer, sometimes known as the horny screamer. That's awful, and there's like 60 more of these. So you know, probably named back in a time when none of these words were that inappropriate. Sorry, I got us off track. We were talking about bird brains.

Speaker 2:

I have a bird brain, you went down a rabbit hole. Okay, anyway, that's my um, that's my uh thing I love parrot.

Speaker 1:

I love parrots. You know that right.

Speaker 2:

I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wanted to get a parrot, but they are. They live so long and they're where we are. I don't know, like, are they ethical to get, like you have to you? I don't know if you can rescue them. I don't know if they buy them and they're crazy expensive. I don't know if they're an ethical pet to have, but I always, like, I think parrots are so cool. Um, they do require a lot of work. I did a bunch of research before. This is before Cal, and I think. But they are. They are really really smart. Well, winter's coming. Are you excited about that, chris?

Speaker 2:

Um, I saw that there's going to be El Nino something to do with the weather and I did what's scared to click on it because I don't know if that's good or bad, If that's going to be like a super cold winter. I heard that it's going to be a super cold winter, so any news articles about the winter, I quit them. I click out of the tab quit the winter before I even can read about the winter.

Speaker 1:

El Nino is like oh, it's going to be hot. Lanine Ah is like it's cool. That's how Dr Catherine Hano explained it.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that the opposite? Oh, it's so cold. No no no, it's warm.

Speaker 1:

No, no, it's cold, Like it's a cool cool breeze, Anyways.

Speaker 2:

So it's going to be warm. I can look at these articles and read about them and be happy. Well, you can, because there's so much snow in the article.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, but I'll tell you that it could always be worse, because my study is about really, really bad cold times. Nearly a million years ago there was a horrific extreme cold stretch that also coincided with droughts in the summer, and this occurred where humans were first kind of like moving away from Africa and let's just say it wasn't great for ancient ancestors the, the, the total. It gets a little dodgy because they're using computer models to get there and we'll talk a little bit about that. But the total number of pre-human creatures at this time were between 50,000 and about 140,000 like humans. There weren't humans at this time, they were like a species before humans and, based on their statistical modeling, that number dropped to around 1,300 people. So the whole line of like succession to like where we are today just about went extinct during this extreme cold snap and like really bad drought. So things could be worse, chris. It could be as bad as it was for our like, ancient ancestors nearly a million years ago.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, are you there? I am Okay, okay, yeah. So how do you figure they decided this? How do you go back in time and figure out anything related to this? What would you do if you didn't have a time machine.

Speaker 2:

I would use a new statistical method.

Speaker 1:

That's just what it says.

Speaker 2:

Um, but they well, what I was going to say uh, how I go back in time is I go to like count the years, and if it's like four years, then I multiply my population, um, by an exponent of negative four, and then I go back in time to find my population before. So I use a formula, mathematical formula. That's what I do.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you do that in like math 20.

Speaker 2:

Math 10. Math 10.

Speaker 1:

Right, okay, so they took actually, um, the genes. They looked at genetic variation within people from Africa and non-African populations and they looked for genes from people in Africa that weren't necessarily present in people not from Africa. African populations maybe have a bit more ancient genome and people not from Africa have slightly varied genome and they use statistical analysis to figure out if there was a, basically a gene crash, like at a point in time, all of a sudden there was no more genes that potentially was from a previous creature, and that's where their synest statistical analysis led them. So there there is a, some, there are some people who are, you know, raising their eyebrows that you can be this accurate and kind of figure out how many people like sub human people existed nearly a million years ago.

Speaker 1:

Um, but they, they do these modeling's all of the time and it is likely that the people at this time, the, the, you know, the, the sub human people did evolve into us and our more early ancestors like, uh, neanderthals and the DeSovians. Um, so there were like three competing. You know, sub human species are ancestors than Neanderthals and the DeSovians, and there seems to be some evidence that, because those other creatures have had their genome sequenced um. Somebody won a Nobel prize for it. Actually, they can look, they can use that to find basic like a gene crash. So we're maybe more lucky to be here than we thought, and winter could always be worse. That's the moral of the story, chris.

Speaker 2:

What. Yes, winter could always you're right, it can always be worse. That's what you said to me when, um, I found that the students changed my last name when I wrote it on the board and then they changed it to Wachowski, um, like wacky Zachy anyway. So you texted back to me and you said you know what, chris, it could be worse.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, everything, everything could be worse.

Speaker 2:

Everything can be worse.

Speaker 1:

So you remember, when it's minus 40 in January, you could just be thinking about, you know, the, the near extinction level event that froze our ancestors a million years ago. It could be worse.

Speaker 2:

Right, don't you just tell me to put on a coat? Yeah, that's what you always tell me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just put on a coat, cut it under the blanket, get Bunsen to lay on you. All of those things heat you up right now. If Bunsen lays on you, you're probably going to suffocate, though, so you'll be warm, but you might die. Okay, cause he's heavy. Well, and that that's the science roundup. That is it. That's the science show for today. Well, thanks for coming to another month's science roundup. Um, I learned a bit. I learned how to say things in Spanish better, and that's great, because I it's not a language I know or speak at all. Uh, chris, how, what do you? What did you think? Did you learn anything?

Speaker 2:

Uh, you know, I learned a little bit about the mouth breathing and the tape. Yeah, and that would be. That would be interesting to. I don't know Jason, I snore, so you want me to get. Do you want me to get some mouth breathing tape?

Speaker 1:

No, I just body check you in the stop.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, um, so I guess that's the strategy.