The Science Pawdcast

Episode 17 Season 7: Bye Bye Earth, Singing to Babies, and Crafty Cockatoos

• Jason and Kris Zackowski • Season 7 • Episode 17

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The cosmic dance of our solar system is more precarious than we realize, with rogue stars potentially disrupting Earth's orbit and sending us hurling into space—though the probability is a reassuring 0.2% over 5 billion years. 


Recent research reveals singing to babies significantly improves their overall mood, highlighting the universal evolutionary importance of lullabies as emotional regulation tools across cultures.


Oh and Cockatoos have taught themselves how to drink from fountains.

• Computer simulations show passing stars could disrupt our solar system with catastrophic consequences
• Mercury would likely be the first planet affected, potentially creating a domino effect of planetary collisions
• Earth has a 0.2% chance of being ejected from our solar system in the next 5 billion years
• Parents who sing to babies under four months old observe significantly improved infant moods
• Singing to babies appears to be a universal human behavior with evolutionary advantages
• Sydney's cockatoos demonstrate remarkable intelligence by operating public drinking fountains
• Around 70% of local cockatoos attempt to use fountains with 50% succeeding
• Birds coordinate complex movements and wait in line, suggesting possible social bonding behavior

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Speaker 2:

Hello science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zukoski. And I'm Chris Zukoski, we're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.

Speaker 1:

The science animals on social media.

Speaker 2:

If you love science.

Speaker 1:

And you love pets.

Speaker 2:

You've come to the right spot, so put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.

Speaker 2:

This is the Science Podcast. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 17 of season 7. I thought I'd be all excited to talk to you about the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights, because we were in line to get an incredible show a couple days ago, but a massive storm system moved in. It didn't really rain, but it blowed and was super windy and cloudy and we had zero visibility of the night sky for like three nights in a row Super disappointing. Had zero visibility of the night sky for like three nights in a row Super disappointing, though there were some incredible photos way west of us in the mountains, where it was a lot clearer. We're nearing almost 40 podcast episodes where Chris has been a co-host. Let us know if you like the format I've mentioned. Before I was feeling a little burnt out doing it by myself and now with Chris, it's been so much more fun to have somebody to bounce ideas off of. I think I might bring her into the intro preamble, like what we're doing right now. Anyways, let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 2:

Well, what's on the show this week? We have two science items this week. One is a little doom and gloom about our little place in the world, on earth, being flung out into the darkness of space thanks to a rogue star. The good news article there was a huge study done and they looked at if it was a good idea to sing to babies. Um, and it turns out it's great for babies and for parents or guardians Very cool. And our pet sciences article isn't really about pets because they're wild animals, though they can be pets. It's all about the cockatoos of Sydney and how they're up to some shenanigans. All right, let's get on with the show, because there's no time like science time. This week in science news we've got a little bit of bad news. Good news situation with the Earth relative to flinging us out of the sun's orbit. That's the bad news, but we'll get to the good news as well. I'm not sure if that's something you think about on a daily basis, chris, that we could be flung out of our orbit.

Speaker 1:

I've actually never thought about it before in my life. I was today years old when reading the article and getting prepared to talk about it that oh, wait a second, there is a catastrophic potential existential crisis happening. But then I felt a lot better when I looked at the percentage, or the percent chance of this happening.

Speaker 2:

When I was a teenager, I read a short story. I think it was like do you know who Isaac Asimov is? Does that ring a bell to you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I do.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I read a lot of science fiction when I was younger and there was like a short story collage. I don't think it was Isaac Asimov that wrote it, but it was a situation where something had knocked earth out of its orbit and flung us into space. So it was like the perspective of a family that had was watching the sun disappear. Everything was getting really cold, and so they had. They made space age survival bunkers but they needed to go outside to get oxygen, but the oxygen was snow because it was so cold outside. So they had to scoop up the oxygen and bring it inside and warm it up for everybody to survive on. So I do have experience with the short story along these lines.

Speaker 1:

That's really interesting and terrifying a little bit. So why this is important now is computer simulations are able to reveal a new but low probability, although it is a significant risk to Earth and other planets. So if a passing star has gravity, which it does, that gravity could disrupt the solar system, which could cause another planet to collide with Earth or do a domino effect, or Earth to be hurled into the sun or out of our solar system entirely.

Speaker 2:

So the danger is there, even though if it's infinitesimally small, Mercury is really small, but it is affected by Jupiter, and any kind of star that passes by could worsen the risk. And you might be wondering what star are we talking about? There are stars that have been flung away from their system. If they're like a binary star system, they get slingshotted into outer space. They're called rogue stars, so that's what we're talking about. Here is a random star that just blows by our neck of the woods, and this research comes to us from the Planetary Science Institute in Iowa and it was published on May 7th.

Speaker 1:

So the computer simulations that they did agree with earlier studies, and once, basically once, mercury's orbit becomes extremely elliptical, it'll be very chaotic. So they, as they're watching the simulations, there's some things that could or could happen, like Mercury usually crashing into the sun or crashing into Venus, and if that happens that could push Venus or Mars to crash into Earth. Or you know what, earth itself may crash into the sun and Venus or Mars can toss earth closer to Jupiter. And then you know what Jupiter has an immense gravity and that might eject earth from the solar system entirely.

Speaker 2:

So it all starts with Mercury. Once Mercury starts, with chaotic Mercury.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that little, teeny tiny planet right next to the sun. Chaotic Mercury? Yeah, that little, teeny tiny planet right next to the sun. So their simulations ran over a time span of 5 billion years, and all of these scenarios are extremely unlikely, though they did happen right. I'm reminded of Doctor Strange in the Avengers movie. He had one. There was one. One way they beat the bad guy right. So it did happen. The chance of this catastrophe for Earth, as you mentioned, is very small. Over five billion years.

Speaker 1:

We have a 0.2% chance in their simulations of meeting our demise by being flown into the sun, another planet, or out into the inky darkness of space. But, however, it's still a much higher risk than the previous studies, which actually didn't account for the gravitational pull of passing stars. So that's the problem if a passing star hangs out for a bit, it has a gravitational pull that causes chaos as well.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So these close stellar encounters, I guess, if you could call them that, have actually already shaped the solar system and could explain why giant planets have those elliptical orbits instead of perfectly circular ones, because you would think of the birth of our solar system and everything going in a circular manner. But it doesn't and we have elliptical orbits. So those rogue stars have played a role in the shaping of our solar system.

Speaker 2:

Let's also talk about a little teeny planet like Mercury, and that's Pluto. Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet from a regular planet. I think Pluto was a planet planet when you were in school, Chris, it was for me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was a planet planet. And then one Friday afternoon they said what do you think, should this be a dwarf planet? And chaos ensued, but not interplanetary chaos like the demise of our solar system, but definitely the demise of Pluto being known as a planet.

Speaker 2:

And one thing that's odd about Pluto is, even though it's really far away, it's the outermost planet at the time. It's a dwarf planet. Now it crosses Neptune's orbit. It has this weird orbit where it comes inside Neptune's orbit and any of those passing stars could really mess with that resonance that Pluto has with Neptune. As Neptune comes in it affects Pluto not enough to like really mess with Pluto too much. But there is a gravitational tug there and a star would mess with Pluto by knocking it out of that kind of delicate balance. And if it is knocked out of that delicate balance, the simulation show it could skim by our giant planets of Jupiter and Saturn or get chucked into out into space or even die by crashing into one of the bigger planets. And the chance in their scenario of this happening to Pluto something catastrophic in the next 5 billion years was 4%. So sucks to be Pluto. They are much bigger risked for this disaster than we are.

Speaker 1:

But it's still a small risk, very small. These doomsday scenarios are improbable. They do highlight how even distant stars can subtly reshape our solar system's fate, even over billions of years. And like how you started, it is another reminder of the dynamic and sometimes chaotic nature of our planetary systems. Like we think we're just going around revolving and doing our thing and something could come and we don't have Bruce Willis to do the Armageddon.

Speaker 2:

If you're listening to this, it's not something to start to worry about. It was just a really fun story that had some interesting consequences for us. If things go awry, there's nothing we can do about it. It's not like we can put rockets on the outside of this, outside of earth, and send us back into orbit. We've got much bigger problems, like making sure your alarm is turned on and you're up for work, than what we're talking about today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and our son is not like. Basically, our son is going to live for another five billion years within this time frame, it's OK.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is not something we need to worry about tomorrow. All right, that's our first science news article we need to worry about tomorrow. All right, that's our first science news article. Our second science news article is definitely a little bit more on the upbeat side and it has to do about singing to babies. Chris, did you sing to the our boys when they were little baby babies?

Speaker 1:

You may recall, I had lion King on repeat.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Because with Duncan I remember that.

Speaker 1:

Because with Duncan he would cry and I do not carry a tune very well, but what I would do is I would have Lion whoa. That is cool that there is some current research about how singing to your baby significantly improves their mood. But I do sing aloud and I don't stop singing just because the kids are toddlers or babies. I actually sing all day in my classroom. I sing the morning song, good morning, but it's not like good morning to you, it's just words that come out of my mouth and I also sing about the math song. We're getting out our pencils and I just just sing it up and I think hopefully it improves people's moods in my classroom.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's fun.

Speaker 1:

But they're not babies. No, they're definitely high schoolers, but maybe there's something about the power of voice and singing. That's something that we could do a research article on about. How does singing affect people into their later life, not only babies?

Speaker 2:

I can't sing at all, so I don't sing in my classroom. I don't know if I sung to our boys when they were babies. I don't know if I did hum. Maybe come a song Like maybe I hummed a song, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

No, I would sing whatever songs and you're like this is a weird song, this is a weird game.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you would make up songs, that's right. I'm like I don't think this is. I don't think I'm not. I don't know if you're supposed to. I don't know if you're allowed to do that.

Speaker 1:

What the heck I, but I did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I can't sing either. What.

Speaker 1:

I can't sing either. You said you can't carry a tune. I already prefaced it with that I can't either, but I did it anyway.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all right. This aside from, I mean, the study doesn't say can you just make up a song and just like freestyle it? It's from the University of Amsterdam and it included 110 parent-infant pairs and the babies were under four months old, most of them. The parents were split into two groups. So here comes the science was encouraged to sing more to their babies with songs like tutorials, karaoke, infant-friendly songbooks or just incorporating music into their daily life. So that's probably you just sing a newsletter to them or something like that, I don't know. The control group received the same materials after four weeks. One group had the song support early and one group did not. For those four weeks, parents received smartphone surveys at random times, asking about their infant mood, if their baby was fussy, how they felt and how frequent they were doing musical behavior.

Speaker 1:

And the findings are there that the parents who sing more their babies benefit. So, yeah, it's so awesome, it's so heartwarming. You know, parents increased their singing when they felt encouraged and supported because they found it to be natural and they found that singing was used especially when calming fussy babies, even though the researchers didn't specifically instruct hey, if you have a fussy baby, try singing to it. So that kind of flowed naturally and the parents intuitively use music to soothe infants, which highlights the power of music in emotional regulation, or regulating your emotions.

Speaker 2:

Some of the most surprising outcomes that were that the babies whose parents sang, most of them had significantly higher mood ratings, and this wasn't just in the moment of singing but overall mood. So it wasn't just like from the song, it was a long lasting effect. Now, singing didn't significantly affect caregiver mood in the short term, but researchers think long-term benefits for parents are possible. Probably if you have a less fussy baby, in the long term you are going to be a little bit less frazzled as a young parent. That's something that really should be taught in school.

Speaker 2:

Like when you decide to have kids, you may get a baby that just never stops. School Like when you decide to have kids, you may get a baby that just never stops crying. Like you may get a baby that cries a lot Think of an annoying sound and then it just never stops and you don't have sleep. But you'll get through it. But it's a tough time. I was thinking about that the other day that sometimes I think we romanticize being a parent. For some people, especially if you've got a very fussy baby, it can break your brain when you don't get any sleep. We were pretty lucky, especially with Adam. He was a good baby.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we had good babies. Maybe it's because I sang to them.

Speaker 2:

Maybe it was because you sang to them.

Speaker 1:

It could be. I'm singing a song and then I just would sing as I did, some stuff, and that's how that's all you do, folks. You just make it up as you go and you just put it to a catchy tune, and I don't know. That's how I bonded with my boys. They're so amazing. Now, jason, you are a musical yourself, like you play the piano, and so the boys really enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

I would hold the boys and play the piano.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So to be fair, you definitely are musical and you used something within your skill set, which is awesome.

Speaker 2:

So it's really exciting as there's a new eight month study underway with parents and babies under four months old to explore those longer term impacts, because this one was very short four weeks so it's an eight month study, which is pretty significant.

Speaker 1:

No, I love that. Any more research that we can do showing the positive parent-child bond and how music can play a role, because infant directed singing is universal in humans. They found it cross-culture and people can recognize the context of foreign songs if it's a dancing song or a lullaby and this is connected to potentially evolution. Singing may signal safety to babies and the lullabies are reassuring to babies Like I'm here, I see you, I'm looking out for you, and that emotional signaling may help explain why lullabies are so universally calming and comforting for infants.

Speaker 2:

We've done stories about how dolphins sing to their babies. They have a special song that they sing to their little babies Very cute.

Speaker 1:

And it's an easy, accessible tool. All you have to do is put some words together to a little bit of a melody and even if you can't sing, even if you can't carry a tune, you can maybe carry a melody and it's a remarkable simple way to support infant mental well-being.

Speaker 2:

All right, that's it for Science News this week. This week in pet science, we're going to talk about cockatoos. Now I have to we have to preface this with these are not people's pet cockatoos. It was just such a fun news item that I thought we could talk about it. Cockatoos are parrot adjacent and, chris, you know how much.

Speaker 1:

I love parrots. You love them so much.

Speaker 2:

Cockatoos are super cute too, so I don't know. There's something about those birds that I don't know. They just I love them so much. They're very cool animals, and this study is about how cockatoos in Sydney have figured out how to turn on and off public drinking fountains when they're thirsty, and this was published on June 4th in Biology Letters.

Speaker 1:

So the reason why it's significant and why it's newsworthy is because studying the cockatoos adaptation to urban environments was important, and in September of 2018, Barbara Klump, who is a behavioral ecologist now at the University of Vienna, saw cockatoos using a drinking fountain at a park in Western Sydney, Australia. While tracking their foraging habits and you know what Barbara asked around and park rangers and the local surveys that were completed confirmed that this wasn't just a one-off Cockatoos actually regularly did drink out of the water fountains.

Speaker 2:

So the researchers set up cameras, very similar to our trail cams, to capture this remarkable behavior on camera can you imagine being like barbara clump, the first ecologist to see this, and she's guys, the cockatoos are using the water fountains. People were probably like, oh barbara, what are you talking about? They can't use, they're birds, they're not people. You have to be able to turn the fountain like the. It's a knob, right, we're gonna get into it. But then she was probably vindicated when the, when the footage came up, kind of like when we saw norbert or the beaver for the first time, we were vindicated that he was real and he was real.

Speaker 1:

There he is. Yeah, our trees were getting chopped down. Looks like a beaver. Don't see the beaver?

Speaker 2:

oh, got the beaver on camera yeah, that was a very exciting moment.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, that was a very exciting moment for sure. So cockatoos actually can grip the fountain handle with one foot and then they twist it with the other, which activates the spring inside, which releases water, and then they lean their bodies to the side to make sure that they can apply enough force. And then they lean their bodies to the side to make sure that they can apply enough force, and then they tilt back to sip the water.

Speaker 2:

And it actually requires a lot of coordination on the part of the bird so here's some fun data from the researchers that tracked all of these individual cockatoos and their drinking fountain habits. They found about 70% of the local cockatoo population tried to use the fountains, so that's way over majority, and half of them were successful, and this may suggest a form of local animal culture. This is a tradition of using fountains shared within the cockatoo communities. They may actually teach each other this or, by watching, learn right, there's some debate. Like the corvids, the ravens definitely do teach skills and songs and warnings to their offspring and their community. So not so sure about cockatoos yet.

Speaker 1:

The drinking culture like this that the cockatoos are doing is rare. Chimpanzees use moss sponges to drink, but the cockatoo behavior is even more unique to see it in birds.

Speaker 2:

So what would drive a cockatoo to do this, right? Don't they have water everywhere in these parks for the cockatoos to slip to sip out of? I can't imagine they're not being water present. You know what I mean. Like why would they choose this?

Speaker 1:

this is spending so much effort on those fountains, where they need that incredible coordination. And the researchers watch the birds line up patiently and they sometimes waited up to 10 minutes for their turn to drink from the fountain. And some possible explanations are that the fountains might be safer and predator-free water sources and they could be using the fountain as a way to promote social bonding within their group. And you know what? Maybe the water just tastes better than the muddy creeks, the muddy waterways that are nearby. So all three factors could be at play.

Speaker 2:

Oh, these hoity-toity cockatoos don't like the muddy water. They want the fresh water from the water fountains.

Speaker 1:

I like the fresh water from the water bottle. So I love that Sydney's cockatoos show this impressive problem solving and then also sharing within our culture, using public drinking fountains for refreshment and what, possibly for a social reason like hey, let's get together for high tea at noon, and then they all flock to the fountain and it does. The behavior does highlight the fascinating adaptability and that high intelligence that you were talking about of those city parrots. So how are they adapting to their urban environment? And you know what they're doing it one sip at a time.

Speaker 2:

I love this story so much so I spent a bunch of time. There's a whole bunch of photos and videos of the birds doing this, so I may or may not have wasted half of my lunch break looking at these cockatoos. Over my lunch break, in our show notes, I'll do something special. I'll have a link to the photos of these impressive water sipping cockatoos.

Speaker 1:

I love that.

Speaker 2:

All right, that's Pet Science for this week. That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the Science Podcast. We'd like to give a shout out to the Top Dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon-like community, the Paw Pack. Check out the show notes. You can sign up to support us. We'd love it, and one of the perks of being a top dog is you get your name shouted out at the end. Chris, let's hear those names.

Speaker 1:

Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen, linnea Janik Karen Chronister, vicky Otero, christy Walker, sarah Bram, wendy, diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth Bourgeois, marianne McNally, catherine Jordan, shelley Smith, laura Steffensen, tracy Leinbach, anne Uchida, heather Burbach, kelly Tracy Halbert, ben Rather, debbie Anderson, sandy Brimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin, brenda Clark, brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel, holly Burge, kathy Zerker, susan Wagner and Liz Button.

Speaker 2:

For science, empathy and cuteness.